Read Online Mortal Fall by Christine Carbo - Free Book Online Page A

needed a second to take a breath and keep his composure. His eyes were red and his unshaven, rugged face had a look of anguish.
    “I’m really sorry, Sam.”
    He looked at his trail runners and ground a loose pebble into the pavement with the point of one of them. “It’s, it’s—I don’t know, it just doesn’t seem real.” He looked up at me, his eyes searching my face for some explanation. “Just doesn’t seem possible.”
    “I know, I know. We’re trying to make sense of it all.”
    He peered over to the Granite Park Chalet trailhead. “I see it’s cordoned off.”
    “Has to be until we finish checking things out.”
    “But he’s been lifted out of there, right? Cathy said he was . . .”
    “Oh yeah, absolutely. We did that yesterday. Keeping the trail closed is just a temporary thing for now. You know, for us to thoroughly investigate the scene.”
    “But, but what the hell happened?” He looked at Ken and me, his eyes going back and forth between us.
    “He fell, Sam. Off that ridge over there.” Ken pointed to the area. “It happens. You know that.”
    “But here—” He held out his hand, palm up. “By the Loop for God’s sake. In mild weather?”
    “Perhaps that’s when we’re the most confident,” I said. “When we’re the least careful.”
    He lowered his brow sharply as if he wasn’t buying it. “I don’t know, Monty. Something just doesn’t seem right with this.”
    “I promise, Sam. We’re doing all we can to thoroughly investigate this incident.”
    He looked down at his shoe again, then reached in his pocket and held out his palm. In it was a small memory card and my hopes rose suddenly that he’d grabbed it. “You have the wildlife camera card?”
    “Yeah, the replacement,” he said.
    “Not the one that’s been in it since the end of May?” The biologists like to keep the cameras on the video setting. Depending on how often a moving object triggers the video, the memory card can run down in weeks.
    “No, I spoke to Wolfie the day before he was leaving. He was going to grab the footage, but he said he was out of replacement cards and I told him not to worry about it because I had a package of them in the office and wanted to drive up here anyway. The plan had been for him to take the old memory card the other night so that I could replace it today. That’s what I was going to say earlier, that I promised Cathy I’d look around and that I also needed to replace the card. I just didn’t realize that you’d have it roped off, but it makes sense.”
    “So, that . . .” I lifted my chin to point at Sam’s open palm, the small card still lying in the center like a dead bug. “It’s just blank.”
    “Yeah, it’s just blank. And I promised . . .” His face suddenly grew even more sad and drooping. “Wolfie was my friend and my research teammate. I know he would want me to get this in that camera if there were wolverines around to capture. Kurtis told me you said he’d already gotten the card, so the camera is empty now. Wolfie said he was getting signals up here. Can I cross the rope and go in and replace it? For him?” his eyes pleaded.
    “I understand, but I can’t let anyone cross right now. You can give it to me and I’ll go back and put it in or you can wait until tomorrow. We should have the trail reopened by tomorrow.”
    “Okay,” he said. “Yeah, I’ll come back tomorrow. It’s the least I can do.”
    “And, Sam—” I went and opened the driver’s side door of the Explorer and grabbed my notepad. “You mind if I get your number?”
    He gave it to me and I jotted it down. “You said you spoke to Wolfie the day before he was planning to come up here?”
    “That’s right. In the evening. We met for a beer.”
    “He seem normal to you?”
    “Completely,” Sam said.
    “Not down or depressed or burdened by any particular worries?”
    Sam chuckled. “Wolfie? God no. Other than the fact that he hadn’t seen a wolverine in the