By the time we got back to the hotel, it was late afternoon. We wanted to start our drive up to our last Boreal Owl site before dusk, so we planned a quick stop for clean-up and to pick up the cooler Luce had packed for us yesterday afternoon at her place. I tossed Eddie’s video on the dresser and debated calling Knott about it. We’d taken a quick look at it before we’d left Eddie’s place, and, frankly, I wasn’t sure now what good it was.
The recording was stamped with dates and times, so it had been easy to find the footage we especially wanted to see.
“Now here’s last Friday morning,” Eddie had said, kicking back in his recliner while Luce and I sat on the sofa in front of the television set. On the screen, a beat-up truck neared the camera.
“Isn’t that the truck we saw this afternoon at VNT?” Luce asked, leaning forward to get a better look.
“Definitely a resemblance,” I answered, although I had to admit that it could just as easily have been any DNR vehicle—the agency must have had a corner on the world market for ugly green pickups. But then the driver’s face came into view, and if it wasn’t Thompson, then it was his identical twin.
“That’s the man,” Eddie said. “Same DNR guy who was up here in November carting out trees. Thought it was kind of odd they were doing that kind of work so late in the year, but when they’ve got the budget for a job, they do it no matter what the season, I guess.”
“He’s not a DNR employee,” I told Eddie. “He owns his own garden supply company, and last November, he sold a big shipment of Christmas trees—very nice Christmas trees—to my sister Lily. Based on what you’re saying, Eddie, it sounds like those very nice trees were also very hot, as in stolen.”
“Poached, you mean,” Eddie said.
“Poached and then sold,” I added.
“This was last Friday, right?” Luce asked, still studying the tape as it played.
“Sure was,” Eddie replied. He nodded toward the television screen. “See, I told you it was a parade.”
Luce was looking at the next vehicle approaching the camera. It was a jeep we’d never seen before, but as it neared the gate, we got a clear view of the driver.
It was Margaret Montgomery.
Luce and I looked at each other. Margaret Montgomery had been up here last Friday? Close on the heels of Thompson, it appeared. Eddie forwarded the tape to the next vehicle. This one also we didn’t recognize, just as we didn’t recognize the driver.
“That’s Dr. Rahr,” Eddie commented. On the tape, Rahr stopped his truck at the gate and waited. A few seconds later, the gate opened and the truck drove through.
“That’s when he came to take the shortcut back to the site you just visited,” Eddie explained, hitting the pause button. “It was when he left that he told me he had some maintenance to do at the other location.”
A sudden idea hit me. Did Eddie have tape showing when Thompson—and Montgomery—had returned? It was hoping for a lot, I knew, but it couldn’t hurt to ask. The idea that they’d both been using a road in the morning that led to the Boreal site where Rahr was killed later in the day opened disturbing doors of possibility. Had they seen anything—or anyone—suspicious along the way, either going in or coming out? Could they possibly be witnesses, unaware that they had information that could help Knott tie up his case?
Or were they witnesses and knew it, but had kept that knowledge to themselves?
I remembered my earlier suspicions about Thompson. If he was the poacher—and Eddie’s comments seemed to confirm that—and he had tangled with Rahr, he’d probably be happy to have Rahr out of the way. As in permanently. Who did it or why wasn’t his worry. As long as he could keep poaching in peace, he was happy to let the police continue to run into dead ends. The last thing he’d want to do was show up at the station with information that would lead Knott directly to his place of “business.”
As for Montgomery, she’d have no reason not to report any suspicious activity along the road. What her reasons were for being in the area was anyone’s guess, though I had to admit that her association with Thompson made her a little suspect in my mind. What were the odds she’d be out for a drive just minutes behind Thompson?
Another possibility reared its ugly head. What if Thompson hadn’t stumbled upon the killer, but instead, had deliberately gone to meet him that morning? What if Thompson had hired a killer, and his trip past Eddie’s place had taken him to a rendezvous during which he led the killer to Rahr?
And what if Montgomery, then, had chanced upon the two of them?
My stomach lurched.
Was Montgomery in danger from Thompson? If she’d seen her friend meeting with a man in the woods near Rahr’s research site and then learned about the subsequent murder, she’d have to be terrified of Thompson and what he might do to her if she went to the police. At the same time, since she hadn’t already come forward, but had joined him for supper at the Splashing Rock, she could possibly be arrested herself as an accomplice after the fact. An accomplice to murder.
Probably not something she’d want to include on her next job application.
Unfortunately, the video couldn’t tell us Thompson and Montgomery’s final destinations that morning. Whether they had actually gone to the far site, met anyone, or just looped around Eddie’s property to the site Luce and I had just visited, was all conjecture. For all we knew, they’d each been out for a winter day’s drive through the forest and never had stopped anywhere at all. But it did seem that this was a very popular part of the forest, apparently.
I turned to Eddie.
“Before he left here last Friday morning, did Dr. Rahr say he’d seen anyone at the site here?”
“No,” Eddie said, bringing his recliner upright. He put his hands on his knees. “He didn’t mention anything like that.”
“Eddie,” I said. “Does your surveillance tape show Thompson and the woman returning that day?”
Eddie looked me in the eye.
“No.”
“So they must have taken another route back out,” Luce concluded. “And that might indicate they went out by way of the other Boreal site.”
“Don’t know that,” Eddie said. “But I got tape of them driving by the next night, too.”
That was the night Mike and I had discovered Dr. Rahr’s body.
“Both of them?” I asked.
“Both of them,” Eddie confirmed. “Except that time, they were driving together in the truck.”
Bottom line was that despite its visual definition, Eddie’s video couldn’t prove a thing. It couldn’t tell us where people had gone or why. Unless it showed Thompson hauling trees—or meeting with the man who had surrendered to Knott—I had nothing to support any of my suspicions.
Luce and I got up to leave, but Eddie wasn’t done with the tape yet.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “There were three more cars that came by after Dr. Rahr left. I forgot about it until I looked at the tape again. Maybe you ought to see.”
Eddie hit the play button, and another vehicle approached the gate. We got a clear view of the driver as he went by.
It was Bradley Ellis. That was odd. Last Friday he’d been preparing to go to Michigan to be with his father. Or so he said. Why was he up here?
“Did he come back later?” I asked Eddie.
“No tape of it,” he answered.
The video was still running and I had to blink when I saw the face of the next vehicle’s driver.
Alice Wylie.
“Do you recognize her?” Luce asked when I made a choking noise.
“Yes. I do. It’s Ms. Multiple.”
And then, bringing up the rear a few minutes later, was a third car. I could have sworn that Stan looked right at the camera and smiled.
Eddie was right—there had been a parade up here last Friday morning. But of all the participants, only Rahr never made it back.