Mountaintop Murder

Chapter 4

With her pace having been slower so that the techs could keep up, Sarah did not reach the peak in a personal record time. She knew that that was not what was important here, but the competitive side of her could not help but be upset. The top of the mountain was empty, and she took a moment to close her eyes and live within it. This was her haven, the one place where she felt connected to nature and the world. The air was a lot cooler here despite the fact that the sun was out in full force. There was not a cloud in the sky. There was also a slight breeze that caused her hair to dance.

Whatever serenity she found on this day was shattered by the sound of John dropping his pack to the ground.

"Time to get into our work clothes, I suppose," he said.

Charlie mumbled her reply and set her pack down on the ground with a lot more care. The pair began the arduous task of pulling on their clean suits over sweaty bodies.

Sarah would not need to don the clean suit like the techs because she would not be getting that close to the body until after the pair had processed the scene. She would concentrate on sweeping the area around the fire tower for clues. In order to keep the risk of contaminating the scene to a minimum, she placed a pair of booties over her hiking boots.

The peak was surprisingly large and flat. The tower was set back about sixty feet from where the mountain fell away and there was a lot of rocky surfaces for hikers to sit and relax after summiting. In some spots between the rocky areas were green patches with signs asking hikers to refrain from walking there. Sarah was happy to see that the conservation effort was still alive and well.

Sarah slowly and meticulously covered every inch of ground that made up the peak, doing her best to avoid walking in the green oases. Unlike any movie or television show, the discovery of clues was not an easy task. They rarely jumped out at you. Instead, it took time and a lot of patience to ferret out anything that might prove of use, especially atop a mountain where the wind and elements could get to anything that the killer may have left behind.

After over an hour of crawling around and combing the area, Sarah had not discovered anything that would prove useful. As she was heading back to the fire tower, she noticed a small rock pile that must have been left behind by a hiker that had summited before. It was all the way to her left, next to a drop off and in one of the vegetated areas.

Sarah was always bothered by those structures, and even though she had work to do, she could not leave it standing. The pile itself was one of the better that she had seen. Whomever the architect was, they had a decent knowledge of balance. Unlike most of these that she had seen and demolished before, this one began with the smallest rock on the bottom and the largest on top.

They had built the pile close to the spot where the summit ended, and that was a dangerous endeavor all on its own, the wind here had a tendency to whip at high speeds. She approached the pile with caution, not wanting to fall to her death on this day. Almost in answer to her caution, the wind picked up suddenly. The gust of wind caused Sarah to notice that there was something stuck between the fifth and sixth rock in the pile. As she closed the gap to within a foot it became obvious that it was a bunch of pictures.

Sarah was now intrigued, both on a personal level and as a police detective. Why would anyone leave a stack of pictures on top of a mountain? She started to reach out and immediately recalled her hand. Her detective instincts shining through, Sarah pulled on a pair of blue nitrile gloves. She gripped the stack of pictures in her left hand while pushing the pile over with her right.

Sarah stood back up from a crouching position and started to leaf through the pictures. She felt her blood run cold and the hair on the back of her neck stood at attention. Every picture was of a person and the person was her. In each of those pictures, she was in the middle of destroying similar rock piles on top of various mountains. She reflexively spun around and scanned the area for anyone that might be watching her. She saw no one, but that fact did not put her at ease.

Sarah stood there, on top of a mountain, the one spot where she had always felt free and able to be wholly herself, afraid and uncertain. Someone had been watching her for a very long time, some of these pictures were five years old. She did not know what fact bothered her more, that she had been being spied on or that she failed to notice.

She unslung her pack and secreted the pictures in one of the pockets. They may or may not have something to do with this case, but until she determined if they did, then there was no need to share them with anyone.

"Sarah," called out Charlie.

There was a sense of urgency in her usually calm voice. Sarah slung her pack and jogged over to the stairs on the fire tower. She ascended the flights with both speed and ease. Sarah found Charlie and John standing next to the body. They had moved it into a body bag and it was from under the body that they had found the object that caused them to be so excited. Charlie held out her hand towards Sarah. Sarah did not take what was offered and neither did she need to look at it. The size and shape told her all she needed to know.

"That is a picture of me, hiking somewhere and destroying one of those stupid rock towers," she said.