Several times she managed to shove Carolyn Van Slyke into the conversation. With the passage of time McCaskil's association with the deceased became ever more fleeting. When she'd first talked with him three days before, he'd referred to her as "the blond" and used her first name. Now she had been relegated to "that woman the bear ate." Since Carolyn had been murdered by a human hand, Anna wondered at McCaskil's seeming conviction that she'd died of natural, if fearsome, causes. When questioned he waved it away. "Whatever," he said callously. "I guess I wasn't paying all that much attention."
Cutting off the chitchat, Anna excused herself. Having walked well out of earshot she radioed Ruick. He'd been off duty for several hours but he was the kind of guy she figured would leave his radio on twenty-four hours of the day. She was right.
"I've got a hunch," she told him. "Run the prints on the second topographical map found on Van Slyke's body. The one in the pocket of the army surplus jacket."
The chief ranger said he would and didn't ask why. Being cagey and mysterious was an occupational hazard in law enforcement. Either Harry accepted that or was convinced Anna's hunch was as uninteresting as it was unimportant.
Grateful not to have to expose her fledgling theory to the harsh reality of nouns and verbs, Anna didn't care which.
The fog was not, as Anna had feared, a precursor to another day's cold rain. By sunrise it had moved on, moved up or simply vanished. The day was exquisite as only a high mountain summer can be: cool and warm at the same time, with breeze on one cheek and unfettered sunshine on the other. There was nothing in the air but air. Not the cloying touch of the moisture of the south, not the putrid undercurrent of a city's stink, not the bracing tang of salt from the seashore. Air so clear Anna felt if she stopped breathing she could soak it in through the pores of her skin.
Joan was gone with Rory and Buck, trudging back down West Flattop Trail to set up camp once more in the small meadow with the great flat boulder. On the surface it seemed unwise. Bears, like lightning, frequently struck twice in the same place. Joan had chosen to camp there again for a couple of reasons. One, Anna was sure, was a bad case of selective memory brought on by a prejudice in favor of Ursus horribilis.She couldn't help but notice that in Joan's conversations the bear had no longer ravaged, savaged or destroyed their camp but merely upset it. The rest of the researcher's logic was sound. There was no better campsite near where they were to dismantle and move the hair trap they'd been aiming for when life intervened with other plans and, too, the bear had found nothing in the way of a food reward. In the bearish sciences this meant it probably would not return.
Not being burdened with a scientific mind, it occurred to Anna that the bear, this bear, their own personal bear, had not been looking for food reward. What else a wild animal, not yet tainted by contact with the human race, might be seeking she wasn't ready to say, but the story of "The Ghost and the Darkness" came to mind. A true story of two lions- solitary hunters, according to scientists, naturally chary of human settlements-who had teamed up apparently for the sheer, unadulterated pleasure of creating terror and taking human life.
If people could go insane, who was Anna to say an animal, if only rarely, couldn't do likewise? Probably an animal smarter than the rest. Too smart for its own good.
"Get thee behind me, Dean Koontz," she said aloud, realizing she'd slipped into nightmare in the midst of the most stunningly beautiful of days. Joan was right. The meadow was a fine campground. Tonight, barring unforeseen circumstances, Anna would be joining her and the boys there. Till then she would enjoy the day, the solitude and pursuing to the best of her abilities the job she'd been given.
William McCaskil's camp looked uninhabited she noted as she lugged her tent and gear down toward the food preparation area and Ponce's makeshift paddock, a tying rail between the food area and the outhouse. A powerful temptation to search his tent coursed through her. The previous night she'd struck out with the slippery fellow. Or missed the basket or fumbled the ball-it was hard to know just what game McCaskil was playing. Had she been a private citizen, she might have given in to the urge. As a federal law enforcement officer she could not. Even in a tent in the wilderness, an American citizen had a reasonable expectation of privacy. If she found anything during an unauthorized search the evidence would be tainted and she would have done the investigation more harm than good.
After a night's sleep and a feed, Ponce was of a cheerier disposition than the day before and Anna's weight was somewhat less than he was accustomed to carrying. In easy companionship they started west, Ponce looking for anything tasty he might snag in passing and Anna looking for nothing in particular. Since there were no clues in the form of tracks or paper trails, and her meager list of suspects had already been interviewed within an inch of their tawdry little lives, she decided to return to the scene of the crime. Third time's the charm,she told herself, wondering who'd coined the idiotic aphorism. The true charm was being on horseback under a fathomless sky with nobody to answer to for the entirety of a splendid day.
Riding on flat improved trails was a luxury and a joy. But as she dismounted and tied Ponce to the log where Joan and the excitable ranger had waited while she and Ruick bushwhacked to the body, Anna was reminded that it had been a long time since she'd been in the saddle. What little padding she once had on her posterior had since lost its stuffing. Her sit-bones complained of miles of insult.
A strip of orange surveyor's tape indicated where the body had been taken from the brush. Anna entered the scrub and began the steep alder-choked journey down the side of the ravine. Alone, rested, the sun shining, she was able to give the now-battered path her undivided attention. She discovered nothing but a discarded Good amp; Plenty box. It had not been there prior to the murder. The cardboard paper had not been rained on. Anna knew she hadn't dropped it and she was sure Harry hadn't. No ranger had. Park rangers were subject to the ailments of the general populace: prejudice, stupidity, small-mindedness, malice; but she had never known a single one she suspected of littering. In the days since the body had been recovered the crime scene had been visited by an ill-mannered civilian.
With the exception of arsonists, who liked to see the fruits of their labors, most criminals did not return to the scene of the crime. Could be a curious visitor who had learned of the location by some means. Could be a hiker coincidentally chose that spot to take a leak and clean his pockets. Still, Anna bagged the candy box, marked the day, time and place she'd found it, and tucked it away. One never knew.
The Good amp; Plenty was the sum total of excitement. In the irregular opening in the alders where Gary had found Mrs. Van Slyke, Anna sifted through leaf litter, crawled into the neighboring tangle of bushes, examined weedy trunks and found nothing.
At length, enjoying a childish morbidity, she lay down in the place where Carolyn had been dumped and, folding her hands behind her head, contemplated being among the quick, and the sure knowledge that one day she would join the dead. Molly said thoughts of mortality came with one's fiftieth birthday. Anna still had a few years to go. But then she'd always been precocious.