Chapter 4
FOUR
CASEY
The road that wound up The Valley turned to gravel long before it reached Snowcap Estates. At least it had dried out over the past weeks, and that was pretty much all the good Casey had to say about it.
His insides felt like a milkshake.
The county and the Forest Service were currently in a budget standoff over who was doing the repairs and who was footing the bill for new gravel and filling potholes.
Neither had blinked yet. Hopefully, whatever unfortunate incident the deadlock caused wouldn’t be tragic.
He’d felt for the West Coast Forensics team, who made the trek up and back many times while excavating the site.
Casey wondered how Etienne and Paul put up with the road, considering they lived at the end of it. Then again, those two had probably dealt with worse things than a shitty commute in their pasts. And no, Casey wasn’t going to think more on that right now.
The truck’s window was all the way down, Casey’s elbow resting on the doorframe for the duration of the drive.
The temperature was significantly chillier at this elevation, but after being trapped with pre-busy season paperwork, he needed the air.
Within a few miles, he could feel himself breathe easier.
The deep baritone woofs of Etienne’s dogs reached his ears before the forest stepped aside and the Allard-Clark house emerged. Bowie hustled forward from the back seat to stick his nose out the window over Casey’s shoulder, anticipating a good wrestle with the Newfies.
“Hold your horses. I’ll let you out in a sec.”
Paul Clark appeared on the porch and jogged down the steps as Casey drew close to the house. He waved, but his expression was grave. Rolling to a stop, Casey held an antsy Bowie back with his elbow.
“I said in a second, dog.”
Paul came to a halt next to the open car window.
“Hey, thanks for coming up. We decided I’d take you over on foot.
Etienne’s keeping an eye on the guy, so we’ll go in through Gordon’s place and approach from the back.
That’s closer to where he is today. Bowie should probably hang back here with the crew. ”
Hearing his name, Bowie gave an impatient snort and full-body wag.
Nodding, Casey decided not to dwell on the trespassing laws they’d be breaking.
Luckily, Gordon was a trusting soul who wouldn’t raise a stink if people he knew and liked came onto his property without permission.
Maybe Etienne plied him with regular deliveries of cheese and baguettes.
Turning off the engine, Casey climbed out of the truck and let Bowie jump out after him.
Bowie didn’t give him a backward look as he dashed into the paddock where the Newfies waited for him.
Paul closed the door behind Bowie.
“Traitor,” Casey called out after his dog.
“This way,” Paul said over his shoulder.
Casey jogged to catch up with Paul, who’d already started following a faint path through the woods surrounding their home. “How long has this been going on? When did you first notice this person?”
“We thought at first that it was someone from the forensics crew, that maybe they had left someone behind to watch over the site. And I think Etienne told you there’s been other folks finding their way up here.
But last week, Etienne was working with the dogs over that way and said it looked like this guy was doing his own excavating.
I went over yesterday and agree with Etienne.
Whatever he’s doing is odd. Something’s off about him. ”
Casey stepped across a fallen log covered with deep green moss and tiny ferns. “And we’re talking about a crime scene.”
“Exactly. It hasn’t been released yet, has it? Etienne managed to get close to him without being noticed and—” Paul shrugged, continuing to forge ahead. “All Etienne could tell for sure is that he’s rough. So then it becomes—who is this, and what is he after?”
Casey tried to squash the growing sense of unease he felt, but it refused to disappear.
“How often have you noticed him? Do you think he’s living up here?”
From Paul’s expression, he understood where Casey’s mind had headed.
Nights weren’t warm at this altitude, even in May.
They’d had snowstorms into June the year before.
A person would need to know what they were doing and be well-equipped with cold weather gear.
At the very least, everything was damp at this time of year.
“We don’t think he’s camping. Really, Casey, you need to see it for yourself.”
See what?
Of course, Casey had already formed an opinion. Whoever this was, they shouldn’t be disturbing a clearly marked crime scene.
He’d hoped that the sheer inconvenience due to location would have kept the curious and the morbid away from Snowcap Estates. Should’ve known better.
Following the rutted access road, they passed what remained of Gordon’s burned-out shed and continued on after the driveway petered out.
Casey grimaced at Paul’s back as they waded through scrub grass, brush, and stands of timber and stepped over lichen-covered rocks, trying to ignore all the spring growth they were disturbing.
Trillium, certainly. And Piper’s bellflower.
He’d spotted both of the endangered species in the area in years past.
For the hundredth time, he cursed Snowcap and the still-unknown group who’d been involved in developing the land. They were all criminals willfully destroying his forest for their private gain.
Casey made a mental note to check in again with Lane Boyd, the state’s investigator, and see if his office had tracked down any of the other investors yet. At the beginning of the investigation, Boyd had told him that Rizzi and Stevens were the only names on paper associated with Snowcap.
There were more. There had to be.
Where had Stevens hidden them? And why? Once word had gotten out, the damn development had become the talk of the county.
“I hope you two weren’t trying to be sneaky,” Etienne muttered, interrupting Casey’s frustrated thoughts as he stepped out from behind the trunk of an enormous cedar tree. “If so, you failed. This way.”
Paul shot Casey a smirk but trailed—quietly—after his partner while Casey held the back of the line.
They continued to walk for another three or four minutes before Etienne halted in the shadow of a few Douglas firs that all vied for the same rays of sunshine. Motioning for Casey to come stand by him with one hand, Etienne pointed out and slightly to his right with the other.
It took Casey longer than it should have to spot the stranger.
The man was partially hidden by a clump of mossy trunks, his green rain slicker helping him disappear into the background.
He was older, Casey guessed in his seventies from his hunched shoulders and silver hair, but he moved with a purpose that belied his age.
Casey thought he looked familiar but wasn’t certain.
Admittedly, Casey wasn’t the most outgoing person.
That would be Gabriel. And having moved to the area in the past five years and immediately settled up The Valley full-time, Paul and Etienne weren’t on a first-name basis with many lowlanders, as they jokingly called Casey and everyone else.
“How’s he getting up here?” This person hadn’t hiked in from somewhere else, and from this distance, Casey agreed with Paul’s assessment: He was rough, but not full-time-living-in-the-wilderness rough.
“An older Chevy Suburban is parked closer to the road, about a half mile from here. He tucks it back into the brush when he comes up. Not surprised it didn’t catch your attention,” Paul offered.
Casey dragged his eyes away from the man and focused on the abandoned construction site.
Slowly but surely, the forest was reclaiming the land.
If there was no further human intervention in the next decade, a person might not be able to tell, with a single glance anyway, that trees had ever been cut down and the area cleared.
Once West Coast Forensics and their equipment were gone, a person could almost imagine what the area would look like when it recovered. If it recovered.
Casey had heard through the grapevine that the forensics team led by Ethan Moore had found human remains that predated Suzie, likely by quite some time, and were possibly Indigenous.
Those had been temporarily removed for confirmation purposes, along with the remains that everyone presumed were Suzie’s.
From where they now stood, several work zones were marked out with tattered yellow Do Not Cross tape that anyone could easily see. He couldn’t tell if the tape had been disturbed since the team had last departed.
He didn’t contemplate the spots for too long because something else nagged for his consideration. Paying closer attention to what he was looking at, Casey realized dozens of pyramid-shaped rock cairns dotted the landscape.
“What the hell?”
While they watched, the man moved further out into the open and began stabbing at the ground with the spade he carried. Then he bent down and picked something up. Dig, lift, repeat. After a moment, Casey realized he was gathering rocks, presumably for yet another cairn.
“What is he doing? Aside from the obvious?”
Paul sort of nodded. “Building markers. We kept thinking he’d stop, but…” He shrugged. “Something needs to be done.”
And it won’t be by us. Casey heard the silent part loud and clear. Paul and Etienne considered Casey a friend, he knew that. But they kept to themselves and did not invite notice unless they wanted it.
Casey was starting to regret not asking Greta to come along. If he’d known the situation involved talking to someone beyond the Allard-Clarks, he might have. Greta was the people person in their two-person department, and Casey was the tree person. Trees, in general, did not talk back.
He uttered a very quiet “Fuck.” Etienne and Paul nodded their agreement.
“I’ll talk to him,” he said reluctantly.