Cold to the Bone

by Emery Hayes

  She stepped around the doctor and caught Joaquin’s gaze. “Why?” she asked again.

  “It wasn’t one thing,” he began.

  “It never is,” she agreed.

  “My father’s right. Private school wasn’t a good fit for me. Most of the kids there are—”

  He stumbled for the right words, so Nicole began a list of adjectives for him, “White, privileged—although this would describe you too—narrow-minded …”

  “White,” Joaquin agreed. “And spoiled.”

  “So this made you a loner?”

  Joaquin nodded. “I stopped following their rules. Got in a few fights.”

  “My son was caught with marijuana,” the mother revealed.

  Joaquin shrugged. “I was experimenting.”

  “Did Beatrice experiment too?”

  But Joaquin was shaking his head. “Never. She was all about being healthy. Training. Winning. She’s been running a long time. If middle school had a track team, she would have been on it.”

  “She’d have been their star,” Dr. Esparza said, but Nicole ignored him in pursuit of Joaquin.

  “And she never tried marijuana or any other drugs?”

  “I’m telling you, she was always blending up vegetable and fruit smoothies, preaching about runner’s high, and writing every little thing down in her diary.”

  Nicole turned to the mother. “Beatrice kept a diary?”

  “Yes. But it was only for sport. Not about her feelings but about how well she did each day.”

  “I’d like to borrow it,” Nicole said.

  The mother’s eyes flared, and she sought her husband.

  “You want to know how fast she ran the mile?” he challenged. “Or how many days a week she did sprints?”

  “I want to know everything there is to know about your daughter,” Nicole confirmed. “The better I know her, the easier it will be to find justice.”

  “Justice?” His tone was full of doubt, shredded by grief.

  “Yes.” Nicole felt her face stiffen. “I want to find the person who murdered your daughter, Dr. Esparza. Don’t you?”

  He held her gaze, and soon his features began to relax. The corners of his eyes and mouth softened. He nodded. “We would like that too.”

  He looked over her shoulder to Joaquin. “See if you can find it.”

  Joaquin left his position at the door and walked through the living room to a cozy set of chairs and side tables. Nicole could see a stack of magazines and a guidebook. Joaquin disturbed the pile, surfacing with a slim volume, the leather cover cracked.

  “It’s all numbers and notes,” he told her as he handed the journal to Nicole. “Notes about her performance,” he clarified. “Nothing personal.”

  Nicole accepted the diary and thought about Joaquin’s words. Nothing personal … She doubted that.

  She turned to leave, still thinking about them. Murder was always personal. The family was hiding something. It was the natural inclination of the human spirit. But in this case, there was more. She felt it in their hesitations, in the anger emanating from Joaquin; in the faltering strength of the mother and in the doctor’s resolve.

  She felt footsteps following her and was soon stopped by the doctor’s words.

  “Sheriff?” He waited for her to turn, until he had her full attention. “We do have questions. And heartache. And fear. We have emotions we are only beginning to get to know. We are devastated.”

  The doctor’s voice was raspy, his words tumbled and slurred into one another. Loss sometimes took hold of a person slowly. It was an insistent, stubborn pressure. It throbbed in the temples, clipped the lungs, escaped in words meant to cut. Sometimes it was immediate. Nicole had had surviving family collapse at her feet. Most times people fell in between, surfacing long enough to gasp and breathe a word of denial. Nicole acknowledged the signs in all three Esparzas and nodded.

  “You said murdered, but you didn’t say how,” the doctor began, then paused to clear emotion from his throat. “Sheriff?”

  She noted his pale face, the streak of a single tear, but told him anyway. “Asphyxiation.”

  His lips quivered, but Nicole pushed forward.

  “Don’t leave town, Dr. Esparza. None of you are to leave town.”

  5

  Benjamin woke before dawn. He’d kept the curtains open the night before because he liked looking at the constellations before he fell asleep. Every time he found the archer, he felt the tendons in his neck and shoulders flex. His heartbeat quickened. His birthday—November 29th—made him a Sagittarius. He was by birthright a hunter. And he loved picturing himself etched out in the stars, his mighty arm drawn back, firing a flaming arrow from a golden bow. He was that big, that strong, that bold.

  He understood that a clear night sky in the Montana winter was a rare sighting, but he’d hoped. The archer was his North Star. It inspired him, gave him direction. So that morning he woke not certain what he should do. About Esparza, sure; he had a plan. He’d discussed it with the boss and they were of like minds. But about Jordan—he hadn’t worked it out yet.

  Yesterday he had sauntered into Nicole’s backyard, a new man. He wanted her to see that. He wanted her to fear it.

  But he didn’t want to see Jordan. That was one big fail. Benjamin had never been meant to be a father.

  It had always been about Nicole. First, controlling her. He’d wanted a hammer he could pull out of his toolbox whenever he needed it. But she hadn’t cooperated. Now he wanted her to see him and lose her lunch. He laughed at that image. She was cold and scheming and he doubted she’d ever felt fear deeply enough that her stomach heaved with it. She’d never hidden because of it. She’d never run. Even her great exodus from Denver to this bottom-of-the-butt hole had been calculated. And that was totally Nicole.

  She threatened. She planned. She executed. She’d cut him off at the knees and devoured the carnage. Benjamin wasn’t a vindictive man, but he did require payment in kind. And what better way to reach Nicole than through their son?

  She didn’t know that he had new clientele. People in high places who relied on him, for product and discretion. In his current circle, favors were distributed like candy at a parade.

  It was time to announce his arrival. To take out the trumpets and make it known. Benjamin Kris was in town, and he was a new man.

  Beside him, Charlene’s breath moved smoothly in and out of her lungs. It didn’t rattle in her chest. It didn’t guzzle in her nose. She was a quiet sleeper. He appreciated that. He lifted the blanket, slid out of bed, and tucked it back around her shoulders. He grabbed his smartphone and padded across the thick carpeting and out onto the terrace, barefoot and bare chested. Snow flurries melted against his skin, and the cold shot up from the soles of his feet, pinged the joints at his knees and hips, and lodged unnoticed in his heart.

  His skin puckered, but he didn’t shudder. He’d often thought about joining those crazies for the polar bear plunge, but New York was a cesspool and he tried not to travel east of the Appalachians.

  He opened a file on his phone and clicked through a series of photos. Charlene thought that Christmas photo when Jordan was three years old was the most recent they had of his son. But she was wrong. Nicole hadn’t cared enough to send any, but he had hired a private investigator to do the job for him. He had photos of Nicole dating back to the year she’d left Denver. Recently he’d had photos taken of Jordan as well. The boy had Benjamin’s build, thin but with potential. The awkward shoulders that might fill out. The small feet that never would.

  Nicole had bought his wrong-place-wrong-time story, and he had seduced her. If nothing else, he was damn charming. An important quality for a man who made his living as a salesman.

  “Benjamin?”

  He turned. Charlene stood in the doorway, a thin silk robe tied loosely around her waist. She held a gun in her hand. A Sig Sauer 9mm. A cop’s pistol and chosen for that very purpose. Charlene loved irony.

  “You’re going
to get pneumonia out here,” she said.

  Her tone wasn’t chiding or corrective. Charlene could be concerned without criticizing. He’d lucked out there. Most women were born to mother and smother. Not Charlene. She was mommy material, but she had her own needs too, and those kept her from dwelling on the comfort of others.

  “You can put the gun away,” he said. “There’s nothing out here.”

  “I like it, though, you know?” She raised her hand and pressed the magazine against her cheek. “Cold. I like that. Death is cold, and its means should be too.”

  He smiled. He loved when she spoke about life and death. She had a perspective that made sense. “You didn’t need it this time.”

  She hesitated before she agreed. “No, I didn’t.”

  He walked toward her and took her free hand in his. Even barefoot she was taller, leaner, stronger than him. Another thing he loved about Charlene. She was no pushover. And still she let him be the boss. She preferred it, looked to him for that kind of guidance. “You’re just as good up close. It was better that way.”

  Less trace evidence when it was done right.

  “I’ve done it before, but I don’t like it. Life pulsing under my fingertips. Warm breath. Tears. I don’t like any of that. I prefer cold steel.” She rubbed the pistol against her skin, and he knew she really felt it was an extension of herself.

  “It would have been better if you hadn’t let her run,” Benjamin said. “Work and play don’t mix, Charlene.”

  She nodded. “You’re right. Of course.”

  He took the gun out of her hand and pushed it into the waistband of his pajama bottoms. The first touch burned, the steel was so cold. Kiss of death. It should be exactly like that. His hand tightened on hers, and he pulled her through the door and into their bedroom. Sometimes Charlene liked to be reminded of that. How close the two existed. How the difference between life and death was a dotted line at best.

  6

  The towers stood 328 feet tall, each with three blades that tilted slowly, creating a whooshing sound as they picked up and recycled the air. There were several wind farms in Toole County now, and Nicole had grown used to them. It seemed that every time she descended a mountain pass, it was into a stretch of valley populated by the turbines. She didn’t like them. There had been too many accidents in the few years since they went up, and jurisdiction had recently shifted from the county to the state so that even Nicole had trouble figuring out who was responsible for regulating their safety.

  That morning, with the sun just rising and the shadows of the turbines elongating, an unnatural hush fell over the hills. Nicole knew that silence was deceptive.

  She had stayed with the Esparza family for more than an hour and during that time had received few straight answers about the night before. Perhaps nothing accurate about their stay in Montana. When a simple yes or no to a direct question was called for, Nicole had gotten evasion: Did you watch TV with your sister? She only likes reality shows … Does Beatrice have friends here? We’ve met a few people on the slopes … Did Beatrice go to a party? Maybe, but she didn’t tell me that …

  Until she’d asked if Beatrice had left the room willingly. Then Joaquin’s reply had been explosive.

  She’d left. She wasn’t taken. She wasn’t coerced. And it angered Joaquin. But that was the perspective of a seventeen-year-old boy, and the act was tangled in the barbed wire of pubescent emotion. Was it truth? Or was it as skewed as the other answers Nicole had received?

  She needed to decide a point of entry into the investigation. Murder was the certainty, but how had Beatrice arrived at that moment?

  Rendezvous or runaway? Or neither?

  The mother’s sharp keening had reached deeply into Nicole’s heart and, like fingers stirring a pool of water, left turbulence where before there had been peace. She wanted to see Jordan. To wake him, put his breakfast on the table. Motherly things. Normal things. Because despite what MacAulay had said, normal did exist. For her it did, because she had created it. She relied on it. When life got crazy, she bumped along its shores seeking anchor.

  She turned the Yukon south, the tires singing on the wet pavement as she drove toward the town proper of Blue Mesa—a main street, stubbornly called Merry Weather Boulevard, and two crossroads. A diner, an art gallery, several outdoor adventure shops, and a grocery store. The station was isolated from commercial business and took up half the block on the east end. Gas stations and mini-marts, fast-food pit stops and a coin-operated car wash were perched atop freeway exits but still close enough to Blue Mesa to be a convenience. Open space, rolling hills, quiet homes—modern and rustic—and rugged mountain peaks were like a membrane that surrounded their little piece of the pie and isolated them from a bigger, badder world. Usually. The familiar sights made for an easy ride that let her think.

  She began a mental catalog of all she knew so far about Beatrice Esparza. The girl had been in the ninth grade, had earned high academic marks and enjoyed cross-country running—she’d won several first- and second-place finishes, her mother had boasted through her tears. She’d had a social group, was extroverted and made friends easily.

  Beatrice Esparza was no stranger to responsibility. Grades were earned and honor roll was not easily attained. Placing in a sporting event took discipline and training. Would Beatrice sneak away, into the cold and dark, in a strange place? Teenage hormones aside, Nicole was leaning toward no.

  They’d eaten Christmas dinner at five o’clock—the steak house on Queens Road—and returned to the resort after that. That was the story Dr. Esparza had given her. The waiter would probably remember the family as a whole—but individually? Could a witness confirm Beatrice’s presence? It was worth sending a deputy out to check.

  The victim and the brother, Joaquin, had stayed up and watched—or not watched—a movie on cable after the two little girls went to sleep. They’d used the microwave for popcorn and brewed hot chocolate using the coffeemaker. Joaquin had turned in before Beatrice. The parents had taken the moonlight run at the resort and returned to their room at midnight. They didn’t check on the kids—the girls were light sleepers and the parents didn’t want to disturb them.

  Or Beatrice had gone to a party, leaving before or after her parents. Nicole had taken another shot at that line of questioning but with no progress. Joaquin had been unrelenting in his pose, slouching, arms crossed, mouth closed, and Dr. and Mrs. Esparza had insisted that they knew of no party plans.

  There were two certainties—the victim had left the room, and she had been murdered. Could it be as Daisy believed—Beatrice Esparza had never returned to the resort after Christmas dinner?

  Nicole had felt what she called her inner tuning fork vibrate several times during the interview. Parents checked on their kids. Especially if they’d been out. Maybe not every mom and dad and not every time, but strange place, late hour? In that set of circumstances, Nicole was willing to bet an all-or-nothing on the parental check-in. She knew she would be back, she would question the parents further, and she knew from the way the information had been delivered—hesitantly, vaguely, and without commitment—that she would get different answers.

  She wanted a look in the mother’s closet. Did she own a pair of UGGs? Did Dr. Esparza?

  She would question Joaquin and the doctor on their shoe size and examine every pair for tread. She hadn’t brought it up in the room—she didn’t want to alert them to specific evidence when they had an opportunity to dispose of it—but both Esparzas seemed to have smaller feet. Hands too. And she doubted that either Esparza—father or son—weighed in at 150 pounds.

  They were both suspects.

  No, they didn’t fit the date-rape angle, but Nicole knew better than to forge ahead with only one possible motive in mind. And the additional set of footprints in pursuit of their victim complicated things. The watcher. Certainly a different motive there, but what was it?

  Of the two, Joaquin and his father, who was the most likely? Both had been evas
ive, but the doctor had been firm with his answers and even challenging. Joaquin had been a typical teen, angry, grieving, grudgingly giving answers that he doubted would help.

  The call, her initial point of contact with the family, bothered her. The father was a doctor, accustomed to late-night disturbances. But the man was on vacation, and the police were calling. At some point in that brief conversation, that had to have sunk in. Yet there had been no alarm. He’d been cautious, as though poised at the precipice between disaster and redemption. Life and death. Hope and despair. If he hadn’t been expecting her, her voice at the end of the line was still a relief.

  The family had known Beatrice was missing—Nicole believed that—but for how long?

  Nicole turned east, away from Glacier National Park and directly into the rising sun. The glare off the snow was blinding, and she slowed the vehicle. She passed a small gift shop, its turnout parking lot empty and its windows boarded against strong winds and sleet.

  She felt that irritating rub, like a finger scratching beneath the surface of her skin. She knew from experience that it was revelation. There was something else not quite right about her conversation with the Esparza family. Something out of place, missing or imposed on a scene that didn’t fit. And she was close to knowing what it was.

  * * *

  She turned off the county road and felt the world grow smaller as the trees thickened and darkened the gray sky. The homes here were built on acre plots and separated by fence lines that marked boundaries and contained livestock. Her neighbors kept horses and even a steer or two, raised to feed the family. When Jordan was seven he’d talked Nicole into a dog, but she had refused every other request for pets. She wasn’t good with animals. They required time, of which she had little, and maintenance. But the dog, a Saint Bernard–husky mix, served two purposes. He was a natural protector as well as a friend. Trips to the vet and chew bones for tartar—she could do that. Training, exercise, companionship—Jordan took care of all that.