Obstacle Course

by Yvonne Montgomery

  A young Oriental girl was hawking hot dogs and Polish sausage from her pushcart between the park and the library, and Finny succumbed to the scent of sausage and sauerkraut hitchhiking on the midday air. She sauntered past the flowers toward the fountain across Colfax. The chuckling water fell amidst squeals of joy from children clambering over the statue of the horseman.

  Finny ate her sausage and contemplated the afternoon's activities. Starting off with Paige Dexter was not her idea of a good time. It was a sure thing that the lady would not welcome her company. Finny detoured toward a garbage can and jettisoned Dixie Cup's answer to Limoges. Like a sign from heaven, the front page of that morning's Post lifted on the edge of the breeze. Abigail Hunter, Finny thought. And not more than a block away.

  The Denver Post building loomed over her, a pink aggregate and smoky glass spire overlooking both the Sixteenth Street mall at its base and the Front Range in the distance. Other high rises stood at attention nearby, impassively shadowing the traffic canyons below them. Finny crossed at the light.

  Heat radiated from the street, releasing a scent of asphalt that combined with the aromas of hot grease and charred meat wafting from a hamburger joint on the corner: the city's summertime perfume. The sidewalks were congested with tourists and late lunchers, armies of legs in motion, the soft thud of men's leather shoes contrapuntal to the serious click-click of women's high heels, the soft soles of sandals and sneakers a gentle, underlying chorus. A high, happy laugh was a short melody drowned by the hissing air brakes of a bus.

  Behind double glass doors, the receptionist at the Post flashed a professional smile but made Finny wait until she called upstairs to the "Colorado Living" section. "It isn't convenient for Miss Hunter to see you right now," the woman said, one hand over the receiver. Her voice was composed but her eyes blinked nervously. "Do you want to make an appointment?"

  Finny's smile was without humor. "Tell Miss Hunter that if I don't see her today, I'll see her in court."

  Her message was conveyed with blank efficiency. "Miss Hunter will be right down," she reported.

  "Thank you."

  Abigail Hunter was not happy to see her. This was evident at the moment the elevator doors swooshed open. Every line of her, stylishly emphasized in a lightweight peach knit suit, was expressive of affront. Each step she took toward Finny captured more territory in the war.

  "What do you want?"

  Finny studied the aloof face, its even features displayed more prominently by her upswept hairstyle, an intricate French braid.

  "Sorry to interrupt your writing," Finny said. "I need a favor."

  Abigail's eyes widened. "The hell you say."

  "Yeah, the hell I do. If you want to hear about it, I'll buy you a cup of coffee."

  She gave the proposition some thought. The glance she slanted at Finny out of the corners of her eyes was laden with curiosity. "Okay. This had better be good."

  The coffee shop down the block was nearly empty in the post-lunch hiatus. Abigail was as overdressed for the place as a butterfly for a bog.

  "Just two coffees," Finny told the waitress who'd come over to their table on feet that obviously hurt. "Unless you want something—"

  Abigail shook her head impatiently. "Coffee's fine." Her eyes assessed Finny's shirt and slacks, finding them lacking. "What's this about? And what was the bit about seeing me in court?"

  "That was a bluff." Finny fielded her glare coolly. "I assume you've heard about Twee Garrett."

  "Her confession? Nobody's talking about anything else."

  "I'm looking into the matter. I don't think she killed William Sarandon."

  "Really?" Her long nails, today painted a cinnamon color, drummed on the Formica table. "Do you have any cigarettes?"

  "No."

  Abigail looked around the room impatiently. "There's a machine. Do you have some change? I came down without my purse."

  "Let me check." Finny forked over what she had, and Abigail ventured to the machine, and stopped at the counter to get matches.

  "Now, where were we?" She lit up and blew out a long trail of smoke.

  "Twee Garrett didn't kill William Sarandon. I'm trying to prove it."

  Abigail removed a fleck of tobacco from her tongue with one talon. "Bully for you. What have you got?"

  "Not much at this point. That's what I wanted to talk to you about."

  "Don't look at me. I don't have any vested interest in challenging what the lady says."

  Finny's lips thinned. "My interest is in making sure Twee doesn't make a mistake. I'd like to get in touch with Cuffy Sarandon, but I haven't been able to reach her. Do you have her phone number?"

  Abigail drew on her cigarette, her hazel eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "What's in it for me?"

  "I don't suppose seeing justice done would have any appeal."

  "That and—what is it here, fifty cents?—will get me a cup of coffee."

  "You want money?"

  Abigail's smile didn't extend to her eyes. "Don't be plebeian. I give you the information you want, and in return you agree to let me in on whatever you find out. Specifically, I get exclusive rights to any story that comes out about Twee and her guilt or innocence."

  "And you don't care which way it goes, right?"

  Abigail ground her cigarette butt in the fluted aluminum ashtray. "High-and-mighty isn't in this year. If you want to play the game, you can come back to the office with me and I'll get what you need."

  "Fine. But exclusive rights are going to cost you more. Such as what you know about Kit Landauer and Cuffy Sarandon." Might as well go balls out and damn the expense. "And I want to know the details of what happened between Herbert Garrett and William Sarandon."

  Abigail, amazingly, laughed. "You don't want much, do you?"

  "Take it or leave it," Finny said. "I'm tired of screwing around."

  Abigail tucked the matches into the cellophane wrapper of the cigarette pack. "I may live to regret this," she said in measured tones, "but then again, maybe not. Let's go back to my office."

  Finny held the door for her. "Tell me, would you have acted out of the goodness of your heart if I'd been part of your constituency?"

  Abigail's smile would have rivaled a shark's. "My dear, if there's one thing the privileged recognize, it's quid pro quo. How do you think they got where they are?"

  * * *

  Two hours later Finny was playing dodge-the-cars in the afternoon rush hour, her mind cluttered with details. Abigail Hunter wasn't one to stint once the deal was made. She'd added a lagniappe or two to boot.

  She'd taken Finny into the "Colorado Living" section of the paper, a large room divided into work areas by the desks and filing cabinets that filled it. Over the sound of ringing phones and clicking computer keys, Abigail had furthered her education.

  She referred briefly to a leather-bound notebook and wrote down a telephone number and address for Cuffy Sarandon, then folded the paper in half and flipped it into Finny's lap. "The thing you have to remember about William Sarandon is that hardly anyone could stand him."

  "I'd already gotten a piece of that picture," Finny murmured.

  "From your tame cop?"

  "Well, he's not really that tame."

  "Save it unless I can use it in print." Abigail fingered the cigarette pack on her desk. "We can't smoke in here." Her eyes glowed with frustration. "Sarandon was old money—as old as it gets out here. His grandfather started with a gold mine in Cripple Creek, and, instead of blowing what ore he found on fancy ladies and booze like most of his fellows, he invested in other mines. He advanced loans to a lot of the smaller miners, and a hell of a lot of them went broke. They defaulted on the loans and he gained title to quite a few of the claims, which he then mined. By the time the gold and silver rushes were over, Malachi Sarandon had diversified his holdings into cattle and banking, and was rich enough to build up his standing in Denver society."

  Finny, perched on the small chair nestled next to Abigail's desk, nodded,
wondering where all this was leading.

  Abigail picked up on her impatience. "You'll get the drift. Just hold on." She played with a pencil, her long nails reflecting the overhead lights. "Now, Malachi passed on his fortune to his son, Andrew, who was William Sarandon's father. And Andrew was, to put it mildly, a wastrel. By the time he died, he'd run through the lion's share of the old man's fortune and lost another fair portion of it in the Crash."

  "Losing his exalted status in the community?" Finny asked.

  Abigail smirked. "It takes more than that. Anyway, William inherited considerably less, in real dollar terms, than his father had. But a part of that inheritance was the claims on the old gold mines. Enter Herbert Garrett."

  "Aha."

  "Right. William Sarandon was making do with limited interest payments and a small law practice when he convinced his old friend Herbert to form half of Jericho Mountain, the chief assets being what were left of those mining claims and a goodly influx of capital from Herbert."

  Finny recrossed her legs for the hundredth time. "They tried to open the old mines near Cripple Creek?"

  "The hunt this time was for white gold—a ski resort. At that point it was still possible to get such things done without spending twelve years convincing the EPA that endangered species would thrive under the plan. Herbert was to pay for the improvements, and William signed over pro tem ownership of the mountain as collateral. They would share the income fifty-fifty."

  "What happened?"

  "A crew was hired to build an access road. The existing survey maps were incomplete, and two men were killed when an old shaft caved in. Their families sued for wrongful death benefits and got awarded a bundle. William faded into the woodwork and Herbert, who had neglected to insist upon a liability clause in the contract with William, got stuck with paying the award as the owner of record. The project was a dead issue after that."

  Finny whistled. "But what about Twee and Paige—"

  "Twee was still Paige's godmother, and the whole Jericho Mountain deal didn't change her feelings about her. But Herbert didn't want to have anything to do with anyone or anything named Sarandon. Especially since William had gone on to swing a few other deals that feathered his nest nicely, although the birds plucked then weren't quite as prominent. Twee sneaked visits to Paige behind his back until he died."

  "What about Paige's and William's separation?"

  "What about it?"

  "Was it a nasty one? You know, name-calling and divvying up of friends?"

  "They were fairly civilized, from what I've heard. I couldn't quote you chapter and verse on the negotiations, although rumor has it that Paige's lawyer got a pretty good maintenance agreement until the final decree. I do know there never seemed to be much friction when they met at functions, and I guess they weren't in that much of a hurry to split the sheets—they've been separated a pretty long time."

  Finny kept silent. Money might be the root of all evil, but it didn't have to be a reason for Paige to kill Sarandon, unless she stood to gain from his will. But surely he'd have changed that as soon as they separated. Then again, who knew what he had done or, for that matter, what the final settlement would have been?

  "How do you know all this stuff?" Finny demanded. "You're too young to have been around at the time."

  "Too young by a long shot!" Abigail's eyes lit with mischief. "One of the ways people bribe me is to tell me all the old dirt. It doesn't matter where you go, the coinage is the same. There's always somebody willing to tattle for a mention in the column."

  "And you just have to hope the dirt is accurate." Dryly.

  Abigail's smile widened. "Denver's big enough so I get more than one stool pigeon. All I have to do is compare versions and come up with a reasonable pastiche."

  "Swell." Finny straightened on the chair, which was growing harder by the minute. "What about Cuffy and Kit Landauer?"

  "That one's not so easy," said Abigail. "I'd picked up enough here and there to know that Judge Sarandon didn't care for Kit. Then, last Halloween, they almost had a fistfight on the dance floor of the Wellshire Country Club. Why, I don't know, but the judge felt strongly enough to put a roadblock in the way of what was shaping up into a sweet little romance."

  Finny's gaze held Abigail's hazel eyes. Might as well test the merchandise. "Is Landauer a local product?"

  "Oh, yeah. His mother is a Spaulding, as in the floor wax company."

  "So Twee isn't the only person with a motive to get Sarandon out of the way."

  "Hardly," said Abigail. "Either Kit or Cuffy could have had a vested interest in seeing the old goat dead."

  Finny hardly heard her. Landauer had been as forthcoming as a No Parking sign about Cuffy, but why would Twee lie to protect him? On the thought, another idea slid into place. What if Cuffy had killed her father?

  Abigail was watching Finny's face with knowing eyes, and when she saw her expression change, she leaned forward. "Remember," she said softly, "whatever you find out comes to me first."

  "Will the real Dr. Faust please stand up?"

  Abigail nodded. "The devil with a great manicure, that's me. Just don't forget our deal."

  Finny got out of the chair. "I won't. One other thing."

  Abigail's brows climbed toward her hair. "You're running up quite a tab."

  "How about Les Trethalwyn? He and Paige seemed pretty tight at Twee's party."

  Abigail shrugged. "I've heard they were once an item, but I think the bottom line is money. He ran through most of his, which is why he's working for the Arts Consortium. Paige has always kept her eye on the bucks. Besides, he's been sniffing around Simms Bainbridge lately. You know, the Bainbridges," she added impatiently at Finny's puzzled expression. "Asphalt."

  "Oh, yeah. How could I forget?" Finny pulled her car keys out of her pocket. "Thanks for the information."

  * * *

  Signaling a lane change got Finny the chance to see the lethargic string of cars behind her on Seventeenth metamorphize into demolition derby aspirants, speeding up to block her. A bus lumbered over into her lane as she passed by the Brown Palace. Courtesy of the road. Laying a heavy hand on her horn and veering right produced better results.

  So she'd sold her soul to the devil. And for gossip, at that. At least she hadn't challenged the bitch to pistols at dawn. Jigsaws, maybe. That she could handle.

  What troubled her most was what Abigail had told her about Cuffy and Kit. If theirs was a nineties version of Romeo and Juliet, then the hunt was going to get messy. She liked Cuffy and wasn't thrilled with the notion of counting the reasons why she might have wanted to kill her father, although she couldn't fault the logic. Killing an obstructive parent made so much more sense than dramatically committing suicide. She'd never had much respect for Romeo and Juliet.

  Finny whipped right at Broadway, past the reproduction of The Thinker in the window of Columbia Savings. "You and me, kid," she said in passing. He was too intent on his thoughts to answer.

  Chapter 9

  As Tuesday afternoons went, this was a bust. Finny slammed the pay phone receiver onto its cradle and glared at it. She was hot and tired and her stomach was into replays of its Denver Symphony imitation, despite her sausage sandwich earlier. When the bassoons started winning, it was time to eat. But not in the middle of the fast-food strip along Federal Boulevard.

  She'd ended up here after a run to the lumberyard for incidentals—Corinne's cabinet, after all, was still her only paying job. She had to render something unto Caesar. The telephone calls from there had netted the same results as the calls made from a gas station an hour and a half before. Cuffy was either going for the world record in conversations or she'd taken the phone off the hook. And Paige was either dancing to the beat of the phone's rhythmic ringing, or passed out in a drunken stupor or had flown off for a quick shopping trip in Aspen. At any rate, she certainly wasn't answering her phone.

  Now Finny was starving and there was little relief in sight. McDonald's to the left, Arby's
to the right, forward she drove into the valley of the six hundred quick and greasy possibilities: pancakes, tamales, deep-fried fish, et al.; most, if not all, et with a side order of french fries. Pun intended.

  The eat-and-run establishments soon gave way to big Victorian houses, which, in turn, led to pre-World War II bungalows proudly displaying their lawns and flowers. The columns of the huge Masonic Temple between Thirty-fifth and Thirty-sixth glowed like browning butter in the afternoon sunshine, and the slow pace of the pedestrians who strolled among the nearby storefronts and cafes befitted the languor seeping into the air.

  Finny turned onto Speer and drove toward the heart of the city. The thousands of panes of glass in the skyscrapers, some black, some gold, some the green of an unchlorinated pool, shone, their mirror surfaces reflecting cottony clouds adrift in an impossibly blue sky. Below the viaduct, workers were stringing giant necklaces of train cars on tracks extending from Denver on either side to both coasts. The Tivoli Center, a wedding cake of a building that transformed from a brewery into a shopping center, gleamed, as unexpected among the boxy buildings of the Auraria campus as the Taj Mahal.

  That was where she could eat, Finny realized. A bunch of restaurants coexisted there, from Adirondack's to the food court in the shopping area. And she could definitely get a beer. She zipped into the right lane and turned onto Larimer, taking it down to the parking area in front of the Tivoli. She would eat, have that beer, and try phoning Cuffy again. Repletion was just a moment away.

  Well, maybe more than a moment. A Reuben sandwich had become one with her flesh, with gusto, and the beer had been drunk, with thanks to Bacchus thrown in. But Cuffy's phone still beeped busy, and her dear mother hadn't answered yet. The inner woman was satisfied, but the nascent detective was pissed.

  Barelli always said police work was tedious. It was finding bits of evidence, trying to make them fit together, and, once in a blue moon, having a kaleidoscopic twist bring everything into focus. Much like her work: cutting, planing, sanding separate pieces of wood until they slipped together like silk on silk, assembled into function and logic. Barelli's efforts usually took place in a milieu of unrelenting seaminess, but she'd so far missed out on that. Her efforts had been among a self-admittedly better class of people.