The car rolled to a noisy stop on the gravel, and his father lumbered out from behind the wheel, grabbing for the door to retain his balance. It was cooler here despite a powerful sun. Walt tugged on a sweatshirt he’d thrown into the backseat.
“Get the cage,” his father ordered while pissing only feet from the car. His father zipped up his pants and came around the car, shielding his eyes to survey up the mountain. Then he looked back down the road from where they’d come. He wore the revolver on his belt in a leather holster that carried an insignia. From the backseat he withdrew the stained towel that he now unwrapped to reveal a twelve-gauge, over-under, double-barreled shotgun. Sunlight flickered dimly off its polished barrels, as his old man tucked the gun beneath his left armpit.
Now Walt understood what his father had in mind, why he’d been sworn to secrecy. He knew, too, not to question or go up against his father when he’d been drinking. So he drew the cage from the Pinto, his hands shaking, his knees weak.
“Dad…,” He pleaded, breaking his own rules.
“Shut up!” his father snapped. “This is what’s called the laws of nature. This, son, is real justice. You ask a person any fucking number of times to get the fucking cat off your property…and then you take matters into your own hands. You remember that.”
He would, as it turned out.
But it had been Walt’s hands, not his father’s, that had captured Chippers. Walt’s hands that had trapped Chippers in the cage. Walt who had been giddy about joining his father. For this…
“Release the prisoner,” his father said.
He shook his head, fighting back the tears.
“Do it, son.”
“Can’t we just let him go?”
“That’s all you’re doing.”
“But…the shotgun.”
“Release the prisoner,” he repeated.
Walt hesitated, the first tears escaping.
“OPEN THE FUCKING CAGE!” His father hollered so loudly that his voice echoed off the mountain.
Walt opened the cage, and a bewildered Chippers jumped out. The cat landed on the rocky ground behind the car and walked a tight circle, its nose working furiously. Walt sniffled. The cat sprang away from him and scampered up the scree toward a stand of Douglas fir.
Walt’s father trotted after the cat, across to the copse of trees. Walt turned toward the lake, its surface peaceful and still. He covered both ears, pressing hard, and sank to his knees, his nose running.
His whole body jumped with the reports-a cramp from head to foot. Wind riffled the surface of the lake.
They rode back in a sickening silence, his father glancing over at him from time to time but never speaking. His father occasionally broke into a grin and chuckled morbidly to himself. Walt hated him-a hate beyond anything he’d ever experienced, so dark and awful that he even considered turning the shotgun on his father and killing him right there. Killing them both, if it came to that-jerking on the wheel and sending the car over the unguarded edge of Trail Creek pass.
For the next two years his mother tried to negotiate a truce between them, having no idea of the cause of their break. She mentioned Chippers’s absence one night at dinner; Walt and his father exchanged glances, but that was all. His father came and went, rarely staying more than a long weekend, the time between those weekends increasing, which didn’t bother Walt one bit. He and his brother, Bobby, took over putting out the garbage, fixing the heat tape on the roof ahead of the first snow, shoveling the path and driveway. His father returned like an unnamed planet, and then left as quickly as he’d come. Back to his darkness.
Walt finally broke the silence after waiting for his old man to get in his car, about to leave for another several months. Walt tapped on the window. Jerry rolled down the glass and sat there waiting.
“I’ll never forgive you,” Walt said.
He turned and walked away, at twelve years old, an orphan.
Three
W alt could enter a dark garage knowing there was an armed man inside, but something about a hospital gave him the creeps.
The semiprivate room had one empty bed. Walt passed under a flickering TV and stopped abruptly. Glowing monitors connected to his nephew with wires and tubes. The boy’s head was shaved and bandaged. Purple bruising surrounded his right eye socket. A line of stitches at the edge of his lips extended his mouth into a lopsided snarl.
Myra sat in a chair close to the bed. She directed a sullen, resentful expression at Walt. “You could have prevented this.”
“ Myra -”
“Mom,” Kevin muttered. “Not his fault.”
She turned and took his hand gently in hers. “Back to sleep. It’s only Walt.”
“Hey, Kev.”
The boy’s eyes, bloodshot and swollen, found Walt.
“Eric?” The boy spoke with difficulty.
“No talking, Kev,” Myra said. “Back to sleep.”
“Eric’s okay,” Walt said. He saw relief in the boy’s only eye.
“Thank God,” Kevin said.
“I’m here as your uncle. First and foremost my concern is with your health and your speedy recovery. But we talked about this before, Kevin: I’m the sheriff, and I’ve got to talk to you about this.”
“But we can do this later,” Myra said.
“Ketchum police are going to want to talk to him, Myra. They’re going to charge him. I need to hear it first if we’re going to help him.”
“Doesn’t matter to me. It’s okay, Mom.”
“The boy is doped up.”
“It’s up to Kevin.”
“I’m okay, Mom. Please.”
Myra huffed, but sat back in the chair.
The bloody eye blinked. “We wanted clothes,” he said, “some nice clothes.”
“Go on.”
“Me and Eric thought we could lift some clothes from the Suds. So we…like…scoped the place. Checked it out. You know. Parked around the corner.” He paused, worked his mouth side to side and started again. “Eric said he could pick a lock, but he ended up kicking it in.”
“Eric kicked the door in,” Walt clarified.
“We got inside and the alarm went off. We freaked. Eric went for the window-don’t ask me why. I took off and hit a pole, I guess.”
“Why the window, if the door’s kicked in?”
“I dunno.”
“Why Suds Tub over something like the Goldmine?”
Kevin grimaced and then winced with pain. “I don’t know.”
“Walt?” Myra whined “What’s going on?”
“Ketchum police will think this had to do with the dry cleaning chemicals. Chemicals to huff, to cook meth-whatever.”
“No way,” Kevin said.
“If one of your friends coerced you and Eric into doing this, that’s a whole different thing. Legally, I mean.”
“No.”
“Kevin?” the boy’s mother questioned.
“You start making things up, Kev, that’s a quagmire. You know what a quagmire is?” Walt saw hesitation on his face.
“My head hurts. I gotta stop now.”
“Kevin,” his mother said sharply.
“Not now, Mom.”
Walt stepped closer to the bed and looked down at the boy. “I’m giving you a chance that the Ketchum officers won’t.”
“The alarm went off. We panicked,” the boy said. “I’m going to sleep now.” He closed his eye tightly.
Walt’s radio squawked. He listened as the dispatcher called out a series of codes followed by “…dba: Aker’s Veterinarian Services.” He checked his watch: 2 A.M. Two break-ins in one night. He called in. The vet’s clinic was outside city limits and less than half a mile south of the hospital. Walt was the closest officer.
“I gotta go,” he told her. “But I’ll be back.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “And neither is he.”
Four
A Ketchum Police Department squad car, its rack flashing red, white, and blue
, was parked at a hurried angle in front of the clinic’s log cabin entrance. The front door had been left open and the lights were on. He saw the uniformed officer inside, using the phone.
Walt parked the Cherokee and took over responsibility from the Ketchum cop. Brandon was the next to arrive, his trailer only a quarter mile down the road. The two men couldn’t look at each other. Mark Aker’s pickup truck pulled in and, much to Walt’s surprise, so did Fiona’s Subaru.
Aker hurried into the building. Brandon followed. Fiona collected her camera gear. She wore what could have been pajama bottoms and a faded pink T-shirt under a down vest and a pair of blue Keens.
“I’m right up the hill in the Engls’ guesthouse. I heard the siren,” she explained.
“If you’re here as part of my office,” he said, “you’re welcome inside. If you’re here for the newspaper, I’d ask you to hang back.”
“Understood. I’m here for you,” she said.
They caught up to Aker in an exam room. Walt spotted the broken cabinet and the busted padlock clasp on a refrigerator.
“Meds?” he said.
“Knew what they were looking for.” Aker donned a pair of latex gloves and looked through the cabinet.
Fiona stepped away from them and began photographing.
Aker glanced out the window, shouted, “Oh, shit!” and hurried outside.
Walt followed as he crossed the courtyard. Aker entered the back barn and threw on some exterior lights. Animal eyes-dozens of them-peered from the dark.
“They let them all out!” Aker shouted. Walt followed at a run into the back barn. Empty, the cage doors hanging open.
Aker cursed a blue streak, pacing back and forth. “Most of these are sick animals.”
“How many?” Walt asked.
The vet shook his head and shot him a hot look. “They’re under my care,” he mumbled. He threw open another door, looking across a second small courtyard. “Oh, God…My training dogs…I can’t believe this! Who would do such a thing?”
Walt thought he knew the answer to that. “ Brandon!” he shouted. His deputy came running, arriving out of breath. Walt said, “When you followed Bartholomew, did you happen to find out where he was staying?”
Five
W alt rolled down the window to fight off the internal heat that arose from him sitting two feet from Tommy Brandon. The Cherokee passed into Ketchum city limits. “Is she there? Did you leave her there when the on-call came through?”
“I think maybe this is between you and her,” Brandon said.
“This is me asking you if my wife was in your trailer when you got the call.” Walt waited for Brandon to say something. “If you’re going to sleep with my wife, you could at least own up to it.”
“She’s there,” he said, turning to face the passenger window.
Walt gripped the wheel more tightly. “How long?”
“Sheriff…”
“A month? Six months? What?”
“Turn right,” Brandon instructed. He navigated Walt through back streets to a Trail Creek condominium that he and Fiona had identified while following Bartholomew.
“I didn’t even know these condos were here.”
“Brand-new,” Brandon told him.
Walt shot him a look. Did he mean the condos or his relationship with Gail? He let it go, realizing he’d already gone too far. But the guy was fucking his wife, so he expected a little slack.
To him condos all looked the same.
On his fourth ringing of the doorbell, he heard footsteps. He and Brandon displayed the creds for the benefit of the door’s fish-eye lens. Bartholomew opened the door, barely awake.
“A few questions,” Walt said.
“My attorney,” Bartholomew grumbled. He scratched the crotch of his boxer shorts. “I’ll write down the number.” Before Walt could object he’d shut the door. When he opened it again he had a phone to his ear and his hair had been finger combed into place. “Not answering,” he said. He set the phone on the side table. “Why don’t we try this again tomorrow morning.”
“We can do this in Hailey, if you like,” Walt said. “Hailey, as in taking a ride.”
“Because?”
“The local vet’s was broken into and all the animals liberated. Sound familiar?”
Walt considered himself to be a good judge of character. If that was the case, Bartholomew knew nothing about the break-in.
“It’s three in the morning. I’m hungover. And you’ve got us wrong: First Rights is focused on child labor and every human’s right to free speech. I do not condone or support militant animal rights groups. Not now, not ever.” He rubbed his head. “It’s too late for this.”
If not politics, had the animals been released as a ruse to cover the theft of medical supplies?
He thanked Bartholomew and said good night. The bewildered man stood watching as he and Brandon returned to the Cherokee.
“What just happened?” Brandon asked from the passenger seat.
Walt kept his eye on the road as he asked, “What does she see in you? Or is it all about the sex right now?”
They drove in silence, not a word spoken, for the return to the vet’s. As he parked the car Walt said, “We have two kids, you know,” and left Brandon in the car thinking about that.
Six
T revalian heard a woman’s voice say, “Isn’t that him?” It came from the hotel’s registration desk. His instinct was to flee.
He turned and headed up the stairwell, pretending he’d not heard her comment.
At 3 A.M. the hotel lobby was empty. The woman at registration had to have been speaking to someone. The hotel detective?
He cautioned himself to stay calm. They couldn’t possibly connect him to the recent events. He’d changed shirts. Donned a jacket. Shaler’s clothes were in the knapsack slung over his right shoulder.
“Sir? Mr. Meisner?” A male voice a few feet behind him.
He knows my name.
Trevalian stopped and turned on the stairs. He was looking at a man in his mid-forties, fit and darkly tanned. A full head of hair. He’d sprung up the stairs like a ballerina.
“Yes?” Trevalian said.
“I wonder if you might have a minute?”
“You are?”
“Neil Parker.” He offered a business card. Sun Valley Company. Guest services.
“It’s three in the morning.”
“There’s been an…incident,” Parker said.
Two things occurred to Trevalian: They’d found the compound he’d cooked, or they had him for the break-ins.
“It’s a situation that requires discretion on all our parts,” Parker said.
“I’m afraid it’s very late, and I’m very tired and I don’t understand.” Trevalian evaluated his chances of breaking the guy’s neck without any noise. Not great.
Parker climbed another step.
Trevalian extended his hand to stop the man. “I don’t like tight spaces,” he explained. He could knee the man in the face from this position.
Parker lowered his voice. “There’s been an incident with one of our staff. A Ms. Cunningham.” He answered Trevalian’s blank expression. “Lilly Cunningham. Our lounge singer in the Duchin Lounge. I believe you met Lilly.”
He said nothing, wondering if he’d been set up. She’d managed to get into his room; she’d drunk his booze. An extortion racket?
“There’s been an assault. All I need is five minutes. Really. I’d rather not do this in a stairwell.”
“Do what?”
“Lilly remembered your room number. That’s how I got your name.”
Trevalian said nothing.
“She said you got a look at the man,” Parker explained. “A possible suspect. These can be tricky cases to prove. He-said, she-said.”
“A matter for the authorities,” Trevalian said. “Please leave me out of it.”
“She’s not pressing charges. The police are not involved. But if we can confirm the man’s ide
ntity, he will never set foot on company property again.”
Trevalian doubted the explanation. “I saw her with a man. But I’m afraid I didn’t get a good look at him.”
Parker’s face fell. “Anything about him would help. We’d like to get rid of this guy.”
Trevalian spoke, bringing the man into his confidence. “Let me put it this way: If you saw Lilly and some guy in the hallway, who would you be looking at?”
“Yeah…I hear you.”
“I’m sorry,” Trevalian said, “but that’s how it was.”
The man appeared crushed. “Listen, you remember anything, give me a call. The front desk can find me.”
“My apologies to Ms. Cunningham.”
“The difference is,” Parker said, more determined than ever, “you can choose not to be involved. But Lilly’s going to climb back up on that stage with that creep out there looking at her.”
“I’ll sleep on it,” Trevalian said. He rounded the landing and hurried up the stairs, thinking there was precious little time for sleep.
His mind had briefly been elsewhere-a mistake he rarely made. He had a switch to make, and, if possible, he wanted to do it now, while it was still dark out.
Seven
C ivil twilight was listed as 5:41 A.M., a naval term referring to the first glimpse of a defined horizon. Trevalian didn’t want the horizon or himself defined or glimpsed as he made the switch, and so two hours after being stopped by the hotel security man, and an hour before civil twilight, he made his way out of a ground-floor exit as Rafe Nagler. Toey, the German shepherd service dog, pulled at the harness at his side.
The first of these switches was changing Nagler to Meisner, for a blind man could not be seen climbing behind the wheel of a car. At 5 A.M. the Sun Valley grounds stood deserted, nothing but faux gas lamps and vacant sidewalks. He followed sidewalks from the lodge to the indoor ice rink and a dark open-ended shed that contained a backup Zamboni. He used the shed as a changing room, stripping off and pocketing Nagler’s facial hair, wig, and glasses. He dumped the sport coat there-the only evidence he would leave behind for the next hour-revealing the black fleece vest that had been hiding beneath it. He quickly clipped a leash to Toey’s collar and unfastened the harness, concealing it up his back, inside the fleece vest. He let the string leash play out, to where Toey had a twenty-foot lead, and the two made their way out into the giant parking lot that serviced the resort.
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