Shadow Ridge

by M. E. Browning

  “I hope it was quick.” She flung open her door and approached the standing men.

  “Don’t know what you’re expecting to find.” Garibaldi nodded to Jo and shook hands with Squint. “But as soon as you’re done poking around, Owen’s going to take it to their yard to store until Xavier sees fit to claim it or scrap it.”

  “Thanks for holding on to it for us,” Jo said. “Hey, Owen.”

  He touched the soda can to his lower lip and spit tobacco juice into it. “Hey.”

  Squint reached up to the grab bar on the protective screen and swung himself onto the flatbed as easily as if he were mounting a horse. His Carhartt jacket looked as if it had scraped more than one garage floor. He took a pair of leather work gloves out of his pocket and slipped them on.

  “What are you looking for?” Garibaldi asked.

  Squint ran his hand over the battered side of the cab. “Won’t know till I find it.”

  From the ground, Jo watched him work. She followed his path as he skirted the outside of the truck, examining the dents and scrapes that told the story of its trajectory down the mountain. Both sides showed damage, but it was the crushing slant of the roof that made her wince. To Jo’s reckoning, the driver’s front tire had gone off first and rolled a complete revolution. Squint would know. He read collision damage as easily as a road map. Which, in a way, she supposed it was.

  Squint muscled the hood open, and it gave way with a tortured creak. He leaned into the cavernous maw of the truck. A moment later, he backed out.

  Jo recognized the look on his face. “What did you find?”

  “Something, maybe nothing.”

  Garibaldi moved closer. “You better not be making more paperwork for me.”

  Jo headed off the deputy so Squint could work unimpeded. “Quinn say anything more after I left?”

  “Not a word.”

  “How did she get off the hill?”

  “We pulled her car out of the ditch, changed a tire, and she drove it down. Driver side looks like hell, but it ran.”

  Ronny’s pickup almost completely filled the flatbed from side to side and had about three feet of clearance in front of the hood and an equal amount behind the bed. The front left wheel had collapsed, but Squint was able to crawl under the passenger side and check the back side of the right front wheel.

  He shimmied out. The creases in his face had deepened.

  Garibaldi groaned. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

  Squint worked his way under the rear wheel. When he reemerged, his face was grim. “Not even a little.” He slid off the flatbed. “The bleeder valve on the front right brake drum was loosened about a quarter turn. Same on the right rear. I figured you’d want to call in forensics before you check the other two, but I’m betting they’re loose too.”

  “Maybe he had his brakes serviced recently.”

  But Jo knew the answer to that. It was written across Squint’s face. And it changed everything.

  “The boy knew his truck—and he knew how to drive it,” Squint said. “No way he would have made it up the mountain without figuring something was wrong.”

  Garibaldi ran his hand over his bald head. “Master cylinder?”

  “Empty,” Squint confirmed. “I’d be willing to bet someone siphoned most of the brake fluid out of the master cylinder, then loosened the bleeder valves just enough so they didn’t leave a puddle at the resort. Every time Ronny pushed the brakes, he would’ve been forcing fluid out and sucking air back in. I figure he had five or six curves before he lost his brakes completely. Couple that with a slippery road, and his emergency brake wouldn’t do a damn thing. He never stood a chance.”

  “Well, shit.” The enormity of the situation crept up on the deputy, and it launched him into action. He spoke to the tow driver. “Let me open the bay door. I’m going to need you to drop the truck inside. It just became a crime scene.” He pulled out his cell phone. “The sarge is going to love this.”

  “I owe you one,” Jo said. PD officers were cross-deputized by the sheriff in the event that their work took them into county jurisdiction. “We can head back to the resort if you want. Figure out where Ronny parked last night. At least secure the area until you can scramble your investigators.”

  “That’d be great.” He punched some numbers on his cell phone. “I would have sworn it was an accident.” Garibaldi mouthed thank you to the detectives and then spoke into the phone. “Hey, Sarge.”

  The rest of his conversation was lost in the clatter of the metal bay door heading skyward.

  Jo wanted to get on the road before Garibaldi or his sergeant had a chance to call them off. She signaled Squint, and they returned to the car.

  Ronny’s death wasn’t an accident.

  She imagined the timeline she’d created earlier. Pieces of the puzzle swirled and fell into new positions, only to move again. Everything had to be reframed. The suicide, the threats, the accident.

  So much for simple.

  27

  Quinn sat in front of the television and watched a Saturday afternoon Road Runner marathon. The cartoon had been her go-to program whenever she got wasted. Wile E. Coyote always made her laugh, but now she knew exactly how he felt. A huge boulder was headed her way, and all she had to stop it was a fucking parasol.

  She tipped her cereal bowl to her lips and drank the last of the Cheerio-flavored milk. Her hands still shook a little. The funny thing about nearly being a wet spot on a mountainside was the overwhelming desire it inspired to live—so thick it choked her throat and set her blood on fire. It had hit her after her mother died. She’d felt it again last night.

  Now this.

  At first the threats had pissed her off. But they were shots in the dark. Sticks-and-stones kind of creepy. Sure, they were meant to scare her, but when someone threatens to kill a dog you don’t have, well, it’s kind of hard to take that shit seriously. But then they started getting worse. Misogynistic bullshit turned into rape threats. Rape threats graduated to murder threats. She took precautions. Looked over her shoulder a lot more. She’d like to wire her apartment with cameras. Get an honest-to-God alarm. But that took money.

  The email about seeing her in the Bean had rattled her. That particular shot in the dark had landed a lot closer. Lucky guess, or did someone really have insider information about her life?

  After the email to Lucas, she no longer wondered. Whoever had sent that email knew about at least one portion of her life. How they’d gotten the information remained a mystery. Her social media footprint was minimal. She had an Instagram account where she posted her concept art for games. That was it. Growing up, her mom had laid out a series of ironclad rules about what she and her sister could post. No birthdays, no cars. Nothing about where they were going, only places they’d already been. Nothing that would give some loony tune a way to contact her. Find her. And Quinn had listened to her mother for most of her life. At least before the heroin.

  To this day, she didn’t know why she had tried the drug. Maybe she was tired of being the good daughter. Maybe she thought bringing home good grades meant she was smart enough to use the shit only once. Hell, maybe getting wasted was a ploy to get her mother’s attention. After she tried it, she no longer cared about the why, only how she was going to score the next ride. The real reason she’d used heroin remained a mystery that ached like a rotten tooth. She’d poked at it a couple of times, but it only hurt when she messed with it and she’d decided the reason didn’t really matter.

  The first time she shot up, she’d been too scared to inject herself. Her boyfriend-of-the-moment did the honors. The heroin entered her arm in a tingling rush, followed by an explosion of pure pleasure that sent shock waves pulsing through every cell in her body. She puked only that one time. Even that felt good. Try explaining that to anyone who’d never experienced it. They looked at her like she was fucking nuts.

  Maybe she was. Nearly four years clean and she still missed smack. Even now she itched to shoot up
. There was something calming about the ritual that lasted long after the high faded.

  The worst part of getting clean had been the day she realized her mother’s love for her daughter was what had gotten her killed.

  Quinn tried to rewrite the story. A revisionist tale where she’d quit the smack right away. In reality, days, maybe weeks, after the funeral, her sister had found her strung out in some shithole motel and dragged her out by the hair. “Mom can’t save you anymore.” Her sister’s face had twitched between rage and scorn. “You’re going to die.” There was a lot more, but those were the parts Quinn remembered.

  And just like that, she had wanted to live.

  It was almost funny. She’d finally gotten her act together, and now someone wanted to kill her. Karma. A yawn split her face. She needed more sleep. And coffee. Not to mention a new car. All that could wait. She had business to take care of.

  First Professor Lucas.

  It was fucked-up logic, but her grade was more important than her life. Maybe it was because everything she wanted from life depended on her grade. She had to suck it up and come clean with Lucas about the bogus email invitation. He could think what he wanted. It wasn’t like it was the first time her reputation had taken a hit.

  All the professors kept office hours the last week of term while they prepared grades. She had backups of everything but the final product. If nothing else, she’d beg for an extension. It was the one thing in her life she had to do right. She owed it to her mother. And with any luck, she could knock that out Monday.

  It was also time to come clean with Wyatt.

  She hadn’t believed the detective when she’d floated the idea that there could be a connection between Tye’s death and her threats. She had chalked Tye’s suicide up to losing Derek. After all, losing a person you loved was a powerful motivator. Throw in guilt, and there was no telling what a person was capable of. She’d given up smack. She’d figured Tye had given up life.

  But now Ronny. She’d watched him literally go off the edge and been helpless to stop him. No one had pushed him. It looked like an accident. Maybe it really was, but she didn’t think so. Not now.

  Wyatt wouldn’t either.

  She slid her cereal bowl out of the way and readjusted the laptop screen to read the email again. Five words changed the whole goddamn game.

  … and then there was one.

  She slammed the laptop shut. Fuck that noise.

  Someone had forgotten an important detail. She might be the only one left—but it also meant she was still standing.

  And that’s how it was going to stay.

  28

  Jo unspooled bright-yellow crime scene tape and cordoned off the employee parking lot. It was always better to start big than to find evidence beyond the initial perimeter. Four rows. Ten spaces each row. It was a standard parking lot with one exception. Lighting.

  Dark-sky initiatives had swept Colorado in an effort to reduce light pollution and protect the nighttime environment. The resort used lighting fixtures with fully shielded bulbs. The lights that decorated the front drive were styled after Victorian gas lamps, but the walkway bollards that lined the paths and surrounded the parking lots were low, and they disappeared altogether at the employee lot.

  Contrary to popular belief, bright light didn’t deter crime, but it made it a whole lot easier for surveillance cameras to record it. Despite the number of cameras inside the resort, Jo detected only one camera overlooking the parking lot.

  Several parking spaces were empty, but until Squint finished reviewing the security tape, she wouldn’t know which spot Ronny had chosen yesterday. Normally they’d talk to the guy working security at the time of the incident. But that had been Ronny himself.

  She tied the end of the bright-yellow tape off to a snow gauge at the rear corner of the lot and studied the drift at the base of the pines. If someone had tromped through the trees, last night’s storm had obliterated the trail. It didn’t mean there wasn’t any evidence under the snow; it just meant they wouldn’t find it before spring.

  Movement caught Jo’s attention. Alice Walsenberg had her head down and was walking toward the lot, her dark coat flapping over an equally dark sweater and jeans. She raised her head, and the two women made eye contact. She stutter-stepped as she tracked the crime scene tape and then increased her pace toward Jo.

  “So it’s true. It was Ronny who went off the roadway. Xavier told me what happened a few hours ago, but I can’t bring myself to believe it.” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh dear. I saw him just last night.”

  “While he was working?” Jo asked.

  “Well, yes, but also before. I’d forgotten the swag bags and auction paddles at home, and he was kind enough to stop by the house and bring them here.”

  “Where did he park?”

  “It was one of the spaces along the back aisle. I’m sorry, I don’t remember exactly which one.” Alice crossed her arms. “You’ve strung crime scene tape. Xavier said it was an accident.” Her voice held a question.

  “I’m assisting the sheriff’s department. It would be improper for me to comment on their investigation.”

  “So it is suspicious.” She was silent for a long beat. “That makes his death even worse.” She walked a handful of steps and then returned, clearly uncomfortable.

  Jo waited her out.

  She sighed. “I hope I’m not speaking out of line, but have you spoken to Ms. Kirkwood?”

  “About?”

  She rubbed her biceps as if to keep warm. “She was my guest last night—an employee, actually. We spoke about a lot of things.” She stopped rubbing. “Please don’t think of me as a gossip.”

  “Did Ms. Kirkwood say something about Ronny?”

  Alice straightened her shoulders. “She said she wouldn’t cross the road to save his life.” Her expression hardened. “If that girl had anything to do with Ronny’s death …” The second half of the statement remained unspoken.

  “Were you with Ms. Kirkwood the entire night?”

  “It was such a busy night, I’m not sure I was with myself every minute. But no, there were some fairly long stretches when she disappeared. And then, of course, we went our separate ways when the fund raiser ended. I’d reserved a room for her, but I was told she left in the middle of the night.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Poor Xavier. We’ve both lost our sons.” She pulled a delicate handkerchief from her pocket. “Is there anything else I can help you with, Detective? If not, I should …” She waved her hand in the direction of the resort.

  “No. Thank you, Mrs. Walsenberg. Again, I’m sorry for your loss.”

  She dashed away the tears. “I’m a silly old woman.”

  No one would mistake Alice Walsenberg for either silly or old, but she had seen her share of heartbreak, and her shoulders slumped as she returned to the resort.

  Cold seeped under Jo’s clothes and sidled up next to her skin. She’d just decided to sit in the car and blast the heater when the employees-only service door opened on the back side of the resort and Squint exited. Most people never noticed, but he walked with a slight limp—a hitch in his giddyup, as he called it. It became more pronounced in the cold, but if it slowed him down, his long legs made up for it, and not many people got away from Squint when he gave chase.

  She waited until he got closer, and they ducked under the tape together. “I spoke with Alice Walsenberg while you were inside. It may be an unfortunate choice of words, but Quinn told Alice she wouldn’t cross the road to save Ronny’s life. Any chance you saw a small dark-haired woman tampering with the truck on the surveillance video?”

  “That’d be too easy.” He turned down the back aisle. “The empty slot on the end, next to the Subaru. According to the tape, he pulled nose in at sixteen fifty-eight, an hour before his shift.”

  “He transported a bunch of swag and auction stuff for Mrs. Walsenberg. Otherwise, in all this snow, I’d imag
ine he’d have backed in.”

  “That matches the tape. The three of them transferred several boxes out of the truck bed into the cart. Ronny drove it back to the resort. The two ladies walked.”

  “Did you see anything else on the tape?”

  “The valets were busy—especially around twenty-two hundred. Your car was parked right over there.” He nodded his chin toward the main lot. “Quinn left a little after two. She didn’t appear too keen to find her driver door blocked by a Hummer.”

  “I’m betting she was more upset the DA tried to pay her a visit last night. Supposedly that’s why she bugged out when she did.”

  “What did he want?” Squint asked.

  “According to her? Info on his son.”

  “At two o’clock in the morning?”

  “Yeah. Before we leave, I want to take a quick gander at that footage.” Quinn was so evasive, it would be nice to have a statement Jo could actually corroborate—or not. Either would provide good intel. “Anyway, I meant, did the tape show anything else with Ronny’s truck?”

  “Too dark to distinguish much. Around twenty-one hundred, the hood went up.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “The tape shows a flash. He had a chrome bulldog hood ornament. When the suspect popped the hood to get to the master cylinder, it caught the light. There’s actually three flashes.”

  “Up, down, and what?”

  They both turned toward the trees at the same time. New officers rarely looked up, yet a surprising number of crooks climbed trees in an effort to outwit the cops. They also threw things into the branches that they wanted to retrieve later but didn’t want to get caught holding.

  The detectives skirted the Subaru and peered into the branches.

  Jo saw the glint first, but it was going to take better eyes than hers to figure out what it was. “One o’clock.” She pointed. “Any idea what that is?”

  “Something I’m betting the sheriff’s department will be happy you found for them. From this angle, it looks like a tin cup. Maybe even small enough to dip into a master cylinder.”