“What is it?”
“Well, just be careful. You might get a visit from men in black. Or—god help us—they might abduct more.”
Robert always sounded apologetic when discussing actual danger, Marcia thought numbly, realizing for the first time that she might actually be in danger.
“I’ll be careful. Nobody even knows what I am,” she promised. “They think I’m just some retired schoolteacher who stumbled across the body.”
“Good,” Robert said. “Keep it that way. And keep safe.”
“You bet I will,” Marcia said.
She sat for a few moments after hanging up the phone, absently massaging her warm and flattened ear. She’d been a teacher and a researcher her whole life. She observed, she didn’t act. Now she was in the middle of an event—an Event—and it was hard to get her mind around that, to swallow it and make it hers. If she were foolish, she might end up on the sand as dead and bloodless as that poor girl.
“And I wouldn’t make nearly as pretty a corpse,” she said to herself. Marcia had to chuckle at that. She reached for the remote and turned on the television, settling back into the softness of the pillows and brushing her clean hair back from her forehead. She would cope.
6
The Williams’s Ranch, San Luis Valley, Colorado
Alan Baxter woke with a start. For a moment, he couldn’t remember where he was. Then he remembered. The Williams’s Ranch. Earthquake. Cattle. Bright sunshine poured through the guest room window that had been a black square the night before. The sunshine laid a bright band across the bed, picking out the white sections of the quilt that covered him. The morning air was chilly, even though it was August, so it must still have been early.
Alan stretched luxuriously under the covers, feeling his muscles give little creaks and sighs. He was a fit sixty-five, even if he was sixty-five. A fly fisherman has to have good balance and a lot of strength to wade across swift-flowing streams. If an angler was a particularly good fisherman, he developed well-muscled arms from fighting fish and bringing them to the net. Alan hunted new streams every year, and that often called for long hikes. He would be a little sore after spending a day working with cattle, but that would be all.
Rising, he dressed quickly and took time to shave and wet down his unruly white hair. He’d gone to bed with his hair still wet the night before so now his head looked like Einstein’s. Time for another haircut, he thought, and perhaps he should do that before he met Krista.
Thinking of Krista sent a pleasurable tingle down his spine. She was such a fascinating woman. Too bad there were so many years between them. Alan gave a last rueful glance at his own silly, infatuated reflection and left the bathroom. He swept the covers back and made the bed quickly and neatly. Years of fishing had left him a well-behaved guest. The better the fishing, the better he was as a guest. A professor’s retirement salary didn’t leave much money for motels, so Alan did his best to make his hosts feel little pain.
Beth Williams was in the kitchen, dressed in a house robe and flipping pancakes. Beth was a handsome woman, large-boned, with enormous curves that looked just right on her frame. Her skin was as fresh and clear as an apricot, and only showed her age in the lines of her neck and her hands. Her brown hair was clipped back in a ponytail with an enormous, colorful elastic band that matched her robe.
“What a beautiful guest room,” Alan said from the kitchen doorway. The Williams’s house had a country kitchen, a large room with a huge table that could seat fifteen without a problem. The floor was pine, lacquered to a high gloss and easily cleaned of mud and grime, of which there was always plenty on a ranch. Beth turned at his voice and beamed at him. Her smile was as pretty as her skin.
“Why thank you, Alan,” she said. “I tried to make it nice for you. Did you sleep well? Here’s some coffee. What do you take?”
“Cream only,” Alan said, “and I can get it myself.”
“Thanks,” Beth said, returning to her pancakes. “I’m trying to get a mess of these on the table, and some eggs too, for the kids. They’re going to have a big day today, too.”
Alan opened the cabinet above the coffee machine and found an entire array of coffee mugs. None of the mugs matched, and they were all from tourist spots: Yellowstone, Disneyland, Grand Canyon, New York City. Alan laughed and picked out a mug from Mount Rushmore.
“Do you like my collection?” Beth smiled. “I get one wherever I go. And Todd, he’s our oldest, he sends them to me in the mail whenever he finds an interesting one.”
“I’ll send you one too,” Alan promised, filling the mug with coffee and pouring in a generous dollop of cream. Beth finished with an enormous stack of pancakes and put them in the oven to keep warm. She started cracking eggs into a big bowl with amazing speed.
“So before you volunteer to help today, don’t,” Beth said, smiling at Alan. “You didn’t come here to smear ointment on cows. We really appreciate the help yesterday, but today we’re in the mop-up stages.”
“I will help,” Alan said, sipping at his coffee and sighing in pleasure. Beth knew how to make coffee. “I know you have a lot to do.”
“Not so much,” Beth said, whipping the eggs with a monster whisk. “Sit down and have some coffee and look at the paper, and then I’ll throw a plate of cakes and eggs in front of you and we’ll see what you do with those.” She turned to her stove. Alan shrugged and ambled over to the table, feeling the glorious first rush of hot morning caffeine. He sat down at a sunny spot of the table and peeled off the rubber band from the paper. The smell of scrambled eggs began to compete with coffee and pancakes, and Alan’s stomach rumbled pleasantly.
The headline, in huge type, declared, “Earthquake.” It was the story under the fold that brought Alan’s thoughts and his breath to a stop.
“Body Found in Great Sand Dunes,” the title read. The woman was as yet unidentified but she was between twenty-five and thirty years of age and had blond hair and blue eyes. The type blurred as Alan’s hands began to tremble. It couldn’t be, could it? How many young blond women were there in the world, anyway? Too many to count. But Krista had been investigating the recent high pollution levels in Medano Creek, the odd stream that flowed under the Great Sand Dunes and surfaced at the edge as a rippling shallow creek. How many young blond women were at the dunes this week? Alan told himself he was just being paranoid, thinking that Krista Lewis was dead right before they met. Yet as Alan asked permission from Beth to use the phone, something in the lowest part of his guts was already telling him that his fears were true. His gut was telling him that the dead girl was Krista.
Special Investigations Bureau, Colorado Springs, Colorado
“We’ll do a complete search of his office today,” Eileen said to Dave Rosen. “Then we wait for the coroner’s report.” The morning office was already at a dull roar. The coffee machine barely finished filling the pot when it was emptied and started again. Someone had brought in a couple dozen donuts and the empty boxes sat by the coffee machine. An occasional latecomer would stop to peer in the boxes, then sigh and move on.
“You can finish up those earthquake reports while you’re waiting,” Captain Harben said dryly. He was walking from the coffee machine with a deep black cup of joe that could fell a horse in its tracks. “And what is that?”
“This would be a latte, boss,” Eileen said, giggling. Captain Harben was Eileen’s idea of a perfect boss. He was cynical and outwardly morose but as nurturing as a mother duck. He liked his people to laugh.
“If you fail to solve this case in your customary week, I’m putting you back on straight coffee,” Harben said, eyeing Eileen’s foamy drink. He walked toward his office, stopping at every desk for a moment or two.
“That’s a super mocha, two shots of espresso, by the color,” Rosen observed, looking into her cup. He had perched one haunch on her cluttered desk. His own desk was already pin neat.
“Joe has corrupted me,” Eileen said mournfully, taking a long sip of her drin
k. “If Harben makes me stop drinking this, I’ll have to drink eight cups of coffee in the morning just to start my heart.”
“Caffeine,” snorted Rosen. He sipped his distilled water and stood up from her desk. “Let’s go see what Jim Leetsdale left in his office.”
“We’re going to a stage set,” Eileen said, picking up her keys and her latte. “Someone wanted to make this a suicide. Want to bet on a suicide note?”
Rosen said nothing as he signed them out on the board, and they headed for the stairs. Only when they were in Eileen’s Jeep and heading for Peterson did Rosen speak.
“I bet lunch there’s a note,” he said thoughtfully. “But I think there’s going to be something else. He died hard. He left us a message.”
“Rache,” Eileen murmured. She was thinking of “A Study in Scarlet,” the Sherlock Holmes story where a murderer leaves a mysterious word on the wall. The word, Rache, turns out to be German for “revenge.”
“Revenge!” Rosen said, making Eileen jump.
“Damn, is there anything you haven’t read?” she complained.
“Well, I’ve read Sherlock Holmes,” Rosen said scornfully. “Who hasn’t?”
“Did you read the unedited versions?” Eileen asked. “The one where he’s always getting down the cocaine bottle and the needle at the end of the story?”
“Nope, my versions always had him smoking his pipe,” Rosen said. “I was an adult when I learned he was actually shooting up.”
“I’ll lend you my copy. You’ll have to read the real reason why Jefferson Hope killed Enoch Drebber,” Eileen said smugly.
“For love of a woman,” Rosen said flatly. “Who needs the details?”
“Love of a woman,” Eileen said softly, looking out the windshield and not really seeing the flow of traffic around them. Lori Leetsdale was dead a year when Jim Leetsdale was killed. Who wanted to kill this man? And why did they try so hard to make it look like a suicide? Or were they wrong this time, and Jim Leetsdale killed himself?
Major Bandimere looked somewhat frazzled today. She was waiting in her government Jeep at the entrance to Peterson. Her hair lay limply against her cheeks as though it had refused the curling iron. Her face was paler than usual and her lipstick was dry around the edges. Eileen pulled up and parked her Jeep, and she and Rosen got out.
Yesterday’s threatening weather had blown over toward Kansas. Today was fresh and beautiful. The sky was blue and serene and the trees and grass were a vibrant rain-washed green. The precise lawns and pruned bushes of the Air Force base looked great in the dazzling morning sun.
“Good morning,” the little major said, handing a badge to Eileen. “I hope Mr. Mitchell doesn’t show up today.”
“If he gives me any crap today, Deanna, I’ll throw his ass in jail,” Eileen said comfortingly. “And you can tell everyone how you tried to make me stop.”
Bandimere giggled jaggedly and then bit the sound off with a hand to the back of her lips.
“Sorry,” she said. “You don’t know what I’ve been through today already.”
“Explain,” Rosen said economically, failing to evade her little hands as she clipped his badge to his shirt.
“Let’s talk while we’re going through Major Leetsdale’s office,” Bandimere said. She climbed back into her Jeep without another word. Eileen looked over at Rosen with raised eyebrows when they were seatbelted into her own Jeep. Rosen gave a tiny shrug.
Building 12-E looked just the same, although there were more cars in the parking lot. The hill by the cannon was empty now, both of the body and of the sentry. Eileen drew a last deep breath of piney summer air and followed Bandimere into the entrance of Government Building 12-E.
Leetsdale’s office was cluttered and untidy. The room was fairly small but was stuffed with filing cabinets as well as a battleship gray desk and chair. Papers spilled over the top of every available surface as well as the floor. A computer sat, screen dark, on Leetsdale’s desk.
Eileen stood in the doorway and looked around, seeing Leetsdale’s personality in the shape and the focus of his room. His desk faced away from the door, where windows would be if there were any. In a classified building like this one, there were no windows. His computer keyboard was grubby and well used. Some dandruff and hairs speckled the back of the chair. There were heel marks on the left side of the desk surface. Leetsdale liked to stretch back in his chair with his feet on the desk and think, or type on his keyboard, or perhaps doze after lunch.
“Shall we go in?” Bandimere said nervously.
“All right,” Eileen murmured. There was nothing obviously out of place, but she expected that. Whoever had killed Leetsdale had done a careful job, just not careful enough.
Huerfano County Sheriff ’s Office, San Luis Valley, Colorado
Marcia Fowler was waiting patiently. She was reading the local paper, paying careful attention to the local police blotter and the social columns. A latte steamed at her side, sleeved into a cardboard ring that allowed her to hold the hot drink without burning her fingers. She hadn’t even tasted it yet, she’d merely sniffed it. The local coffee shop was down the street from the sheriff’s office, where she waited for Sheriff Reg Gonzalez to see her. Marcia had already learned that Reg and his wife Conchita had been blessed two weeks ago with their fifth child, a girl, named Maria Elena Gonzalez, weighing in at seven pounds, eight ounces. A healthy size, at this altitude.
“Pardon me,” a man said. Marcia looked up from the paper, realizing the man was speaking to her. He was just taking a seat next to her, and he was her own age or close to it and he was unexpectedly handsome. He was tall and rangy and his eyes were a light-colored brown, almost golden, like a lion. His skin was weathered but healthy, reddish over the cheekbones and nose as though he spent a lot of time in the sun. His hair was white and thick and brushed back from a deep widow’s peak. He was wearing a light blue shirt and a pair of ancient khakis.
Marcia realized she was staring, and blinked. How long had it been since she’d met a good-looking older man who wasn’t on a movie screen?
“Yes?” she said, and breathed an internal sigh of relief when her voice came out normally.
“I was wondering where you got the coffee,” the man said. “Is that a cappuccino?”
“A latte,” Marcia corrected with a smile. And he liked coffee, too! The internal girl in her, who would never be anything more or less than twenty-five years old, tried to get her to smooth her hair. She refused.
“I’m waiting to see Sheriff Gonzalez,” the man said. “The clerk told me it might be a while. So I thought I’d get a coffee.”
“I’m first in line, I think,” Marcia said, her focus suddenly returning. “Why are you here to see him?”
“The girl they found on the dunes,” the man said, his expression suddenly desolate. “They—”
“Ma’am?” the clerk called from the desk.
“Yes?” Marcia said, getting to her feet and unable to help her hands from smoothing down her skirt, her brain buzzing with unexpected surprise.
“Sheriff Gonzalez will be another hour or so. Are you sure you want to wait?”
Marcia took a breath and turned to the man in the chair.
“Want to get a coffee down the street?” she asked. The man stood up and shrugged, still looking bleak.
“Might as well,” he said, and held out a hand. “Alan Baxter.”
“Marcia Fowler,” Marcia said, shaking it. Was he MUFON? Rabble? Or a goddamned government agent? A goddamned gorgeous government agent. She was going to find out.
Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, Colorado
“We’ll call you this afternoon,” Eileen promised as she buckled her seat belt. Another homicide, in an apartment close to the Citadel Mall. She and Rosen had to go clear the scene.
“Shall I clear the office for Mr. Mitchell?” Bandimere asked. “He wants to get Major Leetsdale’s files.”
“If he means computer files, he’s going to be disap
pointed,” Eileen smirked. The computer’s main processing unit sat in the backseat of her Jeep along with a box of disks. They also had Major Leetsdale’s briefcase, his uneaten lunch, the contents of his desktop and a yellow Post-it Eileen had found pasted to the underside of his desk, all carefully marked and logged as evidence. Of the lot, Eileen was most interested in finding Krista Lewis, whoever she was. That was the name on the little Post-it note, and the location and the jagged look of the writing gave Eileen a little buzz at the base of her spine. The note might lead somewhere.
“I don’t know what he wants,” Bandimere said. “Can I let him into the office?”
“Sure,” Eileen said. “We’ll return the items within the week, if Mitchell wants to know.”
“Thanks,” Bandimere said, but she still didn’t look very happy. She gave a little wave as they drove away.
“She is spooked as hell by that guy,” Rosen said. He had Leetsdale’s briefcase on his lap and was methodically going through the contents.
“I don’t like him,” Eileen said. “Even though I don’t like Bandimere either. I pretty much don’t like any of this.”
Rosen nodded absently and Eileen grinned. She was lying, and Rosen knew it. This was going to be a fascinating homicide, a puzzle as interesting as they’d had for a long time.
The new homicide was close to the mall. It was messy. Eileen and Rosen met Officer Hetrick at the door to the apartment building. Shelly Hetrick was as tall as Eileen but almost Rosen’s size. Her breasts strained the buttons at the front of her uniform. Her belt cinched in to a narrow waistline but her pants strained over an enormous bottom. Some people didn’t notice that Hetrick’s buttocks didn’t jiggle, that her curve of belly was as hard as stone. Hetrick could bench-press nearly two hundred pounds. She wore her hair in a complex series of braids, held back by a huge clip.
“Welcome, guys, this one should be simple,” Hetrick said without preamble. She shrugged her ample shoulders and led the way into the building, talking as she went, jingling and creaking with handcuffs and leather holster and belt. “Young female, Carol Campbell, working in the kitchen while her two kids, aged two and ten months, take a nap. Perp enters the apartment through the front door, which is not locked. Grabs the woman at the entrance to the kitchen, is in the process of raping her when—” Hetrick looked down and consulted her notepad. “When neighbor Charlie Washington shoots him in the side of the head. Thirty-eight caliber, we’ve got the gun and Charlie. And here we are.”
Earthquake Games Page 7