Holly could see him doing that. He always pushed boundaries, lived on the edge. What she didn’t get was how he could give up his band and performing to work full time for the Sheriff’s department. Music was in his bones. It had consumed him. Unlike her, he hadn’t needed to find a new career. The only reason she’d turned to law enforcement was because she couldn’t ski anymore.
Before she knew it, she blurted out, “Why were you working undercover?”
“Holly…”
She recognized the warning tone. The question had violated his personal space, which in his case just happened to be larger than a football field. She ignored the warning. “But you loved singing. It’s all you wanted to do since you were a kid. I just don’t get how you walk away from something you loved that much.”
He remained silent for so long, she didn’t think he’d answer. Finally, he said, “A rock in the river will change the course of the water.”
She waited for more, but she waited in vain. For someone who had made a fortune using his voice, Raines was a man of few words.
She wondered about his rock in the river as she slowed to take a sharp bend that had an alarming vertical drop on the other side of a low guardrail. The elevation on this section of the Kanc was over two thousand feet above the Pemigewasset Wilderness. As soon as they cleared the bend, she stomped on the gas. “What happened?”
He said nothing.
She glanced at him. “I know it wasn’t Sherry’s death. Cleghorn told me you’ve been working for law enforcement for years.” She hesitated for a moment, wondering if she should broach it. “I read somewhere you had a girlfriend who OD’d. Is that why you worked with the DEA?” The death of up and coming, pop rock singer Jenny Hargrave had been major news because of her relationship with Raines.
“Just drive, Holly.” His tone was bleak with loss.
It unnerved her and shook free the memory of her brother that still haunted her. Charlie was sledding down a trail on Hurricane Mountain. She was laughing at something he’d yelled as he flew past her. She couldn’t remember what it was. Then, right before her eyes, the sled hit a bump catapulting Charlie over the edge of the trail. He fell three hundred feet to the rocks far below. She shivered. She knew all about loss and how fragile the threads were that held a person’s life together. She knew, too, that no matter how you tried to weave the filaments back together, life’s tapestry was changed forever.
In silence, they drove for another fifteen minutes. Holly lost in thought about a day twenty-five years ago when she’d led her brother up the mountain but had returned home alone. Raines stared out of the window, nursing his memories.
As they neared Franconia Notch, the colossal, humpbacked outline of Cannon Mountain filled the windshield. The Notch had once been the home of the Old Man of the Mountain until its collapse in 2003. Now the noble sentinel lay indistinguishable amongst the scree surrounding Profile Lake.
To her left, Holly glanced up at the magnificent tree-lined ridge. Beyond it lay Lonesome Lake, cratered high above them and swaddled in autumn’s splendor. And somewhere in all that glory lay Mimi Milbourne’s body. Dread sliced through Holly at what they were about to witness.
Chapter Fifteen
Located in the heart of the Franconia Notch State Park, the Lafayette Campgrounds could have been the setting for a disaster movie. Vehicles from the state and local police departments, the forest service, as well as fire and rescue trucks from Lincoln and Franconia jammed the parking lot. State Troopers had cordoned off the area and were directing traffic. Beyond the exit, media vans and hikers’ cars were parked on the grass verge that ran beside the highway.
As Holly flashed her ID and asked where they could find Lieutenant Hendricks, a tow truck maneuvered past them with a blue Porsche Cayenne riding high on top.
They found Hendricks outside the Major Crime Unit vehicle. The man was almost as broad as he was tall, and there was a distinct military air about the way he stood with his hands clasped behind his back and his feet spread shoulder-width apart.
He greeted Holly by asking, “How’s Gus doing?”
Holly imagined Gustafson was in considerable pain, but she didn’t speculate. She just shrugged and introduced Raines.
Raines held out his hand, but Hendricks ignored the gesture. “I find it ironic that Mayor Randolph asked me to downplay the connection our homicide victim has with Caxton, only to send over his celebrity detective, whose presence is going to add to the media frenzy.”
Raines ignored the dig, but the comment irked Holly. If she’d had time to waste, she’d have spent it napping. “Now that’s off your chest, Lieutenant, perhaps you can bring us up-to-date?”
Annoyance flickered across his face, but he kept it professional. “Chief Finch and Sheriff Cleghorn have agreed to a joint task force. We’re to take the lead here at the primary scene, while you’ll run things in Caxton. The Attorney General wants us to cooperate, which means no jurisdictional pissing contests,” Hendricks said, alluding to the problems between Sheriff Cleghorn and the State Police. He continued, “The focus is on solving this case. Nothing else. We’re limiting who goes up to the scene, but as a gesture of goodwill, you’ve both been cleared to go.” Hendricks relaxed as he got rolling. “Douglas Baxter found the victim around seven this morning.” He nodded in the direction of a Dodge Charger.
A balding, middle-aged man sat in the backseat of the cruiser. The horror of what he’d witnessed had left its mark. He had the vacant stare of someone in shock.
Holly knew that look. Seeing a real dead body was nothing like seeing one on TV.
“Baxter’s an accountant from Lincoln,” Hendricks disclosed. “He was hiking up to Lonesome Lake to take photos of the colors. Every year he submits images to Yankee Magazine, hoping to be selected for the cover. About halfway up, he stopped to take a leak and noticed blood on the trail. He assumed it came from an animal that a hunter had wounded. Continuing up the trail, he spotted several more drops of blood. Near the lake, he found a piece of bloodied fabric snagged on a bush. Leaving the path to investigate, he discovered the victim. She’d been stabbed multiple times.
“Baxter claims he left his cell phone in his car. He ran back down the trail at a rapid pace to call it in and fell during the descent, which resulted in scrapes on his hands and arms. The injuries appear consistent with his story, but we’ve processed him for trace.
“A local couple confirmed he was with them last night until ten. One of the guys from the Lincoln PD knows both him and the couple providing his alibi. Baxter has a good reputation in town, so do the couple.”
Raines asked, “But he doesn’t have an alibi after ten last night?”
“No. He’s not married, but he stopped for coffee this morning at five thirty, which we confirmed.”
“So he had time?”
“It’s tight. He leaves his friends at ten, drives forty-five minutes to Caxton, abducts Mimi, sets fire to her house by eleven-thirty when you spot the fire, drives to the Notch. He forces her to hike up to the lake, which you could do in under an hour, but let’s assume he needed an hour and a half because he had to force her to walk up there in the dark. He murders her. Let’s say he spends an hour up there doing God knows what before hiking back down and grabbing coffee by five thirty. If he hurries, he could make it, but we’re looking at a real narrow window.”
Raines nodded. “Does he have a record?”
“Not even a parking violation. He’s squeaky clean and comes across as genuine.”
“Did you find Mimi Milbourne’s purse or phone?” Holly asked.
“No, but we’ll need to pull the phone records once I have her number.”
Holly gave it to him.
A young detective joined them, gaping at Raines as he addressed Hendricks. “We’ve completed the door-to-door, or perhaps I should say tent-to-tent.” He chuckled, pleased with his wit. They just stared at him. Reddening, he coughed. “Umm. We have statements from the campers. Nobody reported heari
ng or seeing anything unusual.”
“How did you confirm that they were all interviewed?” Hendricks questioned.
“To camp here, they had to register, and we interviewed everyone on the list.”
“Any single males?” Raines asked.
“No. Mainly families and couples. There is a group of college kids, who are still hung over from partying last night. Forensics has cleared it for you to head up to the scene, but there’s evidence on the Lonesome Lake Trail, which still needs processing. They said to take the tram to the top of Cannon Mountain and hike down to the crime scene.” The rookie couldn’t keep the eagerness out of his voice. “One of the techies just came down. He told me it’s a bad one.”
Holly glanced up at the ridge. Standing there in the bright sunlight, armed with her Glock, she couldn’t even come close to imagining the full terror of what Mimi must have suffered.
Chapter Sixteen
Ten minutes later, they boarded the Aerial Tramway for the ascent to the top of Cannon Mountain. Holly had ridden the cable car often whenever she skied there. It was a clear day, with blue skies and plenty of brilliant fall sunshine to accentuate the autumn colors. Echo Lake glinted below them, and a peregrine falcon soared toward Eagle Cliff on the other side of the Notch. As the tram climbed, they could see all the way to Vermont and New York to the west and Maine to the east, but no one paid any attention to the glorious panorama. Their focus was on what awaited them at Lonesome Lake.
Holly filled Hendricks in on what they knew so far.
Leaning against the handrail, Hendricks said, “If the victim was abducted from her house and transported to the campgrounds in her Porsche, which we found here, how did the suspect leave the area? We’re miles from anywhere. There’s no public transportation. Someone must have picked him up.”
“Not necessarily,” Holly said. “There are a lot of trails up here. Maybe he hiked over to a town.”
Hendricks noted, “But it has to be ten miles to Lincoln from here and even further to Franconia.”
Raines suggested, “Perhaps he left a vehicle here before committing the crime.”
Hendricks scratched his cheek. “There’s a problem with that theory. Suppose he stashed a vehicle here ahead of time, how the hell did he get back to North Caxton to abduct her in the first place? He had to have had an accomplice.”
Raines leaned against the chrome pole in the center of the tram as it swiftly ascended the 4,000 vertical feet to the top of the mountain. “Not if the offender had a second vehicle. As Holly mentioned, we found dirt-bike tracks in the woods behind the victim’s house in the perfect location for covert surveillance. If he used a motorcycle to spy on her, he could have used it to commit the crime. Easy enough to transport a bike and leave it in a busy parking lot where nobody would be suspicious.”
It was obvious from Hendricks’s expression that Raines hadn’t convinced him. Hendricks shook his square head with its square military cut and said, “The whole damn thing is way too elaborate. It smacks of a setup. A ploy to trick us. I tend to seek the simplest explanation. That means before I search for outlaws juggling multiple vehicles, I’m going to take a good look at the in-laws. The husband could have arranged for his wife to meet him up here for a romantic rendezvous, killed her, driven over and set the fire before heading back to Boston to give himself an alibi. That’s if he was in Boston and not on his mobile when he called you.”
His explanation wasn’t exactly simple, Holly reasoned. What’s more, she didn’t know too many women who’d be willing to drive over to Franconia Notch, then hike up the side of a mountain in the middle of the night just for the chance to get frisky with their middle-aged husbands, but she wasn’t about to burst his fantasy. Besides, it was way too early in the investigation to lock in on a single theory.
As the tram clunked and rocked over a support tower, Hendricks asked, “The husband told you he worked last night?”
Holly nodded.
“I’ll check the number he used this morning, confirm he used a landline. I also need to arrange for the ID.”
“Sure,” she said. “Milbourne is on his way to Caxton.”
Silence followed this exchange until Raines asked, “Did the dogs find anything at the lake?”
“Not yet. They’re still working the scene, but one of the handlers thinks he may have come down the way he went up.”
“It was risky to come back down through the campsite,” Holly pointed out.
“Perhaps he’s getting off on the risk. Adrenaline junkies will take major risks for the rush,” Raines observed. “You don’t bring the victim all the way over here when you had her at an isolated cabin unless there’s something in it for him.”
Hendricks asked, “But who is going to take that kind of risk? The campsite is full of campers who get up early to cook breakfast before hitting the trail. And the trail cuts right through the campground. Someone could have easily spotted him. Baxter was on the trail at first light. He saw no one, and from the description of the crime scene, the killer had to have been covered in blood. Someone’s going to notice that.”
Raines suggested, “Not unless he planned it by bringing a change of clothes and washed in the lake.”
Holly added, “Or he cleaned up in the showers at the campsite. There are several near the trailhead, and you don’t need to be a camper to use them. All you need are quarters. They’re private. Each shower is a self-contained room. He could have stashed some clothes and headed right for the showers.”
“Now there’s an idea,” Hendricks said as the interior light dimmed, and the tram lurched into the upper terminal. “I’ll have forensics check it out.”
Once out of the building, Holly, who was familiar with the rocky summit, led the way down the Kinsman Ridge Trail through the forest toward Lonesome Lake. Eager to reach the crime scene as quickly as possible, they ignored the scenery and hurried along the rutted, narrow trail in silence, careful to avoid the ankle-twisting tree roots that snaked across the path. Even though all three of them were fit and were moving fast, it took them forty minutes to reach Lonesome Lake.
The lake stretched out before them, serene and magnificent. The big, blue sky, with its drifting white clouds, and the radiant leaves from the autumn trees, shimmered like an impressionist painting on the calm, mirrored surface. A loon floated close to shore, watching them. A sense of peace and joy filled Holly, which she knew would soon be lost.
Two minutes later, they arrived at the scene and followed the crime tech’s approved path in to view the body. The energy was palpable, a major-crime buzz, reserved for those atypical cases when law enforcement encountered something so malevolent that many investigators longed for the days of an eye-for-an-eye style of justice.
Margaret Macquarie, the Medical Examiner, nodded to the detectives. Anyone observing her cool greeting might assume that she didn’t know Holly, but she’d met her several times. In fact, Holly had skied with her in February at a local downhill charity event. The violence of the scene had stripped away society’s customary rules for pleasantries.
Although Holly mentally prepared herself for what she was about to see during the hike, what she found stunned her. It was the worst scene she had ever had the misfortune to witness. The violence and evidence of how much Mimi had suffered hit Holly like a physical blow. Bile burned the back of her throat, and she had to fight to control her emotions.
Mimi Milbourne’s battered, lifeless body lay on a bed of autumn leaves. She was naked and stared sightlessly up at the trees with milky-white eyes. The offender had stabbed her multiple times in the chest. Blood soaked the earth around her, and a metallic smell overwhelmed the earthy scent of the leaf-rich soil.
Bruising and cuts on her wrists, ankles and on both sides of her face were visible from several feet away. Her shell-pink painted fingernails were chipped and torn with traces of dirt and blood around the tips of her fingers. Mud, dried blood, cuts and bruises covered her bare feet.
A crimson
maple leaf fluttered down from a branch and landed on Mimi’s thigh, partially covering a jagged laceration. The juxtaposition of something so beautiful and natural with something so aberrant and evil shook Holly. Every time she witnessed what one human being was capable of doing to another, it changed her, made her less trusting. She would never again view the autumn colors without thinking of Mimi Milbourne.
Fighting the urge to cover Mimi’s brutalized body with her jacket to protect her from their prying eyes, she turned away only to see her companions’ physical response to the crime. Raines clenched and unclenched his jaw. Hendricks swallowed hard, causing his Adam’s apple to bob up and down.
Holly stared into the dense forest surrounding them. A shudder ran through her. How terrifying it must have been to be alone up here in the middle of the night with a psycho whose mission was to make you suffer.
This couldn’t be happening here. Not something this abhorrent, she thought. We’re better than this, aren’t we? She glanced up at Raines, who turned to her with eyes that seemed to say, “Even here, Holly. Even here.”
“And you would know” echoed her silent response.
Chapter Seventeen
The Chief Medical Examiner was in her mid-fifties with skin as weathered as her vintage leather hiking boots. A practical, straightforward woman, Margaret Macquarie enjoyed skiing, hiking and fishing and didn’t particularly care for chitchat or gossip. She was single and lived with a pack of adopted dogs in Bethlehem, about twenty minutes north of the campgrounds. Her proximity to the crime scene was most likely the reason why the ME was there on a Saturday morning instead of one of her deputies.
“What can you tell us, Mac?” Hendricks asked, using her nickname.
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