Murder on High (19 page)

After putting the rattle in a plastic Ziploc bag that she’d brought along for garbage (being careful not to get her fingerprints on it), Charlotte turned it in to Tracey, whom she found at the ranger’s cabin. She then volunteered her help, and was assigned the task of looking over the entrance permits for the vehicles that had been in the park on the day of the murder. The entrance permits for the entire month were being held for Tracey at park headquarters in Millinocket. Pyle would later track down the people who had been in the park on the day of the murder through their vehicle registrations, and canvass them by telephone. Knowing this task was on Pyle’s agenda, Charlotte was a bit baffled as to what it was she was supposed to be looking for. And when she’d asked Tracey, he had thrown up his hands. The real purpose of her assignment, she suspected, was to keep her occupied while Tracey spent the morning going through the guest registers at the local motels. Pyle, meanwhile, had taken the rattle back to Orono to check it for fingerprints. Having driven up with Tracey, Charlotte had no choice but to wait until he was finished, and she might as well be doing something to further the cause, however humble. At least, that’s how Tracey viewed it, she suspected. Being a provident Yankee, he was always looking to put free time to good use, and it didn’t matter much to him whether it was his or hers.

By seven-thirty, Charlotte and Tracey had set off back down the Chimney Pond trail to the parking lot at Roaring Brook Campground, following in the footsteps of the park employees and police officers who had already decamped after the abortive attempt to catch the prankster. Charlotte wasn’t looking forward to the hike down. Her muscles were still sore from the hike up the day before. But it turned out not to be too bad. The weather was beautiful—sunny, and much warmer than the day before, and the descent was much easier than the climb up, which gave her a chance to enjoy the scenery. But the trail was just as long, and it was two hours later before they reached the trailhead. From there, it was a short ride into park headquarters in Millinocket. After Tracey informed the clerk behind the desk that they had spent the night on the mountain (for which Charlotte was grateful, feeling as grubby as she did), he introduced her as his assistant, and explained that she would be looking through the entrance permits. Then he headed out to check the motel guest registers.

She spent the next several hours sitting at a table in an unoccupied conference room, sorting through the pile of permits. Her first step was to cull the permits for the vehicles that had been in the park at the time of the murder from the total pile for the month. This reduced the number from about five thousand to about five hundred. That done, she started going through them. First she eliminated the permits with more than one person in the party, on the theory that whoever murdered Iris was acting alone, thereby reducing the number to about a hundred and twenty. Next, she eliminated the permits for those who had been in the park for more than two days at the time of the murder, on the theory that the murderer had come to the park for the express purpose of murdering Iris, and wouldn’t have come early to take in the scenery. This left fewer than a hundred. Finally, she eliminated women, on the theory that a woman was an unlikely murderer because of the type of weapon that was used. Of these, there was only a handful, which left her with roughly ninety permits. All of the criteria she had chosen for her elimination process were assumptions—the murderer might very well have been a woman who had entered the park with a group a week ahead of the murder—but she had to start somewhere.

Then she started going through the permits, one by one. What was there to learn from a name and a license plate number? she asked herself. About a third of the way through, she found out. She wondered why she hadn’t noticed it on her earlier runs through: a car from Iowa with a vanity license plate that read
KLIMBIN
. The date on which the driver had entered and exited the park was June ninth, the day of Iris’ murder. She would bet anyone twenty to one that the driver was the man with whom Iris had gotten into the argument over the
Diapensia
, the one who was a member of the Highpointers Club. She looked again at the permit. Under the heading “Purpose of Visit” was written “To climb Mount Katahdin.” Why else would someone come all the way from Iowa except to climb Katahdin? She decided to call him. Iowa wasn’t a populous state. Chances were that he lived in a city, and there were only two that she could think of: Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. Also, it was an unusual name, Scandinavian sounding: Haakon Hilmers. If indeed he did live in one of those cities, she should be able to get his phone number through Information. If not, Tracey could always track him down later through his vehicle registration.

Going back out to the lobby, she asked one of the clerks if she could use the phone to make a long distance call. “Of course,” the clerk replied. “Mr. Haverty told us that you could have free use of the facilities.” The clerk then led Charlotte to an office cubicle, where she looked up the area codes for Iowa in the telephone book. There were three: Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, and Council Bluffs. This was going to be a piece of cake.

Luck was with her. She found him on the first try, in Des Moines. As expected, there was only one listing for a Haakon Hilmers. Hoping that he wasn’t still off climbing mountains somewhere, she dialed the number.

A woman’s voice answered. When Charlotte asked for Mr. Hilmers, she was asked to hold. A moment later, a man’s voice came on the line. “Hilmers here.”

Charlotte said hello, and then asked, “Is this the Haakon Hilmers who climbed Mount Katahdin a couple of weeks ago?”

“The very same,” he said. “It was a peak experience.”

Charlotte laughed politely. She hated bad puns, but she also wanted to get some information out of this man. She went on. “Are you a member of an organization called the Highpointers Club of America?”

“Yep. Got my pin for thirty high points last year. Must have something to do with being from the only state in the union that’s so flat it doesn’t even have an official high point.” He chuckled. “The closest thing we have is a manure pile. What can I do you for?”

Charlotte explained how she had tracked him down through the Baxter State Park entrance permit. Then she started to describe Iris.

“Go no further,” Hilmers interrupted. “I remember her perfectly.”

Then she proceeded to tell him about Iris’ murder. “Apparently, you were one of the last people to see her alive.”

“I was?” he said, seemingly dumbfounded.

Charlotte continued. “She told the hiker with whom she ate lunch that she’d just gotten into an argument with somebody from the Highpointers Club. Unless there was another Highpointer climbing Katahdin that day, that person must have been you.”

“Are you with the police or something?” he asked.

“I’m working on the investigation,” she replied, dodging the question. “Is that right?” she pressed. “About the argument?”

“That’s right,” he said genially. “Am I a suspect or something?”

“Not at all.” Actually, the idea of the Highpointer being the murderer hadn’t occurred to her, though it was possible. People had been killed over more trivial disputes. “We just wanted to know about the events of that day.”

“Sure,” he said, getting into the spirit of her inquiry. “You mean where I first saw her and that kind of thing?”

“Exactly,” said Charlotte.

“I first saw her on the Saddle Slide. I was ahead of her and the woman who was hiking with her. We were the only ones on the trail. You tend to notice other people on that trail because of the chance of dislodging a rock that might roll down and bonk them on the head.”

“Excuse me,” Charlotte interrupted. “Were you by any chance wearing an orange windbreaker and new hiking boots with Vibram soles?”

“I was,” he said. “How did you know?”

“Mrs. Richards’ hiking companion mentioned seeing someone on the Saddle Slide in an orange windbreaker, and she had noticed the imprint of the Vibram logo in the mud by the brook at the foot of the slide.”

“Very observant. That was me. I didn’t talk with them, at that point. Mrs. Richards caught up with me later on the Tableland. She was alone; I guess her hiking companion had gone the other way. That’s where we got into the fight. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but she was a royal bitch.”

For a few minutes, Charlotte listened to Hilmers’ blow by blow account of the altercation. Then she asked, “What happened then?”

“I continued on to Baxter. Had to bag my peak, you know. That was the sixth peak I bagged on that trip. I ran into her again on the way down to Thoreau Spring. She was coming up; I presume she must have cut over to Thoreau Spring before heading up to Baxter Peak.”

“Did you talk with her?” Charlotte asked.

“No. We just exchanged dirty looks.”

“She was still alone?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Is there anyone else you encountered on the trail that day who stands out in your mind?” she asked. “Anyone or anything? You never know what might turn out to be important.”

“There weren’t many hikers out; it was still pretty early in the season. But I do remember two fellows in particular. I ran into them where the Abol Trail emerges onto the Tableland. It’s about a half mile below the Spring.”

“What was unusual about them?”

“Two things. The first was that the one guy was extremely good-looking. Tall—about six four, I’d say—broad shoulders, rugged-looking. He looked a lot like Linc Crawford, the movie star. You’re probably too young to remember him. He did a lot of cowboy movies.”

“I remember him well,” Charlotte said. “I always thought he was a very underrated actor,” she added, feeling as always that she had to defend Linc from the accusation of being only a cowboy actor.

“Me too. I was a big fan of his. Do you remember his last movie,
Red Rocks
? What a performance.”

“Yes,” said Charlotte. Linc had always run down his films—justifiably so, in many cases—but he had been proud of that one. It had earned him a posthumous Oscar for best actor, which Charlotte had accepted for him.

“I remember when he died,” Hilmers continued. “What a tragedy to have died at the peak of his career like that.”

It wasn’t the peak; it was more like the downhill side, but Charlotte didn’t bother correcting him. For a moment, there was silence on the line as the memories of Linc’s death flooded her thoughts.

It was odd that she could no longer picture Linc’s face in her mind, though she could remember other things about him in great detail: his hands, curiously graceful for such a rough man; the set of his shoulders. Fortunately, she could always look at one of his movies, and often did.

Then Hilmers spoke. “Anyway, that was the first thing. The second was that they looked like they were having words. I don’t know what about. I wasn’t close enough to overhear. Maybe it was about the
Diapensia
. I’m not big on the names of flowers, but that’s one I’ll never forget.”

“What did the other guy look like?”

“Medium height, stocky, a red beard. He was wearing an engineer’s cap—the blue- and white-striped kind—and a green and black plaid jacket.”

That sounded like Mack, Charlotte thought, remembering the plaid jacket she had seen hanging in the horse trailer. He would have been descending the Abol Trail at about that time. They would have to ask him about the other man when they got back, though he hadn’t mentioned talking to anyone else.

“Can’t think of anyone else. Sorry I can’t be of more help.”

“You have been a help. If you do think of anything else, I’d appreciate it if you’d call Lieutenant Howard Tracey at this number,” she said, and gave him Tracey’s number. “Good luck with your peak bagging,” she added.

“Good luck with your investigation,” he replied. By way of a valediction, he urged her to “Keep on climbin’.”

She had just turned back to the stack of entrance permits when she was interrupted by a familiar voice. “How’re you doing?” it said. Then Tracey’s round face peered around the edge of the divider.

“I might have something.” She explained about the
KLIMBIN
license plate, and told him what Hilmers had said about seeing Mack.

“How’d you get his number?”

“I just called Information for Des Moines, and hit it right off the bat. If he hadn’t turned up in Des Moines, I would have tried Cedar Rapids and Council Bluffs. How about you?” she asked.

“I’m impressed. Maybe we should hire you. I didn’t turn up anything. Nor did the tracker; he tracked Pamola to the Saddle Slide, and then lost his trail. Hard to track someone when there’s only bare rock underfoot. What do you say to a little grub?”

Charlotte suddenly realized that she hadn’t eaten lunch. “Sure,” she said, happy to pack it in.

Twenty minutes later they were sitting at an oak dining table in the rustic dining hall of the Big Moose Inn, awaiting two orders of prime rib of beef with Yorkshire pudding. The dining hall was presided over by a large and slightly moth-eaten moose head, with a gigantic rack of antlers that reminded Charlotte uncomfortably of her nocturnal visitor. Though the inn was eight miles out of town on the road to the park, Tracey had been told by Haverty that it was the only decent place in town to eat, apart from a pizza parlor in Millinocket’s Little Italy section, which stretched to all of three buildings. Judging by how crowded it was, the Big Moose Inn looked to be a popular spot. Most of the other diners were part of a raucous and sunburned group of white-water rafters who’d just completed a trip down the West Branch and seemed to think they had accomplished something worthy of celebration. Just the night before, Charlotte had been reading about Thoreau’s trip up the West Branch, in which a bateauman had poled Thoreau’s bateau
up
the rapids, a feat that Thoreau had considered astounding. As Charlotte looked at the rafters, she found herself pondering the social significance of the fact that it was no longer going
up
the river that held allure for adventurers, but going
down
it, and thought it must say something about the slackening moral fiber of the country. Especially when the reward for the modern-day adventurers wasn’t the ascent of the state’s biggest mountain, but a drunken beer blast.