The Severed Pines Page 9

  Ben splashed water from the sink on his face and ran a hand through his hair. In the mirror, he checked his appearance. He looked tired. He looked old.

  “You’re going to figure this out,” he said to his reflection, but his reflection didn’t appear to buy that line.

  Ben left the trailer and drove over to the eastern end of the park, where the Beaver Meadows visitor center sat like a giant stone house overlooking the entrance gates. As he navigated his car into a parking spot, he observed Kathryn, hovering outside the front doors, puffing on a cigarette. She held the cancer stick out in front of her face, lazily, as if it were floating there. Her eyes were unfocused, gazing at a distant point off in the sky. She took one more puff and then snuffed the cigarette out on the bottom of her hiking boot. After wiping a tear from the corner of her eye, she rolled her shoulders and then entered the building. Never once did she look in Ben’s direction.

  Maybe there was more to her than unrequited love. Ben would have to rank this mystery along with the others.

  Taylor still had to remain the top priority.

  Ben entered the auditorium and gathered along with other rangers and volunteers and administrators for the morning all-staff meeting. Kathryn was on the far side of the room, sitting alone, drawn into herself. Her head tilted down, her fingers playing with a chunk of hair cascading over her face.

  Ben’s coworkers filtered in, chatting and hugging and exchanging stories about various weird hikers and backpackers they’d come across. Ben greeted a couple people he was acquainted with, but he didn’t put out the effort to engage anyone further than a quick hello.

  Taylor stood at the front of the room, adjusting a podium he’d brought with him. He looked flustered, sweaty, out of sorts. He shuffled some papers and tamped them on the podium to sort them.

  “Please,” Taylor said, “have a seat. This won’t take long. Just a few quick business items, and then we’ll let everyone get back to their busy days.”

  Ben craned his neck around in his seat, looking for Reese. Nowhere to be found. Unlike yesterday, when Reese was unreachable because of a day trip to Verna Lake, he should have been here. For all-staff meetings, everyone came back from the field.

  Ben slipped his phone out and sent a text. They’d been together a little more than twelve hours ago, pounding beers at the Rock Cut. Maybe Reese had decided to sleep in, but that didn’t seem likely.

  “I wanted to give an update on the progress of the construction on the new Wild Basin visitor center.” Taylor paused and drank a sip of water. Ben watched his hand shake as he gulped down half of it in one go. Ben could see the sheen of sweat on Taylor’s brow all the way from his seat.

  “There will be officials from Denver here later to review some of the permits. None of this is your responsibility, other than to say that if your duties place you near Wild Basin, then you’ll need to be on your best behavior. Show them the Rocky Mountain National Park hospitality we’re famous for.”

  Eyes around the room rolled as Taylor tried to put on a winning grin. Ben checked his phone. No reply from Reese.

  “Big things are happening out there. If you haven’t had a chance to visit yet, don’t worry, we’ll do a full tour once the area has been deemed as safe for regular visitors. I’m told that during the early stages, it’s best for non-construction workers to stay away, to avoid any accidents. That’s why we’ve kept the area free from hikers these last two weeks.”

  Ben eyed the back of the room, hoping the door would open. Where was Reese? This didn’t sit right. Something was wrong, because he should have at least responded to the text by now. Ben could’ve checked his trailer before leaving, but he hadn’t expected Reese not to show.

  Something was wrong. Ben could feel it in his bones.

  Ben stood up as Taylor was in mid-sentence. They made eye contact for a split second.

  Then, Ben turned and walked toward the back of the auditorium. Taylor called after him, but Ben didn’t care. Not today. Today he wouldn’t cower to authority any more.

  At the trailer park, Ben leaped out of his car and skittered across the gravel parking lot toward Reese’s trailer. Still no return message to repeated texts.

  He unlocked his phone and stabbed out a text.

  I’m outside, about to bust into your trailer. If you’re home, open up now.

  A few seconds passed with no reply. Ben hit the button to call his friend, and it rang several times, and then went to voicemail.

  At the edge of the parking lot, the marmot from before stood up on its hind legs to study Ben. Head twitching back and forth, little mouth pumping up and down as if chewing an invisible berry.

  “Reese!” Ben shouted as he neared his friend’s living quarters. No answer.

  Ben threw himself against the door, in too much of a hurry to bother with trying to open the door.

  A couple of campers from the adjacent campgrounds gawked at him, pausing their activities with hands on hips. Maybe he looked like a crazy person out here. Ben felt like a crazy person.

  Taking a breath, he calmed himself and tried the door handle. Unlocked.

  “Reese?” he said as he pushed inside. His trailer, exactly like Ben’s, was a mess. Clothes and papers everywhere. All the drawers of the desk were open, with the overflowing contents scattered onto the floor around it.

  Of course, Reese was a horribly messy person, so this didn’t automatically signal a break-in. But someone could have just as easily tossed the place, looking for something. Looking for evidence? The trailer was empty, but Ben suddenly felt uncomfortable standing in the middle of a pile of evidence, if it had in fact been a break-in.

  Ben sprinted out of the trailer and ran back to his own. He entered to find his own trailer just as he’d left it. No sign that anyone else had been here.

  He wandered over to the window and opened the blinds. Reese’s trailer sat quiet, a little rectangle in the middle of a gravel sea.

  Everything appeared to be normal.

  But something was wrong here. No doubt about it. At a critical time when Taylor had sent Avery away, Reese was also missing. The only two people Ben had confided in were now conveniently removed from the situation.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Gary Melloni cleaned up his area before joining the others for his lunch break. Some of the other construction workers building the new office complex at Wild Basin didn’t clean up after themselves until the end of the day. Paint cans, tubes of caulk, bits of stray lumber and boxes of nails. Gary couldn’t stand having a messy workplace, so he tidied up before lunch and at the end of the day. He didn’t mind missing a few minutes of his lunch break if it meant starting the afternoon in a clean workspace.

  Gary plopped down next to a collection of others sitting on the edge of the wooden frame of what would become the front walkway to the building. A beast of a man named Javier scooted over to make a little room for Gary.

  “Long days getting shorter,” Javier said.

  “Is that some code?” Gary asked.

  Javier paused a second, then he let out a boisterous laugh through a mouthful of potato chips. “Naw, Gary. Just saying, last month we had an hour of daylight when we got back to the hotel. Now, it’ll be dark before quitting time tonight.”

  “Too true, Javi. I’m still getting used to the altitude, I think.”

  Javi reached out and smacked Gary on the belly. “That’s not the altitude, that’s the spare tire you’re carrying around.”

  Gary held his tongue, because Javier had about a hundred pounds on him. He opened his lunch pail and dug out his baggie of chips and his tuna sandwich. As he sank his teeth into the tunafish, he sighed up at the majesty of the mountains on the other side of the valley. Working out here beat slogging through traffic in Hackettstown back in Jersey, any day.

  Gary swiveled his head around. “Anyone seen the boss lately?”

  Javier and a few others turned left and right, shrugging. “No clue,” Javier said. “Not since this morning.�
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  “That’s a little weird, right?”

  Javier nodded. “A little.”

  “He was supposed to talk to me about the electrical.”

  “He can’t talk about anything if he’s not here,” Javier said. “Let it go. He’s probably off in town, having a beer. No sense worrying about work you don’t know you’re supposed to do.”

  Good point. Gary shrugged it off and returned to his lunch. He daydreamed about the waitress who worked at The Grubsteak in Estes. The way she smiled with one half of her mouth whenever she dropped the check off at his table. The way she tossed her hair out of her eye with a little flick of her head.

  And the fact that she was young enough to be his daughter. Gary sighed and took a bite of his sandwich. He chewed and stared at the mountains as his coworkers talked around him.

  Halfway through his lunch, a long black Escalade rolled onto the gravel surface of the future parking lot. Gary cocked his head. There weren’t supposed to be any hikers or campers out here, and he didn’t know anyone with an Escalade. It certainly didn’t belong to any of these lunkheads he worked with.

  Four men in suits stepped out of the vehicle, each of them with slicked hair and pinky rings and shoes so shiny they seemed out of place in the mountains. All of them seemed to be the same, cut from the same cloth and told to dress the same and act the same. One of them — the youngest and cleanest-looking one — even leaned forward as he walked, a weird sort of “controlled falling” walk.

  Not local folk, that was for sure.

  None of these men made any effort to interact with Gary or the other construction workers. At first, at least. Gary watched his coworkers, who also made no attempt to talk to or even look at the new arrivals. Javier was busy telling a dirty joke Gary had heard a half dozen times already. Most of the others workers sat in rapt attention, leaning forward as the punchline drew near.

  The fancy guys sauntered across the gravel lot, pointing at various angles of the construction, mumbling to each other. Gary couldn’t make out most of the words they were saying, but he heard one say, “until I see the books, I’m not satisfied.”

  Gary poked Javier in the side and then tilted his head at the newcomers. Javier gave a subtle shake, his eyes intense. But Gary didn’t understand. He wasn’t supposed to look at them?

  Who were these guys?

  Gary stood up, intending to ask them what they were doing here, when Javier grabbed his hand and pulled him back down to the bare concrete floor. He gravely shook his head at Gary, now dropping the subtlety. The expression on his face indicating he would be an idiot to approach these people.

  “We going to Grubsteak for dinner tonight?” Javier said, flashing his eyes at Gary.

  “Uh, sure, we can do that.”

  “It’ll be dark, but maybe you’ll adjust to the altitude by then.”

  This time, Gary definitely knew that was some sort of code. What the hell was going on here?

  And then, another car rolled up, and Gary recognized the vehicle this time. Taylor Snell, the superintendent of the park. When he stepped out of his car and noticed all the suited men touring the facility, a confused and frightened look appeared on his face.

  Chapter Twenty

  After the ominous lack of Reese at his trailer, Ben took a short walk to figure out what to do next. He wandered through the campgrounds, noting the tent campers shuffling inside their temporary domiciles, the RV campers lounging in lawn chairs, the kids playing and dogs running around off leash. Dogs weren’t technically allowed to be off leash, but Ben didn’t make a fuss. He wasn’t wearing his ranger uniform, so he didn’t feel obligated to say anything about it. If he had been on duty, maybe he would have, maybe not.

  As he wandered, his worry grew. With Reese and Avery both gone, maybe Ben should be actively concerned about his safety. Two full days had passed since the attack on the trail, but Ben had to remind himself that danger could lurk around any corner.

  All of this was building to something. What that was, Ben had no idea.

  Outside one tent, a young man sat on a tree stump, sharpening a knife against a stone. When Ben drew near, the young man looked up, and their eyes met. For a second, Ben thought he detected malice there. Then, when the young man rolled his eyes and resumed looking down at the stone, Ben realized it was only teenage annoyance. To him, Ben was a grownup.

  He didn’t much feel like one, with all the confusion in his life this week.

  Sighing, Ben walked back to his trailer, eyeing people in the campsites, checking for any suspicious characters. Everyone seemed normal and uninterested in him. Just average, early-fall campers, taking a few days off from their lives to commune with nature and eat food cooked on tiny portable stoves.

  He opened his trailer door and his eyes immediately tracked to the floor.

  A tiny pool of blood had stained the floor around a smaller, dark object. He flicked on the light.

  A rat lay bloody and dead on the tile in his kitchen area. The tail wound around the body, nearly encircling the poor creature. He tensed, his hand gripping the doorknob.

  He took a step toward the dead animal, then recoiled. The rat wasn’t just dead — the little thing had been killed. A nail had been driven through its body to keep it anchored to the floor.

  Someone wanted him to see this. It was a symbolic gesture — to let him know that rats are snitches and that by reporting what he knew about the money laundering and William’s murder would lead to Ben finding himself in the same position.

  This murdered rat on the floor communicated a lot of things by its presence.

  Ben flicked off the light and shut the door behind him. “I don’t think so, Taylor.”

  Another thought appeared. The rat wasn’t here ten minutes ago. This intrusion had happened while he’d been out walking the campgrounds.

  Another chill fell over him. He peeked out of the windows, trying to note anyone scurrying away, looking odd. But, of course, he couldn’t detect a single thing out of place out there in the outside world. There wasn’t even anyone in his direct line of sight who could possibly ID whoever had invaded his trailer to install it here.

  Time to take action.

  He took out his phone and snapped a picture of the dead rat, then he removed the slip of paper Avery had given him. The contact info for the detective down in Denver. Phone in one hand, detective’s number in the other. It would be so easy to call in the big boys and let them take care of all this.

  But, they might not believe him. Ben didn’t have any hard evidence. Even if he’d kept the invoices from Taylor’s house, that didn’t do anything to tie the park superintendent to William’s murder.

  “What do I do?” he asked the empty room. The silence that came back was of no use at all, so Ben walked in a tight circle from one end of the trailer to the other a few times. He took deep breaths, trying to force the indecision out of his body.

  Finally, he dialed. The phone rang a few times, and then voicemail picked up. “This is Detective Jack Boudreaux, please leave a message at the beep and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  Ben quickly ended the call. Suddenly, all of the insecurities of his assertions bubbled up to the surface of his brain. He didn’t have any concrete evidence he could use. He couldn’t turn over the evidence of the invoices, since that proved he’d broken into Taylor’s house. This rat was an ugly piece of work, but there was no proof Ben hadn’t put the thing here himself.

  Shit, Ben couldn’t even prove William had been murdered. There still wasn’t a body.

  No, better not talk to the detective now. Leaving a message would commit him. He needed more evidence. Once someone more important than a garden-variety Estes Park beat cop showed up, Taylor would get spooked. He would know Ben had something on him.

  And he would likely flee.

  No, Ben needed the goods. Something serious. Maybe instead of all the fretting about breaking into Taylor’s home had been unfounded. After all, the only major b
reak in his personal investigation had come as a result of taking that bold action. Maybe he needed more of that sort of action.

  Time to break into Taylor’s office and find something useful.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  When Taylor stepped out of his car and saw the four strangers wandering around the construction site, his heart stopped. Who were these people? Why were they here? The timing of this couldn’t possibly be worse.

  They were certainly not the state inspectors.

  His panic escalated when he checked his watch and noted the actual state inspectors would be here in about ten minutes. These suited guys were walking around without hardhats or safe footwear. That would be a black mark, right off the bat.

  Plus, the phone kept buzzing in his pocket. Repeated texts from his wife. She knew something was up. She had to know. The text seemed innocuous, but why were they so constant? Was she checking up on him? She had to be.

  Taylor felt like he was one inch away from losing his mind.

  He stomped across the gravel and marched right up to the biggest one of the bunch, a guy in a gray suit with greasy black hair and a pencil-thin mustache. The man raised an eyebrow at Taylor.

  “Excuse me,” Taylor said, “can I help you with something? This is a closed construction site, and you need a hard hat to be in this area.”

  The greasy man sucked on his teeth for a second, then he broke into a broad smile. “And who might you be?”

  “I’m Taylor Snell, Superintendent of Rocky Mountain National Park.”

  “Where’s your hard hat, Taylor?”

  “It’s in the car.”

  Like an idiot, Taylor realized he’d given all the leverage in the conversation to this interloper. Hadn’t even realized it. The man had a charisma about him that had taken Taylor by surprise.