Antler Dust (The Allison Coil Mystery Series Book 1)

by Mark Stevens

  She would spring for the best bottle of champagne the hotel could muster and maybe tell him about the nine hundred thousand dollars, seed money for their lives together.

  “I would if I could,” said Slater. “That official ceremony will have to wait.”

  “I still feel nervous—and alone.”

  “Nobody’s forcing you to do anything.”

  “Could be we’re barking up the wrong tree,” she said, “or even poking around in the wrong forest.”

  She wanted Ray Stern’s killer caught more than anyone other than Stern’s mother. She imagined a conversation with Stern’s killer, Sandstrom right there to hear it all. Every delicious word from Stern’s killer, recounting his day of stupidity, would disprove Sandstrom’s assertion that she didn’t know where she had been when she heard the shot. Besides exonerating her memory, finding Stern’s killer would mean they had found the stupidest hunter in the country. It was one thing to mistake a moose for an elk or a doe for a buck, but a human? It was beyond the pale.

  “Then come on back,” said Slater. “Sandstrom claims it’s a full-court press. Somebody’s going to feel the pressure and crack. Count on it.”

  “So you want me to talk with these guys or not?”

  It didn’t seem as if Slater was really interested in absorbing and analyzing information that might be related to the whole snarl of events up on Ripplecreek. Whether or not her information was related, his general attitude was starting to piss her off.

  “I think you should leave it to the pros but I also think, from what I know, that it doesn’t matter much what I think.”

  “Don’t leave me feeling worried,” said Allison. “Say something to make me think you’d rather be right here.”

  There was a slight pause and Allison imagined Slater staring at the ceiling, hoping for inspiration.

  “Be careful,” said Slater. “I know you’ll be smart, but be careful too. I’d prefer you head home.”

  “That’s not exactly doing the trick,” said Allison.

  “I know,” said Slater, “but it’s the best I can do.”

  ****

  Sal Marcovicci lived in an old Victorian that overlooked a small lake on Denver’s west side. Canada geese pecked at the yellow-green grass on the park that rimmed the lake. She had picked up the phone to call Marcovicci as soon as she finished talking to Slater, allowing no time to brood on Slater’s words of caution.

  Marcovicci was the closest, so he got the first call. Was this hard—asking questions? No.

  Maybe a touch awkward? Definitely. Was she out of her element? For sure. Her head kept up the mantra.

  Nine hundred thousand dollars. Nine hundred thousand. Nine hundred. Thousand.

  The door opened before she could ring the bell.

  “That was quick.” Marcovicci was a short stub of a man.

  “Nice view of the lake and mountains,” said Allison.

  “Denver would be Kansas City without the mountains. So y’all may as well look at ’em. Come on in. You said you live in Ripplecreek?”

  She followed his chubby, molded-butter walk inside to a living room that dripped leather and absorbed light. Lots of ginger teak and black trim.

  He was all blobby roundness. The puffy, reddish orbs of his nostrils looked like miniature versions of his cheeks, which were surely stuffed with tissue. He offered her coffee, which she declined, and water, which she accepted.

  “I was up on top of Ripplecreek Valley, coming down, the day that protester was shot.”

  “I notice the cops can’t figure it out.” He clearly had no problem getting down to business.

  “Everybody notices the cops can’t figure it out. Haven’t so far, anyway. Your friend Dean Applegate—”

  “Haven’t talked to him since his switcheroo. None of us except

  Grumley really ever understood that dude.”

  “Us?”

  “Lockwood and Cassell and me. When Applegate took off that last day to go hunting, we kicked back and relaxed, played poker and listened to the wind howl. With the protesters, the best thing to do was to lay low, stay out of trouble. Who needed the hassle? Next thing we know, Applegate is on television or sprawled across the newspaper every time you turn around, talking about hunters being the animals. Now there’s a twist, coming from a guy who painted camouflage on his face like icing on a wedding cake.” Marcovicci patted his cheeks with both hands. “Excuse me, but what a weirdo.”

  “But Grumley liked him?”

  “They got along. Applegate might have had the stamina, but not a lick of technique.”

  “You’re a big hunter, too?” said Allison.

  “Come here, I’ll show you something.”

  Marcovicci led her around through the kitchen and down the back stairs.

  “I overhauled the basement three years ago, dug out the old cement floor and built myself the room I’ve always wanted.”

  Marcovicci snapped on a light.

  The room was a rainbow of browns—walls of tan paneling, animal heads mounted in various shades of brown, picture frames dark and woody, a long brown couch and an old mahogany desk. Dark bookshelves were filled with magazines and books that didn’t require a filing system to separate the subject matter. There was only one topic: hunting. One whole shelf of Field and Stream. Another of Sports Afield. There were books on tracking, camping, rifles and ammunition. And dozens of personal hunting pictures were mounted on the walls. One picture was in a frame made of wooden, hand-carved pistols.

  “My palace,” said Marcovicci.

  “You don’t seem like the hard-boiled hunter.”

  “Just something I love: the sport of it, the search and the science. And, of course, bringing home a winter’s worth of venison or elk steaks or whatever it might be. Hunters aren’t monsters; they’re mostly decent people following centuries-old urges. Think hunters do more damage to the countryside than skiers? What about all the ripped-up forests? What about hikers and mountain bikes, with all the trash and all the permanent trails? They turn hiking paths into bald highways. Applegate and his band of merry protesters haven’t a clue. Applegate should know better. It’s all so silly.”

  Allison sat down in the chair behind the desk and admired the shrine.

  “It’s always seemed to me, when I’m up there spending time with hunters, that there’s an awful lot of wilderness, a ton of animals. Most people who like to hunt also provide a service—thinning herds, being careful with the meat, the whole bit.”

  “Bingo,” said Marcovicci.

  “What about Applegate’s rifle?”

  “Maybe he sold it.”

  “He says he didn’t.”

  “Oh, really? You talked to him?”

  “Cops did. Glenwood Springs is a small town,” said Allison, anticipating the question. “Said he walked it back up into the mountains and tossed it off a cliff.”

  “Bullshit,” said Marcovicci. “One hundred percent pure. Look, let’s cut to the heart of the matter here.”

  “We need to know where Applegate was, where Grumley was and where Applegate’s rifle might be found, if anybody knows.”

  “You used the old ‘we’ thing.”

  “Sorry. I.” She smiled.

  “Why you?”

  “I’ve been asking myself the same question. I heard a shot up top by Black Squirrel Pass—”

  “Nothing unusual.”

  “And saw a man dragging something. Or somebody. By the time I got down and around to the spot, they were both gone. The man, that is, and whatever he was dragging. Except there was a dead elk right there, but the elk was too big to have been dragged anywhere. All this happened in the first hour or so of the storm. I’d love to turn this all over to the cops, but they don’t believe much of what I say and I know I don’t have any real trouble to point to.”

  Marcovicci took her story in with a stoic face, studying her. “Have you talked to Applegate?”

  “Haven’t yet,” he said.

  “You p
lan to?”

  “At some point. It makes sense. And what if I know something? Why would I tell you?”

  “Because I asked.”

  Was that enough?

  It didn’t take a detective to read his nervousness or a book to interpret the body language.

  “So if I come up with the rifle, you might be able to figure it out if that rifle’s in trouble?” he asked.

  “I’d get it to the proper authorities.”

  “Have you talked to Grumley or the others?” “No,” she said firmly.

  “But you know Grumley?”

  “Small valley. He’s a big name.”

  “But you haven’t talked to him?”

  “Like I said.”

  “Is he the issue?”

  “Doubtful,” she said. “Maybe. Who knows?”

  “Whatever, look. I don’t have to be connected to any of this? Identified as a source?”

  “About the rifle, I wouldn’t think so. Cops need a witness about Applegate’s movements—”

  “He wasn’t up near Lizard’s Tongue, or anywhere up by Black Squirrel.”

  “When did you last see his rifle?” she said.

  “A good question that I’m not going to answer,” he said.

  “If you change your mind about that, do you know where to reach me?”

  “Write down your information, in case I need it.”

  She scratched out her name and the main number at Pete Weaver’s.

  “Couple of days, do you think?” she said.

  “Maybe.”

  They shook hands at the door. His grip was warm and soft like fresh marshmallows.

  “Did you really see something?”

  “Yes,” she said, “and it wasn’t pretty.”

  “And you think this will help, even though there’s no way Applegate was up there?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m following my nose. Seeing if the pieces will come back together.”

  ****

  It was a long way from the straight lines, white carpet and contemporary furniture in his suburban townhouse.

  The ceiling rafters at headquarters were exposed. The office was wide open, democratic. It was filled with men and women who believed in the earth. Within minutes of starting work, Dean Applegate realized he would need a few scruffy edges if he was going to blend in with the scene. Unshaved armpits were popular with the women. They even wore dresses that advertised this preference. In a political sense, they had organized a commune with their own code for dress, manner, attitude, diet, lingo and scent. Everything tended toward natural. That meant, of course, unpleasant at times. Teams rotated providing lunch, which was a time for airing complaints or shooting the shit. There was a camp of workers who looked for the publicity angle in every wisp of an issue. There was another, smaller group who sought to wage this war on a more intellectual level. The publicity hounds were always looking to mount an event dramatic enough that news directors and reporters couldn’t resist. Applegate had never realized how the news could be so easily controlled. Anything “visual” did the trick. Applegate was often asked for an opinion on this strategy or that issue, but it was more to make conversation than anything else. Ellenberg made the final decisions.

  A few members of the FATE fold trusted him completely. Others seemed less certain about his conversion. Every national interview he conducted routinely attracted thousands of dollars in contributions, so they couldn’t ignore him. But he wasn’t one of them. It was all heart for them, especially for the young women. The cement in their foundations was still setting. There was lots of talk about cross-country skiing and vegetarian cooking. It was all subject to change, thought Applegate, on the whims of the right guy.

  He helped install new computer programs to track donations and pump out newsletters. He installed some of his own software in the organization’s computers: better word processing systems, a more sophisticated spreadsheet program, an income tax program. He worked on their network. He took over design and construction of their website and made it more interactive. He bounced from project to project, discussion to discussion.

  The hardest day, his third back in the city, was when Ellenberg came back from a photo studio with a long cardboard tube tucked under her arm. After lunch she gathered the staff around. She removed the tube’s contents gingerly, as if it were a centuries-old treasure map. She rolled out a life-size photograph of Ray Stern.

  It was a candid shot. Ray Stern looked like he’d been caught off guard. The backdrop was solid grass. He was leaning back on his arms, content. Black and chocolate puppies crawled all over his stomach and legs. Labradors, Applegate guessed. One had scampered up on Ray Stern’s chest and was busy licking his cheek.

  The staff gasped as she held it up.

  “His brother sent me the image,” Ellenberg announced. “Thought we’d hang it on the wall where you get off the elevator. Any objections?”

  “Of course not,” said one idealistic, herb-tea type. Nobody else spoke.

  “Dean,” said Ellenberg, “could you help frame it and get it hung up?”

  There was a black cloud in his head. Some days it floated off to the edge of the horizon and he didn’t even notice it. From time to time it rushed back, blown by a curiously quick wind.

  “Sure,” he said.

  Ten

  Allison was unsure of the idea from the moment it occurred to her—but how would Trudy Grumley say no? Politely, if at all.

  The horses, Bear and Stingray, a gray Arabian, were hitched to the outside of the trailer, saddled and ready. It had been only fifteen minutes since she left the horses along the riverside and drove the rest of the way up to Trudy’s. Allison didn’t mention anything to Trudy about the idea until she stopped her truck next to the trailer, which was parked in a wide spot on the road.

  “Yours?” said Trudy.

  “Ours, at least for a couple hours,” said Allison. “Game?”

  “I haven’t ridden since high school.”

  “Then you know there’s nothing to it. I’ve already told Bear to be especially gentle. He’s a rock anyway and hard to fluster. There’s a trail that leads up along the banks of the river. It’s a bit chilly, especially with the wind, but I brought an extra coat that Weaver loaned me.”

  She held it up: full length, brown, leather.

  “I’m—”

  “Nervous? Don’t be.”

  “This is so ... I don’t know. Either I’m at home or in the car with somebody else driving.”

  “But you’re game.”

  “Sort of.”

  “Okay then.”

  Allison helped Trudy up on the saddle. Trudy smiled. “Whew,” she said, “the view.”

  “What’s for lunch?” said Allison, loading Trudy’s Tupperware into Bear’s saddlebags.

  “Tuna and pickle sandwiches with sprouts on sourdough, yogurt-covered raisins, fresh mango slices, cranberry-almond muffins and whole-wheat Fig Newtons.”

  “Fig Newtons?”

  “Like ’em?”

  “God’s gift to guides. A staple.”

  “I hope it doesn’t remind you of work.”

  “Not a chance.”

  Allison led them down a gentle path to the river’s edge. They waited for a few minutes while the horses dipped their snouts in a calm eddy. The river bubbled cold and white and blue, rippling around snowcapped stones.

  “Warm enough?” said Allison.

  “Like a summer day,” said Trudy, the cool wind flipping her long hair off her shoulder.

  They rode slowly along the river, heading downstream. Allison watched as Trudy turned her head to the sun, closed her eyes and basked in the fresh air. It was Allison who had called and said they needed to talk, but there was no hurry, no reason to press things. It was all too unsettling.

  The path dipped down along the river, far enough below the road that for a half mile or so they were alone in the wilderness, like explorers. The lone signs of civilization were a distant set of powe
r lines and the well-trampled trail. They watched a fly fisherman working a pool, aiming his hook at one particular spot over and over, his concentration so intense that he didn’t notice them coming up alongside him. When the fly finally landed, a plump trout exploded up from beneath the surface and snagged the bait.

  “Woolly booger?” said Allison.

  “Works every time,” said the fisherman.

  “Beautiful,” said Trudy.

  The fisherman held up his catch for them to study. Sunlight glinted off the multi-colored skin for a flash. Gently, the fisherman held the prize underwater and let it go.

  Trudy clucked Bear along, clearly getting used to this. Allison took a moment to stretch and look back upstream and to the west, checking the skies. A man sat on the guardrails high above them. Allison could barely make out the top of a brown pickup behind him. For a second Allison thought the man was simply shielding his eyes from the sun. Light reflected off a small pair of binoculars. The man was not wearing a coat; he hadn’t been outside long. Allison stared back. Trudy had gone ahead around a corner and out of sight. It was probably nothing. Allison trotted to catch up.

  They walked the horses for an hour in silence. Finally they found a spot where a good-sized boulder shielded the wind and nature had built a dry, grassy embankment a few feet above the water’s surface. They weren’t too far below the road. They could hear the occasional car or truck overhead, but it was an easy trade-off for the windbreak. Allison tied the horses to a scrub oak a few yards further downstream, huddled down with Trudy next to the warm rock and cracked each of them a split of wine.

  “Screw-top. Sorry,” said Allison.

  “Like I’m complaining,” said Trudy with a broad smile.

  “Chilean merlot,” said Allison. “Here’s to mountain rivers.”

  They clinked glasses and took a sip. Trudy let out a small, satisfying sigh.

  Trudy picked at her food casually, unhurriedly, as Allison started talking about the Gulfstream. Allison eventually got to the point of this meeting by telling Trudy about the information she had gathered off the Internet at Reitano’s office. She described pulling the state records that listed public debts, which documented the money Trudy’s husband had borrowed at the outset to buy his plane and to launch his sporting goods store.