Chuck kicked a piece of gravel out of his path as he made his way up the driveway to the cabin. The afternoon sun sliced through the trees. Insects buzzed in the ponderosas growing close on both sides of the two-track.
What would happen, he asked himself, when he revealed what he’d learned about the gold in the mine and turned over the skull to park officials? No doubt they would get in touch with the Estes Park Police Department, Officer Hemphill included.
Chuck shook his head. He was too tired to care what Hemphill might do at that point.
But what about Jake and the dead rams? Exhausted though Chuck was, anger flared in him.
He knew how things would go after he made his report: Jake was bound to hear what was up, and he would ditch any evidence that could be used against him. He would get off, at best, with a warning—and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, Chuck could do about it.
He cursed as he walked on up the drive to the cabin. Tracking the drag path to the fen, finding the tire tracks and boot prints, gathering the flakes of dried blood from the side of the toolbox within feet of Jake—all for nothing.
At the sound of his footsteps on the deck stairs, Rosie ran out the front door and dove into Chuck’s arms. His heart warmed as he pulled her to him.
“Preciosa mia,” he whispered in her ear.
Rosie giggled. “Preciosa mia tambien,” she whispered back.
He led her by the hand into the cabin. Boxes lined the kitchen table. Folded pants and shorts and jackets covered the sofa and chairs. Janelle came out of the back bedroom carrying an armful of the girls’ brightly colored blouses. She aimed an upward breath at a lock of hair that had fallen across one eye. When that proved unsuccessful, she laid the blouses over the back of the couch and pushed the loose length of hair behind her ear.
She wore knee-length yoga pants and a tight nylon top that accentuated her trim figure. She gave Chuck a weary look.
He saluted. “Private Bender, reporting for duty.”
“About time.” She displayed the cabin with a sweep of her hand. “Lots to do.”
They set to work, the girls pitching in, as the afternoon gave way to evening. They finished packing not long after dinner, boxes and duffle bags stacked in the living room, ready to be loaded in the bed of the truck for the drive home the next day.
Chuck grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and wandered out to the front porch. He took a long swallow from the bottle, the cold brew tickling his throat.
Things would happen fast in the morning. He would see the students off first, along with Kirina and, he could only hope, Clarence, who would drive the van to Durango. Next, he would check in with Hemphill, to make sure there was nothing more the officer needed from him before he, too, left for home with Janelle and the girls. He would stop by park headquarters on the way out of town to drop off the skull and sample of calaverite, and fill park staffers in on what he’d learned about the mine and the slaughter of the bighorns on Mount Landen.
The forest surrounding the cabin was calm and quiet in the interlude between the last of the sun-warmed upslope breezes of daytime and the cool winds that fell from the high peaks and swept through the broad valley at night. A cricket sounded beneath the deck. The last light of dusk gave way to full dark.
Chuck thought of Nicoleta struggling to breathe before dying in his arms. What if the police never found the young woman’s killer?
He thought of the bullet hole in the skull he’d found in the mine shaft. The odds of solving that long-ago murder were slim indeed.
And he thought, again, of Jake and the dead rams—and realized the wrecker owner’s guilt was the one thing he could do something about.
He set his beer on the deck railing. Pulling his phone from his pocket, he looked up the 24-hour number for Jake’s Wrecker Service online, punched it in, and brought the phone to his ear.