Points West (A Butterscotch Jones Mystery Book 5) (4 page)

The disturbed blood and damaged snow confused things. Bears
certainly screwed up the crime scene. Chuck couldn’t tell
what
were older blood splatters from newer ones because of the snow freezing
everything in place
. Nor could he sort out Brian’s blood from the other
victim’s. But he could follow tracks, calculate ballistics, and measure force
applied, and he did this until he found the remains of a pink parka. It had a
large, bloody hole in it and the sleeves were missing. The pocket was intact
though and held closed with a zipper.

“She liked pink,” Butterscotch said sadly and then returned
her gaze to the woods. Max was quiet, scenting the air.

Chuck opened the zipper carefully and extracted a badge.
Jane Doe had another name. She was also Janet Dee. Her picture wasn’t
particularly clear. He could see dark hair and eyes. She looked familiar but
that was probably because she looked like half the women in Winnipeg. Under her
name it said
Immunology
.

“Immunology where?
For what company?
Hopefully not the government,” Chuck
murmured, showing the badge to Butterscotch and then slipping it into his own
pocket after she shook her head, indicating that the woman was a stranger. He
dropped the bloody piece of coat.

“That can’t be good though.”

“No. Not good at all.”

Holy Hell! What had Brian gotten himself into this time? Was
this woman, Janet Dee who worked in
Immunology
,
just another of his casual pickups?

Or, as was more his style, had he set out to seduce her to
get access to specific information?
And what kind of
information?
Nasty viruses?
Bioweapons?
The formulas for the latest flu vaccines?
Was this
some other kind of industrial espionage? And for whom was he shopping?
Himself?
Another company?
Another government?
Their own?
There were too many candidates for the role of puppet master here.

Because it almost had to be something like
that.
Casual dates, even with pigs like Brian, didn’t usually lead to
double wilderness homicides.

“How about this for a scenario?
Janet Dee had started dating Brian and then one day she discovered that
something had been taken off her computer—probably something she shouldn’t have
brought home from the office to work on after hours. She’d have guessed who had
taken it right away and, not wanting anyone at her job to know that she had
screwed up by bringing work home, she came looking for Brian on her own.

“She confronted him, demanded the return of her
property—most likely the pink memory stick. Brian likely refused—he was shot
from the front so he was facing his killer.”

Had he laughed at her? Goaded her?

“And he pushed her too far. Some men are stupid that way,”
Butterscotch agreed.

Chuck, though he fought to remain dispassionate, felt a degree
of worry and a huge amount of disgust. Brian’s theft had led to this mess. He
didn’t want to think about that tiny hand—all that was left of this woman’s
body.
A stranger, maybe a not very moral person, but still a
human.
And one who had ended up in the belly of a bear so there would be
no body to take home and bury.

He knew how Brian had reacted to being shot, but those
injection sites on his body were now worrisome. The best he could hope for was
that Brian had taken up recreational drug use and they had caused some kind of
killing rage. The worst….

The evil, dumb bastard.
Had he
tried smuggling out some kind of potentially lucrative drug formula by
injecting it into his own body? Was he that dumb as well as dishonest?

“I wonder if he was an evil child.”

“Probably.”

But was that true? When had he acquired his moral taint? Had
he been born a sociopath but hidden it until after he joined the police? Or had
he been pushed into some immoral act by circumstance on the job and then been
caught there for so long that he didn’t know the difference between right and
wrong anymore? Either way, it didn’t truly matter. He had turned bad and kept
on doing bad things without repenting.

And the scary thought was that if he hadn’t died he would
still be doing horrible things. Because sociopaths didn’t repent, and there was
no act or sin that they wouldn’t forgive themselves, and his employers weren’t
about to stop him as long as he was useful to them.

Chuck sighed. He couldn’t do anything about that. What
mattered now was figuring out why Brian was coming to the Gulch and how this
Janet Dee had known about it in
time
to set a trap for
him.

“Only how did she know he was heading for the Gulch? Almost
no one has heard of us,” Butterscotch murmured, following his thoughts as she
so often did. “How did she know he would stop here? Or was it just luck that he
got caught short and she acted on the opportunity?”

“I don’t know.” What could Brian have possibly wanted in
McIntyre’s Gulch?
Sanctuary?
That didn’t seem likely,
but then neither did anything else. It would help if they knew whether Brian
was aware that he was dying of poison before he started out.

“We’re not going to find her alive, are we?” Chuck asked in
a normal voice. He was grateful that Butterscotch was always so calm in the
face of an emergency.

“No, not with this much blood around and a
limb torn off.
And a giant hole in her chest. A search would be
pointless unless you want to hunt up a purse or more clothing. Max could
probably track that, though I don’t recommend it.” She was also matter-of-fact,
though Chuck didn’t for one moment think that this was because she was
indifferent. She had simply developed the survivor’s calm. It was a pity that
she couldn’t join the police force because she would make a good detective.

“If there is no chance of rescue then we need to get back. I
have to find out what is on that memory stick.” And what might be harboring in
Brian’s body. At this point he’d be delighted to find heroin or
methamphetamines and that Janet Dee’s worst sin was cooking illegal drugs for
her boyfriend.

He needed a computer for another reason and wondered where
he could get one. The first step was to anonymously Google Janet Dee. If she
was anybody prominent in her field there would be some cyber footprints. If she
were
a nobody
—just a secretary or something—there
would be even more material, social networking sites, etc.
If
there was nothing on her….
Well, that would be a bad sign. Only the
government could completely
disappear
people.

“Big John has a computer. No Internet though. Maybe you can
use your new phone? Or is that not safe?”

“Right, my phone.
Better not to. It
can be tracked.” He never used it for anything except official business since
they kept records of officers’ calls and online searches. “We should probably
send a blood sample to be analyzed too, but by whom?
If it
isn’t too dangerous?
I mean, what if he’s carrying some kind of
disease?” A crack appeared in his calm. He wasn’t trained to deal with
biological hazards.

“Stop it. Doc didn’t see any sign of disease—just a poison
that caused internal bleeding. Anyway, the body is frozen. No one touched the
wound with bare hands, right? We’re okay then.” This she said with a bit more
emphasis, trying to calm him but also convince herself that all was well.

“Of course.”
Good God! He hadn’t
even considered the medical danger to everyone in the Gulch until now….

But Butterscotch was right. It was unlikely to be anything
like a
superplague
. After all, people didn’t bring
home samples of superbugs for a one-night stand to steal. And it was unlikely
that Brian would have been given any tours of top secret biological weapons
labs, not with being watched so closely. So, probably he had thought he was
stealing the new Viagra or something commercial.

“Chuck, have you thought.…” Butterscotch stopped.

“About turning the whole thing over to someone who is
competent with computers and drugs? Yes—but
who
? I
don’t trust anyone in my office. And I don’t know how I could explain the
backup drive anyway. Not without bringing up Brian and having everything
lead
back to the Gulch.”

Butterscotch nodded, but her brow was furrowed and Chuck
knew she was thinking hard.

“It’s beginning to snow,” she said after a moment. They were
under a dense canopy of evergreens and no flakes had yet to penetrate, but
Chuck didn’t doubt her pronouncement. “Since we don’t need to follow the trail
anymore, let’s take a shortcut home. I think I know the way.”

“Sounds good.
I’ve had enough of
the great outdoors.”

Days were getting longer again but they were still not long
enough to suit Chuck, who hated it when the sun went west and colors began to
be muted and shadowy. All he wanted then was dinner and a warm fire. Suddenly
he was feeling very cold and very much at a loss as to what to do. He hated this
feeling and that it so often happened when he visited the Gulch and wandered
outside Butterscotch’s cabin. Nothing was ever black and white.

*
 
*
 
*

“Danny!” Horace said jovially and offered his hand.

“Mr. Goodhead!” the Wings replied with equal enthusiasm,
shaking the offered fist. Then with an abrupt dimming of his smile he added,
“This is Mr. Smith. He’ll be flying with us this afternoon. Mr. Smith, this is
Horace Goodhead.”

“How do you do?”
Horace offered,
but was left feeling somewhat daunted by the blank face whose eyes were covered
with sunglasses. This Mr. Smith looked nothing like a zoologist, or a
veterinarian or whatever he really was. Didn’t they all wear bush hats and
carry medical kits? And he was pretty sure that they didn’t carry firearms in a
shoulder holster.

Probably it was just a tranquilizer gun but it made Horace
uneasy.

Of course, he’d never seen a government zoologist. Who knew
what they were like?

Horace almost rubbed his hands together. Damn! He had
stumbled upon a real government conspiracy. He had always sneered at others who
believed in stuff like that—but here it was. And he was right in the middle of
it. Wouldn’t Chuck be surprised?

“A pleasure,” Mr. Smith said after a long moment of
scrutiny, sounding quite insincere. “Mr. Jones, the weather report says it is
beginning to snow in Seven Forks. We should be leaving.”

Horace started to say that they weren’t going to Seven Forks
but then stopped. Maybe the zoologist was going to Seven Forks and they would
be dropping him off first.

“Don’t worry,” the Wings said, turning away and giving
Horace a wink. “We’ll get to Seven Forks easily enough and you can get to the
Gulch from there. Why, I’ve flown in way worse weather and so has Mr. Goodhead
who is one hell of a pilot himself. You have nothing to worry about.”

Horace didn’t understand why they weren’t taking the vet or
whatever he was on to McIntyre’s Gulch, but he would play along with Danny.
Though a law abiding citizen, Horace felt happy to dupe this unfriendly fellow.

Horace climbed into the backseat, leaving the seat next to
Danny for their strange, unfriendly passenger.

“So what have you been up to, Mr. Goodhead? Did you make it
to the airshow?” Danny asked as they got everything stowed away and he began a
preflight check.

Horace didn’t think he should say anything about studying up
on sticky bombs and anti-personnel incendiary devices. Sometimes people got the
wrong idea when you mentioned explosives.

“I’ve been reading up on the Tiger Moth and Operation
Banquet. It’s all very fascinating.” Horace launched into an enthusiastic
description of this World War II RAF operation. He made it as boring and
technical as possible. Horace didn’t like the zoologist and saw no reason to
entertain him by talking about neutral subjects just to be polite.

Danny glanced back once they were airborne. His eyes were
laughing. In fact, just for an instant, he looked a little crazy.

“That’s real interesting, Mr. Goodhead.” The plane gave a
small shudder. “Damn. I sure hope we don’t hit any pockets of turbulence. You
never know what kind of wind conditions we’ll encounter this time of year. Why
I’ve been in some storms that left my liver upside down for a week!”

Horace began to feel uneasy. His last
flight
with Danny had been terrifying. He didn’t like the zoologist and wouldn’t mind
if he had a little scare, but hoped that this one would be less eventful than
Christmas. Losing an engine once in a lifetime was enough for anyone.

The shortcut proved to be a bad idea as shortcuts so often
are. It got us away from the bear and wolf tracks, but took us into an area I
was not familiar with. An area with ravines—shallow and deep—that we seemed
destined to fall in. Max, being lighter, could apparently find the ice-bridges
across these annoying little chasms. Chuck and I just fell through. Had the
snow been less deep, we would have been injured. As it was we were just
exhausted and cold from all the scrambling.

It was down in one of these little valleys, the deepest we’d
fallen in so far, that we discovered an interesting rock. By discovered, I mean
that Chuck fell on it, shrieked an obscenity, and knocked most of the snow away
so I could see it.

Now, I don’t advertise this to the others in the Gulch, but
I have a fascination for lost cities, dead cultures, and mummies. Maybe because
I live in a lost city, one whose history will never be written and which will
baffle anthropologists when they find the remains a millennium on.