Killer Summer

by Ridley Pearson

  “I’ve been detained. Believe me, it will all be straightened out shortly.”

  “My nephew’s gone missing, along with a hotel guest. A plane has been stolen… a private jet.”

  Remy cocked his head. If he was acting, he was doing a good job of it: he seemed genuinely surprised to hear any of this.

  “Let me just lay it out for you,” Walt said.

  “I’m not talking without a lawyer present.”

  “So noted. And, yet, here we are…”

  “Yes, here we are…”

  Walt stared at Remy’s leg, then looked him in the eye.

  “Slipped in the shower,” Remy said.

  “Yes, I’d heard that. Your possessions were passed along to me by the hospital. I returned them to you, as you’ll recall.”

  “And I never thanked you properly.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Walt looked down at the man’s cast again.

  “Must hurt.”

  “Comes and goes.” He winced a grin. “The painkillers help.”

  “We’re a sports-oriented community,” Walt said. “Skiing in the winter, all sorts of stuff in the summer: biking, hiking, tennis…”

  “So, you’re the Chamber of Commerce, all of a sudden…”

  “We see an inordinate number of broken bones here, have some of the best orthopedists in the country… A little town of five thousand… Amazing, really.”

  “Guess I was lucky I slipped here,” Remy said, “but sure doesn’t feel that way.”

  “We know it wasn’t an accident. Your doctor and your radiologist confirmed that it’s blunt trauma. We know someone did this to you.”

  “Not true.”

  “And I know you’re lying.”

  Remy stared straight at Walt.

  “We know the Adams bottles are forgeries… fakes… counterfeit… whatever term applies to wine. You can feign shock, continue to issue denials, but the fact is, we have conclusive scientific proof.”

  “Impossible!”

  “We conducted tests on the bottles earlier this afternoon.”

  Remy grimaced. Perhaps he had known all along. “Ms. Finch…” he began.

  Walt didn’t comment.

  “She’s a reckless, overly ambitious amateur, Sheriff. I wouldn’t go taking her word-”

  “Some kind of sound-wave test can determine the alignment of the fractures in the glass. It wasn’t performed by Ms. Finch.”

  Remy didn’t appear to be breathing.

  “Fakes,” Walt said. “I’m operating under the assumption you knew as much. That, in fact, you’re responsible. Ms. Finch is evidently quite the researcher. She believes she can help the FBI connect the dots.”

  “A graduate student.” Spoken with a convulsive disdain.

  “Makes my theory of insurance fraud all the more credible. Which brings us to the death of Mr. Malone and the attempted theft of the bottles, which brings into question one Christopher Cantell and his associates, one Roger McGuiness and one Matthew Salvo. You with me?”

  Remy pursed his lips.

  “Here’s where it gets a little dodgy for you, Mr. Remy…”

  Walt drank half the coffee in two swigs. He was starving, couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten.

  “Cantell was not only behind stealing the wine, he stole the jet… the missing Learjet with two teenagers aboard, a young girl and my nephew. That means you, Mr. Remy, are in all likelihood not only connected to the death of Mr. Malone but also to the theft of that jet and the kidnapping of those kids. You, Mr. Cantell, and the others are all in serious trouble.”

  For a third time, Walt looked down at Remy’s leg.

  “Let’s say,” he continued, “ just for speculation’s sake, that you had nothing to do with the jet…”

  “I had nothing to do with any of this.”

  “When this all comes unraveled-and it’s already started to-you’ll be charged. And you’ll need to dig yourself out.”

  “Innocent until proven guilty…”

  “Yeah, right. I’m not talking about our legal system.”

  Walt bumped his leg into Remy’s cast, and Remy flinched and gasped.

  “You’ll need to dig yourself out,” he repeated. “You know the rule of thumb about the first person to confess, the leniency shown by the courts. Which leaves you in that dodgy position I just mentioned. Because when your attorney arrives, he’s going to shut this interview down, shut you down. And he has every reason to do so. Nine times out of ten, it’s the smart move.

  “But this isn’t one of those times. In fact, you and I are preciously short on time.”

  Walt called out to the front of the bus.

  “How long?”

  “He’s about five minutes out,” came back the reply.

  “See how on top of things we are?” Walt asked Remy, who was struggling to look at ease. “We have only your best interest at heart.”

  Walt pulled back his sleeve and looked at his watch.

  “Go on…” Remy said. His eyes ticked toward the front of the bus.

  “Me? I’ve got nothing more to say. Should I keep the recorder going?” He reached for the device.

  Remy glanced toward the front of the bus once again.

  “Decisions, decisions,” Walt said. “Maybe they’ll stop with the knee.”

  Walt’s hand touched the OFF button.

  “Stop… Leave it running.”

  Walt sat back. At times he found the work boring and tedious. Then there were times like this.

  “I had nothing to do with the theft,” Remy said, “either one. I knew nothing about them.”

  Walt kept his face expressionless, but inside he was churning. Remy seemed so self-righteous.

  “The bottles will not go to auction,” Walt said. “They’ve been pulled.”

  Remy searched the bus as if looking for an escape.

  “In that case,” he said, “I need protection… tonight… going forward.”

  “We’re not in the protection business.”

  “Then arrest me, Sheriff.”

  “How can I? You deny being involved with the bottles or the jet.” Walt made it a statement for the recorder. He rapped his knuckles on Remy’s cast.

  “The Adams bottles are fakes,” Remy said, head down, “forgeries. My doing, it’s true.”

  “You have to convince me, Mr. Remy. You have to provide details that, as an investigator, I can substantiate. I have to bring something to my prosecuting attorney. Facts are often a good place to start.”

  “The Jefferson bottles are authentic.”

  “I don’t remember discussing the Jefferson bottles…”

  Walt looked Remy in the eyes. Tick, tick, tick, he thought. The lawyer will shut us down.

  “I did very well off of that sale,” Remy said, his eyes devoid of light. “Then the economy tanked, and people weren’t exactly beating a path to buy wine. Up here in Sun Valley is different, I don’t need to tell you. ‘What recession?’ people are saying. But, still, the rest of the world is broke. So I decided to find some new bottles, something to tide me over. It didn’t come cheap. Neither did verification. I had to find an investor, which I did, who put up a substantial amount of capital. But then there were questions from one of the verification experts-”

  “Amsterdam,” Walt interjected, wanting Remy to know he was ahead of him, thanks to Janet Finch.

  Remy could not contain his surprise, though he recovered quickly.

  “The theft… the attempted theft here… I’m being blamed for that?”

  “Makes sense to me.”

  “But it wasn’t me.”

  “What’s done is done.”

  “It wasn’t my investors either. But they think it was me. It’s a mess.”

  “Tell me about your relationship with Christopher Cantell.”

  “Never met him.” He waited for Walt to say something. “You don’t believe me!”

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” Walt said.
/>   Tick, tick, tick.

  Remy had gone ashen. He ran his hand through his stubby hair. He couldn’t stop looking toward the front of the bus.

  “Have I heard of Christopher Cantell?” Remy said. “Of course I have.”

  “That’s better.”

  “No, you misunderstand… Have I met him? No. Spoken to him? Never. But he had his fifteen minutes. You’re aware of that, right?”

  Walt’s head swooned. He cursed not eating. He should have looked more deeply into Cantell.

  “You do go to the movies?” Remy asked.

  “Apparently, not often enough.”

  “Christopher Cantell,” Remy said. “That movie. Italian Job? No, that was a different one. Mark Wahlberg, right? Was it that one with Hanks? No, no, that was a con man, I think… I don’t know, I forget… But they made a movie based on this guy Cantell, a heist movie. Above average, nothing great. But I remember the press: they played up the real-life side of it… That’s as much as I know about him.”

  “A movie,” Walt said. He felt the rug going out from under him.

  “Look it up,” said Remy, “IMDb it. What do I care?”

  “And you think Cantell just happened to go after your wine?”

  “Ask him!”

  A fine line of sweat pearls had formed on Remy’s upper lip. They both sensed the imminent arrival of the attorney.

  “How should I know?” Remy continued. “There was lots of publicity, advance press-believe me, I saw to that. Churn up the market, you know? And part of that is churning up the rumor mill. The trades have been covering these bottles for the past six months.”

  A man came onto the bus. Walt recognized Terry Hogue, one of the valley’s best attorneys. The Christensens had helped their friend out indeed.

  “I forged those bottles,” Remy leaned forward and whispered harshly. “So, charge me.”

  “A movie?”

  “Charge me!”

  “That’ll be enough, Sheriff,” Terry Hogue called out to Walt from the front of the RV. “We’re all through here.”

  “Charge me!” Remy pleaded.

  67

  Ranches gave way to national forest, and soon there was not a structure in sight. The pale moonlight played off the towering blue-gray boulders to the right, the rolling carpet of evergreens to the left. A pair of amber eyes suddenly glowed at the side of the two-lane road, a black-tailed fox darting across in the glare of the headlights just barely in time to reach the other side.

  “Sixteen miles on horseback,” Brandon reported, “four to five hours, if we can stick to the trail. If we’re lucky, we can cross to the east side of the Middle Fork by dawn.”

  Jerry checked his watch. He’d been doing so often, far more than necessary. Walt was pushing seventy-five miles an hour with the light rack flashing.

  “You understand, it could get ugly,” Jerry said to Brandon in the backseat.

  Brandon looked up from the map and the handheld GPS, which he was programming, but didn’t speak. He and Walt met eyes in the rearview mirror.

  “There are times to wear the badge and times to put it in the drawer,” Jerry said.

  “That’s not the way we do it,” Walt said.

  “If anyone survived, if anyone’s holding Kevin, it’s going to get wet. I just want both of you prepared for that.”

  “Rescuing the boy and the girl is our first priority,” Brandon said. “I’ve got no problem with that.”

  “The FBI gets hold of this…” Jerry cautioned. “I happen to know the SAC out of Salt Lake, personally. He’s a shock-and-awe advocate. Loves the heavy-handed approach. He’ll get them both killed. We’re not setting up comm lines, we’re not negotiating. We get our sights on these guys, we’ll drop them just like that. We’ve got to hit them hard without warning. We’ve got one chance. After that, they take control, and we oblige them. But we’re not going to let it get to that. Kevin is going to walk away from this.”

  The whine of tire rubber on road filled Walt’s ears.

  “I’m just saying,” Jerry continued, “that that’s the way it’s going to be. I need to hear you say it too, Brandon, or you can stay behind when we switch to the horses. I’ve got no problem with your doing that. It’s either all in or not in at all. An operation like this, it’s just the way it’s got to be.”

  “We get it,” Walt said.

  “I gotta hear him say it.”

  “I’m in,” Brandon said.

  “We might face charges,” Jerry said, “Walt and I… That boy’s our blood. It’s not fair to ask that of you, but I’ve got to lay it out the way I see it.”

  “I’m in,” Brandon repeated. “And, just for the record, they fired first.”

  Jerry turned to face Brandon for the first time.

  He was grinning.

  68

  Cantell futilely sprayed the garden hose on the burning pile of wood while McGuiness shoveled dirt on it. Salvo was trying to flatten the pile and spread out the logs with a rake. For all their efforts, the fire continued raging, throwing sparks and smoke high in the sky. Leaning against the rocks behind them were a loaded rifle and a loaded twelve-gauge over-under shotgun. Cantell had no desire to use the guns but understood the authority they represented.

  Other thoughts competed in his head. The fire had been deliberately set as a signal. The girl’s doing. She had a brain and a lot of nerve-information useful to him, but unwelcome.

  “Matt, take over here!”

  Cantell passed the useless hose to Salvo and took off for the front of the lodge. Throwing the door open and looking directly toward the study, he could see that its door remained screwed shut.

  He hurried outside behind the lodge and double-checked the window to the study. Plywood was screwed down tight.

  Back inside, he stood in the middle of the living room listening to the boy banging around in the closet like he’d been doing for the past ten minutes. It was driving Cantell nuts, but he had no way to quiet the kid, to warn him.

  Cantell didn’t see the girl, but she could be hiding anywhere.

  He pushed the front door shut.

  “First and last chance, Ms. Sumner,” he called out.

  The kid’s banging stopped.

  “If you give yourself up,” Cantell said, “we’ll treat you okay. If not, you’ll be dealt with… well… it won’t be pretty. Your call… I need your answer right now!”

  He waited.

  It was only when his eyes alighted on the destroyed radio that his head cleared. The radio reminded him of the jet.

  The girl has a key.

  Preoccupied with trying to copilot McGuiness’s emergency landing, he hadn’t considered how his stowaway had gotten on the plane. But now…

  He’d had to deal with Sam Elliott and the boy, ad-libbing as he went. But now…

  He ran to the fire, shouting as he went. Salvo and McGuiness had gotten some control over it.

  “The girl has a key,” he announced. “Watch the inside of the house!” he called to Salvo. “You’re with me,” he ordered McGuiness.

  69

  Kevin had heard someone shout “Fire!” and then people stampeding out of the lodge. This was followed by silence.

  He sniffed the air, didn’t smell anything. But he wasn’t about to stick around to find out if the place was going up in flames. He pulled the boards free from the ceiling as fast as he could. Two split and broke, three others came out cleanly. He now had a hole big enough for his head.

  He shone the flashlight into dead space between the ceiling and the roof. Pulling free several more boards, he pushed the flashlight through. He climbed up into the attic.

  Again, he smelled for smoke. He got dust and an overwhelming putrid odor.

  He now shone the light in both directions. He could see the full length of the building.

  The cowboy was tied up in the study below. He was a big guy, an adult. He knew the ranch. He’d be a good ally. Kevin needed him as an ally.

  The attic flo
or was covered with a mix of sand and what looked like shredded newspaper, a decades-old attempt at insulation. It took Kevin a few tries to get the knack of placing his knees successfully on the crossbeams. Protruding from the sand-newspaper insulation was the occasional electrical wire. Following one, he dug down until he reached a junction box.

  If he could get to the study and untie the cowboy, it would be two against three-decent odds. Once he got Summer out of the garage, it would be three against three-even better odds. He kicked the study ceiling hard but the boards held.

  He thought he heard a man’s voice so he stopped and listened. It was coming from the general direction of the living room.

  A few agonizing moments passed. Had they found the closet empty? The sound of someone leaving the lodge allowed him to breathe again. He waited. There was no more shouting.

  Kevin drove his heel down on the junction box and it gave way, opening a small gap between it and the ceiling boards. He put his eye to the hole and could see the cowboy lying on the floor on his side. He was gagged. His hands were tied behind his back, his ankles tied with what looked like electrical cord with the leg of the desk between them. His blue eyes were staring back at Kevin.

  Kevin knew he wasn’t getting through the ceiling without a chainsaw. The thought he might have to go it alone overwhelmed him. He wondered if the hijackers had found Summer or had the fire been Summer’s doing? That thought charged him with purpose.

  Leaving the cowboy wasn’t right. If the lodge was on fire, he had no choice. And he needed him.

  He aimed the flashlight around the attic, hoping to see another way down. Dust filled the beam. He lit on a paper wasp nest in the far corner, some sagging spiderwebs. Then he lit on a row of upside-down bats. Stifling a reaction, he now knew the source of the putrid smell.

  He wanted out of there-now! He lifted his knees from the crossbeam and squatted on his feet, ready to move. Nothing he could do about the cowboy…

  His knife poked him, nearly cutting him. His only weapon, maybe the only way he had to defend himself, it was crucial to his survival. He reached down and adjusted it.

  But the cowboy was down there staring up at him.

  Holding the knife, Kevin forced his arm through the gap. He trained his eye through the same hole. The cowboy nodded at him and bounced his way off to one side of the desk, out of the way.