Witness in the Woods by Michele Hauf

Author:Michele Hauf
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2019-08-12T20:00:06+00:00

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THE CAMP WHERE Max had spent his summers had been cleared away by the crime-scene unit. It had been little more than a tent, a cookstove and a carved oak stump that the old man liked to sit on as he was whittling.

Joe inhaled a breath and wandered the area, determined to see what all the others had missed. There were so many footprints belonging to others who had no idea of the kindness of the old man. They’d remember him only as the victim or the dead man. The Native American living off the grid who had likely eaten something poisonous. Fool.

Squatting near where the fire ring remained, a circle of fist-sized rocks coated in soot, Joe took a branch and stirred the ashes. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular. Or was he? Surely Forensics had poked and prodded with the same goal. All that remained was heavy white ash and chunks of charcoal.

Joe pressed his fingers over the eagle talon at his neck. It felt cool. His only token from a man who had taught him so much. He’d never told his parents about Max. Now it didn’t feel necessary, though they should know their son had found a mentor in that great man.

Maybe he’d bring it up at the next family dinner. Mom called in the crew for those at least one Sunday a month. Of course, it might worry his mother that he was only mentioning his relationship with Max now. He didn’t want to upset her. There was nothing to be upset about, but people went places in their imaginations when they heard things like a ten-year-old boy spending days in the wild with a stranger.

How might Max have gotten something laced with strychnine in hand? Someone had to have planted something in the campsite. Or had he found it while out wandering? If it had been an eagle, or animal meat of some sort, had it consumed the poison by feeding on a trapped animal? It was possible. Yet surely Max would have approached a dead bird or even bait cautiously, suspicious over its death until he could be sure it was a natural death and safe to handle.

Maybe.

Joe knew Max would sometimes eat a small animal he’d found if it was newly dead, and not sick or infested with insects. He didn’t survive the summers on dandelion tea and blueberries.

After standing up, Joe wandered the grassy circumference that demarcated Max’s little circle in the midst of the forest. A taconite slab with a sheered wall grew up ten feet on the west side. The rock was rusty red and black. He loved that stone, and Max had showed him how to chip off slices and hammer the edge to form a rudimentary blade. Fun stuff for a teenager. He still had one of those caveman blades, as he’d called it, somewhere in his office.

It was easy to see, from the footsteps of the crime team, when they had decided they’d searched far enough, so Joe crossed the crushed grass and wandered into the forest.

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