Page 11 of So Dark

She shrugged. “Just trying to make the best of it. This asshole would have killed these two people no matter what I did. But I’m happy that I’m going to bring him to justice.”

“Well, when you put it that way.”

***

It was after ten in the morning local time when the helicopter lowered the three of them along with a police detective down to the grass in front of a simple wooden cabin. Michael held on grimly as he descended the ladder and sighed with relief when his feet reached solid ground. Turk was no less grim as he descended in the basket they used to rescue stuck animals.

The helicopter moved off as soon as the last of them was down, and soon, the chop of the rotors was replaced with the silence of the Alaskan wilderness.

“All right,” Faith said to the detective. “Talk to me. What do we have so far?”

The officer was a middle-aged man with a husky build and a bushy handlebar mustache who introduced himself as Wyatt. He put his hands on his hips and affected a passable Midwestern drawl when he replied. “Well, the body’s gone already. Shipped it to Anchorage so the coroner could take a look. Just got that report back an hour before y’all showed up. Cause of death is what we told your boss. Pickaxe struck Mr. Holloway at the base of the skull and severed his brainstem.”

“And the blow was delivered from above and behind?”

“Mmhmm. Come on, I’ll show you.”

He led the three of them toward the cabin. They stepped inside, and Wyatt pointed to a pin with a red flag punched into the roof of the cabin. "Haven't had a chance to search everywhere yet, but I can tell you what we found so far."

“You haven’t had a chance to search?” Faith asked. “This murder occurred yesterday, correct?”

“We found the body yesterday, yes, but we’re spread pretty thin. We had some calls to take care of in Anchorage, so we had to get the body out of here ASAP and save the full analysis for later.”

Faith frowned. “And meanwhile, the killer could have erased or taken the evidence.”

Wyatt’s jaw tightened. “Like I said, ma’am, we’re spread pretty thin here.”

Faith decided she would have to let this go for now. This was a serious mistake on the part of the police, but there was nothing she could do to change it now. Better to learn what they could now and address this in their formal report. “All right. Go ahead and show us what you know.”

Wyatt nodded and pointed at the ceiling. "That there is where the handle of the axe was tied. It operated on a simple hinge. There was chicken wire that ran under the head of the axe here"—he pointed at another pin—" and went to the wall here."

Another red flag showed where the wire ran to the floor, and a final one indicated the tripwire Ethan would have stepped on. “Chicken wire was painted the same color as the wood so it would blend in,” Wyatt explained. “Holloway stepped on the wire, and the axe swung down and caught him right here.” He turned around and tapped the hollow of his skull. “Killed him instantly.”

“That’s a silver lining, I guess,” Michael said.

“Was anything stolen?” Faith asked.

“Doesn’t look like it. All he had on him was a crossbow and a backpack with some survival gear: satellite phone, fire starting kit, a knife, a compass, a first aid kit. Killer didn’t take any of those.”

"Didn't take the satellite phone either," Michael said. "Where was that phone?"

“On Mr. Holloway’s person.”

“The killer wasn’t here when the murders were committed, though,” Faith said. “So he wouldn’t have been here to take any of Ethan’s belongings.”

“Looks like he never came back for them, though,” Wyatt said. “That’s the part that’s strange.”

“Not so strange,” Faith replied. “It just means that the motive for the homicide wasn’t theft.”

Wyatt nodded. “Kind of a cowardly way to do it,” he said. “Setting a trap and hiding somewhere instead of having it out man to man.”

“Killers are cowards a lot of the time,” Michael opined.

“They are,” Faith agreed. “And sometimes they just don’t think like you and I do. We would consider it cowardly to kill from a distance. But if our killer thinks of himself as a hunter, then he probably thinks of this as a victory. The smart hunter defeated the dumb animal.”

“Like that movie about the guy who hunts people?” Wyatt asked.

“I haven’t seen it,” Faith replied. “But sure.”

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