Cold Case

by Stephen White

  Once inside Welle's study Kimber knew exactly what he wanted to do. He plopped down on Ray Welle's big leather sofa, curled up in a ball, and pulled a blanket over his head. I asked him about chest pain. He waved at me from under the blanket. I asked him if he needed an ambulance. He said, "No." I flicked off the room lights and left him.

  I succumbed to my fatigue the moment I was alone. I moved to the living room, kicked off my shoes, and sacked out on a couch. Within minutes I was almost asleep; in fact I was so close to sleep that I was certain the sounds I started hearing were a prelude to a dream.

  A door closing gently. Water running. Someone shuffling feet on a hardwood floor. I opened my eyes. Damn. Kimber must have gotten up to use the bathroom.

  Maybe, I hoped, he's feeling better already and we can go back to town. But I thought that the sounds that I'd heard had come from the other end of the house.

  My heart started racing. I listened intently.

  Who could be here? Sylvie was down the lane at her house. Phil Barrett was in the Mount Zirkel Wilderness with the trunk of a fir tree planted where his heart and lungs should be.

  I tried to swallow but my throat was so dry that I coughed. I constricted my throat as tight as I could but I coughed again, not only failing to muffle the sound but also announcing my presence to whomever it was that I'd heard moving around the house. I stood up and moved closer to the central hallway. The clerestory skylights above my head were blue-black and the first soft gray light of dawn was filtering into the corridor. I saw no one lurking down the hall. I listened some more and heard no sounds coming from anywhere in the house. My heart began to slow.

  It must have been Kimber that I'd heard. I stayed planted where I was for another long minute, heard nothing new, exhaled in a long sigh, and decided that I needed a bathroom before I fell asleep. From the forensic search the afternoon before I remembered that there was a powder room just a few steps farther down the main hallway toward the master bedroom. I went there and unzipped.

  Midstream, seconds after I started to pee, I heard, "My, but this is convenient. God does answer prayers."

  I tried to stop peeing but I couldn't. I was that frightened by the gun that was pointing at my head.

  "After you've finished up there and tucked everything back in place, why don't you just put your hands behind your head?"

  I zipped, and laced my fingers behind my neck.

  Raymond Welle said, "That's right. Now come on out of there."

  He marched me to the living room and sat me on a sofa directly across from him.

  He was wearing a soft woolen robe over a pair of pajamas and the kind off step-in slippers that my father used to wear. He said, "So, who are you tonight?

  Goldilocks? What? Were you planning on going from room to room trying to find which bed was juu-just right?" I didn't know how to respond. I said, "I can explain all this, Representative Welle."

  "Save it. I don't care for your rationalization, Dr. Gregory. All I care about right at the moment is that I seem to have an intruder in my house in the middle of the night. I have a weapon in my hand. And I have the right under Colorado law to use that weapon to protect my property. That this particular intruder has proven to be one major pain in the ass for the past few weeks is just frosting on the cake."

  Welle was sitting with his back to the front door and to his study. It was clear that he didn't realize I wasn't alone.

  "Sylvie let me in."

  "Did she? Under what pretense? I doubt this visit is covered by the search agreement I signed with Locard." He laughed.

  "Makes no real difference. Sylvie didn't know I was coming in to the ranch. I didn't arrive from Washington until almost two. From my point of view, the situation is quite simple-you are a burglar. Or maybe even an assassin. You do know there have been recent attempts on my life, don't you?" He smiled at the irony.

  I didn't like the direction of the conversation. I said, "Phil Barretts dead.

  Ray. That's why I'm here."

  "What? What do you mean Phil's dead?" He squirmed on his chair, squared the gun at my chest.

  "You know the blow down on the Routt Divide?"

  "Yeah. What about it? I had to pressure the Forest Service to allow salvage crews up there to clear some of those trees. Reduce the spruce beetle problems and the fire hazard. Why?"

  "Phil died up there earlier tonight. Somewhere in the middle of the blow down A bunch of trees slid, one of them fell on him and crushed him."

  "Fell on him? What was he doing up there at night in the first place?"

  "Trying to cover his tracks. He killed those two girls, Ray. Mariko and Tami?

  Phil killed them." I stared at him, trying to gauge from his reaction whether or not the words I had just spoken constituted news to him. I couldn't tell. I continued, "The girls died in your bunkhouse. Phil was having an affair with Cathy Franklin. Her daughter walked in on them. Things got out of hand."

  He didn't react right away. When he finally spoke, he asked, "This happened right here on the ranch? No, I don't believe it." I thought his protest was a few degrees shy of convincing. He paused, thinking about something.

  "So was it Phil who torched the bunkhouse? That was his doing?"

  "I'm not totally sure. Phil denied it. If I had to guess I'd say it was Cathy who set the fire. She actually admitted to the killings, though. And she's the one who implicated Phil."

  "Cathy did that?" He shook his head.

  "Helped kill her own daughter? I thought she loved that girl. How does a mother do that?" He appeared to get lost in contemplation and I wondered if he was looking for a new theme to use on the campaign trail. The gun barrel wavered a few degrees. If he'd fired it right then it would have missed me.

  "You know that Phil was pretty desperate for me to rescind the agreement I signed allowing the Locard people to search the ranch.

  That's why I flew back here tonight, to work all that out with him. Congress is still in session. I really should be in Washington right now. But… I guess he figured you boys were about to find something that would point a finger at him about those killings." Ray continued to seem pensive. I guessed that he was trying to figure out exactly how much I knew about what. My best strategy for staying alive involved not helping him with his quest.

  He asked, "So is Cathy dead, too? Another tree fall on her?" He wasn't trying to disguise his suspicion about my story.

  "No trees fell on Cathy, Ray. But yes, she's dead, too."

  "You kill her?"

  I shook my head.

  He nodded as though he understood something. I couldn't guess what.

  "But the killings. It was just her and Phil? Doesn't go any farther. Dell?"

  "Dell didn't know."

  The politician in him had started calculating the impact of these developments on his self-interest.

  "With these confessions in place-Phil's and Cathy's-I imagine Locard's work on this case is done, finished. The rest of the search of the ranch won't have to take place tomorrow, will it?"

  "I imagine not, but it's not my decision."

  His shoulders sagged. He rested the handgun on his knee.

  "Well, it is up to me.

  I'll just put an end to it myself. Nonetheless, this will be a circus for the press. Phil dead. Ancient murders on my ranch. A member of my staff involved. I think I'd better get on back to Washington. I don't want to be held captive here at the Silky Road when the media craziness starts percolating over what Phil once did. I'm going to need some professional help with this from my press people."

  "If you shoot me you won't be going to Washington for a while, Ray. There'll be a few questions." He yawned. I fought not to mimic him. The room had brightened further with the advancing dawn. The brightness was disconcerting; I still wanted to sleep.

  "Who knows all this?" he said.

  "What you just told me? About the girls and Phil and Cathy?" I didn't want to answer truthfully. I said, "A lot of people know. Phil had lured all of t
he Locard people up to the blow down They all know. Why don't you just let me go? You won't have the satisfaction of killing me, but it will be much less messy for you than the alternative."

  "You may well be right about that. But the truth is that this opportunity may be too good to pass up. See… there's that other problem."

  I was surprised.

  "What other problem is that?"

  Some flaky sleep in the corner of one eye was bothering Welle. He scratched at it with the nail of his pinkie.

  "I don't especially appreciate all the questions you've been asking people about Gloria. My wife? You had that boy's uncle send me a letter wanting to see the records from Brian Sample's old psychotherapy, right? That wasn't a good idea on your part, didn't sit right with me. That's one sleeping dog you should have just let lie."

  I recalled Sam's warning to me after the incident at the tennis house in Denver.

  "Tell you what, Ray-since it bothers you, I'll stop asking."

  He laughed.

  "I wish it were that easy. But I don't think you'll stop. Why? I don't think you like me. I don't think you like my politics. I don't think your wife liked having me in her fancy family. Yeah, I know all about your wife. You know what else? I don't think you even like having me in your sanctimonious profession. I don't think either of you wants to have me in the Senate. So, no, I don't think you'll stop pestering. You'll just keep digging and picking at it.

  Won't let Gloria rest until you make something tragic look like something sinister."

  "You have my word. I'll stop."

  "Sorry." He wasn't. I could tell. The gun came back up off his knee.

  I argued.

  "You can't stop the questions by killing me. There are others who know everything I do."

  He narrowed his eyes and rubbed the stubble on his chin with his free hand. The sound was audible.

  "I don't think so. Some of this-the part about Gloria-only another psychologist would figure." He stood up.

  "Now you get up, too. It won't look good to shoot you while you're sitting on the sofa."

  I stayed where I was and reviewed my options. I could yell for help from Kimber.

  Ray would probably consider it a diversion and shoot me anyway. The possibility also existed that Kimber remained so incapacitated by his panic attack that he might prove to be of no help. Either way I didn't see how it was going to increase the odds of my survival.

  I could run for it and hope Ray was a lousy shot. An errant gunshot would probably rouse Kimber from his stupor and he'd run out and confront Ray, at which point one of them would shoot the other. Another possible lousy outcome.

  "Up," Ray said.

  "Might not look good to kill you there, but I'll do it. Don't test me. Now get up."

  The circumstances were eerie. I was so tired that I thought I hallucinated a tray with Red Zinger and Girl Scout Cookies on the table between us. Without thinking, I blurted, "Where do you want me to go exactly, Ray? The closet in the guest room? So you don't have to watch what you're about to do?"

  He blanched and a breath caught in his throat. His hand shook.

  Until that moment I hadn't known what the stakes were for Raymond Welle. But suddenly I did.

  My murder would not be the first one Ray Welle had planned at the Silky Road Ranch.

  Ray's eyes stared past me. I was tempted to look over my shoulder to see what he was focusing on. He said, "You can't prove anything." He had started breathing through his mouth, the long exhalations coming from deep in his gut.

  My feelings about the gun pointing at me were flip-flopping as much as the politician who was pointing it at me. One moment I felt totally intimidated by the threat, the next moment I felt totally liberated by the certainty of my death. During one of the liberated moments, I said, "That argument alone tells me I don't have to prove anything at all. It's as good as a confession."

  He straightened his shoulders, trying to look congressional and imperious. The gun and the pajamas detracted from the image. He scoffed, "And what good does it do you? Now that you know-so what? You get to die a righteous man? Does that feel good? You fool! I'm so glad for you. Will that make your widow happy? Now stand up!"

  I did stand. I needed to keep Ray talking and was rethinking whether or not to call for Kimber's help.

  "Why did Brian do it for you, Ray? I don't get that part. Was it the transference? Was he that crazy?"

  Ray took a step back from me. First one foot, then the other. He was gripping the pistol so tightly his knuckles were turning white.

  "No, he wasn't crazy. He was the most suicidal son of a bitch I saw in my whole career. But he wasn't crazy. Not at all. Brian Sample had not only decided that he wanted to die, he'd also decided that he wanted to die a righteous man.

  That's why he did what he did."

  "And killing Gloria made him righteous?"

  "Are you kidding? Brian knew that killing Gloria for me was only the price of admission." His mouth widened into a tight smile.

  "You don't really know what all happened that day, do you? You only have bits and pieces."

  "No," I admitted.

  "I don't know what happened."

  He tsked.

  "I'm surprised at you. Phil eventually figured it out, every last bit of it.

  He's not that bright a guy, so that surprised me some. But he was here that day so he had an advantage. But you? I've been guessing that you had it all."

  "Phil knew?"

  "Yeah, he knew I arranged to have Brian kill Gloria. And me? I'd suspected all along that he had something to do with those two girls dying back in 1988. Left the two of us in a kind of a standoff. Remember the cold war? Our nuclear policy with the Russians? The tacticians called it 'mutual assured destruction." MAD.

  If they tried to blow us up we would blow them up. And vice-versa. It was a perfect stalemate. That's what Phil and I had, our own little mutual destruction pact. MAD right here on Mad Creek. When I got elected to the House, we decided to reduce the tension a little and become allies. It turned out all right, I think, for both of us. But now Phils dead. The rules are going to be different, I suppose. I should enjoy a little more freedom now that Ray has unilaterally disarmed."

  "He killed Dorothy Levin for you."

  Ray Welle raised an eyebrow.

  "For us. He killed Dorothy for us. She comes here for one weekend and manages to puzzle out way too much of what had happened to Gloria. So Phil eliminated her. He did it for both of us-let's just say that over time our interests had converged."

  I was shocked at the motive.

  "Dorothy wasn't killed because of the campaign-contributions story?"

  "That? No. What she had on me? Its all smoke. House Ethics Committee might have slapped my wrist. But that was no mortal sin. No, she was getting close to figuring out what happened with Gloria. She had the insurance angle down and was asking way too many questions about me and my practice. Kind of like you are, except she was a little smarter."._Ray had lowered the barrel of the gun so far that it was pointing near my feet. I scoured my memory for details of the floor plan of the house, trying to imagine a route for an escape attempt. I doubted that Ray Welle was a skilled marksman.

  The more distance I could quickly put between us, the better my odds would be that he would miss when he fired at me.

  His next words stunned me from my reverie like a slap across the face. He asked, "Do you know the hardest thing about getting away with murder?" I said, "Excuse me? What?"

  "The hardest part of this whole experience-the whole thing with having Gloria killed?" He could tell that I didn't have a clue what he was talking about.

  "I mean killing someone and not even being considered a suspect? I mean never suspected at all-ever. You know what the hardest part is?"

  I was flustered. He seemed to want an answer so I took a stab at it.

  "I don't know, the guilt?"

  Ray Welle laughed at me.

  "Bad guess. I figured you for being a l
ittle more intuitive than that, Alan.

  But, no, I'm not prone much to that particular reflection. Remorse isn't one of my things. So let me tell you just so you'll know. The hardest part about getting away with murder- I'm not talking about the details, mind you, I'm discussing my personal feelings here-the hardest part is not being able to talk about it.

  "Me? I'm a talker. Everybody says that about me. They couldn't shut me up when I was on the radio. The Speaker couldn't shut me up when I was on the floor of the House. I was out of order more than a deck of cards. Truth be told, I even yakked too much when I did psychotherapy. But I haven't been able to talk to anybody about this. Not even Phil. We talked about lots of things over the years, but we never talked about getting away with murder. Neither of us. There was a time I needed to talk about it so badly I thought about going into therapy. You know, just to have a chance to spill the beans to someone and leave him sitting there with his mouth hanging open. But that impulse always passed.

  The result? There hasn't been a word spoken in all these years, until here today, with you."

  What was I supposed to say, that I was honored? The more he told me, the more certain I was that he was planning to seal my lips permanently.

  On the other hand, as long as I could hear him talking, I was still alive.

  There was that.

  "Why, Ray?"

  "Why did I have her killed? Is that what you mean? She was bailing out on me, on my dreams. She was going to pull the plug on the money I needed for the ninety-two congressional campaign. I couldn't raise the money without her name and her influence. And even that wasn't enough for a decent campaign. I needed her personal contributions-as my spouse she could spend as much as she wanted.

  And soon enough, I figured, she was going to start making noise about a divorce.

  When she left me I would have been sitting with my half-assed practice in Steamboat, my quirky little local radio show, and almost no money. Gloria had to die. It was the only way I could see to guarantee my future. Although I couldn't touch her trust, the rest of the assets would be mine. I hoped that would be enough."