Trapline

by Mark Stevens

  He leaned up and tugged down on the only bit of clothing she ever wore to bed. She reached down and grabbed him, hard like granite.

  “Got a condom, big boy?” she asked.

  He flicked her underwear away. “For my tongue?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Protect me from all those big words.”

  “Funny,” said Colin. “I wasn’t planning on doing any talking. None whatsoever.”

  thirteen:

  tuesday morning

  The knock on the door was like an electric shock. It wasn’t Allison, who always rapped gently as she opened the door and started making herself at home. This knock wasn’t “hello.” It was “man outside.”

  Trudy put down her bowl of dough for lemon rosemary biscuits, felt an odd flutter of panic wobble inside. She headed to the door, trying to remember the last time she had a surprise visitor and attempting to squelch the thought that this was the beginning of the crackdown on Down to Earth.

  Standing outside was a cop. A sheriff’s car sat in the driveway and the man was in full uniform, his dark green shirt crisp, his badge shiny like it was straight from the silver mine. He smiled, but only in a polite way.

  “Allison Coil?” he said.

  “Um, no,” said Trudy. “Everything okay?”

  “Just the largest manhunt in Garfield County since Ted Bundy slipped out of jail. Other than that—”

  “I mean, with Allison—”

  “Far as I know,” said the cop. He had a thick moustache, a head shaped like a pineapple with prominent jowls.

  “She’ll be here soon,” said Trudy. “For breakfast. Expect her shortly.”

  The cop introduced himself as Deputy Sheriff Robert Chadwick. He was dressed for a summer morning in the city, not the mountain chill. He had two sips of coffee and was admiring her plants and greenhouse, or at least pretending to, when Allison and Colin arrived, looking every bit like a couple of college kids in mid-crush. Trudy did the introductions.

  “Something to do with the body we found?” said Allison. “Is there an ID?”

  “No,” said Chadwick. He was standing near the kitchen table and making a point, perhaps, of not leaning on anything. “I heard about that. I believe they’re getting him into a location where they can do all the processing, you know, all the analyzing.”

  “Nobody reported missing?” said Allison.

  “Not to my knowledge,” said Chadwick.

  “Nothing in the news either,” said Trudy. “All pedestrian bridge shooting, all the time.”

  “And what about the houndsman, come back with anything?”

  “I heard his dogs got confused,” said Chadwick. “Something like that.”

  “Confused?” said Allison.

  “Lost the trail at least,” said Chadwick.

  Allison shook her head. “If there was a trail,” she said.

  Colin shrugged. “It happens, you know.”

  To Trudy, Allison looked unperturbed by the presence of the cop. But Trudy wouldn’t mind if Deputy Sheriff Robert Chadwick didn’t stay long. Normally hospitable and open to feeding all, including strangers, Trudy wondered if the cop could sense her chilly reaction or if this was all some sort of trick. She passed around coffee, her hands less steady than she would have liked. Something about a uniform in this kitchen made it seem like the whole cavalry was here.

  Since the shooting, in fact, she’d felt tense and nervous. Guilty. She couldn’t stop connecting the shooting with her business. If even one of her workers had falsified documents and was in this country illegally, wasn’t she part of the problem? Where did the responsibility of her business end? They weren’t living in San Diego or El Paso, they were smack in the middle of the country, surrounded by large states. How was she to know who was legitimate? How much effort was she expected to spend on screening employees? But she felt selfish for even having such thoughts. Compared to the Lamott family and their grief, her discomfort was minuscule and irrelevant, wasn’t it?

  Chadwick took a minute to take in the room, with most of his focus on Colin, who always looked younger than his real years. “Wondering if I might have a word alone,” he said, “Maybe outside?”

  Allison looked around. “With me?”

  Trudy felt a flash of relief, but just as quickly realized the cops might need to triangulate some details with her best friend and neighbor.

  “Yes,” said Chadwick.

  “It’s all fine right here,” said Allison. “These two know everything I know. And besides, I don’t need privacy to answer a question as long as you don’t need privacy to ask it.”

  Chadwick took a breath. “We need your help,” said Chadwick. “Some of your time.”

  “My supplies in that department are low,” said Allison. “What is it?”

  Colin sat down at the kitchen table, in the booth. Allison stood leaning against the counter, her coffee cradled high in both hands like a sacred, rarely-held crucible.

  Chadwick held her stare. “We’d like you to do something but we’d also like you to keep it to yourself, you know, if reporters are around, if there are questions down the road.”

  “Have to hear first,” said Allison. “I need the whole picture.”

  “It’s the shooting,” said Chadwick. “We need your eye.”

  Trudy realized it was Chadwick who was nervous. He was out of his element. Besides the fact that cops didn’t usually ask for help, Chadwick was probably thrown off guard by having this conversation in front of Allison’s friends.

  “Me?” said Allison.

  “You’ve got a bit of a reputation,” said Chadwick.

  Allison turned to look at Colin, who shrugged. Trudy caught a flash of a mischief in Colin’s grin, playing innocent. “What exactly do you need?” she asked.

  Chadwick took a sip of coffee, gathered his thoughts.

  “We need you to look around in the woods. Where the shots were fired.”

  “Where you think the shots were fired?” said Colin.

  Chadwick shifted his gaze to Colin. “All the witnesses pointed up there.”

  “There’s nothing?” said Allison. “No sign anyone was there?”

  “A few things, maybe,” said Chadwick. “A few homeless people make camps up there in the summer so it’s not exactly pristine wilderness.”

  There was no way Allison had time for this request but it tugged at her urge to keep order.

  Allison looked at the floor, her coffee, Colin. “There are better trackers out there than me,” she said. “I know a guy from Craig who can follow a spider’s trail on a fresh slab of slate.”

  “Your name came up,” said Chadwick. “You’re here.”

  Allison turned to look at Colin, who shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “It’s your call, boss.”

  “We have so much to do,” said Allison. It was a general statement for the room.

  Trudy dropped dough on a cookie sheet, six biscuits in all. She slid the sheet into the oven and chopped some bits of broccoli and goat cheese into a slow-cooking pan of scrambled eggs. Tried to mind her business.

  “I know your season is coming up,” said Chadwick. “We can have you back by sundown. All-expenses-paid ride in my cruiser down and back, even set you up with lunch.”

  Allison studied Colin for a clue. Trudy knew she’d do it. Trudy knew that Colin knew she’d do it.

  Chadwick looked like he was waiting for an invitation.

  “Have a seat,” said Trudy. “There’s plenty.”

  Chadwick waited a polite second, then sat. “Very kind,” he said.

  Having a cop in her kitchen was agony. His presence resurrected every bit of residue from her ex-husband George. When he was caught and his racket exposed, the cops had spent days around his business and her house, sorting through every document they could find and grilling her abo
ut her role and knowledge of his affairs. The cop today brought it all back, the younger and more naïve Trudy who had been trapped or, she saw now, had chosen to trap herself. Ever since George had been arrested and since the surgeries had put an end to her seizures, she imagined her life as two chapters, barely in the same book. She had been pleasantly surprised—shocked, really—to learn you could restart your life. Now the cops and the possible problems with her business made her think she’d screwed up and she wanted to put everything back, live in her bubble without city, state, or federal entanglements. Trudy imagined a swarm of cops pulling up to her nursery, cruisers skidding to a halt in the dirt parking lot, her workers in a panic or making a run for it. She didn’t consider herself prone to paranoia, but maybe Chadwick also intended to keep an eye on her? Keep her under surveillance while the others poured through her files? Why else knock on the wrong door?

  “I’ll give it a shot,” said Allison. “Help out if I can. As you can tell, I’m a bit worried it’s not exactly fresh ground at this point. That body that was pulled off the Flat Tops yesterday—same problem. Too busy around there for too long, just a big mess.”

  “Understood,” said Chadwick.

  “On one condition,” said Allison.

  “Name it,” said Chadwick.

  “You keep me up to date on processing that body, the half-corpse. Animal hairs, DNA, saliva. Anything.”

  “Okay,” said Chadwick. “I think we send that kind of lab work to an animal forensics crime lab in Wyoming.”

  “I want the results as soon as the other cops and the Colorado Parks and Wildlife have the results,” said Allison. She wasn’t being overly forceful, just clear. “I want it to be like I’m in on the briefing. Do we have a deal?”

  “Far as I’m concerned,” said Chadwick.

  A muffled chirp sounded from the pocket of Allison’s jean jacket. Allison looked at Colin. “Do we have any clients from 212 area code? New York?”

  The phone rang again. Chadwick peppered a plate of scrambled eggs, using Trudy’s hand grinder.

  “Not that I know of,” said Colin. “But maybe. When was the last time you checked your e-mail?”

  Allison rolled it around. “Good point,” she said. And then: “Hello?”

  Chadwick attacked his food, fork tines jabbing into his eggs and pinging off the plate like he needed to kill it, too.

  Colin ate with a leisurely approach. His eggs were drenched in hot sauce and dusted with pepper. He was the most civilized cowboy Trudy had ever met. He moved deliberately, never forced a moment.

  As she listened, Allison stared straight down at the table, cell phone to ear. Allison shook her head, shrugged her shoulders, slumped back in the booth. She listened, said the occasional “yes,” “no,” “most of the time” and then, “not until tomorrow.” She listened for another long stretch. “We’ve got horses, sure, and they’d be our standard rate for a day each and you’re welcome to come up tomorrow and go along. We’re probably going to scout or check on our camp sites, sure.” Again, another break as she listened. Finally Allison went over directions and final logistics. And hung up.

  “These are going to be two of the greenest flatlanders we’ve ever taken up,” said Allison. “But it can’t hurt business.”

  “Who was it?” said Colin.

  “It was that reporter,” said Allison. “The one we saw on TV, the same one I sort of recognized.”

  “Kerry London?” said Trudy. How could Allison be so relaxed? Kerry London was one of those reporters Trudy had followed for years, popping up everywhere there was severe weather, odd accidents, weird child disappearances, bizarre manifestations of humanity. It was almost a game Trudy played—where would Kerry London land today?

  “He said while they’re out here on the shooting they wanted to sneak in a quick story on the energy boom,” said Allison. “And they want some wilderness video and an interview with an outfitter. Unless something breaks on the story and he gets assigned to leave, he wanted to call in the next day or two and come up and ride for a couple hours, so it looks remote and high up, which isn’t hard, and we’ll be done. Easy peasy, national advertising.”

  Trudy put down a biscuit and eggs for Allison.

  “Just so long as you’re not talking about anything you’re doing for us,” said Chadwick. “He’s about the last guy we’d want you relaying anything to. In fact, none of you know about my visit.”

  “You don’t need to worry,” said Trudy.

  “Yeah,” said Colin quickly, his mouth full of toast. “Not an issue.”

  Allison shrugged. “What they said.”

  The morning gathering occurred only a couple or three times a week. When hunting season was in full swing Trudy could go for weeks without seeing Allison or Colin. The meal was a time she cherished and she thought about how much more she’d be enjoying it without the cop. She tried to look on the bright side, decided finally that Chadwick’s mission involved no ruse.

  Colin took a bite of biscuit. “By the way, how did Kerry London get your name?”

  “I don’t know,” said Allison. “I didn’t ask.”

  fourteen:

  tuesday morning

  Population 9,000, Glenwood Springs couldn’t afford more than two full-time reporters. A network of freelancers helped fill the newspaper with copy to make it at least appear to be well-rounded, but Duncan Bloom and his counterpart in news reporting were the two main engines for words and daily fodder.

  Of course not every city council or school board meeting led to a compelling news story, but there was usually something that somebody else cared about and Bloom always had his antenna up for any clash of political values. For the most part, however, the city leadership was in lockstep, although the school district had stepped up lately and started to talk openly about its challenges, particularly in the area of teaching all these Spanish-speaking students—the ones whose parents moved to the Roaring Fork Valley to work in hotels, restaurants, landscaping firms, roofing companies and wherever the labor was hard and the pay was marginal or worse. The school district superintendent, an energetic woman with big-city savvy, had made the reading and writing skills of these children—now a quarter of the student body—her central issue. Her campaign had raised the ire of the city’s old guard and gutter-living racists maintained a steady volley of vile vitriol—letters and blogs, comments at public hearings. By openly embracing the issue, the superintendent had at least moved the city’s awareness forward. Spanish-speaking parents and Spanish-speaking kids are here, she said, and they need school. Bloom had written about a concerned parent who didn’t care for an elementary school’s class project on September 16—Diez y Seis, celebrating the Mexican War of Independence—because she claimed that when you’re in the United States of America you don’t teach about Mexican holidays. That kind of mentality hadn’t gone away. If anything, the battle was more pitched and more pointed, though Bloom didn’t get the sense that Glenwood Springs dwelled on the issue. The newspaper had made a conscious decision, partly due to Bloom’s steady persuasion, that highlighting the whackos, particularly individuals, only added fuel to the fire and wasn’t a good use of limited space to print.

  Now, however, it was time to go converse with the haters.

  Tom Lamott’s shooting changed everything.

  Immigration was it.

  Or was it? A fleeting thought nagged at Bloom. The hot-button immigration issue might make everyone think the trigger was pulled to send a message about national policy.

  But Bloom had seen Lamott’s temper.

  It had been four years. At the time, state senator Tom Lamott represented a heavily Hispanic and upwardly-mobile district in west Denver. He sponsored high-profile, risky legislation and spoke glibly on a variety of topics. He was the newspaper’s go-to guy for a good quote and frequently visited the newspaper’s editorial board meetings. Golden boy.
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br />   He had married a Hispanic woman who had graduated with honors from the University of Colorado and the University of Denver School of Law. She worked on environmental issues. Their Democratic blood was thick. They had two adorable children. Television cameras and reporters were Tom Lamott’s friends.

  The story had started with a leak that suggested there was another version of Tom Lamott behind the scenes.

  All three tidbits passed to Bloom had to do with Lamott’s out-sized temper and abuse of power.

  First, Lamott had humiliated a junior staffer for an innocent mistake over the schedule. He had yelled at him, almost nose to nose, and the young man quit the same day.

  Second, Lamott had met privately with the principal at the school where his older daughter was now in kindergarten and had demanded that his daughter be placed with the more experienced of the school’s two kindergarten teachers, one of the best in the district.

  The third item required the most digging.

  Tom Lamott, the tip suggested, had fought hard for a friend to be awarded a contract through the school district in Denver to provide educational consulting for a trio of schools that had underperformed for years. The schedule and phone records would show, the tip alleged, that Lamott had phoned the superintendent repeatedly to exert his influence and that Lamott had threatened to turn up the state’s oversight heat if he didn’t get his way.

  The tips confirmed what Bloom had long suspected, that’s Lamott’s ego was overly ripe. Lamott’s spiel carried a distinct whiff of bullshit.

  Bloom made inroads, developed sources. He made up reasons to interview possible sources and then casually mentioned what he was really after. While some of the confirmations were off the record, Bloom felt like he had enough to present to Lamott and get his reaction. His editors debated it. Not all were in favor, but Bloom was green-lighted to seek Lamott’s reactions.