Storm Peak

by John Flanagan

  Jesse had been right, of course, about the motives behind her visit to Steamboat. She’d heard the word “network” and she was ready to do anything to be the face presenting the piece. It was a chance. A moment. A possibility that some network executive might see her and she might strike a chord with him and her career could move on.

  Not a good chance. Not a likelihood. A vague possibility. Not even that, if she was honest with herself.

  The network shot was a dream, nothing more. It simply wasn’t going to happen. She was going to stay with Channel 6 in Denver, interviewing local politicians, second-string personalities and farmers with hogs that had decided to raise flocks of ducklings as their own offspring.

  She shrugged. It wasn’t so bad, she thought. Then she amended it. It wasn’t so good either.

  But maybe now, if she wasn’t chasing the phantom prospect of a career in network television, she might be able to put things back together with Jesse. She considered the idea. It had just come to her but she couldn’t see anything too wrong with it.

  Maybe she and Jesse could make it together. She knew he wanted to. She’d seen it in his eyes that night when she’d asked him to join her. She was sure she’d seen it. He’d hesitated. Definitely. He may have said no. But he’d hesitated. And that meant that he’d meant to say “yes.”

  She glanced at the phone by the bedside now. She could just call Jesse and repeat her invitation. Tell him she was waiting here. Tell him she was naked, and feeling real warm about the thought of him.

  She could laugh and tell him about the two drop-jawed boys in the parking lot, staring in amazement at her breasts as she stood by the window. Naturally, she’d make it sound unintentional. But she knew that sort of innocent, secondhand voyeurism could turn a man on quicker than a light switch.

  Jesse would drive on down and they could go somewhere quiet and eat and share a bottle of wine and then come back to this room and lie on the big bed, with the lights off and the curtains open and the lights of Mount Werner spread out before them and she could let Jesse make love to her again and again. Like he used to.

  Then she knew she wouldn’t do it. Not tonight. The time wasn’t right yet. She’d wait till she’d done her piece for the channel. Jesse would see how much she cared. She closed her eyes and she could see his face, and that silly, lopsided grin that could just mess up a girl’s thinking so badly.

  “Fuck you, Jesse,” she whispered. “Where are you?”

  And on Mount Werner, the lights started to disappear as the Snowcats moved farther and farther up the mountain.

  THIRTY-NINE

  Lee dropped into an old leather armchair in the parlor and picked up the remote for the television.

  She was beat, physically and mentally. The day had brought another heavy session in Ned Puckett’s office. Miller’s arrest, and the almost certain knowledge that he’d been responsible for the spate of burglaries in convenience stores, had done little to calm the anxieties of the town leaders.

  If anything, it had made matters worse. She couldn’t really blame Ned or the others for that. She knew where the fault lay and that was squarely on her own shoulders. She was the one who’d made such a big play of lighting out to arrest Miller. She winced as she thought of how she’d barreled her Renegade down the main street of Steamboat Springs, siren howling and strobes flashing.

  News traveled fast in a town like Steamboat and by late afternoon, most of the town knew that the sheriff’s department—no, she amended with a humorless smile—the sheriff herself, had screwed up in spades.

  The editorial in the Steamboat Whistle hadn’t done anything to make things better. Usually the local paper was sided with Lee and her actions. This time, with the best will in the world, there was little they could do but criticize. She’d jumped to conclusions. She’d acted in haste. On top of that, there was a total lack of any real progress on the case.

  Now, of course, there was Abby’s report, due to air on the evening news out of Channel 6 in Denver.

  Abby had spent the morning taping her story. She’d interviewed Jesse at some length, then visited the scenes of the murders. She’d tried to interview the surviving victim and, when that failed, his wife. She spent a brief ten minutes with Lee herself.

  There’d been no hint of criticism. There’d been no tough grilling. No sensationalism. No seizing on minor facts and blowing them all out of proportion. On the face of it, Abby had been the essence of evenhanded reporting.

  But Lee had been around public office and the media long enough to know that the real slant on an interview only became apparent when the report was edited.

  It was then that the reporter could add in their introductions and closing comments. Often, the simplest action, such as the raising of an eyebrow, could throw a huge shadow of doubt over the truthfulness of the subjects, and the wisdom or otherwise of their actions.

  So now she waited for Abby’s report, fearing the worst. After all, Abby owed her no favors. She’d sensed an undercurrent of hostility from the reporter. Lee knew that Abby had guessed about her relationship with Jess—and resented it.

  Lee shifted in the armchair, rolling her shoulders to relieve the knotted tension in the muscles there. Jesse had been decidedly reserved since Abby had reappeared in their lives, she thought.

  He seemed awkward, unsure of himself. She was certain he was doing all he could to avoid her company. Certainly he’d spent only a few minutes alone with her in the past day. And that was in marked contrast to the closeness that had grown between them since they’d spent the night together.

  Damn it, she thought. It had taken her eighteen years to find him again. Now, with Abby back on the scene, she was afraid she might lose him once more. She was a little surprised to realize just how much she was afraid of that.

  The news was breaking for a commercial. An impossibly well groomed golden retriever, carrying a can of mineral water to two impossibly good-looking duck hunters in a Hollywood swamp. A cheerful voice-over told her that he was “Bringing back the brighter taste of Mountjoy Mineral.”

  “No shit,” said Lee, and rolled her shoulders again. The tension in her muscles didn’t seem to have loosened any. She wondered what Jesse was doing.

  Jesse was in his cabin, watching the same retriever on his battery-powered old black-and-white Sanyo. Like Lee, he waited anxiously. Like Lee, he knew how a report could be slanted and twisted after the event. He knew there was no way to guard against being quoted, or shown speaking out of context. And he knew that Abby didn’t feel she owed the sheriff of Routt County any favors.

  The retriever had gone, replaced by a housewife who needed a Tylenol. Tylenol, if you could believe her, could probably solve most of the problems besetting the western world.

  The music introduction swelled as the Tylenol woman faded away. And the news desk of Channel 6 filled the screen again, with the 6 News at 6 symbol superimposed over the fade up. Jesse leaned forward and tweaked the volume knob. Throughout Yampa Valley, a few thousand other viewers did much the same thing.

  “Welcome back,” said the anchor smoothly. On-screen behind him, a still shot of the front slopes of Mount Werner faded up, overlaid with an artist’s very inaccurate impression of a jigger. It looked like an ice pick gone wrong. Jesse wondered briefly if they’d ever find the jigger. Hollings had told them that the killer had dropped it during the struggle. It was lost somewhere in the deep snow under the chairlift. Below the ice pick-jigger was a caption: “Mountain Murders.”

  “The search continues,” said the anchor, continuing himself, “for the multiple killer who has been terrorizing the popular ski resort of Steamboat Springs. Channel 6’s own Abby Parker-Taft traveled to Steamboat today to file this report.”

  He looked off camera, to one side. He faded slowly from sight, to be replaced by a wide shot of Abby, mike in hand, facing the camera.

  She’d chosen one of Steamboat’s iconic sites as her backdrop: the old timber barn just outside town, with the ski trails o
f Mount Werner in the background. “This is a mountain of fear,” Abby was saying, her voice well modulated, calm, with just the right hint of drama.

  Her pale blond hair stirred attractively in the breeze. She was wearing the kind of battered leather bomber jacket that felt as soft as a glove and cost over five hundred bucks. And tight, sea-blue jeans. She had a great ass and great legs, Jesse thought irrelevantly.

  “The Mountain Killer has killed four times now,” Abby was saying, “and left another victim badly wounded. Local business, dependent on the tourist dollar, is suffering.”

  Lee reached blindly for a bottle of red wine on the kitchen bench behind her, her eyes still glued to the report. She topped off her glass as Abby detailed how local business was suffering.

  Over the next minute and a half, the screen carried a montage of nearly empty ski slopes, deserted bars and restaurants and unoccupied chairlifts as Abby described how people were staying away from Steamboat.

  There was a quick sound grab with Ed Spelling, owner of the Sombrero Cantina, who looked worried at the loss of business. It seemed Ed spoke for all of Steamboat’s business community.

  Then the scene changed to a shot of the Public Safety Building. Lee took a deep breath. Here it comes, she thought.

  “I spoke with Sheriff Lee Torrens, the senior officer responsible for the investigation,” Abby was saying. The screen filled with a close-up of Lee. Abby’s voice, off camera, could be heard asking, “Sheriff Torrens, are there any solid leads in the Mountain Killer case?”

  The image of Lee on-screen shook her head slowly. So did Lee, watching. She frowned as she noticed the lines at the corners of her eyes. Her skin looked like old leather compared to Abby’s perfect complexion.

  “We’re pursuing certain lines of investigation,” she said.

  Watching, Lee muttered to herself, “Shit.”

  The “certain lines of investigation” statement sounded just like what it was—another way of saying “We don’t know from diddly shit about what’s happening or what we’re going to do.”

  The camera cut away to Abby, nodding sympathetically.

  “I guess in an investigation like this, you have to sift through mountains of facts, looking for that one elusive clue that will break the case?” she asked.

  Lee frowned to herself again. She didn’t remember that question. It must have been recorded separately by Abby after the interview was completed.

  The shot cut back to Lee again. “We’re confident of a breakthrough soon,” she said.

  “Like hell we are,” Lee muttered heavily. But on-screen, Abby was nodding again. She looked as if she was confident too.

  The scene cut now to the top of Thunderhead.

  “Sheriff Lee Torrens is a popular and efficient cop,” Abby said. “She’s not the sort of woman to give up, no matter how tough things are looking. Already, as a by-product of this investigation, she has personally tracked down and apprehended a dangerous criminal who has been breaking into convenience stores around the area.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” said Jesse, sitting up straighter and leaning a little closer to the slightly fuzzy image that was all he could get up there on the mountain. He’d been sure that Abby would use the Miller case as an example of how the Routt County Sheriff’s Department was falling over its own feet in this investigation. Maybe, he thought, he’d misjudged her.

  “The chief investigating officer on the case is Deputy Jesse Parker.”

  And there he was, as the camera panned smoothly away from Abby and picked up Jesse in the background, talking to one of the lift attendants and one of Felix Obermeyer’s officers, on guard duty at the top of Thunderhead.

  “A former ace homicide detective with the Denver PD, he holds several commendations for bravery and efficiency. Sheriff Torrens is confident that he’s the man who will crack this case. And her confidence is reassuring to the people of Steamboat Springs.”

  There followed a series of random shots of townspeople, all expressing trust and confidence in Lee’s and Jesse’s ability.

  “She’s a fine sheriff,” said Cyril Culpepper. “Good as any man. Hell, better even, maybe.”

  “Jesse, he’s a good boy. He knows his job.” That was Andy Taylor from the Times Square Ticket Office.

  “They’ll get him. Sure enough, they’ll get him. They’s good cops,” Lorna Watson, wife of the local jeweler, expressed with confidence. “I just hope they do it sooner rather than later. It’s terrible what’s happened here.”

  Lee’s eyes narrowed as she sat watching the screen. Suddenly, she knew what Abby Parker-Taft was up to.

  Abby Parker-Taft was, at that moment, lying back on her bed in the Mountain View Hotel, wearing nothing but bikini briefs and a short gray T-shirt that barely reached her midriff. She was watching herself on-screen with a cool, professional detachment.

  Her screen self was now on the corner of 7th and Lincoln, outside the entrance to the Harbor Hotel. It was getting on toward dusk and the neons in the street glowed behind her, blobs of unfocused color. She’d made the producer hold the sun gun to one side for this shot. Normally mounted on top of the camera, it would cast a flat, glaring, unattractive frontal light on the subject.

  Held to the side, as she’d directed, it gave her a better look. Side lit, features more clearly defined and with a slight halo glow about her blond hair. She nodded to herself. She looked as good as a girl could, under the circumstances, she thought.

  “This is a town in fear,” she was saying to the camera. “But a town that trusts its cops to do everything in their power to keep them safe. Hardworking cops, just waiting for that one break, that one simple clue that will break this case wide open.”

  The shot cut back to her earlier interview with Lee, a close-up of the sheriff. Watching, Abby smiled again, the direct comparison did little to flatter Lee Torrens, she thought. She heard her own voice over the shot of Lee, as the sheriff flicked through a pile of information folders and wanted posters. Abby had asked her to do this as a fill-in shot.

  “Sheriff Torrens is a good cop doing a difficult job. But she knows that, sooner or later, the Mountain Killer is going to make a mistake. One slip. One little item he’ll forget. When he does, they’ll nail him.”

  The screen now froze on a close-up of Lee, then slowly dissolved through to a matching close-up of Abby. The smile returned to her face.

  Lee’s face was lined, tired, lit straight on. Her hair was a tangle and the gray showed clearly. By contrast, Abby was fresh, glowing, with just a stray tendril of blond hair stirring in the evening breeze as she brushed it away from her face.

  “Abby Parker-Taft, from Steamboat Springs, for 6 News at 6.”

  Her image remained on-screen for a few seconds, in a small frame at the top left as the studio cameras found the anchorman once again. Then the small frame disappeared, to be replaced by a still shot of the Governor’s Mansion in Denver.

  “In Denver today, Governor Morgan Whitton received a delegation from industry and commerce to discuss the vexed question of industrial pollution in the mile high city …”

  Lee hit the remote switch and the screen instantly imploded to black. Almost immediately, the phone rang. She dropped the remote onto the couch and grabbed for the receiver.

  “Sheriff Torrens,” she said.

  “You see it?” It was Jesse. There was no need for him to say what he meant by “it.” He sounded vaguely pleased.

  “Yep,” she replied evenly. “I saw it.”

  “Damn me,” he said. “I’m not sure what I expected, but that sure as hell wasn’t it. She was pretty damn fair the way she treated you, Lee. I was half expecting she’d do a hatchet job but, by God, she didn’t.”

  She could almost picture him, grinning with relief, shaking his head in surprise. He was pleased, she knew, on her behalf.

  “Maybe I should consider running for mayor,” she said, with just a hint of bitterness in her voice.

  He sensed it, paused awkwardly.
“You mad about something, Lee?” he asked uncertainly. “I mean, she could have been a whole lot rougher on us you know. She gave you one hell of a vote of confidence at the end there.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Lee replied, trying to lighten up a little about it. She didn’t want this conversation to continue any longer.

  “Jess, there’s someone at the door. I’ll get back to you, okay?”

  “Yeah. Sure, Lee.” He sounded a little relieved now, as if he thought he’d maybe been mistaken about her earlier reaction. “But it sure was nice to get some good press for a change, wasn’t it?”

  “It sure was, Jess,” she said, forcing a smile into her voice. “I guess for once it helped to know someone in the business. Gotta go,” she said hurriedly, cutting him off.

  “Sure. Bye, Lee,” he said.

  She heard the words thin and distant as she was already setting the receiver down. She hung the phone up and looked at it, shaking her head sadly.

  “Don’t you see why she did it, Jess?” she asked the silent instrument. “She wants you back.”

  FORTY

  In his cabin above Rabbit Ear Pass, Jesse stared at the phone, a puzzled expression on his face. He’d been pleased with Abby’s report. Not for his own sake. After all, it didn’t really matter a damn to him what the media thought of the way he was handling the case. But for Lee it was important. She was an elected official and she needed good press during a crisis like this.

  He knew there was bad feeling just below the surface between Abby and Lee and he’d expected the worst of Abby’s report. She was a past master at the sly innuendo, at damning a subject with faint praise. Her cool, beautiful looks could be devastating when she turned the wick up on her sarcastic sense of ridicule. And he knew she saw the report as a chance to go on to bigger things-maybe a spot on network news somewhere. Jesse might be a country boy, but he’d been around enough to know that network news producers didn’t usually give out jobs to reporters who handed in good news reports.