Page 78 of Mountain Man’s Mystic Touch

Two hours is enough time for something to go wrong. It is also enough time to prevent it.

Wade meets me beside the command station with a tablet tucked beneath one arm. “We found the woman who made the call.”

“Identified her?”

“Not yet. But we tracked her from the courtesy phone.”

Inside the cabin, he opens footage from a camera facing the food-vendor lane. The image quality is clear enough to distinguish faces near the center of the frame. At 6:47, a woman wearing a gray coat and red knit cap approaches the courtesy phone. She looks over one shoulder before lifting the receiver.

“How long was the call?”

“Thirty-eight seconds.”

The woman keeps her face turned away from the nearest crowd. When she replaces the receiver, she walks toward the lodge instead of the parking area where she claimed to have seen a suspicious man.

Wade switches to another camera.

The woman enters the edge of the frame near the rear corner of the lodge. She removes the red cap and stuffs it into her coat pocket. Dark hair falls around her shoulders. A man steps from behind the building and joins her. His face appears for less than a second, but it’s enough to know.

“That’s him.”

“The man from booth 37,” Wade confirms.

They speak briefly. The woman gestures toward the south parking area. He looks at his watch, then hands her a folded piece of paper. They separate without touching.

“Follow him.”

Wade advances to the next clip. The man circles the lodge, enters through the main doors, and stops beside the charity display. He does not photograph it openly. He holds his phone at waist height while moving around the case, pausing near the side panel closest to the exterior door.

He examines the lock, then looks toward the camera. The image freezes.

Loralee was right. Not about every detail. But the man who photographed her booth also examined the display. She identified from a vision. And he could not have known she experienced that. I reach for the radio.

“Deputy McCall, come to the command cabin.”

“What do you want the rest of us doing?” Wade asks.

“Find the woman on current footage. Do not approach if she is still on-site. Track her and report.”

“And the man?”

“Same instruction. I want to know where they are before either realizes we’re watching.”

Wade radios the team while I replay the footage.

The folded paper may be a map, a schedule, or nothing connected to the festival. The woman may have made the false report because the man asked her to. Their meeting may concern something unrelated to the auction display. Possibilities matter until evidence removes them. This footage removes several.

The man is not a curious visitor who happened to notice booth locks. The woman did not mistake a furniture vendor’s nephew for someone suspicious. They created a distraction and watched the response.

I enlarge the frame showing the man beside the case. His phone points toward the lock, but the camera angle also captures the lodge entrance behind him. He was not only determining what he could take. He was planning how to leave.

Deputy McCall arrives with another officer. I show them the footage from the courtesy phone, the meeting behind the lodge, and the man’s examination of the display.

“Any identification?” McCall asks.

“Not yet.”

“Vehicle?”