She sneezed. âStormâs coming.â
âBless you,â Roger said. âHope these guys find something before the evidence gets all covered up.â
Judy extracted a fleece neck gaiter from her pocket. She pulled it over her head, positioning it to cover her neck and face.
Feeling the temperature drop and stinging snowflakes hit her cheeks, Claire followed her daughterâs lead. Soon white flakes swirled all around them. Claire tucked her gloved hands under her armpits.
Roger stamped his skis on the ground. âThis standing around and waiting is damn cold.â
Matthews pointed at the ground. Silverstone took a plastic bag out of his pocket and nudged something into it.
Claire took a step toward them. âWhat did you find?â
âA cigarette butt.â Silverstone stuffed the bag into his jacket pocket, eyes still scanning the ground.
âMaybe the killer smoked it while he was waiting for us to come down.â
âMaybe. Or any number of people could have stopped here and had a smoke.â He straightened and motioned to Matthews. âI donât think weâre going to find anything else.â
When the two of them reached the Hanovers, Roger asked, âYou can test for fingerprints and DNA on the butt, canât you?â
âIâll send it to CBI to be analyzed. If they can pull either prints or DNA off it, theyâll run them against the FBI databases.â
Claireâs hopes rose. âSo we might get the name of Stephanieâs killer?â
âOnly if heâs committed a crime or been fingerprinted for a job application in the past.â Silverstone clicked into his skis. âThe match is best done when you have two samplesâone from the crime scene and one from a suspect. Weâre missing the suspect here, and Iâm not even sure this is a crime scene.â
When Claire started to speak, he held up his hand. âIâll still send it to CBI. Even with a high priority, itâll take awhile, though. Theyâve got quite a backlog.â
Matthews studied the sky. âI suggest we get off the mountain. A mean storm is brewing. Weather service is predicting six inches.â
âFirst, I want to take another look at where Miss Contino hit.â Silverstone skied to the other side of the trail and down to the tree Stephanie hit. He leaned on his poles and peered at the scene, scanning up to the spot where the black-garbed skier had waited.
He looked at Claire. âCould you stand where you saw the ski tracks cross?â
Claire side-stepped to where she thought she remembered Stephanieâs tracks and the other skierâs had intersected. With all the snow swirling around, cutting down the visibility, she had a hard time pinpointing the spot. âI think it was about here.â
Silverstone gazed at her, eyes unfocused as if lost in thought.
Impatiently, Matthews skied to him. âIf we donât leave now, weâll be caught in a total whiteout. Câmon, everyone, Iâll lead the way.â He waved his arm down the hill as gusts of snow scoured its surface.
âWell?â Claire asked Silverstone. âNow that youâve seen the tamped-down snow, the broken branch, and the cigarette butt, do you believe Boyd and me about the skier deliberately killing Stephanie?â
Silverstoneâs face was impassive. âI always believed you, Mrs. Hanover, at least to the extent of what you saw. The problem is determining what it means.â
Seven:
Altitude Adjustment
After a late lunch of spicy chicken tortilla soup and hot chocolate at the townhouse, Claire mulled over the visit to the ski resort while she loaded the dishwasher. Could the cigarette butt have come from the killer? Or was some other random person the smoker? Even if DNA or prints on the butt matched a criminal in the FBI database, that criminal could just be a ski enthusiast who had made a recent trip to Breckenridge.
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