Pariah

by Thomas Zigal

  Kurt remembered the shrink and Walt IV standing shoulder to shoulder on the Smerlas deck last night, toasting with their wineglasses. One big happy family now that Nicole was out of their way. The resort would be built. The old Star Meadow would become a glorified summer camp for Jay Westbrook’s clientele. Peace and wellness in the Rockies. His thirty pieces of silver.

  Sitting on the warm, bug-spattered hood of the Jeep, arms folded, Kurt stared at the entrance to the lodge, mindful of Muffin’s words not to go in without her. He glanced down the road toward the creek, where the elk were slowly herding off toward an aspen grove in the distance. No sign of his deputies. It might take Muffin another hour to find Judge DuPrau. And if he was in a bilious mood, as he often was, he might not authorize the search warrant.

  Kurt knew he had to seize this moment before Dana Smerlas finished her business and drove away.

  When he entered the lobby, Tanya was speaking quietly to three elderly women warming themselves near the stone fireplace. Her eyes locked on to him as he strode toward the corridor where Westbrook’s office was located. “May I help you, Sheriff Muller?” she called out in a brisk voice.

  He had nearly reached the man’s door when he felt a strong tug at his jacket. “I’m sorry, Sheriff,” she said, hanging on to him with a dogged determination. “Dr. Westbrook is with someone. If you’ll have a seat in the lobby…”

  “Let go of my sleeve,” he said. She recoiled a step, chastened by the anger in his voice.

  He pounded on the office door and opened it without waiting for a reply. Westbrook and Dana Smerlas glared at him, startled and offended by his intrusion. The psychiatrist rose from his regal chair. “I am in the middle of a private session, sir,” he said indignantly. “Tanya, what’s going on here?”

  “I tried to stop him but—”

  Kurt took hold of Tanya’s arm. “Step back out of the room, young lady,” he said, showing her the way. “This is police business. I’ll call you if somebody needs a foot rub.”

  He closed the door in her face and turned to acknowledge Dana Smerlas. She looked perfectly at home here. She had tossed her coat onto a chair, kicked off her snow boots, and nestled comfortably on the couch with her jean legs curled underneath her taut buttocks. Her expression slowly softened into a coy smile. “Still chasing butter-flies, Sheriff?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. She seemed as blithely amused by his sudden appearance as Westbrook was incensed.

  Kurt’s eyes shifted from one to the other. “Where is he?” he demanded.

  “This is outrageous,” Westbrook said. Behind the rimless glasses his small hard eyes looked like hollow-points in the chambers of a revolver. “I must ask you to leave immediately or I will file charges.”

  “Tell me where he is,” Kurt said. “I’m going to put him away before he kills somebody else.”

  Westbrook and Dana Smerlas exchanged glances. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the psychiatrist said.

  “Then you’re in serious denial, my friend. Isn’t that what you tell your patients?” Kurt said. “It’s too late to go simple on me, Westbrook. We’ve got Lyle. We’ve got his tapes. Pretty boys don’t enjoy the prison experience. Sooner or later he’ll spill his guts in a plea bargain.”

  “I’m aware of the young man’s situation,” Westbrook said, standing behind his chair now, resting his small freckled hands on the high back. “His parents called me this morning and asked if I would visit him. They said he’s been bullied by the police. I should have guessed it was you.”

  “He’s under arrest and he’s not seeing anybody but the lawyer he hires to save his sleazy ass. You’ve done enough talking to that poor fucked-up boy.”

  “I don’t believe you’re qualified to make that judgment, Sheriff Muller.”

  “Agreed. Which is why I’m turning you over to the state licensing board for their judgment. Let’s hear what they have to say about it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your ex-wife and longtime patient comes to you and confides that she’s afraid to be alone and she wants live-in company, so you set her up with a sick young voyeur with a history of secretly videotaping women. That ought to catch somebody’s attention in Denver. I’m also curious what the board will say about a doctor who prescribes strong antipsychotic medication for a woman he knows has had a drinking problem for at least twenty years.”

  “You’re way out of line,” Westbrook said, his face flushed with anger. “Nicole needed domestic help, Lyle needed a job. I was doing them both a favor.”

  “You knew he would show you the tapes, didn’t you, Doctor? You were like a father to him and he wanted to make you happy, so he shared them with you. And then you shared them with other people, didn’t you?” he said, turning to Dana Smerlas. “Which is how Mrs. Smerlas found out about her husband and Nicole.”

  The sound from Dana Smerlas’s mouth favored a Pekingese yelp. Sudden, unexpected, irritable. She closed her eyes, composing herself.

  “I’m sorry, did I touch a nerve, Mrs. Smerlas? Your friend the good doctor did show you the tape, didn’t he?”

  “These assertions are insulting, to say the least,” Westbrook said, his neck stiffening at an awkward angle. “You have no right to come into my private office and make wild allegations about Lyle Gunderson or Mrs. Smerlas or any of my patients, Sheriff Muller.”

  So Dana Smerlas was his patient as well.

  “You two make quite a team,” Kurt said, again looking from one to the other, his smile carrying a dark edge. “How did you find each other? Did Nicole introduce you?”

  Dana Smerlas was staring back with seething abhorrence.

  “You’ve got that one big thing in common,” he said. “Nicole hurt you both and you hated her.”

  Westbrook laughed insincerely. “That’s absurd,” he said. “You’re beginning to sound delusional yourself, Sheriff. May I recommend a good shrink?”

  It was then that Kurt noticed the gun on Westbrook’s imposing walnut desk. The doctor had made no attempt to conceal the weapon.

  It rested on a stack of manila folders next to the telephone. An odd thing for a psychiatrist to keep in his office. From where Kurt was standing, the pistol looked like a sheeny black .45, enough firepower to stop a crazy man with an eight-inch hunting knife.

  “Mrs. Smerlas, would you excuse us for a moment,” he said. “I would like to speak with Dr. Westbrook alone. Please go have a seat in the lobby. I’ll talk to you when I’m finished here.”

  With a sullen reluctance, Dana Smerlas rose from the couch, fetched her fur-lined coat, and slipped an arm into one sleeve, her eyes riveted on Kurt all the while. “I’m due to meet my husband at the club for lunch,” she said, checking her watch. “I hope this doesn’t ruin my plans.”

  “This is a police investigation, Mrs. Smerlas. Call your husband from the lobby and tell him whatever you want, but don’t leave the building. I’ll speak with you as soon as I can.”

  After she left the office, Kurt walked over to the desk for a closer look at the gun. It was a Colt 1911-model .45 semiautomatic, not a discreet gentleman’s pistol but the weapon of choice for Marines and macho paramilitary types. It could probably stop a rhino in full stride. He also noticed an old cleaning kit with its lid open, the bore rod and pads and oily polish rag ready for use.

  “What made you drag this old hog out of the closet, Doctor? I didn’t realize that counseling was such a high-risk occupation. Are you expecting trouble from one of your patients?”

  “I have a permit,” Westbrook said with a furrowed brow. “I don’t need your permission to own a weapon.”

  “Gahan Moss probably had a weapon and a permit, too, but it didn’t keep him from getting his throat slit in the middle of the night.”

  Westbrook approached his desk, opened a drawer, and slid the .45 inside. “What do you want from me, Sheriff ?” he said, slamming the drawer.

  Kurt wanted to punch him in the face. “Where is he?” he demanded. “Has he b
een under your care all these years?”

  The psychiatrist shrugged. “I haven’t the slightest idea who you’re talking about.”

  “You’ve lost control of him, haven’t you, Doctor? You didn’t expect him to kill anybody, but you were wrong. And now you’re a little nervous about the whole situation,” Kurt said, nodding at the drawer that housed the gun. “He’s gone ape shit on you. You probably don’t even know where he is right now. Hell, he might break into your place tonight with his nasty hunting knife. He might sneak up on Tanya while she’s sleeping and cut her pretty little throat.”

  Enraged, Westbrook threw up his hands. “I refuse to acknowledge these sadistic fantasies of yours. In fact, I’m going to call my attorney before this goes any further. You can take out your frustrations on him.”

  He lifted the telephone receiver and furiously punched a set of numbers. Kurt reached down and ripped the phone line out of the wall outlet. Then he grabbed Westbrook’s padded shoulder and shoved him into the swivel chair behind the desk. “Sit down,” he said, bracing his hands on the chair arm and leaning into the man’s face close enough to see a toast crumb in his beard. “Let’s discuss you and Nicole, shall we? It’s never too late for marriage counseling.”

  There was sudden panic in Westbrook’s eyes. Sweat greased his forehead. He wasn’t used to being on the other end of the questioning.

  “She rejected you, Doctor. Isn’t that why you hated her? She was the one who filed for divorce. That had to be tough on your ego. It’s tough on any husband, especially one who’s always in control of the relationship.”

  “I advise you to refrain from using any more physical force against me,” Westbrook said, staring at the ripped-out phone cord. “I’m going to report your behavior to my attorney.”

  Kurt straightened his shoulders and glanced across the room at the aquarium sitting on a table underneath the psychiatrist’s diplomas. Only one fish was visible in the tank, that willowy golden beauty swimming gracefully near the glass. He watched the fish waggle into the underwater greenery and reappear seconds later in a long gliding motion.

  “Fifteen years together, holy matrimony,” Kurt said. “And then she finally figured it out. The only reason you married her was to play watchdog for the Bauer family. It was your job to keep her medicated and shut off from the public so she wouldn’t embarrass them again. That’s why she left you, isn’t it, Doctor? She woke up one morning and realized you weren’t her husband, you were her caretaker.”

  “Your pronouncements are getting more surreal by the minute,” Westbrook said, shaking his head in disgust.

  “And then there were the other lovers,” Kurt said. “The ones she took to bed instead of you. It made you unhappy, I’m sure. Even after the divorce. You hated the fact that you’d lost control of her. The Bauer brothers were unhappy, too. My god, she was on the loose again, free to ruin their name. Which is why you set her up with Lyle. You knew he would keep an eye on her for you. Literally.”

  “Are you finished with this nonsense yet, Sheriff?” Westbrook asked with a sour expression. “Because I have clients to attend to. A schedule to keep.”

  He stood up from the chair but Kurt gripped his shoulder, shoved him back down, and leaned in close again. Westbrook turned his head away like a child refusing to accept a scolding.

  “It didn’t take much to get the crazy bastard worked up, did it?” Kurt said, his voice rising. “You’re a goddamned professional at this. You know all the right buttons to push. So you showed him Lyle’s videotapes of Nicole in bed. Maybe you let him read some of those letters you say she’d written to herself over the years. Enough to light a fire under the man, get him stoked. You knew the voices in his head would take over and tell him to do the things you didn’t have the guts to do yourself.”

  Indignant, Westbrook removed his glasses and tossed them onto the desk blotter. “If you persist with these ludicrous accusations I will sue you for slander,” he said, jabbing a finger in Kurt’s direction. “You won’t be able to buy a stick of gum with what you’re worth.”

  Kurt had made him furious and slightly off balance, which is what he wanted to do. He backed away from the man and ambled over to the sliding doors that opened onto the deck. Dana Smerlas was standing at the railing outside the lobby. She was smoking a cigarette and gazing up the snowy mountainside.

  “Nicole was in everybody’s way,” Kurt said, his eye following the old t-bar passage out of the spruce trees and up through the snow-filled draw. He saw what Dana was looking at, three bundled men standing around a tripod high along the slope, and two others with a second tripod at some distance farther above. Surveyors taking measure of what was to come.

  “She was mocking the Bauer name, she was holding up their plans, and she was sleeping with a man they’d hand-picked to carry water for them in Washington, if he could keep his pants zipped and avoid scandal.”

  He turned around to find Westbrook studying him with utter contempt, his arm and balled fist supporting his bearded chin.

  “And so you went to work fixing the problem, Dr. Westbrook,” Kurt said. “Like you always did. You were the expert on neutralizing Nicole’s damage. You were the one who knew how to shut her down.”

  The psychiatrist dropped his fist on the desk and issued a low scoffing sound. He seemed determined to remain silent until he was allowed legal representation.

  “But I have a hunch, pal, it didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to,” Kurt said, feeling the sunlight prickle the back of his neck. “You thought you could soften her up with those drugs and sic a madman on her from out of her past—drive her over the edge and put her away someplace non compos mentis. My guess is you didn’t want her to die, you just wanted her under control again and out of the game. Diminished capacity, incapable of signing her own name.”

  Kurt made his way toward the walnut desk and the seated man. “But you got more than you bargained for, Doctor,” he said, picking up a gold letter opener lying on a pile of envelopes. “You misjudged your boy. You didn’t know how crazy he really is.” He touched the sharp tip of the letter opener against Westbrook’s hairy Adam’s apple. The man froze, closed his eyes. “You didn’t realize if you pumped him up and set him loose, he would tear the house down.”

  Beads of perspiration pimpled the psychiatrist’s forehead. He was breathing heavily.

  “I hope for your sake you know how to use that Colt,” Kurt said, dropping the letter opener onto the desk. “I don’t blame you for keeping it close at hand.”

  A loud knock on the door startled them both. An urgent female voice shouted something from the corridor. Tanya, Kurt thought. “What is it?” he said, raising his voice impatiently.

  The door swung open. Muffin Brown was flanked by two armed deputies, Joey Florio and Linda Ríos, with Gill Dotson looming behind. The team was geared in bulletproof vests and cammo clothing. Muffin frowned at Kurt, annoyed to find him with the man she’d told him not to interrogate.

  “Enjoying yourself?” she asked in a low voice as she marched past him.

  “Enormously,” Kurt said.

  She handed a document to the psychiatrist. “We have a signed warrant to search your premises, Dr. Westbrook,” she said, glancing back at Kurt with the skillful trace of a smile. “The lodge and all outlying property. I hope we can count on your cooperation.”

  Chapter twenty-nine

  When he slid open the glass door and stepped onto the deck, Dana Smerlas gave him a haughty sidelong glance and blew smoke out of the corner of her small glossed mouth. As he drew near she refused to acknowledge his presence, her arm poised in the air, thin white fingers curled around the cigarette. She was leaning into the pine railing like a pensive voyager gazing starboard out to sea.

  “What an amazing coincidence, Mrs. Smerlas,” he said. “You and I have a heart-to-heart talk and the very same morning we meet again at Westbrook’s office. Was there something urgent you needed to discuss with him?”

  “Jay Westbr
ook is my therapist,” she said in a cool, distant voice.

  “Do you have a problem with that?”

  “I didn’t realize shrinks met with their patients on Sunday mornings. Will I find your name in his appointment calendar?”

  A small wooden bird feeder was mounted on the railing near her arm, its seed tray plugged with soft snow. She poked her cigarette into the tray, making a hiss, and left the butt to smolder and darken the ice. “If you’re going to charge me with something,” she said defiantly, “charge me. Otherwise I’m walking out of here to meet my husband for lunch.”

  Kurt studied her face, ageless and tinted with makeup, the fur-lined coat open at the neck. He tried to imagine how she’d looked that wintry night in Canyon de Chelly when she’d stolen the ring off a dead man’s finger. It was difficult to picture this well-heeled woman stoned and grieving, fumbling around a corpse on her hands and knees in the desolate darkness, her young face streaked with tears and her long tangled hair whipped by the desert wind.

  “I don’t know how deep you’re in this, lady, but if I were you I’d put some distance between myself and Jay Westbrook,” he said. “You can start by telling me what you know about Nicole Bauer and Rocky Rhodes.”

  A clever smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Only what I read in the newspapers,” she said. “She pushed him, he died. End of ancient history.”

  “No, the history goes on, Mrs. Smerlas. And I think you may be a part of it. Maybe you’re not as involved as Westbrook, but you’re carrying some dirt. Are you sticking by him because he’s your shrink, or because he’s got juice with the Bauer boys?”

  “You’re guessing again, Sheriff. Here, there, and everywhere.”

  “At the very least you knew your husband was having an affair with Nicole. I understand your interest in wanting her out of the way. You had your marriage to protect, and your husband’s future. Politicians need to be careful who they’re caught sleeping with.”

  She narrowed her eyes, and Kurt felt the full force of her resentment. “Half the men in this town were sleeping with that woman,” she said bitterly. “There’s a long list of angry wives. If you’re looking for her enemies, I suggest you start with the A’s and work your way through the Aspen phone book.”