Murder on the Mountain

If she’d been anybody else, he would have insisted on more details. But he liked that she’d called him. He wanted to be the knight in shining armor who could solve all her problems. “I’ll be there in twenty-five minutes.”

JULIA HAD NEVER BEEN in such a complicated situation. The general was dead. He was in his locked bedroom, all alone with the gun in his hand. He’d left a suicide note.

Yet, she knew in her heart that his death was murder.

Her duty as a federal agent was to encourage an investigation. But if the local law enforcement got involved, her safehouse would be exposed. She’d have no choice but to recommend closing down the entire operation, and she didn’t want that to happen. She was proud of her work here and loved the mountains. The safehouse felt more like home than anywhere she’d ever lived, and she’d do anything to protect it. Even if it meant misleading Paul.

When she opened the front door for him, she forced herself to look him in the eye. Inside her rib cage her heart was jumping like a jackrabbit, but she kept her voice steady, “Thank you for coming.”

“No problem.” As he stepped across the threshold, his gaze flicked around the room, taking in every detail. “What’s up?”

“Come with me.”

She led the way up the staircase to the second-floor bedrooms. Their boot heels echoed on the hard-wood floor. She and Paul were almost alone in the house. Her so-called guests—the Homeland Security experts—were horseback riding as a team-building exercise. Julia had suggested that everybody lay low while the police were here.

Using her key, she opened the door to General Harrison Naylor’s bedroom. The death scene was carefully arranged. Wearing his Marine dress blues, the general lay stretched out on the bed. In his right hand, he gripped his silver Colt Double Eagle pistol with sound suppressor attached. The fatal bullet had gone through the back of his skull, leaving his face unmarked. His eyes were closed. His lifeblood stained the pillows and the linens.

On a small desk, his laptop was open but not turned on. A note rested beside it.

As Paul stepped gingerly into the scene, Julia told her first lie. “I found him like this.”

When she first discovered the body, she had closed and relocked the bedroom door behind her. Standing over the body of the general, her FBI training kicked into high gear. Her brain cleared. Her priorities sorted. Much to her shame, her first thoughts centered on the security of the safehouse.

She forced herself to focus. A man was dead. A heroic military man. A man who led other brave Marines, like her brother, into battle. There were procedures to be followed.

Her trained gaze had gone to the rows of medals on this fallen soldier’s chest. At that moment, she realized that the general had not committed suicide. The medals were not in proper order.

A Marine would never be so careless. When her brother was laid out in his coffin, she had studied the Marine Corps Manual to make sure his ribbons and medals were in correct alignment. The general would never make such a mistake. Therefore, she could assume that someone else had pinned those medals to his chest. This wasn’t a suicide.

However, if the general was murdered, it meant a prolonged investigation by local authorities. A simple suicide would be an open-and-shut case. She could carefully escort the local lawmen through their duties without revealing the real business of the safehouse.

And so, she had decided to change the medals, putting them in proper order. As if this tampering with the crime scene wasn’t bad enough, she’d done more.

Under the sink in the general’s bathroom, she found a pair of latex gloves, slipped them on and returned to the body.

The general’s shoes had been scuffed. A true Marine would never consider himself to be fully in uniform with dirty shoes. She’d removed the shoes from the general’s feet, polished them and put them back on.

Guilt coursed through her veins like poison. How could she have done such a thing? Her life was dedicated to fighting crime, and she was no better than any other criminal, hiding evidence. How could she allow the general’s family to believe that he’d killed himself?

She watched as Paul prowled around the bedroom, being careful not to touch anything. He leaned over the general’s body for a closer look. “This is strange.”

“What?” She halfway hoped that he’d see through her tampering and confront her. “What’s strange?”

“He’s wearing his hearing aid,” Paul said. “If I was going to shoot myself in the head, that would be the first thing to go.”

Her lips pinched together, holding back an urge to confess to him. Not only was she guilty of rearrang-ing a crime scene but she was also betraying Paul, deliberately misleading him.

He asked, “Was his bedroom door locked?”

“Yes.” That much was true. “And we have a security camera in the hallway. I’ve already checked the tape. There was no one who came into or out of his room.”

“A security camera?” He turned toward her. “Why?”

“Security,” she said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Julia knew that most people in nearby Redding didn’t even bother locking their doors. “There was already a lot of security equipment when I moved here.”

“And you still keep it running?” he said. “Have you been bothered by theft? Vandalism?”

There wasn’t much likelihood of anyone sneaking up on the safehouse. If they came within a hundred feet of the property, they’d be met by armed agents.

“I’ve never had any problems,” she said, trying to shrug off his questioning gaze. “The camera came in handy this time, right?”

Paul circled the bed, went to the window and glanced out at the eaves. Julia knew it was possible for the murderer to have come across the roof and entered the general’s room through this window. Such an action would require the expert skill of a rock climber who was accustomed to clinging to tiny ledges. She’d immediately thought of Gil Bradley, the former Navy SEAL who had the look and the manner of an assassin.

If Gil had murdered the general, she didn’t want to shield him from justice. But she had to keep her secret; she couldn’t let people know this was an FBI safehouse.

Paul inspected the double-paned window. The lower half was designed to be pulled up over the upper half in summer to let in the fresh air. “This window doesn’t have a lock.”

“There’s no way to open it from the outside without prying it loose.”

“After the sheriff gets here, I’ll need to check it out.”

“Surely, you don’t think someone crept in here during the night and murdered the general.”

She held her breath, waiting for his response.

“I doubt it,” he said. “There are no signs of a struggle. It appears that the general was shot where he lies because there aren’t blood spatters in the rest of the room.”

“So it’s suicide,” she said.

“Apparent suicide,” Paul corrected her. “We still need to go through the drill. Taking fingerprints. Checking the room for fibers, hairs and tiny spots of blood. I’ll need to interview your guests to see if any of them heard or saw anything unusual.”

“I’d really appreciate if this could be handled with as little fuss as possible. It’s bad for business and—” She paused midsentence. Her gaze turned to the dead man. How could she be scheming in his presence? “God, I sound cold. I shouldn’t be thinking about business.”

“I understand,” Paul said.

“My other guests knew the general. I don’t want to upset them any more than necessary.”

“They’ll probably call off their meeting,” Paul said.

That was what she had expected. But the senator had been adamant about moving forward with their mission; he had no other free time in his schedule. “They’ve decided to carry on.”

Clearly taken aback, Paul said, “Doesn’t sound like your other guests are concerned about the general’s suicide.”

“They’re task-oriented people from Washington. It’s not up to me to approve or disapprove of their decision.”

Her job was to keep them safe. And she’d failed miserably. As she glanced at the lifeless body stretched out on the bed, her heart ached with the weight of her guilty secrets. I’m sorry, General. So horribly sorry. He deserved to have his death investigated. Suicide was looked upon as the coward’s way out. A Marine deserved better.

She felt Paul’s arm encircle her shoulders. Gently, he guided her toward the bedroom door. “Don’t worry, Julia. I’ll take care of everything. We’ll be as discreet as possible.”