Chapter 21
After we had scrambled down the mountain above the Eurydice, after we had all hugged and confirmed that we were okay, after we had marveled at the fall of huge rocks caused by the explosion, after Jake had licked the bloody scratches on Arch’s face at least a hundred times—after all that, we got the bad news.
“He got away,” the general reported, disconsolate. “Royce. I saw him. I was thirty feet away from him….” He gestured with the hand that clasped Jake’s spare leash, and sighed.
Marla’s spangled sweat suit was smeared with mud. So was her face. “I tried to shoot him. The son of a bitch. I missed twice. Then he just pushed me down, into the mud.” She shook her head, disgusted almost beyond speech. But Marla was never beyond speech. “I wish to hell I had killed him.”
“But … where did he go?” I was incredulous, and felt a whiff of fear. Who knew what more he was capable of? I scanned the sheds and the road below. But the shabby storehouses still looked deserted, as did the wide ribbon of mud that led away from the mine and down to Idaho Springs. “I’m still not clear on exactly what happened. How do you know he’s not still around?”
Before they could answer, however, there was a sharp cracking sound. We jumped, thinking it was another gunshot. But this sound was thunder. Fat, chilly raindrops pelted out of the clouds. The general stuck out his chin. “I caught up with the dog and grabbed his collar. Then I saw the fuse. Smelled it first, actually. I saw Royce running, wearing a big backpack, holding a suitcase … or maybe it was a briefcase. Next thing, Marla was firing at him.” He ran his fingers across his close-cropped head of pale hair. “I kept hold of the dog, but I ran like crazy after that guy. Only problem was, he knew where he was going, and I didn’t. He escaped around there.”
He pointed to the mountainside. There was a small garagelike hut on the far right side of the mine opening. I took a few steps in the thickening rain. Heading away from the garage was one set of muddy car tracks.
General Bo continued, “There’s the four-wheel-drive road I told you about. Fifty feet down that hill—I checked the map. It goes to Central City, but first it crosses Highway Six heading back to Denver, so Royce could basically be anywhere.” His keen blue eyes caught mine. “I called the authorities, Goldy, when the two of you were trapped inside there.” He checked his watch. “At eleven hundred hours. That was thirty minutes ago.”
The cold rain was turning the grime on my arms to a thin sheen of mud. Half an hour, and not a single law enforcement or rescue vehicle had yet arrived? “Did you … call the Idaho Springs fire department?” I asked. “They should have been right up here.”
The general glanced down the wet road. “No, I called your sheriff’s department. Furman County. I said we had a dead man and two people trapped in a mine. Maybe they figured it was a hoax. But they could be here soon, if only to check it out. So, if you still want to protect Marla and keep running, we should be going—”
“We can go,” I said, decisively. “But I want my son out of this mess. Now.”
“We can’t do both,” said Marla sourly. “Come on. Arch.” She put an arm around his thin shoulders. “I know where there’s a shower in the shed over here. We’ll get soap and water on those scrapes. We’ll have a little while until the sheriff’s department comes to bust me again.”
Arch shot me a confused glance, but allowed himself and a damp, wriggling Jake to be led off by Marla without protest.
I asked Bo, “Did you tell the department who you were, and that you saw Tony Royce?”
“Yes, of course I did.” His voice was flinty with anger. “I even said he drove off in a green Explorer, although God help me, my eyes aren’t as good as they used to be, I couldn’t catch the plate number.”
So Tony had come up here in Albert’s car. He’d thought of every detail. How long had it taken him to plan all this out? From the thinking I’d done ascending those interminable ladders in the mine, I had an idea that this faked-death scheme had been percolating in Tony’s cranium for some time. He’d planned, he’d schemed, he’d set things up; he even had a backup strategy, in case anything went wrong. Marla’s very public squabble with Albert at the party probably changed Tony’s original time frame for his crimes, but that hadn’t meant he’d abandoned his escape hatch.
“Look, Goldy,” the general pleaded, “we could track him in less than a day—” I held up a hand. “No.”
I had had at least ten flights of metal rungs to think about what I was going to say to General Bo Farquhar, so I let him have it straight. “Here’s my idea: I think Tony’s trying to get out of the country, and for some reason he couldn’t do that until this afternoon, possibly even tonight. You and I and hopefully the police can stop him, but I want Arch and Marla and the dog out of it.”
He narrowed his eyes against the rain, gave a considered glance down the mountain road, then nodded. “Whatever you say. I just want this guy. I’m listening.”
I shook my head. “We need to get out of here, because the Furman County Sheriff’s Department probably still has it in for Marla. We need to take Marla, Arch, and the dog back to the Hardcastles’ cabin. And then I’ll tell you where I think Tony’s headed.”
The general gave me the full benefit of his commanding glare. “I hope for your sake, Goldy, that we’ll have time.”
“Either I’ve guessed his scheme or I haven’t. You’ll just have to trust me.”
The general scowled. “Marla is the only family I have left….”
“She’s my oldest friend,” I said quietly. “And I love her, too.” In the distance, sirens sounded. “It’s time to go. We’ve got a criminal to catch.”
An hour later, I watched Arch wave from the cabin stoop. Marla held up one hand in halfhearted farewell. With the other she gripped Arch’s shoulder. Jake beamed with idiotic happiness as we climbed into the Jeep, probably delighted to see me go.
Then the general gunned the engine, and we catapulted back toward Bride’s Creek. “Okay, what do you have in mind?” he asked, as if we were going out for dinner.
I glanced out the window at the thinning clouds. Then I asked, “Do you remember when I told you about Prospect’s chief investment officer being killed in a car crash? Victoria Lear discovered that the gold ore at the Eurydice had played out. My guess is that she confronted Tony Royce with what she knew, and got killed for her pains. Then the party—that was when Marla and Albert Lipscomb had their terrible argument. They argued about an assay report from a disreputable lab. Albert didn’t believe the ore was worthless, I’ll bet, and he didn’t know Tony was using an untrustworthy laboratory. Albert always trusted his grandfather’s claims about the Eurydice still having gold in it. Whenever Marla heard about the mine, it was, ‘Albert says.’ Never, ‘Tony says.’ Never. But Tony was the person running the fraud, and in this state, gold scams are the oldest ones in the book.
“My theory is that after Marla confronted Albert about the rigged assay, Albert and Tony argued. Tony knew the ore he sent to the lab wasn’t good. But he never thought anyone, least of all his girlfriend, would complain, after the splashy success the firm had had with Medigen.”
The general turned the windshield wipers from constant to intermittent, but kept his eyes focused straight ahead. “Continue.”
“So say they argue. Tony goes to Albert’s house, says he wants to talk. What do they talk about? These two men had tried to run a scam before, with their cashmere-yarn-and-goat-cheese enterprise. Maybe Albert thought they were going legit, once they’d scored with Medigen. But Tony, I now believe, wants with the mine to take their enterprises one level deeper, and he’s in too far with the Eurydice to go back. Maybe Albert doesn’t have time to disagree before Tony knocks him unconscious. I don’t know what he used. Tom’s told me even spraying someone with a can of engine starter fluid would do the trick. Anyway, once Albert is out cold, Tony works fast, packs up all Albert’s stuff so it looks as if he’s left town. Takes him up to the Eurydice, waits unti
l he comes to, and then tortures him until he gets Albert’s half of the combination to the safe containing the gold ore. Then Tony kills him. But Tony can’t take the gold then. If he does, even Captain Shockley, who knows about the gold and the safe, could figure Tony’s responsible for Albert’s murder. But if, by some remote chance, Albert’s body is discovered in that first week, Tony, who’s still around, can say, Marla did it, she was mad at Albert, wasn’t she? Everybody knows that.”
The general muttered, “That guy is such a son of a bitch.”
I went on: “Shockley did go up to the Eurydice after Albert disappeared, but without jurisdiction he didn’t take the risk of going in. In any event, Tony always planned to have Marla take the fall for him. She knew too much about assays, and was too insistent on knowing the truth, to be easily shut up. But if she was busy defending herself, she wouldn’t have time to try to reconstruct all that he had done. Especially if it looked as if she murdered him in a jealous rage, after she supposedly killed his partner. Royce figured on covering all his bases. It was a foolproof scheme.
“He gets his blood drawn by his girlfriend the med student. A Vacutainer tube has a blood preservative in it: You can keep it in the refrigerator for a week, sometimes two, and it won’t coagulate. And he has ten days. He buys the bald cap. He fakes some of Albert’s identification, which Tom is always telling me is fairly easy to do or get done. Then on Monday after the party, he tries to withdraw the cash from the partnership account. He can’t get it that day, but he gets it on Tuesday, when he proceeds to charm the teller and then strangles her so she wouldn’t identify him. Now he’s got three and a half million in cash, plus two hundred-thousand in gold from the mine safe. After all, why leave it behind, when it’s so easy to make someone else look responsible for the theft and murder?”
I took a deep breath. “He persuades Marla to move up the fishing trip they planned. He pretends to be interested in investing in restaurants, the new venture for Prospect Financial Partners. He leaves his fancy watch at Marla’s so it’ll look as if he didn’t mean to be absconding permanently. And now we know how he staged his whole fake stabbing and drowning death. Unfortunately, he spotted Macguire Perkins, so he let him have it, too.”
“Macguire’s lucky Tony didn’t kill him,” the general observed grimly.
“Macguire’s strong,” I replied with a smile, “that’s one of the reasons he’s such a good catering assistant. He probably gave Tony a bit more muscle than he was expecting.”
“Sounds like you were a bit more than Tony was expecting, too,” Bo said with an answering smile.
“Yeah, I guess all of us might have been. Especially Jake. When Jake scented Tony up at the mine and howled, that was what let him know we’d really found him.” I paused. “Tony always wanted something from me. And from other people, too, like his old girlfriend Eileen Tobey. He felt as if we owed it to him.”
The general furrowed his brow. “Owed him what?”
“Oh, attention. Contacts.” I could remember Tony’s persuasive smile, the charming twinkle in his eyes. Know any rich doctors? Guess not. Dentists? No, Plumbers? No. How about pilots?
Pilots. Yes, I knew one. One unemployed ex-Braniff captain who had received a FedEx delivery last week of navigational maps. I had been the one who told Tony about Sandy Trotfield. I had told him, too, that Trotfield’s wife—the one with the money—invested in art, but she might want to get into venture capital. Tony appeared to be interested in them as clients, but nothing more. Albert had even given them a cookbook. But I knew something else that I’d learned when the Trotfield’s had booked me for last week’s party: Sandy Trotfield was due in today from Rio de Janeiro. It was my guess that it was Sandy Trotfield whom Tony Royce had been waiting for. Sandy Trotfield who had acted so angry when the cops had invaded his kitchen. Sandy Trotfield who could fly Tony Royce out of the country without attracting attention, and be paid handsomely for his efforts.
All this I told the general. I looked out at the sky. The clouds were breaking up, offering a rare glimpse of a Wedgwood-blue expanse. The fast-moving front appeared to be passing through. Could this actually be happening? Could the sun truly be appearing, like Eurydice after a lengthy stint in the underworld?
The general groped under his seat for the cellular phone, found it, and punched in the numbers I told him.
“Yes,” he said gruffly. “Mr. Alexander Trotfield? This is Investigator Beauregard Farquhar of the Furman County Sheriff’s Department. We have a fugitive, a murder suspect, a man we believe has contracted you to fly him out of the country? Name of Anthony Royce. We need to know everything about your contact with Mr. Royce.” He listened for several minutes, then gave me a thumbs up. “Furman County Airport? When? One-thirty. Your Citation. Which hangar?” Bo waited while Sandy talked. “Mr. Trotfield,” Bo said urgently, “you may keep this appointment with Mr. Royce. But tell him there’s been a delay. Do not act alarmed. When I arrive, please introduce me as your copilot. We will meet you at the hangar. Yes, the sheriff’s department will reimburse you for all the expenses you incur. Thank you for your cooperation.” He pressed a button to disconnect.
I said breathlessly, “Do you think he believed you?”
General Bo glanced at the clock on the dashboard and grimaced. “I’ve got an hour to buy a bomber jacket and find some dye to rub through my hair, just in case Royce got a glimpse of me at the mine, which I doubt.” He reflected. “Did Trotfield believe me? I don’t realty care. The one I have to do a good acting job for is Royce.”
I shivered. Sandy Trotfield wanted to be reimbursed for his time and effort. What a joke.
“Hey,” said General Farquhar. “You better trust my acting ability, too. I’m going to need to talk my way close enough to Royce to snag him.”
“Oh, yeah? And where am I going to be?”
The general’s face was grim. “Nearby. Holding my gun.”
Chapter 22
“No,” I said quietly. “I’m not using a gun. I’m calling Tom.”
Bo’s glance was chilly. “You’d better not have him bring those two cops who arrested Marla.”
“Don’t worry.”
I called; once again, Tom was not at his desk. I almost screamed with frustration, but instead left a two-sentence message on his voice mail: “The armed and dangerous person you seek is attempting to leave the country from the Furman County Airport this afternoon. We need help to catch him at Hangar C-9.”
By twelve-thirty General Bo Farquhar and I had made two stops. The first was a sporting goods store in the foothills, where the general bought a leather bomber jacket and aviator sunglasses. His prominent chin held aloft, he scanned the outerwear racks as if he owned the place, and had just stopped in to pick up a new outfit in which to circumnavigate the globe. I saw him flash his thin-lipped, much-knowing smile at the female sales attendant, who predictably melted. How would he pay for his purchases, I wondered. There was probably a kidnapping charge outstanding against him, and any credit card use was sure to be traced. Well, if we were successful in trapping Tony Royce, we could worry about Marla’s prison break and its consequences later.
“All I need now is a Navy pilot to give me grief,” the general mumbled as we pulled up to our second stop. “They do get their noses so out of joint when a nonflyboy wears a bomber jacket.”
I grinned. “I do believe Navy pilots are the least of our problems, sir.”
General Bo grinned. He was loving this.
But I suddenly felt the weight of what we were about to do. The sheriff’s department was twenty, perhaps twenty-five minutes from the airport. I judged we were a little less than half an hour away. This was all wrong. When I couldn’t reach Tom, I should have called someone else at the sheriff’s department and come clean. But thinking about Shockley made me shudder. I just want to see Tom and Arch again, I thought. And maybe even Jake.
We zipped along toward the airport. Since Furman County is mostly mountainous, the people who built the a
irport had been at some pains to find an area large and level enough for hangars and a runway. They’d eventually paid a rancher a staggering sum to move his herd of cattle to eastern Colorado. The starry-eyed airport builders had proceeded to divert a local brook, destroy two prairie dog villages, and pave over an elk migrating area while smoothing the rancher’s fields. Then they’d failed to build hangars and purchase computers that were even close to within their budget range. The airport had not been profitable, and the resultant wrath of environmentalists and downgrading of the airport’s municipal bonds had provided juicy material for The Mountain Journal for several years.
“Hangar C-Nine,” the general muttered as we came down the incline to the south gate security fence. “Now if we can just … oh, for Pete’s sake.” He stopped the Jeep. Ahead of us a dozen cars stood motionless while a tow truck pulled a station wagon out of a large pool of rippling water. “What the hell—”
I craned my neck. “Flooding. No one’s going in or out of the south gate for at least a quarter of an hour.” I pointed. “That’s the brook that used to go through the ranch.”
“What ranch?”
“The ranch that used to be where the airport is.”
He wheeled us in a U-turn. “Is there a north entrance to this godforsaken place? We need to find another way to C-Nine.”
At my direction we raced up the state highway until we came to a sign for the small northern entrance to the airport. Like its southern counterpart, the north entrance road also sloped downward to our right.
“Ha!” exclaimed the general, triumphant. He careened the Jeep onto the road and accelerated down the hill. Just as quickly, he braked and stared at the road ahead. “Holy Mother of God.” Hangar C-9 was up a hill to the right, about a hundred feet away. But the security gate and fence were underwater, claimed by the fast-rushing, no-longer-diverted brook. On the far side of the fence, the roofs of two cars were barely visible above the swirling, muddy torrent. “Damn this rain. How are we ever going to get around that?”
The Main Corpse Page 28