Zero-Degree Murder (A Search and Rescue Mystery) (8 page)

CHAPTER

M
ILOCEK
ground his back teeth together. Frustration burned in his chest. The arrival of Search and Rescue presented yet another complication.

He had crept up behind the searchers, tailing them as they followed the tracks to the rock promontory. Motionless and invisible back down the trail, he listened as they discussed the stain in the dirt and argued about what to do.

Milocek’s hand moved to the knife at his waist. He itched to pull it out.

There had been a time when he would have taken on two adversaries at once. But years of fast food and living the anonymous civilian life in America had made him soft, flabby, had reduced his stamina and dulled his reflexes. He would have to wait for the right moment and take them one at a time.

His hand dropped from the knife.

He watched the rescuers leave the trail to follow the path down into the canyon.

The tracks the woman searcher had found confirmed what logic had already told him—that Diana was hiding still farther up the trail.

Milocek considered his dilemma. Should he go after Diana? Or should he follow the searchers who might lead him to Rob?

The razor-edged knife blade sliced easily through the green plastic ribbon the searcher had tied to the branches of a bush next to the trail. Milocek gathered up the multiple strands and stuffed them into his jacket pocket.

CHAPTER

R
ALPH
sat at the green metal desk in the Command Post. The HT lay inches from his left elbow, the volume turned up all the way so he wouldn’t miss the tiniest hint of a transmission.

The wind outside buffeted the rickety trailer, sucking heat out through invisible cracks and seams and forcing Ralph to wear his Gore-Tex parka, wool hat, and fingerless wool gloves to stay warm.

Half an hour earlier, David Montoya, the deputy on-scene, had knocked on the trailer door to notify Ralph that Carlos Sanchez had been reached on his cell phone. He and his wife, Cristina, had in fact checked out of the hotel in town and were driving on the 10 Freeway to their home in Santa Monica.

Montoya had also handed Ralph a piece of paper on which he had scribbled basic information obtained from a check of license plates of the vehicles in the trailhead lot.

The chair creaked as Ralph leaned back to study the information. The motor home and one of the cars, a Cadillac Escalade, had been rented the week before by the production company. A second car, a 2008 Toyota Corolla belonged to one of the MisPers: Joseph Van Dijk of Riverside. The third, a late model Ford Mustang convertible, belonged to one of the RPs: Michael Benjamin of Brentwood. Nothing much pertinent to the search.

Ralph didn’t like searching without reliable physical descriptions of the missing persons. In a few minutes, he decided, he would walk over to the Tahoe and talk to Montoya again to see what the deputy could do about obtaining more information on each of the MisPers. It might take a little time, but what else did the man have to do while sitting in his unit all night long?

Ralph switched his thoughts to the Sanchez couple. The fact that they had driven down the hill was significant to the search in that it definitively narrowed the number of MisPers from six to four.

He needed to notify his search team.

Ralph lifted the HT to his mouth. “Tracking One. Command Post.”

No response.

“Tracking One. Command Post.”

Still no response.

They’re in a dead spot, Ralph thought. He would have to wait until they called in.

Gracie and Cashman had radioed in the coordinates of their location at regular intervals since they had left the Command Post. It had been almost ninety minutes since their last transmission.

In the rugged terrain, with no repeater high or close enough to catch the team’s signal and rebroadcast it back to the CP, long radio silences were to be expected. There wasn’t a damned thing Ralph could do about it except assume his team would radio in when they were able.

Ralph pulled a crumpled pack of Marlboro Lights from his parka and drew out one of four remaining cigarettes. He had started smoking again when Eleanor had been diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer. Throughout the long ordeal, he had managed to keep it below half a pack a day. Now, six years after her death, he was finally trying to quit.

He stuck the unlit cigarette in the fold of his wool hat and turned his attention back to the search.

Ralph had meticulously recorded each new set of coordinates called in from the field on the laminated USGS topo map of the wilderness area spread out on the little desk. With a black transparency marker, he had drawn an X on the map at the location pinpointed by each set of coordinates, then highlighted the team’s progress in yellow.

Ralph looked at the last black X, the point where the meandering yellow line ended. Where the hell were Gracie and Cashman? They could be just about anywhere within sixty thousand acres of precipitous canyons and jagged mountain peaks.

Ralph scowled down at the map. He hated being out of contact with his search team, Gracie in particular. There were too many variables. Too many things could go horribly wrong.

“Come on, Cashman,” he said. “Call the hell in.”

CHAPTER

G
RACIE
and Cashman dropped down from the trail, following the obvious signs that someone had descended there. Fallen leaves had been churned up, their dark wet underbellies gleaming in the light of the headlamps. Newly scuffed and overturned dirt showed darker brown against the dryer top layer.

Negotiating their way into the depths of the canyon proved even rougher and more hazardous than Gracie had feared. The mountainside was steep, plunging down for more than a quarter mile. Headlamps illuminated only puny circles of dim light ahead of them. Loose stones, sticks, and leaves melted away underfoot. Soft soil released its hold on seemingly well-anchored branches. Gracie’s anger at Cashman dissolved as she concentrated on keeping her feet from flying out from under her.

The searchers slithered down the incline, heavy packs propelling them forward. The inclination was to hurry, allowing gravity to do most of the work. But gravity was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, urging them to go faster. Traveling fast on a search wasn’t always better. Sometimes it was stupid. And dangerous. A misstep invited a turned ankle or torn ligament or becoming part of the scrabble of pebbles and stones trickling down before them.

And in this case, if they hurried too much, they might bypass any deviation from the main track, or overlook some sign or key piece of evidence along the way.

So Gracie maintained a slow, deliberate rate of descent, cautiously picking her way down, bracing herself with her trekking pole on the downhill slope, placing each boot securely on stable ground before lifting the other. “Slow down, Cashman,” she called down to her teammate who was barely visible below her. “I can’t see squat.”

Cashman hadn’t heard her. At least he hadn’t altered his pace.

On searches Cashman always traveled too fast, hiking far ahead of the others, ignoring field protocol that dictated the team travel at the pace of its slowest member. When someone—not always Gracie—reminded Steve of that fact, he invariably stepped to the back of the line, deferring the lead to another—the implication being slower, therefore weaker—member. Someone else should set the pace, he would say. He always went too fast.

“Cashman!” Gracie yelled. “Slow down!”

He definitely heard her that time for he stopped and waited for her to catch up. “Maybe you should go first,” he said as Gracie stepped down past him. “I always go too fast.”

The farther they descended into the canyon, the rockier and less stable the ground became with more fallen logs blocking their path. The trail grew less obvious, harder to follow. Individual footprints were nonexistent.

Because they were out of the worst of the wind, Gracie was beginning to overheat. Not a good thing. As long as they kept moving, she was fine. But as soon as they stopped, if she didn’t dry off the sweat forming on her body and pack the warm layers back on, evaporation and conduction would sap every last bit of heat from her body and hypothermia would swoop in.
Stay dry or die
was one of those slogans actually based on fact.

“I have to stop and ventilate,” she called up to Cashman. She slid to a stop, propping herself on the uphill side of a ponderosa pine trunk. “I’m starting to sweat.” Avoiding the sap caked on the tree’s giant plates of bark, she unzipped her fleece top as far as it would go and the side zippers of her pants from the waistband to below her knees even though they would flap about ridiculously like cowboy chaps. “Nobody said this was going to be a fashion show,” she announced to the tree.

Cashman slid to a stop beside her. He uncapped his water bottle and gulped down the remaining liquid, which reminded Gracie that she too needed to keep hydrating. Altitude plus exertion equaled dehydration. She took a long draw from her water bottle.

Gracie’s shoulders and hips ached from the heavy pack. It didn’t bode well if the search lasted well into the night which it very possibly might.

“Whistle,” Cashman said.

Gracie plugged her ears as he blew three blasts on his plastic whistle.

The sound ricocheted around them and faded away to nothing.

The searchers listened, not breathing, but heard only the wind whispering through the surrounding bushes and trees, drowning out even the natural murmurings of the night.

Gracie formed a megaphone around her mouth with her hands. “Rob!” she yelled. “Cristina! Joseph!”

“Carlos!” Cashman yelled. “What’s the other one’s name?”

“Diana.”

“Diana! Rob!”

Gracie stopped. What was that? Had she heard something? She cupped her hands behind her ears, silent, straining to hear something.

Nothing.

“Let’s go,” she said, stepping out from behind the tree and continuing down the incline.

“Rock!” Cashman’s yell split the darkness above her head.

Instinctively Gracie hunkered down as a waterfall of stones and rocks rattled and bounced around her, one basketball-sized shooting past only inches from her head.

Cashman called down from above, “Sorry about that, Chief!”

Gracie scrambled to her feet. As calmly as she could, she said, “I’d like to remind you of the most basic of SAR principles that says ‘Don’t kill your teammate.’”

“Shhh! I heard something.” The excitement in Cashman’s voice was unmistakable.

The two leaned forward to discern any sound that might be remotely human.

Gracie opened her mouth to say that she didn’t hear anything when Cashman yelled, “Down there!” so loudly it almost made her lose her balance.

He pointed down and off to their right.

He has the ears of a jack rabbit
, Gracie thought. Then she heard it—a faint voice. “Down here!”

Together Gracie and Cashman raced down into the canyon, caution abandoned, surfing the dirt, loose rocks, leaves, pine needles, adrenaline coursing, recklessly ignoring any danger.

“Careful, careful,” Gracie warned herself as much as Cashman. “It’s not going to do anyone any good if one of us gets hurt.”

As soon as she said it, Gracie’s boot slipped. She was sliding, gaining momentum, heavy pack driving her forward like a giant hand giving her a nudge. Frantically she grabbed on to a passing branch. Her body swung in a wide arc and she landed flat on her stomach with an “oof,” banging her knee on something hard.
Another bruise tomorrow
was the only thing her brain registered.

“You okay?” Cashman called back without stopping.

“Terrific,” Gracie answered, spitting dirt and tiny stones out of her mouth.

She rolled over to squat on the hillside. “Rob Christian!” she yelled. “Tristan Chambers!”

Again she heard the voice, louder this time. “I’m here!”

“Oh, screw it,” Gracie said and slid the last couple hundred feet on her backside. Not pretty, but effective. She reached the bottom at the same time as Cashman.

“Where are you?” Gracie yelled as she struggled to her feet.

Cashman zoomed past her.

“Across the brook,” came the voice, unmistakably British. “Up.”

With Gracie on Cashman’s heels, the searchers picked their way across the wide, shallow creek that had carved out the canyon, stepping cautiously from rock to rock to rock, then scrambled up the six-foot-high embankment on the other side.

Two flashlight beams skimmed the hillside. Two pairs of eyes peered in the crisscrossing circles of light to spy anything resembling a human being.

“There!” Gracie focused her light on where, twenty feet above them, a single man sat on the ground with his back to a tree, one leg outstretched, arms hugged to his chest.

“It’s Rob,” Cashman said with undisguised excitement.

Side by side, Gracie and Cashman climbed up the remaining distance to where the man sat. “Rob Christian?” Gracie asked.

The man’s teeth chattered so violently he could barely speak the single word. “Yes.”

Fighting not to sound as winded as she was, Gracie said, “Sheriff’s Department. Search and Rescue.” She unclipped the chest and waist buckles of her pack and let it slide off one shoulder to the ground. “I’m Grace Kinkaid,” she said, unfastening her helmet and tossing it on the ground next to the pack. She pulled her beanie from her pocket and stretched it on, then knelt on the ground in front of the actor.

“How do you do?” was what Gracie supposed the Englishman tried to say, but his words were so slurred they were practically unintelligible. Amazing, Gracie thought. The guy’s half-dead and he still remembers his manners.

“How you doin’?” Cashman asked, thrusting his hand over Gracie’s shoulder and into the actor’s face. “Steve Cashman.”

With more aplomb than Gracie could imagine, Rob Christian accepted the outstretched hand in his own. “How do you do?” he mumbled again between clattering teeth.

“Cashman, why don’t you heat up some water so we can give Mr. Christian something hot to drink?”

“Sure thing,” he answered. “Goody. I can try out my new stove.”

Gracie turned her attention back to the actor. “We’ve been looking for you,” she said, extracting a pair of latex gloves from her chest pack.

“My wife’s a big fan,” Cashman said from behind Gracie. “I’d love to get an autograph.”

“Glad you found me,” the man slurred. “I’d already made my peace with God.”

I bet you had
, Gracie thought. She stretched on the gloves while identifying herself as an EMT and doing a lightning visual assessment of the man sitting before her.

Beneath the caked-on layer of dirt and dried blood, Rob’s face was pale. The eyes that followed her every move were shadowed and dull. Several abrasions on his face, neck, and hands had bled and dried. A two-inch laceration on his eyebrow still oozed blood, black and shiny in the dim light. Sea anemones of white down waved from tears here and there in his black down jacket, and a bloody and scratched kneecap showed through a rip in his black jeans which, upon closer scrutiny, Gracie determined were wet.

Uncontrollable shivering, slurred speech, and poor coordination were classic hypothermia symptoms, most likely the result of spending a good ten or so hours out in the elements, and being wet to boot. But, Gracie considered, some of it could also be manifestations of brain trauma. There was no way to tell which the symptoms represented. The best she could do at the moment was warm the man up, give him some water to drink, treat the superficial injuries, and see which symptoms, if any, remained.

“Drink this.” Gracie unscrewed the cap from her spare water bottle and handed it to Rob. “It’s only warm, but it’s important to get fluids on board as quickly as possible.”

“Thank you.” He reached for the bottle, but fumbled, almost dropping it. “C-c-can’t . . . quite . . .” Gracie steadied the bottle as the man gripped it with both hands and took a long, slow drink.

“Loved
Best Enemies
,” Cashman said.

Gracie hauled her sleeping bag from her pack and shook it out from its stuff sack. “Is anyone else here with you? Tristan Chambers?”

“Who?”

She settled the sleeping bag around Rob’s shoulders. “Tristan Chambers.”

“T-Tristan?” He swiped a hand across his forehead, then drew it back, staring at the dark blood on his fingertips as if not quite comprehending what it was.

“Or Joseph Van Dijk? Or a woman named Diana? Cristina? Carlos?”

“N-n-no. Why?”

“We thought maybe they were with you.” Gracie yanked off her glove and grabbed his wrist. His pulse was strong and regular, a positive sign.

She pulled a granola bar from her parka pocket, tore it open, and handed it to him. “Eat this.”

Rob took the bar with slow, uncoordinated movements.

“Do you know what happened to you?” Gracie asked, watching as he aimed the granola bar at his mouth and missed. He tried again more deliberately and took a bite.

“Had a b-b-bit of a t-t-tumble.” Rob said, chewing slowly. “I c-c-can’t . . . don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember falling?”

“No.”

“Looks like you hit your head.”

“Stings like a son of a b-b-bitch.” He touched the cut on his eyebrow again.

“Don’t touch the lac—the cut,” Gracie said.

He dropped his hand.

“Do you know if you lost consciousness?” she asked.

“I . . . I must have done.”

“Any idea for how long? Keep eating.”

“No.” With a surer aim to the mouth, he took another bite.

“Any vomiting?”

“A bit. When I first t-tried to s-stand up.”

“Can you tell me what day it is?” she asked. Hell, she didn’t even know the answer to that one. Oh, yeah. Thursday. Thanksgiving Day. How could she have forgotten?

Rob angled his wrist toward the light of her headlamp and looked at his watch—gold and, from all appearances, very expensive.

A smile nudged Gracie’s mouth. “Without looking at your watch.”

“Friday, maybe. Or Saturday?”

“Where besides your head does it hurt?”

“P-pretty much everywhere.”