Chapter 14
Slade had wanted to continue to watch the men, but not when one was shooting at them. At least they knew the three men’s partial names and even more about Fitz. But then Slade smelled a new cardboard box of something metal encased in protective Styrofoam. As soon as he started digging at it, Sheri was digging right next to him. Plane crashes could scatter debris for great distances and these men might not ever find all of it. But others just hiking through the area could. Even years later, plane debris could be discovered by hikers.
That sure made him wonder what had gone on with Fitz’s brother, whether he was truly dead or he had made it out alive since both Gerard’s brother and wife had acted so strangely about Gerard’s supposed return. The area had seen significant accumulations of snow since Gerard had disappeared, and the temperatures hadn’t warmed up enough to melt the snow. In the forest, it was so shaded that only slips of sunlight were able to peek through and melt dabs of snow in tiny areas that refroze.
Then Slade’s wolf’s nails hit something solid, and he realized he had found what he had been looking for. A box—new, a little crushed on one corner—but hopefully the goods inside were undamaged. He continued to dig around it and so did Sheri. He was glad she had been with him on this cabin stay, though he did worry about her safety because at least one of the men was armed with a 9mm.
Slade and Sheri finally revealed enough of the merchandise that they could see the description on the box. A laptop, sealed in the box, unopened. Stolen property? That’s what came to mind, particularly since the men were trying to find the “evidence” and remove it from the area before anyone else discovered them doing it.
But now they had a dilemma. He wanted to keep the laptop from the men, should any of them walk this far to look for the items. But he couldn’t carry it as a wolf, and he couldn’t shift to carry it as a naked human and walk back through the snow in the freezing weather either.
Sheri woofed softly at him and then tore off through the woods back to the cabin. He knew she was going to shift, dress, and return to carry the package back. He was left with guard duty, though if those men came to get the package, he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Not when at least one of the men was armed with a gun. He was certain they would shoot him to get the package.
He didn’t hear anyone coming this way, so he prayed Sheri would return soon. It seemed like forever before he heard someone coming and saw her. He smiled. She had a collapsible shovel, his clothes, and his snowshoes. Though he was filled with relief to see her, he was also concerned that she not put herself at further risk. He shifted and hurried to dress while she dug at the box until she could get ahold of it and pull it the rest of the way out of the snow.
Fully dressed, he lifted it off the ground and she filled the snow into the depression where the box had sat. Once she had smoothed out the snow on top, they hurried back to their cabin. If the men chanced to find the disturbed snow, they could know someone had found something and tried to cover that up. No matter how much Sheri had tried to make it look undisturbed, the difference between the freshly fallen snow and the snow smoothed out on top would be visible to someone observant.
Sheri and Slade didn’t speak, just in case the searchers had moved any closer to where they were. He knew the searchers could follow their trail and see that it led straight to the Border Route Trail. No one had come that way but Sheri and Slade, so it would be easy to presume they had been at that spot and went back in the direction of their cabin. The searchers could have seen the wolf tracks too and thought Sheri and Slade had a couple of dogs with them. But Fitz might be confused about it because they hadn’t had dogs of their own at the cabin when he had picked up Jet, his cousin’s dog.
When they reached the Border Route Trail, Slade said, “We need to call this in.”
“Right. I was in a rush to dress and rejoin you. Then I wanted to wait until we were farther away from the men before calling the police.” She pulled out her satellite phone and called the police. “Hi, I’m Sheri Whitmore, and my boyfriend and I found the wreckage of a plane in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.” She told them about the three men searching the wreckage, the searchers’ names, and how one of the men had shot at them, using a handgun.
Slade knew she said that to alert the police that at least one man was armed and dangerous and not to take any chances.
“Yes. We were on a hike when we came across them.” She gave the plane ID number. “I’m a private investigator with White Wolf Investigations and I was hired to locate Gerard Connolly, whose wife reported him missing. The plane number might be from Gerard’s 2022 Cessna 172S Skyhawk. I haven’t had time to verify it. But Fitz did say the plane was Gerard’s when he was talking to his cohorts. Gerard’s wife said her husband had returned home, so the police should have this on file too.
“Uh, yes. We’re headed back to our cabin with a laptop we found buried in the snow near the plane wreckage. We believe the men are looking for more of the same in the vicinity of the crash site.” Sheri frowned, looking exasperated, and let her breath out in a huff that mixed with the cold air and misted. “We wanted to take this into custody to safeguard it for the police so they can learn what is going on. If the other men had found it and everything else that they were looking for, all the evidence could disappear and then the police might not learn what this was all about.” She paused speaking to the operator while Slade helped her climb over a fallen tree.
“No, we’re fine, but our trail could lead them to our cabin. If you can reach our cabin, we can show you the direction to the crash site. Okay, thanks.” She squeezed Slade’s arm and ended the call. “They’re sending policemen right away.”
“Good. When we get to the cabin, we can take pictures of the box, who it’s addressed to, and where it came from so that you can start working on your own undercover investigation into the matter,” Slade said. “Once the police confiscate the laptop, you won’t have a chance to look into it.”
“Exactly. She said we should have left the evidence where it was until I mentioned that Fitz and his cohorts might have discovered it.”
“Right. I’m sure the police will overlook that we moved a piece of evidence when they might not even have found it in the first place. Or that Fitz and his cronies could have found it instead and have ferreted it away.”
Sheri shook her head. “When Fitz was searching for the ‘merchandise,’ I assumed that Gerard had been carrying drugs.”
“Yeah, me too. Though it’s still possible this wasn’t anything to do with anything being criminal.”
“How much do you want to bet that it is though?” she asked. “Since they mentioned they could be in trouble if anyone found this stuff, I would say it was stolen merchandise.”
The two of them were moving as quickly as they could. He was relieved when they finally reached the cabin and unlocked the door with the key code, went inside, and locked the door. He had hoped the police would already be here.
“You know Fitz could discover that we were close to the site,” Sheri said.
“Only if they notice our tracks and the disturbed snow. They may never notice that we were in the area of the plane wreck otherwise.”
Sheri nodded. “True. That’s what I’m hoping for. Since Gerard had been missing for a while, I assume it went down about the time he vanished. And the sighting of the plane flying low over the BWCA? That was about the time that Betty reported Gerard had gone missing.”
“Yeah, I agree.” Slade looked on his phone. “The coordinates that Andy gave us match the vicinity of the plane wreck.”
“So Andy and his friends did find something important.” Sheri shivered.
Slade rubbed her back reassuringly. “Right. We’ll have to let them know what we discovered. It was a good thing they didn’t run into these men if they’d had the chance to go back and see what they could find.”
“Oh yeah, for sure. I hadn’t thought of that.” They were both watching out the windows for the police—and for Fitz and his friends if they ended up coming here. “What do we do if they come and the police aren’t here yet?” Sheri asked.
Slade said, “We keep everything locked up and call the police again and let them know we’re in trouble.”
They heard voices just outside the cabin, but they hadn’t heard a car so they knew it wasn’t the police. Slade feared for Sheri’s safety most of all. The windows rattled as if someone was trying to find an unlocked one.
“Fitz?” Sheri whispered, crouched close to Slade.
“Yeah, that’s who I figure it is.” He squeezed her hand. Damn, he hoped the police would get here soon.
“This is so not good.”
“We don’t answer the door. At least one of the men has a gun, so we can’t risk it,” Slade said.
“I agree.” Sheri got on the phone to call the police again. “Hi, this is Sheri Whitmore, calling again about Fitz Connolly and his friends. They’re here at the cabin now, trying to find a way to get in. At least one of the men is armed with a handgun. We’re inside the cabin. We’re not going to open the door, but what if they force their way in? Where are the police?” Sheri glanced at Slade. “All right. Well, they need to hurry.” Then she ended the call.
“They’re still on their way here?” Slade asked.
“Yeah. A lot of good that will do us if they don’t hurry up and get here. She said they are five minutes out.”
They heard the men moving around the outside of the cabin, checking other windows.
“They’re not coming to the door,” Slade said.
“They’re looking for another way to get in,” Sheri warned.
“All the windows should be locked.” But Slade was checking the ones the men hadn’t messed with yet, keeping low, making sure the men didn’t see him inside and shoot at him. He was afraid they would try to break in even if the windows were locked. Then he started to remove his clothes. He might not have a gun, but a big Arctic wolf would have a fighting chance.
“You’re going to turn wolf?” she asked, sounding surprised.
“If they get in, we need to stop them from hurting us. I think you should too.” He shifted and was ready to deter anyone who tried to break into the house.
“All right.” She hurried to undress and then shifted too.
Slade went to the back window of the cabin, and she followed him. But then he had an idea. If he acted like a guard dog, the men might not try to gain entry. They might be worried someone would hear the barking dogs, or that if they entered the house, they could be attacked. Slade started to growl and bark like crazy.
Sheri took the cue and began barking and growling too, but her voice was different. The men could definitely hear two “dogs” making a ruckus. Hopefully, that would deter them.
The men stopped moving outside the cabin. Sheri turned on a light in the living room with her paw, effectively making it appear that the dogs barking had woken her and Slade up, which was a good idea too.
Police sirens sounded off in the distance, probably too far for the men to hear them.
“We’ve got to make sure they didn’t take something from the wreckage,” Fitz said.
Then the police sirens were close enough for the humans to hear too.
“Ah, hell, it’s the police,” Otis said.
The men hurried off on the Border Route Trail as fast as they could go through the deep snow.
Sheri shifted and started to dress. So did Slade. By the time the police turned off their engine, Slade was wearing his parka and headed outside, holding his hands up high to show he wasn’t armed or one of the bad guys. “I’m Slade White. Sheri, my girlfriend, called in the report. The three men were trying to find a way into the cabin until they heard you arrive. They headed back down the Border Route Trail.”
“Let’s see some ID,” the one officer said to Slade, the other holding a gun on him.
Slade pulled out his driver’s license. Once they verified that he was who he said he was, Sheri came outside and showed her driver’s license.
“I called the police about all this,” she said.
Then Slade said, “The computer is in the cabin still in its new box. The men went that way.” He pointed to the Border Route Trail. “We had also gone that way and then you can see our tracks veer off to the right. That’s where you’ll find our tracks heading to the crash site.”
A couple of the police officers examined the merchandise.
“We were wearing gloves when we handled the box. Maybe you can obtain some fingerprints off it,” Slade said.
One of the police officers asked, “Can you go with us to confirm the direction of the wreckage?”
“Yes, I sure can.” Slade glanced back at Sheri.
“I’ll stay here and keep the doors locked,” she said.
“Okay, I’ll be back soon.” Slade was going to go with the police officers when they heard another vehicle arrive. More police officers. Good. Maybe they would catch the men in the act and arrest them. Then two of the men left one of the cruisers and shook their heads at him.
Slade smiled, glad to see them. Tanner Papadopoulos and Conway King. They had worked on a number of cases where Slade had rescued paddlers in the BWCA. So they knew him on sight. If they’d arrived here first, he wouldn’t have had to convince them who he was.
“We had to come out to see if we could help you when we learned you were rescuing people in the BWCA again,” Conway said.
Slade couldn’t tell them he just had excellent hearing and sight and that’s why he was much more aware of what was going on around him in the wilderness. “Well, I have to say this is the first time I’ve been to the BWCA in winter where I’ve seen this much trouble. I’m just glad my girlfriend and I were here to help out.”
“That was quite a storm,” Tanner said. “We’ve had to deal with a lot of injuries because of it. We just didn’t expect you to find a plane too, and we had to check it out.”
“We didn’t expect to find parts of a plane either.” Slade led the way on the trail back to the site while one of the officers told the others where they were going. One of them stayed with Sheri in case the men returned.
Slade sure hoped they would reach Fitz and his cohorts before they got away. The problem was that if the three men did evade the police, there wouldn’t be any proof, other than Sheri and Slade’s word, that they had been there. Unless Fitz and his buddies had uncovered more merchandise from the plane wreckage and the police caught them with it.
Slade hoped they would. Still, when he led them to the wreckage, even if they couldn’t locate the men, the police would search for evidence of wrongdoing and investigate what Gerard had been up to.
When they finally reached the crash site, one of the officers got on his radio. “Mr. White showed us where the plane went down. We need to have some aircraft accident investigators here to learn what had happened there. Okay.” The officer gave the coordinates to the plane wreckage.
Slade showed the police where he and Sheri had found the laptop. “We covered up the hole where we extracted the laptop so that no one would discover we had been here. But as you can see, the men dug in the hole to try and find the item and then they must have followed us to the cabin.” He explained that Sheri was a private investigator and had been hired by the pilot’s wife to find him because he’d been missing.
“Yeah, Gerard Connolly,” Tanner said. “His wife said he turned up at home and we closed out the investigation.”
“Did anyone check to see if he really came home? Mrs. Connolly also told Sheri the same thing—that Gerard had arrived home—so Sheri quit investigating the case. But now we find Gerard’s plane and it made us wonder why he didn’t report that his plane had crashed.”
“We’re checking into it now,” Conway said. “We’re going to stay here to secure the site, but Tanner will walk you back to your cabin.”
“Thanks,” Slade said, eager to get back to Sheri.
“Slade,” Tanner said, walking back with him. “You’ve had a busy few days. I learned you and your girlfriend saved the campers who had been injured when the trees went down, and then also the heart attack victim.”
“Yeah, Mr. Lincoln. He’s a cousin to Fitz. He might not know about any of this business, but he might.”
“We’ll check into him too. I hope the rest of your vacation is without incident.”
Slade was thinking the same thing!