Page 84 of Silent Bones
"Yeah, but here's where it gets interesting." Rishi clicked to a new tab, revealing a metadata readout. Timestamps, user access logs, edit flags were scrolling down the screen in neat rows. "Someone else has been poking around in this file, recently."
He highlighted a specific entry:
User: dthur_0482
Last Access: 42 hours ago
Session Duration: 31 minutes
Actions: File modification, partial redaction, field deletion
McKenzie pushed off from the doorframe. "dthur_0482. You think that’s Dale Thurston?"
"That's an old credential," Rishi said, turning to face them. “It could be Dale's login from his DEC days. But here's the thing, in admin systems, old usernames stick around. Sometimes they get reassigned, sometimes used for batch processing, sometimes..." He paused. "Sometimes someone with higher clearance uses them for plausible deniability."
“To cover their ass.” Noah nodded and felt his stomach tighten. "You're saying someone else could have accessed this using Dale's ID?"
"Exactly. I mean, it could be Dale himself, sure. But it could just as easily be someone in IT, someone with administrative access, or someone trying to make it look like Dale's covering his tracks."
“But why?”
“Well that’s the fifty million dollar question.” Rishi scrolled through the access log. "Look at the timing, 2:17 AM, session lasted over half an hour. They weren't just reading. They were editing. Deleting. And they did a sloppy job of it."
“Could this be a file they forgot to edit?”
“It could be.” He switched back to the document view. "Whatever was removed, it wasn't professional-grade scrubbing. This was panic work. They were working fast. They tried to mask original text fields but didn't properly encrypt the data underneath. Left digital fingerprints everywhere."
Noah studied the visible portions of the report. What remained was sanitized bureaucracy: slope instability, heavy rainfall, natural causes. But the gaps were telling. Whole sections carved out where witness statements should have been. Field observations were deleted. Most damning of all, the responding ranger's conclusions had been completely excised.
"So this was Dale's original report?" McKenzie asked.
"Has to be," Rishi said. "The file structure, the incident number, the date, even the GPS coordinates match some of the information found in the paper archives. But someone went through and surgically removed every reference to what Dale actually concluded about the cause."
Noah felt pieces clicking into place. “Son-of-a-bitch. If the photos we pulled from the teens instagram accounts and phones are correct. They were there. So, perhaps Dale blamed them. I would imagine he concluded their illegal camping contributed to the landslide that killed that family.”
"And someone made sure that accusation never saw daylight," McKenzie added grimly.
Rishi nodded. "But that's old news, that redaction could have happened a year ago when Dale was forced out. These were new edits.” He highlighted the recent access timestamp. "Forty-two hours ago, someone went back into this file and tried to clean it up even further. They weren't fixing typos."
The room fell silent except for the steady whisper of cooling fans and the distant murmur of radio chatter from the front desk. Noah felt that familiar shift in his chest, not the excitementof a breakthrough, but the cold dread of realizing they were being watched.
"Why now?" he asked quietly. "If Dale's conclusions were buried a year ago, why go back and mess with it now?"
McKenzie crossed his arms. “Simple. We started digging into the connection between last year's incident and this year's murders."
"Exactly," Rishi said. "Someone realized we were getting close to uncovering the cover-up. And maybe they figured you would find out that Dale was right about those kids causing the landslide, and that truth was deliberately buried."
Noah paced to the window, staring out at the parking lot without really seeing it. The implications were staggering. "If Dale was telling the truth about the teens causing that family's death..."
"Then someone in the system protected those kids and destroyed an honest ranger's career to do it," McKenzie finished.
Rishi pulled up another screen. "During that same tampering session, they mounted an external storage device. Copied files, then tried to wipe the access trail. Someone was either backing up evidence before destroying it, or copying it to share with someone else. They question is why share it?”
“Proof to cover their ass, just in case this went south.”
Noah turned back to face them. "This isn't just about hiding Dale's old report. Someone is actively working to keep the truth buried, even now."
"And they have admin-level access to law enforcement systems," McKenzie said. "They can see our investigation, anticipate our moves, and stay one step ahead. Which means the coverup might extend further than the DEC.”
