Robert Walker - Extreme Instinct

"That'd be Salt Lake City," supplied Fronval.

"— she still would have died…"

"But?" asked Fronval, sensing there was more.

"But the condition in which we find her, and so far from the hot springs-where is it?"

"Closest one is a quarter mile that way." Fronval pointed with an unlit pipe, and he next supplied the name of the hot springs that had apparently killed Sarah Langley, who, from what Jessica could tell, was a young woman in her mid- to late twenties who obviously enjoyed nature and taking her nature alone in the woods. Fronval said, "She was hiking along Firehole River. She'd been seen by a couple of fishermen up that way, least that's what Brian, here, learned before we began the manhunt for her."

Jessica looked up to see which one was Brian, guessing it to be Bear. He only shook his head, suppressed eye contact, and said in response, "I figured she fell in, 'cause look, her ankles and feet didn't get it near so bad. She must've fallen in and clawed her way back outta the pool, and her feet were the only things working right. They got her away from the pool, and a large, predatory animal must've done the rest."

"We can get the body over to Mammoth Hospital. They got a long history of hot springs deaths there. They'll know what to do, all the paperwork, getting the body to her family, all that," suggested Fronval.

Jessica nodded to Fronval. "Are they equipped with a sheriff and a jail there, Mr. Fronval?"

Fronval's eyes widened. "You suspect there's more here than meets the eye, Doctor?"

"I do."

"Murder? Foul play?"

"I do."

"Can you prove it?" he asked.

"Take me to the hot springs where she allegedly fell in."

Bear defended, saying, "They don't always fall in. Sometimes some people jump in, confusing one pool with another, thinking it a safe sauna, you know."

"Bear's right 'bout that," said a third ranger.

Fronval agreed, saying, "Some pools are safe to swim and bask in while the one right beside it is hot enough to kill anything that dares touch it."

"So, she coulda decided to take a swim or bathe," Bear said with a shrug.

"That same place has claimed lives before. It's a tricky area on the trail," agreed Fronval, "and there're three pools there. You slip and fall in, you could be killed. We figure, well, Bear here figured, she fell into Ojo."

"Ojo?" she asked.

"Ojo Caliente."

"Spanish for hot springs," added the young pilot.

"Lower Geyser Basin," added the third ranger, whose nameplate said Fred Wingate.

"That's where that Lewis kid, six years old, fell in when he was fishing with his father back in '58. But he lived for two days afterward," supplied Bear.

Fronval supplied the rest, saying, "Yeah, the boy had third-degree burns over his entire body except for the head and neck. Died in Salt Lake. Wasn't anything could be done. Lost too much body fluids to the heat. Ojo's one of the hottest of the springs; fluctuates between a hundred ninety-eight and two-oh-two."

"But she went in headfirst-her ankles and feet weren't in the water as long as the rest of her," Jessica said. "And there's a large contusion on the left side of her head where she sustained a blow."

"Coulda happened in the fall," suggested Bear.

The other men stood nodding, imagining the possible scenarios suggested first by Fronval, next by Dr. Coran, and then by Bear.

"I'll need to examine the spot where she fell in and supposedly dragged herself out of this Ojo springs. See if her clothing is there…"

"That could take days. You know how big Ojo is?" asked Bear.

"But if she fell from the trail as you theorize," replied Jessica, "then the search is considerably narrowed down, isn't it, Mr. Fronval?"

"Sure is," said Fronval. "I'll take you back that way on my four-wheeler. We'll have a look around while Bear and the others get the body over to Mammoth."

Jessica knew that the chopper was equipped to take on such cargo.

"I want to go with you, Sam," said Bear. "I'm the one found her. Feel I ought to carry through."

"No need, Bear. You go on to Mammoth with the body. Get things hopping there. Notify the family she's been located, and Fred.. Fred, you get back to the station. We've left it unmanned long enough."

"Yes, sir," Fred immediately responded.

"You're going to need help out there at Ojo, Sam," complained Bear as Jessica stared at his gloved hands, wondering if they might not be scorched from the hot springs as well, and if they were… But all the men, and Jessica, were wearing gloves against the cold, frigid air.

"No, Dr. Coran and me, we'll take care over to Ojo," Fronval commanded in fatherly fashion. "You've done quite 'nough, son. I'll catch up to you in Mammoth."

Bear held them in his gaze until they disappeared in Fronval's four-wheeler.

At Ojo Caliente, a quarter mile away, Jessica and Sam Fronval searched for almost an hour before finding what to both of them appeared the place where Sarah Langley entered and most likely exited the deceptively calm hot springs where a spectral cloud of sulfur gases caressed and embraced the humans onshore. The surface water was glasslike for the most part, and while it sent up a blanket of superheated air over its wide surface, it hardly appeared to be a killer.

Fronval, using his wilderness skills, located an area where broken branches and matted grasses told him she'd tumbled from. They found not a stitch of clothing onshore, no shoes, nothing of the sort. Furthermore, there was no indication of hiking equipment strewn about, no backpack, no tent, not a trace she was hiking in this area. Only the near invisible signs Fronval pointed to evidenced her ever having passed this way.

"What do you make of it?" Fronval asked Jessica. "Did she fall in headfirst with every stitch of her gear weighing her down?"

"Could all that gear dematerialize in that cauldron of boiling water?"

"Possibly," Sam Fronval answered, drawing on his now lit pipe.

"Highly unlikely, Mr. Fronval, that nothing survived her fall."

Fronval shook his head, continuing his devil's advocate tone. "Other people may've come along, picked up anything seen as useful."

Jessica shook her head in return. Anyone watching them would think them in heated debate. "Even if she did fall from the trail along here, there would likely have been some scattering of her things here and there. And this time of year, how many other people would be along here? And everyone knowing the girl's been missing, it would've been reported."

"Besides," he said in an agreeing manner now, rubbing his chin, "the trail's much more slippery at other junctures. If she fell into the pool, why at this spot?"

"You'd know more about that than I," Jessica acknowledged. "But if she did fall in here, the natural place to've come out is right at this spot, here," she finished, pointing. "Unfortunately."

"If she did claw her way out and walk away from the fall as suggested by Brian Cressey."

"Yeah, the fellow you call Bear?"

"Nickname… suits him. He's strong as a bear and about as single-mindedly dumb. But if he had anything to do with the girl's death, why didn't he dispose of the body right here, same as the equipment? Leave not a trace. Wouldn't a murderer, given this great, natural opportunity to dispose completely and utterly of the body.. wouldn't he?"

"I couldn't tell you for certain what goes on in the mind of a murderer, but we know that in an unplanned murder-that is, one in which someone loses control-the killer seldom thinks clearly or in any orderly fashion."

"I see."

"And I've read that sometimes killers hold onto the body for long periods, you know, for… well, indelicate purposes."

"My God," Fronval said, each word a groan.

"As for the missing equipment, I'd look into Cressey's locker, and I'd look at his hands."