White Mountain

by Dinah McCall

  Before Rostov knew what was happening, Frank grabbed his hand and lunged forward, plunging the knife blade into his own chest.

  Rostov grunted in surprise and took a sudden step backward, but it was too late. The damage was already done.

  “What have you done?” he cried, as Frank Walton slumped to the ground.

  The taste of blood was in Frank’s mouth. “Killed the messenger,” he mumbled, then exhaled slowly. So this is dying. Thought ceased. He’d cheated cancer after all.

  Two police cars sped quickly past the entrance to the alley, in obvious pursuit of the car that had just passed, but Rostov was in a panic. He’d misjudged the old fool. Who would have thought he still had it in him?

  Kneeling by the dead man’s side, he quickly removed all the identification from the body, then used Walton’s handkerchief to remove his fingerprints from the knife. Nervous now, and not wanting to be seen in the alley where a dead man was lying, he tossed the knife into a nearby Dumpster, then slipped over the fence at the back of the alley.

  Ten blocks away, he stripped the cash and identification papers from the wallet, dropped Frank’s hotel key into his pocket and then tossed the empty wallet into a trash can by a bus stop. The body wouldn’t be found until morning. It would take even longer for it to be identified. Confident that the death would appear to have bee robber, he headed for Frank’s hotel. That crazy old man had upset his plans completely. Now he was torn between having to lie to his superiors and admitting that he was too old for this job after all.

  It wasn’t until he was standing at a street corner and waiting for the light to change that he realized the old man’s last words had been spoken in fluent and perfect Russian.

  He cursed beneath his breath as he started across the street. All he could do was hope he would find a clue in Walton’s hotel room that would keep him in good standing with the powers that be.

  A few minutes later, he entered the hotel and headed straight for the elevator, confident that he would not be noticed. He’d followed the old man more than once, so he already knew the floor and room number. There was no one in the hallway when he exited the elevator, so he headed straight for room 617 without hesitation.

  Once inside, he began a thorough sweep of the room, hoping to find something that would give answers as to why Vaclav Waller had faked his own death, as well as what he had been doing for the past thirty years. All he found were some out-of-style clothes and a plane ticket to Braden, Montana. The flight was due out at 9:45 a.m. tomorrow.

  He stood for a moment, contemplating the wisdom of what he was thinking, and then a slight smile broke the somberness of his face. He had Walton’s ID. It would be a simple matter to substitute his picture for Walton’s and fly back to Braden on Walton’s ticket.

  He nodded to himself, slipped the plane ticket into his jacket pocket and began methodically packing Walton’s clothes into his suitcase. It wouldn’t do to have the hotel put out an alarm when the old man went missing. All he had to do was leave the room key on the bed and walk away with Frank Walton’s things. The hotel would assume the man was gone, bill the room to the credit card he would have had to show when checking in, and no one would be the wiser. Less than an hour later, room 617 was empty and Rostov was gone, taking the last vestiges of Frank Walton’s presence in Brighton Beach with him.

  Detective Mike Butoli was nursing a hangover and a broken toe when he came in to work. The coffee he’d purchased from the coffee shop on the corner was too weak for the condition he was in. He needed some of his father’s recipe this morning, with a healthy shot of the “hair of the dog,” and then he just might be able to make it through the day. However, his father had been dead for years, and thanks to a weak moment last night, he was going to have to start all over on a new sobriety day.

  He’d made it almost six months this time and was pissed at himself for giving in to temptation. When he drank, he had blackouts, so he had no idea which had come first, the broken toe or the first drink, and from the way he was feeling, it didn’t really matter. His goddamn foot hurt almost as much as his head.

  “Hey, Butoli. You look like hell.”

  Butoli glared at Larry Marshall and thought about tossing the sorry-assed coffee on the prick’s clean white shirt, then decided against it. He had yet to figure out how the man had ever made detective.

  “You should know,” he mutter, as he set his coffee down on the desk and started to remove his suit coat.

  “Don’t get too comfy,” Marshall said. “Flanagan is looking for you.”

  Butoli pivoted without stopping and headed for the lieutenant’s office, limping with every step.

  “Hey, Lieutenant, you wanted to see me?”

  Barney Flanagan looked up, then frowned. Butoli was a damned good cop when he laid off the sauce, but something told him Butoli had suffered a “weak moment” last night.

  “Are you drunk?” Flanagan growled.

  “No, sir. Not now, sir.”

  “Then why in hell are you leaning against my door? Stand up straight, damn it.”

  “I broke my toe. This is as straight as I can stand.”

  Flanagan muttered beneath his breath as he laid a file on the opposite edge of his desk.

  “Sanitation found a stiff in the alley behind Ivana’s Bar and Grill. Go do you thing.”

  Butoli took the file without comment and started out the door.

  “Butoli!”

  He stopped and turned. “Yes, sir?”

  “I don’t give a damn what you do on your own time, but you better not drink on mine or I’ll have your ass.”

  Butoli’s stomach rolled. God, but he needed something stronger than the coffee.

  “Lieutenant, right now, my ass is the only thing on my body that doesn’t hurt, and I’d really hate to part with it.”

  Flanagan smirked. “Life’s a bitch. Go find me a killer, and take Marshall with you.”

  “But Evans is my partner.”

  “Not since last night. His old man died. He’s gone to Tennessee. Won’t be back for at least a week.”

  Butoli groaned. “Damn it, Lieutenant, not Marshall. He’s a prick.”

  “Yes, but he’s a sober one. Now go do your job, and play nice while you’re at it.”

  Butoli stifled a curse and limped back to his desk.

  “Hey, Marshall, we got a new stiff, so get your pocketbook, you’re coming with me.”

  Larry Marshall glared as he got up from his desk.

  “That’s sexual harassment,” Marshall muttered as he took his handgun from his desk and slipped it into a shoulder holster.

  “Are you gay?” Butoli asked.

  Marshall’s nostrils flared angrily. “No.”

  “Then it’s not sexual harassment, it’s only a joke. And while we’re at it, you’re driving.”

  Marshall smirked as they headed for the elevator.

  “Why? Too drunk to drive?”

  “Not yet,” Butoli said, and then pointed to the hole he’d cut in the end of his best pair of loafers. “I broke my toe last night.”

  “Shame it wasn’t your head,” Marshall muttered, as they exited the building toward the parking lot.

  “I heard that,” Butoli said.

  “Good. At least there’s nothing wrong with your ears,” Marshall said, as he got behind the wheel. “Where are we going?”

  “Alley behind Ivana’s Bar and Grill.”

  Larry Marshall floored the accelerator, taking small pleasure in the fact that Mike Butoli’

  White Mountain Cemetery, Braden, Montana—The Same Day

  A stiff wind lifted the hem of Margaret Watson’s dress, then tugged at the black wide-brimmed hat she’d been determined to wear. She grabbed at her skirttail with one hand and her hat with the other as she leaned toward her best friend, Harriet Tyler. Lowering her voice, she glanced toward the young woman in black sitting near the open grave.

  “Poor thing. With her father dead and all, she’s all alone now. No husba
nd. No kids. Just that bid old hotel outside of town.”

  Harriet stared at the woman in question as she whispered back.

  “She’s not exactly alone. Her uncles are still there.”

  Margaret sniffed. “They’re not really her uncles, you know.”

  Harriet shrugged. “Well, yes, I suppose, but I don’t hold with blood being the only tie to family. They were Sam Abbott’s friends and colleagues. They’ve lived at Abbott House for as long as I can remember. When Sam’s wife, Isabella, died, they all did their part in raising that little girl. If she wants to call them her uncles, then who are we to argue?”

  Margaret sniffed again, disapproval evident in her posture.

  “It just doesn’t seem right,” she muttered. “All those men. You would have thought at least one of them would have married again.”

  Harriet grinned. “You’re just peeved because Samuel Abbott didn’t return your affections.”

  This time Margaret’s disapproval was directed at Harriet.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she muttered. “Now do be quiet. The preacher is about to say a prayer.”

  Isabella Abbott was numb. If it hadn’t been for the firm grip of her Uncle David’s arm around her shoulders, she might have thought she was dreaming. For the past fifteen minutes she’d been looking at a clump of dirt on the toe of the pastor’s shoe, trying to ignore the shiny bronze casket suspended over the open grave beside him.

  Her father was dead. It had been so sudden. One minute he was laughing and talking, and the next he’d been clutching his chest. With two doctors beside him, he’d still died before the ambulance had arrived. For the past three days he’d been lying in state at the Jewel Funeral Home, and now they’d come to lay him to rest.

  Her gaze slid from the toe of the pastor’s shoe to the mound of white roses covering the casket. Her vision blurred as she drew a deep, shuddering breath.

  Oh, Daddy…how am I going to face life without you?

  David Schultz felt every one of his seventy-eight years as he stared at the long bronze casket. One of these days he would meet a similar fate. They all would . And when that happened, Isabella would be alone. Worry deepened as he pulled Isabella a little closer within his embrace. Samuel’s death had caught them all unaware. Changes were inevitable, and he hated change.

  Suddenly the preacher was saying Amen and people were starting to move. Isabella stood abruptly. He stood with her, looking around for the other uncles, but he need not have bothered. Like him, they were there—as always, sheltering her since the day she’d been born.

  “Are you all right, darling?”

  Isabella looked up into the dear, familiar face of her Uncle David and nodded.

  “I will be,” she said, trying to smile through tears. “I’m just sick about Uncle Frank, though. He will be so upset when he comes home and learns that Daddy died.”

  “It’s his own fault for not giving us a way to contact him,” David said, still a bit miffed that his old friend had been so secretive about the trip he’d taken.

  “I know, but it’s still too bad. He’s going to be riddled with guilt,” Isabella said.

  “As he should be,” Thomas Mowry said, adding his own opinion to the conversation as he gave Isabella a hug.

  Isabella let Uncle Thomas’s warmth enfold her, but the moment was brief, as well-wishers began gathering around her, anxious to pay thei condolences. She glanced at her Uncle David, giving him a nod.

  David quickly stepped forward and raised his hand as he made a brief announcement.

  “Please,” he said. “We thank you so much for coming. Samuel loved this community and the people in it. Isabella is exhausted, so we are taking her home, but she has asked me to invite all of those who care to come to Abbott House. There is food and drink. Please make yourselves welcome.”

  Isabella tried to smile, but the faces around her had become a blur. She drew a deep Shuddering Breath and let herself be led to a waiting car. Moments later they were driving away from the cemetery toward White Mountain, the place that she called home.

  She closed her eyes, mentally preparing herself for the hours ahead. It would be nightfall before she would be able to shed the duties of hostess. Then she would grieve.

  2

  The grandfather clock in the hotel lobby was striking the hour as Isabella came out of her room. It was already midnight, and she still had not been able to sleep. Luckily the hotel was almost empty, although two guests had arrived to check in during the wake following her father’s funeral and she hadn’t had the heart to turn them away.

  Her head ached. Her eyes were swollen from crying. Every time she closed them, she saw her father’s casket being lowered into the grave. Unable to lie still in her comfortable bed when she knew her father was in a box six feet under the ground, she’d crawled out of bed.

  But it wasn’t sorrow that had pulled her out of her room. It was hunger. She felt guilty—almost ashamed of the fact—but it was the first time in three days that she’d felt like eating.

  The family quarters were on the lower floor of the house, behind the main staircase, and as she came around the corner, she stopped at the foot of the stairs beneath the painting on the opposite wall. It was a massive canvas, almost life-size, and the first thing to be seen upon entering the hotel. Isabella paused in the shadows, looking intently at the first Isabella. The woman who’d bee her mother and who had died giving birth to her, was little more than a face with a name.

  She stared at the painting, accepting the fact that, except for the different hairstyle and clothing, it could very well have been a portrait of herself. She sighed, the sound little more than a soft shifting of air in the silent room

  But for a vague longing for something she’d never known, she had no emotional ties to the woman, although her father had never been able to look at that painting without coming close to tears. At the thought of her father, she wrapped her arms around herself and tried not to cry. At least one positive thing had come out of this nightmare. Her parents were now together.

  When her stomach rumbled again, she dropped her gaze and headed for the kitchen. The large commercial-sized refrigerators were full of leftovers from the wake, so she had a wide variety of foods from which to choose. Getting a plate from the cabinet, she settled on a piece of cold chicken and a small helping of pasta salad. The silverware drawer squeaked as she opened it to get a fork, and when it did, she winced. The uncles’ rooms were on the top floor, which was two flights up from where she was, yet it wouldn’t be the first time in her life she’d gotten caught during a midnight snack attack.

  She stood for a moment, listening for the sound of footsteps coming down the staircase, and when she heard nothing but the ticking of the grandfather clock out in the lobby, she breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t want to talk any more today—not even to them.

  She went onto the back stoop and sat down on the steps, balancing her plate on her lap as she took her first bite. The pasta in the salad was perfectly al dente and coated with a tangy vinaigrette. When the first bite of food hit her stomach, she inhaled slowly, allowing herself to get past the guilt of self-satisfaction and admit that it was good. As she ate, her gaze moved beyond the backyard of the hotel to the mountain looming on the horizon.

  White Moutain.

  For as long as she could remember, t had been the backdrop for her life. Somewhere in the ancient past of this land, a massive shift in the tectonic plates below the earth’s surface had created heat and pressure beyond man’s imagination, resulting in the birth of the mountain range of which white Mountain was a part.

  She had often wondered why it was called Whit Mountain, because it was black as a witch’s heart, with a thick stand of trees halfway up its steep slopes. Her father had suggested that it must have been named during the winter months, because then it was usually covered with snow.

  It was some time later before Isabella noticed she’d eaten all her food. As she stoo
d, she also realized that part of her melancholy had eased. She wanted to smile, but her heart was too sore to allow herself the notion, although her father would have been pleased. He’d always said that the world looked far to grim on an empty stomach.

  With on last look at the overpowering peak, she went back in the house, quietly locking the door behind her. She set her plate in the sink and then started back to her room. It wasn’t going to be easy without her father, but she accepted his death as an inevitable part of life. The uncles were all of the same generation as her father, and she didn’t want to think of the days when she would eventually have to them up, too. The saddest thing was knowing that Uncle Frank had yet to learn of her father’s death. He was going to be devastated that he hadn’t known, and quilt-ridden at not being here to help her through the ordeal. Isabella just wished he would come back, or at least call. He’d never been away this long before.

  A few moments later she entered her room and went back to bed. It wasn’t long before exhaustion claimed her and she finally fell asleep.

  Detective Mike Butoli swung his sore foot over the curb and stepped up with a hop as he headed into the crime lab. The coroner’s office had yet to perform the autopsy on his latest case, and he was chafing under the delay.

  An unidentified stiff in a Brighton Beach alley was not high priority, nor was it the only unidentified victim awaiting dissection, but for some reason the case was weighing heavily on Butoli’s mind. They’d put the stiff’s fingerprints into the system, hoping for a match, and at Lieutenant Flanagan’s suggestion had sent them to Interpol, as well. With the high concentration of Russian immigrants in Brighton Beach, it stood to reason that one or the other would result in an identification.

  He had been a cop for almost twenty years, the last twelve as a detective. He’d seen far more of the evil and depravity of the human condition than anyone should be exposed to and couldn’t remember the last time he had taken a case personally.