Pariah

by Thomas Zigal

  Kurt glanced at the baby grand piano sitting in shadow. “Some of it doesn’t make sense. If they were in contact, why didn’t he just give them a call and ring the doorbell? Why did he have to kill the dog and break in a window?”

  They watched two grim EMS medics wheel a gurney from the back of the house. A body bag was strapped to the table. Kurt asked who it was.

  “The guy,” one of them said. “We’ll have the lady packed up in half an hour, Sheriff, give or take.”

  Muffin worked her head back and forth, loosening the tension in her neck. When she looked at Kurt again he saw a fierce, unforgiving anger burning deep in her eyes. “We’ve gotta stop this crazy fucker,” she said. “Any idea who might be next on his list?”

  “Yeah,” Kurt said, hesitant to admit it. “You’re looking at him.”

  They stared at each other, calculating what that could mean. She didn’t blink for several moments, not until the beeper sounded on her belt. “It’s Linda,” she said, reading the number. “Is there a phone in this nutty place?”

  When she returned he was waiting for her down in the pond room, where he had gone to browse through the awards and framed photographs on Gahan’s vanity shelf. Without explanation he handed her the photo of the two women kissing beneath the Hawaiian waterfall.

  “Mm-hmm,” she said, studying the picture. “Is this supposed to turn me on, Kurt?”

  “I’m pretty sure the redhead is Nicole Bauer. I think the other one is a young woman named Mariah Windstar. Apparently Rocky was jealous of their relationship,” he said, nodding at the photo. “The letters said Mariah was there with Nicole the night Rocky died and that she’d caused the fight that ended in his death. My guess is Rocky discovered them together and lost it.”

  Her eyes flicked upward, meeting his. “Is there anything else you’ve failed to clue me in on, Sheriff?” she asked, quickly irritated with him. “I feel like I’m playing catch-up here.”

  “This information comes from the letters, Muffin. It’s the word of a madman. Who knows if it’s true?”

  He withdrew the folded magazine from inside his jacket and thumbed through the pages to the place he’d marked with a crease, then handed it to her. She held the framed photograph in one hand, the printed image in the other, her eyes darting back and forth between them. “This case is turning into a regular pornfest,” she said.

  “It’s the same girl,” he said, pointing to the butterfly tattoo in each picture.

  “Meaning what?”

  “I think I know who she is.”

  “You just said. Some chick named Mariah Starbuck or something.”

  “No. Who she is today.”

  “What difference does it make, Kurt? There’s a butcher on the loose and you’re showing me chick pix from Larry Flynt’s old photo albums.”

  “She’s the connection,” he said, scratching his stubbly neck. “We’ve got to find her. If it’s Rocky, she’s probably on the list, too.”

  Muffin shoved the magazine and framed photograph against his chest. “Look, that was Linda on the phone,” she said. “She’s been staring at Lyle’s videos for three hours and she’s finally found something. She wants us to come take a look right away.”

  Kurt glanced at the groupie magazine. At least two of the women in that photograph were dead.

  “Those hairstyles,” Muffin said, taking a final peek at the picture and rolling her eyes. “Come on, we’ll take my unit.”

  On the drive into Aspen she reported what she and Linda Ríos had discovered about Lyle’s video collection. “More than half of his tapes were commercially produced. He’s into the usual adolescent boy stuff, with a sweet tooth for S&M. There are some hiddens, mostly shot from motel closets. They seem pretty phony. You wonder why nobody ever walks over to hang up a coat. I don’t think he filmed them himself. You can download all that stuff from the wonderful world of Web sleaze, if you know where to search.”

  “What about shots of Nicole’s bedroom?”

  “We’re still looking through it. Lyle’s been working for her since February, eight or nine months, but who knows when he installed the camera. It could’ve been last week.”

  “You’re telling me you haven’t found anything solid from Nickie’s room?”

  “Well,” she said, pausing for reflection, clearing her throat. “We found you.”

  Heat rushed into his face. When he’d made the decision not to withhold the tape from their inspection, he knew this moment would arrive all too soon, but he hadn’t prepared himself for how awkward he would feel.

  “What else?” he asked.

  “Nothing nearly as good.”

  He gave her a dark look.

  “I’m sorry, Kurt. What I meant was, we haven’t found any other tapes with that kind of detailed”—she groped for the word—“action,” she said with a straight face.

  “The kid lives nine months in her house and there’s nothing else on tape?”

  She shrugged as if to say, Don’t blame me. “There’s lots of dead time, Kurt. Nicole pacing back and forth in front of the camera. Nicole sitting in bed filing her nails. Nicole curled up with a thick book. Nicole drinking herself to sleep.”

  It was a scenario Kurt didn’t want to dwell on: Nicole’s world shrinking, diminishing into greater solitude.

  Muffin made a left turn off Main Street and cruised into an empty space at the side entrance to the courthouse. “From the evidence I’ve seen, the woman was leading a very quiet life, Kurt. Her nights were lonely and boring, and she drank enough Scotch to eat up a kidney,” she said, staring ahead over the steering wheel. “But maybe we’re in luck. It sounds like Linda has found something.”

  To ensure absolute privacy, the two deputies had set up shop in a windowless, underutilized audiovisual room located in the county jail facility behind the courthouse. The door was locked and they had to knock and identify themselves before Linda opened up. The room lacked ventilation and smelled of strong coffee, pastry, and roll-on deodorant. The women had systematized the tape collection, arranging boxes according to category.

  Although pleased to see them, Linda Ríos appeared weary and drawn, as if she’d just walked away from an all-night poker game. Her khaki sleeves were rolled haphazardly to her elbows and the long sweeps of her dark hair were piled on top of her head, clasped together with something that looked like a kitchen bag clip. She was clearly tired but elated by her discovery. “I’d just about given up on finding something like—hey, you know, like—” She dropped her eyes, forcing herself to address the man standing a few feet away. “Like the one you star in, Kurt.”

  “It might help,” he suggested modestly, “if we all agree that what you witnessed was my reckless twin.”

  He and Muffin dragged folding chairs close to the VCR. Linda rewound the tape to the place where a well-groomed man crossed the screen from left to right in a blur of motion, disappearing so quickly it was impossible to see his face. A conversation began off camera, male and female, muddled fragments, lilting laughter, a low sultry coupling of voices. Kurt recognized Nicole’s throaty laugh, her seductive rhythms. He tried to distance his own feelings from what he knew was happening somewhere in the room—the delicate negotiation of lips, the game of buttons. Like a college boy again, he felt the familiar dull constricting pain in his chest he’d felt every time a girl had told him there was someone else.

  “Should I fast-forward through this part?” Linda asked, retrieving the channel selector.

  “What is it you want us to see, Linda?” Kurt asked with a sharpness that surprised even him.

  “I think there’s a pretty good look at his face,” she said. “It’s coming up.”

  “Okay, get to it,” he said, folding his arms.

  Linda thumbed the button and the tape sped forward. Nicole brought the man to her bed, leading him by the hand, and they jerked like silent movie actors through the ceremony of undressing. His back remained toward the camera. It must have been summer. He was wearing a
short-sleeve polo shirt, Bermuda shorts, expensive Nike jogging shoes, shedding everything in twitchy motion onto the floor. A well-built man, shorter than Nicole, his skin tone the evenly applied bronze from a tanning lamp. On top of her, his back rippled with the kind of muscle definition middle-aged men purchased by the month in health club weight rooms. His dark hair gleamed with oil and retained its stiff sculpted shape even when he burrowed his face between her breasts.

  “Bear with me,” Linda said, pressing on. “There’s something near the end.”

  Kurt stood up and walked over to one of the boxes. He picked up a videotape and pretended to read the description on the back. He wasn’t going to watch any more of this until Linda found what she was looking for.

  He was still shuffling through the video titles when Linda said, “Here it is, Kurt. Come take a look.”

  The man was sitting naked on the edge of the bed, smoking a cigarette, paused in a jittery freeze-frame. Nicole was partially visible,

  lying on her side under a sheet, her legs curled halfway to her chest. They had finished with each other.

  “Holy shit,” Muffin said, leaning forward, truly surprised. “Is that who I think it is?”

  Linda rubbed a knuckle against her chin, uncertain and perplexed. “He looks familiar but I can’t make him. Who is he, guys?”

  “Roll it back a few seconds and then let it run,” Muffin said, her eyes fixed intensely on the TV screen.

  Kurt stood behind his empty chair, watching the tape replay. The man took a drag from his cigarette, blew smoke, and turned to rub a mound of sheet, Nicole’s soft hip. Kurt didn’t need to see any more to know who he was. “Good god, Kurt,” Muffin said, gazing upward at him. There was a look of utter astonishment in her eyes. “It’s Ben Smerlas.”

  Chapter twenty-six

  It had become a clear, crisp autumn morning, with a residue of snow on the lawns of the suburban cul-de-sac. Kurt parked the Jeep at curbside, strode up the shoveled walkway, and rang the doorbell. The Sunday newspaper was lying neatly on the welcome mat. Someone at last night’s party had left a champagne glass in the flower box by the door, and a cigarette butt floated in the grainy gray liquid. He picked up the newspaper and rang twice more before a Latina housekeeper finally appeared. She might have been the same young woman who had raced outside with the coats. This morning she was wearing jeans and a baggy Broncos sweatshirt instead of the prim black-and-white domestic’s uniform.

  “Yes, please?” she said, looking put out by this early intrusion. It was shortly after eight A.M.

  “Pitkin County Sheriff,” Kurt said, showing her his badge.

  “Señor Smerlas, he is not home. He is gone to the club for his exercise.”

  “I’m not here to see the señor,” Kurt said, an edgy adrenaline rush fueling his words. “I would like to speak with Mrs. Smerlas, please.”

  The young woman seemed a little frightened by him. Perhaps it was his disheveled appearance. She shouldered the door, blocking the meager open space with her body as if she expected him to force his way in. “Missus Smerlas is in her bath, señor. You must come back later.”

  “I’ll wait,” he said. “Tell her the sheriff is here to see her.”

  She closed the door in his face. He rang the bell immediately. When she cracked open the door, showing only one eye, he said, “Tell Mrs. Smerlas this is official police business and I’m not leaving until she speaks to me.”

  She closed the door without a word.

  Prepared for a long wait, he slipped the Aspen newspaper out of its plastic sheath and sat down on the entrance step, glancing at the front page. Nicole’s death had made the headlines. An apparent suicide, the article said. Alcohol mixed with a prescription drug. Distraught. Disoriented. “Earlier in the evening Bauer had won the bidding for an auction date with Sheriff Kurt Muller at a nonprofit gala held at the Hotel Jerome. The two had returned to her Starwood residence by limousine. It is unclear at what time the sheriff left her home. Muller has avoided reporters and was unavailable for comment.”

  He wondered how much longer he would be able to play cat and mouse with the press.

  There were two articles below the fold on the front page, one headlined, MULLER DISAPPEARS FROM DEBATE, and another loudly proclaiming, SMERLAS TO RUN FOR HOUSE SEAT. Its lead began, “Surrounded by a crowd of enthusiastic supporters after a bizarre town-hall debate that ended in controversy (see MULLER DISAPPEARS, same page), Pitkin County Commissioner Ben Smerlas took advantage of the occasion to announce his candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives, Third District.”

  Kurt was thinking about lighting the newspaper with his Bic and sticking it in the mail slot when the door opened suddenly. “Follow me, please,” said the housekeeper, inviting him into the foyer. “Missus Smerlas say come, have coffee in the sun room.”

  She walked ahead of him into the large den where he had seen guests milling about the party. The life-size poster announcing Ben Smerlas’s candidacy remained against the wall near the fireplace. Patio doors were open, airing out the reek of wine and saucy hors d’oeuvres. Water was running in the kitchen, plates clinking. The party must have lasted far into the night. The maids were only now cleaning up.

  The housekeeper directed him through French doors into a sun-filled room exuding a botanical Pacific Island ambience. Bamboo furniture, exotic birds swinging in wicker cages, the glass walls fitted with roll-down curtains that resembled grass mats. Plants with long green tendrils and spearlike leaves spilled out over their pots. Although the morning chill had fogged the glass, the smells inside this room were as wet and earthy as a tropical arboretum.

  A service of steaming coffee waited for him on a round glass-topped table. “How do you take it?” the young woman asked, pouring coffee into a china cup.

  “As dark as it comes.”

  Though he hadn’t eaten since dinner on Friday night, he still had no appetite. Not after his discovery in the Magic Mushroom House.

  “She will see you,” the housekeeper said, taking her leave.

  Kurt brought the cup of coffee to the glass wall and rubbed his fist against the condensation, clearing a view to the sun deck where he’d seen Jay Westbrook with his arm around Tanya. Last night there had been three people at this party with intimate connections to Nicole—an ex-husband, a surreptitious lover with political ambitions, and a woman who had known her years ago, perhaps an old lover as well. It was clear to Kurt that Nicole’s death had conveniently solved a number of their problems, and maybe a few of her brothers’, too. An illicit affair, a family embarrassment, a failed marriage. Without Nicole, their world had become a tidy place once again.

  Sipping the strong coffee, he gazed out beyond the Smerlas property line toward the snow-rimmed golf course in the distance, where the commissioner had dispersed an entire bucket of balls in his party mood. Kurt could remember when that course was nothing more than a grassy prairie off the old two-lane highway, a field full of plump quails luring him and his brother with their pellet rifles. As teenagers, the two boys had spent many a gilded summer afternoon dragging golf bags behind their father and the other aging entrepreneurs who had mowed and graded and irrigated those wild acres for their own personal recreation. You’re raping the wild, Kyle Martin had screamed at him in the Opera House. But it wasn’t rape, Kurt knew after nearly fifty years of living in this mountain wilderness, observing what the masterbuilders had done to the land. It was a slow, relentless seduction, a calculation of compromised positions leading to surrender.

  “Would you like a warm-up, Sheriff?”

  He turned around to find Dana Smerlas pouring herself a cup of coffee at the glass table. Raising the silver pitcher, she beckoned him with the lilt of an eyebrow. She was wearing a pearl-gray bathrobe and the silk clung to her moist skin, revealing small firm breasts and a trim waistline. He walked over and held out his cup, studying her face as she poured. She had applied light eyeliner and lipstick, just enough to waken her features. Her short dark ha
ir, graying at the temples, was still wet from the bath and curled around her ears. He could easily picture her as the young woman in the photographs with Nicole. Small, black-haired in her youth, the same delicate jaw. The two images he’d seen had not revealed a full view of her face, but he knew this was her. He was certain that if he peeled back her robe he would uncover the butterfly tattooed on her left shoulder blade.

  “So what brings you to our door so early on a Sunday morning?” she asked with a sly smile, her eyes drifting toward the front page of the newspaper he’d left by the service tray. “Don’t tell me you’ve come to pledge your personal endorsement of Ben’s campaign.”

  He could smell her shampoo, a fruity tropical fragrance that matched the palmy room. Her freshness made him aware of his own body odor, a full day without a shower or change of clothing. He felt like a ripe hunter who had wandered home after a week in the woods.

  “I came to ask you some questions about a double homicide,” he said, watching her pale blue eyes widen. “Gahan Moss and his wife were murdered in their home early this morning.”

  “My god,” she said, frowning. “The musician?”

  “Did you know him?”

  “No,” she said, puzzled by the question. “As you can imagine, we didn’t run in the same social circles.”

  “You’ve never met Gahan Moss?” he persisted.

  She gave a slight shrug, brought the coffee to her lips. “Not that I recall,” she said, speaking into the cup. “Perhaps in a group of friends at one of the clubs. You know how small that scene is here. But like the song says, I don’t get around much anymore. Ben doesn’t go for the Aspen nightlife.”

  You’ll think otherwise about Ben’s nightlife, Kurt thought, once you’ve seen the videotape.

  “If you didn’t know Gahan Moss, Mrs. Smerlas, why did you meet him in Red Butte Cemetery last night around ten o’clock?”

  She blanched, a look of surprise and dismay. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, tightening the folds of her robe. “I hosted a party for my husband last night. Here, read about it yourself,” she said, sliding the newspaper across the glass surface. “A hundred people will tell you I was here by my husband’s side.”