Page 27 of Present Danger (Rocky Mountain Courage 1)

“Hopi?”

“A nonmigratory tribe in the four corners. The Hopi are the descendants of the Anasazi.” What were you up to, Jim Raymond?

“How do we find out what we’re dealing with—stolen or illegal or perfectly fine?”

“A museum or a qualified appraiser could assess them. In our case, a forest service archaeologist could make the determination, and if the items are illegal, they would be held in a repository until they could be returned to the rightful tribe.”

“If they are determined to be illegal items, they would be held as evidence.” He crossed his arms.

“Or repatriated to the tribe they belong to. So, you see, it gets complicated.”

He sighed. “First, we need to get into the cabin.”

His cell rang. “Speak of the—” He answered, “Tanner here ... Yep. We’ll go in first. Send an evidence tech.”

“You got it?”

He nodded. “We’re good to go.”

They each donned latex gloves. Jack held the door for Terra.

She remained at the entrance along with Jack, taking in the room.

Shelves lined the walls, most of them empty. Jim had furnished the two-room cabin with the basics for staying in the woods. The living space had two old plush sofas and a chair. A small kitchen in the corner. A double sleeping cot in another corner. But the shelves had drawn Terra’s attention, and she peered at the two pots closely, noting the cracks.

“I don’t see any obvious footprints, but let’s limit our tracks and evidence contamination.”

“Got it.” She took pictures with her phone.

On closer examination, she noticed some staining, as though someone had tried to clean at least one of the pots with regular soap, and that confirmed her suspicions. “We’ll leave these here for the evidence techs to see—maybe they can grab fingerprints, but I need them for the archaeologist.”

“Fine. What else are you thinking?”

“All these shelves. What are they for?”

“I don’t know. Books?”

She shook her head. “No. They’ve been wiped clean. But these two items were left behind, or they were added later. Recently. Maybe Jim brought them up here, and that’s why he came to the cabin. Then he was killed.”

“If that’s true, was he killed because of what lined these shelves? And why keep what we’re assuming is contraband here? It would be a chore to hike up here and stash the artifacts. And also risky if someone hiking in the woods decided to break in,” Jack said.

Terra continued walking the cabin, looking for anything else that could give them more information.

“Honestly, I think if he was moving illegal artifacts, then this isolated cabin that only he had legitimate access to is a brilliant idea. And if someone were to break in, they would most likely do so to get out of the elements because they were lost. They probably wouldn’t think twice about the Native American art on the shelves. Jim could have come often enough to check the cabin.”

She held his gaze.

He nodded. “I’ll have them look deeper into the tracking data to see how often he came here. We only looked at the week surrounding his death. We’ll expand that. Still, Terra, I think this is a stretch. We need to find something more than conjecture.”

“That he was killed for the items, you mean.”

“Yes. It’s a theory.”

“Agreed.”

She shined a small flashlight around the shelves, behind them, and on the floor while Jack perused the cabin. Then she moved to the wall without shelves and noticed hooks for hanging decorations. “The cabin has been cleared out of more than what was on the shelves. I’ll be interested to learn what your techs come up with.”

She found a keyed lock in the wall. “Hey, there’s something here. A cabinet. But it’s locked.”

Jack approached. “Here, let me.” He tried the small key he had used to open the main door. “Doesn’t work.”

“Let me try something.” Terra retrieved her pocketknife and began picking at the lock. “I know ... I’m messing with this. We should wait for evidence techs.”

“And I’m going to let you do it. I really want to see what’s inside.”

The cabinet door swung open.

Terra gasped. “Looks like we hit pay dirt.”