And as I say those words, curled up at home with Storm, explaining to Dalton and Anders, I stop myself and curse.
“Damn it, don’t do that,” I mutter.
“Do what?” Anders asks, taking another slug of beer.
“Conflate the evidence,” I say. “I know the settlers were not killed by hostiles. I know their bodies make it appear that they were. I’m ramming those two things together and presuming a link.”
“Uh…” Anders glances at Dalton. “That makes sense to you, doesn’t it?”
“She means that just because the settlers appear to have been killed by hostiles doesn’t mean that their killers staged it.”
“Ah. Okay, I get it.” Anders pauses. “Shit, yeah. Especially considering who turned those bodies over to you.”
I nod. “Cherise. Being terribly helpful, wrapping them up and storing them away from the elements.”
“And away from predators that might mess up their handiwork,” Dalton mutters.
Anders
leans forward. “So you think Cherise and Owen found this family, who’d been killed by someone else, and they made it look like hostiles so they could trade the bodies. That’s cold.”
“That’s Cherise,” I say.
“Any chance they’re the killers?” Anders says. “They shoot the settlers and then stage it to look like hostiles? You did say they took the settlers’ goods. They could also get their hands on a nine-mil in Dawson.”
“They could. They may even have one already. I don’t want to jump to that conclusion, though. Who else out here would have a nine-mil?”
“Besides us?” Anders takes out a key and dangles it. “All weapons present and accounted for. I will check the logbook, though, and see whether anyone had the nine-mil out for target practice.”
I motion toward my own gun, the holster slung over a chair. “As the only one of us with that caliber, I’ll run a ballistics test to confirm the bullet wasn’t from my gun.”
“You do realize that really isn’t necessary, right?” Anders says.
“Don’t bother,” Dalton says. “She’ll insist, because otherwise, we’d all be whispering, ‘You know, I think I saw Casey sneak into the forest to kill some settlers last week.’”
“I carry the same caliber of gun used in a murder. I will test it for exclusionary purposes. I will do the same with the one in the locker, whether it was signed out or not.”
“So who in the forest would have a nine-mil?” Anders says, lacing his fingers around his bottle. “No one, right? It’s a handgun, not a hunting rifle.”
“That doesn’t mean shit,” Dalton says. “Anyone with access to the outside world can get a gun, and everyone has access, if they’re willing to walk far enough.”
I nod. “A nine-mil is the most common weapon in Canadian law enforcement, which makes it easy to come by, if you want it badly enough. I’m also sure there are people up here who got one legally.”
“It’s not exactly an AR-fifteen,” Anders says.
“You can get those legally, too, if you follow the rules. You just can’t legally modify it to hold more rounds. There wouldn’t be any use for an AR-fifteen up here. A nine-mil, though?” I shrug. “It’d be shit for hunting, but it’s fine protection against anything smaller than a grizzly.”
“It’ll even kill that if you aim it right,” Dalton says.
I lean back and rub Storm’s ear. “Speaking of protection, I wonder if the hikers could have brought it.”
“Ah,” Anders says. “They bring a handgun for protection. The hostiles kill them and then use it … No, the settlers died first, right? Or around the same time? Close enough that the hostiles didn’t have time to figure out how to use guns, let alone become crack shots.”
“You’re meeting Cherise tomorrow, right?” I say to Dalton. “To give her the trade goods.”
“I am.”
“I’d like to come along.”