Wicked Eddies by Beth Groundwater

had more immediate concerns to think about, like the informa tion she needed to relay to Quintana. She zipped up her black fleece ranger jacket before getting out of the car since the morning was cool and cloudy.
    On her walk into the building, she noticed that the leaves of the oak trees planted on the parking lot medians were starting to turn yellow. Fall was on its way, as was the end of her seasonal employment as a river ranger. She was looking forward to working full time at RM Outdoor Adventures with Rob over the winter, but she’d also miss her river patrols and the camaraderie with her fellow rangers—and, surprisingly enough, with Quintana.
    She found the detective filling his coffee mug in the break room and followed him back to his office. Once there, she handed him the list of competitors who had signed up for the fly-fishing tournament. “I didn’t know if you had this or not.”
    He handed it back to her. “The tournament committee faxed one over yesterday afternoon, but thanks.”
    â€œI bet I’ve got some other information that you don’t have, though. Howie Abbott and his partner Ira Porter are suspected of cheating in tournaments.” Mandy gave Quintana a summary of what she’d heard from the pool-playing fishermen and Rob the previous evening.
    By the time she’d finished, Quintana had emptied his mug and filled two pages of a lined notebook with writing. “Good stuff. I’d already planned on tracking down Ira Porter to see what he knew, since he was registered as Howie’s teammate. But now I’ll be directing my questioning a little differently.”
    â€œDo you think he could have been the other camper who shared some beers with Howie?”
    Quintana nodded. “Likely, though Howie might have been drinking with someone who was angry about the cheating and who then ended up killing him.”
    Mandy was skeptical. “After drinking beer with him first?”
    â€œHappens all the time.” Quintana tapped the list of names. “I’ll have to interview every one of these competitors.”
    â€œIncluding the women?”
    â€œEspecially the women. Howie’s killer could have been a strong woman, either a fishing competitor or someone with a romantic interest. We found a few long brown hairs that weren’t Howie’s in his sleeping bag.”
    â€œAny way of telling whether the hairs got there this past weekend?”
    â€œNo, Howie could have shared his bag or loaned it to someone months ago.”
    â€œWhat about the autopsy? Did you get results from that yet?”
    Quintana nodded. “Time of death is still late Sunday afternoon. Howie died from bleeding out of the neck wound. The hatchet opened up his jugular, so it only took a few minutes. Both blood and pepper spray were smeared on his hands, as if he tried to stem the bleeding.”
    Mandy grimaced, then had a more horrible thought. “Or maybe he held up his hands in front of his face to ward off the pepper spray, and they got splashed with the blood pumping out of his neck.”
    â€œThat’s certainly possible.” Quintana smoothed his mustache. “What a way to go. Makes being shot sound downright pleasant.”
    Envisioning Howie’s last moments was too bleak, so Mandy moved on. “What about the beer? Did Howie drink it all?”
    Shaking his head, Quintana said, “There wasn’t much alcohol in his blood, so the doc concluded Howie hadn’t drunk any beer on Sunday and probably drank four at the most Saturday night. And the stomach contents pretty much matched the food wrappers we found. Another interesting thing in the autopsy report is that Howie had a tan line for a pinkie ring on his left hand, but we haven’t found the ring. That’s one of the questions I’m going to ask Newt Nowak.”
    He looked at his wall clock. “Speaking of which, he’s coming in a few minutes. I’d like