"Retribution?" I wondered. "Against whom? Northwest Airlines?"
"No, the FBI. Rand figured this guy wanted to show up the FBI, to ... I don't know exactly, maybe prove that he was better than them? Repay an old slight? Something like that."
Suddenly Reggie sounded tired. I was confused by his supposition of Cooper's motive and said. "That doesn't make sense. Why would he hijack an airplane to get back at the FBI?"
Reggie touched his fingertips together, one at a time, until all ten digits were touching, the gesture appeared childish, yet composed, at a subdued volume, he said. "Corey had a theory. I don't recall that I know what it was, exactly."
From the backseat. Sawyer apparently had missed the burp that I had seen in Reggie's demeanor, she asked. "What about the money those two kids found? When they were digging along the banks of the Columbia River years ago? When was that? Nineteen ..."
"‘980,” he said, without a smidgen of delay. "The kids found fifty-eight hundred dollars in twenties while they were playing along the shore of the Columbia in ‘980, the serial numbers proved that the money came from the hijacking."
"But doesn't that show that Cooper didn't make it down safely? That he crashed during the parachute drop and the money ended up in the river?"
"Nope. It doesn't prove that at all. Corey figured the missing money was all part of Cooper's planning genius. Corey's theory is that Cooper dumped some of the ransom on the banks of the river, hoping that people would come to the conclusion that he'd drowned in the river during his parachute drop and then washed out to sea with all the rest of the evidence. Ergo, everyone would stop looking for him on land. What was six thousand dollars to Cooper? Three percent of the ransom? Pretty cheap for an insurance policy that might get the search called off."
I backtracked toward Mapleton on Ninth and cut west into Sunshine Canyon, the sun was high enough in the eastern sky behind us to begin to brighten some of the curves and hollows of the twisty road. "How far up the canyon are we going. Reggie? I have to be back at your house by ten."
"Quite a ways up. I'm afraid, a neat little log cabin. I'll tell you when we're getting close. I only visit this particular guest in good weather, almost got stuck up there once last winter. But don't worry, we'll be back on time."
The log cabin enjoyed a sunlit eastern exposure, and its ridge-top position provided an incredible view down the Front Range, the house itself was a simple rectangla constructed of stacked ten-inch logs topped with a red metal roof. Every window was covered by iron grating, the storm doors on the front were constructed of heavy black steel.
Reggie explained. "Theodora, theo, has grown a little paranoid since her stroke, she's remarkable, though. You'll like her."
I parked in a narrow clearing between a gleaming white propane tank and the house, theo met us at the door, she was no older than Sawyer and me, her stroke had severely impaired her speech, and she used a four-legged cane to get around the house. Reggie was right; I did like her, her courageous adjustment to her stroke reminded me of Lauren's adaptation to multiple sclerosis. "You never know how brave you can be until it's your turn to be brave." Lauren had told me once.
Theo had had her turn.
Our visit lasted the prescribed seven minutes.
I waited in the car at the last stop in the canyon, a shack of a place on an old horse ranch on the canyon floor only half a mile or so out of Boulder. This was the culmination of our morning, and Reggie used his entire allotment of time for this final visit. Twenty minutes.
We were back at his place on Fourth Street, as promised, by ten, with a grin on his face, he said. "See you in two days."
"What?"
"I need your help one more time. Please. Mrs. Savage, you know, the big Chevy lady? She canceled until Friday. I'll make it worth your while. I promise. I'll tell you more about Corey. Okay? And you have to admit the food alone is worth the trip."
I said I would go. Sawyer said she thought she would have returned to California by then.
I stayed anxious all day long. Lauren's doctor finally paged me around three o'clock with good news about her liver function. It appeared the earlier tests might have been anomalous, he planned to repeat them one more time before he discharged her, hopefully the next day. Only some short-term memory problems clouded her mental functioning.
The vet hospital in Denver told me that Emily was ready to come home but they would be happy to board her until I made it back to Denver.
Sam paged me at half past four, again at four forty-five. Once more as I was escorting my four-fifteen patient out the door.
I called him at home.
"Hi. Sorry it took me so long to return your page. I was with a patient." To Sam. I knew that would sound like an excuse, not an explanation.
"Whatever. To answer your earlier question about the employee from Rocky Flats? Well, Jack O'Connell died in ‘992 in New York, he was electrocuted in his own home, the local cops thought it was suspicious, looked at it real carefully. Felt his wiring might have been tampered with. Case is still open, and manner is still pending. Now tell me how he fits."
I explained that O'Connell had been a coworker at Rocky Flats of this man who was admitted to the psychiatric unit back in ‘982.
Sam interrupted. "Corey Rand?"
"Yes. O'Connell— they called him Jacko— he was one of three guys who arranged the setup that got this man Rand in trouble at work and then admitted to the hospital, and finally cost him his security clearance and his job."
"I take it the other two are dead now, too? The other guys who helped O'Connell."
"Yes. One died in a hunting accident on the western slope. No shooter was ever identified, the other one died in a one-car accident in Boulder Canyon after a night drinking at the Pioneer Inn up in Nederland. DUI."
"Get a name and year on that one? The DUI?"
"Just a second." I'd scribbled the facts in a notebook. "Ricky Turner. Late eighties. ‘988. '89, maybe '90."
"Now tell me how you learned all this."
"Sawyer and I spent some more time with Reggia Loomis. Rand's old boss at Rocky Flats."
"Was Milt with you?"
"No."
"I thought we had an agreement about protection for you and Sawyer."
"Loomis said we couldn't bring you or any other cops or he wouldn't talk about.., you know. Rand."
"Now I wonder why the hell he said that. I'm still thinking maybe that man has something to hide."
"My interest is Rand. Not Reggie Loomis's petty crimes."
He chewed on my words for about ten seconds. "You ever go out and meet Corey Rand's widow?"
"No. I just talked with her on the phone. Why?"
"I went over to her place again today." He hung his words like a night crawler on the end of a line.
"And?"
"Hell of a cough that woman has, hell of a cough. You think maybe she has TB or something? I feel like I should wear a mask."
"Sam, please. I have another patient in a few minutes."
"Mrs. Rand lives on a nice little three-acre horse ranch in Wheat Ridge, they have a couple of real pretty Appaloosas. Summers we used to go to this place when I was a kid that had Appaloosas. I like 'em, anyway, Mrs.
Rand takes in a few boarders. I mean horses, that kind of boarder, though none of them are as nice as those Appaloosas. But a very, very nice place. I began to wonder how the widow of a ne'er-do-well Radio Shack manager might be able to live in a place like that. So I checked the records of her husband's estate, she inherited zilch, basically. But it turns out that she was sole beneficiary of the half-million-dollar life insurance policy that Mr. Rand had been paying on since ‘99’. When he crashed his pickup and bought the ranch, she cleaned up, and she bought the ranch, too. So to speak."
"Yeah?" I knew he wasn't done.
"Then"— he tried to sound bored as he continued— "I didn't have anything better to do, so I had the local coroner's office pull up Mr. Corey Rand's death records for me, accident
he died in was bad, included a vehicle fire. Took place on private land out at one of those gravel mines on '93, near Golden. Body was badly disfigured at the time of the autopsy. Rand's pickup truck ran smack into a big Caterpillar front loader, the bucket almost tore the damn truck in half. Coroner eventually decided that Rand had an aneurysm that caused him to lose control of his truck. ID was made by his wife and son. I was not surprised to learn that his body was cremated the same day it was released by the coroner."
Son, I hadn't given a moment's thought to Corey Rand's son.
"How old is the son?"
I could almost hear Sam smile over the phone line. "He is almost twenty-nine years old."
I rearranged the cards that Sam was dealing. "You think the three of them faked his death?"
"Why not? If they pull it off, it gives Rand a get-out-of-jail-free card in case anybody like us ever gets a clue about all these murders, and it gives his wife and kid a bonus of a half a million bucks to refresh their not too happy lives. Not to mention that it fits right in with Rand's whole fuck-the-system-that-fucked-me attitude."
"You know anything about the son? What's his name?"
"Patrick Rand."
"What do you know about him?"
"He's a firefighter in Lakewood."
Lakewood is one of Denver's western suburbs. "That's interesting."
"Given all the fires and the poisonings we've been dealing with, yes. I'd say it's interesting. Something else, too."
"Yes?"
"One of his coworkers thinks he was off-duty when that lady and her husband were killed in New Zealand."
"A lot of people were off-duty then. Sam."
He let my skepticism drop with a thud. "Another thing about firefighters is they work long shifts and then they have long periods of time off."
"Which means what?"
"They have plenty of time to indulge in hobbies."
"Like killing people."
"Keeps them off the streets."
I continued. "So if you're right about this conspiracy; where's Corey Rand? Where's Patrick's dad?"
"Around here somewhere, buddy, around here somewhere."
FORTY
My sister-in-law. Teresa, arrived in Denver the next morning, only an hour before Lauren was discharged from the hospital. I didn't want the two of them anywhere near Boulder, so I rescheduled my morning patients, drove to Denver, and moved Lauren and her sister into a downtown hotel. Lauren reluctantly acknowledged that they would be safer if I spent the night in Boulder, thirty miles away.
Before I kissed her good-bye I handed Lauren the Glock. I could tell from her eyes that she thought it would be prudent for me to keep it. But her rueful smile told me that she had no faith I could actually use it.
Without a word, she accepted the gun and made it disappear into her big purse.
I was feeling some apprehension that she would ask me where I'd be sleeping that night and how close by Sawyer would be sleeping, she didn't ask. In her silence. I sensed trust, and I felt strength and love that I wondered if I deserved.
Lauren trusted me more than I did.
Back in the car. I phoned the vet hospital and put off retrieving Emily for another day; then rushed back down the turnpike and fit seven forty-five-minute therapy sessions into what was left of the afternoon, at the end of the day I was surprised to find that Sawyer was still registered at the Boulderado, at the front desk she'd left me a handwritten message that the folks in Phoenix were still waiting on a part for her airplane and that it wouldn't be ready until the next day at the earliest. If it was still possible she wanted to join Reggie and me the next morning on his rounds.
I called the suite she was sharing with A. J, to let her know what time I'd be leaving for Reggie's house in the morning. No one answered. Not knowing how things stood between Sawyer and A.J.. I didn't leave a message.
Like a dutiful subject, I phoned Milt and told him I was safely ensconced in my room, he answered as though my call were an intrusion, he said he already knew I was back. I asked him if he knew where Sawyer was.
"She's with Dr. Simes. Dr. Simes needed some medical attention and Sawyer was kind enough to go with her."
"What kind of medical attention?" I expected him to say something about multiple sclerosis.
"Dr. Simes is quite private about her health. I hope you will respect that." Milt's words said "hope." but his tone said "expect."
"I know quite a few people here. Milt, in the medical community. I may be able to be of some help."
"Thanks for offering. I'll pass it along." He paused and transformed his voice into something even more parental and bilious than the one he had been using. "What you did yesterday was .., bullshit. You know that, don't you? You put yourself and Dr. Faire at risk."
I tried to respond rationally. "We learned some things. It was worth the risk, I think."
"Your friend Sam doesn't trust that man. Mr. Loomis."
"Sam was happy for the information, and you don't know Sam very well, Milt, he doesn't trust too many people."
"In our line of work, that point of view often has merit."
"Milt. Reggie Loomis is responsible for us knowing about Corey Rand, without him we wouldn't have a clue about a possible subject, and I think he has even more that he can tell us."
"I’ve been busy all day on that, we're trying to access Rand's records. Especially travel, he's most vulnerable on travel, we should know more by tomorrow."
"Don't worry. Sawyer and I are being careful."
He said, "We're getting close to him, you know. Once we get the travel records sketched out we can
compare his whereabouts with all the other crimes. This Mr. Rand, and I'm sure he knows we're on to him. Don't underestimate a cornered animal."
I wanted to ask which Mr. Rand, father or son, they were closing in on. But I said. "I understand the situation. I'm not planning on being a cowboy."
"No. Dr. Gregory. I don't think you do understand. Rand's teeth are bared now, he never expected to be identified, all along, he's been thinking he's been committing the perfect crimes, he expected to be another D. B. Cooper, a legend in his own mind. But now we're on his tail, he's not going to act according to form. Lock yourself in for the night. Page me if you go anywhere. I'll be out checking on some things."
Milt's warning caused me to feel the absence of the Glock. I found myself surprised at how peculiar and intimate the loss felt. It was as though I'd gone to rub my eye or pick my nose and discovered that I'd misplaced one of my fingers.
As I double-locked the door I began to wonder about the D. B. Cooper allusion Milt had used. Was he on to something about Reggie, or was that an inadvertent caution? I wasn't sure.
I tried watching the local news and got bored. I stared out the window at the alley and wished I'd paid for a better view. I contemplated confronting Ms. Marceau in the Mezzanine and getting a little drunk. I thought about going for a walk on the Mall. Ultimately: I decided to stop acting so damn paranoid and opted to go see what progress Dresden and his gang had made on our renovation in Spanish Hills.
Before I left. I called Sam at home to see if he wanted to come along. His machine picked up and I got the pleasure of listening to some cute instructions from Simon. Sam's son, about what to do after the beep. I declined. I paged Milt and left him a message where I'd be, what I'd be doing, the last call I made before I left the room was to Adrienne, my neighbor, to see if she was back home from her travels. I got her machine. I had second thoughts about heading out alone and shushed them.
I was anxious driving across town, literally trying to talk myself into believing that this silent enemy wouldn't go after me twice in the same location. Mostly, I convinced myself that although what I was doing was foolhardy, it probably wasn't any crazier than flying down Left Hand Canyon at fifty miles an hour on my road bike or skiing down Pallavicini at A-Basin on days when the moguls were bigger than Volkswagen Bugs.
I couldn't help but smile as I drove down t
he lane.
My old house looked like a new house. Dresden and his carpenters had been busy, the main-floor addition and the freestanding garage were not only framed but also sheathed with insulating sheets, and the roofs had already been decked and tar-papered. For a few minutes I stood outside on the lane and admired the profile. Dresden had roughed out the new front porch, too, and I felt an odd sense that for the first time in my adult life I'd be living in a house that looked like it might actually be inhabited by a grown-up.
Although Lauren and I had mentioned it cautiously and only in passing, standing there with my hands in my pockets and my feet on the gravel. I felt a crystal-clear awareness that this new structure was large enough for a family. It was actually meant for a family.
I unlocked the front door and extinguished the alarm before I flicked on a light switch and was astonished to see the new recessed cans in the ceiling beam brilliantly down on me.
Houston, we have power.
A short hallway that led to the new main-floor bedroom was framed and Sheetrocked, effectively separating the front of the house from the back for the first time ever, the new bedroom felt huge, and the tall corner windows framed the Flatirons just as our architect had promised they would, the master bathroom seemed to have enough plumbing rough-ins for a family of eight to use individual fixtures simultaneously.
I meandered back toward the original structure into the space where the old kitchen had gone through a strange mitosis. Doubling once and then, somehow, once again, the new space had been mysteriously reclaimed from someplace in the house where I wasn't going to miss it. I stared at the spot where the new range would be installed and promised myself I'd pick up some extra court-ordered evals for a year or so and see about the La Cornue that Lauren coveted.
I sighed and felt a shiver up my spine. Looking around this space, I felt my future with Lauren as precious and real, as though I already held our first baby in my hands. Conceptions would happen here. First steps. Many tears, all the joy that life promised and all the sorrow that life delivered would happen within these new walls.
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