He stopped at a hundred. Then he went downstairs and looked at himself in the mirror and took out his razor.
It had been too long.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The following morning, Hauck left his boat at a marina he knew on St. Kitts, caught an eight-seater prop for the half-hour jaunt over to St. Maarten, where he was the last one on the 11:30 A.M. to Miami, which connected late that afternoon to a United flight to Denver. He spent the night at the Aloft hotel near the airport, and by six the next morning, he’d rented a car and was on his way up Interstate 70 to Aspen.
He’d been out here a couple of times years before to ski. Once, back in college, where he and four friends crowded into a classmate’s family’s two-bedroom condo at Copper Mountain. Hauck’s folks were working-class people, and at Bates he worked a twenty-hour-a-week job on top of studying and football. Back then, he couldn’t have even afforded a cheeseburger in Aspen, never mind a place to stay or even the lift tickets. He remembered how beautiful the ride up was: the new airport cutting around Denver, passing Golden, where he always wanted to stop off and see the Coors brewery, then into the foothills with the old mining towns of Idaho Springs and Georgetown, their steep canyons and buffalo herd patches until he reached Loveland Pass at twelve thousand feet. Patches of snow were still visible as he emerged from the Eisenhower Tunnel.
He made it to Carbondale in just under three hours. Ted had said to talk to the chief of police there. A guy named Dunn. It was a small town in the shadow of a massive, lone mountain with outdoor shops and a ski-chalet-like Safeway on a quaint, main street. He’d put the location of the police station into his GPS, but after twenty years in law enforcement he didn’t need a satellite to help him sniff out a station. His nose led him right to the parking lot filled with parked green-and-white SUVs with CARBONDALE POLICE on them, outside a one-story, redbrick building attached to the Carbondale Town Center. He parked in a spot reserved for visitors.
Hauck’s beard was down to a growth, and in his floral Hawaiian shirt, jeans, and sunglasses, he didn’t exactly look official.
Inside, he went up to a female officer in a khaki uniform behind a glass partition, her hair in two long braids. She smiled pleasantly at him.
Hauck folded his shades into his shirt pocket. “Chief Dunn around?”
“He’s on the phone. I know he’s got to head into Aspen for a meeting there shortly after. Anything I can help you with?”
“I’m looking for a Danielle Whalen. I hear she’s a guest at the spa here.”
“The spa?” The officer looked up at him with a laugh. “You her lawyer?”
“Do I look like a lawyer?”
She laughed again. “Some of the lawyers here, why not? Hell, in this town you could be the mayor. Why don’t you take a seat; I’ll see if the chief is off. I know he was expecting someone. What did you say your name was?”
He gave her his card. “Ty Hauck.”
She got up and went to the back of the station past a couple of compartmentalized workstations. Hauck didn’t see any detectives. It was a small department. She knocked on the door of a glass-lined office with drapes restricting the view and poked her head in. A minute later she came back. “Dani’s a nice kid, but it’ll be a boon to all of us, the sooner you get her out. You can go on back.”
“Thanks, Officer.” He smiled.
He went back to the glassed-in office and knocked on the door that was left ajar. A stocky, middle-aged man in a uniform top over jeans stood up from behind his heavy wood desk.
“Come on in. Wade Dunn,” he said as he held out his hand. Despite the salt-and-pepper flattop, he looked no more than sixty, with a round face, a flabby jawline, a reddish complexion. He had an ornate belt on his jeans. His hands were thick, his grip was firm, authoritative, with a large turquoise ring. “Officer Jurgens said you were here about Dani …”
“Dani …?”
“Danielle. Sorry.” He motioned Hauck to a burled wood conference table. “I thought Ted might have mentioned I was married to her mother for a while.”
“No, he didn’t tell me that,” Hauck said, surprised. “He just said to look you up. I knew Judy a bit myself, back in college. In a way, I guess that makes us all kind of related.”
“How’s that?” The police chief crossed his legs. Hauck’s eyes went to the fancy python-skin boots.
“I’m her godfather.”
“Well, I’ll be damned! I guess that does make us all something.” The chief seemed pleasantly surprised. “Hell, I didn’t know she even had a godfather. Can I get you something to drink? Water? Or a soft drink maybe?”
“Nothing.” Hauck waved politely. “I’m fine.”
“So where’d you come in from, Mr. Hauck?” The duty officer had given him Hauck’s card. “Says Greenwich here. But you look kind of relaxed. L.A., maybe. You look kind of L.A., if you don’t mind me saying.”
“The Caribbean, actually. I was on a boat yesterday morning when Ted got in touch with me.”
“Caribbean?” Chief Dunn’s eyes widened. “Well, I have to say, you certainly do take the godfather role pretty seriously.”
Hauck smiled back. “Ted and I go back a long way. He said Dani was in some kind of trouble. There was no breeze. Here I am. So is she …?”
“Is she what?”
“In some kind of trouble.”
“Ty Hauck …” The chief leaned back and crossed his legs, and looked at Hauck’s card. He narrowed his gaze back on Hauck. “Jeez, I know who you are. I saw you on CNN or something. You’re the guy who was part of that investigation that led to that Treasury secretary’s arrest.”
“Thomas Keaton.” Hauck filled in the blank for him. “But I was only the one who got shot up a bit. Others did most of the work.”
“Not from what I heard. You look a little different,” the chief said, drawing a hand across his chin, “maybe because of the …”
“Midlife crisis,” Hauck said, referring to the growth.
“Well, I sure as hell know a lot about those.” Wade Dunn laughed. “Though mine landed me in this job. I used to run the force over in Aspen. Well, how about that, Dani has a celebrity godfather. So you knew her dad?”
“Ted and I went to college together. Back east.”
“Only met him a couple of times,” the chief said. “You’re one helluva friend to have, Mr. Hauck, if you don’t mind me saying. To drop everything and come out here.”
“So what’s Danielle done? I understand that she’s being kept here. Ted wasn’t quite clear.”
“It’s a bit hard to explain exactly what she’s done. Nothing really, when it comes to the law, except make my life a living hell. Professionally speaking. Personally, I like the gal. Practically raised her. But I guess you could say it’s sort of for her own good, if you know what I mean.”
“I’m not sure.”
“Look.” Dunn let his chair come back up. “We’ve had kind of some misfortune in the valley in the past week. Two things …” He told Hauck about the tragic, but likely unrelated, accidents. Dani’s friend, Trey, on the river, and the hot-air balloon that caught on fire in the air.
“That’s terrible …” Hauck winced. “How many were aboard?”
“Five.” Dunn shook his head. “Including the pilot. Who Dani claims wanted to tell her something about the rafting accident before his balloon went down.”
“What was that?’
The chief shrugged. “Claims he saw something on the river, but she never got to hear. The guy was a bit of a lone steer to me, if you know what I mean. Not all there. But Dani seems to think it was important. Look, these two events would be terrible for any community to undergo …” The chief lit up a cigarette. “Hope you don’t mind if I smoke, Mr. Hauck. Only real vice I have left,” the chief said. “The rest have all been legislated out …” Hauck nodded for him to go ahead. “But for us, here … Aspen may seem like a big, worldly place, Mr. Hauck, with all the glitzy stars and private jets, but truth is, this wh
ole valley is just three small Colorado towns. Everyone knows everyone else. I know Dani was close to that young man who was killed on the river. Seems she’s gotten it in her head that these two terrible accidents weren’t exactly that.”
Hauck cocked his head. “Not sure I’m following you. Weren’t exactly what?” he asked.
“Accidents,” the chief said, taking a drag. “Worse, that they’re both somehow connected.”
“What do you mean by ‘worse’?”
The chief seemed to be taking a read on Hauck, his granite gray eyes settling on his. “Look, we’re both law enforcement professionals here … I may not have had the headlines you have on your résumé, and this is kind of a sleepy job now, but up in Aspen as you can imagine, I’ve seen a lot in close to thirty years …”
“I’m not sure I’m following.”
“What I’m saying, sir, is we turned over both of those incidents from hell and back—there’s been a state parks investigator on the river and a national safety team all over every part of that balloon, or what was left of it. And so far there’s not a stitch of evidence that says there’s been any foul play.”
“But Danielle is convinced that there is?”
“Dani’s like a mule. She gets on something and … You said you knew her mother?”
“For many years. I was the best man at their wedding.”
“You don’t say … Bowdoin, right …?’”
“Bates. Nearby, though. It’s—”
“I actually know where it is … I took Dani on her college trips when Judy took sick. I think she applied there, too. Could’ve gotten in anywhere she applied. She always had the quickest brain I knew. Maybe too quick for her own good. But there’s another part of her. That’s kind of her enemy. We all have those parts of us, don’t you agree? If you knew her mom, then you know what I’m talking about, Mr. Hauck.”
“Might as well call me Ty. If we’re related.”
Chief Dunn laughed. “Ty it is then … and I’m Wade. But what I’m saying is, that woman never once let anything stop her or get in her way if she had her mind set on it. Hell, I ought to know, I was married to her for eight years. Except the cancer, maybe.” Wade shrugged. “That stopped her. Cold. And Danielle …” He shook his head wistfully and ran a hand across his hair. “Well, she’s got her father’s smarts and her mother’s temperament. And I guess it’s worth saying, she’s never been the keenest fan of me.”
“And why’s that?” Hauck asked him.
“’Cause I was there. When her mom died. And best to say maybe I wasn’t the most caring person to have around at that time of my life, going through some weak moments of my own …”
“I hear you,” Hauck said. “I was sorry to hear what happened.”
“Years ago now. But anyway, Dani’s stirring up some wild accusations. Threatening to take what she found to the press, or to the police chief in Aspen. That’s just not helpful now. It’s not the way we do things here. I thought it would be better if we just took her out of the picture for a day or two, while the investigators were here. If you know what I mean?”
“You put her in jail?”
The chief shrugged. “We were fully vacant. The rooms were there.”
“They still around?”
“Who?” the chief asked.
“The investigating teams.”
Dunn shook his head. “Nope.”
“I think I get the picture. Ted only said she was in some kind of trouble. Can I see her?”
“See her? You can take her if you want, be my guest. We’re all hoping you will. Hell, for such a pretty thing, she eats more than I can afford anyway … You can see, we’re only a small department.”
Hauck stood up.
The chief stood up, too. “Try and talk some sense into her, would you? No one gains by her stirring things up like she was. Maybe let her show you the state for a few days. Until this all quiets down. I don’t know how long you have, but it’s beautiful country out here. Sorry to drag you off your boat, Mr. Hauck. For such a mundane reason. Can’t say I’d be a happy camper if it were me.”
“Show me the way. I’ll see what I can do.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Hauck went inside the small cell block, down to the last of four manually locked cells. The only one that was occupied.
Danielle was on her back on the cot, in jeans and a T-shirt, one leg resting over a knee. She didn’t even look up at him. He could see right away that she wasn’t at all what he remembered. The wiry, athletic tomboy had grown up into a pretty, filled-out, young gal.
“Whoever you are, I want to see Wade. You can’t keep me locked up in here forever. I’ll call a lawyer. I’ve got a job and you’re keeping me from doing it. I have a dog that needs attention. And I’m sick of eating just Subway and Burger King. And I want a shower. And—”
“Calm down, and you might just get what you want,” Hauck said, stepping up to the cell.
She rolled her head, her soft blue eyes narrowing in on him. Then she jumped off the cot and stared at him, totally disbelieving. “Uncle Ty …?”
“I’m not really a big fan of Subway and Burger King myself,” he said. “Must be somewhere out here we can find some good Mexican food.”
Her eyes doubled in size. “Uncle Ty! What the hell are you doing here …?”
“Not surprisingly, your father sent me.”
“Dad …?”
It had been years, ten maybe, and Hauck took in the sight. Dani was now a pretty young woman. She was wearing a gray T-shirt that read, What happens on the river, stays on the river, and tight-fitting jeans. Untied blue Converse sneakers. She had her mother’s wholesome looks—a rosy complexion, a few freckles dotting her cheeks, her hair between light brown and blond, and lots of it, thick, curls over her face, tied back in a bushy ponytail, and her mother’s eyes, glacier blue.
“He said you’d gotten yourself into some kind of trouble out here.” He grinned. “None that I can see, though.”
She shrugged. “None I couldn’t handle.”
“Of course not. You seem right at home in here. He said you needed someone to bail your ass out of here, so c’mon, pack up. Amazingly, Chief Dunn has agreed to entrust you to my care. As long as you’re a good girl.”
“Who decides what that means?” Dani turned up her nose.
“For the moment, me. Basically, if you don’t hit anyone on the way out or leave something vile in the toilet, you’re okay to leave. Oh yeah, and that you talk to me about whatever it is that’s got you all riled up and landed you in here, before you go on about it anymore.”
“Wade got to you, didn’t he?”
It had taken barely a minute, but Hauck thought he already had a sense of what it was the chief was talking about. The part of her that was more an enemy than a friend. “He didn’t get to me,” he said. “He talked to me. And if I was still a policeman trying to do my job with all that was going on here I might have done the same thing, too. Just to protect you.”
“Throw your own stepdaughter in a cell? Keep her locked up for two days.”
“If she wouldn’t keep her nose out of an official investigation? Or threatened to go to the press? Maybe.”
“Official investigation …” Dani chuffed and rolled her eyes. “Wade wouldn’t know an ‘official investigation’ from a tractor pull. He’s dropped the ball on this from day one. So that’s the deal, then? I have to shut my mouth and let them bury what’s possibly a murder of a friend under the rug, just so I can get out of here.” She crumpled her sweat shirt up and tossed it back on the cot. “I’ll stay.”
“The deal, Dani,” Hauck said, putting a key in the lock, “is that I haven’t seen you in about ten years and I’m here. And that your father was worried about you. Which I would damn well be as well if it was my Jessie. And all I had to promise, as you say, was that you would keep your mouth shut and not do anything stupid until you talked it over with me. Now does that sound like something you can do, or shall I tell the
m to order you up another Foot-Long Double Philly Cheesesteak …? Onions and peppers …”
“No …” She shrugged, her voice finally softening. “Don’t! I can’t take it anymore.” She finally broke down and grinned. “I think I gained five pounds in two days.”
“Then grab your stuff. And look at the bright side of this. I see a couple of things …”
“What?”
“One, that you get to spend a couple of days with me. Which is something I would like very much.”
“Me, too. And …?”
“Two—it’s not everyone who can say they were thrown in jail by their own stepfather.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“It’s been years.” Hauck said admiringly, at a cramped table at Allegria on Main Street. “Look at you.” He ordered the tuna melt on seven-grain bread and Dani a juice concoction of kale, celery, and zucchini that Hauck knew had to be over-the-top healthy given it was such an unappealing shade of green. “At least ten, I think. You’re a beauty. All grown up.”
“Since that time in Vermont. I was just a kid.”
“We were up at your father’s place at Catamount. And you weren’t a kid on that snowboard. Now I hear you’re rafting …”
“Whitewater guiding.” Dani corrected him. “It’s not exactly 3-D engineering, like my brother, but it pays the bills and keeps me in the fresh air. You ought to try it while you’re here.”
“We’ll see. I think my wild days are behind me,” Hauck said.
Dani scratched her chin with her thumb and index finger and grinned teasingly. “Not from what I see …”
“You mean the growth? Just a product of a bit too much time on my hands …”
“And the tan. You’re looking pretty smokin’, Uncle Ty, for an old dude. Some of my friends would be all over you. I’m gonna have to watch you while you’re here.”
Hauck laughed, still moving a little stiffly after being shot three times just a few months ago. But who wouldn’t like hearing a woman say that, even if it was your twenty-five-year-old goddaughter.
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