The Trapped Girl (The Tracy Crosswhite Series Book 4)

by Robert Dugoni

  He waved off my question. “See, look. We have excellent credit scores.”

  “We don’t have any collateral.”

  “I told them I was going to be made a partner and my salary was going to increase.”

  “But you’re not going to be working there.”

  “They don’t know that, and I can stay until we get the loan.”

  “But that’s . . .”

  “It isn’t a lie,” he emphasized. “I was going to be made a partner. I’m just choosing not to accept it.”

  “They told you that you made partner?”

  “No, but that’s just a formality.”

  “I don’t think we can list your salary if you won’t have one.”

  “It’s just to get the loan.” He grabbed my hands as if he wanted to take me out on the dance floor and twirl me. “Come on. Start being more optimistic and not so doom and gloom. This should be an exciting time in our lives. What better time to go for something like this than now, before we have kids?”

  We’d never discussed kids. I pulled back my hands and looked more closely at Graham’s numbers. He hovered over me as I did, occasionally pointing and explaining the numbers to me. What I’d initially thought to be a detailed statement seemed to be a lot more speculative upon closer inspection.

  “Do you think maybe you’ve underestimated the start-up costs? I’ve read with start-up businesses you should assume that you won’t make a profit for at least the first six months, sometimes as long as eighteen months. And you don’t have any salaries here for either of us. How will we pay our bills?”

  Graham groaned, stepped in front of me, gathered his materials, and closed the file. “Excuse me for trying to do something to improve our situation. In case you’re forgetting, I’m the one who went to college, and I’m the one with the advanced degree, and I’m the one who’s been working the past three years in corporate law.” He shook his head and turned his back to me. “You know what, forget it. Just forget I ever mentioned it.”

  He tossed his file on the coffee table, walked back to the front door, and grabbed his car keys off the counter.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “Out,” he said.

  The door slammed shut. Minutes later, the Porsche roared as it exited the underground garage and accelerated down the street. I looked out the window at the glow of the streetlamp and the tops of the trees planted in the sidewalk. The moon had settled over the bridge, light reflecting off the river. After a moment, I reconsidered the file on the table, opened it, and studied the numbers again.

  CHAPTER 7

  Having lived her entire life in the Pacific Northwest, Tracy was familiar with both the statistical facts and the mystique of Mount Rainier. At more than 14,000 feet, Rainier wasn’t just a mountain, it was a volcano of head-swiveling immensity that dominated the region. Visible for hundreds of miles in every direction, it was so immense and tall it created its own weather patterns. Even when the mountain could not be seen, when the Pacific Northwest gray hung like a thick curtain over the region, you could sense the mountain’s presence. Seattleites said things like, “The mountain is out,” as if Rainier were a living, breathing thing.

  As beautiful as Rainier was, its allure could frequently be deadly. Thousands attempted to reach its summit each year, though more than half failed. Some died. Of those who had perished, some had never been found, their bodies buried under avalanches of ice, snow, and rock, or frozen at the bottom of hundred-foot-deep crevasses.

  For someone looking to fake her own death, Mount Rainier was the perfect killer.

  Just short of an hour and a half after leaving Seattle, Kins drove beneath the peaked pediment designating the northeast entrance to Mount Rainier National Park. He followed the road to an American flag hanging from a pole outside a log cabin no bigger than a schoolhouse set amid tall pines.

  When Tracy stepped from the car and stretched the tightness from her body, she smelled the familiar scent of wintergreen, which made her fondly recall growing up in the North Cascades, but also the odor of ash and soot. A rust-colored haze from fires raging unabated in eastern Washington choked the air.

  She and Kins entered the White River Ranger Station. A ranger greeted them in khaki shorts, a matching short-sleeved shirt, and boots. “You must be the two detectives from Seattle.” He extended a hand. “I’m Glenn Hicks. We’ve had our share of weirdness, but this takes the cake.”

  “Ditto,” Kins said.

  Hicks stood an inch or so shorter than Tracy, perhaps five foot nine, but with a wiry build, meaty forearms, and prominent calves. His hairline had receded, which was ironic because hair seemed to cover every other visible part of his body. A five o’clock shadow and tufted eyebrows that sloped in toward the bridge of his nose gave him a perpetually disappointed look.

  “Come on back,” Hicks said, inviting them behind a wood counter to an office not much bigger than a child’s bedroom. A wooden desk reminded Tracy of the teachers’ desks at Cedar Grove Middle School. On it rested a lone manila file.

  “When was this cabin built?” Tracy asked.

  “The station?” Hicks said. “1929. They built them to last back then, though without many amenities.” He stepped behind the desk. “You have the picture?” he asked, clearly interested in getting to the bottom of the mystery.

  Tracy opened her leather saddlebag and pulled out the picture of Lynn Hoff’s driver’s license. This was not a photocopy but a five-by-eight glossy Faz had obtained from DOL. She handed it across the desk. Hicks put on a pair of cheaters, held up the picture to consider it, then methodically opened the file on his desk, pulled out a second photograph, and held the two side by side, eyes shifting back and forth between them. His head did that slow shake of someone who couldn’t believe he’d had one pulled over on him.

  “That’s her,” he said, jaw taut. “I don’t know who Lynn Hoff is, but that right there is Andrea Strickland.”

  He handed both photographs to Tracy and Kins. They compared the two. Though in the DOL’s photograph Strickland wore thick-framed glasses, it was not difficult to tell it was the same person.

  “I have others,” Hicks said, opening a manila envelope and taking out color photographs. “Her husband provided them just about four weeks ago, when we thought she’d gone missing on the mountain.”

  In one, Andrea Strickland stood on a rock, dressed in shorts and a tank top, a long-sleeve shirt tied around her waist, the immense summit of Mount Rainier rising up behind her.

  “What can you tell us about that?” Tracy said.

  “I can tell you she apparently caused us a lot of unnecessary aggravation and put the lives of my rangers at risk,” Hicks said, sounding like a jilted lover. “Someone who does this has to be incredibly selfish.”

  Well, she’s dead, so she paid the ultimate price, Tracy wanted to say, but refrained. She and Kins were content to let Hicks vent. He had the right. Andrea Strickland had pulled one over on Hicks and his men. She’d pulled one over on everyone, except the person who’d eventually found and killed her.

  Hicks swiveled his chair, which squeaked and creaked, and pointed to a tattered US Geological topo map on the wall. The area looked to be of the entire park, pocked with prominent red Xs, some circled. “The Xs mark the locations where each person still missing on the mountain was last seen. The ones circled are the bodies we’ve eventually located and recovered. Sometimes it’s a few days. Sometimes it can be months and years. Sometimes they’re never found. With the warm weather the past few years, the glaciers are receding at an unprecedented rate. We’re finding bodies of climbers gone missing for decades, and let me tell you, it never becomes routine. You’re haunted by the ones you can’t find, always second-guessing yourself, wondering if maybe they were just a few yards from where you were probing the snow, or lying in a crevasse just beneath your boots.”

  Hicks opened the desk drawer, took out a permanent marker, and drew a circle around one of the Xs. He capped the
pen and looked back at them. “Andrea Strickland. I don’t need names. I can plot where each climber was last seen in my sleep.” Hicks’s finger moved to the specific areas as he said them, “Near Success Cleaver, a crevasse on the Cowlitz Glacier, in the Carbon River area.” He tapped the pen on the X he had just circled. “Liberty Ridge. You know why we work so hard to get the bodies back?”

  Tracy did. She’d spent twenty years looking for Sarah, though she’d known with near certainty they would find only her remains. “Closure for the families,” she said.

  “Closure for the families.” Hicks nodded. “Not everyone buys our bullshit that the mountain is a beautiful final resting place for their loved ones. I don’t blame them. But it’s also closure for us. May 30, 2014, we lost six in one incident. We found three of the bodies last summer. Some years, like last year, we get lucky and don’t lose any. It’s a tough mountain and it can turn mean in a hurry. One minute the sun is out and the next it’s a whiteout and the wind is blowing eighty miles an hour. You can never predict what it might do on any given day, and that means you can never relax. That radio can go off at any moment.”

  “What can you tell us about Andrea Strickland?” Tracy asked.

  Hicks realized he’d been venting. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little emotional about this.”

  “No worries,” Kins said. “I’d say you have the right.”

  Hicks took a moment to gather his composure. “Andrea Strickland and her husband, Graham, took out a wilderness permit to climb Liberty Ridge on May 13, 2017. Liberty Ridge is no picnic. It’s one of the least climbed paths to the summit.”

  “How many paths are there?” Kins asked.

  “Fifty, at least.”

  “And this one is not frequently climbed because it’s difficult or dangerous?” Tracy asked.

  “Both. It’s not technically challenging. There are one or two spots where you have to rope up and belay someone, but you’re not climbing ice cliffs.”

  “What makes it so difficult?” Tracy said.

  “The north face of the mountain—Willis Wall. It can be like a bowling alley, especially the last few years with the warmer weather. As the glacier melts and the snow destabilizes, rocks and boulders tumble down the slope.”

  “So not many people on that route,” Kins said.

  “No,” Hicks said, “which might be why they chose it.”

  “What do you mean?” Tracy asked.

  “I checked the permits taken out that weekend, hoping someone might have seen her. No one else took out a permit to climb that route that weekend. They went early in the season for Liberty Ridge, which is limited to a six-week-to-two-month window of opportunity, weather permitting. I remember questioning the husband about why they’d chosen to climb that route so soon in the season.”

  “What did he say?” Tracy asked.

  “He said they wanted the challenge, that they’d done Disappointment Cleaver and the Emmons Glacier. Those are the two most popular routes. Turns out, only she made the summit on Disappointment Cleaver. He crapped out. Altitude sickness. They didn’t climb Emmons Glacier. He lied. I found that out after the fact.”

  “Why would he lie?”

  “To get the Liberty Ridge permit. Make it look like they had experience. He talked a big game, I remember that.”

  “So they weren’t that experienced?” Tracy said.

  “Experience is a broad spectrum. They’d climbed before, but I wouldn’t call either ‘experienced’ and I told them so.”

  “I take it they didn’t have a guide?” Kins asked.

  “No.” Hicks leaned back. “Twenty-five percent of the fatalities on the mountain each year occur on that route. Guides don’t like it.”

  “So what did happen?” Kins asked.

  Hicks chuckled but there was no joy in it. “Well, now I’m not so sure.”

  “What did the husband say happened?” Tracy asked.

  “The husband came down all flustered and exhausted. He said they’d climbed up to Thumb Rock. Hang on.” Hicks opened desk drawers and pulled out a map, unfolding it and turning it to face Tracy and Kins. He leaned over the desk, pencil in hand. “Okay, like I said, they took out a wilderness permit May thirteenth here at the Wilderness Information Center. The Liberty Ridge climb can take anywhere from three to five days. Most do it in three. I know people who have done it in two. The husband said they left the White River Campground and spent the first night at the Glacier Basin Camp.” Hicks scribbled a few pencil lines to indicate the area. “The next day they hiked here, to the Wedge. The route to the left takes you to Camp Schurman over the Emmons Glacier. To the right is the Liberty Ridge route. They crossed Saint Elmo Pass, descended onto the Winthrop Glacier, and made their way to Curtis Ridge and set up camp the second night. He said they awoke at midnight, roped up, and made their way up to Thumb Rock.” Hicks circled the two words on the map.

  “They hiked at night?” Kins said.

  “You go when it’s cold out to minimize the chances of getting hit by loose rock and because the snow is firmer and easier to climb. That’s about a four-to-five-hour hike from about 8,800 feet to just under 11,000 feet. They set up camp at Thumb Rock the third night.”

  “And they were alone?” Tracy asked. “No other climbers up there.”

  “No,” Hicks said. “But this is where the husband’s story started to break down, or at least I thought it did.” Hicks stretched his back as if it hurt him. “He says they had a light dinner, drank tea, and went inside their tent at around eight to rest. They planned to get up at one and head for the summit. He said he heard Andrea get up but he didn’t check the time. She told him she was going out to pee and he says he went back to sleep.” Hicks made a face like he wasn’t buying it. “He claims he slept through his alarm, that when he woke it was morning and his wife wasn’t in the tent. When he went outside looking for her, she was nowhere to be found. He made it here to the ranger station at just after five that afternoon and reported her missing.”

  “Why didn’t he call? Why did he wait until he got back down?” Kins asked.

  “Cell reception is spotty at best on the mountain.”

  “What was his demeanor?” Tracy asked.

  “Measured,” Hicks said without hesitation.

  “So not panicked or distraught?” Tracy said.

  Hicks shook his head. “If anything, I’d say he looked and sounded more confused than distraught. He said he didn’t know why his wife might have wandered off or what could have happened. Then he started hypothesizing, saying that maybe she’d gone out to go to the bathroom and became disoriented, lost her way, and fell off the side of the mountain. Here’s what I don’t understand. She doesn’t come back and he doesn’t go looking for her immediately? People are anxious the night before a climb. They don’t sleep well, if at all. This guy says he slept through his alarm? I was dead certain he pushed her over the edge.”

  “Did you find any sign of her?” Tracy asked.

  “We did,” Hicks said with just the hint of a smile. “The search involved about twenty people, climbing rangers, and Nordic Ski Patrol Search and Rescue. I had members of the Tacoma, Everett, and Seattle mountain rescue units conducting the ground search, and the US Army Reserve 214th Aviation Battalion from Lewis-McChord conducting the air search. Like I said, a lot of resources and a lot of money. We arrived at Thumb Rock late the following afternoon. The air search spotted what appeared to be a debris field here, at the base of the Willis Wall.”

  Hicks made a mark on the map.

  “A debris field of what?” Kins asked.

  “Crampons, a pack, water bottle, a few articles of clothing.”

  “The husband identified them?”

  “He did.”

  “But no body?”

  “No body.”

  “How far a fall is that?” Tracy asked.

  “Couple thousand feet.”

  “Seems if there was debris there’d be a body,” Kins said.

  “Not neces
sarily. I can tell you what we were thinking at the time. There’s a bergschrund at the base of the wall.” Hicks continued to use the pencil on the topo map.

  “A bergschrund?” Tracy asked.

  “It’s a German term. It means a large crevasse where the glacier ice separates from the headwall.”

  “And the presumption was she fell into that crevasse, never to be found,” Kins said.

  Hicks nodded. “No way to get her body out of there. The Willis Wall cleaves constantly. My climbing rangers won’t go there and I don’t blame them.”

  “So the perfect place for someone to stage their own death,” Tracy said.

  “Apparently, but that’s not what I was thinking at the time.”

  “You thought it was the perfect place for the husband to kill his wife,” Kins said.

  “No reason for her to put on her crampons and other gear just to go to the bathroom.”

  “Makes sense,” Tracy said.

  Hicks sat and leaned back. “I was convinced he shoved her over the side—right up until I came in late yesterday and saw that flier on my computer you sent out. I don’t forget those missing on the mountain,” he said. “They’re permanently imprinted on my mind.”

  “So what do you think happened now?” Kins asked.

  “Now? Now, I don’t know what to think. But I’ll tell you this. She didn’t make it off that mountain on her own. No way. Somebody had to have helped her. Hell, the husband could have been in on it for the insurance money. The Pierce County detective said they took out a policy and there were problems in the marriage,” Hicks said.

  Tracy had made contact with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office that morning. They had an appointment to speak to the investigating detective from the Major Crimes Division later that day.

  “I spoke to the detective this morning. He said the husband was a person of interest,” Tracy said.

  “Maybe.” Hicks picked up Andrea Strickland’s picture. “Thing is, I don’t know now if this exonerates him or implicates him.” Hicks looked up at the red X he’d circled. “But I guess that’s not my job anymore. My job is done; looks like yours is just getting started.”