Perfect Touch (12 page)

The comfortable living room was quiet but for the insistent rush of the wind and an occasional rattle of the front door, which hadn't been closed hard enough to latch. The compact hearth was cold.

Wherever they are, they've been gone for hours at least. Depends on whether the spaghetti was for last night or tonight.

There was no way to tell. When Inge and Ivar were alone, she cooked enough to last several days.

Swiftly Jay walked through the rest of the cabin. The Solvangs were tidy folks, but there was enough mess everywhere that he
wondered if they were the only people who had been in the cabin.

When he went through the back door, he found Sara waiting. She looked pale, tight, and her eyes were almost black. He wanted to hold her, but he had another cabin and the main house to search. And the barn.

“What did you find?” she asked.

“Nothing definitive. Nobody home, no notes, nothing obviously missing or out of place.” His tone was clipped, information only, no emotion.

“Have they ever left without telling someone before now?”

“No.”

The word was like the man himself—remote.

“I wish I could shut down like you, but I can't,” she said. “I'm edgy. Scared.”

He holstered the pistol and took her hands in his own. Soldiers might be used to cold facts, but she wasn't.

“We're both okay,” he said, stroking her hands gently. “We'll find out what happened. There's probably a simple explanation and I'll feel like an idiot. But until then, I have to check the barn and the guest cabin and the main house, just to be sure. I can do it faster alone. Okay?”

“No.”

“No, as in you think I'll be faster with you?” he asked.

“I'll feel safer with you,” she said bluntly.

As much as he wanted to, he couldn't argue that fact. “How about I whistle up Skunk for company?”

“Won't that give us away?”

“Anyone who was interested would have seen us coming down the ridge to the pasture. Hard to hide thirty-odd cows, two dogs, and two horses with riders.”

“Then why are we sneaking—Oh, you think someone might be hiding in one of the buildings.”

“Possible, not real probable. But I'll feel better once the buildings are secured.”

“So will I.” She rubbed her arms. “Since we're working in possibilities, not probabilities, I want to stay with you. I'll do what you do, not ask questions, and in general not be the stupid blonde in the movie.”

He hesitated, then half smiled. “I don't think you could be stupid if you tried.”

“You should have seen me as a teenager,” she said under her breath.

“I'll go from here to the barn,” he said. “You wait to come until I signal. Clear?”

Her lips tightened, but she nodded. She knew better than to argue with him when he was in captain mode.

He watched the barn for a minute from the kitchen of the cabin. Then he walked among the widely spaced trees separating the cabins from the barn, keeping to cover when he could. The back of his neck was twitching before he got to the side door of the barn. He really hadn't liked coming across the open patches.

No bullets, so no sweat.

Inside, the barn was quiet, smelling more of machinery than horses or cows. Half the stalls had been converted to hold two ATVs, two snowmobiles, and the Jeep Scout that the caretakers used to go to town.

Either someone came to get them, or they walked out of here.

The vehicles were sitting oddly. Jay moved closer to investigate. The tires on the ATVs and the Scout were flat. A closer look told him that the air stems on the tires had been cut off. Easier than slashing tires and
just as efficient. When he looked into the old tack room, it was uninhabited. Messy, too.

Either Ivar has been sick, or someone was looking for something in a hurry.

The hayloft had been taken out when the Solvangs converted to machines, so Jay didn't have to climb up to check for anyone hiding.

He left the barn, took the path through the trees to the guest cabin, circled it, and waited. Only the wind moved, herding clouds until they stacked up again the Tetons. He listened carefully, then signaled for Sara to come over.

She was out of the house and across the yard like a sprinter leaving the starting blocks. Even so, by the time she got to the front of the guest cabin, he had already been through its small rooms. Messy rooms.

The more he saw, the less he liked any of it.

And the less sense it made.

“Did you find anything?” she asked quietly.

“Messy rooms. Flat tires.”

“What?”

“The ATVs and the Scout in the barn.” Before she could ask another question, he said, “The main house is next. Stay behind me.”

With every moment, he had become more and more certain that they were alone at Fish Camp. Even so, he approached the main house as cautiously as he had the caretakers' cabin, paying special attention to the small shed where the generator was kept.

Sara followed about ten feet behind him, not wanting to get in his way.

He went in the back door through the mudroom to the kitchen. The layout was similar to the caretakers' cabin, but more spacious. The woodstove in the kitchen was cold. The cupboards were open. So was
the pantry. Some of the canned goods were on the floor. A bag of beans had been cut open, sending the contents spilling out of the pantry into the kitchen.

A smashed shortwave radio lay on the floor.

Jay's mouth flattened into an even harder line. Everything he saw was adding up to something he didn't want to see at all.

Sara followed silently as he went through the main house. The living room and dining room were empty, furniture shoved here and there for no reason she could see. She followed him upstairs and saw the same—a mess. Winter gear on the floor, mattress askew, dresser lying on its face. The bathroom down the short hall was no better.

She felt like she was back in her motel room, putting together the wreckage of her suitcase, and each time she turned a corner things got worse. A cold that had nothing to do with the air made her clench her teeth to keep them from chattering. Slowly she became aware of Jay's hands running up and down her arms with gentle, steady sweeps that centered her.

“I'm okay,” she said hoarsely. “Just reminds me of my motel room. I feel like trouble is following me.” She took a deep breath, then another, and said again, “I'm okay.”

He squeezed her arms gently, then slowly let go and headed downstairs. He heard her footsteps behind him.

“This looks like someone had a tantrum,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Disappointed meth heads?”

“Possible.”

He headed down the stairs to the den, where JD had kept his papers and his poker cards and his booze. The rolltop desk was open. Another smashed shortwave radio lay on the floor near it.

That explains why Inge and Ivar didn't answer my call.

“I'm going to check the boathouse,” Jay said. “Why don't you lock up and wait for me downstairs.”

It wasn't a question. More like an order.

She surprised both of them by obeying.

He headed for the front door, the Glock once again in his hand.

J
AY WALKED THROUGH
the trees down the well-used path to the boathouse. Memories fought for his attention with every step on the quarter-mile trail, but he pushed them aside to be dealt with later. He had to stay focused on what was happening now. The past could wait. Nothing in it could be changed anyway.

Thirty feet short of the boathouse, he stopped under cover of the trees and studied what was ahead. The lake was calm in sheltered areas. The open center of the water showed whitecaps from the playful wind. Marsh grass and plants grew in the shallows of the lake where leaves and soil covered the stony bottom.

The boathouse and short dock were weathered gray, looking almost velvety in the late-afternoon light. Clouds had expanded out from the Tetons, eating away at the sun. The first few drops of what could become real rain were falling now, bright in the broken sunlight.

Birds darted and sang in the bushes just back from the lake. Insects hummed and whirred wherever sunlight remained on the edge of the lake. Water was always a magnet for life. These small lives hadn't been disturbed recently.

As soon as Jay stepped out of cover, everything but the wind and lapping water fell silent. He pushed open the door to the boathouse. A patch of sunlight dappled the wide opening leading to the water and made bright reflections on the roof and rafters. The exposed beams and tight shadows between reminded him of the rib cage of a huge, long-dead animal.

The rows of neatly stored, oiled tools on the wall and a counter down the right side told him that whoever had searched the rest of the buildings hadn't bothered here. The only thing that caught his eye was the empty place, outlined in white paint, where a screwdriver in Ivar's tightly organized tool collection was missing. Smudge marks showed on the white, exactly where someone in a hurry would have grabbed the screwdriver.

“Ivar?” he called. “Come on out. It's Jay.”

He held his breath as he waited.

Go ahead and tell yourself one more time that they just went out for a walk. You haven't believed it so far, have you?

Only the wind answered his call.

A small collection of dinghies lay overturned in a line, hulls facing the ceiling. Clean and well cared for, they waited in neat array for someone to use. One of the dinghies had been kicked or knocked out of place, with the barest smear of dirt accenting the disorder.

He lifted the boat aside and saw nothing beneath.

Without expecting to find anything different, he went outside. Nearby was the toolshed and fuel depot where Ivar had built a simple
retreat, or “man cave” as Inge delighted in calling it. The old man had often said that the reason he was happily married was that each of them did just fine on their own.

Beyond the ramshackle retreat was a woodpile.

Nearly used up, like the one by their cabin. Long winter. There will be lots of wood to cut before the next winter.

Jay took two steps, then froze. His mind insisted he had seen something out of place in the groundcover. Motionless, he examined the grass and weeds and small shrubs encroaching on the buildings. The different heights and textures gave the ground a mosaic appearance.

Sitting on his heels, he searched for whatever was picking at his instincts. After a few minutes, he saw that the grass lay differently in places, suggesting someone had walked through, probably in the last several hours. He couldn't pick up where the trail started, but it became more noticeable toward Ivar's retreat.

He followed the trace and ended up losing it. He circled back to the front. There was a single door there, newer than the rest of the building. The wooden door had lightened to a fine silvery blond.

Locked.

No sign of forcing.

And there was blood on the threshold.

If anyone was waiting inside, they'd have shot at me or bailed out the back window by now.

Jay holstered his gun. In case he was guessing wrong, he stood to the side and worked the padlock without taking off his leather gloves. He tried the usual Vermilion Ranch combination first. It worked. Quietly he slid the padlock free, drew the Glock, and kicked the door open.

He stood to the side, out of the line of any fire. A beam of sunlight spread into the room, showing more blood tracked over the rag rug
Inge had made. There was order to the marks, jagged and diagonal.

Boot tracks
.
Looks big for Ivar, much less Inge.

The room was dark but for a trapezoid of light falling in from the open door. The smell told him all he needed to know.

Too much.

As his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw a foot half covered by a slipper. The foot was bent at a wrong angle. Inge loved her warm slippers, but she never wore them outside the house. At least, she hadn't until now.

He stepped into the long, narrow room. Adrenaline morphed into rage.

Senseless. Meaningless. Wanton.

I thought I left this behind.

But here it was, at his feet, motionless, stinking of the aftermath of death. Without realizing it, Jay cursed with the savagery of the combat leader he had once been.

Slowly he went to kneel next to Inge. Her plump face was slack, her pale eyes open, seeing nothing. He closed them with a sweep of his fingers, surprised that his hands weren't shaking.

Later. I'll have time for rage and grief then.

And vengeance. I'll make certain of that.

He was glad Inge lay beyond the reach of the pitiless light. The wound in her chest was a bad one, T-shirt so bloodstained that it looked black. He had seen wounds like that before, too many of them.

Combat knife. Or a hunting knife.

Same thing, really.

He looked over to Ivar, who lay facedown, utterly still, a wide pool of dried blood beneath his head like a dark pillow. Careful not to get too close, Jay sat on his heels and studied the body.

Only a slit throat bleeds like that. If I really looked, I'd see splatter marks.

Jay hated that he recognized the cause of death, that he knew it so well. He hated that he was using knowledge gained in war to understand death in a place that had always meant peace.

Yet there Ivar lay on his stomach, his arms at his sides and his feet toed out at an angle that would have been painful for anyone still alive. He was in work clothes, a pair of jeans faded to robin-egg blue, topped by the green-and-black flannel shirt that he wore every day but the day Inge washed. Now the flannel was stained with blood that was so thick Jay could taste copper on his tongue.

With a grace and strength only the living had, he came to his feet and turned on a wall switch with his gloved hand. The old incandescent bulbs came on after a small hesitation.

Old room, old wiring.

Old people.

Only death is new.

A quick, visual inspection of the floor showed a scattering of boot prints.

Could have been three men. Probably only two. That will be for the sheriff to figure out.

For the first time Jay regretted Inge's one-woman war against dust and dirt. Dust would have helped distinguish the tracks, but even Ivar's man cave had a clean floor.

That's Cooke's problem. Mine is to disturb as little as possible.

The door to the minute bathroom lay open, as did the door to the tiny storeroom where Ivar kept whatever odds and ends of old stuff he thought might be useful some time in the future. Stuff Inge insisted had no place in her house.

Someone had been in the storeroom.

Avoiding the bloody tracks, Jay looked in. Surrounding the anonymous junk in the center of the room, large wooden crates were stacked along the walls like makeshift wainscoting. All the crates had been pried open, revealing unframed paintings by Custer. None of the crates had any empty space within.

Whatever the jackals were after, Custer wasn't it.

A gleam of metal lured Jay into the room. Ivar's big, missing screwdriver lay abandoned.

They used it to pry open the crates.

Later, he would be furious, grieving. Later he would hunt. Now he would gather what facts he could, though his eyes burned with unshed tears.

The sound of raindrops came on the parts of the roof that had been repaired with tin.

Real rain will make tracking anyone coming in or out of Fish Camp a lot more difficult.

The jackals who did this are gone.

Did they get what they wanted? Or will they be coming back?

Knowing the sheriff would disapprove but understand, Jay pulled a ragged tarp from the storeroom and covered Inge and Ivar.

God be with you, old friends.

Switching off the light, Jay stepped outside and locked the padlock behind him. There was nothing more he could do for the dead.

He walked back to the house in the growing drizzle. When he reached the yard, he called out and stood in plain sight, letting Sara know he was back. The door opened so quickly he knew that she had been watching for him.

“Did you find anything?” she asked.

He shut and locked the door behind him without answering.

She took a closer look at his face and felt her heart roll over. “Jay?”

“Ivar and Inge are in Ivar's special toolshed, next to the boathouse. Dead.”

She put her arms around him and said, “I'm so sorry,” again and again without even knowing it.

He accepted the embrace, returned it, then gently separated from her. “It's starting to rain. I'll get the tack under cover and bring in the saddlebags. And check the pantry. Inge kept dog food on hand for the summer. Then I'll call Cooke.”

“Don't worry about the pantry,” Sara said. “Are you bringing the dogs inside?”

He shook his head. “I'll leave Skunk with the cattle. Lightfoot will guard the toolshed from wildlife. If something is too big for him to handle, he'll make a racket.”

The implication hit her like a bucket of cold water. To a wild animal, protein was protein.

Don't go there,
she told herself fiercely.
It won't do any good. Jay needs someone he can count on, not a dumb blonde from a dumber movie, screaming and screaming.

The sound of rain on the windows broke the silence.

“I'll help you with the tack,” Sara said. “It will go faster that way.”

Jay didn't argue.

With the two of them working, everything was quickly stowed in the barn. The rain was cold, refreshing.

Maybe it will wash everything clean,
Sara thought, even though she knew that some things couldn't be made right, ever.

Jay turned the horses out to pasture with the cows, grabbed the rifle and saddlebags, and said, “Back to the main house.”

It wasn't raining hard at all, more of a wind-swept sprinkle with fat, cold drops. Each drop was a separate sensation, reminding them that they were alive.

“Ever used a woodstove?” he asked when they were inside.

“Every day of my life until I was eighteen.”

The grim line of his mouth shifted slightly. “You're a wonder, Sara Anne Medina.”

“The only wonder is that I waited until I was eighteen to leave that farm behind.”

She opened the door and took stock of the stove. A fire was laid, and there was no ash buildup that would need cleaning. Wood was stacked in a tub beside the stove. A box of matches waited on the built-up brick floor that surrounded the old stove. She opened the damper, set fire to the kindling, and watched little flames grow into big ones until she closed the door.

Keeping track of her from the corner of his eye, Jay set the saddlebags in the mudroom near a second wood bin and dug out the shortwave radio. Before the sheriff's office answered, he could smell the tang of fire biting into pine.

“This is Jay Vermilion. Who's on duty?”

“Afternoon, Jay,” said the dispatcher. “Cooke just came in. Will he do?”

“Yes, thanks.”

A moment later Cooke's voice came over the radio. “What's up?”

“Two murders. Inge and Ivar.”

At the word
murders
Sara dropped the piece of wood she had just picked up to put in the stove. She looked at Jay, but all she could see was his back. It was tight, muscles bunched across his shoulders. Tension radiated from him.

While he relayed what he had found, she picked up the wood and tended the fire. After a few deep, slow breaths to steady herself, she went to the pantry. Plenty of canned goods. Dried beans, sugar, flour, ground coffee, dog food.

Plus two freshly baked loaves of bread and a lemon meringue pie.

Sara didn't know she was crying until she felt the tears on her face. Silently she went about making coffee, automatically feeding wood into the stove when needed, listening to Jay talk about bloody murder.

He watched her, wishing she didn't have to hear his words, yet glad that she was here with him.

“No blood or signs of a real struggle in any of the cabins,” he said. “Either Inge gave up housekeeping or the buildings were searched in a half-assed way. ATVs and their Scout were disabled.”

“Anything taken?”

“Not obviously. Could have taken money, booze, or guns. I haven't checked.”

“How long ago?” Cooke asked. “Best estimate.”

“Within the last twenty-four hours.”

“How were they murdered?”

“With a combat or hunting knife. Inge's chest was sliced up, more than one blow. Ivar's throat was cut.”

Sara fumbled with the stove, nearly burning her hand.

“Son of a bitch,” Cooke said.

“Lightfoot is guarding the bodies.”

“Hell of a thing,” the sheriff said. “One sad hell of a thing.”

Jay didn't think about it. Couldn't. There was too much to do. “I can't get out on my cell phone. Their kids and grandkids will have to be told. Henry has the contact numbers.”

“I'll take care of it.”