Click on Dominique for some background music.
Dominique returned to SART from her lengthy rehabilitation leave, supposedly in the capacity of an adviser; however, still obsessed with dismantling her nemesis, E A R T H. She had traveled with Yvonne Castel to three kidnapping scenes. They returned to Paris to put the results into an equation.
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Paris was a welcome sight. The feeling as if returning home overtook her. Then the hotel lobby reminded her that Paris was no longer home. Seth wasn’t there and there were no messages. Dominique saw a large supply of lavender bath oil on the sink top. She dwelled on thoughts of Seth, jumping back and forth to thoughts of her last few days on the trail of missing people. The extra thick foaming lavender oil bath was as therapeutic to her as the eucalyptus fragrance embedded in her cabin’s walls.
*****
“So this is what a Prefecture’s building looks like in an American mountaintop village, huh? No granite, no limestone, no wrought Iron, just lots of wood that looks like it’s still a tree.”
“Looks like my cabin, doesn’t it?”
“This one looks more like a huge letter A.”
They walked in and Yvonne said, “oops it does have wrought iron, look. It looks like a home too.”
They introduced themselves. Yvonne showed her SART ID, the police officer tugged at his nametag engraved with one initial followed by about fifteen letters that neither they nor he attempted to pronounce. He prattled, accompanied by a few chuckles, that this was a home converted to an office. It had the warmth of a home with its sunken conversation pit by the fireplace. Eucalyptus logs were burning. The only seating, other than two desk chairs, was in the conversation pit. There was an overstuffed couch, two upholstered chairs, a coffee table, all the conveniences and comfort, even a bearskin rug—except all of that was behind the gated wrought iron fencing with barbs at each point ending at the A-frame’s main beam.
Officer Nametag unlocked the gate. They followed him in. “This is the drunk-tank and holding area for prisoners,” he said, “but we don’t use it for that anymore. Make yourselves at home. Do you think I should remove that fence?”
“What made you report Samantha missing?” Dominique asked.
“The lodge security makes sure everyone checks in by midnight. She didn’t.”
“So if someone doesn’t check in, then what?”
“They check the computer for lift ticket readings. Samantha Roberts’ had only one entry, up. Then they checked her room because sometimes people get through the turnstile without putting their ticket into the card reader on their return. Her bed was not slept in and all her luggage was gone. That’s when lodge security notified me.”
“Then what?” Dominique asked.
“I called her home number and some guy named Marc said he hadn’t heard from her. So, we checked her lift number. It was the first time in five years I had to go up there.”
“Did anybody else go with you?”
“Yes, the head of lodge security.”
“May we see what you found up there?”
“The authorization has been requested and should be ready in about an hour. Here’s a photo of the scene before we removed the skis and the pole and glove.”
“Then let’s go up there now before it gets dark.”
“Somebody from the FBI called and told us to wait for him before we go up.”
“Did he leave a name?”
He flipped pages on his note pad, “Let’s see, yes here it is, Preston, agent Ralph Preston. He told me you would know him, he said studying Yvonne’s endowments.”
Dominique got up and walked over to the fireplace passing the verbal baton to Yvonne.
“Oh, we work with him a lot,” she said, “but we are leaving early tomorrow morning, so we’ll share our findings with him when we get back from the scene.”
Probably will not, Dominique thought. “We best get going, it’ll be dark soon. Will this be the only time the site was checked out in daylight?”
“Yes.” Officer Nametag’s face blushed.
“Did you look for Samantha on your way up that night?” Dominique asked.
“Yes. We had strong searchlights and shined them as far as we could see, even past the edges of the run. We were in communications with the lift operator to go slow and stop often.”
“Were there any witnesses? Anyone who saw or heard anything unusual? Any others on that lift at the same time?”
“No. The lift records showed only two others before her and none after. As a matter of fact that lift was bought out by Samantha’s company for her exclusive use.”
“When?”
“Right after she checked in. The desk clerk told me he had instructions to call someone when she arrived, and that's when the person on the phone paid with a credit card which cleared, but which we could not trace.”
“Didn’t you question anyone else?”
“Yes we did,” his face flushed again, “but nothing unusual.”
“We’ll decide what's unusual. How many did you question?”
“Three.”
“What did they say?”
“The two who were on the lift before her both said they heard helicopter sounds. The third person on the adjacent run heard some soft music and then a helicopter.”
“I didn’t see that in your report. Do you have their names?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Typical sounds up here,” he cleared his throat, “with so many people the helicopter is always on patrol. Okay, we’re here.”
He was surely embarrassed from questions that challenged his investigative thoroughness or rather lack of it. Nevertheless, two common threads to the others came out from that exchange. He asked for forgiveness, but not in words. He held out his hands to help them off the lift chair.
“Let’s go right to the place where you found the skis.”
“It’s right there.” He pointed to a tree cluster of very large pines with the lowest branches about ten feet above a large rock. “Right behind that rock.”
Yvonne followed him to the rock. Dominique went around to the other side and walked to a large clearing. The snow had melted off some of the lower growing trees and brush on the edge of the clearing. The sun was setting behind her and shone on something that sparkled in the brush. It looked like an icicle at first. She closed in on a gold necklace with an Egyptian cartouche. She immediately picked it up by the chain and put it into an evidence sack that she stuffed in her pocket faster than a shoplifter.
She rejoined Yvonne and officer Nametag. “I didn’t find anything. How about you two?”
“Nope. We’re finished. Let’s go back,” Yvonne said.
On the ride back down and the walk to the police station, no one spoke.
Ralph was waiting there pacing outside the door. He took off his dark glasses exposing his bloodshot eyes. He stared at Yvonne, and then spoke like a fast forward tape. “You look tired. I bet you could use some revving up.”
“Ralph. If I needed revving up, you would be the last person to press my accelerator.”
He made a defeated gulp. “Why didn’t you wait? You were supposed to wait for me.” He looked at the police officer. “Didn’t you tell them?” He looked at Dominique. “What in hell are you doing here? I thought you quit SART.”
They all barraged him with answers at the same time. He shook his head and growled from the back of his throat with his mouth closed, then growled again with clenched teeth and parted lips directly at Yvonne.
She smiled back at him and fluttered her eyelids. “The snow was all melted and we didn’t find anything. Look at the photos when we get inside. You’ll see they don’t even look like the area except for the rock.”
“What rock? Did you examine it?”
“Yes, and we found only this one thread,” Yvonne said.
“I thought you didn’t find anything.”
“I didn’t get a chance to tell Dominique that I did. You heard it at the same time. Now is that cooperation or what? By the way, why is the FBI and why are you on this case?”
“I’ve been assigned to all the Egypt stuff since the Vienna incident.”
Dominique, her hand in her pocket touching the evidence bag with the Egyptian cartouche asked, “What has this got to do with Egypt?”
“You don’t know?”
“No, we don’t know.”
“FBI is investigating all U.S. citizens who have been to Egypt in the last few years and that might have been in Alexandria where EARTH is based.”
“EARTH,” Dominique said.
“Right. The one that we suspect was responsible for kidnapping Wolfgang Broderman in Vienna.”
“Oh yeah, that obscure harmless group with a mission to educate the world. So you think Samantha was involved in that?”
“You never know. Her name showed up on the list of issued Egypt visas with a Marc something at the same address.”
“Well, we’re going to meet with Marc later.”
“Me too, but we’ll all go at the same time,” Ralph said, “and we will stay together and ask all the questions together, and look around together.”
Dominique couldn’t wait anymore. Yvonne didn’t ask, so she did. “What about this case makes it a U.S. security threat?”
“I told you all I want to tell you. The FBI is thinking jurisdiction, but we respect SART’s presence.” He opened his empty hands as if he had nothing more to give.
Mr. Nametag officer responded to the fax machine noise as though he was getting a prize. “First fax this week.” He smiled and rolled over to it in his chair and rolled back with an authorization to allow examination of Samantha’s skis and pole.
Ralph grabbed it, and then handed it to Yvonne. “It says FBI and SART.”
Together they examined the skis and the pole with the glove tied to it. Another tag indicated that fingerprints had been taken. Yvonne found scratches on the pole just below the handgrip. The officer told her he thought it resembled markings from pliers. Yvonne asked if he had tried to remove the handle. He said no. Ralph wrote on his little notepad.
This is tangible physical evidence, residue of a possible crime, Dominique thought. It’s voiceless, it has no motive or agenda, but it has a message and it can’t lie. Why were the right ones taken from the first two skiers and the left one from Samantha? She asked if it would be okay to try to remove the handgrip. Ralph agreed to hold the other end. She thought how nasty, yet how funny it would be if it slipped and accidentally stabbed his stomach. She twisted the handgrip. It unscrewed. She pulled a wad of cloth out and a flute’s head joint cork assembly fell into her hand.
“Now we have 5–4–3–2–1,” Dominique shouted over the driver’s incessant whistling and the road noise that crept in through the dented taxi door with the missing inside panels.