Travis looked stunned.
“Not everyone on a hog is a hell-raiser these days, you know. Bunch of CEOs on ’em now. And as for hell-raising, a lot of us just got tired of that shit. Plenty of cops ride,” he added, casting a glance at Frank.
“Sorry, not this one. But we’re not here about—”
“My apologies about the welcome,” Stinger said. “I just happen to appreciate privacy. Come on in.”
Just before they walked through the door, though, Frank’s cellular phone rang. He excused himself and stayed on the porch to answer it, uncertain about being able to pick up a signal inside Dalton’s fortress.
When he rejoined the others, they were seated around a plain, thick oak table at the center of a large, open room. The few other furnishings were equally spartan.
Jack took one look at his face and said, “What’s wrong?”
“That was Pete. The group up there is getting smaller — a little while ago, a botanist and a ranger hiked out with a body bag — Julia Sayre, as far as anyone can tell at this point. These two said the others in the group were going to work on finding a second grave. Seems Parrish hinted there might be as many as eleven others up there—”
“Eleven!” Jack said.
“Yes. Pete didn’t have too many details, but I guess they had just come out of one meadow and were up on a ridge when Parrish started hinting about more bodies being up there. Thompson thought Parrish was playing games, until the cadaver dog reacted to a change in the wind.
“So the others went down to check out this second meadow, while the botanist and the ranger hiked out to the plane. The ranger radioed for a helicopter to pick him up so that he could show the chopper where to find the others — including Irene. But by the time the helicopter came to the landing strip for the ranger, the weather was bad. The chopper pilot said they’d have to go after the others later — they’d have problems just making it back to the ranger station.
“Storms are supposed to get worse during the next twenty-four hours. They won’t send a chopper in today — the pilot of the plane said if these two guys had come out an hour later, they wouldn’t have been able to take off at all.”
“Fucking wussies,” Dalton grumbled.
“I’ve told him the basics,” Jack said, “as you can tell, he’s already got some opinions on the matter.”
“Fuckin’-A,” Dalton said, crossing his arms over his thin chest. “How long ago did these two leave the rest of the group?”
“This morning. The rain and hiking with the body slowed them down. My partner’s going to try to talk to them, but it doesn’t look likely. He learned as much as he could from the pilot of the plane.”
When he didn’t go on, Travis said, “You looked upset when you walked in here. I take it there was more to it than that?”
“I don’t know,” Frank said. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s nothing, but — more than a fourth of the people who started out on this project are no longer with the group. And Pete said the pilot told him that these two were real unhappy about taking off. The botanist had promised to stay with the body, but he still protested about leaving the others. The ranger was even more adamant. When the pilot asked the ranger what the big deal was, since the group had enough food to be out for another couple of days, the ranger said that he thought the guards were fatigued.”
“Hmm,” Jack said, frowning. He turned to Travis. “Why don’t you take out those topo maps we marked up? It won’t hurt anybody if some extra campers show up in the area, right?”
“Free country,” Dalton said with a grin.
“Hell of a thing for a tax accountant to be saying,” Jack muttered.
Travis unfolded the maps and on one of them, pointed out a location on a western ridge. “That’s where the makeshift airstrip is.” He moved his finger along a line that connected a series of dots. “That’s the trail we think they were on when the lawyer was injured.”
Dalton nodded. “How many days ago you say that was?”
“Tuesday,” Frank answered. “Two days ago.”
“Hmm.” Dalton frowned over the map. “How many folks you say were on this star voyage?”
“Originally, or after the lawyer was taken home?”
“After.”
“Twelve people and a German shepherd. The ranger was gone for a day or so, then rejoined them after getting the lawyer out.”
“And the ranger and the botanist say the others were tired but doing okay as of this morning?”
“Yes.”
“And the ranger hasn’t been with them much, right? I mean, after this lawyer got stepped on, the ranger had to hike out and back in — had to find the others — and now he’s hiked out again. Spent most of his time on the hoof.”
“I think so — at least, that’s the way it sounds to me.”
“Tell me about the people in this group — you don’t need to bother with the ranger, I don’t think he figures into this part of the equation very much. Just tell me about the others.”
“Including Parrish?”
“Especially Parrish.”
Frank told him as much as he could, although he knew little of Ben Sheridan, David Niles, or Andy Stewart. From Dalton’s questions, he soon figured out what the other man was interested in: How would this group work together? Who would make decisions? How fit were they? How experienced as hikers?
The main problem before them — where had the group gone after they left Newly? — started to feel more like the kind of problem he worked with every day. Human behavior. So if you were this person, thinking the way he does and in this situation, what would you do next? Instead of the unfocused, nagging anxiousness of the past few hours, Frank knew he had something to work with, something he could set his mind to.
“You think Parrish was bringing these women to this place alive?” Dalton was asking.
“Yes,” Frank said. “He told us he flew Julia Sayre to the airstrip, made her hike for about a day, forced her dig her own grave, then tortured and killed her. Everything about it was planned. He had chosen her long before he made the kill. He isn’t disorganized or opportunistic. You listen to him talk, it’s all under control.” He frowned. “Except . . .”
“Except this victim you caught him on.”
“I wasn’t the one who caught him. Not my case, but—”
“Was it difficult, catching him on that one?”
“No,” Frank said, already seeing where this was going. “It wasn’t as difficult as it should have been.”
“Broke a pattern?”
“Stinger, with only one body and nothing more than Parrish’s own version of the Sayre case,” Jack said scornfully, “how the hell could the cops tell which of two cases set the pattern?”
But Frank was not so quick to answer, because he knew — he knew there had been other victims. He had said as much to his bosses when news of the deal with Parrish came down. Every other detective in the department had said as much. They had all known that the D.A. had made a wrong call.
“Mr. Dalton’s right,” Frank said. “Parrish broke a pattern.” He drew a steadying breath. “He wanted us to catch him.”
“Because—?” Dalton asked.
“Because he knows that he’ll escape.”
“He might want to,” Jack said, watching Frank begin to pace, “but he couldn’t know who would be going up into the mountains, or how heavily guarded he’d be.”
Frank didn’t answer. He was thinking of Parrish’s two known victims. Dark hair, blue eyes. Near Irene’s age.
“Never mind polishing that strip of floor, Frank,” Dalton said. “Get over here and take a look at these maps. Mother Nature has given us a little time to figure out where our man made himself a couple of cemeteries. According to what this ranger and botanist said, we’re looking for two meadows divided by a ridge. That could be several places, but not as many places as you’d think.”
“No,” Frank agreed. “Those two made it in less than a day, carrying a body and hiking in the rain.”