The man had salt and pepper hair. He was middle-aged with a round stomach. And he was most definitely dead.
Chapter Six
Henry burst through the door after a couple of rapid-fire knocks. He was breathless leaning forward at the waist. “That lady, the writer, she’s…. she’s…” He stopped talking and began to cough.
“What’s going on?” Jeremy’s mother called from the kitchen.
Jeremy raced past the still breathless Henry to the snowmobile. “Where is she?” From the direction of the cabins, Gabriela hurried toward the house, her arms and legs fighting to cut through the ankle-deep snow. In her hurry, she stumbled several times.
On the snowmobile, Jeremy made quick time reaching her. When he jumped from the vehicle, Gabriela rushed to him and fell against him sobbing. He hugged her clumsily patting her back as she dug her face into his jacket, her entire body trembling.
“What happened?” he asked into her ear. “Calm down and tell me what just happened.”
She lifted her reddened face and looked past him toward the cabins. “There’s a dead man in cabin number six.”
“Are you sure?” Jeremy looked in the direction of the cabin. “What exactly did you see?”
Gabriela sniffed loudly, as he guided her to get on the passenger seat. “The door was open… I went in and saw him. There’s a man on the floor by the couch, eyes open, looking straight up. There’s a lot of blood.”
Turning the vehicle around, he went to the house where his mother and Henry waited on the porch. Jeremy pulled up and motioned for Henry. “Help her inside. Mom would you please call the police and have them send someone out. Gabriela thinks she saw a dead body in cabin six.”
“Oh my God,” his mother exclaimed.
Jeremy raced to his truck, which was parked on the side of the house next to his parent’s garage. It was best to drive a vehicle he’d not be a moving target on. Besides, his service piece along with his rifle were in it.
He drove with caution, ensuring to avoid the center of the road and instead drove on the left side. He parked a short distance away to keep from erasing whatever tracks were already there.
Williams, his partner, called, and he instructed him to tell the others to park their vehicles where he did.
Moments later, Jeremy entered the cabin. The smell of blood was thick, and he knew it would not be pretty before walking just past the couch to find the body, on the floor, just as Gabriela had described it.
It would take at least thirty minutes for the forensics team and investigators to arrive from Missoula, so he looked around ensuring not to touch anything. In his rush to get there he’d not asked Gabriela if she’d seen or heard anything or anyone. He’d have to go back and ask her more questions.
The man was not a complete stranger. He was a local politician of sorts. The dead man had served on the town council and was a long-time resident of the area.
By the indentation on the back of the man’s head and blood pool around it, he’d guess it was a blow to the head that had killed him. What was definitely apparent was that the murderer wanted him dead.
He went back outside and stood on the porch studying footprints. There were his, and there were smaller ones, which he figured had to be Gabriela’s. A third set was clearly marked in the snow, the footprints making a path from the porch to the side of the cabin. From there, tire tracks formed in the formation of a vehicle pulling backward and then forward to the right and away from the building.
The tracks went away from the main ranch as well, probably down the side of the corrals and on to the nearby road that went east and west. If whoever it was had turned to the right, they’d head to Missoula, if they went left, they headed west to who knew where.
Just then he spotted three patrol cars heading in his direction. Jeremy jumped over the side railing to fresh snow. He motioned for them to pull over across from the cabin to keep from driving over the tread marks.
His partner was the first to get out of a vehicle. “Family all right?” Williams asked, his flat gaze raking over him before moving to the doorway and lastly the ground leading away from the cabin.
“Yeah, but Kevin Maloney isn’t. He’s the victim.” Jeremy motioned inside with his thumb. The forensics team donned shoe covers near the bottom of the stairs with gear bags hanging from their shoulders.
As the forensics team carefully picked their way up the stairs. The three stopped at the porch and looked to him.
“He’s inside straight ahead, to the right on the floor in front of the couch.”
Head of forensics was a woman by the name of Glenda Struthers. Glenda was not a nice person. Jeremy and Glenda rarely agreed on anything except for the fact they did not like each other. “Who’s the DB?”
“Kevin Maloney.”
“The council guy?”
“Yep.”
Glenda shrugged and looked to Williams. “You going in or waiting on the snow to melt?”
His partner walked inside, ignoring Glenda. Jeremy followed, mostly to avoid anything else the woman would throw at him.
“Holy shit. He is most definitely dead. Who would want to kill this guy? He’s as white bread as they come.” Williams shook his head.
“Not really,” Jeremy mumbled as he and Williams began what would turn into hours of work.
Gabriela’s hand trembled as she pushed back an errant curl from her wet face. She’d splashed water on it and now stared at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were red and slightly puffy, the tip of her nose the same. She’d never seen a dead person before, and especially not like that. She’d only been to one funeral. It was for one of her uncles who had died in a car accident, so the casket had been
