Walt addressed the Search and Rescue team. "Listen up! She may be just injured. Could be out for a morning run and the husband has things confused. So let's not scare her to death. It's possible she's been exposed to the elements overnight. Make sure you're covered for that: space blankets, protein bars, and water. You've got your assignments. We're using channel fifteen. Keep off the radios unless it means something. Okay. Go!"
The group dispersed. Walt turned to Brandon. "You and I will take the Hill Trail. I'll take the first entrance; you'll take the second."
"I'm on it," the man replied.
By the time Walt reached the Hill Trail, muddy clay was sticking to his boots like wet concrete, heavier with each step. Twice he stopped to scrape globs off the treads. He followed the narrow path up into the trees over rocky, rutted ground roped with exposed tree roots. With the low clouds and thick forest, an unsettling darkness overcame him.
Fiona's arrival was announced over the radio. She was photographing the Volvo. In his mind's eye Walt saw Search and Rescue spreading out over the trail and covering ground. He checked in with Brandon. The two were approaching each other from opposite directions.
Discovering a snapped branch—the ripped bark green—Walt knelt and studied the disturbance in the trail's soil. Normally dry and powdery, the ocher-colored dust was skimmed with a layer of rain. If prodded, the crust of darkened soil gave way to the fine dirt beneath. He followed some impressions that told him two things: First, the leg that had snapped the branch had done so prior to the rain falling; second, it was a man's flat-soled shoe, size nine or ten, walking slowly and deliberately, not the long strides associated with exercise, not an athletic shoe.
He kept off the path as best as possible and followed the shoe prints, calling ahead to Brandon to switch frequencies. When he met him again on the radio, Walt instructed his deputy to keep an eye out for the tracks, and not to disturb them.
But Brandon professed to know nothing of any shoe prints. It was then that Walt picked up two other such impressions, both heading back toward the parking lot.
The rain fell heavier now, the shoe prints washing away before his eyes. Walt peeled his coat off and lay it across the trail, attempting to protect the matching shoe prints—both heading in different directions. He didn't dare lift the coat to see if he'd managed to cover them, the rain falling steadily now.
He raced ahead, staying off the trail, dodging trees and stumps and massive rocks. "Tommy," he called ahead on the radio, "how many times have you seen a guy in office shoes out on one of these trails?"
"Sneakers," Brandon called back.
"No. These things have a heel and smooth soles. Keep your eyes peeled. Something's not right."
The cold rain soaked through the shoulders and back of Walt's uniform. He wiped his face on his sleeve in order to see.
"Fucking cats and dogs," Brandon said over the radio. The rain had greatly intensified.
Walt was running now, looking left and right, up the hill and down, the narrow trail meandering just below him.
"I got a million running shoes and hiking boots, Sheriff," Brandon reported. "But I got nothing like what you're talking about. No office shoes."
"Keep your eyes peeled off-trail," Walt ordered.
"Roger, that."
Walt felt a tension in his chest—a knowing fear. He relived watching the shoe impressions melt behind the destructive power of the rain. Though but a few miles from downtown, a half mile from the highway, these woods were national forest and subject to the laws of nature, not man. Bears were commonly spotted. Cougar. Elk. Any number of which could scare a runner off a trail, pursue the intruder for dinner or out of defense of a calf or cub. The combination of the discovery of the unexpected shoe prints and the now torrential, cold rain drove home an anxiety that peaked with Brandon's next radio transmission.
"Sheriff? What's your twenty? I think I've got something."
A moment later Walt flinched with the sound of a dull gunshot just ahead on the trail: a flare.
Brandon had found her.
Ten
A
woman's body, bloody and splayed in a tangle of limbs. The top of her running suit was ripped, baring her chest. Her neck was canted inhumanly to one side.
Walt placed a space blanket over her to keep off the rain. Ailia Holms had been mauled. "Bear?" Brandon asked.
"I'm no expert, but I'm guessing cat. Bite marks on the neck, the narrowness of the claws."
Walt ordered the Hill Trail cordoned off. He and Brandon established a perimeter around the body using dead sticks. With Brandon lifting and replacing the space blanket, Fiona, who had trudged up through the woods, shot dozens of photographs before anyone disturbed the scene. Others arrived through the forest: deputies, a pair of paramedics, and a local doctor, Royal McClure. At Walt's request, he would serve as medical examiner, an assignment certain to piss off the county coroner, but Walt was intent on doing this the right way. Electing a mortician as coroner did not make him a medical examiner.
McClure, a wiry man in his mid-fifties, had tight, green eyes and a high raspy voice. "I'll be able to tell you more later. Much more. But for now you've got a body dead twelve to eighteen hours. Trauma, blood loss. All the appearance of an animal attack."
Walt asked, "What are the odds that two cougars attack humans within a day of each other?"
"Who said anything about two?" McClure asked. "These cats cover a lot of ground."
"We darted one and locked it up yesterday. Down at the Humane Society, the pound," Walt said. "She sure as hell didn't do this. I've lived here, off and on, for most of my life, and I can only remember one other cat attack before this—and that one was provoked. Now we lose a yellow Lab. Danny Cutter gets run out of the Big Wood by a cat. We dart one, and that same night, another kills a woman out running. Are you kidding me?"
In the midst of removing the space blanket for Fiona, Brandon suddenly pulled the Mylar sheet aside and let it fall to the ground, like a magician who'd given up on his trick.
"Keep her covered, Tommy," Walt said, turning from McClure.
"Check it out, Sheriff," Brandon said, kneeling close to the body. "What the fuck is that?" The rain continued to fall in sheets as it had for the past half hour. Brandon dragged the space blanket back over her once again, covering her head and face, to below her waist, leaving only her lacerated legs exposed.
Walt stepped closer, seeing for the first time what Brandon now pointed to: a small circle of white.
"Paint?" Walt guessed.
"It's dissolving, whatever it is," Brandon said. "Dissolving fast. And look there, and there." He pointed. Then he lifted the Mylar and studied her more closely. "It's all over her."
Fiona, of her own volition, scrolled through digital shots while carefully screening her camera from the rain. "I made pictures of those," she said. "I count seven . . . no . . . eight on her chest and torso. Another four on her head and hair."
"It's feces," McClure said, having touched it with his gloved finger and lifted it to his nose. "Bird feces."
"Birdshit?" Brandon asked. "How's that possible? Look around her. Nothing."
None of the leaves, sticks, or plants surrounding the body showed any sign of the white splotches.
"Doc?" Walt asked.
"It's not my place to comment on physical evidence."
Walt looked up into the rain. No coverage here, the tree branches not touching. So where had the birds perched?
"You know that blood-splatter course?" Brandon said. "If birdshit's anything like blood, then the size of these, and the tightness of the rings, means it didn't fall very far. A bird takes a crap from up there, it's going to hit like a bomb."
"Expert testimony if I've ever heard it," Walt cracked.
"Not to mention she rolled all the way down the hill," Brandon said, ignoring Walt's jab. "So it's got to be fresh, right?"
"He's right," McClure interjected. "Or she was out running with dried bird feces all over her."
Walt was still bothered by the smooth-soled shoe prints he'd followed earlier. In the excitement of the discovery, he'd neglected to send anyone to protect his oilskin and the tracks it covered. He did so now by radio, but feared a complete loss.
"And there's a question of blood," McClure pointed out.
Fiona, Brandon, and Walt all turned inquisitively toward him. Their faces ran with rainwater. "Blood?" Walt asked.
"I count a hundred and fifty-six lacerations, and we haven't rolled her yet," McClure said. "So where's all the blood?"
Eleven
O
n his second visit in a matter of hours, something about the indulgence of the Holms estate left Walt with a sickening feeling in his gut. It was far too big for two people; how would it feel now with only one?
He was informed by a staff member that Stuart Holms had already left for the conference. This kind of thing needed to be done in person. Walt drove over to Sun Valley. It took him twenty minutes of moving between various talks and coffee clutches, meeting rooms and hospitality suites to find Holms on the porch of the Guest House in a private conversation with the head of Disney. Walt asked to speak to Holms in confidence and took the vacated chair.
"There's never an easy way to say this. I'm sorry to have to tell you that we found your wife out Adam's Gulch. She was pronounced dead at the scene, apparent victim of an animal attack."
The other man's clear blue eyes ticked back and forth, alternately searching the air above Walt's head. His brow knotted, and he nodded slightly, and sighed. Then his eyes fell to the plastic tabletop, and he dragged his trembling hands into his lap. "I've known since last night. I knew in here." He touched his chest. "She's never not come home before. Oh, God. An animal attack?"
"A cougar possibly. Yes."
"Was it her period?" Stuart Holms asked. "I don't even know, I'm sorry to say. That's when they attack women, right?"
"A thorough examination is being conducted," Walt said.
Holms kept his head down. He mumbled, "A cat? She liked cats. Loved cats. Volunteered at the pound. Did you know that?"
"At some point I'm going to take a full statement from you, sir. No hurry, but the sooner we can get to that the better."
Holms lifted his head, revealing teary, bloodshot eyes. "Of course," he said.
Walt waited a moment uncomfortably. "When?" he said. "When might we get to that?"
Holms looked away at a piece of the sky. "When I feel up to it, Sheriff. And not a minute sooner."
Twelve
I
t was difficult for Walt to think of a meeting as clandestine when the sun shone so brightly and a pair of yellow warblers darted branch to branch in play. The Warm Springs tributary to the Big Wood slipped past beneath the concrete bridge connecting to Sun Valley's River Run high-speed quad-chairlifts and the glorious River Run ski lodge. He watched the river's swirling currents, looking for any kind of repeating pattern, but he saw none. A kingfisher hovered low over the silver brown water, staying there for quite some time before zooming up to a cottonwood branch and taking rest.
Dick O'Brien had no place here. He was dressed like a man heading to lunch at Yale: khakis, blue blazer, white button-down shirt. Thankfully he'd eschewed the tie. It was the man's shoes that Walt paid the most attention to: office shoes, with heels. His mind filled briefly with an image of the dissolving, muddy impressions he'd followed up the Hill Trail at Adam's Gulch. He swallowed dryly.
O'Brien leaned against the bridge's wide, concrete rail. He placed a manila envelope between them.
"Sorry for making the meet out here," he said. "Just a precaution is all."
"This is?" Walt asked, indicating the envelope.
"A DVD. Cutter's home security. I helped design it. We've got eyes on the gate, exterior doors, the garages. He put half a mil into security on that place. This camera is an interior look at the front door. From yesterday morning . . . Friday morning, in case you've lost track. I have one of my guys assigned to monitoring the cameras twenty-four/ seven. He pointed this . . . incident . . . out to me yesterday. We dump anything like this to DVD for safekeeping."
"Anything like
what
?" Walt asked.
"The Escalade's got a DVD player, if you want it sooner than later," O'Brien said. "And air-conditioning. And an electric cooler in the back. Pop. Bottled water."
"You can't just tell me?"
"Worth a thousand words. Right?"
"If you say so."
A few minutes later O'Brien and Walt occupied the Escalade's two leather captain's chairs that made up the car's middle row of seats. The DVD panel was flipped down and glowing blue. Walt had a cold ginger ale in hand. "What? No popcorn?"
"We got Snickers in the cooler," O'Brien said in all seriousness. "Peanuts. Potato chips."
"I was kidding."
The DVD played. Walt watched as a sweating Danny Cutter, a towel around his neck, opened his brother's front door and welcomed in Ailia Holms. Walt dialed the rear air conditioner down a few degrees— he'd warmed suddenly. A time clock ran in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
O'Brien narrated. "Once we heard about her out Adam's Gulch, I showed this to the boss. He took her death real hard, I might add. And we had a very short discussion about sharing this with you. Just for the record, the boss never suggested blocking it."
On the screen the discussion grew heated between Danny Cutter and Ailia Holms, but there was no sound to confirm that. Then, all at once, Danny grabbed her by the forearms and shoved her against a couch. For a moment Walt feared he was about to see a rape. Then the two settled down. Ailia clearly complained about her treatment. Danny showed her to the door, and she left.