by Thomas Zigal
“You stupid prick!” Kurt huffed. “You’re assaulting a cop!”
“Not the nose !” Smerlas pleaded as his face met the glass a second time. “Please! The nose ain’t paid for!”
Walter Bauer was standing in the court doorway with a look of horror on his face. “Stop that!” he said in a loud nervous voice. “You’ve got witnesses watching you, Sheriff! He’s not resisting. Let him go!”
Kurt thought about banging Smerlas’s face against the glass one more time for luck but shoved him aside and stood up. “Your candidate could use some grooming, Mr. Bauer,” he said, straightening his leather jacket, breathing hard. “You want him to be your pony, you better brush him up a little. ’Cause the next time he attacks a cop, he’s going to jail.”
Jeffrey Bauer was watching everything from the other side of the see-through wall. Without his glasses he had the squinty, perplexed expression of that solitary fish in Westbrook’s aquarium.
Kurt retrieved the large envelope from the table and tossed it at Walt IV’s feet. The blueprints spilled out the open end. “I believe these belong to you,” he said. “They were stolen last night from Guerin and McCord.”
Walt IV glanced at the packet on the floor. “How convenient they’ve shown up in your hands, Sheriff,” he said.
“I didn’t steal them, Bauer, but I’ve taken a look at them, all right. I know what you’re up to. I know you need the commissioner here to push your big plans through the county zoning committee. And when you buy him a seat in Congress he’ll make sure the Forest Service doesn’t slow you down.”
Smerlas was on his feet now, studying his reflection on the glass wall, gingerly probing his nose as though it were made of putty.
Kurt nodded at the blueprints on the floor. “I can see why Nicole had become a problem for you and why you wanted her out of the way,” he said.
Walt IV glared at him through ice-blue eyes. “If you dare to dishonor my sister again—”
“Spare me the phony outrage,” Kurt said with a tired sneer. “You despised your sister and you did everything you could to destroy her. Well, congratulations, mister, you and your cronies finally broke her down.”
Walt IV’s handsome face hardened. “My sister was a deeply disturbed woman,” he said, his voice dripping with pity. “She destroyed herself, Sheriff Muller. Day by day—slowly—over a long period of time. Those of us who loved her had the misfortune of witnessing her deterioration. We tried to intervene many times but she wouldn’t let us in.”
Kurt smiled sadly at Nicole’s defiance and courage. “She knew if she let you in,” he said, “you’d stick a knife in her heart.”
Walt IV held Kurt in his angry gaze for several moments, then dropped his eyes to the blueprints on the floor. He stooped down and shoved them back in the envelope and rose again, measuring Kurt with palpable contempt. “I’m going to ask my attorney to investigate that break-in,” he said. “I’m curious to know who stole these plans and why they wanted them.”
“It doesn’t matter now, Bauer. I know the truth about you.”
“The truth, Sheriff?” he said with a cunning smile. “Many people grasp a small corner of the truth and think it makes a difference. You can’t change anything, my friend. You’re a small-time loser in a big boys’ game.”
Kurt wanted to smash Walt IV’s face against the glass, too. He stared at Smerlas, still patting his nose with light fingertips, a cocky smile emerging from under his hands. Behind the court wall Jeffrey Bauer stood motionless, watching them, his racquet lying on the floor at his feet. He looked like a scared little boy calculating where to run and hide.
Kurt nudged Walt IV aside and stepped through the doorway onto the court. “Jeff,” he said, “I’ve been told you’re very upset about your sister’s death. I have a feeling you really cared about her. When you get tired of being bullied by your brother and want to talk, here’s my card.”
Jeffrey Bauer took the card and stared silently at the printed information as if it were as useless as a losing lottery number.
“You know better than anybody else what your big brother is like,” Kurt said, looking back at Walt IV. “Someday he’s going to get upset with you, too—like he did with your sister. You’ll do something to piss him off and he’ll find a way to cut you out of what’s yours.”
Jeffrey Bauer’s soft round face went colorless with fear. He glanced at his brother, then handed back the card. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Sheriff Muller,” he said, swallowing hard. “Please leave me alone.”
Kurt scratched the card against his bristly jaw, a two-day beard. “I think you know something about your sister’s death,” he said. “You want to live with that the rest of your life, be my guest. But it’ll eventually eat a hole right through you. Because you cared about her.”
Jeffrey Bauer lowered his eyes. He refused to look at Kurt.
“He’ll turn on you, Jeff. Maybe not real soon—he needs your silence right now. But it’ll happen, you can count on it. Just like it happened to Nicole. When it does, give me a call. I don’t care if it’s ten years from now, give me a call. I’ll help you do the right thing.”
He turned and walked out of the racquetball court past Walt IV and the scowling Ben Smerlas and marched down the quiet Sunday-evening corridors of the Nordic Club. When he reached the lobby he whooshed through the automatic doors into a dark outside world gently afloat with snow. Silent, heavy clouds were rolling in from the north, a smell of frost. Soon it would all come down.
Chapter thirty-four
For another hour he cruised the streets of Aspen in his drafty Jeep, trying to calm down and concentrate on what had to be done. He drove up to his home on Red Mountain and counted two satellite trucks and four other vehicles parked near the sheriff’s department car stationed outside his ranch fence to keep the media at a respectful distance. The snow was forcing the reporters to stay in their vehicles. He pulled over to the side of the road and radioed Linda Ríos, the deputy sitting in the Pitco unit.
“Don’t let them see your Jeep, Kurt. They’re a pretty gnarly bunch,” she responded. “Unless you want to play Princess Di in the Paris tunnel.”
“Any chance they’ll just go away?”
“I wouldn’t count on it. Not tonight.”
“Who’s inside the house?”
“Stuber,” she said. Fully armed, waiting in the dark for Rocky Rhodes to break in again with his eight-inch blade.
“Tell him not to take any chances,” Kurt cautioned.
He drove back down Red Mountain Road into town, checking on the other stakeouts by radio. “Creepy,” said Mac Murphy,
hiding in the Opera House attic with another deputy. “Cold,” said Gill Dotson from the pup tent he and Florio had set up out in the icy woods near the cabin. Kurt had assigned every remaining unit to patrol the county roads around the Elk Mountain Lodge and on Buttermilk Mountain in the vicinity of the Magic Mushroom House. And there were Aspen city cops on foot watching the pedestrian streets surrounding the Wheeler Opera House. If that bastard made a move tonight, they were going to nail him.
Worn down and edgy, Kurt needed to get out of the cold for a short break, stretch his legs, and infuse some caffeine into his system. He made his way along Lone Pine Road as it swerved upward across the river from the county jail, and soon he wheeled the Jeep into the trailer park where Muffin lived. There was light and motion in the other mobile homes, but hers remained dark and lifeless, like a huge shell shed by some prehistoric creature that had crawled off somewhere to die. He parked in her space next to an empty planter box and trod up the steps onto a small entry porch. He had taken the house key from her jeans at the hospital and used it now to open the front door.
When he turned on the lights he saw that the place hadn’t changed since the last time he’d been here, probably a year or more. Same old lady’s furniture, same barnlike aroma of grains she kept in glass jars on the kitchen counter, same photo clusters of her five brothers from
their Wyoming ranch family and the new wives and children. She was the only daughter of Fred and Millie Brown, the only child living outside the state. He had talked to them this afternoon from the hospital, and the entire family was now on its way to Colorado in a caravan of camper trucks.
He slipped off his boots near the door, turned up the thermostat to heat the chilled rooms, and wandered into the cramped kitchen-dining area looking for coffee. There was a dark hallway beyond, leading to the bedroom where he had once slept with her, four years ago, the evening he’d won his last election. The victory party had been wild and jubilant. On that festive night Kurt could not have imagined that someday he might be recalled from office by those same voters.
He found a half cup of tepid coffee sitting next to the sink. She’d taken a few gulps before rushing out on one of their emergencies. He didn’t have the energy to brew his own so he spooned off the floating film and heated the cup in the microwave. There was a Felix the Cat clock on the paneled wall, its tail and eyes wagging back and forth in a syncopated rhythm, watching him. He sipped the coffee and stared back at the clock and tried to put himself inside Rocky’s head. Where would he go tonight to get out of the weather? Was the hurt inside him satisfied now, with the deaths of Nicole, Gahan Moss, and Amanda, or did he have other scores to settle?
He dragged the ring out of his pants pocket and placed it on the Formica countertop. The yin-yang symbols looked like two interlocking sperms with single eyes. He reached into his jacket for the page that had been torn out of the Rocky Rhodes biography and unfolded the creases, carefully flattening the paper on the counter with both hands. The young Dana Smerlas smiled at him from a lotus position, loose peasant blouse, her hair blowing in the wind. Sitting beside her, with a proprietary arm around her shoulders, was the tattooed, ponytailed drummer of the band. Studying the photograph, Kurt saw something he hadn’t noticed at the cabin. The drummer was carrying a hunting knife in a handmade leather sheath, the handle resting against his bare waist. Kurt skimmed the caption below the picture. Jack Stokes. He remembered the name now: Rocky’s old buddy from Texas, the only musician who had stayed with him from the beginning.
In the chaos of the cabin, Kurt hadn’t taken time to read the names in the caption. There were four or five from the list scribbled on the 1977 police report. Crescent Moon. Boogie Downes. Wolfgang P. Gursted. Maggie Mae Turner. And a couple he hadn’t come across before. Dana Word, Jack Stokes. And the one he’d been looking for all along: Mariah Windstar. He counted quickly, three from the end. There she was, the small, slender woman with dark hair and an intriguing smile, someone altogether different from Dana. It was the same young woman standing under the waterfall, kissing Nicole. The girl with the butterfly tattoo.
“My god,” he said aloud. He reached up and turned on a lamp hanging over the sink. This was the first time he’d seen a full view of her face. He lifted the page and studied her closely. Mariah Windstar. Pariah. He couldn’t believe his eyes.
There was a wall phone next to Felix the Cat. His fingers raced over the numbers he knew by heart. After three rings a man answered.
“Bhajan,” he said, “is Meg there, please?”
“No, Kurt. She’s probably on her way back from Aspen by now. They left well over an hour ago. She drove Lennon to his friends’ house.”
“Jesus,” Kurt said.
“You sound stressed. Is something wrong?”
“Can we contact her? Does she have a phone in the car?”
“We’re not a high-tech household, Kurt,” he chuckled. “We don’t even own a television.”
“Listen to me very carefully, Bhajan. If you hear from her, tell her to go straight to the courthouse in Aspen and wait for me in my office. Tell her to make sure she goes straight there. Do you understand?”
“This sounds serious, Kurt. What’s going on?”
“Just do what I ask, please. Tell her to go to my office. There’s no time to explain it now. I’ve gotta run.”
Chapter thirty-five
It was a large house with many rooms, all black now at this late hour except for a somnolent glow somewhere deep within, like a lantern burning in a closed barn. The snow had stopped falling but the lawn was frosted with a white crust that dissolved under each footstep. He made his way quietly up the outside stairs to the redwood deck. She was sitting alone in the hot tub, her eyes closed and her head pitched back on her shoulders above the roiling water. There was an empty wineglass near her hand, which dangled over the lip of the tub. She didn’t hear the tread of his boots until he was close enough to slit her throat.
“Is that you, sweetie?” she asked in a sleepy moan.
Steam billowed up between them. The only light glowed from the hot tub itself, a swirling white incandescence.
“The kids are asleep. Why don’t you come join me?” she said, a sexy invitation.
He hesitated, remembering their night together in the tent. He wondered what would have happened to their lives if they had gone too far.
“It’s me, Carole,” he said. “Where’s Corky?”
“Kurt?” she said, startled by his voice. She splashed upright and ran her hands through her short wet hair. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Come on out of there. Where’s Corky?”
“He’s at his office, working late. I thought you were him.”
“Come on, get out,” he said, handing her the towel draped across a deck chair. “Is Lennon here?”
“Sleeping in Josh’s room. What’s the matter? You sound angry.”
Kurt gazed out across the dark lawn where he’d left tracks in the brittle snow. He could hear Castle Creek hissing nearby, cutting off a corner of their property only a stone’s throw from this deck. A hundred feet away the woods began, a dense grove of fir trees under-grown with snowberry and yarrow. The killer could be out there in the darkness right now, watching their every move.
“Let’s go inside and get the kids,” he said. “We’ve got to take you someplace safe.”
“Would you mind telling me what’s going on?”
When she stepped out of the tub, he grabbed her wet arm and turned her body so he could see the butterfly tattoo for himself. He slid off her bathing suit strap and stared at her shoulder blade. The tattoo was there, small and delicately rendered and slightly faded now in the hazy light.
“What’s the matter with you, Kurt Muller?” she said, slipping the strap back in place. She jerked away from him, irritated by his rough behavior. “Why are you acting so strange?”
“It’s Jack Stokes,” he said, gazing into her deep brown eyes. “He stalked Nicole. He murdered Gahan Moss and his wife. And now he might be coming after you.”
She patted her neck with the towel and looked away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her words should have sounded more convincing.
“No more secrets, Carole,” he said, fetching a robe from the chair and placing it around her warm, wet shoulders. “I know about the young woman named Mariah Windstar.”
He expected another denial, but instead she whirled around and seized both of his arms. He felt her nails pressing through the leather jacket. She searched his eyes before she spoke. “Don’t do this to me, Kurt,” she said with a startling vehemence. “I have Corky and the kids now. Don’t do this, goddammit!”
Glass shattered somewhere in the dark house. They looked at each other, a moment of sudden fear. He drew the .45 from his shoulder holster, latched one hand around her wrist, and dragged her stumbling barefoot across the deck to the patio doors. He aimed the pistol into the darkness as they entered the high vaulting grand room of the Marcus home. Silhouettes loomed all around them, furniture and lamps. With Carole clinging to his hand they maneuvered awkwardly toward the soft gray light of the kitchen. Broken glass was spread across the Mexican tile. The side door had been smashed.
“He’s in the house,” Kurt whispered above the sound of his own pulse.
Carole released his hand and ran through t
he darkness toward the stairway leading up to the floor where the children were sleeping. He was three steps behind her, grabbing at her robe to slow her down, but she flew up the stairs ahead of him. When he reached the top landing he heard her gasp somewhere down the dark corridor. Her bare footsteps had ceased their slapping on the hardwood.
“Carole?” he said in a low voice.
The corridor between the bedrooms was cast in a ghostly green hue, weak and diffuse, a single night-light in a wall socket. He saw her outline not twenty feet away, motionless in the white robe. When he heard the laugh, raspy and choked with phlegm, he knew what had stopped her. A man was standing at the far end of the corridor near the doorways to her children’s rooms.
“If you touch any of them,” she said, her steady voice echoing off the walls, “I will tear your heart out and stomp on it. Do you understand me, Jack?”
The man shuffled his feet and Kurt cocked the hammer on the Smith & Wesson. He couldn’t see him well enough in this poor light. Carole was standing between them. Four children were sleeping on the other side of these Sheetrock walls. He knew there was no way he could fire his weapon.
“Give it up, Jack,” Kurt said. “That was my trigger cocking.”
He heard the sound of stainless steel sliding through leather. The man had withdrawn his knife.
“Don’t call me that name,” he said in his tortured voice. “You know who I am now. He lives inside me. He whispers in my ear.”
“Lay down the knife,” Kurt said. “Well get you some help.”