by Thomas Zigal
“I’ve still got a badge, Miles. I’m thinking about dragging your crazy butt down to the courthouse and booking you for murder one. You’ve got about thirty seconds to give me a reason why I shouldn’t.”
Miles glanced down at the cache of ecotage devices. “I didn’t kill Ned Carr,” he said solemnly. “I didn’t like the asshole, but I wouldn’t do anything to hurt him physically.” He stared at Kurt, as serious as Kurt had ever seen him. “There’s a line I never cross, Muller.”
Kurt knew where the line was drawn. Property, machines, equipment—the instruments of Ned’s dirty trade. He couldn’t imagine Miles setting out to kill the old miner. But mischief did sometimes go awry.
“How about the woman?” Kurt asked. “Maybe she tried something on her own and got reckless. How well do you know her?”
Miles drank, his perspiring face empty of expression. “No idea what you’re talking about, man,” he said.
Kurt slid the top off the dynamite case. Two tidy rows of DuPont Straights, long menacing tubes coated with red paraffin. A perfect set, none of them missing from the pack.
“I know this is an unpopular view around these parts, but I admired the old codger,” Kurt said, lifting a stick to feel its smooth waxy texture, his fingers tingling. “Right from the start he let everybody know he was here first. These mountains were his stomping ground and he didn’t back down from the greedheads who thought they could steal everything cheap.”
“Like your old man?” Miles raised an eyebrow.
“My old man and everybody since.”
Kurt gingerly replaced the dynamite stick in its proper slot alongside the others. “I got to know Ned pretty well after Marie was killed.” Ned’s daughter, her body not found until the spring melt that year. “He didn’t know what to do with his grandson so he asked me to help him out.”
Miles leaned a shoulder against a file cabinet for support. “Good gal, Marie,” he said. “No beef with her.”
“He’s been raising a six-year-old boy, Miles. Now somebody has to tell the kid what happened to his grandpa. It fucking breaks my heart.”
Miles sipped bourbon and gazed implacably at Kurt.
“If you had anything to do with this, I don’t care how far back we go, man, I’m going to nail your ass.”
Miles set the empty tumbler aside and shuffled over to examine the dynamite in the case. “Go hassle somebody else, Muller,” he said, extracting the same stick Kurt had fondled. “Wouldn’t put it past that weasel Tyler Rutledge. Two of ’em fought like cats and dogs. Transferred father-son animosity.” He squeezed the long red stick, waved it casually like a baton. “Little prick probably did Ned in for the claim deeds.”
Kurt wished this crazy man wouldn’t toy with dynamite. “I’m going to back my Jeep up to the door, Miles, and we’re going to load all this crap into the boot. Everything but the chainsaw and the wd-40.”
“Can’t let you do that, hombre. As appointed custodian I have taken a blood oath.”
“Listen to me, Miles,” Kurt said. “If the demolitions man tells us Ned’s blasting charge was monkey-wrenched, you’re the first person Muffin Brown and her boys are coming after, I can guarantee it. They’ve got twenty-five years of probable cause. If the Sheriff’s Department finds this stuff, your butt’s in the slammer looking at hard time.”
Kurt watched Miles draw back his arm but didn’t for a moment believe he would actually throw the stick. Suddenly it was arcing through the air, hurling end over end like a flung newspaper toward the reinforced steel door. Kurt dropped to the floor, covered his head, and waited for his brains to pour out his ears. But there was only a weak thud, then a bouncing sound like a toilet-paper roll on the loose.
“The Straights are mine,” he heard Miles murmur. “Had them since Kent State. Waste of damn good money. Should’ve used them when the pope was here. Now they’re dead as Reagan’s dick. Fucking duds.”
Kurt slowly lifted his face from the grimy cement floor. An old gum wrapper clung to his jaw.
“Christ, Muller. At least have the decency to leave a man his expired dynamite.”
“Miles,” Kurt said, rising to his knees, his entire body shuddering, “I’m leaving now to get the Jeep. If your dogs get in my way, I’m going to shoot them.” He let out a deep breath. “When I get back here, if any of this stuff is missing, I’m going to cuff you and take you downtown. Do we understand each other?”
Chapter four
Kurt parked in the lot across from the elementary school and stepped to the rear of the Jeep to check the camouflage tarp secured over the load from the bunker. He had decided to store the stuff in his toolshed at home. If Miles was indicted, he would turn everything over to Muffin Brown immediately. If not, he would find a deep hole, maybe an old mine shaft, and bury this shit halfway to China.
“What’s under there, Kurt, a dead body?”
Muffin had been waiting for him in a county squad car parked on the other side of an Econoline van.
“Some camping gear I don’t want ripped off,” Kurt said, rehooking a loose bungee cord.
“I got in touch with that guy Banks in Denver. He’ll be in tonight.”
“Good.”
Schoolchildren were beginning to swarm out of the building, racing for the queue of idling Range Rovers where their mothers sat reading Patagonia catalogs, opening mail. Muffin watched the rowdy free-for-all under the covered walkway, the safety patrol trying to slow everyone down. “Dr. Hales said to meet her in the principal’s office,” she told him. “If you don’t mind, I won’t stay long.”
Children were her only weakness as a cop. Gunshot wounds and compound fractures she handled like a war nurse, but the only time Kurt had seen her knees buckle was after they’d pried a mangled toddler out of an icy auto wreck.
Hunter and Lennon were waiting for them in the school office, sitting in the chairs reserved for behavior problems and angry parents. The principal and Mrs. Sears, the boys’ kindergarten teacher, were conferring in solemn whispers near the copy machine. Dr. Sharon Hales, an attractive middle-aged psychologist with thick gray-streaked hair and penetrating blue eyes, was engaged in an animated conversation with the boys, curious about the glittery rock Hunter had produced from his army field pack.
“It’s fool’s gold,” Hunter informed her, letting the psychologist hold it in her own hand. “I brought it for show-and-tell.”
Lennon saw his father and said, “Hi Dad, hi Muffie,” and jumped up to give them both a hug. He was still an affectionate child, soft and daydreamy, a strawberry blond with the same peachlike coloring as his mother. “Why are we here in the office?” he asked. “We didn’t punch anybody.”
“The office isn’t just for punishment.” Kurt smiled at his son. “Sometimes people have friendly meetings here.”
“Dad, what planet are you living on?”
Lennon and Hunter were bright six-year-olds, outgoing, quick to laugh. Best friends, yet very different. Hunter was being raised in a remote cabin on the backside of Aspen Mountain and appeared tough, independent, almost feral; a short, thickset boy with dark features and skin bronzed from the sun. Lennon was tall and lean, awkward on his feet, his sensitive complexion easily blistered at this altitude. He preferred television to the outdoors and had somehow acquired the moody temperament of a French poet.
“It’s really called iron pyrite,” Hunter was telling Dr. Hales. “My grandpa gave it to me. He knows a lot about rocks.”
The psychologist offered Kurt and Muffin a cautious smile and shook their hands. A somber moment passed between them. Kurt could see that this wasn’t any easier on the professionals. But he trusted Dr. Hales and was enormously grateful for the way she had reassured Lennon after the kidnapping.
“Boys,” she said, touching Hunter’s shoulder, “let’s go somewhere special to talk.” She gave a confident nod to the principal and the kindergarten teacher. “Hunter, what’s your very favorite place in all of Aspen?”
Hunter thought it
over for a long time, his young face vexed by decision. Kurt knew what Dr. Hales had in mind. Somewhere pastoral, serene, beautiful. A babbling creek, a mountain vista, a buttercup meadow. Somewhere to help tranquilize the shattering news. He also knew exactly what Hunter was going to choose. “My very favorite place?” the boy asked suspiciously.
While Dr. Hales rummaged through her handbag for more change, the two boys dug into their Happy Meal sacks, searching frantically for the plastic-wrapped prizes. Their second lunch today.
“I hope it’s not the Magic School Bus solar system ruler,” Lennon said. “I got that last week.”
Kurt had brought Hunter to the Aspen McDonald’s to celebrate their soccer victories with the team. The only occasions the child had ever eaten in a restaurant of any kind.
“I guess I should have known better,” said Dr. Hales, observing Kurt at work grabbing napkins, straws, salt packets.
“Don’t forget the ketchup,” he told her. “It’s mandatory.” She looked out of place here, a nervous missionary whose plane had gone down in a primitive rain forest.
Kurt and Lennon walked outside to sit on a bench and watch the Aspen rugby team practice in soggy Wagner Park.
“Why can’t we eat with Hunter?” Lennon asked.
“Dr. Hales wants to talk with him alone,” Kurt said, glancing over his shoulder. The boy and the shrink had settled down at a table next to the window. Hunter was boring into his hamburger; Dr. Hales looked confused by the chaos of bags and wrappers and cup lids.
“How come alone?” Lennon asked, sipping his drink through the empty gap that had once been a front tooth.
“A terrible thing has happened, sweetie,” Kurt said.
He was right, this wasn’t going to be easy. Lennon had spent many afternoons with Ned and Hunter at their cabin, roaming the surrounding spruce forest, eating the old man’s chuck-wagon cooking, listening to his ghost stories about Indians and fur trappers and lost treasure. Not long ago Lennon had come home elated because Ned had shown the boys how to tunnel for ore in the Lone Ute Mine.
“Hunter’s grandpa was killed this morning in a mine explosion.”
Lennon looked at him as though he didn’t understand what his father was saying. The boy remained silent for several minutes, dragging fries through a pool of ketchup, humming as he ate. Kurt peered at the window again and saw that Hunter was still bent over his burger, eating ravenously, his small eyes fixed with a fierce intensity on the woman who was speaking to him. Kurt realized that if he’d walked into the mine shaft, Lennon would be sitting next to his friend right now, listening to the psychologist’s same consoling words.
“Is Grandpa Carr dead, Dad?” Lennon asked matter-of-factly.
“Yes, he is, sweetheart. Dr. Hales is telling Hunter about it now.”
Lennon turned to stare at the McDonald’s window. “Then we need to get him a present,” he said.
“That’s an excellent idea.”
“He already has a snake. And a rock collection.” The boy thought it over. “Maybe we should get him a cockatoo.”
“Hmm. What made you think of that?”
“They’re from Australia and New Guinea. We learned about them in school. Or maybe we should get him a television. He doesn’t have one.”
“I like the cockatoo idea better.”
Lennon watched his friend. “I don’t think he’s old enough to live by himself,” he said.
“No, he’s not. What would you think if he came to live with us for a while?”
“Great!” Lennon said, beaming at his father. “He likes to sleep on the top bunk.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll invite him to stay with us.”
Kurt glanced at his watch. He had phoned Lennon’s mother from the school and asked her to meet them here. Meg had returned to the valley last August, in time to walk Lennon to his first day of kindergarten. She lived fifteen miles downvalley in an old farmhouse with a Zen master and four friends.
“How long can he live with us, Dad?”
“As long as he wants.”
Lennon chewed his fries, lost in consideration. “Until Mom has another baby?” he asked.
He had wanted a brother or sister for some time now. Kurt didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. “Whatever works out,” he said.
When Kurt looked again at the window, he saw that Dr. Hales was holding Hunter in her arms.
Chapter five
Meg rushed toward them across the cobblestone terrace, breathless and visibly upset by what had happened. She gathered Lennon to her body in a smothering embrace, then opened her eyes and stared dolefully at Kurt. “Where’s Hunter?” she asked, on the verge of tears.
“With Dr. Hales.” He nodded at the McDonald’s.
He watched her eyes roam toward the window and understood what was constricting her heart. Only six years old, his mother dead, now his grandfather. Alone in the world. Lennon was a lucky, lucky boy.
“I’m really glad you can be with us today, Peaches,” he said.
“Yeah, Mom!” Lennon added. “Let’s all go feed the ducks at Hallam Lake.”
“Sure, baby,” she said, squeezing him again. They shared the same light pattern of freckles across the nose.
“I would join you guys,” Kurt said, “but I’ve got some follow-up to do.”
Meg stood up and pressed Lennon against her jeans. “Are you working this as a case?” she asked, a mild reproach in her voice.
She had never taken seriously Kurt’s career in law enforcement. Better than anyone else she knew he’d run for sheriff as a lark. But now, eleven years later, the humor had worn thin, the joke was old and stale. He studied the disapproval in her blue-green eyes and realized she would always think of him as the bare-chested hippie she’d met at Crater Lake in the early ’70s, the carefree spirit whose only ambition was to ski hard and leave a well-tanned corpse.
“Muffin thinks it was an accident,” he said. In their phone conversation he had mentioned Ned’s call. “I’m the only one with a wild hair.”
“I thought you were giving up the cop business, Kurt.” Her eyes narrowed, her head tilted in a familiar wary angle, the same old passive rebuke. One of the many reasons for their breakup. “What are you doing this for?”
Hunter and Dr. Hales were emerging from the McDonald’s hand in hand, ambling toward them in a slow mournful procession. Hunter was carrying the Happy Meal toy like a dead bird in his upturned palm. His face was lined and drawn, hard as an ax blade, his eyes so puffy he could’ve been in a fistfight. He looked older, too old to inhabit that small body.
“For him,” Kurt said.
Chapter six
Tyler Rutledge had not shown up at the Ajax site this morning, and that had caused Kurt some concern. He was still thinking about what Miles had said. Maybe this was a partners’ feud.
He knew that Tyler usually came down from the mine at three in the afternoon to begin his drinking, a ritual that dispatched him round to round through the few Aspen bars still hospitable to Skoal-dipping ranch hands and dusty construction crews. Kurt tried Little Annie’s first. No one had seen the miner, so he walked around the corner to Shooter’s Saloon. The place was empty except for a gangly, slick-haired bartender sweeping cigarette butts off the dance floor. The man told him he’d eighty-sixed Tyler a week ago after a scuffle during the Cotton-Eyed Joe and wouldn’t allow him on the premises. A stool fly at Cooper Street Pier complained that Tyler still owed him fifty bucks over a Super Bowl bet. A waitress at O’Leary’s Pub said she intended to kick Tyler’s skinny butt for stealing her tips. Three migrant workers shooting eight ball in Thurman Fisher’s pool hall called Tyler a pendejo, a cabrón, and a poor loser. There was no sign of him at the Jerome Bar or the Flying Dog Brew Pub, and not a single kind utterance from the querulous regulars who, to a man, wished Tyler Rutledge would go fuck himself, a toast guaranteed to raise every glass in the house. Kurt eventually grew tired of the smoke and wisecracks and the treacly smell of
booze and wandered over to the pedestrian mall to sit on a bench under the cottonwoods and breathe the clean, warming air. His chest was stiffening up on him and the knot on his head was beginning to throb. Muffin was probably right, he should see a doctor, take something for the swelling. He was pondering how to get his hands on a Darvocet scrip when a pair of hardy European backpackers tromped past him dragging their huge Siberian husky by a rope leash. And then Kurt remembered the most likely place of all.
The Red Onion was still there on Cooper Street, a narrow, redbrick tavern known as Gallagher’s Saloon during the mining era. Modern glassy boutiques and Nordic sport shops now wedged the vertical façade into a seamless wall of mercantilism and the old building no longer maintained its conspicuous presence, tall and dominant, in a sleepy mountain village buried under snow. Kurt considered the Red Onion a lost relic, easily misplaced among the many perishing keepsakes from his youth.
Walking under the canopy entrance and into the bar he felt a momentary rush, the past searing through him like heat trapped behind an attic door. It was as if he had never left that day in his childhood when Ned Carr and his dog appeared at their table. Everything was the same—the cracked tile floor, the long Western bar with its buckled mirror and imperial rows of liquor, the cramped wooden booths off to the side, the greasy aroma of ranch-house stew. Kurt gathered his wits and had a quick look around. Tyler wasn’t here either.
“How’s it hanging, Kurt?,” nodded the bartender, a stout bearded man with the shoulders and chest of a stevedore. Frank Jaworski was considered the best mountaineer in the valley. Every winter he left his bartending job to spend a month as a climbers’ guide in the French Alps.
“I heard about Ned. What a shame.” Jaworski was the first person who sounded as if he meant it. “What the hell happened?”
“Not sure yet, Frank. Have you seen Tyler today?”
