The Severed Pines Read online

  “We’re going to keep this in house,” Taylor said as he stood and put a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “I promise you: we will find out what happened, and we’ll make sure everything is right. You’re not going to get into any trouble over this. Not on my watch.”

  Taylor tried to offer Ben a smile, but there was something fake about it. Either Taylor didn’t believe a word Ben was saying, or he was hiding something. Or maybe both.

  Chapter Seven

  Taylor Snell stared across the dinner table at Delilah Snell as his heart thumped inside his chest. Her soft brown hair blanketed her angular face, and she tossed him a wink as she sipped from her glass of red wine.

  He kept telling himself to calm down, but it didn’t seem to be working. Above all, she couldn’t know the chaos swirling inside his head. He didn’t return the wink because he couldn’t stand to make eye contact with her for more than a fraction of a second at a time.

  He knew she was going to ask him what was wrong. He couldn’t hide it from her. He was always terrible at lying to her, and keeping secrets never worked.

  This one mistake would sink him. Well, to be honest, it wasn’t one mistake. It was a series of mistakes that led to something terrible. Taylor’s current predicament could be traced back for several months. Decisions made without thinking had landed him in all this potential trouble.

  “Something wrong with your steak?” Delilah asked.

  Soft jazz music streamed from the Bluetooth speakers in the kitchen. A background to help drown out the noises inside his head. Also, their three-year-old son was in his booster seat, tapping away at a tablet and giggling along with the little kid video he was watching. With all that, Taylor didn’t realize his wife had spoken to him for a full two seconds.

  “Huh? No, the steak is fine. I just have a lot on my mind.”

  “Work?”

  He nodded, the tension in his neck spilling down into his shoulders as his head moved. “Yeah. Something happened today.”

  “The police?”

  “How did you know that?”

  Delilah plopped a bite in her mouth. Her eyes gleamed under the dining table lights. “It was all over Facebook. Two cop cars in the park. Everyone figured bear attack, but couldn’t get the real-deal info. The news websites had nothing about it. I figured I could just wait until you came home.”

  “Oh,” he said and his heart thumped faster. But now that she knew something, he had to say more. “It wasn’t a bear.”

  “No?”

  “No. A park ranger has gone missing, and one of our volunteers thinks something bad happened to him.”

  “That sounds cryptic. How about some details?”

  “I don’t know if I’m supposed to say anything. Ongoing investigation, you know. I wouldn’t want to mess anything up.”

  She pouted. “Not even for me?”

  Taylor flashed his eyes at the preschooler, who wasn’t paying any attention to them. But, Delilah seemed to get it, and she didn’t press him with any further questions.

  “Daddy,” said the little one.

  “Yes, buddy?”

  “I made a dog at school today.”

  Taylor leaned over, a little closer to his son. “You made a dog?”

  “I made a dog.”

  Delilah cleared her throat. “They were finger painting at day care.”

  Taylor ruffled his son’s hair, and the preschooler went back to staring at his tablet. A momentary distraction from his budding panic.

  They sat in silence for another minute until Taylor couldn’t pretend he was eating his dinner any longer. He pushed his plate a few inches toward the center of the table and drained the remainder of his glass of water. “Thank you for dinner. Great, as always.”

  She smiled, but he didn’t think she was buying it. She knew something was wrong. Any second now, she would begin with the probing questions. He had to escape, now.

  “Anyway,” he said. “I have some paperwork left over from the office. Shouldn’t take me more than an hour or so. Do you think you can handle his bedtime solo tonight?”

  “Sure,” she said, frowning. They’d planned to watch the last episode of the show they were currently bingeing, and he could see the disappointment plastered on her face. But, he couldn’t imagine sitting down on the couch and letting her nestle against his chest. She would know right away he was on the verge of a heart attack.

  “I appreciate it,” he said.

  “Okay, hon. Do what you gotta do.”

  He nodded and stood, then gave their little boy a kiss on the forehead before gliding across the dining room of their Estes Park home to the liquor cabinet. He tried and failed to breathe at a normal pace. The room seemed to swirl around him.

  Taylor poured himself a generous four fingers and a thumb of bourbon, then drank half of it in one gulp. Fortunately, Delilah couldn’t see him from this angle.

  As the liquor burned his throat, his eyes unfocused and he let himself become swept away in a memory. Accepting the position of superintendent here, coming home to tell his wife the good news. He’d bought a nice suitcase to use as a prop, to tell her they were about to move away from Philadelphia, a town they were both eager to escape.

  But, Taylor’s wife Delilah had her own prop that day: a pacifier. In the middle of his career upheaval, she flashed the pacifier in his face and gave him the news. It was the happiest tumult he’d ever experienced in his life.

  Finally, everything in Taylor Snell’s life was happening as it was supposed to.

  Three months later, Taylor was learning the ropes of his new job in Estes Park and driving his wife down to Denver on the weekends for birthing classes. He learned how to swaddle an infant and practiced diaper changes on plastic babies while his head brimmed over with government-written National Park white papers. His world was full, if not a little overwhelming.

  But, he only thought he knew the sensation of being overwhelmed back then.

  As he wandered up the stairs toward his home office, each step was like another dagger into his chest. He thought about the vial of white powder in his pocket. He’d already indulged a little too much today. He seemed to dip into it at high stress times, but it’s not as if it relaxed him. The solution to the problem was also the cause of the problem.

  He hadn’t handled well Ben and Reese coming to see him this afternoon. He’d performed better in front of the police and the aftermath of their visit, but still, the whole day had been a gigantic mess. Everything in his park career so far had felt like practice, compared to today.

  With Ben and Reese poking around, they would know everything soon enough. And then, Taylor’s whole life would break into pieces. That day in Philadelphia and the promise it had held would become a memory so distant, it would eventually disintegrate under the weight of time. There would be no new and better memories to replace it.

  This situation was entirely his fault, through the choices he’d made. And if they all knew the truth about what had really happened, things would only get worse from there.

  Chapter Eight

  Ben couldn’t sleep. On a scant mattress in his trailer in the Moraine Park campground, he tossed and turned. His trailer was in a row of two dozen that provided short and long-term housing for park rangers, not far from the park headquarters. Amid a massive valley often home to deer and elk and moose, the valley also housed one of the larger campgrounds in the park.

  He sat up, a little sweaty. The space heater on the nightstand had been too aggressive again. He wiped sweat from his brow and checked the analog clock next to the bed. Five am. With the blanket wrapped around his shoulders, he lifted the blinds over the window to peek out. The sun hadn’t risen, and none of the tourists in their tents had yet to stir at their campsites.

  Just darkness and the nocturnal animals out there. All of the ranger trailers were dark. One thing in particular kept appearing in Ben’s thoughts. William’s trailer, which was in the middle of the ranger trailers. His wasn’t dark due to someone sle
eping inside. Its occupant had had his throat slashed two days ago.

  Maybe there were answers inside that little temporary home. He debated for a moment.

  “Ahh, hell,” Ben said as he shucked the blanket and slid into his pants. He snatched a small pen-sized flashlight, a pair of thin gloves, and his pocketknife, and then he slipped out of his trailer.

  The chilly pre-dawn air made his skin tingle, and he let the door close softly behind him. The silent air moved with a hint of a breeze.

  He paused for a moment to make sure no one was out and about. Seemed all clear. But, before he could launch on a course to William’s, Ben heard shuffling along the gravel to his right. He stashed the gloves and the flashlight in his pocket, and then palmed the unopened pocketknife as he whirled to see who was behind him.

  A short and chubby hiker stood there. Long hair cascaded down the guy’s shoulders, lots of wisps sticking out. He was wearing shorts and a hoodie, with a backpack slung over his shoulders. Camelbak drinking tube flopping around as the guy walked.

  And a joint hung from his lips. Ben definitely knew the smell.

  “Morning,” the guy said, keeping his voice low in the pre-dawn air.

  “Morning.”

  “Oh,” the guy said, pulling the joint out of his mouth. “I’m being rude. Would you like to hit this?”

  “No thanks. I’m a park ranger volunteer, so I probably shouldn’t.”

  The guy’s mouth dropped open. “Shit.”

  Ben stashed the pocketknife and waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t worry about it. What are you doing out here?”

  “Trying to catch a good sunrise. Think I can make it to Cub Lake before I miss it?”

  “Doubtful.”

  The sunrise hiker frowned and took a big pull from the joint. “Bummer. Well, I’m going to try anyway. Can’t sleep, so might as well enjoy all this nature.”

  He turned to hike out, but Ben held up a hand. “Do you have bear spray or mace or anything like that?”

  “No way. I’m good. Bears don’t bother me a bit.”

  It wasn’t bears Ben was worried about. He drew the small knife from his pocket and handed it over to the guy. “Take this.”

  “For me? Are you sure?”

  Ben nodded, and the guy examined the knife. He turned it over in his hands a few times, and then he opened it and ran a finger along the blade. It was an expensive knife. “This is awesome.”

  The guy thanked Ben several times before heading off into the grassy valley beyond the campground. Ben watched him go. He couldn’t warn every single person in the park about the possible killers on the loose, but he wished he could.

  After another minute, Ben figured he better get on with his task at hand. He shuffled through the trailers to get to William’s. A white single-wide trailer like all the rest, a tiny home with a bedroom and kitchenette and bathroom. The door was unlocked, just as Ben had expected. No one kept much of anything of value around that they should have to worry about theft.

  With the pen light clenched between his teeth, Ben took one last look outside before he boarded the trailer to do a little snooping. Inside, the space seemed frozen, like a slice of time. If William weren’t dead, Ben would think nothing strange about this space. But the idea that William would never come home to his belongings again made the place feel cold and unwelcoming.

  Have the cops been here? Probably not.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Ben said as he slipped on the gloves.

  First, he checked under William’s bed where he found a shoebox with WZ marked on top with a Sharpie. Inside the shoebox were some letters, which Ben didn’t read at first. Too personal. He set the box on the floor in front of the bed, and then froze, staring at it.

  Reading the letters felt like a huge invasion of personal space.

  But then, given the gravity of the situation, he changed his mind. He flicked through dozens and dozens or folded bits of paper, receipts for various things, and other miscellany like concert ticket stubs. Most of the handwritten notes were from a girlfriend back home in Ohio, composed over the last few months. Ben did his best to scan them without absorbing too many of the personal details. A dead man still deserved some measure of privacy.

  Not much else was under bed except for some extra blankets and a collection of nude magazines. This brought a smirk to Ben’s face. With the unreliable internet access in the park, sometimes, you had to do it the old-fashioned way. He tossed the magazines aside and kept rummaging.

  Next, Ben moved on to the desk along the wall by the kitchenette. And that’s where he found his first interesting discovery. On top of the desk was a recent performance review, written by Taylor Snell himself. That alone was odd, because usually, Assistant Superintendent Avery did all the performance reviews.

  Ben repositioned the pen light between his teeth and he held up the piece of paper to read it.

  Q2 Ranger Performance Review

  For William Zebrowski

  Documented by Taylor Snell, M.A.

  Ranger William Zebrowski has demonstrated no initiative and no drive during the first two quarters of the year. He has consistently not met his stated goals and has not met general qualitative guidelines. It’s the opinion of this reviewer that Mr. Zebrowski be placed on a performance plan (attached), and his future employment be contingent on strict adherence to the performance plan. This performance plan will be evaluated at the end of the following quarter, and will possibly be lifted, depending on the level of adherence.

  “Damn,” Ben said, musing. He’d never seen a performance review this corporate-sounding and harsh before. Avery’s reviews for Ben weren’t so dry or punitive. It seemed that Taylor was a stickler for the rules, and he liked to write in very fancy-sounding language in his official documents.

  The page had mentioned an attached performance plan, but there was nothing else related to this one piece of paper. Probably didn’t matter, anyway. William wouldn’t meet the guidelines of the performance plan, and he wouldn’t meet his goals for this quarter. Someone had seen to that.

  Ben placed the paper back on the desk, just as it had been. He opened each of the drawers and found little to get excited about. Pens, papers, lots of folders, and quite a few paperclips. There were a few comic books, and a handheld gaming system. The standby power light was still on, blinking. William would never finish his game.

  Once the desk had been searched, Ben stood back, hands on hips, and sighed. Light now began to pour in through the windows. When a beam shone between the blinds and lit on the small table near the kitchenette, a folded piece of paper sitting there caught Ben’s eye. A notebook page with frayed edges. The letter W scrawled in purple ink on the exposed top side. He recognized the style; Ben had used these same notebooks for his own journals — a practice he’d picked up years ago.

  Ben scooted across the trailer and grabbed the paper. He unfolded it to find a page full of loopy handwriting made with purple ink.

  Will-

  I don’t know why you won’t talk to me. At the staff meeting yesterday, I saved a seat for you, and you brushed right past me. That’s fine if you don’t want to sit with me, but the least you could do is give me the courtesy of a reason. I think you owe me that. Do you know how many nights I’ve sat up, waiting for you to come over? How many times I’ve cried myself to sleep, thinking about how hot and cold you can be? I can’t take it. I want you to be one thing. One thing or the other. You be that, and I’ll be me, and we’ll see if our selves can then fit into the things we each are. But you won’t even be the same often enough for us to figure it out. And I hate you for that.

  The other night, you said something about my “ugly side.” You have no idea how hurtful that was.

  I’m still willing to give it a try, but you need to be consistent with me. Otherwise, you’re just wasting my time.

  -Kat

  Ben read over the note a couple of times before the name sunk in. Kat. Must be Kathryn, the ranger from Missouri, with t
he fiery red hair and pale green eyes like river water. She usually worked the Bear Lake area, and her path rarely crossed with Ben’s. Mostly at staff meetings, where she seemed to keep her head down, using her long hair as a shield around her face.

  This note was so weird. The tone seemed frantic and her sentences were like big circles that ran into themselves.

  She had a thing for William, apparently. And writing lovesick notes, likely after slugging back a few drinks at one of the bars in town.

  Odd. This note had such a venom to it, especially near the end. Her ‘ugly side.’

  Ben needed to find out more about this ranger Kathryn.

  Chapter Nine

  Ben rolled to a stop at the Bear Lake trailhead and threw his car into Park. The sun had risen above the peaks in the east, burning off the morning frost and casting an amber light over the grass and rocks and trees. With his windows cracked, Ben inhaled deeply of the mountain air. A lungful settled his nerves a few notches.

  The parking lot bustled with activity, even this early in the morning. Bear Lake was one of the most popular spots in the park, since you could drive to it and take an easy walk around the lake to get a nature experience. The die-hards knew that to get a truly good park experience, you had to hike four or five miles away from the roads, but your average park-goer wasn’t going to put out the effort.

  Ben scanned the parking lot crowd of people applying sunscreen and stretching their legs. The redheaded Kathryn was standing next to the trail marker, chatting with some hikers, steam puffing from their mouths as they talked. She was wearing a small day pack with a shovel attached. Trail maintenance.

  Ben exited his car and retrieved a shovel from the trunk of his car, then he spent a few seconds developing his story. If he encountered the unstable woman he’d imagined from the note found in William’s trailer, then this could be a strange meeting. He expected her to exude paranoia and a temperamental nature. Ben needed to be ready for anything.