by Gorman, Ed
By the time the strainer finally grounded on a bar, the Teton Village Bridge, which marked the end of the run, was in sight. Even at a distance, Anne could see the water roiling at the base of the bridge’s midstream support like a continually crashing wave. Just short of the span was the landing area. Jubal stood there, hands in pockets.
Anne extended the handles of the sweeps in Koval’s direction. The guide shook her head.
“You’re doing fine. You can take us in. Just don’t miss. The next chance is fourteen miles downstream. Start moving us over. Bow to the bank so you can see what you’re doing. Push on those oars, girl. Push!”
Jubal’s only sign of interest was the removal of his hands from his pockets when Koval tossed him a line. The raft was still moving downstream so fast that Anne was sure the little man would be pulled in after them. But he stood like a bollard, pivoting the raft shoreward when the line went taut.
“Ship your oars,” Koval ordered. “Fred, Bob, give Jubal a hand.”
The guides splashed into the shallows. By the time Anne had the sweeps secured, the raft was aground on the rocky bank.
“Good work, Anne. Good work, everybody. Jubal, show these newbies how to back the van down.”
Seven
Back at their base, Anne volunteered to hose off the raft for the chance of a private word with Koval. It came when the guide emerged from the office carrying two sodas, her cats trotting behind her.
Anne thought she might be in for a performance evaluation. She wanted to discuss something else, the insight that had been inspired back at Moose Junction by Koval’s sunglasses, so she spoke first.
“I think I know why Laura doesn’t use the Jackson Airport.”
“Gitry’s Laura?” Koval handed her one of the sodas. “Have you seen her?”
“No,” Anne said, “but I met him last night. Early this morning, I mean.” She watched Koval’s mouth draw down in the same lopsided grimace she’d used whenever Anne had dragged an oar. “Nothing happened.”
“Sure of that?” Koval asked. “What’s this about airports?”
“It’s something that’s been bothering me. Rachel thinks Laura must live in Idaho because she drives instead of flying into Jackson. It doesn’t make sense to Rachel that someone would fly into Idaho Falls and drive over the mountains.”
“To me either,” Koval said.
“But you said Laura wears dark glasses and a scarf over her hair. In other words, she’s wearing a disguise. A disguise wouldn’t work if she flew in. To fly back out, she’d have to show a photo ID. I think she’s remarried. That’s how she found her better life. She doesn’t want her new husband to know she can’t give up her old one. Gitry is wasting himself on a woman who’s cheating on two men at once.”
“When he could be doing what?” Koval asked.
Anne didn’t answer, and the two women stood side by side, Anne scattering the cats with the jerky movements of her hose, Koval waving occasionally to cars passing on the highway.
Finally, the guide said, “I hope I didn’t make a mistake by telling you about Chaz Gitry. He’s an interesting man, maybe even an exciting one, but he isn’t a man I’d wish on a friend of mine.
“I probably should keep my mouth shut now, but if you’re right about this airport thing, it opens up an even more sordid possibility. You should be ready for it. It’s easier to deal with things you see coming.”
“What is it?” Anne asked.
“That disguise business has always bothered me. I mean, why would Laura go to the trouble? It’s not like anyone around here knows what Gitry’s ex looks like. But you’ve got me thinking that maybe we’d know her after all.”
“How could you? You didn’t even know Chaz had been married until he told you.”
“Exactly. We only know because he told us. Suppose that was a cover story. Suppose there is no Laura. This valley is the two-months-a-year address of a lot of wealthy wives. Maybe one of them got a taste of Chaz Gitry and ended up hooked.
“Like I said, if you see a rock ahead you can pull away from it. Any reasonable person would.”
Eight
Koval’s last words haunted Anne as the long day slipped into evening, both because she knew the warning was well-meant and because she knew she wouldn’t heed it. Again and again she thought of the tree trunk that had chased her down the Snake that afternoon, sometimes grinding away at the bank, sometimes disappearing behind an island, but always coming back. The fascination of Chaz Gitry was exactly the same: nagging, powerful, and — Anne couldn’t quite say how — dangerous.
She was less bothered by Koval’s suggestion that Laura wasn’t Gitry’s ex at all, but only a trophy wife who wouldn’t stay in her case. She had to admit it was the logical conclusion of the chain of reasoning she’d started herself. But that only made her more certain that Gitry was wasting his time with the wrong woman. What was more, Anne was sure that Gitry knew it, too. That was the only possible explanation for the desperation she’d seen in his eyes.
Or maybe not the only explanation. While she cooked a dinner she didn’t want, Anne wondered if Koval hadn’t been wrong in one particular at least. Maybe it was Gitry and not the straying wife who’d had a taste and gotten hooked. Maybe the local lothario had made the mistake of falling for a woman who only wanted a risky fling.
But who was this woman if she wasn’t Laura? At first, Anne considered that a question she’d never be able to answer, new to the valley as she was. She could see Gitry’s woman without sunglasses and scarf and never know her, unless she turned out to be Mattie Koval or Rachel. The only other Jackson women she knew were just names and last names at that: a Dr. Millikan and a Mrs. Zollman.
Anne, who had given up on dinner by then and was sitting with Love’s Forbidden Memory unopened on her lap, asked herself if it could be Dr. Millikan, the woman who owned the house Gitry watched. That relationship would certainly have thrown them together. She pictured the place as she’d seen it the morning of the fog, a spectral house, imagined Gitry alone, walking through rooms filled with the doctor’s things, week after week, waiting for her to slip back. That would more than account for those bruised, sleepless eyes.
Putting her book aside, Anne crossed to the computer and signed on to the Internet. She searched on “Dr. Millikan,” adding “cardiologist” and “New York City” to narrow the field. She was hoping for a photograph but found instead a brief biography on a hospital’s website. The bio proved to be enough. Dr. Millikan, first name Edith, was sixty-six years old.
Almost as an afterthought, Anne entered “Zollman.” Wayne Sedam had mentioned only one other useable fact: Zollman’s husband was a dot com millionaire. Anne added “Internet” to the search parameters and hit the enter key. If she could first identify the husband, maybe she could backtrack to the wife, perhaps finding a photo of her at some charity event in Malibu. The search returned an entry for a Johnathan Zollman, inventor of an Internet security system called Osprey.
“Bingo,” Anne said aloud, clicking on the link for the site.
Its welcome page featured a color photograph of a smiling young man with ginger hair and sharp features, the man she’d met the night before when she’d shown up uninvited at Millikan House.
Nine
Anne sat staring at the photograph for a long time. Then the humming of the computer made her realize that she was in danger. Its owner might be monitoring her searches at that moment, might even have tapped into Osprey House’s security cameras to watch her as she had watched the team of house cleaners.
She signed off and made a show of turning out all the lights in the little house before going into her bedroom. Once there, she bent down to look under her bed. She felt more than saw the box her mother’s books had traveled in and pushed it aside. Behind it was another box her father had given her, this one when she’d left his house for good. It contained a few tools, a favorite fishing reel, and, wrapped in a well oiled rag, a Colt single-action .44.
Ann
e retrieved the gun and a box of shells. She tested the pistol’s action and loaded it. Only then did she pause to listen for any sound of movement outside the ranch house. Hearing nothing, she opened a window and slipped out. She made a wide detour around the main house and its cameras, crossing the meadow that ran parallel to the road.
As she walked, she thought it all through. She understood now why Koval’s description of Gitry had fit him no better than his coat, why he knew his way around Osprey House, why he hadn’t been seen in town for weeks. Anne even knew why “Laura” had worn a disguise when she’d driven in from the airport at Idaho Falls. Mrs. Zollman had only been to Jackson once under her real name, when she’d somehow met Chaz Gitry, but that once might have been enough for some local to remember and place her.
When Anne arrived at Millikan House, she was thinking of the nickname Wayne Sedam had given it with uncanny insight: Heart Disease House. This time the front door opened wide to her ring. The man she’d known as Gitry wore the same clothes he’d had on the night before. Anne decided that if he hadn’t slept in them, it was only because he hadn’t slept at all.
“I can’t visit tonight,” he said. “She’s coming. I got an e-mail this afternoon.”
“We’ll wait for her together,” Anne said. She’d been holding the big Colt behind her leg. She raised it now. “Back inside, Mr. Zollman.”
“Mr. Zollman? I don’t — ”
“I found your picture on the Internet. Back on in. I have to call the police.”
The man in the shadows licked his lips. “You haven’t called them yet?”
“I couldn’t risk your wife showing up while I was at it. You’d only need a minute to kill her.”
Anne followed Zollman into the house, turning on lights as they went. Under the florescent ceiling of the very modern kitchen, he looked to Anne like a corpse prepared by a careless undertaker.
When she picked up the phone, she saw Zollman eye a rack of knives. Then he turned his back on it, limped to a chrome and steel breakfast nook, and sat down.
After she’d finished her call, Anne asked, “How’d you really hurt your leg?”
“Gitry threw a hatchet at me when he saw my gun. I think I only meant to scare him until he did that.”
“Where’s the gun?”
“Upstairs.”
“And Gitry?”
“Under a pile of firewood. I didn’t think it would be weeks until my wife came. If only it hadn’t snowed up in the passes. If only that pothead caretaker at my place hadn’t quit, bringing you around.”
“If only you’d really gone to the South Pacific,” Anne wanted to say. “If only you’d found someone else.” She got as far as “if only.” Then a siren sounded in the distance.
“Do something for me,” Zollman said. “I really love that house. Would you look after it?”
“Always,” Anne said.
• • •
TERENCE FAHERTY is the author of two mystery series, the Shamus-winning Scott Elliott private eye series, set in the golden age of Hollywood, and the Edgar-nominated Owen Keane series, which follows the adventures of a failed seminarian turned metaphysical detective. His short fiction, which appears regularly in mystery magazines and anthologies, has won the Macavity Award and been nominated for the Anthony and the Derringer. His work has been reissued in the United Kingdom, Japan, Italy, and Germany. Faherty’s eleventh novel, Dance in the Dark, will be published by Five Star in 2011.
THE CASE OF COLONEL ROCKETT’S VIOLIN
By Gillian Linscott
“Admit it, Watson. Texas has not come up to your expectations.”
My old friend lounged in a cane chair on our hotel balcony, the hint of a smile on his lips. Our days at sea had done wonders for his health and spirits. His face was lightly tanned, shaded by the brim of a Panama hat.
“It’s not as I’d imagined,” I agreed.
He laughed.
“You’d hoped for cowboys with lariats and six shooters, Indian chiefs in war bonnets.”
Since that was pretty well the vision that had come to my mind when the unexpected invitation arrived on a drizzly day at Baker Street, I tried to hide my irritation.
“Certainly San Antonio seems peaceable enough,” I said.
Two floors below, in the courtyard of the Menger Hotel, broad leaves of banana trees shifted gently in the breeze. Our suite, with its lounge, two bedrooms and bathroom, was as clean and comfortable as anything you might find in London, perhaps more so. From where I was standing I could glimpse a corner of the town’s plaza, with men crossing from shade to sun and back, looking much like men of business anywhere, though moving at a leisurely pace in the heat. A neat landau, drawn by a grey pony and carrying a woman in a white dress, trotted briefly into sight and out again.
“We’ve come too late for the wild days, Watson. Seventy years ago we might have arrived in a covered wagon, pursued by as many braves or Mexicans as your warlike heart could wish. I confess my preference for the Mallory Line.”
We’d travelled in comfort down the coast from New York to Galveston on Mallory’s three-thousand-ton steamer, S.S. Alamo, then on by Pullman car. The letter of invitation had implored us to make all convenient speed and spare no expense — both admonitions quite wasted on Holmes, who would spend time and money exactly according to his opinion of what was necessary and nobody else’s. He stood up and joined me at the rail of our balcony, looking down at the courtyard. A gentleman in a white suit and hat had appeared from the reception area and was walking towards the foot of our staircase. Holmes gave a chuckle of satisfaction.
“Unless I am mistaken, Watson, here comes our client now.”
• • •
Benjamin Austin Barratt was a gentleman of fifty years or so, still vigorous, straight-backed and broad shouldered, with thick dark hair and a small moustache on an otherwise clean shaven face. His manners were courtly, asking after our health and our journey, as if his only purpose were to make us welcome in his native town. It was Holmes who cut short the preliminaries and brought us to business.
“You mentioned in your letter that you were writing on behalf of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. Do we take it that you are their representative?”
“Indeed so, sir. You will surely be aware that before Texas became part of the United States of America it was an independent republic in its own right by virtue of...”
“We are aware of it, yes.”
Holmes spoke with some impatience. Almost everybody we’d met, from our fellow passengers on the voyage down, to the lad who’d carried our cases to our rooms on arrival, had offered this fact as soon as setting eyes on us. Barratt showed no annoyance and went on with his explanation.
“The ladies thought it preferable that you should be approached by a businessman with some standing in our community. Since I have the honour to be one of the benefactors of their Alamo project and have an interest in the matter under discussion, it was agreed that I should write to you. You will have gathered something of our dilemma from my letter.”
“The case of Davy Crockett’s superfluous fiddle,” Holmes said.
His tone was light. He’d responded to the letter in something of a holiday spirit because it piqued his curiosity. Barratt’s posture stiffened for a moment and there was a hint of reproach in his tone.
“Colonel Crockett’s violin, yes indeed, Mr. Holmes. The most famous musical instrument in our country’s history. That it should have survived the battle is miraculous. That there are two of it is a matter so embarrassing that the ladies decided it could only be settled by the greatest detective in the world, who also happens to be an amateur of the violin.”
• • •
Holmes nodded at the tribute, as no more than his due.
“Your letter spoke of urgency.”
“Yes, sir. This year the Daughters of the Republic of Texas took on responsibility for safeguarding what remains of the old Alamo mission building, where the battle took place sixty-nine y
ears ago. They plan to open it as a national shrine and a museum. Naturally, the very violin that Colonel Crockett carried with him when he brought his men of the Tennessee Mounted Rifles to join the defenders in the Alamo, the violin he played to hearten them all during the siege, will be its most precious exhibit.”
“It is a fact that Davy ... that is, Colonel Crockett had his violin with him in the Alamo,” I said. “There was one evening when he had a competition with a man who played the bagpipes and...”
I’d done some reading on the subject before we left London. All it brought me was an impatient look from Holmes.
“We can take that as established. But is there any explanation of how such a fragile thing as a violin escaped the destruction of everything else when the Mexicans stormed the Alamo?”
“One of the violins is in my possession,” Barratt said. “I look forward to telling you its story when I hope you will do us the honour of taking dinner with us tomorrow night, but I believe its history is as well authenticated as anybody could wish.”
“And the other violin?” Holmes asked.
“I’m sure Mrs. Legrange will tell you that hers has a well authenticated history too. I know she plans to meet you. One thing I should like to make clear.”
For the first time in our conversation, his voice was hesitant. Holmes raised an eyebrow, inviting him to continue.
“There is no enmity between Mrs. Legrange and myself, none whatever,” Barratt said. “She is a very charming and patriotic lady and we all admire her very much. We have both agreed that this business must be settled in a quiet and peaceable manner as soon as possible, and we shall both abide by your verdict. May I send my carriage for you two gentlemen at six o’clock tomorrow?”
Holmes told him that he might.
As Barratt crossed the courtyard, one of the hotel’s messenger boys passed him in the opposite direction and came up the stairs to our suite carrying an envelope.