Chapter 9
Looking forward to ice fishing, Sheri and Slade skied out on the snow-covered lake. Slade pulled the sled with their equipment and then they found a spot farther out where the water was deeper. They drilled two fishing holes in the ice and then set up the blue pop-up tent. After setting their chairs inside the tent next to the fishing holes, they sat down, baited their hooks, and dipped in their lines.
They were just waiting for the fish to bite when they heard a dog barking off in the distance. Keeping a pet under control was one of the enforced rules for people who brought dogs into the BCWA. They had to keep their dogs on leashes, in their campsite, not chasing wildlife, not barking continuously. Sheri was glad Andy and the others hadn’t seemed to notice that Sadie the dog hadn’t been on a leash when Sheri had gone to rescue them. Normally, Slade would have been required to keep her on a leash for a walk when she got away from him and found the men.
But Sheri suspected something more was wrong now because the dog was barking constantly.
“We need to check it out,” Sheri said. Being a private investigator, she was always eager to solve a mystery, but she was worried that something was really the matter, especially after the storm had caused so much trouble for them last night. What if someone else had been injured but they hadn’t been able to contact anyone for help? Maybe he was pinned in his tent like Morgan and Lionel had been. Or he didn’t have a satellite phone to call for help. “What if the dog’s owner is in trouble?”
“Or the dog is. The dog is barking about five to six miles away. Because of the density of the woods, I would say it’s closer to five miles.” Slade looked back at their fishing holes in the ice.
She knew he wanted to fish. So did she. “Should we take the sled?”
“Yeah, and the first aid kit, water, sleeping bag, blankets, satellite phones, in case we find someone in trouble. We’ll ice fish again, once we learn what’s going on,” Slade said.
She was glad he wanted to check it out too.
With sled in tow, they quickly skied back to the cabin and packed it with emergency rescue items and their snowshoes. “We’ll ski across the lake to reach the location closest to where we heard the dog barking and then move inland. That way we can avoid all the fallen trees on the Border Route Trail.” Then they headed out, Slade hauling the sled.
The dog continued to bark, sounding like he was heading toward them but then returning in the direction he’d come from.
“He’s frantic,” Sheri said. “He’s worried about his owner, I bet you anything.”
“Yeah, I agree.”
They were going as fast as they could ski on the snow-covered, frozen lake while pulling the sled. The dog was still barking. They predicted it would take them an hour to reach the dog’s location by skis if he was as far away as they suspected he was. He sounded like he was close to the edge of the lake now, though, which helped because they could ski much faster to him than by hiking along the brT.
Slade called out, “Hello! Is someone out here who needs our help?”
They didn’t think anyone would be this close to them if the dog was still barking from that far away, but maybe the dog would come to them. The dog hardly moved from where he was, like he was protecting his owner, afraid to get too far away from him.
“Maybe the dog is tied up,” Sheri said, thinking maybe it wasn’t that he was sticking by his owner. Maybe his owner had left him, and the dog was unhappy about it.
“Hell, that might be it. But it’s still worrisome that the dog’s owner isn’t returning to his campsite to calm him down.”
Finally, they reached the place where they heard the dog barking deeper in the woods about a quarter of a mile from the shore on the lake. Then a beautiful male husky came running out to them. He grabbed at Slade’s parka sleeve with his teeth, tugged at him to come with him, and then ran back toward the direction he’d come.
“I bet his owner is hurt,” Sheri said. “Do you want to run ahead with the first aid kit?”
“No, I’m not leaving you alone in case there’s any danger to us.”
She appreciated Slade for saying so, though she wished they could get there faster. They finally reached the campsite and the dog scratched at his owner’s tent before going inside it.
She hoped the guy wasn’t dead. She’d kept thinking he might need medical attention, not that he was dead.
Slade went into the tent and said, “He’s alive.”
“Oh, good.” Sheri was so relieved. “What’s wrong with him?” Then she had the fleeting idea that he had the stomach flu like her brother.
The dog kept going inside the tent and then leaving it, as if he thought Sheri should go and check on his owner too.
“Mr. Lincoln believes he had a minor heart attack. He says he took medicine for it, but he looks pale and says he doesn’t feel well. We need to get him out of here and he needs to be taken to the hospital.” Slade poked his head out of the tent. “I’m calling it in.”
“Do we need to take him back to our cabin? What about the dog?”
“I’m giving the emergency team the coordinates. They’ll get to him to the hospital quicker if they pick him up at our cabin. He’s in stable condition right now, but we need to get him on the sled and take off. We’ll take the dog with us and anything else that Mr. Lincoln needs.” Then they situated him on the sled and packed everything he didn’t want to leave behind.
“Who do you want us to contact for you,” Sheri asked, “if you haven’t already done so?”
“My wife.” Mr. Lincoln patted his parka’s pocket and Sheri reached in and found his phone. He gave her the number to unlock it. “Nancy is my wife.”
They couldn’t get reception out there on the cell phone, so she called the number on her satellite phone.
“Your husband might have suffered from a heart attack, at least he thinks he could have. My boyfriend and I are taking him to our cabin so he can be picked up and taken to the hospital.” She gave her the location of their cabin.
“All right,” Nancy said. “Is our dog okay?”
Sheri was kind of taken aback that Nancy hadn’t seemed more concerned about her husband, though she understood how Nancy could be worried about the dog too. “Yeah, he’s coming with us.”
“I’ll get hold of someone to come for him,” Nancy said. Then she hung up.
Sheri expected his wife to be more upset about the situation with her husband!
Once they were ready, Slade said, “We’re hauling you to our cabin. It’ll take a little over an hour to get there and your dog can stay with us until someone can come get him for you.”
“Thanks.”
Sheri found the dog’s leash and hooked him up so he wouldn’t run off, though she suspected he would stick close to his owner. But she didn’t want to get into trouble should anyone see the dog with them off leash. Besides, what if the dog did run off?
Then they made their way along the trail until they reached the frozen lake and could put on their skis. Once they were all set, Sheri tied the leash to the sled rope so her hands would be free to use the ski poles. Then they began skiing as fast as they could, the dog running beside the sled, looking invigorated to have a nice run like this. She suspected Mr. Lincoln hadn’t been in any shape to run with his dog in the time leading up to the heart attack.
“I’m so glad your dog was barking and alerted us that you were in trouble,” Slade said.
“I figured that someone would get annoyed and come looking for me to make me shut my dog up. Jet is truly my hero for alerting you,” Mr. Lincoln said.
“He is.” She was glad Mr. Lincoln was talking to them, and that he wasn’t passing out from pain.
“The storm was the culprit,” Mr. Lincoln said. “I was so scared because of it. With the trees falling down all around me, I figured I was a goner for sure. Then I heard a tree snap close by and was waiting for it to crash into the tent. I was so stressed out, I’m sure that’s what brought the heart attack on.”
“Have you ever had a heart attack before?” Slade asked.
“Mild chest pains. But I figured it was just heartburn from eating too much spicy food.”
“But not this time,” Slade said.
“No. This time I was sure I was going to die.”
The dog was panting, looking like he was really enjoying the run. After an hour, they reached their cabin and an ambulance and EMTs were already there to take care of Mr. Lincoln, to Sheri’s relief.
“We’re airlifting you to the hospital,” one EMT said after checking his vital signs.
Mr. Lincoln looked a little gray and nodded.
Sheri was surprised. She had thought from the way he’d been talking to them all the way to the cabin, he wasn’t too bad off. But his condition seemed to have worsened since they had started their journey to the cabin.
Sheri called Nancy and said, “Hi, this is Sheri again. Your husband is being air evacuated to the hospital.”
“My husband’s cousin, Fitz, knows the place where you’re staying. He’ll be there within the hour to pick up our dog.”
“Okay, we’ll be here.” Sheri prayed that Nancy’s husband was going to be okay.
Then they ended the call. Jet wanted to go with the ambulance, but Slade and Sheri kept him inside the cabin. This had been an emergency and they couldn’t have left the dog outside in the cold, but Slade knew that dogs were allowed in the cabin as long as they didn’t get on the beds and weren’t left alone in the cabin while the renters were off on some of their adventures.
Slade gave Jet some water. “When Mr. Lincoln’s cousin arrives, I’ll go with him to show him where Mr. Lincoln’s campsite is located so we can pack up his stuff and the cousin can take it with him. You could stay with the dog and keep him company. I’m afraid he would bark the whole time otherwise. And we can’t take him with us as I’m afraid he’ll run off looking for Mr. Lincoln, unless he really likes Fitz and will mind him.”
“Okay, sure.” But Sheri wanted to do something, even go fishing and catch them some dinner in the meantime. Except the dog might just bark his head off if he was left alone in the cabin and she wasn’t supposed to leave him alone, even if he wasn’t their dog. At least for now, he was just looking out the living room window where the ambulance had taken off.
After Sheri and Slade made grilled ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch, they ate and cleaned up, and then Mr. Lincoln’s cousin finally arrived.
They greeted him, and he said his name was Fitz Connolly. Brown-haired and bearded, he had nearly black eyes that narrowed when he saw his cousin’s dog. He was good-looking, but something was off about him. Sheri sensed a darkness, maybe because he was frowning, unsmiling, smelling annoyed, not anxious or upset about his cousin having a heart attack like she thought he should be.
Sheri wondered why his last name sounded familiar, then she recalled the situation with the pilot who had gone missing. It was a long shot, but she wondered if they were kin. “Are you related to Gerard Connolly?”
“Uh, yeah, he’s my brother. Why?” Again, Fitz’s reaction made her think he was irritated that she’d even bring it up.
“His wife reported him missing a while back. She said he’d returned home on his own. I was glad to learn of it,” Sheri said. “I’m the private investigator who had been looking into his disappearance.”
Fitz’s eyes widened. “Yeah. Can you give me the coordinates to my cousin’s campsite? I need to pack it up and take his stuff and the dog with me and deal with some other business pronto.”
“Yeah. I’ll go with you, and I can help you pack it up,” Slade said.
“There’s no need to,” Fitz said, his answer abrupt, and Sheri didn’t believe he was just giving Slade an out but truly didn’t want his help for some reason. If he was in a rush to get to some other business, Slade could actually make it go more quickly.
“If you’re sure—” Slade said. She was glad Slade made another attempt to offer his help just in case she was wrong about Fitz’s reason for declining the assistance. Maybe he just didn’t want to ask for help from a stranger or put them out in any way.
“Yeah, thanks. Just point me in the direction and I’ll be on my way.” Again, Fitz was gruff, like he wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible. Which she didn’t blame him for, really. He most likely wouldn’t have planned an outing like this that could take quite a bit of time. Maybe he didn’t even like the wilderness.
She thought Fitz would have acted a little more concerned about his cousin’s health, though, unless they really weren’t all that close. Fitz looked like he was about twenty years younger than Mr. Lincoln, about thirty, so they might not have really bonded that much growing up.
“We skied on the lake to the shoreline about five miles from where we were fishing. I’ll show you where we were and you can see our tracks that go toward his campsite and follow them there,” Slade said.
“Okay.” Fitz called to the dog and then he and Jet went outside with Slade. They walked out to the lake where the fishing holes had been drilled into the ice. Sheri wanted to tell Fitz he needed to put the dog on a leash, but she figured he would do what he wanted to do, and it wasn’t any of her business. If he got into trouble for it, he would have to pay the consequences.
Slade pointed to the direction they had taken while Sheri watched them out the window. She couldn’t understand why Fitz wouldn’t want Slade’s help, but that would make it better for Sheri and Slade so they could go fishing again, hopefully uninterrupted this time, and maybe they would have some luck at catching some fish too. In the meantime, she removed the emergency equipment from the sled.
But she also thought Fitz acted oddly about his brother returning home safely from wherever he had disappeared to. He might not care that much about a cousin, but his own brother? It just made her suspicious. Maybe he didn’t like anyone in his family. The PI office had enough paid PI cases that the investigators didn’t need to take the time to solve mysteries that weren’t jobs, but she still really wanted to know what had happened to Gerard and why his wife and brother were acting so strange about his return.
After sending Fitz on his way, Slade entered the cabin and smiled at her. “You’re ready to go fishing.”
“Yep. It’s time to catch some fish.”