by Thomas Zigal
Kurt studied the drawing. “Or a killer who might be Rocky Rhodes,” he added, slashing an X in the last corner.
She sipped coffee and smiled at her clever composition. “One more square and we can draw a line,” she said.
They sat in silence, watching the sketch dissolve slowly into long cold trails of water. “It’s all falling apart,” Kurt said finally. “We don’t have dick.”
Wadding up the empty McDonald’s bag, he got out of the car, opened the rear door, and climbed into the backseat. There was a large manila envelope, 24 × 17, lying next to the neatly folded pile of Gill’s clothing.
“Put a couple of our people on the horn to every mental hospital in the state,” he said, slipping off his leather jacket. His clothes smelled like a rabbit cage. He was happy to exchange the salty flannel shirt for Gill’s forest-green uniform. “Let’s give their staffs a profile— age, physical description, the works. Mention that our man may have shown some musical talent, especially with the guitar. If Rocky’s been locked away all these years, he hasn’t been using his real name.”
Muffin caught his eye in the rearview mirror. “If Rocky’s been locked away on a rubber ranch,” she said, “that means somebody put him there, Kurt. It means somebody’s been responsible for his care.”
“Find out if his mother is still alive down in Texas. Maybe she knows something.”
Muffin sighed heavily. “It’s a needle in a haystack, boss. He could’ve been locked up anywhere. Sitka, Alaska, for all we know.”
“Start with Colorado and Texas,” he said. “Recent releases with Rocky’s profile. Escapees with a history of violence. This guy hasn’t been out more than a month or two, I guarantee.”
He was shedding his jeans now, stuck with Gill’s goofy boxer shorts designed with lipstick kisses all around the crotch snaps. He noticed Muffin’s eyes still watching him in the rearview mirror. “If Rocky’s been released into the population after being locked away for a long time,” she said, “wouldn’t the hospital put him into some kind of halfway house program to ease him back in?”
“Maybe,” he said. “Keep going.”
She thought it over. “Wouldn’t there be a shrink assigned to him? Somebody like a probation officer?”
“Good possibility. A local contact wherever he’s gone to live.”
Muffin looked over her shoulder at him, saw that he was indis-posed, then turned to stare ahead at the windshield. Lost in thought, she smeared a final X onto the watery tic-tac-toe board and slicked a line through the row. “Your favorite head doctor,” she said. “Dr. Jay Westbrook.”
He grinned. “I knew there was a reason I hired you.”
He remembered seeing a man sitting on the cabin steps underneath the distant spruce trees. “Visitor cabins are spread all over that property,” he said. “He could be holed up in one. Let’s get a search warrant.”
“Judge DuPrau is probably at home this morning,” Muffin said. “It’s Sunday and there’s snow on the golf course.”
“Type up something quick and get it over to him. Tell him we suspect a murderer is hiding out in one of the cabins. He’ll sign it.”
He was dressed now, his funky clothes rolled up next to the large envelope lying on the seat. “Is this for me?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah,” she said, glancing over her shoulder, remembering. “That came for you at the courthouse early this morning. Nobody saw who delivered it. We figured it was some asshole reporter trying to grab your attention. It’s probably stuffed with interview money.”
He opened the envelope and glanced inside. No money, only a ream of paperwork. He didn’t have time for paperwork, not now or for the rest of his life.
“Where will you be while I’m dogging the judge?” Muffin asked.
“Waiting for you at the Elk Mountain Lodge.”
She turned around in the seat. “Don’t talk to Westbrook until I get there,” she said emphatically. “I don’t want you blowing the warrant.”
“Bring Gill and Florio with you, fully armed,” he said, slipping a boot over his tender ankle. “The fucker killed a rottweiler with a knife.”
Chapter twenty-eight
Driving downvalley in his old Willys Jeep, he lowered the window and listened to the Roaring Fork River rippling alongside the highway in a temperate mood, its shallow October waters streaming through fragile crusts of ice. If he followed this road north through the valley, he would find his son feeding a young gray-eared Himalayan rabbit in its hutch behind the farmhouse, the two passing quiet company on a lonesome Sunday morning. In a perfect world he would drive that child and his rabbit as high up Mount Sopris as the ancient four-wheel Jeep would carry them, and they would sit on a log and watch the creature frolic in the white wilderness she knew from ancestral Tibetan dreams. She would zigzag and leap and race the wind, her tiny paw prints looping far into the distance, patterned seams in the snow. In a perfect world there would be no predators and no hunters and no end to her pleasure and theirs. Like a faithful pup she would always return when they whistled.
But today was another day, another world.
He nudged the brakes and turned off Highway 82 onto Elk Mountain Road, heading west through the ponderosas toward Snowmass Creek. The CB radio hawked like someone with a bone in his throat, seizing Kurt’s attention: “Come in, Sheriff, are you there?”
He unclipped the mike speaker and responded. “Go ahead,Toni.”
“You’ve got an emergency call, Kurt. Some guy desperate to speak with you,” the dispatcher said. “He’s at a pay phone in the Denver airport.”
“Who is it?”
“He won’t identify himself. But he says it’s extremely urgent.”
He was passing the padlocked gate to Star Meadow, the small village of geodesic domes and solar-heated cottages that had been a popular center for holistic studies throughout the 1980s. Waning interest and financial mismanagement had forced Matt Heron to close the institute last year, and now the place looked abandoned and bereft, like a New Age ghost town with weed-grown bike paths and loose brush blowing past the boarded-up yerts.
“It’s probably just another reporter hustling an angle,” he told the dispatcher. “Dump him. I don’t have anything to say to the press right now.”
A short time later he rumbled across the wooden bridge over Snowmass Creek and coasted through the wrought-iron archway marking the entrance to Bauer land. Off to the south a herd of elk was sunning in the hoof-trampled snow of a large open pasture, a hundred shaggy beasts and their calves milling about aimlessly. Snow melted on the tin roofs of the cabins rowed along the creek. Kurt wanted to drive over without delay and inspect them one by one, but he knew he’d risk blowing the case if he didn’t wait for Muffin and the search warrant.
He continued down the muddy road to the parking lot of the Elk Mountain Lodge and pulled off into a small picnic area underneath a stand of spruce trees. There were fewer vehicles this morning. He sat in the Jeep and watched smoke curl from the lodge’s fieldstone chimney and wondered what would lead a successful doctor to destroy a woman who had trusted him and depended on his care, and who had once loved him as a wife. After a few moments he got out of the Jeep with his binoculars and framed the windows of the lodge, fingering the delicate focus until he could see far into the lobby. No one was moving about. He slowly veered direction, spying the dense treeline hugging the base of the mountains farther west. There were a handful of cabins back there, where he’d observed that man yesterday morning. He found one small structure, then another, but they appeared dark and unused, curtains of snow pressed against the windowpanes.
A vehicle slushed into the parking lot and he lowered the binoculars to see who it was. A large black GMC Yukon was edging into a space near the front walkway to the lodge. The door opened and a woman stepped out wearing a familiar brown suede jacket with a fur-fringed hood lying back on her shoulders. He raised the binoculars and followed her up the split-log steps and into the shadows of the covered porch
.
Isn’t this cozy? he thought. Dana Smerlas coming to Jay Westbrook for counseling.
The CB radio crackled loud enough to wake a coma patient. He slid behind the wheel and snatched the mike. “It’s the guy at the Denver airport,” the dispatcher said. “He’s blowing a fuse. Says he needs to talk to you before he catches a plane.”
“Tell him to fuck off.”
“He says he left a large manila envelope for you that contains important information about the Nicole Bauer case.”
Kurt glanced into the rear of the Jeep, where a corner of the hand-delivered envelope stuck out beneath his bundle of dirty clothes. Whoever he was, he’d been in Aspen earlier this morning.
“You still don’t know his name?”
“He says he won’t talk to anyone but you.”
Kurt reached for the envelope. “I’ll call you back in sixty seconds, Toni. It’s probably a line of bullshit.”
The thick ream of paperwork turned out to be architectural blueprints, drawings, rough sketches. Taped to the first page was a sheet of elegant stationery imprinted with the words, From the desk of Nicole Bauer. A hasty message had been scribbled in ballpoint ink: This is why they killed her. She was the only one who could stop them.
The words, the personal stationery, startled him. He rubbed the paper between his fingertips, brought them to his nostrils. Jasmine.
Nicole had written several desperate notes to him on this stationery when he’d stopped seeing her last fall.
“Toni,” he said, thumbing the CB mike. “Is he still on the line?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Patch him to my cell phone.”
Waiting for the phone to ring, he shuffled through the documents, each one stamped with the logo of Guerin and McCord, architects. This was stolen property. It had been taken from their burglarized office in the middle of the night.
The phone chirped. Kurt lifted the receiver. “Okay,” he said solemnly, “you’ve got my attention.”
There was a slight delay, then a young man’s voice: “I did it for Nickie. She woulda wanted you to see them for yourself.”
Kurt thought he recognized the voice but he wasn’t sure. “Who am I talking to?” he asked.
“You know who I am.” He could hear a loudspeaker in the background, a generic tape reminding passengers that smoking was not permitted in the terminal. “I couldn’t let ’em get away with it, man. But who was gonna believe a two-time loser like me? That’s why I had to break in and liberate that shit.”
Kyle Martin. Fence-sawer, mink farm vandal.
“I just opened the envelope,” Kurt said, knocking askew his rearview mirror as he unfolded an unwieldy blueprint. “I need time to look this over, Kyle.”
“Give me a number. I’ll call you back in ten minutes. Get with the program, dude.”
Careful not to rip the creases, he unraveled the largest document, smoothing out its cool surface on the passenger seat. It appeared to be a design plan for something called The Elk Mountain Ski Resort. He recognized it instantly as an early study for the vandalized scale model he’d seen in the architects’ office. Reading their handwritten inscriptions and geographical guide, he knew now why the damaged model had seemed so familiar when he’d examined the broken pieces on the table. He raised his eyes, taking a hard look at the old lodge and the white mountains rising beyond, where those
young Dartmouth skiers had perished sixty years ago. Someone was planning to build a new state-of-the-industry ski resort on the very ground where he was parked.
He shifted in his seat and studied the details. The proposed village would cover 150 acres, the entire parcel of Bauer land from Elk Mountain down to the county road and Snowmass Creek. A 300-unit hotel would replace the old lodge. The plan called for several condo high-rises and private health clubs and a shopping district with bars, bistros, and fashion-wear shops. The rusting t-bar would succumb to a towering new ski lift and modern high-speed gondolas.
Printed boldly at the bottom of the sheet was the name of Guerin and McCord’s client: THE BAUER COMPANY, Denver, Colorado.
Kurt straightened up and looked around at the untouched acres of snow. The Bauers envisioned another Snowmass or Vail at one of the last great unspoiled corners of the Roaring Fork Valley.
He glanced down at the note scribbled on Nicole’s stationery. This is why they killed her. She was the only one who could stop them.
He emptied out the packet and scattered the remaining documents across the blueprint. One of the smaller sheets caught his eye, the sketch for a proposed monorail system that would link five major ski areas, sleek futuristic capsules zipping across the mountaintops between this new resort and Snowmass Village, Buttermilk, Highlands, and Aspen. One great, big, happy, interconnected ski bonanza, making all of the investors obscenely rich.
The cell phone rang. Kurt grabbed the receiver.
“You see what’s going down?” the voice said. “Now that Nickie’s dead there’s nobody to stop them. They can do whatever the fuck they want.”
“Your note says they killed her, Kyle. What makes you say that?”
“They’re all in it together, man. It’s a fucking conspiracy.”
“Who, Kyle? Her brothers?”
“They hated her. She embarrassed them too many times, dragged the family name through the mud. They hated everything she’d done with her life, and everything she stood for. She told me they
tried to cut her out of the family money but their old man wouldn’t go for it. He loved his princess, no matter what. Before he died he fixed it so she had a vote and veto power, like the other two.”
Kurt remembered what Nicole had said to him in their final moments together: Decisions, decisions. They can’t piss away all the money unless I let them.
“This ski resort deal was the thing that finally drove them to the wall,” Kyle said. “They wanted it real bad. You got any idea how much they stand to pocket if that shit gets built? Billions, man. But Nickie didn’t give a damn about the money. She wanted to keep the land undeveloped. The whole goddamned valley’s getting paved over by assholes like her brothers and there’s no place for the critters to go. She had her own plans to make the place an animal refuge. So she said fuck you and refused to okay the deal.”
Kurt knew that many years ago Nicole had insisted on removing the fences around the Bauer property because the land had always been a major elk run. If this resort was built, it would destroy the animals’ migratory patterns. And a rail system across the mountains would drive every last bear down into civilization, where the Mike Marleys of the world were waiting with their .38s.
“Look, man, I’ve got a plane to catch,” Kyle said. Flight numbers were echoing in the background. “I gave you that stuff because Nickie trusted you and woulda wanted you to know about it. Maybe you’ve got the balls to do something, I don’t know.”
“Hold on, Kyle. Where are you going?”
“A place where there ain’t no fences and the wolves outnumber the people. I’m not hanging around to face a felony break-in. This time they’ll send my scrawny ass to the meat factory in Cañon.”
“You’ve got to sit down and talk to me, son. I need to know everything Nickie told you. I can’t build a case without your help.”
“Sorry, dude. They’re boarding my plane. I’ve told you everything I know. The rest is in those blueprints.”
“Kyle, don’t go!” he said. “We can work out a deal. I’ll get the D.A. to grant you immunity in exchange for your testimony.”
Kyle laughed bitterly. “Nickie may have trusted you with her life,” he said, “but I sure as hell don’t. So long, chief. I’ve got your number if I get lonely.”
“Stay right where you are! I’ll come get you and put you up in a safe house till something’s worked out.”
Cabin rows were being announced by microphone.
“You can’t stop them,” Kyle said. “Nickie tried and look what happened to her. They’ll do the same to you and
me.”
“Are you saying somebody murdered her?”
“They didn’t have to stick a knife in her, fool. They worked on her head. Check out what that asshole mind doctor gets out of the deal.”
“Westbrook?”
“Like I told you, it’s all in the blueprints. Later on, chief. I gotta bolt.”
“Kyle!”
The line went dead. Kurt slammed the cell phone against the dashboard and cursed. He pounded the steering wheel. After a few moments he calmed down and gathered the papers together, refolding what he’d already seen, searching now for something that might implicate Jay Westbrook. If the Bauers intended to tear down the lodge and build a ski resort on this site, what would happen to their former brother-in-law—the man they had hired to save their sister from life in prison?
It didn’t take long to find his answer. One of the documents was labeled STAR MEADOW RENOVATION. Unfolding the squares, he saw that the architects had drawn up remodeling plans for the bankrupt New Age village five miles down the road. Apparently the Bauers had bought Star Meadow and intended to restore it along with their ski development.
Kurt climbed out of the Jeep and spread the blueprint on the hood to have a better look. The design showed that many of the institute’s permanent structures would be left intact. There were plans to add more first-class sleeping accommodations and a new conference center. Additional classrooms, tennis courts, a heated pool. And a director’s private residence, 8,000 square feet. At the bottom of the sheet Kurt discovered the proposed title for the new place: The Alpha Institute, Rocky Mountain Campus.
The Alpha Institute, he thought. Wasn’t that name on a diploma hanging in Westbrook’s office?