A uniformed officer asked, “May I help you?”
“I’d like some information about Julie Winthrop’s death.”
He frowned. “The man you want to talk to is Bruce Bowler. He’s head of Sea Dog Rescue. He has an office upstairs, but he’s not in right now.”
“Do you know where I can find him?”
The officer looked at his watch. “Right now you should be able to catch him at Hanger on the Wharf. That’s down two blocks on Marine Way.”
“Thank you very much.”
Hanger on the Wharf was a large restaurant crowded with noontime diners.
The hostess said to Dana, “I’m sorry, we don’t have a table right now. There will be a twenty-minute wait if—”
“I’m looking for Mr. Bruce Bowler. Do you—?”
The hostess nodded. “Bruce? He’s over at that table.”
Dana looked. There was a pleasant-faced, rugged-looking man in his early forties, seated alone.
“Thank you.” Dana made her way to the table. “Mr. Bowler?”
He looked up. “Yes.”
“I’m Dana Evans. I need your help.”
He smiled. “You’re in luck. We have one room available. I’ll call Judy.”
Dana looked at him, puzzled. “I beg your pardon?”
“Aren’t you asking about Cozy Log, our bed-and-breakfast inn?”
“No. I wanted to talk to you about Julie Winthrop.”
“Oh.” He was embarrassed. “Sorry. Please sit down. Judy and I own a small inn outside of town. I thought you were looking for a room. Have you had lunch?”
“No, I—”
“Join me.” He had a nice smile.
“Thank you,” Dana said.
When Dana had ordered, Bruce Bowler said, “What do you want to know about Julie Winthrop?”
“It’s about her death. Was there any chance that it was not an accident?”
Bruce Bowler frowned. “Are you asking if she could have committed suicide?”
“No. I’m asking if…if someone could have murdered her.”
He blinked. “Murdered Julie? Not a chance. It was an accident.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“Sure.” Bruce Bowler was thoughtful for a moment, wondering where to begin. “We have three different sets of slopes here. There’s the beginners’ slopes, the Muskeg, Dolly Varden, and Sourdough…There’s the more difficult ones, Sluice Box, Mother Lode, and Sundance…There’s the really tough ones, Insane, Spruce Chute, Hang Ten…And then there’s Steep Chutes. That’s the toughest.”
“And Julie Winthrop was skiing…?”
“Steep Chutes.”
“So she was an expert skier?”
“She sure was,” Bruce Bowler said. He hesitated. “That’s what was so unusual.”
“What was?”
“Well, we have night skiing every Thursday from four P.M. to nine P.M. There were a lot of skiers out there that night. They were all back by nine o’clock except Julie. We went looking for her. We found her body at the bottom of Steep Chutes. She had slammed into a tree. Had to have killed her instantly.”
Dana closed her eyes for an instant, feeling the horror and pain of it. “So—so she was alone when the accident happened?”
“Yeah. Skiers usually travel together, but sometimes the best ones like to hotdog it by themselves. We have an area boundary marked here, and anyone who skis outside it does so at his own risk. Julie Winthrop was skiing outside that boundary, on a closed trail. Took us a good while to find her body.”
“Mr. Bowler, what is the procedure when a skier is lost?”
“As soon as someone’s reported missing, we start with a bastard search.”
“A bastard search?”
“We telephone friends to see if the skier is with them. We’ll call a few bars. It’s a quick-and-dirty search. That’s to save our crews the trouble of conducting an all-out search for some drunk who’s sitting stoned in a bar.”
“And if someone is really lost?” Dana asked.
“We get a physical description of the missing skier, his or her skiing ability, and the last-seen location. We always ask if they had a camera.”
“Why?”
“If they did, it gives us a clue to the scenic areas they might have gone to. We check to see what plans the skier might have had for transportation back to town. If our sweep doesn’t turn anything up, then we assume that the missing skier is located outside the ski-area boundary. We notify the Alaska state troopers for search and rescue and they put a helicopter in the air. There are four people in each search party, and the civil air patrol joins in.”