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Every aspect about it was disturbing.
Straightening with effort, she squinted into the shadowy undergrowth rising with the walls of this canyon. Yes, this part of the wilderness was somewhat remote and certainly not a tourist attraction, but in summer there were outdoor enthusiasts who hiked or mountain-biked, fished or picnicked, birdwatched, picked huckleberries, or generally communed with nature. So not as remote as it might seem.
“Detective. Please?” one of the crime scene techs said as she aimed her flashlight’s beam over the tufts of dry grass not far from Pescoli’s shoes. “Do you mind?” The tech was a thin woman with angular features, a pinched mouth, and thick, oversized glasses.
Pescoli backed up and took a broader look at the area. The path that was being examined cut down from the surrounding cliff to angle along the shores of what, during the spring thaw, was a sizeable, fast-moving stream. Now, in August, the water was shallow and sluggish, the pool in which the body lay the deepest part of the creek.
Alvarez, who’d been okayed by the same tech, was crouching over the body, carefully studying the victim’s face and hairline before using the illumination cast by her own flashlight to explore the shallows. Water riffled over shiny stones as it flowed slowly over the girl’s face, distorting the macabre features even more. From there, the creek moved around her torso to run past her legs and bare feet. The skirt of her short dress billowed around her thighs.
Pescoli had seen enough.
Another tech, Lex Farnsby, was searching the hillside, and Pescoli followed him along the steep trail, the dusty path—she was certain, from Bianca’s description—on which her daughter had recently fled. “Footprints?” she asked, breathing hard, beads of sweat collecting near her hairline.
“Mmm. A few, hard to tell exactly how fresh,” he said as he kept at his job, sweeping the beam of his flashlight over the dust. The climb was taxing but slow, and Pescoli stopped several times, looking over the canyon, trying to imagine if the victim had come down this path. Had she been followed? Chased like Bianca? Seen “a monster”? Had someone caught up with her, attacked her, and either killed her or injured her and left her for dead? If so, had she known him? Had her attacker been a male? Or had she died in some freak accident?
“Holy . . .” Farnsby said from about ten feet above Pescoli on the trail. A short, compact man with a receding hairline and a perpetual scowl, he was studying the ground intently. “What the hell is this?”
“What?” Breathing hard, Pescoli followed him to a narrow space between two boulders that loomed over her. He’d angled his flashlight to run its beam on the ground between the huge stones to a spot in the trail where several footprints, with what appeared to be the tread of a running shoe, had left an imprint. Next to them was another massive print, clearly defined and shoeless, as if it had been made by an immense man.
Pescoli froze. Studied the print. “Big guy?”
“Bigger than anyone I’ve ever seen.” He crouched next to the impression, then placed a folding scale next to the print and snapped a photo. The flash further illuminated the footprint.
It was pretty damned big.
Using a slim tape measure, he took measurements of the length and width of the print. “Wow,” he whispered, rocking back on his heels and frowning, his features visible in the light from Pescoli’s flashlight. “Don’t move,” he ordered and swung his beam around the area in an obvious attempt to find another print. “What the hell made that?”
Though he was probably talking to himself, she ventured a guess. “Grizzly bear?”
“You see any claws?” he snapped, as if she were an idiot.
“A mountain man?”
“With size-twenty or more shoes?”
“Basketball player?”
Farnsby glanced up at her. He didn’t bother to hide his contempt. “I don’t think Shaq or Yao Ming has been to Grizzly Falls lately.”
“So what’re you saying?”
“I don’t know.”
But she thought he had an idea, one she wouldn’t like. She saw the spark in his eyes, the bit of wonder in his features in the half-light from their flashlights. “Don’t say it, Farnsby,” she said, guessing what he was thinking. “Don’t even go there.”
His gaze locked with hers. “Gotta be.”
“Sasquatch?” She shook her head. “Don’t tell me you’re a Big Foot guy.”
“Well, this here”—he pointed at the print with one finger—“came from a helluva big foot. Okay? I’m not saying it was made by a Sasquatch—”
“Big Foot’s a myth. That’s it. Nothing more.” But just as the words were rolling over her tongue, she, for a second, remembered what Bianca had said: This . . . this thing was huge. Massive. Like way taller than me and it ... I mean, I couldn’t tell, but it was on two legs. Rearing up. And it smelled. Bad. . . . maybe a really big human. Massive. And hairy.
“I’m just sayin’—” Farnsby said, but Pescoli had heard enough.
She held up a hand to stop any further argument. “Yeah, I know. Just collect the evidence, bring it in, and . . . let’s not go anywhere near the whole Sasquatch thing. Okay? We just need to ID the victim, find out what happened to her, prove it, and if foul play was involved, nail the bastard who did it to her. That’s our job. End of story.”
What the investigation didn’t need was anything that would turn a tragedy into a media circus. Like some tech, a supposed man of science, bringing Sasquatch into the mix. If it was anything, it was some kind of hoax.
