by Thomas King
“Fired or quit?”
“Don’t know,” said Archie.
Thumps stabbed at the meat. The meat stabbed back. He tried the eggplant-okra stir-fry. It had the consistency of soft snot.
“But guess where she worked before she got the job at the newspaper?”
Maybe Archie was right. Maybe he should get coffee. It wouldn’t be as good as Al’s, but a cup of something dark and hot might make the cookie tolerable.
“Colorado Consolidated,” said Archie. “Austin’s holding company. She worked there for three years.”
“And she didn’t happen to mention that.”
“No,” said Archie, “she didn’t.”
Thumps had missed it. With Redding in the hotel room. With Cruz at the river. And later at Dumbo’s. It had been right there in front of him, and he had missed it. “They know each other. Redding and Cruz know each other.”
Archie looked up from his macaroni and cheese. “Again with the sex?”
Thumps tried the cottage cheese. It was room temperature and starting to melt. “What else did you find?”
“Didn’t find much new on Austin. Billionaire. Oil, gas, water, minerals. He started off as a geologist. Made his first million in Colombia and Brazil.”
“Gemstones?”
Archie cocked his head. “How’d you know that?”
“Lucky guess.”
Archie’s face hardened. “The sonofabitch is after the water in the Blackfoot Aquifer.”
“I thought you said he was after Orion’s mapping technology.”
“That too.”
Thumps’s stomach was rumbling. He was going to have to get something else to eat. “How’s the macaroni and cheese?”
“Cruz and Parrish are pretty much what they seem,” said Archie.
The noodles would be pure carbohydrate, which according to a brochure Rawat had given him was the same thing as sugar. But the cheese was protein. It also contained a large amount of fat, but food wasn’t a perfect world.
“Hired help,” said Archie. “The both of them.”
A small bowl probably wouldn’t hurt. Thumps leaned back and looked out the window. The sun had gone in behind a bank of clouds, and the mountains and the forest had darkened to a soft purple.
“I saw Claire,” said Archie. “She was looking for you.”
“What’d she say?”
“Asked if I had seen you.”
The new information about Redding wasn’t much help. Maybe she was covering the conference as a freelancer. Maybe she was embarrassed about being fired from the paper and didn’t want people to know. Colorado Consolidated was probably a large company. Maybe she had never met Cisco Cruz or Boomper Austin.
Archie checked his watch. “There was supposed to be a presentation on Orion Technologies’ Resource Analysis Mapping technology, but it was cancelled.”
“Cancelled?”
“No Margo Knight. No James Lester. No presentation.”
“What about Oliver Parrish?”
“Said he didn’t know the science well enough to make the presentation,” said Archie. “So instead, we’re showing Irena Salina’s documentary Flow: For Love of Water. You should come.”
“I should find Claire.”
“Sure.” Archie pointed his fork at Thumps’s plate. “You going to finish your stir-fry?”
Thirty-Eight
Thumps went straight to reception. “I need room numbers.”
Deanna’s face lit up. “Are you asking as acting sheriff?”
“Yes.”
“Shoot.”
“Boomper Austin and Oliver Parrish.”
Deanna wrote the numbers down on a yellow sticky. “You want phone records?”
Thumps thought about it for a moment. “Sure.”
Deanna began working her keyboard. “No outgoing phone calls for Parrish, but that’s not unusual. Everyone uses cellphones these days. And at a dollar a call from your room phone, I don’t blame them.”
“Austin?”
“A dozen calls,” said Deanna. “All to two numbers. Area codes 713 and 66.”
“Sixty-six is an area code?”
“Bangkok,” said Deanna.
“Thailand?”
“And 713 is downtown Houston. How am I doing?”
“Claire Merchant,” said Thumps. “Which condo is hers?”
“Is she a suspect?”
“No.”
“Good,” said Deanna. “I like her.”
“Me too,” said Thumps.
“So, you think I’ll be able to get the sheriff’s signature on my practicum?”
BOOMPER AUSTIN WAS staying in one of the Cascades, a three-bedroom, two-bath, cathedral-ceilinged affair with a greenhouse master bath, where you could lie in a whirlpool tub and watch the clouds float across the sky. Thumps had toured the models when Buffalo Mountain first opened, and the Cascade had been the high-end unit, the one for folks who had what economists liked to call “disposable incomes,” bags of money that they could afford to toss out with the trash. Did the place have a six-burner gas stove? Yes, he believed it did.
“Mr. DreadfulWater.” Austin was dressed in a dark silk shirt and a pair of soft cream pants. Behind him was a balcony with a panoramic view of the Ironstone and the mountains. “What a nice surprise.”
Claire Merchant was standing on the balcony.
“You want a beer?” Austin retreated to the kitchen. “I’ve got wine and a shitload of the hard stuff as well.”
Against the bright mountain light, Claire looked small and cold. “Hello, Thumps.”
“You’re in time for the celebration,” said Austin. “Ms. Merchant and I have just hammered out an agreement.”
Claire stepped in off the balcony. “What are you doing here?”
Boomper came back with two beers and handed one to Thumps. “I believe Mr. DreadfulWater sees me as a person of interest in the unfortunate demise of James Lester and Margo Knight. Isn’t that right?”
Claire looked tired. Thumps wondered if she had gotten much sleep.
“Course, he doesn’t believe that I did the deed or caused it to be done,” said Boomper, “but he’s stumped for the moment and has decided to beat the bushes to see what flies out.” Austin helped himself to a large easy chair. “I imagine you have one or two questions, so let me see if I can answer them.”
Thumps waited.
“You’re wondering if I was able to secure the rights to Orion Technologies’ Resource Analysis Mapping system.”
Thumps waited some more.
“And the answer is, yes, I have.” Boomper pointed the beer bottle at Thumps. “Actually, I had worked out a preliminary agreement with Mr. Lester and Dr. Knight before we all got to Chinook. All hush-hush, you understand. We were supposed to have a celebratory dinner up at Shadow Ranch the night they were killed. But I suspect you know that already.”
“Must have been awkward.” Thumps tried not to look at Claire. “Their deaths.”
“Indeed it was,” said Austin. “Just about had to start the whole negotiation thing all over again.”
“But Mr. Parrish was helpful?”
“Saved the day, actually,” said Boomper. “But then that’s what the Parrishes of the world do.”
“So you own RAM.”
“Enough of it to call the shots,” said Boomper. “Hell of a deal.”
“Which means you own the Bear Hump as well?”
“The lease on the land did come with the mapping system.”
“The lease was originally for ten years,” said Claire. “There are eight years left.”
“And that’s what Ms. Merchant and I were discussing,” said Austin. “Because of my interests in bottled water, you might be supposing that I’m going to spend those eight years draining the aquifer.”
“Stands to reason.”
“Yes,” said Austin, “there’s good money in water. I won’t deny it. But if I tried to do that, Ms. Merchant here would slap me with an injunction, a
nd we’d be spending all our time in court, knee-deep in lawyers and bleeding money.”
“It’s our land,” said Claire, her voice thin and sharp.
“Yes, it is,” said Boomper. “And I’ve no quarrel with that.”
“So, you’re not going to touch the aquifer?” Thumps watched Austin’s face to see if he could spot the lie.
Claire leaned forward on the sofa. “Mr. Austin is going to sign an agreement stating that he will not take any of the water from Bear Hump.”
“Even going one step further,” said Boomper. “I’ll keep the monitoring stations in play for now so I can recheck Orion’s findings, but I’m going to begin to take them out, one by one, and return the land to its natural state.”
Thumps took a sip of the beer. With all this corporate generosity in the air, he might need something stronger.
“Where’s the profit?”
“Good will,” said Boomper. “Never underestimate the profit in good will.”
Claire stood up. “I have to go chair a panel.”
“My lawyers will send a PDF of the agreement to your office first thing Monday morning,” said Boomper. “Have your legal team check it out and get back to me.”
Claire walked past both men without a word and was out the door before Thumps knew what had happened.
Boomper walked to the balcony and looked down at the river. “Hell of a view,” he shouted back to Thumps. “Hell of a view.”
“We still need to talk,” said Thumps.
“Better hurry.” Austin waved a hand at the open door. “In my experience, you only get so many chances.”
THUMPS CAUGHT UP with Claire at the elevators, and they rode down together, standing apart in opposite corners. He hadn’t noticed it before, but the car felt like a miniature boxing ring, a square so small that every punch thrown would hit something.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here last night.”
“It’s okay,” said Claire. “It was a long day. Conference dinner. After midnight before I got to bed.”
“How you doing?”
“Good.”
It was a slow elevator, and now Thumps was sorry he hadn’t looked at Roxanne’s list. There might have been a good tip on how to start a difficult conversation.
“You want to talk about Great Falls?”
“Nothing to talk about.”
“I saw Stanley.”
Silence.
“He’s worried about you.”
More silence.
Roxanne’s list was in the car. On the back seat. Where it wasn’t going to do anyone any good. The elevator was only about three feet square, but Thumps could feel Claire pulling further and further away. If this kept up, he’d be alone in the car when it got to the lobby. People liked to say that honesty was the best policy. It didn’t seem to apply to politics, and Thumps wasn’t sure it applied to tenuous relationships either.
“Look, it’s none of my business . . .”
“No, it’s not.”
“Still . . .”
“There is no still.”
The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Claire didn’t move. Thumps reached out and pressed the button for the top floor. The doors shut and the car began its slow climb.
“You didn’t go to Great Falls for a biopsy.” Thumps watched Claire to see if he was right. “The bandage was new, but it had been replaced a couple of times. There was a bit of the old adhesive just at the edges.”
Claire crossed her arms tightly around her body.
“The trip to Great Falls was for the results.”
“It’s not your business.”
“I should have figured it out. You would never have told anyone that you were going to Great Falls for a biopsy. Not Roxanne. Not Stick. Not me. If the test came back negative, then there would be no reason for anyone to know. If the test came back positive . . .”
Claire let out a long, slow breath. “What did you say to Stanley?”
“Nothing,” said Thumps. “How serious is it?”
“You want a scale of one to ten?”
“No,” said Thumps. “I don’t want numbers.”
“It’s cancer,” said Claire. “They’re going to try to remove it.”
“Great Falls?”
“They’re sending me to the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Why not? I can handle it.”
“I don’t want you to handle it.”
“Roxanne gave me a list of things I’m supposed to do,” said Thumps. “First thing on the list is ‘Don’t listen to Claire.’”
“There’s no list.”
“It’s in my car. I’ll bring it tonight and show you.”
The elevator slowed, and the doors slicked open. Claire pressed the lobby button and stepped off the car.
“I’ll walk down,” she said, as the doors started to shut. “I can use the exercise.”
Thirty-Nine
The ride down gave Thumps time to think, and by the time he reached the lobby he had something in mind that resembled a plan. It wasn’t a good plan, but he figured he could adjust it on the fly.
Archie was at the front desk, talking to Deanna Heavy Runner. Okay, Thumps told himself, time to adjust.
“Thumps.” Archie’s tone reminded Thumps of the way he talked to Freeway. “You missed the film.”
Thumps held out his hand. “I need your cellphone.”
Archie took a step back. “What’s wrong with yours?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Borrowing someone else’s cellphone is like using another person’s toothbrush.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Actually,” said Deanna, “it is.”
“See this?” Archie held up his cellphone, which was the size of a small tablet.
“That’s a cellphone?”
“This phone has addresses, phone numbers, emails, photos, apps, and can connect to the internet almost anywhere you are.” Archie ran his finger across the screen and brightly coloured icons jumped about. “If you know how to look, you can find a person’s entire life, all on a chip.”
“I’d lend you mine,” said Deanna, “but there’s personal stuff from my boyfriend.”
“I need a phone.”
Archie shook his head. “Not happening. There’s information on this phone that’s top secret.”
“Archie . . .”
“I could lend you one of the phones that the security guys use,” said Deanna, “seeing as you’re acting sheriff and all.”
“That’ll do.”
“They’re kind of old.”
“Will it call long distance?”
Archie and Deanna looked at Thumps as though he had just arrived from the eighteenth century without any luggage.
Deanna opened a drawer and came up with a lump of black plastic. “No games, no WiFi capability,” she said apologetically, “but you can call long distance.”
“We still haven’t found Redding,” said Archie, “but Deanna saw Cruz heading toward the casino.”
Deanna consulted her notebook. “Sixteen minutes ago.”
Thumps turned to Archie. “I need your room.”
“First my phone and now my room?”
“I need a quiet place to make some calls.”
“What about the bathroom in the restaurant?” said Archie. “You could sit in one of the stalls. Bathrooms are quiet.”
“Archie . . .”
“All right,” said the little Greek. “But don’t sit on the beds. They were just made.”
“You have two beds?”
“And don’t take anything from the mini-bar.” Archie reluctantly took the key card out of his pocket. “You know how much they want for a candy bar?”
ARCHIE’S ROOM WAS spacious, with two beds and a small sitting area near the window. There wasn’t much of a view. The parking lot. The casino and its geodesic dome. The road as it ca
me out of the trees.
Thumps settled on the sofa and opened the cellphone. Cooley answered on the second ring.
“Small Elk Enterprises.”
“Hey, Cooley . . .”
“Mr. Small Elk is currently in a meeting. May I take a message?”
“Cooley, it’s me. Thumps.”
“Oh, hi, Thumps.”
“What’s with the ‘Mr. Small Elk is in a meeting’?”
“Roxanne said that every successful business has to have an office secretary who screens calls.”
“Makes sense.”
“But I can’t afford a secretary.”
“And you don’t have an office.”
“Yes,” said Cooley. “There’s that.”
“I need a favour.”
“Does it have anything to do with law and order?”
“Maybe.”
“Can I be a deputy?”
Thumps’s first impulse was to say no, but if Cooley and Moses were temporary deputies and they found anything, the chain of evidence would remain intact.
“Okay.”
“Moses is here with me,” said Cooley. “He’d like to be a deputy too.”
Thumps wasn’t sure deputizing the two men over the phone was legal. The question had never come up when he was a cop in Northern California.
“Okay,” said Thumps, dropping his voice down a bit for effect. “Raise your right hand and repeat after me . . .”
IT DIDN’T TAKE Thumps long to explain to Cooley what he wanted him to do. And it wasn’t complicated. But he went through the plan a second time to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.
“You think Randy is available?”
“I can check,” said Cooley, “but I may need more help with the heavy stuff.”
“Not sure I can deputize anyone else.”
“It’s okay,” said Cooley. “Just so long as you pay for the pizza and soft drinks.”
THE SECOND CALL was to the Sacramento Herald. The phone was answered by an electronic voice that gave him a list of options. He picked the option “For the front desk, press one,” and got another electronic voice and another set of options. After five electronic voices and options that included “If you wish to renew your subscription, press three,” and “If you wish to report a news story, press two,” and “If your newspaper wasn’t delivered, press five,” Thumps hung up and called again. This time he pressed zero right off the bat and got an electronic voice that said he had reached the newspaper’s voice mail box but that the box was full, and thank you for your call.
