Ray Elkins mystery - 04 - Shelf Ice

by Aaron Stander

  Using a slingshot, it took three attempts before Brett successfully lobbed the weighted end of a thin nylon line over a large branch near the top of the tree. Using that line, he pulled his climbing rope, a two-inch thick piece of braided Manila, over the branch and back to earth. He secured it to the base of a nearby tree, and then started toward the top of the tree, hands and feet working together in a skillfully coordinated exercise that quickly moved him to the top of the tree. He then climbed toward the structure, disappearing momentarily.

  “You won’t believe this,” he shouted down.

  “What did you find?”

  “Come on up and take a look.” Brett tossed down a rope ladder that nearly reached the ground.

  “Is there room for both of us?” Ray asked.

  “Yes, you just have to be careful.”

  “Why don’t you go, Ray. I don’t like heights.”

  Ray was startled. Sue always seemed fairly undaunted by physical challenges. He released the straps on his snowshoes and slowly ascended the ladder. Brett gave him a hand at the top and helped him onto the platform. Ray stood and viewed the surrounding country. From this perch he could see out onto the big lake and north to the dunes. He paused for a moment to take in the magnificent view. Then he knelt at Brett’s side and looked through the open door of the skillfully crafted structure. The interior was lit by a series of windows, porthole-like in design. The sun reflected off the walls and ceiling of pine. Centered on the floor was a large flattened garbage bag, a bloodstained white tie at the end. Blood was splattered around the interior, on the walls and ceiling. Near the wall at the far end was a tightly rolled sleeping bag and a small stove with a hose running to a propane canister and a candle lantern, hydration bag, and a few pots. There was a small stack of paperback books at the far northeast corner. Ray had to control his curiosity, his need to climb through the gore to find out what Tristan had been reading.

  Ray turned to Brett. “We need to get Sue and her camera up here.”

  As Ray descended the rope ladder, he could see Sue waiting near the base of the tree.

  “What did you find?” she asked while he was about half way down.

  “It’s a crime scene,” he said. “You’ve got to get up there with your camera. Brett will help you get on the platform. It’s very secure up there. You’ll have no problem.

  Sue looked at him with a doubtful expression. He stood holding the ladder and he continued to keep it from swaying as she climbed.

  Five minutes later she was on the ground, smiling. “Best crime scene I’ve ever done. No body. And it’s incredible up there.”

  “What do you want me to do now?” Brett called from the aerie.

  “Do you need anything else up there?” Ray asked Sue.

  “I’d like to dig a few of the slugs out of the ceiling. We need to get some of the blood down, and we need a garbage bag to put the perforated one in. I’ll have to go to my jeep to get the extra things, ” Sue replied.

  “We’ll be back,” Ray shouted up to Brett.

  “Take your time,” Brett responded.

  25.

  “Well, this is a strange development,” said Sue, as she came up for air from her container of sesame chicken.

  “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro,” said Ray, pausing over tofu and vegetables.

  “Who said that again?” questioned Sue.

  “Richard Nixon.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Sue.

  “Yes,” he said, enjoying his own joke. “It was Hunter Thompson, but he was probably thinking about Nixon at the time.”

  “You don’t think Laird could have heard me when I joked about putting a few rounds into his loft as a way of seeing if he was up there?”

  “No. There was a fair amount of wind noise yesterday, and we were talking softly. And I don’t think Tristan was up there. It was more about our trail in and out.”

  “I don’t think I quite follow.”

  “Trying to put together what Molly’s been telling us. Let’s go with the assumption that Tristan was somewhere near Brenda’s place on the night of the attack. And let’s also assume that Tristan saw the assailant and vice versa. Tristan is now on the run, but we assume he’s still in the area. Sunday I hiked into his place, leaving tracks. Yesterday we checked out the tree house. What’s he thinking, especially if he’s reasonably fearful?

  “Again, accepting Molly’s view of his suspicious nature, he’s thinking that someone is out to kill him too.

  “And Molly told us that he’s mostly nocturnal and that he roams his territory like a wild animal. We have to assume that he knows that someone checked out his trailer and then his tree house. He also knows that while few people would have the skills to get access to his tree house, they’d have no trouble killing him by pumping a dozen rounds into the place. And if the shooter stood around for a few minutes and waited for some blood to start seeping out of the place, they would have been convinced they killed Tristan.”

  “And this could have worked to his advantage in several ways,” said Sue, starting to run with Ray’s thinking. “It would get the hunter off his back, and on the off chance that he might be out there plotting some kind of revenge or an offensive move, his adversary would be clueless.” Sue stirred her food with a plastic fork, finally spearing a piece of chicken. “How do we get our hands on him?” she asked, before popping the morsel into her mouth.

  “You’re usually the good one at generating novel ideas.”

  “I don’t know, Ray, I’ve just been in a funk lately. We’re so short staffed and the workload’s been so high all fall and winter.” Sue paused, her tone changed. “And I don’t have much life outside of the job. When I do get home, I just crash. I haven’t been going to my yoga class or hanging out with my friends. And as for men, well,” Sue paused midsentence. “But the sun today was terrific. Maybe it’s the grayness this time of year, that’s what gets to me, the lack of sun for weeks at a time.”

  “Yes, it gets to me, too. And it’s been a difficult period for both of us.” Ray let his comment hang for a while, focused on his food. “How do we get to Tristan?”

  “Well, our cell phone idea was a flop. I don’t think he’s planning on going back to his aerie anytime in the near future,” said Sue, closing her Styrofoam container and breaking the seal on a bottle of Diet Coke, pausing briefly, then twisting the cap off. “We could tweet him,” she suggested with a wry smile.

  “I think at this point we can’t do much more about Tristan other than getting Molly’s full cooperation. If he contacts her, and she feels like cooperating with us, maybe she can bring him in. I’m afraid if we pursue him much more, he’ll just go deeper to ground.”

  “The blood?”

  “I’ve got a sample on the way to the State Police lab. Any bets?”

  “I imagine he just collected another road kill. A deer would give him a pretty good quantity of blood.”

  “What if it was human?” asked Sue.

  “That would be an interesting turn of events,” said Ray coming to his feet and gathering up the food container and coffee cup. “Let’s hope things don’t become even more complex.”

  26.

  It was only a few minutes after seven when Ray got home, but he was feeling weary. He wished that it were late enough to just call it a day and go to bed, but if he allowed himself to get to sleep early, he knew that he would be wide awake at three.

  He carefully arranged kindling in the fireplace and got a fire going. Then he boiled some water and made a pot of chamomile tea. He was settling down to read a copy of a new memoir by a poet that his local bookseller had recommended when headlights flashed across the window facing the drive. Seconds later came the sound of a car door being slammed shut. Ray unlocked and opened the front door. Hannah Jeffers entered in ski clothing.

  “Could I talk you into hitting the slopes with me for a couple of hours this evening?” she asked, pulling off a knit hat.

  “I haven’t b
een out yet this season. I bought a pass in June or July and haven’t even picked it up.” Ray looked at his watch. “By the time I find everything, and we drive there, the lift operators would be yelling last run. I’ve just made a pot of herbal tea, would you like a cup before you hit the slopes?”

  “Are you sure I’m not imposing?”

  “No, I’m happy to have the company.”

  Ray moved the teapot to the kitchen table, and retrieved cups and saucers from a cupboard. He set these on the table, going back for spoons and a jar of local honey.

  “I saw Saul this morning,” he said as he settled across from Hannah.

  “How did that go?” she asked.

  “The usual. I’m supposed to get more sleep, eliminate stress from my life, lose ten pounds, and yada yada yada.”

  “Do you smoke?” she asked.

  “No. Quit a long time ago.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “There are so many great diseases connected with smoking. It gives us a terrific chance to jazz up a physician/patient lecture. Excessive alcohol and abusing prescription drugs are also good triggers. And then there’s meth, crack and…”

  “Do you see many of those?”

  “No, not up here. Not like Detroit. Occasionally in the ER we see some serious overdoses. I gather the problem in this area is more with the abuse of prescription drugs. In the doctors’ lounge I hear stories about people shopping physicians looking for soft touches. You probably know more about it than I do.”

  “It’s part of the environment now. From time to time we’ll get a flurry of activity and make some arrests. Then things will quiet down for a while, but it’s always going on.” Ray filled the cups and pushed the bottle of honey toward Hannah. “That’s local honey, star thistle, supposed to help your immune system with hay fever or something.”

  “Does it?”

  “Who knows,” said Ray. “But it tastes good, especially in tea. How did you end up in medicine?”

  “My father was a surgeon, so was my grandfather. It just seemed the thing to do.”

  “Do you have siblings?”

  “No, I was an only child. How about you?”

  “Same,” said Ray.

  “How did you end up in the military?” Ray asked

  “The army paid for a big part of my medical education. My military service time was paying back that obligation and getting additional training and experience. I was actually geeked up about going into a combat zone. I was going to get a whole lot of experience dealing with traumatic injuries.”

  “How did that go?”

  “I’m a skilled thoracic surgeon, good at cracking chests and dealing with heart problems and traumatic injuries,” she paused for a long time. “I came to the military with previous experience in big city ERs where you think you’re in a war zone much of the time. I was confident that I had the kind of professional detachment to get through it, but I was wrong. I got worn down,” she said as she stirred honey into her tea.

  “It’s confronting of horrific injuries day after day, the IEDs. I hate those fucking things. The blast damage, the tearing wounds from the shrapnel. And these kids, they’re so young, many of them, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. I was often up to my elbows in blood, trying to pull off another miracle. But lots of time there was just too much damage. I’d think about their lives, everything that had happened to get them to this point and how if I could get them through it….” Hannah sipped her tea. “You get ground down. Every time you hear the choppers you know you’re going to confront something awful. And when you aren’t working, you are a prisoner in this little compound in the Green Zone. It was a special kind of hell.

  “My father was a surgeon in Vietnam,” she continued, “but he never talked about it. He was an alcoholic. I don’t know what part the war might have played in that. He died young, on the golf course, massive coronary. My grandfather was a flight surgeon in World War II. He was stationed in England with a bomber group. He was a tough guy, practiced medicine until he was almost eighty. He came back from the war hating politicians. I don’t think he ever voted again.”

  “So where are you?” Ray asked.

  “I don’t know. I got some counseling when I left Baghdad and was assigned to Landstuhl and did some more when I got back to the D.C. area. Then I went up to Boston for a special program. The military has finally figured out that women get PTSD, too. For a while I was drinking too much, I worried about that a lot. I thought it might be in my genes. I think I’m past that, the drinking. I just need to keep myself busy with work and exercise. I need to physically exhaust myself daily with running or skiing or kayaking or something.”

  “What brought you to this area?” Ray asked.

  “My grandparents had a place on Glen Lake. I came up north as a kid, lots of good memories. And there was a guy up here, someone I knew in medical school.”

  “What happened with him?”

  “People change. When we were sort of a couple in medical school, he was so idealistic. He went into family medicine and later opened West Shore Village Clinic up here. When we hooked up again he was all upset about how much, or I guess I should say, how little money he was making. And then he got involved in this church. I mean, he’s this smart sophisticated man and he seemed totally taken in by this minister with strange beliefs about Jesus wanting everyone to be rich. He dragged me along to church a few times. It was just weird. It’s a new church of some sort, modern, feels like a sports bar on the interior, screens all over. The minister preaching at you from all directions interspersed with some pretty good rock and roll. I mean, I’m no expert on Christian theology or anything, but it just seemed like the minister was pushing a religion of materialism. It felt like a real slick sales meeting.”

  “Did you meet the minister?”

  “Oh yeah, Bob wanted me to get to know this guy, Rod Gunne. We had dinner with him one night at this little French restaurant. I mean, Bob is really cheap, but he happily picks up this enormous tab. The minister was there with some real babe, but he spent most of the evening hitting on me. Bob didn’t seem to notice. That was the end. I told him that evening when he was driving me back to my apartment that I didn’t think we were on the same wave-length. Other than running into him at the hospital occasionally, I haven’t seen him since.”

  27.

  Ray brought the phone to his ear and identified himself. He listened for a long moment and then asked, “Is there anyone available to check it out?”

  “Okay,” he finally said. “Keep checking back with the mother. Instruct her to call you if the kids appear. And I’d like you to call the Last Chance, talk to Jack. If Henry is there, find out if his kids are with him and tell Jack to hold onto him until I arrive. Call me back as soon as you know that he’s there. I’ll be on my way in a few minutes.” Ray ended the call.

  “What’s going on?” Hannah asked.

  “A couple of young kids, I think they are five and seven now, were spending the day with their father. He was supposed to have them home by six. The kids never arrived and their mother can’t reach the father. The mother has a tendency toward hysteria, but given the history of her relationship with this man, I understand completely. He’s an irresponsible drunk.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “When he’s not working, he’s usually drinking at the Last Chance. If the kids are with him, I’ll take them home. If they’re not, I need to find out where they are.”

  “Any chance I could tag along?”

  Ray thought about her request for a long moment. “Sure. What do you have on your feet?”

  “Hiking boots.”

  “Do you have your snowshoes with you?”

  “Everything is in my rolling toy chest.”

  “Bring them, just in case.”

  They were just getting into Ray’s car when he got a second call from County Dispatch. After switching off the phone, he said to Hannah, “As expected, the father is at t
he Last Chance doing shots of Jim Beam washed down with Bud Light.”

  • • •

  Before entering the bar, Ray walked around Travis Henry’s dilapidated Dodge pickup, shining his flashlight into the window on the off chance that Travis might have left his children out there. All he could see was litter: soiled clothing, rusting tools, empty fast food and coffee containers, and crushed beer cans.

  As Ray entered the Last Chance, Jack, the owner and bartender, now in his eighties, motioned with his head toward the far end of the bar. Ray approached the man, Hannah hanging back and observing. He climbed on to the stool next to Travis Henry, who was slouched over an empty shot glass, a half-empty shell of beer near his left hand.

  “Hi, Travis. How you doing tonight?” asked Ray.

  Henry didn’t move, his eyes fixed on an empty pack of Marlboros, the lid torn away.

  Ray waited.

  “Sheriff,” Travis finally mumbled, without changing his focus.

  “Got a call from Phoebe. She’s worried about the kids.”

  “I took ’em back. Maybe a little late. I took ’em back.”

  “Back to the house, back to Phoebe’s house?”

  “I dropped them off at Platte Line Rd. Let them walk home. I didn’t want to talk to the bitch.”

  “Where on Platte Line?”

  “Off twenty-two.”

  “Travis, that’s a seasonal road. It’s not plowed. And it’s got to be more than a couple of miles.”

  “Like I said, I didn’t want no argument. I was late. And the road’s not that bad. Snowmobiles have been flattening it.”

  “How were the kids dressed?”

  “Winter stuff, coats, hats, boots. Probably home by now.”

  Ray slid off the stool and headed for the door, Hannah followed. She listened to his side of the phone conversation after climbing into the passenger seat.

  “Get someone down here, I want Henry stopped as soon as he pulls onto the highway. Any word on the children?” Ray listened to the response. “I’ll do a quick sweep. I may need to have you organize a lot of help. I’ll be in touch.”