Forensic Sherpa Case Files - Case 14856 - Report 1

The air is so cold it feels like a sheet of glass we shatter with each movement that takes us along the ridge line. The Alpaca ballistics team assures me that the snow is still a day or so away, and I am inclined to trust them. They've been here before. They know.

We lost a good man on the west face ascent. He had someone else's wife and kids waiting for him back home. He carried pictures. The kids looked nothing like him. They were beautiful. Sometimes I'm not sure I can handle the tragedy of it, but those are the dangers of high altitude investigation. We all know them going in. We all accept them for our own reasons.

I had to amputate four of my photographers fingers yesterday leaving him only a thumb, a pinkie and a pointer finger. He doesn't seem overly concerned. "As long as I've got my tripod two of these are still extras," he told me with that broad toothless smile of his. He has a tiny, dexterous monkey that lives in a warm pouch beneath his testicles. The monkey sets the f-stop and shutter speed of the camera. It assembles the tripod. So, everything should be fine.

My pack has yet to bother me. This is, reportedly, a single victim crime scene we are trekking toward, so I have kept the supplies somewhat limited. Currently I am carrying 30 tins of beef, 15 pounds of cornmeal mush, 32 pineapples, a dingo carcass, 7 MKII fragmentation grenades, a snow shovel, a three hundred foot coil of high tensile wire, the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe, a desk lamp, two barefoot Guatemalan nuns, 92 pairs of wool socks, a rabbit cage with rabbit, a small oak dinette set, four cases of Ziplock bags, a two cycle rebuilt engine, a heart shaped box of chocolates, 2 dozen donuts, a retractable communications satellite and a six person dirigible. I hope this light load isn't making me weak. Maybe I will add a rock or two if I can find one loose in all this snow and ice.

Livingston, one of the Ballistics Alpacas, says we should reach the scene in a few days. I will send an update then. Hopefully we will collect enough evidence to catch the bastard that did this and put him away for a long time.

Yours,
Forensic Sherpa