Page 48 of K-9 in Pursuit

“I don’t see how. Even if he had been willing to make the four-hour drive each way, his coaches or his parents would have noticed him missing.”

“How is it that everyone we come up against has such a perfect alibi?” she said.

“Everyone but me.”

“Your alibi is that you’re innocent.”

“You don’t know how good that makes me feel to hear you say that. But I can’t count on the same sentiment from a jury.”

“We’re not giving up,” she said.

“I’m not giving up,” he repeated. But he needed a break soon, or he would be fighting this battle from behind bars.

Chapter Fourteen

After lunch on Thursday, Brian was on his way to the ski patrol outpost atop Lift Two when his radio buzzed. “We’ve got an injured skier midway down Milk Run,” Nina said. “Looks like a knee injury.”

“I’m at the top of two,” Brian said. “Let me grab a splint and I’ll be right down.”

The man lay on his back at the side of the run, several people standing around watching Nina as she tended to him. She looked up at Brian’s approach. “This is Cary,” she said. “Cary, this is Brian.” She flushed. “I mean Dave. This is Dave.”

Brian stepped out of his skis and knelt beside the man, who lay with one knee bent, the other stretched in front of him. “I caught an edge and did something to my knee,” he said, grimacing. He had full cheeks and a rusty-red beard and wore a bright green parka and pants and a gray helmet.

“We’ll get some ice on there to reduce swelling and a splint to keep it immobile until you can get X-rays,” Brian said. “That should help you feel better.”

“Thanks.”

Brian slipped off his pack and took out a pair of chemical ice packs and a flexible splint. Nina broke the seal on the packs and began shaking them to freeze the liquid inside. “Let’s get these on either side of that knee,” she said, and knelt to arrange the ice.

“You’re Brian Weeks.” Cary stared at Brian. “Your picture was in the paper. You’re the guy they arrested for killing that girl.”

Brian’s stomach lurched and he froze. Nina had gone still as well. Somehow, he found his voice. “They questioned me and let me go,” he said. “I didn’t have anything to do with her death.”

“I wasn’t accusing you or anything.” The man shifted up onto his elbows and watched as Nina pressed the ice packs to either side of his knee. “I just knew her. Or, not really knew her, but I’d seen her around.”

Brian focused on unrolling the coiled splint. “She skied here a lot.”

“I didn’t see her on the slopes,” Cary said. “I work at Murphy’s, in the ski village. I’d see her around there.”

Murphy’s was a popular upscale Irish pub and restaurant on the ski village’s main thoroughfare. Not a casual hangout. Had a date taken Sharee there? “Who was she with?” Brian asked.

“That was the thing—she was never with anybody. She was always by herself. That’s why she stood out.”

“She came into the pub by herself?” An underage girl wouldn’t have been able to drink at the bar, and from what Brian knew, the menu ran to expensive steaks and seafood.

“Nah. I’d see her outside after I got off work. A couple of times. We close at eleven and by the time I got off pretty much everything around there is shut down, so I was surprised to see a girl by herself. The first time I even asked her if she was all right.”

“Was she all right?” Nina asked.

Cary turned to Nina. “She said she was fine, that she liked being out when no one else was around. I told her to be careful. She said nobody ever bothered her.” He frowned. “But I guess someone did.”

Brian began to fit the splint around Cary’s knee. “Did you see her the night she was killed?”

“No.” Cary grunted as Brian shifted the knee slightly.

“Sorry,” Brian said. “You’ll be a lot more comfortable once we have this on, and the ice will help, too.”

“Guess my season is over,” Cary said. “I can’t believe I was skiing along, having a great time, and then it was like someone grabbed me and yanked me down.”