Summer Searcher

by M K Dymock

  “You’re asking questions I don’t have answers to. The man was brilliant, but he was also crazy. Maybe the running part was planned but her murder less so.”

  David always had a contingency plan. “What about weapons?”

  “A pistol and two hunting rifles. Nothing that would’ve raised a red flag then.”

  “All right. I’m heading to the office now.”

  “I thought you were off the investigation.”

  “I’m back on—if Clint knows what’s good for him.”

  Sol had spent many years hunting for food. One thing he learned was that if you couldn’t the chase the game, you pushed the game to you.

  49

  Hylia stood over the stainless steel sink in the morning, wiping her face with a washcloth that had once been white—maybe. They hadn’t left her anything to pull back her hair, and it hung in a tangled mess down her neck.

  A bolt slid across the solid door, and the sheriff pushed it open. “You ready for your lawyer?”

  “Sure.” During her phone call to Jim, the only lawyer she knew, he’d promised to get her a criminal lawyer.

  The sheriff walked with her to a private room with no hint of sympathy or hatred. She actually found that comforting—any emotion would have unnerved her more.

  She walked into the room but stopped in the doorway. Jim, not a stranger, stood up from a table. “We’ll need the room alone,” he said.

  “You have fifteen minutes until a bail hearing. The county attorney is on her way.”

  They sat across from each other, where she stared at him in confusion. “How did you get here so fast? I thought you weren’t coming.”

  “I caught a red eye and a rental car. Sorry I couldn’t come sooner. Do you know what they’ve charged you with?”

  Her memories of the previous day blurred after the helicopter landed. “No, I wasn’t paying attention.”

  “Theft. Apparently, you did some work for a guide and stole gear from him.”

  She thought on it for a second. “A jackass named Toby?”

  He glanced down at some paperwork. “That would be him.”

  “He refused to pay me for three days’ work. He implied if I wanted to get a bonus in addition to my money, I could let him give me a thrill.” She leaned back, arms folded across her chest. “His words, not mine.”

  “So, he’s not a reliable witness?”

  “No, he’s right. I stole some gear from him—after I kneed him.”

  Jim slowly turned over his notepad. “He’s got a lot of gumption to press charges.”

  “Not really. Who’s going to believe me, an outsider, over him?” He hadn’t been the first to treat her as disposable; he wouldn’t be the last.

  “The sheriff said he would be willing to reduce charges if you would tell him about your father.”

  “No.”

  “Hylia, if he killed your mother, you can’t keep protecting–”

  “I’m not protecting him, not anymore.” She stared at her folded hands. What did it matter? There was nothing she could do. “I don’t know where he is, and I have no way to find him.”

  There would be no tracking him down now. She’d had one chance and lost it. “I was there, you know. I could’ve maybe stopped him.”

  “Where?”

  “When my mother died.”

  Jim clenched the notepad for a moment before slowly lifting his face. “You saw her body, you mean?”

  “No, I saw him shoot her.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “He said he loved her and then he shot her.” She opened them back and faced him. “How could he do that?”

  Jim sat in silence for a moment with no answer. “Sometimes a man builds his entire life around something and then can’t accept it’s gone. Hylia, help me find your father. I knew him from before. Maybe, together, we can convince him to come down.”

  “He’s been running for twenty years. He’s not going to give up.”

  “Then what’s his next step?”

  She couldn’t picture Merrell anywhere but in a mine. Forget Merrell, she told herself. David, her father, had never taken them camping, had let other neighbors teach them to fish, and had almost shot his own foot when learning how to handle a gun. She’d forgotten how difficult those first few years were.

  He’d adapted into someone new. Could he do it again? Yes, David Hayes could shed Merrell and become someone new, but he would need one thing to do it well. Hylia had one last secret she’d held on to.

  “My father had a bank account. I’m not sure how much is left, but if he’s going to leave, he’ll need it all.”

  50

  Clint stood on the steps of the sheriff’s office under an awning, protected by the harsh morning sun. He held two coffees, and Sol recognized the peace offering.

  He approached him and took the second coffee. “What’s wrong?”

  “With all the chaos of the last few days, I missed an email from the FBI crime lab. We got confirmation on your body.”

  “That was quick.”

  “It’s about the normal time.”

  Sol cursed inwardly. He’d been thinking about Link’s body—another crime he’d need to admit to. Confessing they’d found him would take the pressure off the search for David, and he didn’t want that. “What did they find?”

  “They found signs she’d given birth prior to her current pregnancy.”

  “Are they sending help?”

  “Not in enough time to do any good. He’s not a wanted man, and we have no proof a child is in danger.”

  A passing semi cranked its horn, echoing across the flat expanse. “I’m sorry, Sol. I didn’t want to see you make another mistake. When you started up with Daisy, I was actually glad for you. All those years alone . . .”

  “It’s in the past.” Sol didn’t want this conversation, not now and not ever.

  “I thought it would be a summer thing.” Clint continued on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Thought she’d leave in the fall and you’d move on. Instead you married her.”

  Marriage had been Daisy’s idea. It didn’t take long after the honeymoon, a camping trip to a local lake, to realize she’d romanticized everything about this world, including him. Rather than doing anything or even talking to her about it, he disappeared into the mountains, leaving her to deal with the aftermath alone. He came home each time expecting her to have given up and left. Each time she was there but more and more frustrated with him.

  Everyone in town blamed her and pitied him. That was the way of their world. The local gets the loyalty; the outsider gets the cold shoulder. And no one, not even him, noticed when she disappeared.

  The town had told him it wasn’t his fault, and he’d done his best to believe them.

  They were all wrong.

  “Daisy deserved better than me,” Sol said, finally admitting to the truth. “She deserved better than all of us. All she wanted was to be happy and make me happy, and I couldn’t begrudge her that. Maybe we wouldn’t have lasted, but that doesn’t make it a mistake.”

  “I’m so–”

  Sol didn’t stop. “And that woman you’ve put in jail deserves a hell of a lot more than what we’ve given her. We failed her and her brother, but we still have a chance—even it’s a bad one.”

  Clint didn’t respond, his eyes glued to his coffee cup.

  “I’ve got an idea on how to find David and the girl if you’re willing to help,” Sol said. “But I can’t do it without you.”

  Clint set his cup down on edge of the railing. He clapped Sol on the shoulder. “If you say there’s a child out there in trouble, then let’s find her.”

  51

  Hylia walked out of the sheriff’s office with no charges but a promise that the situation could change. Jim hadn’t yet made it back with the bail she would no longer need. The sheriff hadn’t said much, other than a command not to leave town, which she would ignore. Whether or not she left town did not depend on that man’s say-so.

  She didn’t make it do
wn the front three steps before spotting Sol standing next to his truck. He didn’t approach her but watched and waited. Clint had told her how they’d been found, and that Sol wasn’t to blame.

  Truth be told, she hadn’t trusted Sol—not fully. If she had, he would’ve been with her the morning she trekked the final yards over the glacier.

  That weekend hadn’t been her first time in a jail—maybe her first in a jail in this country. The law had discovered, more than a few times, she didn’t exist. Each time it did, she caught a ride with a trucker or a bus and started over. Run away to a new name and a new story. She could do that again.

  Hylia took a step toward Sol, and he closed the gap. “I didn’t tell them, but it’s my fault they found us,” he said.

  Us. She had never been an us—not truly. Even with her family, she’d felt like an outsider.

  He opened his truck door for her, waiting for her to jump in. She stared at the opening until he put his hand out towards her to help her in. Both of them stared at it—as if he didn’t know why he’d done that and she didn’t know what to do with it.

  After a moment, she took his hand and jumped in. Sol was still here, still willing. Leaving town no longer seemed an option.

  He walked around and got in the other side. “I’ve got an idea on how to find them, but it’s a long shot.”

  “A long shot is all we ever had.”

  The noise of the diesel filled the space between them. “I need to know everything about your dad. I want us to flush him out of the mountains; make him think it’s not safe there anymore, but we need to know how he’ll react. He had his back against the wall in Seattle.”

  “I think you’ll want to talk to my lawyer.”

  Hylia had neither had breakfast nor eaten much the previous day. Sol took her to Beth’s, and she was just finishing a stack of pumpkin pancakes when Jim met them. “He knew my parents during those days better than I did,” she told Sol.

  The waitress rushed over for Jim’s order. “A black coffee like before?” she asked.

  “No thanks.” He turned to Hylia. “I came in this morning early.”

  Sol wasted no time before jumping in. “According to everything the detective told me, David had planned out his escape months in advance.”

  “At least. His preparations were part of what worried Charlotte.”

  “But her death doesn’t make sense.”

  “How so?”

  “Why go to all the trouble of making it look a suicide when he was going to run anyhow? And why that day?”

  Jim took a slow sip of his water. “I think that’s when she finally told him she was leaving. I don’t know for sure, of course, but she’d found a rental and wanted to move her and the kids out.” His attention turned to Hylia. “I’m so sorry. She was sure he wasn’t dangerous, and I believed her.”

  Hylia had been sure as well. “Nobody saw it coming.”

  “Your dad did. He had the car, the supplies, a place to run to. He was prepared to leave; he just needed the catalyst.”

  “My mother’s death.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So now what?”

  “You need another catalyst,” Jim said. “To force him out.”

  “No,” Hylia gasped. “One catalyst killed my mother, the other . . .”

  “The other had him faking your death over a cliff,” Sol offered. “No matter what has happened, he has never hurt you or Link.”

  “That we know of.” Her raised voice garnered the attention of nearby diners who copped quick glances before returning to their own pancakes.

  “Not when you were kids.”

  She was half out of her seat but sat back down. “Everything I do, I do to keep you safe” had been her father’s constant refrain.

  “He’ll be prepared to run,” Jim said. “He’s smart enough to hide out for twenty years.”

  “No,” Sol said. “He was smart enough to fake his death and live in the wilderness for twenty years. But there’s never been a search since then.”

  “You’re talking thousands of square miles,” Jim said.

  “We know where he was yesterday,” Hylia said. Her eyes lifted to meet Sol’s. “He’ll already be running, and he won’t dare go to any of his old stashes. So how do we find him?”

  “We don’t. We take a few helicopters and buzz the mountains all over. We shine spotlights down on him, and we make him think we’re on his heels.”

  “It won’t take much.” Hylia’s missing toe could testify to her father’s paranoia.

  “Okay, so you convince him to run,” Jim said. “Then what? Right now, you have some idea of where he is. You force him out, and you risk losing them.” He scooted his chair to Hylia. “He’s disappeared twice, once from your life completely.”

  “If he leaves the mountains, there’s only a few places he can come out,” Sol said. “Only two highways connect him to the rest of the world.”

  She stood. “Then let’s flush him out.”

  52

  Sol watched Clint’s expression as he struggled to accept what faced him—four people who had no official part of an investigation who very much needed to be part of it. He knew better than anyone how patrolling a county bigger than some states could drag a man down.

  “Give it a few days,” Clint said. “We’ll have the backing of the FBI to run a real manhunt.”

  “We can’t wait; he’s panicking now. We can’t let him get burrowed in again.” Sol said. “Bottom line, you need our help, and if Hylia’s not part of it, then I’m not either.”

  “I’ve got a whole life in Seattle I can get back to,” Shea said. “We can all share a car ride to the airport.”

  The sheriff acquiesced under such duress. “Fine, you can stay,” he said to Hylia. “But if we, by some miracle, get close; you step back.”

  She agreed. Sol knew she didn’t have a choice.

  They gathered around the conference table in the middle of the office. The other two deputies were already out on paroles for the day.

  Catherine arrived with her maps, which they pinned to the wall next to Sol’s.

  “Here’s where we were when the helicopter landed,” Sol said. He tried to keep any accusation out of his voice. “There are four main ways down. It’s steep country, and a lot if is inaccessible at certain points. Eventually you have to hit one of these spots.” He drew four circles on that map with a red sharpie.

  “How do you know he’s still there and not already on the move?” Jim interrupted. “He won’t be in the same place.”

  “It’s summer; his options are limited,” Hylia said. “There’s a lot more traffic on the trails. He’ll find a place to burrow in.”

  “A place we may never find,” Sol said. “He could set a tent up in the forest under a tree and we’d be lucky to stumble into it. We have to force him out.”

  “How do we do that?” Shea asked. “He’s been burrowed in for twenty years.”

  “We apply more pressure to him than we ever did before.”

  Jim was already shaking his head. “That’ll put him over another cliff, and he’ll disappear again.”

  Sol bristled at his objection. Something about this man had set him on edge since the restaurant. Jealousy that Hylia trusts someone else? an errant thought whispered, which he chose to ignore. “No, because we’re going to give him an exit.”

  Every head besides Hylia swiveled to his. “Wait, what?” Clint came half out of his chair.

  “We put ATVs, horses, people, helicopters, everything we can find on all the various trails—except one.”

  “Where?” Jim asked, while Shea said, “Won’t he see through that?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Hylia said, her voice heavy as they planned out the betrayal of her father. Sol wished he could ease her conscience, but only bringing her niece down safely would do that. “When given choice between fight or flight, he will always choose flight. We have to make sure he can see how to flee.”

  “She’s right,
” Sol said, pointing at the map at a canyon not far from the glaciers. “I was thinking–”

  Catherine, who’d remained in the corner of the room, observing, spoke up. “What about the Honeycomb Draw?”

  Sol’s gaze moved between her and the map a few times. “No, that . . .” He stared at the canyon, which he hadn’t circled as an option.

  “There are those partially unexcavated mines; he might be familiar with the area.” Sol had updated Catherine on what they were actually doing when he called her in.

  Hylia stood and joined him at the map. “Is it on the Summit side?”

  A range of mountains separated them from the other county and its largest town.

  “Yes, a few prospectors found some promising silver deposits,” Catherine said. “They blew several holes, and while there were several veins, they proved quite shallow.”

  “That’s why they call it Honeycomb?” Hylia asked.

  “Yes, there are about twenty or so holes—none go more than forty feet deep.”

  That wasn’t what Sol had planned. He’d identified a trail on their side—one he knew intimately from the ridgeline to the highway. It would also require more collaboration. “I don’t–”

  “I think he’s mentioned it offhand,” Hylia said. “The caves were too shallow, and the stream wasn’t reliable.”

  “No,” said Catherine. “It dries up by August. There aren’t any formal trails up it. It was quite difficult to ascend, and I wasn’t able to make it past the first two holes.”

  Sol considered the options and did something unheard of for him. “Okay, we go with Catherine’s idea. It’s a less obvious route but small enough we can direct his movements and have a crew at the bottom.”

  “What is at the bottom?” Clint asked.

  “It opens into a meadow,” Catherine said. “About a half mile from a highway.”