01 Storm Peak

by John Flanagan

  Jesse sat silently. But his brain was racing. The wound that Lee had described had rung a bell with him. He’d seen wounds like that before. Still, he’d wait till he’d had a good sight of the corpse before he committed himself. Maybe he was wrong.

  He sensed the occasional glances Lee shot his way as they drove. He smiled ruefully to himself.

  They’d stayed in touch in the years he’d spent in Denver. She went down for his wedding to Abby, then, later, spent hours on the phone letting him talk out the details of the divorce. They’d see each other on weekends when he drove up to Steamboat to ski. They’d swap stories of cases and investigations the way cops do everywhere.

  And never, not once, in all those years, did either of them mention the time when they had been lovers.

  So in light of that, it bothered Jesse somewhat these days that the images of that time kept recurring to him at the most unlikely and inconvenient times.

  And it was happening more and more frequently.

  FOUR

  Alexander Howell’s body was covered by a sheet. Jesse reached up and lifted the covering away from the dead man’s face.

  The skin was a light shade of blue by now and the body was already stiff. He looked critically at the evidence of internal bleeding around the chin and neck, then, with thumb and forefinger, tilted the dead man’s chin up so he could see the entry wound. He nodded once when he saw it. It was as he had suspected when Lee had first described the injury. He flipped the sheet back over the victim’s face and rolled the drawer back in again. He stripped off the surgical gloves and dropped them in a bin.

  “Seen enough?” Lee was watching him expectantly.

  “It looks like what I thought it might be,” he replied and she cocked her head interrogatively, motioning for him to continue.

  “Looks like a jigger,” he explained.

  Lee frowned. “A jigger? What in all hell is a jigger?” she asked. He wiped his hands absentmindedly on his jeans. In spite of the gloves, his fingers still felt slightly clammy and cold from their contact with the corpse. They always did. He knew it was his imagination, but he kept on wiping them anyway.

  “Very popular with the white street gangs down in Aurora a few years back,” he explained. “Full name was a ‘Nigger Jigger.’ ”

  He saw the instant look of distaste cross Lee’s face and hurriedly disclaimed, “I didn’t make the name up, Lee. Just telling you what they called it.”

  She leaned her rump on the edge of the autopsy table behind her.

  “Okay, so what exactly is a jigger?” she asked.

  “Basically, it’s a spring-loaded spike concealed in a handle-usually about ten inches long. You cock the spike down into the handle, place it under the chin of your victim and release the trigger.”

  Lee was nodding her understanding. “And the spring does the rest.” she said. “That explains how such a powerful blow can be delivered with such accuracy.”

  He nodded. “Exactly. And, the handle itself can be disguised as something totally innocuous. Then you just have to poke it at your victim, hit the trigger and—bing!” He gestured to show how easy it could be.

  Lee began to pace around the room, talking as she went, more to herself than him.

  “So … we’re looking for someone who used to be in one of those white street gangs down in Aurora …” she said.

  Jesse shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe someone who just knows how to make himself a jigger.”

  She stopped and looked at him. “Do you enjoy making things hard for an honest cop?” she asked, with a slight smile.

  He spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “It’s the only way honest cops like it,” he said.

  She gave him that same exasperated look. “You want a coffee?” she asked and he nodded his acceptance. She led the way out of the cold room, switching off the light behind them and continued up to her office on the next floor. Tom Legros was on duty and she sent him to get them both a cup of coffee from the kitchen they shared with the fire brigade. She unbuckled her gunbelt and dropped it, clattering, on the desktop. Then she dropped into her seat and swung her boots up onto the scarred wood beside the gun.

  Jesse eyed the single action .44 Magnum in the holster with amused tolerance.

  “Still using that old Ruger, I see?” he asked her.

  “Never saw a reason to change,” she replied.

  Jesse pursed his lips slightly as he considered her answer. “You should try one of those new Berettas they’re issuing these days,” he suggested.

  Lee shook her head slowly. “Not fond of autos,” she replied. “One round jams and that’s all she wrote. At least with a revolver, you can just roll right on to the next chamber.”

  “So … look after your ammunition and make sure you don’t have a round jamming. With one of those Berettas, you can crank off thirteen nine-millimeter rounds before the bad guy has a chance to move.”

  Lee nodded, allowing the point. Then added, with devastating logic, “Never usually need more than one round myself.”

  Jesse grinned at her. “I’ll bet you don’t at that,” he admitted. “You must be the world’s most parsimonious woman with your ammunition. Anyone’d think the county made you buy your own.”

  “They do,” she replied morosely, leaning forward to slide open the top left-hand drawer on her desk. She took out a heavy pistol in a regulation belt holster and tossed it across the desk to him. “They only supply me with rounds for this useless damn Beretta.”

  Jesse shook his head slowly, examining the big, blue-black automatic that she’d passed him. “You’re still stubborn as ever then,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.

  Lee shrugged. “I get used to a gun, I like to keep it she said simply. “What about you? You telling me you used one of those teeny short barrel .38s they issue to detectives when you were down in Denver?”

  “Not exactly,” Jesse grinned, conceding the point.

  “I thought not,” said Lee. “My guess is you hung on to that old 1911 Colt auto of yours. Right?”

  “That’s right enough. As you say, you get used to a gun, you want to keep it.”

  “And those old Colts, they certainly had some stopping power,” Lee mused, and instantly regretted it. She saw the quick flash of pain that crossed Jesse’s face. Then it was buried under his usual inscrutable mask.

  “They certainly did,” he said. There was an awkward silence for a few seconds. Lee knew she’d put her high-heeled foot right in it there, but couldn’t find a way to get out of the predicament. Fortunately, the silence was broken as Tom Legros pushed open the unlatched door with his hip, and entered with two mugs of coffee.

  “Here you go, Sheriff, Jesse,” he said cheerfully, setting the mugs down. He glanced curiously at the Beretta on the desk between them. Reminded of its presence, Lee leaned forward and scooped it into the drawer again.

  Tom leaned against the nearest of the two filing cabinets that graced Lee’s office, arms folded.

  “So, Jess, any ideas on our victim in there?” he asked. Jesse shrugged noncommittally. Lee answered her deputy.

  “Jess thinks the murder weapon was a gizmo called a “jigger,”’ she said. “A spring-loaded spike that you push up against the victim, then trigger off.”

  Tom shook his head, wondering. “Never did hear of anything like that,” he said.

  He thought about it for a second or two, then pushed himself away from the filing cabinet and headed for the door.

  “Meant to tell you, Sheriff, some of the local kids have been causing a ruckus out at Payne’s Crossing on their snowmobiles. Thought I’d better get down there and take a look around.”

  “Couldn’t the town police look after that, Tom?” Lee asked him. “We’re going to have our hands full around here.”

  Tom Legros rubbed his jaw. “They’re saying it’s not their jurisdiction. Payne’s Crossing is way past the town limits.”

  Lee sighed. Everyone had manpower problems. “Take care of it
then, Tom,” she said. After a pause, she added, “Don’t be too hard on them. They’re just kids, after all.”

  Tom touched a finger to the brim of his Stetson. “I’ll attend to it,” he said, and went out, hitching up his gunbelt as he went. Jesse was interested to see that he also wore a non-regulation, single action peacemaker. He wondered if it was Lee’s influence, decided it probably was.

  “He’s a good man,” he said. Lee nodded her agreement.

  “Not the most imaginative person I’ve ever met,” she said. “But he’s painstaking and he’s stubborn. He doesn’t give up once he’s started on something.”

  “Good qualities to have in a cop,” Jesse replied, and yawned. “Guess I’d better be getting home.”

  Lee started to rise from behind her desk.

  “I’ll drive you back to the Tugboat,” she said, but he waved her back down again, checking his watch.

  “Shuttle bus’ll be picking up outside the Harbor in a few minutes,” he said. “You’ve got work to do.”

  She sighed and sank back. “That’s true.” Adding, a moment later, “I hate this kind of case, Jess. Don’t know how you stood it down in Denver.”

  He looked at her, a little puzzled. “This kind of case, Lee? What other kind is there?”

  “Oh … you know,” she gestured vaguely. “A guy holds up a convenience store and takes off for the high country. That sort of case. I know what I’m doing, where I’m going, who I’m after. I just head out after whoever it is, catch him and bring him back.”

  “Just like that,” Jesse interrupted, smiling slightly.

  But Lee didn’t pick up on the irony. “That’s right. It’s black and white. You’ve got a reason, a crime and a motive. It’s straightforward. Not like this.” She gestured with her thumb in the vague direction of the morgue and Alexander Howell’s body.

  “There’s always a reason, Lee,” Jesse said gently. “You’ve just got to find it, that’s all.”

  FIVE

  The first killing had been almost too easy.

  He wondered how long it would take the local cops to catch on to the hint he’d left. Wondered if they would be bright enough to realize that the body’s hand simply couldn’t have jammed in the hatch accidentally. It was all part of the game he’d begun to play with them. All part of focusing their attention. Well, the next one should do just that, he thought. Because the next one would be different. The next one would be a total puzzle.

  That is, if tonight’s experiment proved successful.

  He’d had to wait ten minutes for an opportunity to board the gondola without anyone else being around. But he was prepared to be patient. Patience, in fact, was going to be essential to his task as the next few weeks unfolded. He was going to have to wait for the right conditions every time. And he was prepared to do so.

  As the cabin slid quickly down the mountain from Thunderhead, he noticed with some satisfaction that the inside light, combined with the misting of the windows and the darkness outside, made the other cabins nothing but vague blurs. So far so good. Working quickly but with no undue haste, he slipped off the rucksack and began to unpack his equipment. The seventy-foot coil of rope came first. He knotted it securely to the chest harness that he was already wearing under the long-line parka.

  Next, he took the lever jack that he’d built himself in his workshop back home. He fitted the two ends into the rubber seal of the gondola doors and wrenched the lever suddenly. With the mechanical advantage of the lever system, the doors were thrust open about two feet—sufficient to give him egress.

  There was a length of two-by-two pine in the rucksack. He found it and jammed it between the doors to keep them open. The lever jack, released, went back in his rucksack. Then, standing in the open doorway, he reached up to the roof of the car, passing the free end of the rope through the rail that ran around the top edge. He formed the rope into a loop over itself, inserted it into the abseiling loop on his harness and dropped it clear into the night below. He glanced at his watch. Just under two minutes. Plenty of time. He shouldered the rucksack again, then retrieved his skis from the racks on the outside of the door. They were fastened together and a looped strap went quickly over his shoulder, where he could discard it in a matter of seconds. He slipped an abseiling glove onto his right hand and, holding the rail above the doorway, stepped out to hang outside the cabin, his feet resting on a small ledge at the base of the gondola. He took up the tension on the rope, jamming his right hand into his side to lock it for a few seconds, then released his left-handed grip on the railing. He balanced there, supported by the rope, his feet braced against the cabin. He raised his right foot and kicked one end of the pine-door holder. The piece of timber spun clear, dropping away into the night, and the doors sighed shut in front of him.

  He checked his watch again. Three minutes. Just about perfect, he thought. Then, unjamming his right hand from his side, he allowed the abseil rope to run smoothly through the ring and drop away into the darkness beneath the gondola.

  He began spinning slowly as he descended, and he was annoyed that he hadn’t thought of that possibility. Still, he reasoned, it was no big deal. He’d simply have to time his release over the last few feet to a moment when he was facing downhill. He flicked on the flashlight attached to the side of his rucksack. Pointing vertically down, it had a red lens designed to throw a visible light on the snow below him, to give him a reference point and help him judge height. He looked down between his legs now and saw it—a small red dot sliding over the snow, a little faster than a man could run.

  He slid farther down the rope until he judged that the red dot of light was no more than twelve feet below him. Then he shrugged off the strap retaining the skis and let them drop to the snow.

  As they hit, he released another eight feet of rope in a rush and slid down to where he was skimming just above the surface of the Heavenly Daze run. He’d timed the release of the skis perfectly. As he hit his final point and checked for a moment, he was facing almost directly downhill. He let the last four feet of rope slide through his bands, felt his feet brushing the surface of the snow, bent his knees and let the rope go entirely.

  He hit, absorbing the shock with his flexed knees, and rolled.

  There was little impact from the height he’d dropped. The main effect was from the speed he was traveling. But he’d landed on almost friction-free snow and he simply allowed himself to roll.

  It was easier than a parachute landing, he thought.

  Above him, the gondola cable creaked and hummed as it carried the cabin away down the hill. The released end of the rope snaked up farther and farther until it eventually passed over the rail again and fell in an almost straight line down the hill below him. He began pulling it in, coiling it between his elbow and his wrist as he retrieved it, then finally stowed it back in his rucksack.

  He took a moment to dust the snow off his clothing, then looked up again at the dim shapes of the gondola cars passing overhead. He allowed himself a small grin of satisfaction.

  “This is going to work just fine,” he said.

  And turning, he began to trudge up the hill to find his skis.

  Jesse Parker awoke in an instant and sat up straight in bed.

  “Damn!” he said. “He wanted us to find it!”

  It was chilly in the large room that served as both sitting room and bedroom in his small cabin. The wood-burning stove in the corner was damped right down. There was only a faint glow from the thick, heatproof window in the door. He shivered and reached for a sweater tossed on the chair beside the bed.

  It was after three o’clock in the morning. A half moon had risen over Rabbit Ear Pass and its pale light, amplified by the snow all around, was pouring through the uncurtained windows of the cabin. Jesse made a mental note that the lack of curtains also contributed to the lack of heat in the room. Reluctantly, he peeled back the warm blankets and swung his bare legs out of the bed.

  The boards of the floor were cold underfoot a
s he hurried to the stove and opened the bottom vent. There was a slight hesitation, then the dull red glow inside turned to a brighter orange flame. Quickly, he flicked open the door of the stove and tossed a couple of short pine logs in, then slammed it shut again. The flames picked up even more and he began to notice an increase in the heat radiating from the old potbelly.

  He struggled into a pair of worn sweatpants and shoved his cold feet into some moccasins. Finally, he felt a little better.

  He paced around the room, thinking through the idea. The more he thought about it, the more he knew he was right. He flicked on the lights and reached for the old black phone on the deal table that was the centerpiece of the room. He began dialing the sheriff’s office, then stopped, realizing that it was quarter after three. Lee would have gone home hours ago to her small cottage on Fish Creek Falls Road. He set the phone down again, picked up a battered, leather bound notebook that lay beside it and leafed through it for Lee’s home number. Finding it, he began to dial. He’d dialed three numbers when he paused again. After all, it was a hell of a time to be calling someone. Then he shrugged and continued. Lee was a cop. If you wore the badge, you had to put up with phone calls at inconvenient times. Besides, Jesse wanted to discuss his theory. Wanted to see if she could shoot holes in it. He finished dialing the number.

  He listened to the low, insistent burr that told him the phone was ringing at the other end. It rang eight times, then Lee’s foggy, muffled voice came through the earpiece.

  “She’ff Torrens,” she slurred. “And this had better, by God, be very important.”

  “Lee,” he said impatiently. “It’s me. Wake up.”

  “ ‘Me’?” came the sleepy voice, but now with the faintest thread of venom in it. “ ‘Me’? Who exactly is ‘me’?”

  “C’mon Lee, it’s Jess. Now wake up and get your brain in gear. I’ve had an idea.”