Murder in the Devil's Cauldron (21 page)

The joys of investigating, Fae thought wryly.
Half of what made her job interesting was trying to second guess
the bad guys. So much was hit and miss (with more emphasis on the
miss), that too often she felt as if she was working blind, so she
often relied on her intuition. She would often get a hunch that
made absolutely no sense if looked at logically, but she always
trusted it and more often than not, it turned out to be right. At
the moment, her intuition was telling her that Devious Dave was up
to something very soon, if not right now.

So after a decent breakfast, Fae got in her
car and drove down to Cove Point Inn. Although it was a lot further
south than where he had stayed under the name Ricky Bakken, she was
fairly sure he had only picked the Bide-A-Wee because it was
unlikely any potential victims were likely to run into him there.
The other advantage of the Bide-A-Wee was that it was halfway
between Duluth and the Canadian border and everything from the Cove
Point Inn in the south to Naniboujou in the north was an hour or
less. If his stay at the motel in Ruby Cove was part of a scouting
expedition, it was the perfect jumping off place.

The road south of Storm Point was heavy with
fog, so the drive south took longer than Fae had expected.
Fortunately, she hadn't mentioned a specific time when she had
spoken to them yesterday, so she didn't have to worry about being
late. She also appreciated having the time to puzzle out exactly
what kind of con he was planning. He might simply be trying to
target a few of the right people, but Fae had a feeling it was more
than that. This felt like something completely different and she
was determined to figure out what it was and catch him before he
got away with it.

The elusive idea that she might have missed
something important was still bugging her. She hadn't gotten
through as many of the files last night as she had hoped, but the
notes she had read had done nothing to jog the bugger loose. She
knew it would come eventually, but this was one time she didn't
think she could afford to be patient.

Starr got her giggling under control as the
girls slipped out the back door that led off the employee dining
area. She had a million questions, all of which were competing for
the opportunity to be first.

"So tell me about the your trip," Starr said
as they stepped outside, her curiosity about the reservation
winning out over all the other things she wanted to know.

Starr had watched the Kentucky Derby on TV
once with her father right before he left and she remembered the
way the horses bolted out of the gates as Charlie started telling
her about her visit, her words tripping over themselves in an
effort to be at the front of the pack.

Charlie turned out to be a treasure trove of
fascinating information. Even better, Starr discovered she didn't
have to do much to get Charlie to talk. One question and Charlie
enthusiastically told her everything she might ever want to know
about it.

As they walked, Charlie showed her a myriad
of paths through the woods to all kinds of neat places around the
Lodge that Starr hadn't yet discovered and which had several photo
possibilities. The best part, though, was when Charlie showed her
how to get to the edge of the spectacular Storm Point after which
the Lodge had been named.

While Charlie was gone, Starr had taken the
official path on the Lodge map. It had been impressive, but didn't
go all the way out to the Point. But Starr hadn't been able to see
a way to get to the other side without crawling through a thick
wall of prickly brush and scraggly trees.

Now Charlie showed her the unofficial path.
This trail was hidden by two enormous boulders and looked as if it
dead-ended in a wall of trees. Three large trees in particular had
spread their branches out as if warning the girls to stay away.
Starr didn't see how they could go any further. She looked at
Charlie, puzzled.

"Follow me," Charlie said with an impish
grin.

Starr watched as Charlie ducked under the
branches of the tree in the middle and vanished. If she hadn't been
watching, she never would have even suspected anyone had even been
there. And even though she had been watching, she couldn't see
where Charlie could have gone.

A moment later, she walked up to the tree.
Even when she was standing right in front of the tree, the only
indication of a way through was a small opening between the brush
and the tree. Following Charlie's example, Starr ducked under a
large branch, only then seeing a small opening behind the tree. A
moment later she was on the other side where the first thing she
saw was Charlie's smile. As she straightened up, she looked around
in amazement.

She had expected a thick forest of trees and
piles of rock. Instead, the vista unexpectedly opened up, revealing
the entire south side of Storm Point and the view as far as she
could see. Starr knew that Duluth lay down there somewhere, but
Lake Superior was so vast that the only land she could see was
Storm Point and the Minnesota shoreline behind her.

Trees, bushes and huge boulders ran along the
spine of the Point, so Starr was unable to see anything to the
north, including the Lodge. Where the cliffs on the north side of
the Point were sheer and smooth, on this side the rocks were jagged
and cracked. It might have been her imagination, but it felt as if
the waves on this side were wilder than on the other.

Starr loved it. It felt like a secret
garden.

From this side of the trees, the path opened
up and wound along the edge of the small peninsula, making walking
side by side easy as the girls made their way to the very tip of
Storm Point.

By now the sun was high in the sky and had
long since burned off the early morning fog. The breeze from the
lake was cool, but the rocks were warm so that Starr felt chilly on
one side, but hot on the other.

When they got to the tip of Storm Point, the
girls found a large flat rock in the shade. Considering it had been
ages since breakfast, Starr pulled the goodies out of her backpack,
spreading the selections out on an old green towel she had stuffed
in the bottom in lieu of a picnic blanket. As they munched the
muffins and cheese, Starr told Charlie how she was trying to shoot
the Devil's Cauldron.

Charlie was puzzled. "Is it really that
hard?"

"It is if you want to get the light and the
color and the movement just right so it feels like you're really
there," Starr explained. "It's pretty easy to take a picture, but
most of the time those pictures don't really look like anything
special. If I want something that really captures the spirit of the
river with all the colors in the water and the rocks, the light has
to be just right. Plus, the depth of field and speed I'm shooting
at has to be right or the effect comes out all wrong."

Starr could see Charlie was overwhelmed at
everything that was involved.

"It's not as complicated as it sounds once
you have the basics down," Starr continued. "It's having the
patience to wait for the right combination of weather and time of
day and lots of film. It's a lot easier if you know what you want
the picture to look like when you're done."

"How did you learn to do all that?" Charlie
asked, her eyes scrunched up against the bright sun.

"There was kind of a photo club at my last
school," Starr said. "But mostly I got it out of books. I look at
the slides when they come back and if I didn't get it quite right,
I look up how to do it. At first it was hard to get exactly what I
wanted, but it's a lot easier now."

"So when are you going to go back and try it
again?"

"The next time the weather is right," Starr
said. "Sometimes I can tell early in the morning, but for sure by
lunch. Then if it looks good, I still have enough time to get there
and set everything up."

"Is that what you're going to be when you
grow up?"

"Uh huh. What about you?"

"I haven't decided," Charlie said. "I don't
have anything I'm especially good at, so I figure I can make my
mind up later when I know more. "

Starr popped the last strawberry in her
mouth. "You're good at telling stories."

Charlie grinned. "Did I tell you about the
Voyageurs yet?"

Fowler climbed over yet another boulder along
the Temperance River, thinking how much he would enjoy bashing
Diana's head against it. Unfortunately, she was out of reach, so he
had to content himself with running the scenario through his
mind.

While this wasn't the most difficult state
park to hike, he was so sore at this point that it felt harder than
the hike at Tettegouche yesterday, which had just about finished
him off. Especially the climb up the forty million stairs to a
promontory overlooking the lake. While it had been spectacular (if
you liked that kind of thing), it hadn't been worth the climb. At
least to him. Diana, on the other hand, had been so excited he
wouldn't have been surprised if she had had an orgasm the moment
she reached the top.

He had been planning on persuading her to
hike the Enchantment River today, but the phone call from Viv had
put a spike in that idea. So when she told him at breakfast this
morning that she wanted to hike the Temperance today, he had felt
it politic to agree. Especially since he had compounded the problem
by not hiking with her before breakfast again this morning.

Despite her loving demeanor at breakfast, he
could feel the underlying current of uncertainty simmering with a
pinch of pique when she looked at him. When they got to the Devil's
Cauldron, he wanted to make sure she had no doubts about him or
otherwise he might not be able to get her close enough.

So he had agreed heartily (and immediately)
to Diana's thinly camouflaged declaration that she was planning on
hiking the Temperance today. But once they got here, instead of
taking the main trail along the river which was fairly easy and
which he could have managed with a certain amount of aplomb, she
had elected to follow the challenging trail on the other side of
the river.

Now he was just about ready to drop. She was
so far ahead he could no longer see her pink shirt and he wondered
(not for the first time) how in the hell she did it. She was in her
forties and should be having much more trouble. Instead, she hiked
as if she was still in her twenties. If he hadn't known her better,
he would have guessed she was making him pay for missing the
morning hikes with her.

As he slid down a large boulder, he stepped
onto a collection of loose pebbles and slipped slightly. He caught
himself just in time by grabbing the branch of a birch tree.

"God dammit!"

Fowler tested his ankle, gingerly putting
weight on it as he hoped it wasn't twisted, but it seemed fine. But
it could have been sprained or, even worse, broken, he thought
angrily as he continued up the trail. There had to be a way to
catch up to Diana and persuade her to rest for a little while.

Before he had gotten more than a few feet, an
idea stopped him in his tracks and a sly grin crept across his
face. A few moments later he started walking again, but this time
going as slow as he could.

He kept a lookout for Diana, but without
being obvious. Instead, he concentrated on walking a few feet and
then stopping briefly before walking a few more feet. He figured
that eventually he'd either catch up to her or she'd come back for
him to see what was taking so long.

It seemed like he had been walking for years
when he finally reached a real bench next to the trail and
collapsed onto it gratefully. While the bench wasn't completely
shaded, the trees off to the side blocked some of the heat
radiating off the rocks. Adding to his frustration was the dust
which had coated not only his clothes and skin, but had invaded his
mouth, as well, making his tongue feel as if it had its own layer
of dust. If that weren't enough, sweat was running down his entire
torso and his shirt was limp and damp and Fowler felt grimy beyond
belief.

As he waited for the stitch in his side to
ease up, he wished he could simply throttle Diana and hide her body
somewhere in the woods. Pushing her over a cliff was not good
enough any longer. What he really wanted to do was kill her slowly.
Make her suffer the way she was making him suffer.

He examined that idea with little hope of
success. It was possible her body wouldn't be discovered in these
woods for a long time, if at all. But if there was one thing he had
learned, it was that hikers were a strange bunch and at this point
he wouldn't be at all surprised to learn they didn't stick to the
trails. After the last few days, he would be willing to bet they
wandered all over the goddamn place and some demented hiker would
discover her before the worms did.

He sighed and decided to stick to his
original plan. He would just have to wait until tomorrow.
Or the
next day
, a little voice in the back of his head piped up.

Fowler grimaced. He didn't think he could
take this another day, let alone two or three.

The sound of scattering pebbles caught his
attention and he arranged his pose slightly, just in case. And, it
turned out, just in time, A moment later Diana came around the bend
and stopped just short of the bench.

"What on earth are you doing here?" she
asked, hands on hips to emphasize the exasperation in her
voice.

"Oh, hi, honey," he said weakly. "I slipped
on some loose rock and turned my ankle. I thought I should just sit
for a bit until it felt better."

In an instant her expression changed to
concern and she sat next to him.