Let Loose (5 page)

Snarls, saliva, and fur flew through the
small space for a good twenty seconds before the female made her
position known by slamming the wayward youth to the ground by the
throat and holding him there, pinned.

I wasn’t completely new to the world of dog.
I could tell the disturbance, disturbing though it had been, had
also been mainly show. Still I held my breath, praying I was right
and staring straight ahead while the female decided if all was as
it should be/under her control.

A few seconds later, quiet settled over the
Jeep and all of its passengers. I slid the vehicle into drive and
pressed the gas, slowly.

Ten yards rolled under my tires and the
female, looking victorious and more than a little cocky, leaped
into the passenger seat beside me.

Happy with herself, she wagged her tail,
turned in a circle and then sat in a position that allowed her to
alternate her gaze between me and the seven dogs behind us.

Praying everyone in the back had learned
their lesson and my shotgun-riding friend wouldn’t feel the need to
intervene with them again, I pushed the accelerator down and headed
to the campground. I might not have been a member of Mensa, but it
wasn’t hard to guess that the dogs were most likely connected to
Red, who was, last I heard, camping there.

From the road, the campground looked
deserted, although there were obvious signs that Martin, Red and
perhaps others had visited the area since last the last snowfall
just a few days earlier.

Parallel ruts in the snow led over the small
bridge and into the campground. I eyed the trail for a good three
minutes, weighing the odds of getting my Jeep stuck before deciding
the best plan was to just park where I was. The Jeep had 4 wheel
drive but I was lacking the testosterone to push me to test the
theory that my rig could truly go anywhere I chose to drive it.

I pulled off the road as far as I felt I
safely could, which wasn’t much, and turned off the ignition.

Through the trees, I could see a flatbed
truck with a giant red wooden box on its bed. Two rows of tiny
doors lined the box’s sides. Beside it, backed into the snow, was a
small, one- or two-person travel trailer.

I’m not sure if it was the sudden lack of
forward motion or the sight of their home on wheels, but my
passengers began to get a tad restless, howling and pawing at each
other and in general creating a ruckus that surely sent all small
furry preylike critters in a ten-mile radius running.

Covering my ears, I looked at the
self-appointed bitch in charge. She blinked back at me as if to say
“What do you expect?” and then positioned herself on all fours in a
way that left no doubt that if I exited, she was coming with.

I muttered under my breath and did more
weighing, this time contemplating the damage the other dogs might
do to my vehicle unsupervised, against the blood she would surely
shed if left in the confined space with her unruly pack.

Muttering more, I dug through the debris of
fast food containers, pens and three library books on organizing
your life that, now that I thought about it, were a month overdue,
until I found one of Kiska’s leashes. With it latched onto the
collar on her neck, I squeezed the two of us out of the
vehicle.

The rest of her pack stared at us with
disbelieving and hurt eyes, but the female didn’t seem to care. She
was too busy prancing forward and tugging me to where I hoped we
would find her leader.

As I got closer to the truck outfitted to
carry the dog team, I realized that all of the doors to the
portable dog homes were swung open.

I looked at my companion. “That explains how
you got let loose at least.”

Or did it? One door could easily have a
faulty latch, but all eight? That seemed unlikely. Also, based on
my brief time with the dogs, even if they had all somehow managed
to escape their boxes on their own, I couldn’t see them sneaking
off quietly. Surely Red would have heard them.

But then again, they were sled dogs. Maybe
they had just run and not thought to take the time to celebrate
their freedom until meeting up with me.

Lucky me.

Sighing, I turned to slog my way through the
snow and rap on the camper’s door. I’d gone maybe six feet when my
companion locked all four legs and refused to budge. Her nose
lifted to the wind, and she inhaled.

I politely tugged on her leash.

She just as politely ignored me. Actually,
she twisted ninety degrees and pulled me toward the National Forest
land that backed the campground.

I thought about fighting her. She was at most
half of Kiska’s size. But then she did a little hop pull that
contained such determination and drive I couldn’t help but want to
see what exactly had drawn her attention.

I didn’t have to follow her far to find the
answer.

Laying face down in the snow with a hole
blown in the back of his head was Red Benson.

The hole in Red’s head told me he was dead.
There was no reason to investigate that further. After giving
myself a moment to let the shock of finding yet another body wear
off, I stumbled back to the road, tugging the dog with me.

I continued walking until I was standing in
the middle of the road where the next vehicle to pass by would
either see me or hit me.

I’m not sure how long I stood there waiting.
Anywhere else, I’d have called the police, but the campground did
not have cell service. Most of my road didn’t either.

I could have driven to town or home or a
neighbor’s, but all of these options would have meant leaving the
body unattended. Maybe I’d watched too many spy movies as a kid,
but I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I did, I’d return to
nothing but a smoothed over place in the snow where Red had
been.

Finally, a 1990’s sedan heading toward town
moved into view. I made sure I did too, holding out my arms and
waving them over my head.

Craig Ryan was behind the wheel. He slowed to
a stop, and I told him what I’d found. He glanced from me to the
campground.

“Are you sure it’s Red, and that he’s
dead?”

Helena is a small city and Red had, according
to Betty, been here a long time. Craig might know him, beyond
having just seen him at the fund-raiser as I had. I softened my
voice. “He’s dead. There’s no doubt.”

The image of the back of Red’s head was
something I was going to have a hard time forgetting.

“...and I know it’s Red. I didn’t see his
face, but I know he was camping here.” Plus the body was male and
the same general size I remembered the race organizer being.

After another disturbed look at the
campground, Craig gave me a short nod and agreed to use his cell to
call the police as soon as he was within cell range.

“Should I tell them you found him?” he
asked.

I appreciated that he thought I might want to
stay anonymous and his unspoken offer to cover for me, but hiding
that I’d found another body would not have been a smart move. I’d
been through this enough times to know that.

After Craig left, I stood for another moment
or two, caught by indecision.

Good citizens didn’t go poking around murder
scenes. Good citizens sat in their cars and waited for the police,
who would soon be on their way, to arrive.

But sitting in my Jeep wasn’t going to tell
me anything about what had happened to Red. And, heaven knew, once
the police arrived, they weren’t going to be telling me anything
either.

And being an honest person, I had to admit
two things. One, that I wasn’t going to be able to relax until I
knew more about what had happened to Red, and two, that I wasn’t
really all that great of a citizen. Just ask Phyllis.

So back over the bridge to Red we went.

He was just as the dog and I had left him,
face down with a bloody wound taking up more of the back of his
skull than I cared to think about.

I cleared my throat, fought down the bile
that seemed determined to make its way up, and glanced around for
something to toss over the body before realizing this would not be
a good idea. Disturbing the evidence and all of that.

Instead, I stood in place and pulled cold,
dry air in through my nose. The feel of my lungs contracting from
the assault gave me something else to focus on for a second. I
closed my eyes, counted to five and then studied the scene.

All the doors to the dogs’ boxes were open.
Straw poked out of some of them. I didn’t know Red, but my guess
was that he would not have left the doors open that way, with or
without occupants. Which meant at some point, someone had come
through and opened the doors.

Before or after Red was shot? Could that have
been the reason he was shot? Had someone been trying to steal the
dogs, and Red caught them?

But if so, why was the shot in the back of
his head? And why had the dogs been left to run off?

Neither made sense.

I returned my attention to Red and analyzed
how he had fallen. His feet were pointing at the truck. His head
was pointing at the woods or maybe the campsite to the right of
this one. It was hard to tell for sure.

But he’d been walking away from the truck.
Why? Had he heard something? Or had he been going to get something?
Anywhere else, I’d guess a phone, but obviously that couldn’t be
the case here. Looking for fallen branches for a fire maybe? I
glanced around and saw no signs that the fire pit that sat not far
from the camper had been used recently.

That, of course, didn’t mean Red hadn’t
planned to use it, but as cold as it had been, I personally would
pick staying inside the camper, with its propane heat, over sitting
next to a fire that might warm the closest foot, maybe two.

My gaze shifted to the camper. There could
have been a clue inside it, but unfortunately, fifteen feet of
mostly unmarred snow lay between me and the trailer, completely
obliterating any possibility that I could take a peek inside
without someone, namely the police, noticing my trail.

I eyed the tracks Red had made on his own
trek between truck and trailer. “I could walk in those, don’t you
think?” I asked my companion.

She looked up at me, unjudging, but
unbelieving too.

I sighed. “Fine. Let’s walk this way.” I
tugged on her leash and lead her around the truck, back to the side
that faced the main road. “His back was facing this way... So the
shooter had to be...” I squinted my eyes as if that would give me
some kind of super-powered eyesight before realizing I knew nothing
about the weapon used, how close someone would have to be to create
the hole I’d seen in Red’s skull or really anything else of
use.

“...behind him,” I finished, weakly.

The dog lifted her right hind foot to scratch
behind her ear.

Okay, so maybe not an impressive
newsflash.

I crossed my arms over my chest and surveyed
the scene again.

If he had being going toward the trees, maybe
my answer lay there.

I took a step forward and found myself facing
the same problem I’d had with checking Red’s trailer. Snow. Deep,
smooth, previously undisturbed snow.

I cursed every fluffy inch of it.

“Lucy?” The call from my left caused me to
jump, jerking on my friend’s leash. She gave me a quick annoyed
glance, then leapt to her feet and dashed forward, pulling the lead
from my hand and plowing through the snow I’d been so determined to
preserve.

Martin Phillips, dressed in heavy duty tan
overalls, a flapped hat and his high tech jacket, strode toward me.
His checks were red, in a rugged, outdoorsy way, and for a second I
couldn’t do more than stare and let my brain stutter.

Then I remembered why I’d been standing here
not walking through the snow
that he was demolishing with
amazingly quick swings of his obviously powerful legs.

“Wait!” I yelled holding up one hand, but it
was too late. Martin had bent down to greet my companion, who was
dancing around him, throwing snow and undoubtedly, obliterating
evidence.

This was, I knew from experience, somehow
going to be my fault.

The sound of car doors slamming and men
talking drew my attention to the road behind me. Police cars. Right
on cue.

o0o

I started to tell Martin why I was there and
who had just arrived, but before I could, another voice called my
name, causing me to press my lips together and wait. Martin would
learn what had happened soon enough and Detective Stone, whose
voice I recognized, would not be happy if he thought I’d interfered
in his investigation in any way. Glancing at the dog-disturbed
snow, I knew I was already in trouble. No need to add to it by
filling in Martin at this point.

Within seconds, Detective Rob Stone and three
other officers in uniform appeared on our side of the bridge.

The dog stopped her dance and sat down,
facing them.

I gritted my teeth and waited for whatever
accusations, lectures and general unpleasantries were about to
come.

“Lucy.” Stone scowled at me before sliding
his gaze to Martin. “I heard you found another body.” His eyes
moved over the scene, pausing at the messed up snow before moving
on.

Martin stiffened. “Body?”

A measure of shame washed over me, but I was
still confident that I’d made the right call, not only for me, but
Martin too. It was good for Stone to witness his shock.

I waved to where Red lay. “Over there.” Then
I took a step toward Martin. “It’s Red. Someone shot him.” I said
the words softly as if that would somehow ease the news.

Martin blinked. “Red?” He glanced down at the
dog who had settled down at his side. “Is he okay?”

I shook my head, but Stone stepped in front
of me, cutting off my conversation. “Why don’t you talk to Chuck by
the cars.” He pointed to the road with one hand and motioned to one
of the uniformed officers with the other. “I’ll...” He turned so he
could see Martin. “talk to...?”