Free Smoky Mountain Mystery 01 - Out on a Limb by Carolyn Jourdan

machinery.
    Although they found Cloud Forest absurd, the people of White Oak were grateful for decent jobs close to home. As employees of the fake farm all they had to do was walk around in their regular clothes and talk to each other in their normal speech, while the well-heeled spectators took it all in as part of an elaborate historic reenactment. Although it felt odd to be watched while working in what amounted to a human version of an ant farm, it paid better than the hotels and restaurants in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, and at Cloud Forest they got to work outside in a beautiful place.
    Phoebe looked out the large window and saw another flash coming from the same place she’d seen earlier. Jill noticed her worried look and said, “Are you still seein something out there?”
    Phoebe nodded, then she said, “It’s probably nothin .” But she didn’t look convinced.

 
Chapter 15
     
     
    When he had the mother bear and her cubs safely housed at the wildlife building, Henry upended the torn backpack onto his desk. Then he carefully checked each of the separate compartments and emptied them.
    He examined every item in the pack, looking for clues. There was nothing to identify the owner, but he did find something interesting. It was a brass key with code numbers stamped into it. The numbers were GSM-147.
    It was an official Department of Interior key. The GSM meant Great Smoky Mountains and the numbers identified a particular lock on the roster of buildings under the stewardship of the park. Henry didn’t know where lock number 147 was, but he knew somebody who would.
    He walked over to the maintenance compound to talk to Jimmy Helton, a machinist and the park key maker.
    Henry stuck his head into Jimmy’s shop. Jimmy was welding, but shut off his torch and raised his mask when he saw Henry. “Hey Jimmy,” Henry said, handing him the key. “Sorry to bother you, but I was wonderin if you could tell me what this is for?”
    “Let’s see,” he said looking at the number stamped into the brass. “Not off the top of my head, but we have our ways. Follow me.”
    He led Henry over to his key making department, a tiny, metal-filled cubbyhole, where he used two dirty index fingers to peck at the keys on his computer.
    My how park rangering has changed , Henry thought.
    “It’s to the little lodge up on Laurel Ridge .”
    Henry tried to picture the place in his mind’s eye, but had only the vaguest recollection of it.
“I can understand why he’d want you to have emergency access to it,” Jimmy said. “It’d be a tolerable place to hole up in if you got stuck out on the ridge, but I hope he told you it hasn’t been repaired yet.”
“It hasn’t?” said Henry, hoping he sounded like he understood what Jimmy was talking about.
    “No, he hasn’t scheduled a work detail since he reported it uninhabitable. This is a spare key I made for him, but the cabin is out of service. It’s off limits for VIPs or visiting scientists, even for rangers. He asked me take it off the building roster, but I just marked it as inactive.”
    “Oh,” said Henry. He peeked at the screen over Jimmy’s shoulder and saw the name associated with the key. It was Fielding, the Park Superintendent.
    “I’m sure our fearless leader has more important things on his mind than some old cabin that’s fallin in.”
    “I hear ye ,” agreed Henry. He thanked Jimmy and left, taking the key with him.
    Talk about your rock and a hard place. Henry decided not to mention the key to anybody else. His priority was to track down the owner of the backpack. Establishing a connection between a shredded backpack, the Superintendent, and a broken down cabin was more than he cared to undertake. He’d have to pursue that part of his investigation discreetely since he stayed in enough trouble with his boss as it was.
    ***
     
    Despite his reservations, late in the day, when Henry’s tasks took him close to Laurel Ridge Lodge, he decided to swing by