Cold Conspiracy

Travis shook hands with the Micheners. “We’d better talk about this in my office,” he said. Jamie started to turn away, but Travis stopped her. “Deputy Douglas, you come, too.”

Nate moved aside to let them pass, Travis leading the way to his office, Jamie bringing up the rear.

Gage joined him in the lobby. “What’s up?” he asked, watching the couple disappear into Travis’s office.

“Michaela’s sister and her husband think they know who killed her,” Nate said. “Or at least, she was supposed to meet a man—someone named Al—to go snowshoeing this morning.”

“And you didn’t see any sign of him out there with her, did you?” Gage asked.

“No.” He continued to study the closed door, wishing he could hear what was going on in there. “Even if he didn’t kill Michaela, the sheriff is going to want to find him and talk to him.”

Gage put his hand on Nate’s shoulder. “Right now, the sheriff wants me to talk to this ice fisherman, Abel Crutchfield. You up for coming with me?”

“Sure.” He’d planned to finish his report on the condition of elk and deer herds in the area, but that could wait. A murder investigation took precedence over everything.

JAMIE FOLLOWED THE Micheners into Travis’s office, closing the door after her. She stood by the door, while the Micheners occupied the two chairs in front of Travis’s desk. Even if Jamie could have found more seating, there wasn’t room for it in the small room.

Travis settled behind the desk, a neat, uncluttered space with only a laptop and a stack of files visible. “I’m very sorry for your loss,” he said. “Losing a loved one is always hard, but losing them to murder is especially tough. We’re doing everything we can to find who did this, but if you have anything you think can help us, we certainly want to know.”

Sarah looked at her husband, who cleared his throat. “Can you tell us more about what you already know?” he asked. “We got the call this morning from Sarah’s father—Michaela lived with them, so I assume that’s how you knew to contact them. But they’re understandably upset and didn’t have a lot of details.”

“We found Michaela’s body in her vehicle on the side of Forest Service Road 1410,” Travis said. “The medical examiner thinks she was killed earlier this morning. Do you know why she would have been in that area?”

“She had a date to go snowshoeing with a man,” Sarah said. “Someone named Al. I don’t know his last name.” She leaned forward, clenched hands pressed to her chest. “I told her not to go out with someone she didn’t know—especially not to someplace where there weren’t a lot of other people around. Especially not with this…this madman going around killing women. But she wouldn’t listen to me.” Her face crumpled. “If only she had listened.”

Drew rubbed his wife’s back as she struggled to pull herself together. “Michaela was young,” he said. “Only twenty-two. And she trusted people. She still thought she was invincible.”

“How did she meet this man?” Travis asked.

Sarah sniffed, straightening her shoulders. “She met him at the bank. She just started the job on the first of the month. She’s a teller. I guess they flirted, and the next day he came back and asked her out. She said…she said he was really nice and cute, and that she thought the idea of going snowshoeing was fun, and would be a good way to get to know each other without a lot of pressure.”

“When was this—when they met?” Travis asked.

“I think it was Thursday when he first came into the bank.” Sarah nodded. “Yes, Thursday. Because Friday she and I met for lunch and she told me about him—then she called me later that day to tell me he’d come back in and they’d made a date for Monday. She had the day off, and I guess he did, too.”

“Did she say where he worked?” Travis asked. “Or what kind of work he did?”

“No.” Sarah sighed. “I asked her that, too. She said she didn’t know and it didn’t matter, because that was the kind of thing they could get to know about each other on Monday. She told me I was too uptight and I worried too much. But I was right to worry! He must have been the one who killed her.”

“What time were they supposed to meet?” Travis asked. “Or did he arrange to pick her up at your parents’ house?”

“She said they were meeting at eight thirty at the trailhead for the snowshoe trails,” Sarah said. “She told me she was being smart, driving herself, because if the date didn’t go well, it would be easy for her to leave.”

Travis looked to Jamie. “You said you got to the trailhead about nine thirty?”

“Yes,” Jamie said. “There wasn’t anyone else there. And no other cars in the parking area. We didn’t pass any cars on the way in, either.”

“Her parents said she left their house at eight,” Drew volunteered.

“She didn’t tell them she was meeting a man,” Sarah said. “Just that she was going snowshoeing with friends.”

Travis nodded. “Tell me everything your sister said to you about this man—even if you don’t think it’s important. Did she describe what he looked like? Did she say where he lived, or if he gave her his phone number?”

“She just said he was cute. And funny. I guess he made some joke about how nobody could rob the bank with the road closed, because they wouldn’t be able to go very far and she thought that was funny.”

“What was he doing at the bank that day?” Travis asked. “Was he making a deposit or cashing a check?”

“I don’t know. Sorry. I don’t know if she had his number, though I think she said she gave him hers.” She shook her head. “I’ve been thinking and thinking about this ever since we got the call from my dad, and there really isn’t anything else. She got kind of defensive when I started quizzing her about the guy, and I didn’t want to make her mad, so I changed the subject. I made her promise to call me when she got back to the house and let me know how things went, but I wasn’t worried when I didn’t hear from her by lunch. I just figured they were having a good time and decided to go eat together. But all that time, she was already dead.” She covered her hand with her mouth and took a long, hiccupping breath.

Travis took a box of tissues from a drawer of his desk and slid it over to her. “Thank you for coming to talk to us,” he said. “We’ll follow up with the bank, see if anyone there remembers this man. If we’re lucky, he’ll be on the security footage. And we may want to talk to you and to your parents again.”

“Of course,” Drew said. He stood and helped his wife to her feet, also. “Please keep us posted on how things are going.”

“We will.” Travis came around the desk to escort the Micheners to the lobby. Jamie stepped aside, then followed them into the hall. She was still standing there, reviewing everything the Micheners had said, when Travis returned.

“I’ve got Dwight checking Michaela’s phone records for a call or text that might be from Al,” he said. “Meanwhile, I want you to come to the bank with me. I’ll call Tom Babcock and ask him to meet us there. We need to get those security tapes and see what this guy looks like. Maybe we’ll recognize him.”

“Do you really think he’s the Ice Cold Killer?” Jamie quickened her steps to keep up with the sheriff’s long strides.

“He’s the best lead we’ve had so far,” Travis said. “I’m not going to let him get away.”

Chapter Four (#u0ad51da8-d660-55ec-81d9-afc0a55bc029)

Abel Crutchfield lived in a mobile home on the west side of town that backed up to the river. His truck sat beneath a steel carport next to the trailer home, which was painted a cheerful turquoise and white. A trio of garden gnomes poked out of the snow around the bottom of the front steps, and a Christmas wreath with a drooping red ribbon still adorned the door.

Abel answered Gage’s knock and his eyes widened at the sight of the two officers on his doorstep. “Is something wrong?” he asked.

“We’d like to ask you a few questions.” Gage handed him a business card.

Abel read it, then looked past Gage to Nate. “You’re the game warden I talked to this morning, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” Nate gave him a reassuring smile. “This isn’t about that. We’re hoping you can help us with something else.”

“You’d better come in.” Abel pushed open the screened door. “No sense standing out in the cold.”

The front room of the trailer was neat but packed with furniture—a sofa and two recliners, a large entertainment unit with a television and a stereo system, and two tall bookshelves filled with paperback books and ceramic figurines of dogs, bears, more gnomes, angels and others Nate couldn’t make out. Abel threaded his way through the clutter and sat in one of the recliners and motioned to the sofa. “It’s my wife’s afternoon for her knitting club,” he said. “So I’m here by myself. What can I help you with?”

“Did you see anyone else while you were fishing this morning?” Gage asked.

“Nope. I had the lake to myself.”

“What about on the way to and from the lake?” Nate asked. “Did you see anyone on the road, or in the parking area?”

“What’s this about?” Abel asked. “Not that it makes any difference in my answers, but I’d like to know.”

“Another young woman was killed in that area this morning,” Gage said.

Abel sat back, clearly shocked. “You don’t think I killed her, do you?” he asked. “I was just out there fishing. I go fishing every Monday. Usually I bring home something for supper.”