It wasn’t easy running with the backpack on, but thankfully I didn’t have to do it very long, plus it was all downhill. In less than fifteen minutes we’d made it to the trailhead.
I heaved off my pack and shoved it in the backseat of the car. I was still huffing from the run. “Yesterday afternoon… I had a few minutes… to walk around downtown… check out the places from the geo profile.” I pulled out the menus and business cards I’d stuffed into the car yesterday along with the brochure from the climbing gym. “I grabbed these.”
“You think our guy might work there?” she asked.
I handed her the brochure, pointed to the phone number. “See if you can reach them. See if… anyone was missing from work… the last couple days.”
I threw open the door and pulled out my computer while she tried her cell phone.
“No reception.”
By then I’d managed to catch my breath. “Well, let’s see if any of their climbing guides were at Mindy’s crime scene. Hold that brochure up here, to the computer.”
Using my laptop’s built-in video chatting camera, I snapped a picture of each of the twelve staff members, then pasted the photos into the face recognition program I’d had installed for my work with the National Law Enforcement amp; Corrections Technology Center in Denver.
I pulled up the photos and video footage from Mindy’s crime scene, and the computer began sorting through the footage, zeroing in on one face after another, calculating, evaluating. A moment later the computer beeped and highlighted a man’s face showing a 91 percent probability of a positive match.
“There he is,” whispered Lien-hua, pointing to the screen. “The guy in the baseball cap.”
“I don’t believe it. He wore that cap at the mall too.”
“Joseph Grolin,” she said.
“Thinks he’s a real tough guy.” In his climbing guide photo he had a cocky smile and a stubbly beard a few shades darker than his shoulder-length blond hair. Late twenties, early thirties. He wore sunglasses. According to the bio beneath his picture, he worked as a rock-climbing instructor part-time and wrote for MountainQuest magazine for his day job. He’d been their outdoor editor for the last four years. Special interests: scuba diving, Native American lore, downhill skiing.
Native American lore.
Lien-hua pointed to the bottom of the brochure. It read: “All our guides are highly trained and certified as Wilderness First Responders.”
“The stab wounds,” I said. “A First Responder would know just how deep to make them. And how to suture them up.”
She pulled out her cell phone again. “C’mon, work. Work!”
“Try this one.” I threw Dante’s phone to her as I rounded the car and hopped into the driver’s side.
“Nothing,” I heard her say. “I can’t believe he was there in the meadow the whole time. Watching us study the body.”
“Yeah,” I said. “He likes to watch. C’mon.” I fired up the engine. “It’s possible Jolene Parker is still alive.”