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About twenty minutes later, she heard men coming on ATVs on the trail across the river and hoped they were the sheriff and others of their pack and not trespassers whom they wouldn’t want to get involved. Thankfully, with their superior wolf hearing, only second in strength to their sense of smell, they could hear sounds six to ten miles away.
“I’ll go see if that’s Peter,” she said.
“All right. Let him know where we found the body,” Nate said. “I’m still looking for some ID.”
“Sure thing.” She backtracked the way they had come and headed to the river. She saw Peter in the lead and waved at him and the other men from the shore. “Peter’s here with a team of investigators,” she called out to Nate.
Peter pulled up and parked on the trail. CJ, Tom,and Jake Silver were all behind him with a raft and other gear.
“Did you find the body?” Peter asked Kayla.
She motioned to the direction the body was located. “That way, a hundred yards into the woods.”
“Some of our men are taking the bridge south on the river to reach the area. Though it’s even more rugged to travel on that side of the river. Our medical examiner, Doc Featherston, is on his way to examine the body,” Peter said as they began to get the boat ready to launch.
“Oh, good,” Kayla said. “We didn’t find anyone else here.”
“Hey,” Jake said to Kayla, “do you want one of us to take you back to the cabin so you can wait for Nate to return there?”
“No, thanks. I’ll wait until Nate comes back.” She wasn’t leaving without Nate, and she wanted to finish her hike with him to the waterfalls if he still wanted to. She’d feel better if they did what they had come here to do.
Peter and the other men got into the boat and began rowing over to meet up with them.
Then Nate came out of the woods and headed for the shore. “Hey, I’m done here, honey.”
“We’ll ferry the two of you across,” Jake said.
“What did you find?” Peter asked.
“The man was shot three times. There are no bullet casings anywhere around the area that Icould find. It appears he was shot somewhere else and then most likely swam across the river, managed to crawl or stumble into the woods, cover himself up with a few twigs and other forest debris, and died. It doesn’t appear like anyone covered him up to hide his body, and we smelled no signs of anyone else who had been in the area. He’s wearing a black ski mask, maybe to hide himself from whoever shot him. But it makes you wonder why he had a ski mask in the heat of summer. I didn’t find any ID on him, no car or house keys, but I did find a key card. It’s for the Timberline Ski Lodge.”
“Oh, great,” Kayla said, not in a good way.
“I’ll take it into evidence,” Peter said.
“I figured that. I left it in his pocket. I didn’t disturb anything, except for finding the key card, and I was careful not to leave fingerprints on it. Kayla’s family can probably determine which room it went to and maybe identify the man.”
“Okay, we’ll take it from here. Good job,” Peter said, and slapped Nate on the back.
CJ and Tom ferried Nate and Kayla back across the river, while Jake and Peter headed into the woods.
After dropping Nate off on the shore, CJ and Tom headed back across the river to join the others in investigating the death of the man.
Nate hugged Kayla. “Knowing what we do now,I figure we could have waited for Peter and his men to arrive.”
“Oh, no, I’m so glad we found him. Making sure no one else was there was important too. He could have been there for who knows how long. His family and friends need closure.”
“Yeah, once Peter can identify him.” Nate pulled on his shirt and then lifted his backpack onto his shoulders.
He helped her on with hers, took her hand, and then turned on the path in the direction of the cabin.
“I still want to go to the waterfalls unless you really don’t want to. Are you going to be okay?” She realized after he saw the remains, Nate might feel somewhat traumatized.
“Yeah.”
“So what do you think?”
“Well, he was wearing hiking boots, a black T-shirt, and blue jeans, and he had nothing on him that I could easily locate—like ID, water bottle, hiking pack. Just the key card. I’m wondering if it happened at night, he was shot and crossed the water, or even if the gunman fired at him when he was trying to cross the water or had reached the other side and the gunman couldn’t locate him afterward.”
