Authors: Sarah Varland
And it
was
a crime scene. That had taken McKenna no time to realize. The pool of blood under the man and the wound she could see looked consistent with a gunshot.
In fact, the entire scene looked eerily familiar.
Her throat tightened and she fought to take even breaths. Frustration warred with the panic that was building—she needed to be able to handle this. Captain Wilkins was right—she had the training, the tools needed to solve this case. She just needed to pull herself together and do it. “Thanks for bringing me,” McKenna whispered to Anna.
“So it’s connected to your case?” Anna looked pleased that she’d been able to help.
“I’m pretty sure.” McKenna looked around the dark expanse of rugged shoreline. The wind from the Arctic Ocean stabbed through her clothes, even with the coat she’d grabbed on her way out the door. She shivered.
Anna walked toward the other emergency personnel.
McKenna did her best to stay out of the way, since this wasn’t her crime scene. Anna and the other paramedic, who had apparently arrived just minutes before her, were examining the body, and a man from the North Slope Bureau Police Department stood nearby.
“Looks like he hasn’t been gone long.” Anna shook her head.
“Even if someone had found him sooner,” the other paramedic began, “blood loss would have been too great.”
An even greater heaviness seemed to descend on the scene. McKenna wandered to the edge of the lit-up area and scanned the darkness that surrounded them. Nothing seemed out of place. In fact, everything seemed peaceful and utterly quiet. Too quiet for her taste, since it left nothing to distract her from the clamorous thoughts in her mind.
Why would someone shoot a man this far out of town and leave him there?
Or maybe the better question was, what was he doing so far out of town that ended up getting him shot?
This wasn’t like some of the cases she’d heard about at the trooper academy, where people got in fights and killed each other in the heat of the moment. Cases like that were all too common in the Alaskan bush because of the rampant alcohol abuse. No, this was different. This was planned, in a location where there would be no witnesses.
She could see no signs of a struggle from where she stood. She assumed there might have been tracks of some kind that could have been investigated, but those would have been compromised when the first paramedic responded to the scene. She didn’t fault them for not preserving the integrity of the area—the possibility that they could save a life had to come first.
She pulled out a notebook she’d been using to jot down thoughts about the case, and recorded everything she saw, including impressions about the man, from what she could see of him. He was dressed in hunting camo.
“Who called this in?” McKenna asked when Anna came near her again.
She pointed to a man who looked to be a civilian. “That guy over there. His name is George. He’s one of Barrow’s most vocal residents. Have you met him yet?”
McKenna noted Anna’s raised eyebrows, and her own raised in curiosity for what could cause her to have that reaction to the man. “No, I haven’t.”
“Talking to him might be a good place to start. Just...don’t let him get to you. He can be kind of abrasive.”
McKenna made her way to where the man stood. He was Native Alaskan and was one of those people who seemed to defy the ability to pinpoint age. She’d guess him to be in his early fifties, but knew she could be off by twenty years either way. “Excuse me, sir?” she said to get his attention as she approached.
He met her gaze and the expression in his eyes shifted from disinterest in the scene around him to unmistakable contempt. “What do you want?”
“I have a couple of questions about how you found this man here.”
“You’re the new wildlife trooper, aren’t you?”
“I am. I’m McKenna Clark.”
He looked at her outstretched hand but didn’t reach for it. “That man, he isn’t wildlife. So why do you care?”
“I care because I’m concerned he may be related to another case I’m working on.”
The man smirked. “Ah.”
His knowing smile made her uneasy. He couldn’t know about that case, could he? The details of it had been kept quiet. Since those murders had occurred so far out of town, no one could know about them. Could they?
She cleared her throat, hoping he’d give her some details that could help. “So, could you tell me how you found him? What were you doing out this way?”
“Wildlife troopers are just in the way up here. I hope you know that. You mess with the native way of life. The government has no business telling us how or when we can hunt.”
So much for getting his cooperation.
“Could you answer the question, please?” she asked firmly, hoping she’d mostly kept the irritation she could feel rising in her throat out of her tone of voice.
“All the government has brought here are too many rules, too many regulations and too many men who care nothing for the land or the animals and use them for their own gain. We need to protect our land from the government and from his kind.” He jerked his head in the direction of the dead man. “Not the other way around.”
So, that was a no, then—he wouldn’t be answering her question, or helping her in any way. “I guess you’re not up for questions.” She sighed and turned away, walking closer to where the paramedics were now loading the dead man into a medevac helicopter. Then she froze.
His kind?
What had George meant by that?
She turned around to ask him, but he was gone. Either he’d lost himself in the cluster of emergency personnel—not likely since there were only three of them—or he’d wandered far enough away to not be illuminated by the lights.
Something told her he knew more than he was saying. So the question was, could he be a valuable asset to helping her solve the murders?
Or was he the one behind them?
* * *
Will was just leaving for work when he got an SOS text from McKenna telling him the coffeemaker at the trooper post was broken and asking if he could bring her some. He checked his watch. He’d planned to leave early just because he’d woken up early, but he didn’t need to be at work for over an hour. This would provide a good excuse to make sure she hadn’t had any more threats or close calls she hadn’t told him about, before he got to work and prepared for his afternoon hunt.
He made the coffee and texted her back that he was coming, to which she’d replied
Thanks. I’ve been up almost all night.
That had made him pick up the pace even more. Had there been a new lead on the case? He’d barely put his truck in Park before he got out and ran to pound on the door of McKenna’s office.
“Hi! I found out some information on the man who was shot on the beach.” McKenna’s eyes glittered with excitement. “Are you ready?”
“Whoa.” He held the coffee mug and carafe away from her. “You sound like you’re caffeinated enough.”
“Not a drop yet today, mister. Give me that coffee and nobody gets hurt.”
He handed it to her and she poured herself a mug, took a long sip and smiled. “Ah. I can think better now. Okay. Ready?”
“First, what man on the beach?”
“I forgot, you didn’t know.” She took a deep breath and filled him in on the previous night’s events. He could picture her, silhouetted by the glow of the lights the investigators and paramedics would have been using, while a killer was out there and after her. It wasn’t a picture he liked, but if it had produced a lead, maybe he should try not to think about it. “Should I be sitting down for this?” he asked.
She seemed to consider it. “Nah. It’s exciting, but not game changing.”
“Okay. Go ahead.”
“His name is Seth Davison.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Exactly. That’s because he wasn’t a local. We talked to his family and found out he was here on a hunting trip.”
Will shook his head. “I don’t see how that’s a lead. Just about everyone who comes here is here to hunt.”
“You’re probably right. But it’s still something to look into. Especially since the other two victims were here to hunt, too. There has to be a connection.”
“So where will you start?”
“Investigating the hunting-guide companies around here. Starting today with your competition. Tomorrow I’ll be at Truman.”
Rick was going to love that. Much as Will wanted her to do whatever it took to solve the case, even if it made people uncomfortable, he knew her inquiry into Rick’s business wasn’t going to make his boss easy to handle.
“My boss is not going to like that.”
McKenna laughed. “Of course he’s not going to like it. No one likes being investigated for anything. But I’ve got to follow up on this, just in case.”
“You’re right.” And she was. But he’d rather be anywhere but Barrow when Rick found out he was being investigated. He was a decent boss and usually an easygoing guy—but stress brought out the worst in anybody.
“What do you think?” She studied him, insecurity flickering in her eyes. McKenna, insecure? He wouldn’t have guessed it. Will had known her since she was born but he had a feeling he could know her for years more and not
really
know everything about her. She was more intriguing, more complex, than anyone he’d ever known.
“I think it’s a good idea to investigate any possible lead you can.”
“But you don’t think it’s going to turn up anything.”
“Not really.”
“Because you trust your boss that much?”
“Not that, I just don’t know why you’d suspect the hunting agencies. Just because the victims came to hunt doesn’t mean they were with a company. Maybe they planned to hunt with local friends, or hire a pilot.”
“But you do see that hunting is connected somehow.”
“I see how it
seems
connected. What do they call that—circumstantial evidence?”
She leveled him with a glare, took a long sip of coffee. “Humor me for a minute here. Or do you have to go?”
Will glanced at his watch. Still half an hour to spare. He looked around the room and his eyes settled on a metal folding chair propped against one of the walls. He grabbed it, opened it and sat. “Go ahead, I’m all yours.” He cringed when the words came out. He hadn’t meant them that way.
But if McKenna noticed how...awkwardly they could be taken, she didn’t say. She just went on.
“I’m assuming the deaths on the tundra and the body on the beach are connected somehow. The scenes felt very similar, and all the victims came to this area to hunt. Still with me?”
“Yeah, I see where you’re going. Hunting is coming up everywhere.”
“Exactly.”
“Handy, since you’re a wildlife trooper.”
McKenna grinned. “Ha-ha.” Then her face fell. “But beyond that, I’m just guessing. I’m going to investigate the hunting companies, see if anyone has heard of any of the three victims and just check for anything questionable in general in how those companies are operated.”
“Maybe...”
“What?”
Will leaned forward, elbows on his knees, to meet McKenna’s eyes. “I’m no trooper, but I am a hunter. Maybe I can help you brainstorm, try to help you understand what could have gone on. I’ve got a lot of experience with the people who come out here to hunt. The guys I take on trips with me usually have a certain personality type—maybe understanding that could help in some way.”
She seemed to consider his proposal, then nodded, and he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d held.
“Now,” he began, “you have to realize this is just a general picture. I don’t know if your dead guys fit this or not.”
“Speculation could help my mind figure something out, so I’ll take what I can get.”
“Okay. The hunters who come here are almost always confident. That’s a given if they’re ever going to get anything. Sometimes they’re cocky. But they’re usually men who enjoy many parts of the outdoors, not just hunting.”
“Makes sense so far. What else?”
“They have a certain way they like to do things when they hunt. They have established patterns.”
She frowned a little and he could tell he’d lost her. “Let me try again. What I mean is that they tend to wear the same clothes. They’ll have a favorite jacket, often they’re sentimental about a particular gun and prefer to hunt with it.”
“They’re creatures of habit.” McKenna nodded as she took notes.
“Any ideas whether or not the dead men fit that profile?”
She shook her head. “I wish I knew more about them.” Her eyes narrowed a little as she focused on a distant spot on the wall. “I feel like there’s something in my mind, something about what you just said...”
“It’ll come to you.”
“Yeah. It will. It has to, because I’m going to solve this case.”
In spite of the confident words, Will heard the waver in her tone, wished he could do something to bolster her, help her not doubt herself. But did
he
have full confidence that she could figure this out? He honestly didn’t know.
Instead, he reached for her hand, gave it a quick squeeze. “I’ve got to head to work. You be careful.”
She promised she would. And Will prayed she was telling the truth.
SIX
M
cKenna pored over paperwork in the office at Truman Hunting Expeditions for hours the following day, her attention taken away from her task periodically by Will smiling at her and Rick glaring at her.
The contrast made it difficult to focus.
At just after five, she gave up. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she knew she hadn’t found it. There was nothing interesting—no names she recognized, no signs of illegal activity.
“Are you done here?” Rick asked her, seeing her standing from her spot at the desk.
“I think I am.” She looked around one last time, trying to ignore his tone as she scrutinized the area to make sure there was nothing she’d missed. But everything was as it should have been. Her investigations into the two biggest guide companies in the area had yielded zero results. Frustrated didn’t begin to describe the way she was starting to feel. Which was why she paused at the door, turned back to face Rick. “You haven’t heard of a guy named Seth Davison, have you?”
Rick shook his head. “I don’t think I know him. Why?”
“No reason.” She paused. “Actually, there is a reason. He’s dead. And the last thing anyone knew about him, he was up here on a hunting trip.”
“You checked my books. I didn’t take him.”
She had looked specifically for Seth’s name, along with the other two. Knew they weren’t there. She’d been hoping Rick might give something away if she caught him off guard, but he was either an excellent liar or he had nothing to hide. “All right.”
“Maybe he went with another guide service.”
She’d checked them all. As far as any of them or their records were concerned, the three men didn’t exist.
“No one’s heard of him. Thank you for your cooperation,” she forced herself to say. Will’s boss may not have been polite, but he had been cooperative. And since he was also apparently innocent of any wrongdoing, she needed to make sure to stay on good terms with him, since, given the job, it was inevitable that they would cross paths again.
He seemed to relax. “You’re welcome.”
“I’m going to head out,” Will let Rick know as he gathered his things and followed her.
“See you.”
Once they were in the parking lot, McKenna let out a deep breath. “That’s not how I expected things to go.”
“What do you mean?”
She shook her head. “Let’s wait until we’re in private. I shouldn’t have said anything yet.”
They climbed into her car and she drove them to her and Anna’s house. Anna wasn’t home yet—she must be working late.
“So are you going to tell me what you meant back there in the parking lot?” Will asked once they’d settled in on the living room couch. She’d seated herself next to the arm, leaving plenty of space beside her, but he’d taken the other end of the couch. McKenna wished they were closer. She was pretty sure that after a few minutes of sitting with Will with his arms around her, she’d be able to relax and the headache she was getting from this case would disappear.
She tried to shake the image from her head. As though that scenario would ever happen. He wasn’t interested in her in that way. Never had been. Which was why she wouldn’t allow herself to get interested in him, either. She wouldn’t even let herself ask for comfort—not when she was sure it would only add to his certainty that she was some fragile creature unsuited to handle the stresses of her job.
“I just thought once I found out that the men on the tundra and the one at the beach were hunters... I was probably grasping at straws. Outsiders come here to hunt. Since all three men were nonlocals, it stands to reason that they were hunters. But that might have nothing to do with their deaths at all.”
“Hey, don’t beat yourself up. It could have and you checked it out.”
She shrugged. “I was just so sure I’d found the connection.”
“You don’t feel like you missed anything, though, do you?”
“No.” McKenna didn’t hesitate. “I checked everything I could. Your boss may not be the most charming person in the world, but his records check out. I’d say his business is completely legit.”
“So where do you focus your attention now?”
“I want to follow up on George, that guy I met last night.”
“I doubt you’ll find much information about him. He’s one of those guys everyone knows but no one knows much about.”
“I’m up for the challenge.”
“You suspect him because of his opposition to wildlife troopers?”
“Not just that. Last night he seemed downright hostile toward the guy who was dead. Essentially said he’d gotten what was coming to him.” Chills ran up and down her spine as she said the words. “If those aren’t the words of a potential killer...”
“He could be all talk, though. Guys like him often are.”
She thought of the man’s smirk, of the depth of hopelessness in his eyes. “And he might not be.”
“You’re taking a serious risk looking into him any further, McKenna. If he
is
the killer, then he’s the same man who broke into your house, who tried to kill us.”
“It’s my job, Will.” How many times did they have to go over this? McKenna couldn’t deny the anxious knot in her stomach at the idea of talking to a possible murderer. But it was something she
had
to do.
Will stared at her. She stared back. Unflinching.
Will broke first. “Be careful.”
“Always.”
* * *
“Seriously, Will. I’ll be fine,”
McKenna had said with a smile as she’d said goodbye to him last night. His gut was sick at the thought of her investigating by herself. He wished he could go with her, but the group scheduled for today had been on the calendar for months. He couldn’t cancel it. This group was made up of a couple of pastors from Anchorage and some men from their church and since he’d been their guide in years past, they’d asked for him specifically. And if it weren’t for his worry over McKenna, he’d be looking forward to it.
Will tossed his duffel bag into his truck and started toward the Truman Hunting Expeditions office. As he pulled up, he surveyed the outside. It was a pretty nice building, well kept anyway. It was essentially a portable structure, about the size of a single-wide trailer. Rick had done a good job maintaining it and keeping up with things like repainting.
Will shut off his truck and let himself into the office. It didn’t seem like Rick or Matt were there yet. His clients weren’t supposed to arrive for another couple of hours—he couldn’t remember the exact time, but knew it was midmorning—which gave him plenty of time to get things set up for them.
As he walked past Rick’s desk, the calendar caught his eye. Thinking Rick might have written down the exact time his clients were arriving, he looked at today’s date.
Yep, there they were. Nine-thirty. He’d be ready in plenty of time.
Will started to walk away, but turned back to the calendar. Many of the days in the past few weeks were blank, or only showed hunts he and Matt had led. Not Rick. But Rick had been out of the office, presumably working, several times.
Will frowned and shook his head, knowing his boss’s schedule was none of his business. Guilt for looking at the calendar in the first place troubled him, but his intent hadn’t been to be nosy. He’d just needed to confirm the time for his trip today.
Still, something about the calendar bothered him as he completed his morning routine and readied the plane for the flight he and his clients would be taking. Maybe Rick had had business meetings on those days he’d been out of the office—with the bank, perhaps, to talk about the financial issues he seemed to be having. But wouldn’t those appointments be on the calendar, too? Was Rick leaving the office on those days for something completely unrelated to work? As far as Will knew, Rick and his wife had a decent marriage. But maybe something weird was going on with his boss’s personal life that was making him sneak around.
Worst-case scenario, as far as he could guess, was that maybe Rick was taking people hunting off the books. He’d heard of guys doing it before—taking friends for a hunt and accepting the “gift” of money they were given for doing so. That way the money wasn’t taxable, a big deal in a business like guided hunting, where one trip could pay upward of ten thousand dollars.
He pushed that suspicion away. Just because Rick was a private guy and didn’t run the business the way Will would didn’t mean he’d break the law. Besides, McKenna had looked through the important files and paperwork yesterday and hadn’t discovered anything out of the ordinary. All the incidents with McKenna’s case had made him suspicious of everyone.
Will finished his preflight checklist and sent up a brief prayer, as he always did, that God would protect those on his airplane today and give them success and safety on their hunt.
When his clients showed up, Will had a smile on his face and was more ready than he’d been in a long time to take people out on the tundra to enjoy the sport he loved.
* * *
Will’s tortured expression from last night haunted McKenna all the way to work. The way he’d begged her, a strange vulnerability in his eyes, not to investigate today without him there, had tugged at her heart. Was it possible his protectiveness wasn’t because he thought she was incompetent but just because he didn’t want her to get hurt—maybe even because he cared for her? McKenna was afraid to hope that might be the case. So she’d refused his offer, had insisted she’d be fine. But last night had been full of torturous nightmares that reminded her that someone out there wanted her dead, and perhaps it would be wise of her to heed Will’s request to wait for his help.
So today she was putting the murder case out of her mind. At least until she got her rounds made checking harvest tickets and hunting licenses to make sure everyone was hunting according to the rules.
This part of the job was something she was relatively familiar with, though she hadn’t done it as much when she’d been stationed in Anchorage. There were areas close to the city that were used for hunting, but up here it was a huge part of people’s lives.
McKenna had been reviewing all the data she could find in her little office about past cases at this trooper post. It looked as if hunting violations, the issue she was dealing with today, usually happened for the same reasons. Either the person was ignorant—which seemed to be the rarest cause for a violation—or they were deliberately breaking the law, either because they wanted to harvest more than the legal limit or because they’d been too lazy to go through the proper channels.
And then there was the last reason, which was the most difficult for her to deal with. Sometimes native Alaskans would hunt without proper licenses and with no regard to set seasons because their ancestors had done so and they felt it was still their right.
Her mind flashed back to her conversation, or lack thereof, with George the night before on the beach. He had made no secret that he tended toward that view. She knew better than to assume he hunted illegally just because of the beliefs he held about it, but it wouldn’t surprise her. She wondered how many others felt the way he did.
McKenna checked her map one last time before folding it up and putting it in the backpack she’d be bringing with her. Today she was taking the ATV out and patrolling the wilderness around Barrow, checking hunters’ documents as she came upon them. She was hoping doing so would help her establish herself in the area. It was also something Captain Wilkins had reminded her she needed to do last time they’d talked. Today seemed as good a day as any to do it. She didn’t relish the idea of being on the tundra alone, but this was her job. And since it wasn’t tied to the investigation, she should be at no more risk than usual. Some of the areas she needed to patrol would’ve been easier to access by plane, but since Will was working and she certainly wasn’t calling Chris, this would have to do.
McKenna shivered even though Chris was nowhere near her, strapped the backpack over the jacket she’d already put on and went outside to finish loading the last of the supplies she’d need for the day. She was almost ready to leave, when the phone in her office rang.
She took the front steps two at a time and snatched the phone up on the sixth ring. “Trooper Clark.”
“Don’t you sound professional,” a male voice teased.
“Luke? Why are you calling here?”
“Because it’s where you work. That, and I figured if I called your cell you might ignore me. You can’t very well ignore a work call.”
He knew her too well. On both counts.
“So, what’s up?” she asked, trying to keep her voice light. Was it too much to hope Luke had forgotten about her house being broken into?
“I wanted to see how you are.” His voice had deepened into what she recognized as his serious, Protective Older Brother tone. “This case sounds like it has the potential to be dangerous, so I wanted to check on you.”
“I’m doing fine. You do stuff like this all the time, Luke.”
“Yeah, but you’re my little sister. It’s my job to look out for you. And Will’s, since I asked him to.”
Any ideas from the night before that Will might be doing this because of...
feelings
for her evaporated from her mind as the truth settled on her with the grace of an anvil. He was watching out for her because of her relationship with her brother and because Luke, and maybe Will, too, didn’t believe she could handle the case on her own.
But she could. She’d just have to show them somehow. “I’m fine,” she insisted to Luke, determined not to let him hear how much his words bothered her.
“Just be careful, okay?”
“As much as I can be,” McKenna said, her resolve growing. “But I do have to do my job.”
“I know. Love you,” he added as they prepared to hang up.
Her heart softened a little. He might be overprotective, might be annoyingly competent at his own job sometimes, which made her feel as if she could never measure up, but he was her brother. “Love you, too.”
Ten minutes later, she was on a road out of town, headed into the remoteness of the tundra.
Sometimes the sheer vastness of this land overwhelmed her. It was beautiful, especially now, in the last few weeks of summer before winter came—there was no fall this far north. The shades of green were vibrant against a sapphire sky, and the bright pink of blooming fireweed provided more contrast to the scene. It was beautiful. So beautiful it was hard to believe that the land could be so deadly. The contradiction was difficult to wrap her mind around.