"That's why I'm here, just to prove I can do it. Call it a macho thing, but this time I'm not going to screw up and slip."
"Are you sure you slipped?" Dean said through gritted teeth, his hands beginning to ache against the strain of the tightened rope.
"I'll race you to the bottom and we can talk about it." Shipton squirmed, adjusting his position. He began to fumble with the ring of his harness.
"Wait!" Dean yelled, panic in his voice.
Dean knotted his rope with trembling hands as he looked down on the man nearly directly under him. "Shipton, listen. You can't be sure you slipped! Climb back up!"
"Edith cut my rope but she didn't do a very good job, did she? Of course she didn't do a very good job with anything in life. Especially watching my son."
"So you killed her," Dean growled.
Shipton halted what he was doing and looked up, the smile now gone. "She killed herself, remember? She was remorseful because she tried to kill me."
Dean attempted to move, turning his body for a clearer look down at Shipton but the adjustment in his position caused a shower of snow to descend on him, nearly covering his head and shoulders. Shipton laughed as Dean spit away the icy covering. Finally he steadied himself enough to respond. "I saw the check you just gave Fred. That told me how you did it. And you still had a key to Bird Song." He now had Shipton's attention. "You strangled her and pulled her body up on the cord to fake her hanging herself."
"Prove it," Shipton answered coldly.
"The crime lab guys in Denver will be able to. The pen's the key. That's all they'll need."
"You think you're pretty damn smart, don't you?"
Dean grimaced against the strain of the rope on his back, legs and shoulder. "Not as smart as I should have been. I should have remembered you still had your key to Bird Song. And you hadn't left town yet. You didn't return to Virginia until the following day."
"Who else knows about your little fairy tale?"
"Jake Weller. And Corday and the rest of them by now," Dean lied.
Once more, Shipton laughed. "I don't think so. You must have just guessed what happened after I just stopped by Bird Song. Then you came hustling up here, alone. If you'd taken time to talk to Weller and the rest of them, they'd be here, not just you."
"You bastard!" Dean snarled. "I spent two weeks of hell thinking I was a big part of why Edith died!"