White Fire p-13

by Douglas Preston

  Corrie watched until she heard the faint clunk of the door shutting. Then — with a mixture of eagerness and relief — she returned to the earthly remains of Asa Cobb.

  25

  Chief Stanley Morris had shut his office door and given his secretary orders not to disturb him for any reason whatsoever while he updated his corkboard case-line. It was how the chief managed complex cases: reducing everything to color-coded three-by-five cards, each with a single fact, a piece of evidence, a photograph, or a witness. These he would organize chronologically, pin to a corkboard, and then — with string — connect the cards, looking for patterns, clues, and relationships.

  It was a standard approach and it had worked well for him before. But as he surveyed the chaos on his desk, the corkboard overflowing with a rainbow of cards, the strings going in every direction, he began to wonder if he needed a different system. He felt himself growing more frustrated by the minute.

  The phone buzzed and he picked it up. “For heaven’s sake, Shirley, I asked not to be disturbed!”

  “Sorry, Chief,” said the voice, “but there’s someone here you really must see—”

  “I don’t care if it’s the pope. I’m busy!”

  “It’s Captain Stacy Bowdree.”

  It took a minute for the ramifications of this to sink in. Then he felt himself go cold. This is all I need. “Oh. Jesus…All right, send her in.”

  Before he could even prepare himself, the door opened and a striking woman strode in. Captain Bowdree had short auburn hair, a handsome face, and a pair of intense, dark brown eyes. She was all of six feet tall and somewhere in her midthirties.

  He rose and held out his hand. “Chief Stanley Morris. This is quite a surprise.”

  “Stacy Bowdree.” She gave his hand a firm shake. Even though she was dressed in casual clothes — jeans, a white shirt, and a leather vest — her bearing was unmistakably military. He offered her a seat, and she took it.

  “First,” said the chief, “I want to apologize for the problems with the exhumation of your, ah, ancestor. I know how upsetting it must be. We here at the Roaring Fork PD believed the developers had done a thorough search, and I was dismayed, truly dismayed, when your letter was brought to my attention—”

  Bowdree flashed the chief a warm smile and waved her hand. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not upset. Truly.”

  “Well, thank you for your understanding. I…We’ll make it right, I promise you.” The chief realized he was almost babbling.

  “It’s not a problem,” she said. “Here’s the thing. I’ve decided to take the remains back for reburial in our old family plot in Kentucky once the research is complete. That’s why I’m here. So you see, given the circumstances there’s no longer any reason to rebury Emmett in the original location, as I originally requested.”

  “Well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved. It makes things simpler.”

  “Say…is that coffee I smell?”

  “Would you like a cup?”

  “Thank you. Black, no sugar.”

  The chief buzzed Shirley and put in the order, with a second for himself. There was a brief, awkward silence. “So…” he said. “How long have you been in town?”

  “Not long, a few days. I wanted to get the lay of the land, so to speak, before making my presence known. I realize my letter made quite a stir, and I didn’t want to freak everyone out by storming into town like the Lone Ranger. You’re the first person, in fact, that I’ve introduced myself to.”

  “Let me then welcome you most warmly to Roaring Fork.” The chief felt hugely relieved by all she was saying — and also by her friendly, easygoing manner. “We’re glad to have you. Where are you staying?”

  “I was in Woody Creek, but I’m looking for a place in town. Having a little trouble finding something I can afford.”

  “I’m afraid we’re in the high season. I wish I could give you some advice, but I think the town is pretty much full up.” He recalled the tumultuous, acrimonious press conference and wondered if things would stay that way.

  The coffee arrived and Bowdree accepted it eagerly, took a sip. “Not your usual police station coffee, I must say.”

  “I’m a bit of a coffee aficionado. We’ve got a coffee roaster in town who does a mean French roast.”

  She took another big sip, then another. “I don’t want to keep you — I can see you’re busy. I just wanted to drop in to introduce myself and tell you about my plans for the remains.” She set down the cup. “And I also wondered if you could help me. Where exactly are the remains now, and how do I get there? I wanted to see them and meet the woman who’s doing the research.”

  The chief explained, drawing her a little map of The Heights. “I’ll call Heights security,” he said. “Tell them you’re coming.”

  “Thanks.” Captain Bowdree rose, once again impressing the chief with her stature. She was a damn fine-looking woman, supple and strong. “You’ve been really helpful.”

  Morris rose again hastily and took her hand. “If there’s anything I can do, anything at all, please let me know.”

  He watched her leave, feeling like the week from hell might finally be ending on a positive note. But then his gaze drifted to the corkboard, and the chaos of cards and strings on his desk, and the old feeling of dread returned. The week from hell, he realized, was far from over.

  26

  Corrie heard the clang of the ski shed door and paused in her work, wondering if Pendergast had returned. But instead of a dark-suited figure, a tall woman strode into view wearing fleece winter warm-ups and a big knitted woolen hat with dangling pom-poms.

  “Corrie Swanson?” she said as she approached.

  “That’s me.”

  “Stacy Bowdree. I’d shake your hand, but I’ve got these coffees.” She handed Corrie a tall Starbucks cup. “Venti skinny latte with four shots, extra sugar. I had to guess.”

  “Wow. You guessed right.” Corrie accepted the cup gratefully. “I had no idea you were coming to Roaring Fork. This is quite a surprise.”

  “Well, here I am.”

  “God, Stacy — can I call you that? — do I owe you. You saved my butt with that letter. I was looking at ten years in prison, I can’t thank you enough—”

  “Don’t embarrass me!” Bowdree laughed, uncovered her own coffee, and took a generous swig. “If you want to thank someone, you can thank your friend Pendergast. He explained the whole situation to me, and what they’d done to you. I was only too happy to help.” She looked around. “Look at all these coffins. Which one’s Great-Great-Granddad Emmett?”

  “Right over here.” Corrie led her to the man’s remains, spread out on an adjacent table. If she’d known the woman was coming, she could have tried to put them in some modicum of order. She hoped Emmett’s descendant would understand.

  Corrie sipped her coffee a little nervously as Bowdree walked over, reached out, and gently picked up a piece of skull. “Jeez, that bear really did a number on him.”

  Corrie started to say something, then stopped herself. Pendergast, with excellent reason, had advised her against telling anyone — anyone — of the real cause of death until she had finished her work.

  “I think this work is fascinating,” said Bowdree, gently putting down the piece of skull. “So you really want to be a cop?”

  Corrie laughed. She liked Bowdree immediately. “Well, I think I’d like to become an FBI agent, actually, with a specialty in forensic anthropology. Not a lab rat, but a field agent with special skills.”

  “That’s great. I’ve sort of been thinking about law enforcement myself…I mean, it’s logical after a career in the military.”

  “Are you out, then? No longer a captain?”

  She smiled. “I’ll always be a captain, but yes, I’ve been discharged.” She paused. “Well, I’d better get a move on. I’ve got to find a cheaper place to stay if I’m going to hang around here much longer — the hotel I’m in now is bankrupting me.”

  C
orrie smiled. “I know the feeling.”

  “I just wanted to introduce myself and tell you that I think what you’re doing here is great.” Bowdree turned to go.

  “Just a minute.”

  Bowdree turned back.

  “Want to grab a coffee at Starbucks later?” She gestured with her cup. “I’d like to return the favor — if you don’t mind it being on the late side. I plan to make a long day of it — assuming I don’t freeze first.”

  Bowdree’s face brightened. “That would be great. How does nine o’clock sound?”

  “See you then.”

  27

  Mrs. Betty B. Kermode sipped a cup of Earl Grey tea and looked from the picture window of her living room over the Silver Queen Valley. Her house on the top of the ridge — the best lot in the entire development of The Heights — commanded a spectacular view, with the surrounding mountains rising up and up toward the Continental Divide and the towering peaks of Mount Elbert and Mount Massive, the highest and second highest peaks in Colorado, which were mere shadows at this hour of the night. The house itself was quite modest — despite what people assumed, she was not by nature a showy woman — one of the smallest in the development, in fact. It was more traditional than the others, as well, built in stone and cedar on a relatively intimate scale: none of this ultra-contemporary, postmodern style for her.

  The window also afforded an excellent view of the equipment shed. It had been from this same window that, not quite two weeks before, Mrs. Kermode had seen the telltale light go on in the shed, very late at night. She immediately knew who was inside and had taken action.

  The cup rattled in its saucer as she put it down and she poured herself another. It was difficult to make a decent cup of tea at eight thousand five hundred feet, where water boiled at one hundred ninety-six degrees, and she could never get used to the insipid flavor, no matter what kind of mineral water she used, how long she steeped it, or how many bags she put in. She pursed her lips tightly as she added milk and a touch of honey, stirred, and sipped. Mrs. Kermode was a lifelong teetotaler — not for religious reasons, but because her father had been an abusive alcoholic and she associated drinking with ugliness and, even worse, a lack of control. Mrs. Kermode had made control the centerpiece of her life.

  And now she was angry, quietly but furiously angry, at the humiliating disruption of her control by that girl and her FBI friend. Nothing like that had ever happened to her, and she would never forget, let alone forgive, it.

  She took another swallow of tea. The Heights was the most sought-after enclave in Roaring Fork. In a town filled with vulgar new money, it was one of the oldest developments. It represented taste, Brahmin stability, and a whiff of aristocratic superiority. She and her partners had never allowed it to grow shabby, as other 1970s-era ski developments tended to do. The new spa and clubhouse would be a vital part of keeping the development fresh, and the opening of Phase III — thirty-five two-acre lots, priced at $7.3 million and up — promised to bring a stupendous financial windfall to the original investors. If only this cemetery business could be resolved. The New York Times article had been an annoyance, but it was nothing compared with the bull-in-a-china-shop antics of Corrie Swanson.

  That bitch. It was her fault. And she would pay.

  Kermode finished her cup, put it down, took a deep breath, then picked up the phone. It was late in New York City, but Daniel Stafford was a night owl and this was usually the best time to reach him.

  He picked up on the second ring, his smooth patrician voice coming down the line. “Hello, Betty. How’s the skiing?”

  A wave of irritation. He knew perfectly well she didn’t ski. “They tell me it’s excellent, Daniel. But I’m not calling to bandy civilities.”

  “Pity.”

  “We’ve got a problem.”

  “The fire? It’s only a problem if they don’t catch the fellow — which they will. Trust me, by the time Phase Three comes online he’ll be heading to the electric chair.”

  “The fire isn’t what I’m calling about. It’s that girl. And the meddling FBI agent. I hear he’s managed to dig up three more descendants who’ve given permission to look at their ancestors’ bones.”

  “And the problem?”

  “What do you mean, and the problem? It’s bad enough that this Captain Bowdree has shown up in person — at least she wants to bury her ancestor’s bones somewhere else. Daniel, what if those other descendants demand reburial in the original cemetery? We’re five million dollars into construction!”

  “Now, now, Betty, calm down. Please. That’s never going to happen. If any so-called descendants take legal action — which they haven’t yet — our attorneys will tie them up in knots for years. We’ve got the money and legal power to keep a case like this going forever.”

  “It’s not just that. I’m worried about where it could lead — if you know what I mean.”

  “That girl’s just looking at the bones, and when she’s done, it ends. It isn’t going to lead where you’re worried it might lead. How could it? And if it does, trust me, we’ll take care of it. Your problem, Betty, is that you’re like your mother: you worry too much and you cherish your anger. Mix yourself a martini and let it go.”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “Thank you.” A chuckle. “I’ll tell you what. To ease your mind, I’ll get my people to dig into their background, find some dirt. The girl, the FBI agent…anyone else?”

  “Captain Bowdree. Just in case.”

  “Fine. Remember, I’m only doing this to keep our powder dry. We probably won’t have to use it.”

  “Thank you, Daniel.”

  “Anything for you, my dear cousin Betty.”

  28

  They sat in comfortable chairs in the all-but-empty Starbucks. Corrie cradled her cup, grateful for the warmth. Across the small table, Stacy Bowdree stared into her own coffee. She seemed quieter, less effusive, than she had that morning.

  “So why did you leave the air force?” Corrie asked.

  “At first I wanted to make a career of it. After 9/11. I was in college, both my parents were dead, and I was looking for direction, so I transferred to the academy. I was really gung-ho, totally idealistic. But two tours in Iraq, and then two more in Afghanistan, cured me of that. I realized I wasn’t cut out to be a lifer. It’s still a man’s game, no matter what they say, especially in the air force.”

  “Four tours? Wow.”

  Bowdree shrugged. “Not uncommon. They need a lot of people on the ground over there.”

  “What did you do?”

  “On the last tour, I was the commanding officer of the 382nd Expeditionary EOD Bunker. Explosive Ordnance Disposal. We were stationed at FOB Gardez, Paktia Province.”

  “You defused bombs?”

  “Sometimes. Most of the time, we’d clear areas of the base or take munitions to the range and get rid of them. Basically, any time they wanted to put a shovel in the ground, we had to clear the area first. Once in a while, we had to go beyond the wire and clear IEDs.”

  “You mean, with those big bomb suits?”

  “Yeah, like in that film The Hurt Locker. Although mostly we used robots. Anyway, that’s all in the past. I got my discharge a few months ago. I’ve sort of been drifting, wondering what to do with my life — and then Pendergast’s bit of news came along.”

  “And so you’re here in Roaring Fork.”

  “Yes, and you’re probably wondering why.”

  “Well, I am, a little.” Corrie laughed, still a little nervous. She had been afraid to ask the question.

  “When you’re done with him, I’m taking Great-Great-Granddad back to Kentucky and I’m going to bury him in the family plot.”

  Corrie nodded. “That’s cool.”

  “My parents are gone, I don’t have any brothers or sisters. I’ve been getting interested in my family’s past. The Bowdrees go back a long way. We’ve got Colorado pioneers like Emmett, we’ve got military officers going back to the Rev
olution, and then there’s my favorite, Captain Thomas Bowdree Hicks, who fought for the South in the Army of Northern Virginia — a real war hero and a captain, just like me.” Her face glowed with pride.

  “I think it’s great.”

  “I’m glad you think so. Because I’m not here to rush your work along. I don’t have any burning agenda — I just want to reconnect with my past, with my roots, to make a personal journey of sorts, and in the end bring my ancestor back to Kentucky. Maybe by then I’ll have a better idea of what to do next.”

  Corrie simply nodded.

  Bowdree finished her coffee. “What a bizarre thing, getting eaten by a bear.”

  Corrie hesitated. She’d been thinking about it all afternoon, and had decided she really couldn’t in good conscience keep back the truth. “Um, I think there’s something you should know about your ancestor.”

  Bowdree looked up.

  “This has to remain confidential — at least until I’ve finished my work.”

  “It will.”

  “Emmett Bowdree wasn’t killed and eaten by a grizzly bear.”

  “No?”

  “Nor were the other remains — at least the ones I’ve looked at.” She took a deep breath. “They were murdered. By a gang of serial killers, it seems. Murdered and…” She couldn’t quite say it.

  “Murdered and…?”

  “Eaten.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Corrie shook her head.

  “And nobody knows this?”

  “Only Pendergast.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  Corrie paused. “Well, I’d like to stay here and solve the crime.”

  Bowdree whistled. “Good God. Any idea of who? Or why?”

  “Not yet.”

  A long silence ensued. “You need any help?”

  “No. Well, maybe. I’ve got a whole lot of old newspapers to comb through — I guess I could use a hand with that. But I need to do all the forensic analysis on my own. It’s my first real thesis and…well, I want it to be my own work. Pendergast thinks I’m crazy and wants me to finish up and go back to New York with what I’ve got, but I’m not ready for that yet.”