Страница 51 из 86
Tens of thousands of acres.
Dahl looked at his battered Timex. “Give them five, six hours since the murder. How far could Bry
Prescott ambled up. “Found something by the garage, Sheriff.”
The troopers eyed the deputy’s bulk. He nodded at them, as confident as any twenty-seven-year-old could be.
“What’s that?”
“Found a tarp, the sort you’d cover a canoe with. And drag marks leading to that stream. It runs into the lake.”
“Footprints?”
“Couldn’t tell. It’s grass and gravel. But the skids could be fresh. And I looked in the garage. There’s only one life vest. No paddles. I’ll bet they took the boat.”
Dahl looked over the map. “No streams or rivers flowing out of the lake. They could get as far as the opposite shore but then they’d have to hoof it.”
“They have the boots for it,” Munce pointed out. “Swapping footgear.”
Dahl noticed that Graham still hadn’t left yet, but was hanging back, eyes on the dark woods.
“Graham, you help us out here?”
He joined them and accepted various measures of sympathy from the other law enforcers after introductions were made and they learned it was his wife who was missing.
Dahl explained about the canoe.
Graham shook his head. “I don’t think it was Bry
“Why not?”
“She hated boats. Hated water.”
“Well,” Commander Arlen Ta
“Only if there was no other way to go.”
Dahl asked, “Did Bry
“Some. And I saw her in the car before she left, looking over her map. She always does that. Prepares, you know. She and her ex came here a few times. She and I’ve never been.”
Munce said, “Bry
“Thought you were busy. On that grand theft case.”
“No, no. Didn’t you hear? That was a mistake. I would’ve come.”
Dahl continued to examine the map. “We know she got dry clothes and she hooked up with that friend of the Feldmans. They came back to the house here, got boots and then took off. But which way?”
Ta
Another trooper shrugged. “I’d vote for Six Eighty-two. They’d plan on flagging down a car or truck or getting to one of the houses along there. It’d take ’em a few hours but they could do it.”
Dahl felt the same.
Graham was shaking his head.
“What?” Dahl asked.
“I don’t think she’d go that way, Tom. Not if those men were still around.”
“The highway’s the closest to safety for them,” Dahl said. He was inclined to believe the men were in the area here and moving slowly toward the highway.
“Bry
“Why not?” Ta
“Because she wouldn’t.”
“I don’t know, Graham,” Dahl said. “Okay, she might not go to a house but she could flag down a car.”
“And how many did you see on the road when you drove up? I saw a hundred deer and one Chevrolet. She knows how deserted it is round here.”
“Well, whatta you think she did, Graham?” Munce asked.
“Headed into the park itself. Straight into the middle.”
“But she’d know none of the ranger stations’re open this time of year.”
“But they have phones, don’t they?”
“They’re not working if they’re closed for the season.”
“Well, pay phones.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
Tapping the map. “I’m not even sure she’d go for a ranger station. I think maybe she’d make for the interstate.” His finger tapped the Snake River Gorge Bridge.
Arlen Ta
“That’s exactly what she’d want.” Graham countered. “The harder, the better. If those men are after them. Put her more in control.”
One of the troopers, looking like a big, buff soldier, offered, “That’s, what? Seven, eight miles from here. It’s mostly off-trail. And the gorge is one of the most dangerous places in the park.”
“All respect,” Ta
Dahl said, “I agree with Arlen, Graham. I know her too but nobody’d strike out in that direction. She’d never find her way, even with GPS and a map and in daylight. I think for now we’ve got to concentrate around here. And Six Eighty-two.”
“At least send a few people into the park at the Snake River Gorge, Tom,” Graham insisted.
“We just don’t have the manpower, Graham. I can’t send volunteers, not with those men out there. Has to be armed troopers or deputies. Now go on home, Graham. Joey’s going to be worried. He’s got to know you’re there for him. I’m talking as a father now. Not a cop… I promise, your number’s the first one I call, we find anything.”
Eric Munce walked Graham back to his truck.
Dahl stood on the porch and looked out over the chaos of the front yard: the lights, the law enforcers, the police cars, an ambulance useful only as a taxi ride for two dead bodies. The victims’ friend, Paskell, had joined Graham and Munce. They shook hands and seemed to be sharing mutual sympathy.
As he turned back to the map to organize the search parties, Dahl thought a short prayer that ended with: And bring Bry
STEAM OR SMOKE or both rose from the van. But even if it was burning it wouldn’t blow up.
They never did.
Bry
Which hadn’t stopped her escaping as fast as she could through the gap where the windshield had been-moving like a caterpillar with her hands taped, scrunching along painfully over glass and rocks-and putting as much distance between herself and the shattered van as possible. She’d paused only to turn her back to Hart’s map and grab it, then crumple it into a ball.
She was now about twenty feet from the vehicle, which lay on its side at the foot of the steep hill they’d tumbled down sideways-that orientation had probably saved her life. Had they kept going forward, over the drop, the airbags would have come and gone with first impact and the final drop would have fired them out through the windshield and underneath the tumbling vehicle.
As it was, Hart ironically might have saved her life. She recalled how he’d broken her fall as she’d slammed into him, smelling of aftershave, smoke and bleach.
She was hurting in various places but she tested the important appendages. They all seemed to work. It was odd not having the use of her hands, still taped behind her, to evaluate injuries. The wound in her cheek, and the gum where the tooth had been, still won the pain award. The throbbing had claimed everything north of her shoulders.
Where was Hart? She couldn’t see him.