Pariah

by Thomas Zigal

  Kurt stopped at the office door and gave the D.A. a hard look. “I know this, Don. I’m going to do everything I can to help their sweet little partnership dissolve.”

  Harrigan held up his hands, a gesture of caution. “Do us both a favor, Kurt. Play it by the book, okay?”

  “Donnnn,” Kurt said with a sly grin. “Have I ever played it any other way?”

  Chapter thirty-eight

  The press conference was an intense but surprisingly civil exchange. Afterward, Kurt drove Corky Marcus home and thanked him for fielding the questions and for offering his own comment and support.

  “I’m the one who should be thanking you, Kurt,” Corky said.

  He was standing in the gravel parking area outside their double garage, still absorbed with what had taken place at his home last night. “My god, if you hadn’t come by to say good night to Lennon…”

  His sentence lingered. This is how Carole had explained it to him.

  “We were all very lucky,” Kurt said grimly.

  Corky exhaled and stared at the automatic doors slowly rising to reveal their two vehicles and a neatly arranged wall full of garden implements. “Are you sure you and Lennon can’t stay for dinner?”

  “Thanks, Corky. Not tonight. We’re going for a ride. And then we’re going home to sleep in our own beds.”

  Kurt stopped at Little Annie’s and bought take-out food, the hamburger and fries Lennon desperately craved, and they drove downvalley in the frosty blue twilight while his son ate from the greasy bag and listened to the radio. Before long they crossed the small bridge over Snowmass Creek and passed through the Bauer archway. Kurt parked the Jeep facing south across the white meadowlands toward the old lodge and the mountains beyond. They finished their burgers in silence, waiting for the elk herd to appear.

  “Have I ever told you about the time your Uncle Bert and me and a friend of ours almost died in an avalanche?”

  “I don’t think so,” Lennon said, mayonnaise smeared at the corners of his mouth.

  “It happened right up there in that range above the lodge.”

  He began to tell his son the story of what had taken place that day in 1964, a lifetime ago. “There were wild and beautiful slopes like I’d never seen before. So wild no one could tame them,” he said with a storybook flourish.

  Men had landed on the moon since then. London Bridge had been moved to Arizona. With enough money you could alter anything, he thought.

  After he finished the story they sat watching the darkness descend around them. There was no moon and a frigid wind blew across the snowy pasture where Kurt had seen the herd yesterday.

  “It’s dark, Dad. How long are we going to stay here? I’m getting cold.”

  “I guess we’d better go.”

  “I don’t think the elks are coming.”

  “Doesn’t look like it.”

  “I wonder what happened to them?” Lennon asked.

  Kurt wondered, too. Maybe they already knew.

  Chapter thirty-nine

  On the day of Nicole Bauer’s funeral he flew into Denver and rented a car. He drove downtown to the Denver Medical Center, where Muffin Brown lay awaiting further orthopedic surgery in the trauma unit. One of her brothers was sitting with her in the room while the rest of the family had gone to lunch. He rose to shake Kurt’s hand.

  “How’s my best deputy?”

  “Tough as wahr,” said the brother, a tall rancher with a wind-blown face. “She’s gonna be jus’ fine.” He looked at Kurt with one eye half squinted. “I taught her how to swing a baseball bat.”

  Muffin was heavily sedated. She opened her eyes and smiled at Kurt, gripped his hand. Someone had washed and dried her hair and applied blush to her pale cheeks. “I heard you got him,” she said in a weak, druggy voice.

  He nodded and squeezed her cool hand.

  “Anybody get hurt?” she asked.

  “Carole Marcus needed six stitches on her shoulder. It could’ve been worse.”

  She closed her eyes, drifting in and out of sleep.

  “They aren’t telling me very much, Kurt. Am I going to use this leg again?”

  He looked down at the sheet across her lower body. “Of course you are. In a few months you’ll be dribbling up and down the basketball court.”

  “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

  “Absolutely not,” he said with a boyish grin. “A little rehab and you’re gonna be good as new.”

  He held her hand and gazed around the room. The place was filled with flowers and potted plants and so many get-well cards her family had taped them to the wall across from her bed.

  “What about the others?” she asked. “Are you going to get them, too?”

  He smiled at her. “Sooner or later,” he said.

  She tried to return the smile, but her face darkened suddenly and a single tear raced down her cheek. “Kurt Muller,” she said, wagging his hand, “you’re the biggest liar I’ve ever met.”

  The funeral service was held at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church near the state capitol. News cameras clogged the sidewalk out front and Kurt had to fight his way past a melee of reporters rushing at him with microphones. Inside the venerable old church, only three pews were occupied on both sides of the aisle. Kurt sat far in the rear and listened to the cavernous echoes of the pastor eulogizing a woman he hadn’t known. He lofted words like beloved daughter and sister and revered family of the parish and torn with grief at her untimely death. The two Bauer brothers sat in the front row with their wives and college-age children. The grief-stricken ex-husband, Jay Westbrook, was accompanied by a young woman so primly dressed it took Kurt several moments to recognize her as Tanya. And the Smerlases were present, too, shoulder to shoulder in their formal condolence. It was a disgusting pageant of hypocrisy. Kurt wished he had stolen Nicole’s broken body from the morgue in Aspen and cremated her somewhere out in the desert.

  After the final prayers he remained seated while the ornate coffin proceeded slowly through the long narrow church, followed by the small congregation. Jeffrey Bauer was the only mourner with tears on his cheeks. Kurt caught their eyes one by one as they passed by, Walt IV and Westbrook, Ben and Dana Smerlas. None of them showed surprise to see him there. He nodded to each in turn and smiled. It was his way of letting them know he would be watching them for the rest of their lives.

  There was no snow in Denver, only clear autumn skies and fallen leaves and the hint of another season passing. The funeral procession crept down Alameda to the old Fairmount Cemetery in the princely Cherry Creek neighborhood. It was the cemetery where Denver’s elite were buried, a hundred years of governors, railroad barons, mining magnates, cattle kings.

  A private security guard was posted at the cemetery gate, waving the limousines through. When he saw Kurt’s rental car he raised a hand and stopped him.

  “May I have your name, sir?” he said, consulting his clipboard.

  “Sheriff Kurt Muller. You won’t find me on the list.”

  The guard acknowledged the word sheriff but was slow and clearly conflicted in his response.

  “I was a friend of Miss Bauer,” Kurt said, showing him his badge. “And I’m in charge of the investigation into her death.”

  The young man glanced back at the short line of cars waiting behind Kurt. “Technically your name is supposed to be on the list, Sheriff,” he said reluctantly.

  “I won’t tell anybody if you won’t.”

  The guard considered this, then waved him on. “Go ahead,sir.”

  He followed the limos down a long, winding lane through the bucolic grounds to the Bauer family monument, a massive red granite shrine located several acres away in an older section reserved for the wealthiest gentry, the elite of the elite. Nicole was being laid to rest beside her parents, Walt III and Sophie Bauer. Kurt witnessed the ceremony from a distance, standing in the shade of an ancient cedar. Only a handful of friends and family members had made the trip to the grave site. They gathered under
a canopy and prayed aloud

  with the pastor, then issued past the casket, placing flowers on the lid before strolling back to their limousines. He saw Walt IV check his watch and confer quietly with the secretary at his side.

  Kurt caught up with the lead entourage as they huddled near the door of their limousine, speaking in hushed voices, embracing one another. “Well well,” he said. “Now that that’s over I suppose it’s Miller Time for you folks.”

  They all turned to glare at him. Walt IV, the Smerlases, Westbrook and Tanya. “If you don’t mind, Sheriff Muller, we’re having a private moment,” said Walt IV, crisp and conventional in his chalk-striped three-piece suit.

  Kurt was amused by their charade of dignity. “Hey, what’s a party without a few presents,” he said, reaching into his trench coat. “Here, Dana, this is for you.”

  He handed the woman a small rectangular package neatly wrapped in shiny silver paper. “I know you’ve already seen the movie, but maybe you’d like to watch it again with your husband,” he said.

  Dana Smerlas looked at the package in her hands and blanched.

  “It’s a copy of the video of your husband and Nicole in bed together,” Kurt said. “Enjoy.”

  There was a Band-Aid across the bridge of Ben Smerlas’s nose, a souvenir from their fight at the gym. He stepped toward Kurt with doubled fists but Westbrook extended an arm and held him back.

  “Don’t feel left out, Doctor,” Kurt said, shoving another package against Westbrook’s chest. “This one’s even better. It’s Nickie’s last few minutes before she died.”

  Linda Ríos had found the footage at the end of the tape of Kurt and Nicole making love. Nicole was sitting on the edge of the bed in her nightgown, listening to the phone pressed to her ear, two calls only twenty minutes apart. She looked exhausted and disoriented and deeply frightened. Tears streaked her face. Her body rocked wildly as she listened and cried and screamed into the receiver. Most of the audio was unintelligible, but Kurt had made out the words Leave me alone, you son of a bitch! and You were choking me! In the last heartbreaking moment of her life, she dropped the receiver and stood up pulling at her hair and screaming in horrific anguish. And then she ran. Out of the camera’s fixed range. He could hear the glass doors bang open. He could hear her final scream.

  “Consider it documentation of the job you did on her,” Kurt said, staring at each of them. “It ought to make you proud of yourselves.”

  Walt IV stared back with outrage in his cold blue eyes. “I won’t forget your behavior today, Muller,” he said.

  Kurt smiled at him. “I don’t want you to, Mr. Bauer,” he said. “Every year on her birthday, when another gift arrives in the mail from me, I want you to remember that the party isn’t over until I say it is.”

  He noticed Jeffrey Bauer watching the confrontation from the open door of a limousine parked second in line. Kurt forearmed Ben Smerlas out of his way and walked directly toward the accountant, searching the inner pocket of his coat for another gift he’d brought along. “Jeff,” he said, “I’ve got something for you, too.”

  The younger Bauer recoiled a step and glanced nervously into the back seat at his wife and two daughters. His face looked flaccid and beleaguered. He sank away from Kurt with the cowering disposition of someone who always expected a blow.

  “Here,” Kurt said, extending his hand. Nicole’s earrings, the amber bears. The ones she’d worn Friday night and left on the night table. “They’re Nickie’s. I’m sure she’d want you to have something of hers as a keepsake.”

  Jeffrey stared at the earrings in Kurt’s palm. His brow was creased, a wary suspicion. He was prepared for another cruel prank. When he realized that Kurt was sincere, something softened behind his eyes. “Thank you,” he said, reaching out to take the miniature bears.

  “It won’t work, Jeff,” Kurt said. “You have no idea what kind of fight you’re going to have on your hands.”

  Jeffrey squinted quizzically, confused.

  “The ski resort,” Kurt said. “The green groups all over Colorado will drag you through hell before they let you carve up another mountain.”

  Jeffrey shrugged indifferently. “It’s Walt’s baby,” he said. “I just balance the books.”

  Kurt had suspected this. He patted the man on the shoulder. “If you ever want to talk about your sister and what happened to her,” he said with a sympathetic smile, “you know where to find me.”

  He sat in the rental car until everyone had gone. Two grave attendants and a smartly dressed supervisor were waiting under the canopy for him to drive away, too, so they could lower the casket and fill in the dirt. After half an hour of idleness they decided to ignore him and proceed. He got out of the car and walked down the sloping green hill toward the grave. By the time he arrived, the casket was in place six feet below the earth and the men were removing the hydraulic equipment. They stopped working as he approached.

  “May we help you?” the supervisor asked. He was a middle-aged black gentleman with a red carnation in his lapel.

  Kurt gazed down into the hole at the casket settled in its final resting place. He reached into his pocket, withdrew the ring from among his coins and car keys, and studied the yin-yang symbols and the eight trigrams one last time. The Wind in the Woods. The Receptive Earth. He said two silent prayers for her, the Hail Mary his father had taught him when he was a child and a few half-remembered phrases from the Kaddish he had heard his mother recite. And then he dropped the ring into the grave. The heavy gold band clanked against the bronze casket lid and rattled off to the side.

  “Sir, is there anything we can do for you?” the supervisor asked, visibly uncomfortable with Kurt’s presence.

  Until this moment Kurt had never understood the verse, Let the dead bury the dead.

  “Yes, there is,” he said, wiping his eyes with the loosened cuffs of his starched white shirt. “You can hand me a shovel.”

  Chapter forty

  On the day of the recall vote, Kurt and Lennon invited the two youngest Marcus boys over for pizza after school. It was Kurt’s way of distracting himself, of ignoring the inevitable. He also wanted to show off the elaborate rabbit hutch he had finally completed, and the children were the only ones who would appreciate his hard work.

  Although it had snowed two days before, the afternoon was clear and bright and perfect for a picnic. Kurt shoveled and swept the deck and spread the pizza boxes and soft drinks on the outdoor table. The boys ate quickly, abandoning their crusts to play with the rabbit inside her new home. Kurt had built the hutch in a sheltered corner of the deck, twenty square yards of floor space covered in spongy green indoor-outdoor carpet, screen walls reinforced with heavy-gauge mink wire, an eight-foot ceiling roofed in tinted Plexiglas, electric heater lamps for the single-digit winter. He had also provided a cozy cage for the rabbit’s waste and her nighttime safety. Patchella was the luckiest bunny in the valley.

  The boys were sitting on the floor of the hutch, petting and fussing over the small white creature, when the patio door slid back and Carole Marcus stepped onto the deck. She smiled at Kurt and said hello to the boys, who shouted greetings of Hi, Mom! and then promptly returned to their play.

  “You’re just in time for the last two slices,” he said, opening a box lid to show her what was left.

  “No, thanks, I’m fine,” she said. “I’ve had enough pizza to last a lifetime.”

  She looked wonderful today, effortlessly appealing. She was wearing a sleeveless down vest over a black pullover sweater tucked trimly into her jeans. The afternoon light caught the copper strands in her short dark hair.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “The line at our voting precinct was longer than I expected.”

  “So you finally made up your mind about me?”

  She smiled slyly. “Do I have to say which way I voted?”

  He offered her a deck chair next to his recliner. “I couldn’t face the newspaper this morning,” he said. “What was their
prediction?”

  “Too close to call,” she said. “Your numbers have improved in the last ten days. It could go either way.”

  He expelled a weary sigh. “It’ll all be over in a few hours,” he said.

  “True enough,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Corky is coming by in a little while with the champagne.”

  “I didn’t know your husband was such an optimist.”

  “He’s not. But he figures it’s time to get wasted one way or the other.”

  For several moments of silence they watched the boys scoot around after the rabbit. He reached over and rubbed her arm just below the place where Jack Stokes had cut her, a few inches from the butterfly tattoo. “How’s the wound?” he asked quietly, not wanting the children to hear this question.

  “Healing nicely,” she said, patting his hand. “The stitches come out next week.”

  The three boys banged through the screen door one after the other, announcing that they were tired of the rabbit and were going inside the house to play a video game. Once they had disappeared,

  the solitude was so sudden and intense that Kurt found himself at a loss. This was the first time he’d been alone with Carole since the incident and he didn’t know where to begin.

  “I talked to Jack’s mother,” he said, disrupting their silence. “She told me he’d been screwed up for years. A serious mental case. They had to lock him away for a while. Was he like that when you knew him?”

  She narrowed her eyes, trying to remember. “Looking back twenty years, yeah, maybe there were signs. I don’t know,” she said. “All the guys in the band were mental. Obnoxious…macho…in love with themselves. They threw tantrums like two-year-olds. I can’t explain why we put up with them.”

  “The times, I guess,” Kurt said with a jaded smile.

  Her eyes danced over him. “And where were you when all this was going down in my life?” she asked.