“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Dad.” Emily smiled up at him. “It’s kind of nice knowing you’ll be there for us if we ever get into trouble.” She chuckled. “Although, the parent teacher nights were freaky. I love seeing people’s expressions when you walk into a room. You look kinda scary sometimes, you know?”
Wolfe smiled. “Your mom called it ‘intense.’ She’d say, ‘Take that intense look off your face, you’ll scare the neighbors.’” He sighed. “At the time I was working through a difficult situation, so my mind was on the job, not at a cookout.” He looked ahead and spotted Kane coming out of the trees with Jenna close behind. “I think that’s the cabin up ahead.”
When the manager pushed past them and practically ran back up the path, Wolfe stared after him and then turned his attention to the area inside the crime scene tape. He waited for Jenna to make her way to his side. “Did you break the ice?”
“I did.” Kane kicked the toes of his snow-caked boots against a tree stump. “The report we had was when Agnes delivered room service to the chalet, she spotted a shoe in the pond. By the time the manager contacted us, it was frozen over. I broke it using a branch.”
Wolfe nodded. “Any sign of a struggle in the room?”
“Nothing.” Jenna waved a hand toward the door. “Breakfast is delivered through a hatch, into a sealed compartment accessed only by the guest. It wasn’t touched. The bed hasn’t been slept in. We found nothing unusual inside at all.” She walked toward the pond. “She was last seen making notes in the foyer by the fire. It’s a meeting place, everyone congregates there, but she was the last person seen leaving on the CCTV footage. We haven’t found her purse and it must be substantial to carry a notebook.” She waved behind her. “We’ve been searching the surrounding area looking for any signs of disturbance.”
“I tried to get Duke to track her, but he couldn’t pick up a scent. We found nothing.” Kane shrugged. “If someone else was here last night, whoever cleared the snow this morning has obliterated any evidence.” He led the way to a cleared patch of ice. “We did find blood spatter, sealed in the ice.”
Wolfe followed and bent and examined the evidence. “We’ll need to clear the snow from this entire area and expose the ice.” He pointed to a metal box set beside the pathway with a padlock hanging from the door. “That looks like a maintenance shed. Take a look inside. It should have something we can use.”
“It’s padlocked.” Emily looked at him. “We’d need bolt cutters to get in there without a key. Do you want me to go and get the manager?”
As Wolfe turned around, he heard the metal door creak open. He smiled to himself. There wasn’t a door Kane couldn’t open. “Anything in there?”
“Yeah.” Kane pulled out a snow pusher and went to work.
Wolfe moved closer to the pond and bent to look at the body. The water had already iced over but it broke easily enough. He peered at the legs and turned to Webber. “I’ll glove up and pull her out by the feet. Be ready to support her head when it leaves the water. The snow will protect the body, but I don’t want any post-mortem injuries.”
“Gotcha.” Webber snapped on gloves. “It’s going to be damn cold handling her.” He moved into position.
Rolling up his sleeves, Wolfe dipped his hands into the bitterly cold water, gripped the body by the ankles, and tugged. Amazingly, she slid from the icy depths in one move and with Webber’s help he settled her on the snow. The fully clothed body was frozen solid. The face stark white, lips blue, and hair sticking out like a bundle of wet twigs. The hands had been pushed into the pockets of her coat in an almost casual pose. He heard Jenna’s sharp intake of breath beside him and glanced at her startled expression. “Now you don’t see that every day.”
“Let’s hope we never see anything like that again.” Jenna shook her head. “So much for falling into the pool and drowning.”
Wolfe dried his arms on a wad of cotton Emily had handed him and pulled down his sleeves. “Ah well, we’ll see what else happened to her when she thaws out.”
He never made a snap judgement on cause of death, but it was obvious they were looking at a homicide. The strap of the missing purse was drawn so tight around the victim’s neck that the skin had bulged on each side and, in a bloody mess of destruction, a gold pen protruded from one eye.
Five
As Wolfe did a preliminary examination of the body, Jenna kneeled on an aluminum blanket beside Kane and examined the ice layer under the snow using her Maglite. The wind howled around them, chilling her to the bone. The cold seemed to slice through her jeans and right through her thermals. As they shuffled slowly from the pathway to the pond, she noticed something glinting in the ice. “By your left hand. I see something shining. What’s that?”
“It’s an earring.” Kane pulled out his phone and took a few images. “Nothing around it at all. No footprints, scuff marks, zip.” He waved to get Wolfe’s attention. “Is the victim wearing earrings?”
“Nope.” Wolfe zipped up the body bag. “Pull it out and bag it. Maybe it belongs to her attacker.” He lifted one end of the bag and with Webber slid it onto the gurney. “You can head back to the van, Colt. I’ll be right along.” He turned back to Kane. “At least we have some evidence to go on for a change. The blood spatter is a bonus and I was able to collect a good sample.”
Jenna looked up at him. Her teeth chattering. “We’re done here and I need to get back to the hotel.”
“You’ll have a ton of work ahead of you.” Wolfe removed his gloves and balled them up. “I don’t have to rush to get the body back to the morgue. It will take days to thaw. We can assist with the investigation for an hour or so.” He held out his hand to Jenna and pulled her to her feet. “I figure the manager is going to be uncooperative. He started complaining the moment I arrived.”
Jenna rolled her eyes. “Did he now?” She brushed snow from her jeans and straightened. “I guess this book convention is a big deal for the resort. This would be the last thing they’d want to happen.”
“Maybe not.” Kane bagged the earring, wrote on it, and tossed it to Wolfe before removing his surgical gloves. “What would be better at a crime-book convention than a murder?”
Speechless, Jenna pulled on her gloves and tried to stamp warmth back into her feet as she gaped at him. “Oh, come on, Dave, that’s crazy talk. Do you think someone would actually commit murder as a publicity stunt?”
“It depends how desperate they are to sell books, I guess.” Kane folded the aluminum blanket. “Considering what we’ve discovered so far, what conclusions have you come up with?”
Turning back to the path. Jenna ran the evidence through her mind. “Well, I’m sure, Dakota Storm was someone admired by those she brokered deals for, but I guess that she upset the majority of authors she declined.”
“All true, but it would be the same for many agents.” Kane shrugged. “I’m guessing as most agents represent less than one percent of the authors who pitch to them, many would feel some degree of animosity toward the person who rejected them. It’s human nature.”
Staring into space, Jenna considered the case. “Enough to murder someone?”