Killer Summer (Walt Fleming)

by Ridley Pearson

  “No need to get defensive.”

  “We’re not going back to the office,” Walt said.

  He’d stopped at his house and was loading in some extra camping gear for his father while his father remained in the passenger’s seat, never offering to help.

  “So, you’re in charge, are you?” Jerry said. “Is that right?”

  “I can’t go back to the office without dealing with the Bureau. At this point, if we’re going to avoid their intervention, then we’ve got to outrun them. You and I are going to connect with Brandon, and the three of us are going on horseback into the Middle Fork.”

  “Are we, now?” Jerry said.

  “We’ve got a plane aloft with some cell gear that may help us pinpoint Kevin. It’s up there sweeping now. We’re fairly certain the jet got down in one piece. It was fully fueled, so if it had gone down hard there would have been a fireball, and nothing like that has been reported. There are some private strips, some grass strips, maybe a few better than grass. All I’m saying is, it’s possible—probable, even—that they got down, that they walked away. If we get a hit, we can narrow this down . . . maybe even talk to Kev.”

  “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

  “You’re supposed to listen,” Walt said. “Your former employers would love nothing more than to take over this case. For the time being, my phone is off. And, if you noticed, the radio’s off too.”

  “Of course I noticed. I notice everything. Don’t test me, son.”

  “This whole thing is going to test you, Dad, because it’s my way or the highway this time. You can follow or you can stay behind, but you can’t lead. There’s a system in place, a system I put in place. The arrangements have been made. You can badger me all you want, guilt-trip me . . . Have at it. But I won’t budge. We’re going into the backcountry. All your criticism about me being a hick sheriff, well, welcome to Hicksville, Dad. You get to see it up close and personal now. I’m going in and I’m getting Kevin back. We’re getting him before the Bureau even hits the ground, because, once they do—”

  “I know. I know,” Jerry said. “I was the one warned you about the SAC, remember?” He looked tempted to say more, to challenge Walt, but he didn’t.

  Then the silence set in, a wall rising between them. And where once Walt would have done anything to tear that wall down, including acquiesce, this time he did not. Instead, hands gripping the wheel, he bit his tongue.

  They stopped by a buddy of Walt’s and loaded a raft onto the roof. They bypassed a mile and a half’s worth of traffic backed up from the bridge by going off-road, arriving at the bike-path bridge that still remained under Brandon’s control.

  “How long?” Walt asked his deputy out his window.

  “Another fifteen or twenty. Almost there.”

  “Good. You’re coming with me,” Walt said. “Turn it over to someone.”

  They stopped for five minutes at Brandon’s trailer.

  “She inside?” Jerry asked.

  “Probably,” Walt answered. “But please don’t . . .”

  Jerry climbed out of the Cherokee and went inside the trailer to speak with Gail. Walt felt like driving off and leaving his father in the company of the woman he thought of as his ex-wife and the deputy she now was sleeping with.

  Instead, he waited it out.

  Brandon threw some stuff in the back of the Cherokee, and, when Jerry returned, offered his hand over the backseat. But Jerry wouldn’t accept it. Brandon caught Walt’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Walt aimed the mirror at the ceiling.

  “Did you call Willie?” Walt asked Brandon.

  “He’ll have three of his best saddled and waiting for us, a fourth with a pack saddle. We can borrow his Dodge, a dually that can haul an eight-horse, no problem.”

  Walt passed a topographical map back to Brandon. “I’ve circled Mitchum’s Creek Ranch. You will figure a route while I speak to Remy. I left Sumner at the office. He’s not going to like my bedside manner of leaving him in the lurch. But it is what it is.”

  “And Remy?”

  “Is worth a half hour. Maybe we’ll learn something.”

  Jerry glanced in his son’s direction. If he had something to say, he kept it to himself. Walt hoped some of his father’s toxic anger might transfer over to Brandon for breaking up his marriage, although that was asking a lot.

  “So, Brandon . . .” Jerry finally said.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “What if she’d been your wife?”

  Walt wished he hadn’t moved the mirror. Sometimes he loved his father.

  66

  Walt took a seat opposite Remy on the brown velour, horseshoe-shaped bench at the far back of the Mobile Command RV. A collapsible table separated the two, but to Walt it felt as if they were sitting too close. On the table were a digital voice recorder, a legal pad, a stack of Post-its, and two paper cups of Tully’s coffee. There was a black-and-white sticker on the cups advertising KB’S BURRITOS.

  Walt spoke into the recorder, providing time, location, and both their names. The formality won Remy’s full attention. He seemed ready to say something but didn’t.

  “Do you understand why we’re here, Mr. Remy?” Walt asked.

  Remy adjusted his left leg, bound in a straight position by the cast, sticking it out to the point where it rubbed against Walt.

  “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 st
ick 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