Killer Weekend

by Ridley Pearson

  Deputy Special Agent in Charge Scott Ramsey sat behind a laptop computer in one of two opposing booths. Behind him hung a seating chart for the inn’s ballroom, each seat labeled with a guest name.

  Ramsey gave Walt a nod. Three other agents stood and scattered into the back of the bus, from where Walt could hear a live feed of CNN.

  Ramsey had the thick neck and shoulders of a steroid user.

  “Dryer’s on-site in the hotel but busy at the moment. I told you that over the phone.”

  “Let’s make him unbusy, if we can.”

  “Not possible. How can I help you?”

  Walt laid the stack of photographs, cropped and printed by Fiona, down on the table.

  “We have a visitor,” Walt said.

  Ramsey flipped through the first five or six, his face impassive. “Give me the four-one-one.”

  “ Salt Lake City airport, this morning. The victim was discovered zipped up in a body bag and hidden inside a hung ceiling in a restaurant under construction. We got lucky, I guess you could say: He was still warm. I believe his killer is the same person contracted to do Shaler.”

  Ramsey continued flipping through the photos. “Glad I ate a while ago.”

  “I can take these directly to the attorney general, but I thought I owed Special Agent Dryer the courtesy of a conversation. If you say that’s not important, then that’s not important. Thanks for your time.” He scooped up the photos, turned around in the small space, offering Ramsey his back.

  Ramsey stood. “Hang on.” He squeezed past Walt and led him into the Sun Valley Inn, the resort’s conference hotel.

  Walt felt color rise as he recognized snippets of conversation flood down the hall from one of the conference rooms. He rounded a corner and was greeted by a parade of familiar faces just leaving a meeting. Some of the men stopped to shake hands with him.

  “Better late than never, Sheriff,” someone called out.

  “Nothing like missing your own meeting,” a familiar but unidentified voice said.

  Reflexively, Walt double-checked his watch, though he already knew the time. The security orientation meeting wasn’t scheduled for another forty-five minutes and here it was breaking up.

  Thirteen

  W alt entered the stuffy conference room prepared for a turf battle with Adam Dryer. He was entirely unprepared for what he saw: his father.

  The two men sat next to each other at a linen-covered table on a dais at the end of the boxy conference room. The dais was raised a foot off the floor facing rows of portable chairs separated by a center aisle, reminding Walt of a courtroom, and he the attorney pleading his case.

  Jerry Fleming lifted his head and met his son’s surprised stare. “I left a message.”

  Walt checked his cell phone: There was no message indicator.

  “That’s bullshit,” Walt said.

  Jerry Fleming served as director of security for Avicorps out of Seattle, the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer. He’d taken the job and its six-figure salary, a detail he loved to mention to Walt.

  “Who moved the five o’clock?” Walt asked.

  Jerry answered, not Dryer. “The cocktail party at Cutter’s tonight put a little hitch in our giddyup. It was in everyone’s best interest to advance it an hour.”

  “The five o’clock was my meeting. Mine and O’Brien’s. You have no say in this.”

  “Apparently I do,” Jerry said.

  “Your father brought us intel that First Rights is planning to protest the conference.” Adam Dryer made every attempt to make this sound of the utmost importance. “I left you a message on your cell phone about the meeting being advanced.”

  Walt gave him a look.

  “Careful, son,” Jerry Fleming said.

  “You stay out of this,” Walt said.

  “Wish that I could. My company’s going to have people at the cocktail party, and the five o’clock didn’t give me and my team time to get in place. A conference like this is fluid, son. You know that.”

  His father was a fount of security clichés.

  “You want fluid? Try piss and vinegar.”

  “The presence of First Rights requires additional planning,” Dryer said.

  “The WTO in Seattle? That First Rights?” Walt asked.

  “The same,” Dryer said.

  Walt now stepped forward and placed the Salt Lake photos in front of Dryer, who gravely flipped through the stack, passing each photograph on to Jerry Fleming.

  “Son of a bitch,” Jerry said, meeting eyes with his son. “This is Salt Lake?” He scrutinized the photographs. “Organized mind. Experienced with a knife. Late twenties, early thirties. Single.”

  “It isn’t a serial killer, Dad. It’s a hit man.”

  “I’ve hunted them, son,” Jerry said. “All you’ve done is study them.”

  “The upside,” Dryer said, raising his voice and making a conscious effort to separate father and son, “is that clearly our intel was wrong. When and if this dead guy’s ever IDed, what do you want to bet his initials come back AG? We got all worked up over nothing.”

  “And this ‘hit,’” Walt said, drawing the quotes, “just happens to occur a couple hundred miles south of where AG Shaler is giving a speech? Give me a break! The intel’s solid. The planning for the body bag is the kicker. That should bother us, because it’s an indication of premeditation.” He paused, allowing that to sink in. “This kill confirms the intel. We need to know the victim’s identity-fast-and his role in this, because the man behind that knife is on his way here, or is here already.”

  “You’re entitled to your opinions, Sheriff,” Dryer said. “But until we have the identification, until we have any kind of evidence connecting this kill to the conference, it would be irresponsible to initiate hysteria over what might be nothing.”

  “‘Initiate hysteria’?” Walt asked. “You want another look at those photos? This guy is a pro-whoever he is, whatever his purpose-and he’s within three hundred miles of here. All I’m saying is we’d better sit up and take notice.”

  Jerry interrupted the debate, saying, “There’s a cocktail party in a little over two hours, and First Rights intends to march on this conference. Where’s our focus? On a city three hundred miles south of here, in another state, or on the business at hand?”

  “I need route clearance and a two-vehicle escort from the AG’s residence to Patrick Cutter’s residence, on or about six forty-five P.M.,” Dryer informed Walt.

  “It’s already on the itinerary. You’ll have your escort.” Walt stepped up onto the dais to collect the photographs. “I want to show these to Liz Shaler.”

  “Out of the question,” Dryer barked out quickly.

  “She deserves to understand the degree of the threat.”

  “The AG is my responsibility,” Dryer reminded.

  “She’s speaking at the conference and that puts her with me. Are we really going to get into this?”

  “If you want a few minutes with her, I’ll arrange it. But no photographs. No one should see these who doesn’t have to.”

  Walt took this as a minor victory. “Thank you,” he said.

  Jerry Fleming made a show of checking his watch. “I’ve got to get moving. Walt, let’s do this at the party.”

  “Cutter doesn’t want uniforms present,” Walt reminded.

  “So lose the uniform,” Dryer said. “Meet me at the cocktail party, Sheriff. You and the AG will step out for a minute. See if you can come up with a game plan for First Rights by then. We’ve got to hit this proactively.”

  “See you at seven,” Walt said.

  Fourteen

  A knock came on the hotel room door at 4:44. Before answering, Trevalian unlocked the dead bolt on the door that connected to the adjacent room, knowing he would need this later. He then rechecked his appearance-the face of the man, Rafe Nagler, in the bathroom mirror. Satisfied, he grabbed his cane and answered the door.

  “Here to take you to the movie, sir.”


  Trevalian wore Nagler’s wraparound sunglasses, but not the opaque contact lenses. The lenses he now wore provided a horrid sight, if anyone caught a glimpse of his eyes, but allowed him to see, though a little muddier than usual. Karl turned out to be a brute of a man, well over six feet, with wide shoulders, a big brow, and deeply recessed eyes. He led Trevalian by the elbow out into the heat and sunshine, along beautifully landscaped paths and past an outdoor mall of boutiques. To the north, the Pioneer mountain range, tipped with snowfields, rose like the Alps.

  Karl bought him a ticket and, at his request, showed him to a seat in the back row of the Opera House theater. A large auditorium that seated four hundred. Its seats faced a production-sized stage, in the middle of which hung a commercial movie screen. Rows of exit doors flanked the seats on both sides. The washrooms were not out in the foyer but instead accessed at the back of the hall, behind where Trevalian now sat. Karl offered to arrange for someone to meet him later, but Nagler politely declined.

  As the film started, Trevalian counted seven others in the cavernous theater-two families, both sitting much closer to the distant screen. He casually checked behind himself: The red velvet curtains were pulled across the entrance to the lobby.

  Fifteen minutes into the movie, Nagler slipped off to the men’s room and locked the door. He removed and pocketed the facial hair and wig. He left the stall to wash the coloring out of his eyebrows and lashes at the sink. Five minutes after entering the men’s room, he departed one of the side doors as Milav Trevalian, his white cane collapsed and tucked into his sock.

  Sun Valley’s pedestrian mall included a bookstore, a minimarket, a gallery, and several ski and apparel shops that in the summer carried mountain biking garb, white rafting paraphernalia, backpacking supplies, as well as T-shirts, sweatshirts, ball caps, and golf goodies. Trevalian paid cash for a small overnight bag, some T-shirts, and two pairs of chinos that would fit him better than Nagler’s wardrobe. At the minimarket he bought toothpaste, a toothbrush, some deodorant, and a razor.

  He headed back to the lodge.

  “Checking in?” asked the young blonde, whose name tag read Hannah, Prague, Czech Republic. Trevalian could have spoken fluent Czech to her, but he resisted showing off.

  “Meisner.” Trevalian supplied the name the reservation was booked under and slid across a valid credit card also in Meisner’s name. “I requested a room that-”

  “Yes. I have it right here,” she said, running her finger across the screen. “We were able to accommodate your request. Your room communicates with Mr. Nagler’s.”

  “My friend is sight-challenged,” Trevalian explained. “When I realized we were both going to be here-”

  “Yes, of course.” After he filled out the register she handed him a key.

  “May I have one of our bellmen-”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Enjoy your stay.”

  Trevalian thanked her and crossed to the elevator, rode it to the third floor, then let himself into the room rented to Meisner. Less than a minute later, with the hallway door locked and secured, he opened the shared door that connected to Nagler’s room. He could come and go now as he pleased, under the guise of either identity.

  Trevalian pulled a cold beer from the minibar and cracked it open. He worked the television remote, disappointed the lodge did not offer adult in-room movies, and flipped to CNN.

  Both the dog and the missing backpack were problems requiring solutions. But he’d established the two identities; he had the connecting rooms.

  Calling from the Meisner room, Trevalian arranged for a rental car through the weekend.

  He had errands to run in Ketchum.

  He had a bomb to build.

  Fifteen

  I n the middle of arranging for barricades to help control the expected protests from First Rights, Walt was alerted by Tommy Brandon of an unexpected complication.

  “You’re not going to like this, Sheriff,” Brandon began. He’d elected to call Walt on his office phone, rather than relay any message through dispatch, telegraphing that secrecy was an issue. “But I went back onto the Taylor Crabtree surveillance after the airport, and I just followed him to one seventy-two Northridge. That’s Myra ’s place, right?”

  Walt relived his sister-in-law’s earlier intrusion into his office and her pushing him to do something about her wayward teenage son, Kevin.

  “Yeah,” Walt said.

  “So…what do want me to do?” Brandon asked.

  Taylor Crabtree was a sixteen-year-old JD suspected of drug trafficking in meth and selling to minors like himself. He’d flunked out of Wood River High, had been given a second chance in the Silver Creek Alternative School, and had been tossed after three strikes on drug use. For the past two weeks Walt’s deputies had kept him under nearly round-the-clock surveillance. And now he’d walked in to visit Walt’s nephew.

  “Take a coffee break,” Walt said. “I’ll look into it.”

  “Roger that,” Brandon said. “I’m on the cell, if you want me to pick the surveillance back up.”

  “I’ll call. And thanks, Tommy.”

  “Far as I’m concerned,” Brandon said, “I went on the break a half hour ago. None of this goes into my report until and unless you say so.”

  “Appreciate it.” Walt disconnected the call, knowing he wouldn’t condone cooking a report to favor his nephew. But if he could get a read on the situation, or break it up ahead of anything illegal, then maybe he’d spare Myra and Kevin another family disaster.

  He pulled into Myra ’s driveway and opened the car door to a blast of dry heat. He shut it loudly, making a point of announcing his arrival, and then used a sliding glass window in the next-door neighbor’s house like a mirror to watch the back of Myra ’s house. He’d been fifteen once himself.

  Two kids spilled out the back door like the place was on fire.

  Walt took off after them: down the driveway, around the corner, past the vegetable garden and the disused swing set. He vaulted the low post-and-rail fence into a neighbor’s backyard just in time to catch one of the two escapees in profile.

  “Eric!” he shouted in his best sheriff’s voice.

  Two women looked up from their flower beds across the street. Walt shouted a second time.

  The boy stopped.

  Walt was angry with the kid for causing him to sweat through his uniform. “What the hell, Eric?”

  “Kevin said we could.”

  “Could what?”

  “Could be there. At the house.” The boy was more out of breath than Walt. “Kevin said it was okay.”

  “Kevin works Thursdays,” Walt said, testing.

  “He just got back from Cristina’s. I swear we’ve been in there maybe ten minutes.”

  Walt knew it was more like thirty. Kids. “We?”

  The boy hesitated.

  “I can check all this out,” Walt said. He looked the boy over, considered asking him to turn his pockets out. But he was afraid of what he might find. “Who was the other boy?” he asked instead, already knowing damn well. “And before you answer, remember that lying to a sheriff is a bad idea.”

  Eric lowered his eyes. “Crab,” he said after a moment.

  “Taylor Crabtree?” Walt paused. “Eric, the best advice I can give you is to not go places you know you shouldn’t go. You’re a good kid. You hang around a boy like Taylor Crabtree and it’s guaranteed that you’ll be seeing more of me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now, go on.”

  Eric took a step or two, then broke into a run.

  A minute later, Kevin greeted his uncle from the far side of the screen door on the back porch. “Hey, Uncle Walt.” His lanky frame looked all the thinner with his shirt off. His pants hung below the elastic of his underwear-a fashion statement for some, but not for Kevin. No one in the family had fully processed the loss, nearly a year earlier, of Walt’s brother, Bobby. Least of all Kevin. Walt had tried to fill the void; had neglected
his own family in the process; and had now paid for it with his own divorce. Walt had never been real good at getting close; perhaps Kevin read that awkwardness as something else. He’d never been receptive to Walt’s advances. The one thing that connected them was now dead, and they both reminded the other of him so much that it hurt.

  “Hey, yourself,” Walt said. “Eric and Taylor Crabtree sure took off in a hurry. What was that about?”

  He shrugged. “Dunno.”

  “Maybe the cop car and the uniform didn’t help?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Taylor Crabtree is bad news.”

  Kevin took a moment to study the places where paint had chipped from the doorjamb. “So you’ve said. Are you going to tell Mom?”

  “You kidding me? You think I want to be on the receiving end of that windstorm?” He won a faint smile. “I’m going to tell her we had a talk about the keggers and that you promised me you wouldn’t drink and drive, and that you wouldn’t get high. Can you keep that promise?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You know it’s my job to bust those parties, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you’re the last person on earth I’d ever want to arrest.”

  “I got it.”

  “How’s the job at Cristina’s going?”

  “Good, I guess.”

  “It’s shit work.”

  “Yeah,” Kevin said, cracking another slight smile, “it sucks.”

  “But if you hang in there, she’ll move you into the kitchen or out as a waiter. Both of those are better money, and they’re better work.”

  Kevin’s face revealed his internal disconnect. Walt had seen that face before-the “oh, shit, here it comes again” look that any teenager learns to command. Walt wanted to take the kid and hug him, to hold him. He knew Myra; he didn’t imagine anyone had done that since the funeral. But something stopped him.

  “Grandpa called.”

  “You understand what I’m saying about Crabtree?” Walt owed it to the boy to get his point across.