Murder on High Page 2

  Yes, the Mrs. Richards business. He thought it unlikely that she had come to any calamitous end. For Iris Richards, as for many Mainers, climbing Katahdin was an annual ritual. Though there had been many accidental deaths on the mountain, they were almost without exception due to two factors: ignorance or weather, and usually a combination of the two. Most of the deaths had taken place on the Knife Edge, the narrow glacial arête that had been created by two glaciers biting into the opposing walls of the ridge like the blades of a knife sharpener. Despite prominent signs warning hikers not to leave the Knife Edge Trail, inexperienced hikers were sometimes seduced into thinking that the ravines that cascaded down the face of the headwall were easy shortcuts back to Chimney Pond. From the ridge, the tops of these ravines resembled trailheads, but hikers who chose to descend by these routes quickly found that they led to vertical drop-offs that were impossible to negotiate without technical equipment and expertise. In fact, as his boss was fond of saying, there were only three ways off the Knife Edge: forward, backward, and to your death. Which was a bit of an overstatement. Many stranded hikers had been plucked off the headwall, but there were others who had indeed either plunged to their deaths or died of exposure overnight. For Katahdin, with an elevation just under a mile, was subject to sudden changes in weather; in fact, the Penobscot Indians, to whom the mountain was sacred, said that Pamola cooked up its furious storms in the Great Basin to keep interlopers off his turf.

  But Mrs. Richards hadn’t been an inexperienced hiker. She had climbed the mountain a dozen times or more. She would have known there were no shortcuts off the Knife Edge. Nor had she been caught by the weather. The day before had been clear and warm, and though a fog had moved in around noon,’ it had not rained and the temperature had stayed fairly mild. If she had been forced to spend the night on the headwall, she wouldn’t have died of exposure. There was a chance that she had fallen off. Her companion had described her as being extremely fit, but there were accidents of health that could befall a woman of her age: a mini-stroke, a dizzy spell brought on by undetected heart disease, or an episode of forgetfulness that resulted in her wandering off the trail. Thus he had made the circuit: up the Dudley Trail and across the Knife Edge. Though the chance was slim that he would see the neon-green windbreaker that Miss Ouellette said the missing woman had probably been wearing—the headwall was buried in a sea of fog—he had hoped he might see a signal from the flashlight she had been carrying. But he had found nothing except some trash left by hikers on Baxter Peak. At Baxter Peak, he had turned south to Thoreau Spring, which Mrs. Richards had given as her first destination. It was ten by the time he got to the Baxter Peak Cutoff, where Mrs. Richards and Miss Ouellette had separated, and past eleven by the time he got back, completely exhausted, to Chimney Pond. After trying once again to make voice contact, he had radioed in his report to Haverty, and, after being instructed to get a good night’s rest in preparation for a more thorough search in the morning, had collapsed into the unaccustomed luxury of the campground ranger’s double bed.

  Now he found himself scanning the headwall again. Picking up the field glasses with which, at intervals during the night, he had searched for a signal from Mrs. Richards’ flashlight, he sat up and studied the wall of fog through the naked branches of the trees. Though it was June ninth, the trees here were just beginning to bud, in contrast to those at the Roaring Brook Campground three miles below, which were nearly fully leafed out by now. Even when the trees here were in full leaf, however, there was still a magnificent view of the headwall. How he loved this sleeping porch! Ever since he had arrived here three years ago, he’d been coveting the accommodations at the ranger’s cabin. By most people’s standards, they would be considered primitive—a small log cabin without even the convenience of central heating—but to him, they were the height of luxury. In addition to the sleeping porch, there was a private outhouse, a little kitchen, and, best of all, space. As assistant ranger, he was relegated to the dark, cramped crew cabin, uncomfortable enough in itself and made even worse by the fact that he had to share it. It could accommodate eleven, and often did: visiting rangers, Student Conservation Association workers, park employees who wanted to climb the mountain on their day off—a sneezing, farting, coughing, snoring mass of humanity.

  Plumping up the pillows behind him, he sat up against the headboard and continued to study the wall of fog through his field glasses. Magnified by the lenses, the texture of the fog revealed itself to be brittle and porous, like the ice sheet on the surface of a lake just before ice-out. If his guess was right, it would burn off by ten. Which meant that the rescue party would be able to see something. He checked the clock: it was already ten past five. Getting up, he quickly pulled on his shirt and pants, and went outside to check the weather. Then he went back inside to radio his report to park headquarters thirty-one miles away in Millinocket. He didn’t usually broadcast the weather until seven; in fact, the dispatcher didn’t usually come on duty until then, but Haverty had said that a dispatcher would be coming in early to help with the rescue effort, should one be needed.

  “Good morning, Betty,” he said once contact had been made.

  He quickly gave her the weather report. Temperature: 42 degrees; wind: calm to light; heavy fog, with a clearing trend expected by mid-morning. He had decided on a Class I ranking, which meant that the trails above the tree line would be open, and that good weather was predicted. This information would be posted at the park gates and at the ranger stations.

  After giving Betty a moment to write the report down, he asked: “Any news on Mrs. Richards?”

  “Negative,” replied the familiar voice at the other end. “The police have been checking her house every hour throughout the night. She still hasn’t come home. Or hadn’t as of an hour ago, which was the last report I got.”

  “What about Scott, then?”

  “He got back to Old Town at nine. Said he ran into her briefly at Thoreau Spring, but that’s all. Haverty’s mounting a search party. They’re assembling at Roaring Brook now. They should be up to Chimney Pond by eight-thirty.”

  Eight-thirty. That gave him three hours to look for the missing woman. Technically, he should ask permission, but what if Haverty said no? He would be denied the chance of being the first to find her.

  “Anything else?” asked Betty, sensing his hesitation.

  “Nope, that’s it,” he replied. “Over and out.”

  After signing off, he ate a breakfast of a bagel and coffee while he drew up the poster giving the weather report and the trail-ranking for the hikers, who, judging from the thudding of the outhouse doors, were beginning to awaken from their slumbers. When the poster was finished, he hung it on the front porch next to the glass case enclosing the hikers’ register.

  His official duties out of the way, he filled his canteen and loaded a day pack with a thermos of coffee, a ham and cheese sandwich, and a bag of gorp, which he made himself from M&M’s, raisins, and cashews. Though he expected to be back within a few hours, he had learned the hard way that it was wise to be prepared with adequate food and water in case of an unexpected delay.

  Then he attached his walkie-talkie, which he was never without, to his belt, and set off for the Cathedral Trail.

  The Great Basin, as it was called, was often described as looking like a giant bowl, five miles in circumference, with a piece broken out of one side. The intact sides of the bowl were represented by the headwall, which was a sheer rock face, two thousand feet high. The bottom of the bowl was occupied by Chimney Pond, a pristine mountain tarn that lay in the center like a spot of dew in the center of a leaf. Sargent thought the bowl analogy was a good one, except for the fact that it would have to be a very old bowl whose edges had been badly chipped by heavy wear, for the Knife Edge had been eaten away over the millennia by the weather to the point where it resembled not so much the blade of a knife, even a serrated one, as that of a large-toothed saw. The notches between each of the many teeth directed the rain a
nd snowmelt downward, so that the headwall was striated with deep ravines, any one of which might conceal the body of the missing hiker.

  If the Great Basin was a bowl with one side broken off, the Cathedrals, which were Sargent’s immediate destination, were like three giant cairns that had been deposited at the edge of the break. So-called because of their resemblance to the buttresses of a cathedral (though he had never quite seen the similarity), the Cathedrals rose in steps along the edge of the headwall. Since the Cathedral Trail was almost entirely above the tree line, it offered the best close-ups of the rock flank of the mountain. It was also the shortest, steepest route to the summit. If he had any chance of spotting Mrs. Richards, it would be from one of these rock formations.

  He walked quickly. He wanted to get up and back before the rescue party set out from Chimney Pond, and it would take him a good hour to reach the Middle Cathedral, which would afford him his first good view. He didn’t want to miss out on the search and rescue operation, but he didn’t want to miss out on being the first to find the missing woman, either. By now, he was convinced that Mrs. Richards was on the mountain. What else could possibly have happened to her? So far, he hadn’t been able to see anything, but there were moments when the breeze would momentarily blow the mist away, creating windows through the fog. At the lower altitudes, these windows revealed only the dense spruce and fir that lined the bottom of the basin like a cushion of green, but as the trail emerged from the scrub onto the talus slope at the foot of the headwall, he began to catch glimpses of the slide of giant boulders that led to the Lower Cathedral, giving him hope that the fog would clear enough to allow him glimpses of the headwall itself once he was further along.

  His arrival at the first of the giant rock buttresses yielded nothing except a dense, dank wall of mist that rose from the cloud factory below like vapor from a giant cauldron. But by the Middle Cathedral, the mist had begun to thin, and by the time he got to the Upper Cathedral he had emerged from the clouds into the brilliant sunshine of an early spring morning. As always with the weather on Katahdin, the change was sudden, dramatic, and exhilarating.

  On the far side of the Upper Cathedral was a stretch of slope called the Brickyard after the rubble of sharp granite rocks that blanketed it, as if it had hailed rocks for days on end. Unlike the gray Katahdin granite of the Cathedrals, these rocks, which were found only at the higher elevations, were the pale pink of weathered brick. It was here, on the edge of the Brickyard overlooking the Great Basin, that he took a seat and waited for the fog to recede. He knew from experience that it would, just as surely as the soapsuds on the surface of a sink full of water go down when the plug is pulled. He didn’t have to wait long. As he slowly ate his sandwich, savoring the warmth of the sunshine, he could see the edge of the fog bank slipping away, leaving dilatory fingers of gray clinging to the snow in the ravines. His sharp young eyes scanned the headwall, leaping from one ravine to the next, prying behind every boulder, sifting every pile of scree.

  It was about three-quarters of the way across the dark, bare, inhospitable wall of granite that he saw it, wedged like a chockstone in the path of one of the longest and steepest of the ravines. It was about halfway down, which was to say about a thousand feet from the rim, and an equal distance from the foot of the headwall. A patch of fluorescent chartreuse, a color like none in nature. His heart pounding, he jumped up, and slid down the scree for a better view. Mind your footing, he warned himself. It was on terrain like this that experienced climbers hurt themselves, not on the technical routes.

  About twenty yards down, he stopped and raised his field glasses. Yes, it was unmistakably her. And she was unmistakably dead, though there was nothing in particular about the position of the body to indicate that. He just knew, somehow. Something about that patch of green against the cold gray granite.

  On second thought, the color was like something in nature, he decided. Like a pale green monarch butterfly chrysalis that hangs from the underside of a leaf, rolled up into a tight little ball.

  He could already hear voices resounding beneath the clouds. The search and rescue team was assembling at Chimney Pond. But it wouldn’t be needed now, he thought. At least the search part wouldn’t. Unless the fog lifted, and they were able to see the body on the headwall for themselves. Wouldn’t that be a disappointment—to miss his chance for glory! He prayed for the fog to hang in there a little bit longer. It would be such a feather in his cap to have found the body. It might even mean a promotion. If he hadn’t screwed up, that was. According to regulations, he wasn’t supposed to have gone off on his own. The rescue effort was supposed to be centrally coordinated, so that everyone knew where everyone else was and what they were doing. But he knew for a fact that other rangers had acted as he had under similar circumstances, and had been rewarded for their efforts. And it wasn’t as if he’d left the others entirely in the dark; he had left a note saying where he was going and when he expected to be back.

  The return trip was treacherous. The Cathedral Trail wasn’t recommended for descents. It was too steep—almost vertical, in fact—and involved lowering oneself down over boulder after boulder. Moreover, the boulders were still wet from the fog. When Governor Percival Baxter had deeded the two hundred thousand acres he had pieced together over the course of a lifetime to the people of the State of Maine in the 1940s, he had stipulated that it be left “forever wild,” which meant that there were to be no iron handholds or ladder rungs to aid climbers, as there were in other parks. Although Sargent heartily approved of the former governor’s stipulations, there were moments like this when he wished there was something to hang onto. After slipping several times, he kept reminding himself to keep his mind on the trail rather than on the green parka. He didn’t want to break a leg before he’d had a chance to prove himself.

  As he descended, he considered the problem of how the rescue team was going to remove the body. It would be difficult, but at least the weather would be on their side. It was a good thing it wasn’t raining. In the rain, the gullies turned into rivers. The rescue coordinator, who would in all likelihood be Haverty, would probably call in the 112th Medivac team from the Army National Guard base at Bangor to evacuate the body from Chimney Pond. By the time the rescue team got the body off the mountain, the weather should have cleared up enough for flying. The Medivac helicopter wasn’t ordinarily used for transporting bodies—it was supposed to be reserved strictly for life-saving missions—but he knew that in the past the Medivac crew had picked up bodies at Chimney Pond to save tired rescue teams the exertion of hand-carrying a litter down the boulder-strewn trail to Perimeter Road at Roaring Brook Campground, and possibly risking yet another injury.

  The thought struck him that he would have to report an exact location. What was the name of that gully? The biggest of-the-ravines, or couloirs, which was the technical term, had official names, like the Chimney (after which the pond was named) and the Waterfall, but the smaller ones carried the informal names of the rock-climbing parties that had been the first to ascend them. The Something-Baker. The first name sounded a bit like the word gully itself, which was what was confusing him. He tried to form a mental picture of the technical climbing map of the headwall in the office at the ranger’s cabin. But unlike the map in his office, the map in his head had no names. Then he resorted to the alphabet. Bully, Cully, Dully, Fully, Gully, and so on. At T, he stopped. The Tully-Baker, that was it! As he remembered, it had a Yosemite Decimal System rating of a fairly sustained five point eight, making it one of the most difficult on the headwall.

  Now that he knew the woman was dead, he started wondering about her. Why had she come back year after year? Unusual for a woman of her age. Did she have friends or family who would have to be notified? He thought of her companion, Miss Ouellette, sitting in his office in the chair under the poster of the moose, tearing the tissues clenched in her hands to shreds. Then there was the press to think about. They would already be gathering at park headquarters in Millinock
et. The Katahdin Times, the Bangor Daily News, maybe even the Portland Press Herald and the Boston Globe. He could imagine Haverty being quoted on Sargent’s role: “‘The body was discovered by Assistant Campground Ranger Christopher Sargent during an early morning search,’ said South District Supervisor William Haverty.”

  At the base of the headwall, he decided that it was finally time to check in. He should have done so the minute he found the body, but he had been worried. What if Haverty got pissed off at him for taking off on his own? But it was now time to face the music. Taking a seat on a boulder, he made his call. The disapproving tone of Haverty’s voice when it came in on his walkie-talkie wasn’t encouraging. “We thought you’d be here,” said the older man.