Death Qualified Part 14

She could not see the trail Nell had used to climb up to the clearing, or the one that came down from the waterfall, but from where she sat in deep gloom, it didn't seem plausible that someone could have come down that trail at exactly the right time to catch Lucas in a gunsight. And at exactly the same moment that Nell had taken the last step up.

"Ah, Tony," she breathed at last, "is it going to be your game again?"

She would have to go over to the other side, but not today, and not from the top down. She would go up from Nell's. From where she sat brooding there really did not seem much point in it. She did not see how she could convince a jury that coincidentally three different people had appeared at this one isolated place at the same moment: victim, killer, and innocent bystander. Always the same division, she thought then. It always came back to the same division.

She heaved herself upright and took a deep breath, then started back up the trail.

By the time she reached the top again, she was drenched, her legs throbbed and burned, and she felt that every breath was too difficult to complete. She stopped in the woods for several minutes to rest before she emerged to see Frank leaning against the tree trunk where she had left him.

"Wasn't going to call out the rescue team for another ten minutes or so," he said cheerfully.

"It wasn't so bad."

"You always sweat right through your jeans like that?"

Her shirt was clinging to her back; her legs were sticking to the wet jeans; her hair was wet through.

They started to walk slowly, and she was thinking that it was better to move, because once she

stopped she might never want to move again.

"Couple of questions," Frank said.

"If someone was following Lucas aiming to shoot him, why didn't he do it before? Why wait until he got to that ledge? And he must have been following pretty close, or how did he know Lucas went down that way? So he must have been visible.

And the next question is why did Lucas stop for sightseeing on his way home? He knew that ledge, nothing there to hold his interest."

They walked in silence for several minutes until she asked, "When did you go down there?"

"June. Wanted to see for myself, same as you."

"Anyone go with you?"

"Now, Bobby, no nagging, no checking up. Okay?"

Alone, she thought with a tight feeling in her throat.

She said nothing; no nagging for now. But soon they had to talk. Soon. She began to think of the coming days, a trip into Eugene to the library, to the newspaper morgue, to the university maybe. On Monday a trek over the mountain to meet Lucas Kendricks's parents, to quiz his father in particular. And to meet and quiz the sheriff. Busy day.

But for now, she wanted to stretch out and not move. By afternoon, no doubt, she would feel like death, and on into tomorrow, but by Monday back to work, if she had to rent a wheelchair, or borrow one from Jessie. She made a slight face. She and Frank were going to Jessie and Doc's for dinner that evening.

The drive over the mountains was pleasant early Monday morning, but the day was going to be hot. Barbara had thought she had been overheated from the strenuous climb on Friday, and that had been partly the reason, but also, a heat wave had rolled in from eastern Oregon, and Sat.u.r.day and Sunday it intensified until the thermometer had climbed to ninety-five on Frank's terrace. Today was going to be even hotter.

Frank drove slowly through the village of Sisters on the eastern slope of the mountain. The village had been done over in modern Americana tourist, he said drily, and didn't comment further except to point out the cafe where the two girls had met Lucas Kendricks, the grocery store where he had picked up camping food, and a sporting goods store where he had bought other camping gear, a propane stove, a water bottle, things like that. He sped up as soon as they left the village behind. Now the forests were open, airy pine forests with an occasional juniper tree, and undergrowth that became spa.r.s.e as they traveled toward the high desert country. It was very dry; dust swirled in gusts created by traffic. Widely s.p.a.ced sage brush plants were dusty and listless-looking.

In the town of Bend, Frank drove straight to the county building where the sheriff's office was located. It seemed that minute by minute the air was becoming hotter and drier. Few people were on the streets, few in the building when they entered. A uniformed officer directed them to the office where the sheriff was waiting for them.

"Ms. Holloway, Mr. Holloway? Timothy LeMans.

Come in. Come on in," he said in a kindly way.

"Too hot out here for anything." He was a tall, rectangular block of a man, as solid-looking as the mountains, with scant gray hair and a deeply sunburned complexion. He was dressed in cowboy clothes: embroidered shirt, dungarees, high boots, even a silver buckle on a wide, heavy belt. He held the door and they entered an air-conditioned suite of rooms where a couple of people were working at computers, others at typewriters.

"In here," the sheriff said, holding another door open.

This room was comfortably outfitted with upholstered furniture in tan slipcovers; the sheriff's desk was bare.

Barbara glanced around, then stopped to look closer.

On the walls were many pictures of the sheriff in a tuxedo, holding a viol; one was a group picture of a symphony orchestra. One of the pictures was of him and three others, two of them women, all in formal wear. It was labeled: Bach Festival, Eugene, Oregon, 1987.

Although his eyes were twinkling when she turned to face him, he said nothing about the pictures but shook her hand in a firm, no-way-compet.i.tive grip.

"Hate meeting people in the hall," he said, repeating his name.

"There now, that makes it official." She could feel her tension oozing away before she was seated.

Barbara glanced at her father, who was simply waiting.

Her game. She said, "Sheriff, as I mentioned on the phone, we represent Nell Kendricks, and there are a lot of questions about what happened during the days before her husband turned up on her land."

He was nodding.

"First thing," he said, "guess it's only right to tell you I 'we known John and Amy Kendricks all my life, known their family, and their family's families, too. Doesn't make me altogether unbiased, you see. John and I have been friends for a long, long time."

"I think that can only help," Barbara said.

"Nell doesn't believe Lucas killed that girl."

"Anything to go on besides that? Just what she thinks?"

"I'm afraid not much. She said when she saw him he was too happy to have something like that on his mind.

He was laughing."

Sheriff LeMans had seated himself on the edge of his desk, one leg swinging; now he stood up and went to one of the walls with a roll-up map. He pulled it down.

"I'll give you what we know," he said.

"Lucas showed up at his dad's place Monday night, June fifth. Left Tuesday morning about eight-thirty." He pointed to a spot on the map south of Bend. His fingers were broad; they looked too thick to play an instrument of any sort.

"He stopped for gas here in Bend, paid cash, and next thing he shows up in Sisters." He traced the road.

"At twenty before ten he was buying camping gear including topo maps of the Sisters Wilderness, then the supermarket for food, and then he went to the cafe where he got coffee and a Danish."

He took his hand away from the map and studied the floor for a second or two.

"The girls were in the cafe before he showed up, laughing, giggling, being silly.

There's pictures of the llamas on the cafe walls, and they were going on about them, didn't believe anyone out here had llamas, like that. Three, four people in the cafe were kidding around with them. The girls were from Austin, Texas, on their way to Alaska, hiking, hitching rides, going by bus, camping out, having themselves a real ball.

That day they were going to go on into Eugene by bus, but it wasn't due in Sisters until late afternoon, so they had plenty of time. Anyway, in comes this guy that no one knows, and he says he's going to pa.s.s right by the Eagleton place if they want a ride out there. It's early enough to ride out there, look around, and then walk back to town, a couple of miles, in time to make their bus, and that's what they decide to do. No one gives much thought to it.

He seems nice enough, and two girls, with one guy driving, all that. Besides Tyler Drury made a point of taking down the license number, and the guy just grins, like it's a big joke." He turned back to the map and pointed again.

"That's the Eagleton place, and on the way there they got to talking and the guy told them he was going over the mountain, be on the other side by early afternoon, and one of the girls decides she'd rather do that than hang out in Sisters most of the day. The other one. Candy, wants to take pictures of the llamas. So they split. Candy was going to walk back to Sisters after she got the pictures, catch the bus later on, and be at a friend's house in Eugene that evening. The other one, Janet Moseley, left with the guy."

The car, he went on, pointing as he traced its route, headed out one of the forest service roads, over a crushed red lava roadway, and made it all the way to the lava beds, probably went in a bit beyond the county line, and then had to come back out because the road had washed out.

When they found the car it was headed back the way it had gone in, so Lucas must have turned around and at least started out that way.

His voice went altogether flat then.

"Whatever happened happened at the car. We found some of her clothes on the ground by it, a boot under the car, blood on the ground. She had a broken jaw, two teeth broken all the way out. Her neck was broken, and she had a deep gash on the side of her head. She got hit real hard, and fell real hard. Raped, sodomized, torn up pretty bad inside."

He stopped and didn't continue this time until Frank said, "The news stories said she was mutilated."

"I know what they said. I'll tell you the rest, but it's not for the papers. Agreed?" They both nodded.

"Right.

He, whoever it was, tied her hands together and dragged her by the rope over the lava bed to the other side where the mountain starts going down and tossed her in the creek over there."

"Oh, dear G.o.d," Barbara whispered.

"Was she still alive?"

"Yes. Probably unconscious, maybe paralyzed from the broken neck. But she was alive and bleeding bad much of the way. Bleeding stopped finally, when she died, the medical examiner said, but she was cut up, lacerated, d.a.m.n near skinned before she ever reached the creek."

Suddenly the air-conditioned room was like a freezer.

Barbara hugged her arms about herself.

"I'll get us some coffee," Sheriff LeMans said, and strode from the room.

Neither spoke again until he returned. The coffee was terrible, but it was hot. The sheriff watched Barbara shrewdly, and after she had swallowed a bit of the steaming coffee he said, "We know she was still alive at about one o'clock. She was taking pictures. Photographer here said the shadows were one o'clock shadows. Of course, he could have taken them, but her prints were on the cam era, no one else's."

"But how did she end up in the McKenzie River?" Barbara asked.

"That part's easy enough. In June all those creeks were high with runoff. And they all end up draining into the McKenzie on that side of the pa.s.s. Took a couple of days, but it was bound to happen sooner or later."

"And Lucas? What next on him?"

"Nothing definite. We put trackers to work on it and found where he probably camped each night.

I say probably because all we can be sure of is that someone camped in those places during that time. Here's the first one."

Again his thick, competent finger landed on the map, this time across the county line in Lane County.

"How far is that?" Frank asked in surprise.

"Too far to get in an afternoon?"

Sheriff LeMans shrugged.

"Depends on who you are and how much hiking you've done and how recently, and how well you know the country, and how much a rush you're in. Funny thing, though. When Lucas turned up dead, I called the medical examiner and asked a few questions and I don't think Lucas was in that good shape.

Hard-worked hands, calluses, but not muscular like a hiker. And he was wearing work boots, not hiking boots.

No traction, no support. His feet were badly blistered and infected. But there's not a sign of a camp before that one, and believe me, we looked."

He pointed out the campsites for the next three nights, and then he went around his desk and sat down regarding them both with a sober expression.

"Now, that's what I know, like I said. But there are some funny things, real funny things, going on. And I don't know what to make of them. First off, a guy comes in here and hires the same tracker we use to retrace the route Lucas must have taken. Pays good money, too much money. Just goes in and looks, takes pictures for a book he says he intends to write about the crime. So our guy thinks okay, nothing wrong with making a buck. But I got curious and I went back a week, two weeks after that, and every single campsite has been torn apart. Looks to us as if three or four guys went in there searching for something, and they hit every spot where he landed."

"What about the car?" Barbara asked after a moment.

Sheriff LeMans nodded.

"Same thing. We kept it for the lab boys to go over and then released it to John. Nell, she said she didn't want it, to let him do whatever he wanted. So he and Amy came over and he drove it home.

That night someone ripped it apart, took off upholstery, ripped up the floor boards, made a real mess. They did it very quietly, didn't make a sound. And," he said more slowly, "after that happened John told me that when he and Amy came home, after Lucas was killed, and they were up near Pendleton at the time, but when they got home the house had been ransacked. He hadn't mentioned it before because what was the point? They thought vandals, kids, dope heads something like that. Now he doesn't think so."

Barbara felt there was too much to think about. She didn't even know what questions she wanted to ask yet. It didn't make any sense. None of it made any sense.

"Who could have known the body would end up in the river, in the lake? He must have^ intended to hide it. But that's crazy because he knew someone had taken down his license number."

"Not as crazy as it sounds," the sheriff said.

"The license was stolen, and the battery. Both from a Corvette down in Colorado, a psychiatrists's car. She was in England at the time."

Barbara shook her head. Battery? She let that go for the moment.

"Of course, that water would have washed away a lot of evidence, s.e.m.e.n, for example. But from what you say, rape was clearly evident?"

"No mistake about that. But you're right, no s.e.m.e.n, no blood."

"What else then? The time of death? When was the time of death?"

"The cold water makes that almost impossible. All we've got for sure are the pictures taken at one, and the fact that he made camp before dark and took at least eight hours to reach it. Ten's more like it, if you ask me, but that's opinion, not fact."

She looked at him sharply, studied his broad face.

"You don't think he did it?"