by Thomas Zigal
“I’d rather hear that from Lamar,” Kurt said, punching the button again.
“Suit yourself,” Staggs said, hunching his broad shoulders to light another cigarette.
The mansion’s oakwood doors opened majestically and two people dressed in bird costumes stepped out into the courtyard. Lee Lamar had told Kurt by phone that he could give him half an hour of his time before he and his wife were scheduled to attend a fund-raiser for Friends of the Forest. He hadn’t mentioned that it was a costume party.
“Good to see you, Kurt,” Lamar said, waving a brown wing. “Give me a minute.” His trim silver mustache and sculpted jaw were all that was visible beneath a fierce black beak. He managed the costume awkwardly, his feet clomping around inside menacing rubber talons.
Goshawk? Kurt wondered. I’m here to interrogate a man dressed as a goshawk?
Staggs walked back to meet his boss and take him aside for a private conference. Lamar’s wife, the legendary folksinger Meredith Stone, continued on toward the parking lot in feathered legs, a plump, snow-white grouse with a paper ruff around her neck. Kurt opened the gate for her.
“White-tailed ptarmigan,” she said, stopping to read his bewildered expression.
“Kurt Muller,” he said, extending his hand.
She laughed. “Have you forgotten, Kurt, that we once shared a table at a museum gala?”
“I haven’t forgotten,” he said.
“We had a conversation about tattoos. You offered to show me the one you got in the army if I showed you mine.”
The memory embarrassed him. “Please forgive me. I was drinking too much back then.” It was just after the divorce.
“I still want to see it,” she said. In her heyday that husky voice had melted the hearts of a million turtlenecked fans. “Reliable sources tell me there’s nothing like it anywhere.”
Meredith Stone had been a popular Greenwich Village folksinger in the early ’60s, her songs recorded by Joan Baez and Judy Collins. But the British Invasion had sent her career into a tailspin and she’d dropped out of the celebrity scene to live on a secluded New Mexico goat farm and raise her three children from the brief, stormy affairs with a movie star and a well-known pop artist, devoting her life to environmental causes. The tabloids had feasted on her unlikely courtship with Lee Lamar. The couple had met by accident ten years ago in the bar of the Plaza Hotel. He was buying a cable network; she was lecturing at an Audubon conference on the importance of old growth forests in preserving endangered species. They argued over drinks, over dinner, and over the telephone for two weeks. A year later they were man and wife.
“Are you joining us for the party?” she asked. When Meredith Stone wasn’t festooned as a white-tailed ptarmigan she was quite a beautiful woman. She no longer wore the waist-length honey-blonde hair that had popularized her album covers, and she had put on a few pounds since the goat farm, but even now her classic bone structure could quiet a restaurant when she walked in the door.
“I need a few minutes with Lee this morning. Official business,” he said, watching the two men in the courtyard, their lips moving silently, discussing urgent matters.
“Come with us up the mountain. You can talk on the way. That’s more time than Lee gives anyone. Besides”—she smiled cleverly—“you never know who might show up at one of these shin-digs.”
“Lots of people in bird costumes, I imagine.”
She hopped down the stone steps, her feathered feet locked together. “I doubt Katrina will wear a costume,” she said. “I’m sure she thinks these fund-raisers are silly nonsense.”
He looked at her. How did she know Kat? How did she know he knew Kat? How did she know he might be interested in seeing her again?
“Kurt!” Lee Lamar shouted from the courtyard. “Something’s come up. Can you meet us at the gondola barn?” he asked, waddling toward the gate. “We can talk there. I don’t want you to think I’m brushing you off.”
Overnight, vandals had broken into the building that housed the Skicorp gondolas at the foot of Little Nell. The damage was minimal, in part due to the shrieking alarm system, but the perpetrators had managed to spray graffiti on two carriages and shove an ax handle into the cable’s pulley winch before escaping unseen. By the time Kurt and the others had arrived, gondola service was in full operation. Two young women in shorts and Skicorp T-shirts were guiding incoming carriages to the yellow line, loading backpackers and picnic tourists, swinging them along the turnaround and up 3,000 feet of cable to the top of the mountain. In the service area a VIProtex photographer was taking pictures of the two sidelined carriages. Die Ski corpse, read one of the messages on the tinted Plexiglas door. The circled A symbol for anarchy was sprayed on the other.
“Did you check the tape in the surveillance cameras?” Lamar asked as he wobbled toward the carriages.
“Yes, sir,” Staggs nodded. “Unfortunately they were blank. Either there was a malfunction or the damn things weren’t on. I don’t know how long they’ve been inoperative.” He pointed to a man in blue coveralls standing in the bucket of a long-armed crane, inspecting one of the cameras high above. “We’ve got the Vidtec people looking at them now.”
Kurt surveyed the graffiti. “High school seniors,” he said. “They start doing stuff like this every year around graduation. Did you find any beer cans?”
Staggs shot him a disapproving look. “Monkey-wrenching ski property is on the rise nationwide,” he said. “We’ve had recent reports from Idaho and New Mexico. Also a couple of felony incidents this season in Jackson Hole and Estes Park. It was only a matter of time before it hit the Aspen area.”
Kurt was amused. Once a Fed, always a Fed. “This looks like a teenage prank to me,” he said, “not the work of ecoterrorists wearing ski masks and combat boots. Have you contacted the city police?”
Staggs exchanged a quick glance with the man in the bird costume.
“I’m usually inclined to let VIProtex handle matters of this sort,” said Lamar. “Mr. Staggs likes to do things his own way.”
“I’m aware of how Mr. Staggs likes to do things,” Kurt said.
He saw the hatred in Staggs’s eyes. They had almost come to blows last summer and it wouldn’t take much to get them going at each other now. Kurt had tainted the man’s long and distinguished career, cut his pension in half.
“Maybe you don’t read the papers, Muller. The West is a war zone right now,” Staggs said, squaring around to engage Kurt face to face. “The maggots are crawling out from under every rock. If I thought there was a law-enforcement agency in this entire valley capable of comprehending the scope and magnitude of the problem, I would pull them in.”
Kurt stared into those venomous eyes. “Are you talking about the Green Briars, Staggs?”
“Gentlemen,” Lamar interrupted, “if you don’t mind, I’d like to get on with my day. Meredith, darling,” he said, “would you and Kurt please wait for me in one of the gondolas? I need to wrap this up with Neal.”
“Come on, Kurt,” Meredith said with an impatient sigh, extending her snowy wings. “Let’s leave these two warriors to worry about the barbarians at the gate.”
Chapter fifteen
As their gondola rose higher into the brilliant sunshine and the rooftops of Aspen receded in the distance, Kurt peered through the Plexiglas at the magnificent cliffs and wedge-shaped fir stands passing underneath them. When Lee Lamar opened the Silver Queen Gondola in the mid-’80s, it was the longest and fastest ski lift in the world. From town to the crest of Ajax in fifteen minutes, the state-of-the-art passenger capsules sealed warmly and equipped with audio speakers for messages and reports. Old-timers like Kurt didn’t know what to make of such luxury. His earliest memory of skiing was riding up the mountain with his parents in an exposed chair lift, the cold wooden seat rocking back and forth in the icy wind.
“My gut tells me you were right about the vandalism,” Lamar said, raising the beak from his forehead for a clearer view of Kurt sitting in
the seat opposite. Two people in bulky bird costumes left little room for comfort in the vehicle. “But I pay VIProtex a healthy sum to stay on top of the game, and their man Staggs takes his job very seriously.”
“I don’t like him,” Meredith said bluntly. “All this high-tech monitoring he’s doing is a waste of good money that could be going elsewhere.”
“More to the Friends of the Forest, I suppose? Look at us, for god’s sake.” He flapped his wings, laughing at himself. “Aren’t we doing enough for the cause, my dear? When it comes to cash flow, I’m their sitting duck!”
Before their marriage, Leighton F. Lamar iii was considered one of the most ruthless, most humorless corporate executives in the world. But under Meredith’s influence he had become an active environmentalist and a major contributor to green causes around the globe. Lamar had gone so far as to convert his horse ranches in Texas and Wyoming into wildlife preserves. None of his old friends would speak to him anymore.
“Staggs is trying to convince my husband that it’s necessary to spy on the environmentalists in the valley,” Meredith said with disapproval. “He wants to video meetings, compile computer data, god knows what. The jerk thinks these raging radicals, whoever they are, are going to bring the Skicorp to its knees with a can of spray paint.”
“Now, darling,” Lamar said. “No company secrets, please.”
Kurt imagined that Miles was at the top of their list. “Staggs does good monitoring,” he said. “He also opens mail and taps phones with the best of them. I can vouch for his work.”
“Worry not.” Lamar smiled at his two skeptical companions. “I’ve got him on a short leash.”
They passed over the Ajax Mine and Kurt could see a shiny Pitco sheriff’s car parked near the Airstream trailer. Lorenzo Banks was deep inside the shaft this morning, sifting through the rubble. He had thirty-six hours to find something before he was due back in Denver. Kurt had ten minutes until they reached the summit and the Lamars fluttered off to their avian fund-raiser.
“Who do you suppose Staggs would go after for Ned Carr’s murder?” Kurt asked. He didn’t have time to finesse this one. “The Sierra Club?”
The couple looked stunned. “The newspaper made no mention of murder,” Lamar said in a quiet, reflective voice. “It sounded like a mine accident. Are you saying it was murder?”
“That’s my bet,” Kurt said, watching the charred mine adit disappear beneath them as the gondola crawled higher up the cable. “We’ll know something soon. Maybe by the end of the day.”
“My god,” Meredith said, the crepe paper ruff crinkling as she gazed down at the mine. “Who would want to kill an old nut like Ned Carr?”
“He’d made so many enemies over the years,” Kurt said, “it’s hard to keep count without a score card.”
Lamar appeared shaken by the disclosure. “He was a gigantic pain in the ass and fairly abusive to me personally,” he said, “but I had a grudging respect for the old fart. He came up the hard way and he never compromised or backed down. Never. I admire someone who can outwit you at your own game.”
“Was he outwitting you, Mr. Lamar?”
Lamar smiled wanly. “You tell me, Kurt. For a couple hundred bucks the man bought land nobody should’ve sold him. He built a home in a beautiful wilderness area of the Rockies. He sold thirty-five acres back to the Forest Service for a hundred times what he paid. And he took three generations of Skicorp owners to the cleaners—including your father’s clique—soaking us for forty grand a year because his property happens to be right in the middle of one of the most glamorous ski runs in the world. Outwit me?” He laughed, a weary capitulation. “Hell, the man was twisting my tit every day of the year. He had something I wanted, and he knew it.”
“I guess that’s why I asked to speak with you, Mr. Lamar,” Kurt said.
He didn’t disapprove of this fellow as much as everyone else did. Unlike most graying barons in his tax bracket, Lee Lamar seemed ruled by boyish passions and momentary enthusiasms. He had captained his own orbit in the early, unnavigated ether of satellite telecommunications and cable networks, and the bottom line didn’t matter to him anymore.
“I’m a cop and I have to ask this question. How bad did you want what Ned Carr had?”
Lamar eyed Kurt with what felt like a father’s disapproval. He looked hurt.
“You’re wasting your time, Kurt,” Meredith said defensively, “if you think my husband had anything to do with Ned’s death.”
“It’s okay, darling,” Lamar said, patting her with a wing. “He’s just doing his job.”
In spite of the UV tint, sunshine blazed through the Plexiglas, heating the gondola to a summer broil. Kurt shifted uneasily in the seat. It was getting uncomfortable in this small tight enclosure.
“Of course I have a strong interest in Ned’s property,” Lamar said, his face growing stern. “Every year, when my lawyers negotiate the new lease, they’re authorized to make him a generous offer for the Ajax Mine.”
“Let me guess,” Kurt smiled. “No deal.”
“Ned was a stubborn son of a bitch. He loved the romance of the hardrock. Without his two mines he was just another sour old codger collecting SSI and spilling tapioca on his shirt. His work kept him going.”
And his grandson, Kurt thought. He remembered the note taped to the terrarium.
“I even went so far as to propose a partnership, offering to eat his overhead and expenses, but he refused, of course.”
There it was. A partnership.
“My most ingenious idea, if I do say so, was to suggest that we close down the silver operation altogether and conduct mine tours during the summer. Tourists love that kind of thing—it’s straight out of the Old West. I told him the Skicorp would be happy to manage the business and send him a check every month, and all he had to do was lead a tour group now and then, whenever the spirit moved him.”
Kurt knew that at $5.50 an ounce, silver was a losing proposition. But the old man didn’t trust partners or accountants or bright offices full of computers. That’s what was so puzzling about his last phone call.
“My husband did everything he could to accommodate that crusty old dinosaur,” Meredith said. “Ned Carr was a bitter man. Angry at the world. Nothing was ever going to make him happy.”
Their gondola had reached the final stretch of trampled field that served as a launching area for the Dipsy Doodle ski run in the winter season. Off to the right a group of Japanese tourists huddled around outdoor tables at the Sundeck restaurant, laughing at the robber jays swooping down to prey on leftover food. Birds of another feather were disembarking from gondolas in the station ahead, strutting off to their fund-raiser in flamboyant costumes.
“Look at Henley!” Meredith laughed, pointing.
“The Eagle?” Kurt said, turning to see.
“No, the Southwest willow flycatcher, if I’m not mistaken,” she said.
At the landing Kurt helped her out of the gondola, then her husband, thanking them both for their time. He wondered if this patrician executive was capable of ordering a murder.
“Why don’t you join us for lunch, Kurt?” Meredith suggested with an alluring smile. “You might find the company intriguing.”
Partygoers were traipsing along the trail leading to a spruce-shaded ridge about fifty yards away, where servers wearing white dress jackets stood like royal sentries next to picnic tables engorged with colorful foods. Their fund-raiser was about the last place on earth Kurt wanted to be.
“Thanks for the invitation,” he said, “but I didn’t bring my tails.”
He excused himself, explaining that he had to resume his work on the Carr investigation, and turned to catch the next gondola.
“Lee, you old bird!” chortled a short elderly matron emerging partially costumed from the rocking carriage. “Meredith! Mein Gott, this is fun! Do you recognize me? I’m a black-eared bushtit,” the woman laughed heartily, showing off her ears polished with black greasepaint. “Sexually
satisfied only above five thousand feet.”
It was Else Prause, Kat Pfeil’s aunt, a lively member of the old Austrian crowd and owner of an art gallery on Hopkins Street for over thirty years. At her side appeared her balding, bespectacled husband dragging behind a long iridescent cape that resembled a magpie tail.
“Do you know my niece Katrina?” Else asked. She hadn’t lost an umlaut of her German accent since Kurt was a boy. “And her friend from—where is it, dear?—Oragawn?”
Kat Pfeil stepped out of the gondola, Randy close on her heels. The bodyguard was wearing a bulky green parka, mirror shades, a Seattle Seahawks cap concealing her flattop. She stopped and surveyed the scene, the outdoor restaurant tables and coin-operated telescopes angled toward the southern horizon, mountain bikers walking their wheels down the hike-and-bike trail.
“Well, look who’s here,” Meredith sang, giving Kurt a sidelong glance. “So nice to see you, Else. Darwin. Hello, Katrina.”
“Let’s get a move on, you turkeys,” Lamar intoned. “Don’t want to be late for the feed.”
A ragtag group of revelers, including Aunt Else and her magpie husband, paraded off down the trail toward the picnic tables, a promenade of nightmarish bird people from a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Kat and Randy remained behind to say hello to Kurt.
“Is it my imagination,” he said, “or did someone dump a gallon of LSD in the water supply?”
“The old town gets more bizarre every day,” Kat agreed. She was wearing comically oversized oval glasses and had glittered her cheeks with white flecks the size of a child’s fingernail.
“Let me guess,” Kurt said. “Spotted owl.”
“I’m doing my best to blend in,” she said dryly.
Behind menacing shades, her arms folded rigidly across the parka, Randy looked like one badass gum-chewing trooper. “Wearing that Glock today?” he asked her.
“You’ll have to frisk me to find out, Big Boy,” she said, offering the smallest hint of a smile.