Killer Summer

by Ridley Pearson

  “We issue a BOLO?” Brandon said. Be on lookout.

  “Yes, for both. Ketchum and Sun Valley PDs need this. Ask them to walk these sheets around to the bars and hotels and property managers. Where do young girls hang out? The pool at the Y? Tennis courts? I’d put those on the list too. Let’s hope Matthew Salvo has been trolling during his free time.”

  “Got it.” Brandon stood.

  “Tommy,” Walt said, stopping him halfway to the door.

  “Yeah?”

  “The girls come home Monday.”

  “Yeah.” It wasn’t exactly an I couldn’t care less, but it was close enough that Walt felt a stab in his chest. Brandon would never care about his kids the way he did.

  “It’s been two weeks, the longest they’ve ever been away. I was thinking, it might be nice if Gail and I took them out to dinner. You know, just her and me. What do you think?”

  “I think you’re asking the wrong person.”

  “But you’re okay with it,” Walt said.

  “What are you asking?”

  Walt hesitated. “You think she’d be good with it?”

  Brandon crossed his arms tightly. “Listen, Sheriff…”

  “We sign the papers next week.”

  “Yeah,” he said softly. “I imagine that sucks.”

  Walt realized he should have kept his mouth shut. What was he doing talking to Brandon about any of this?

  Neither man spoke. Walt’s silence was the result of countless sleepless nights spent on the couch or in one of the girls’ empty beds, anywhere but in the bed he and Gail had once shared. He silently suffered such heartache and physical pain that he’d sought a doctor’s opinion, not just once but several times, only to be told it was all in his head. Walt’s silence was the silence of defeat, regret, shame, and disgust.

  “Well, hey, I ought to notify Ketchum and Sun Valley.” Brandon was blocking the doorway.

  “Yeah,” Walt said, “go.”

  28

  Arthur Remy stepped out of the shower and reached for the monogrammed towel. The initials on it belonged to his hosts, currently hiking a trail on the ski mountain.

  His hand swiped the air where the towel should have been.

  “Jesus!” he barked, his voice ringing off the imported Spanish tile. He quickly covered his groin.

  “What were you thinking?” the man asked.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Talking to the police, initiating inquiries within Branson Risk.”

  “Oh, Christ!”

  “Did it not occur to you we would be keeping an eye on our investment? That we would be watching you? Did it not occur to you that if you started turning over rocks, something vile would come out from underneath?” He indicated himself. “Voilà!”

  “The sheriff came to me, not the other way around.”

  “And this theft? An attempt at insurance money?”

  “That wasn’t me.”

  “Lying won’t help you, believe me.”

  “It wasn’t me!”

  “Insurance adjusters… is there a lower life-form? Like a dog with a bone. You get them involved… And now, thanks to you, they are involved. What if they decide to look at this more carefully?”

  “You’re jumping to conclusions. I had nothing to do with attempting to steal the bottles.”

  “That’s what I was told you would say. I said you weren’t that stupid, that you could be reasoned with.”

  “It was someone else… a third party… has to be…”

  “It was very, very stupid.”

  “IT WAS NOT ME!”

  “I’ve already told you, it wasn’t us. You panicked. You were afraid that after what happened in Amsterdam… that a closer look… that the insurance would cover it. It was a decent plan, had it worked. You should have come to us. But look where you are now.” He passed Remy the towel. “Look where it leaves you… where it leaves us.”

  Remy wiped the shower water from his eyes and then wrapped his waist. “Let’s just calm down, okay?”

  “I am perfectly calm. This is me being calm.”

  “It’s a misunderstanding,” Remy said, “a fuckup.”

  “Your fuckup.”

  “No… no… no…”

  “Let me explain.” The man stepped closer. “We have two concerns. The first is that you might try to flee, to shirk your responsibilities.”

  “No! That won’t happen.”

  “The second,” he said, “is that you understand the degree to which you’ve fucked this up.” He placed his hands on Remy’s shoulders, his arms locked. “The bottles will be sold, our investment recouped. End of story.”

  He kicked Remy’s left knee, snapping it as loudly as a tree branch breaking. Remy screamed and fell back into the shower.

  “More people break a leg or a hip in the bathtub than on ski slopes,” the man said. “Did you know that?” He picked up the fallen towel and tossed it onto the writhing man. “No more reminders. Next time… if there is a next time… You don’t want a next time.”

  29

  The persistent squeak of the room-service cart’s errant wheel created a counterpoint rhythm to the whoosh of Kevin’s rubber soles on the hotel hallway’s carpet. A good-looking woman in her thirties, with wet hair and pool water clinging to her tan skin like pearls, strode toward him in a tiny bikini.

  “Down, boy,” came a girl’s voice over Kevin’s shoulder. He slowed the cart. The woman passed by, offering him a sideways glance that told him she’d caught him staring and that she enjoyed the attention.

  “Get a room, why don’t you?” Summer said.

  “What’s up?” he said, trying to act casual.

  “I have an answer to that, but it’s too dirty to say in a hotel hallway. Dude, she’s ancient. Give it a rest.”

  Kevin pushed the trolley forward. “I’ve got to deliver this,” he said.

  “We’re still on for tonight?” she asked, walking side by side with him. She showed him the key to the jet. “Fifteen minutes. Right?”

  “I’m off at seven,” he confirmed. “But I owe a friend big-time.”

  “Where do we meet? I’ll have a bag with me and don’t want to drag it all over the place.”

  “A bag? What’s with that?”

  “It’s just clothes and stuff. No big deal.”

  “I don’t know about this,” he said.

  “Are you kidding? I am, like, totally looking forward to this,” she said. “It is so boring here. You don’t even know how much fun you’re going to have. You thought the hot springs were fun?” She took a step closer. “You don’t have a clue, do you?” she said in a raspy voice. She’d seen her mother tease her father this same way.

  “Yeah?”

  “I told you, you can sit up front,” she reminded. “It’ll be so awesome.”

  He glanced over at her, and she offered him as much reassurance as she could muster.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  She relaxed. “Awesome. So where do you want to pick me up?”

  They made arrangements to meet in back of the hotel a few minutes past seven.

  Her plan saved, her face brightened. She kissed him on the cheek, the same way her mother would her dad when she got her way. Kevin flushed and looked away.

  “You’re running away, aren’t you?” he said, speaking down to the cart.

  Her brain seized.

  “What happens to me when it turns out I’m the one who drove you, huh? Have you even thought about that? I’ll bet you have. And I’ll bet you don’t give a crap, do you, because you’ll be long gone?”

  “I’m eighteen, Kevin. I can do what I want.”

  “Nice try,” he said. “I’m the one who’s eighteen. I’m the one gets in trouble for this.”

  “I thought we were going to party in the jet? I promise, that’s happening. The flight I’m on is the last one out, at ten o’clock. You think I could get on a plane by myself if I wasn’t eighteen?”

  �
��Maybe with a fake ID you could.”

  “You’ve been hanging around your uncle too long, dude. This is not Without a Trace, you know?”

  Kevin looked at her, remembering the hot springs.

  “You never drove me down there, okay? All we’re going to do is hang in the jet until my flight, and if anyone ever asks I’ll say I took the shuttle bus, I promise.”

  “So, then, why don’t you take the shuttle bus?” he asked.

  “I thought we were friends,” she said, pouting and disappointed. “I thought we were going to party.”

  Kevin slowed the cart and stopped in front of a room door.

  “I’ve got to do this,” he said.

  “Come on.” She pressed against him. “Please, Kevin… seven-ten, at the circle out back,” she said, confirming their plans. She hurried off before he had a chance to answer.

  30

  The door to the Incident Command Center in the Blaine County Sheriff’s Office was closed, a MEETING IN PROGRESS sign on the wall alongside.

  Walt addressed Barge Levy, as Fiona took pictures of Janet Finch’s inspection of the Adams bottles.

  “One thing you didn’t explain, Sheriff,” Finch said, never taking her attention off the bottles, “is how you talked Arthur Remy into allowing this.”

  “Who said I did?”

  “You have the access card. You opened the case.”

  “True. And true.”

  “Go ahead, be that way,” Finch said.

  “Every once in a great while, blind luck plays a hand in an investigation.”

  “You stole it from him?”

  “Remy showed up at the emergency room earlier,” Walt said. “Slipped and broke his knee, he claimed. I was contacted because the on-call orthopedist and his radiologist judged the fracture to be blunt-force trauma-a baseball bat, maybe a martial-arts kick, to the knee. We ask them to report that kind of difference of opinion, primarily to head off domestic violence against women.”

  “And?”

  “He left his pants.”

  “Excuse me?” Finch said.

  “Remy left his pants in the emergency room. Was driven home in a pair of hospital scrubs. One too many painkillers, and he spaced out and forgot his pants. The pants, and their contents, were turned over to me. I’m required to do an inventory, and, as it happens, the card was in his pocket. I’d seen it before. This office has every intention of returning Mr. Remy’s belongings. We have been in communication with him, and it was agreed I would pass along his things when I see him tonight at the auction.”

  “Holy shit! Did he ask about the card?”

  “Not a word. I’m sure he didn’t want to attract my attention to it.”

  “Who says there’s no God?” Finch said.

  “Other than the photographs, we can document the test results, right?” Walt said.

  “Of course,” Levy said, still making adjustments on what appeared to be some complicated electronics.

  “I’d rather have a spectrometer,” Finch said. Wearing cotton gloves, she viewed the labels with a loupe, and, as she did, she made noises like she was in the throes of really good sex.

  “Trust me,” Levy said, “the piezoelectric effect is just as conclusive. We can measure density, size, clamped capacitance, and low-field dissipation.”

  “English?” Walt said.

  “She can determine the pattern of any microfractures,” Levy said. “Listen, we wouldn’t have this gear if I didn’t know what I was doing. It was donated by the father of one of our students after we found those pottery shards out at Muldoon. Remember? The mine cave-in? The piezoelectric effect was the cheapest way to determine if it was authentically Native American without sending the shards out to a lab, which would have cost aplenty.” He laughed one of his laughs. “Turned out they were common gardening pots. But, hey, I got the equipment donated, so who’s complaining?”

  “The results will have to be verified,” Finch reminded. “No offense, but they’re not going to take the word of a grad student and a school principal.”

  “Alternative-school principal,” Levy corrected. “And I taught science for twelve years. And graduated from MIT, don’t forget.”

  Finch didn’t comment.

  “Do you know someone?” Walt asked.

  “I can ask one of my professors to examine the data we collect,” Finch said. “There will definitely be someone on campus who can do this.”

  “But not before the auction?”

  “Doubtful,” Finch said, “it being a weekend and all. But, who knows? These bottles are famous. I can think of a couple people who would jump at a chance to examine them.”

  “I can try Lowry, at MIT,” Levy said, “there’s always a chance…”

  “Dr. Lowry would do it,” Finch told Walt. “If he signed off on this, no one would dispute it.” She flattered Walt with a look. “Thank you for doing this.”

  “Don’t mistake this as benevolence,” Walt said. “Those bottles are evidence in a homicide. If they’re fakes, that impacts the investigation. It’s something I need to know.”

  “I would so love to see you bust Arthur Remy,” Finch said.

  “That’s not how it works,” Walt said. “But if Remy is pawning off fakes…” He didn’t finish the thought.

  “We’re ready,” Levy said.

  He ran nearly the exact same test five times. The glass near the engraving was exposed to ultrahigh sound frequencies that were then measured from different places on the bottles. A laptop computer crunched the data, displaying it as a color-coded graph that Levy studied and then saved before repeating the test.

  At the conclusion of the tests, Levy looked up from the laptop, wearing a grave expression. “The microfractures are random,” he said.

  “I knew it!” Janet Finch looked as if she’d won the lottery.

  “That’s good?” Walt asked Levy.

  “They’re fakes,” said Finch, smiling widely.

  31

  As Summer heard the television switch off, she braced herself for the confrontation. Like a heavyweight fighter before the bout, she lowered her head, closed her eyes, and visualized her opponent’s weaknesses, his soft spots, knowing all along that he had the weight advantage.

  First, she wanted to see if he would remember that he’d invited her. Supposedly, she was to be his date at the wine-auction dinner, but he tended to forget his offers to her, especially if a better offer came along.

  If he did remember, then she intended to incite his anger, exploit his sense of social punctuality with her wet hair and the towel wrapped around her. Seeing her like this he would make impossible demands she couldn’t meet and would then desert her, telling her to catch up-and that was all she needed.

  “Summer, are you ready?” he eventually bellowed from the other side of her door. “We don’t want to be late.”

  She drew a deep breath and strode into the living room just in the towel, knowing how uncomfortable it would make him. He could barely look at her at the pool. Perhaps he saw her mother in her, or maybe he couldn’t face his daughter as a grown woman, but whatever it was it momentarily gave her the upper hand.

  “I’m running a teensy bit behind.”

  His face registered horror.

  “Sorry. Is twenty minutes okay?”

  “Twenty minutes? NO! That’s not okay. I told you ten of seven. It’s already five ’til.”

  “Hey, I don’t get all dressed up that often,” she said, changing to a tone of voice she knew he didn’t care for. “Besides, I thought it starts out as a cocktail party, right? So, what’s the big deal? We can be late.”

  “We cannot be late! Cocktail hour’s more important to me than the auction.” He drew a deep breath-a bad sign; he was struggling for patience. “You’re important to me. I wanted to show you off.” He sounded so hurt, she loved him for it. “Once we’re sitting down at dinner, we’re stuck with whoever we’re stuck with. But at the cocktail party…”

  “Please, go ahead,
” she said. “I’ll hurry.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “NO!” she barked out too loudly and too quickly.

  His parental radar switched on, and she chastised herself for the outburst. He could read her far better than she was willing to admit, and he cared more about her than she let herself believe. His look conveyed all of this, and the guilt it caused her ran up her spine in an icy shiver.

  “You’re trying to put together a deal,” she said, “right?”

  “I’m always trying to put a deal together, sweetheart.”

  He sounded defeated. She resisted feeling any sympathy for him. He had denied her the opportunity of watching Enrico in the semi-finals. He had made her come to Sun Valley with him instead. He’d made her play tennis with him in the mixed doubles, had humiliated her with his poor playing. He deserved what she was about to do to him.

  “You go on,” she said. “I’m not real big on cocktail parties, anyway. I mean, what’s the point?”

  “I’m sorry if this trip hasn’t lived up to its billing,” he said. “I really thought you’d have a better time than you’ve had.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “No. I should have had you bring a friend or something. I wasn’t thinking right.”

  “I’m fine, Dad.” The guilt now traveled to her throat, where it balled up in an unforgiving knot. She was not going to change her mind about this. She was not going to cry.

  “Fact is, things are not going real well moneywise. I think you know that. I think you know I’m going through a rough patch. Times like this, I know we both miss her. Miss her a lot more than we talk about-”

  “Don’t.”

  “We should talk more, you know? Figure this stuff out together.”

  “Dad…”

  “We’ve only got each other, you know? None of the rest of it matters to me, Sum. I know you probably don’t believe that, but it’s true. You’re it. You’re all I’ve got. The meetings, the deals… they’re just a means to an end, a way to keep us going, keep you going, give you the best shot I can give you. Your pal, the tennis guy… Eric-”