01 Storm Peak

by John Flanagan

  Jesse shook his head. “Not necessarily. Take a look around yourself.” He indicated the view around them. The internal light shining on the perspex windows of the cabin created reflections that defeated their vision. The most they could see of the downward moving cabins was an occasional dark blur sliding past.

  The cabins above and below them were hardly more visible.

  “Remember,” he pointed out, “the doors are on the far side, so even if you did look at one of the cabins, chances are you’d see nothing. Besides, most people, if they’re looking out, will look at the lights down in the valley.”

  He indicated the brilliant spread of light that was now far below them.

  “I guess so,” she agreed.

  “Remember too,” he added, “he knew there was nobody ready to get in the cabin directly behind him. And he’d probably seen there was nobody in front either. He could wait and pick his time until he got the right conditions.”

  Lee nodded slowly, thinking it through. It sounded logical. It sounded so damn logical.

  “I guess his biggest risk would be being spotted by people on the ground itself,” she said.

  “Not too many of them around at night,” he said. “Just the groomers and the occasional patrol from the… oh, Jesus!” He stood up suddenly, his head crashing into the low ceiling of the gondola, lined with carpet to prevent condensation forming inside. He dropped back onto the bench, setting the cabin rocking wildly, then craned around to stare back down the mountain.

  “Jesse, what is it?” Lee moved to his side, staring out the window behind them. She could see the headlights and the yellow strobe lights from one of the slope groomers moving down the mountain below them. Huge, tracked vehicles, with a bulldozer blade in front and dragging a heavy rubber mat behind, they were out every night, regrooming the slopes for the following day’s skiing. Smoothing over the ruts and bumps and tracks that had been left behind and restoring the face of the mountain to an immaculate, smooth finish. Lee now knew what had set Jesse off.

  “Oh, Christ, no,” she said.

  The groomer was heading straight for the area they planned to search. In five minutes’ time, there’d be no sign of ski tracks. No footprints. No nothing. Just an immaculate, pristine, groomed slope. She looked at her wristwatch. They had another six or seven minutes before they reached the top. As she’d noted earlier that night, there was no way they could communicate with the top station and get them to radio through and stop the groomer.

  “I don’t suppose,” Jesse said slowly, “you happened to bring your cell phone with you?”

  She looked at him helplessly. The cell phone was in her car, safely nestled in the pocket of her sheepskin jacket.

  “Sonofabitch!” she said angrily.

  Jesse shrugged and sat back on the bench, his long legs splayed out in front of him again. “I thought you wouldn’t,” he said.

  The following morning, they examined the site by daylight. As they’d expected, there was little enough to see, once the groomer had gone over the area. Close to the grove of aspens that Lee had pointed out, there were traces of ski tracks in the deep snow that had been left untouched. However, as evidence, they were hardly positive proof that this was where the murderer had left the cabin.

  “I guess,” said Lee heavily, “you’ve got to expect to find ski tracks in a ski resort.”

  Jesse was down on one knee in the snow, getting a closer look at the twin grooves cut in the white surface.

  “Could be cross-country skis,” he said without total conviction. “The tracks look narrow enough.”

  Lee considered them skeptically. “Hard to tell,” she replied. “They may or may not be. They could just as easily be alpine skis.”

  Jesse rose to his feet, absentmindedly dusting the dry snow from the knees of his Levis. “What you’re saying,” he said, “is that we’re no wiser this morning than we were last night.”

  “That’s about it.” Lee craned back to look up at the gondola cabins humming overhead. “But I still think this is the most likely spot for him to have got out.”

  Jesse followed her gaze. “Not that it does us much good, unless we know he’s planning on doing it again.”

  “And unless we know when he’s planning on doing it again,” she added heavily.

  “Well,” said Jesse after a while. “I guess the next thing to do is see if there’s any link we can find between the two victims.”

  “I’ve got Tom checking on that already.” Lee took a final look around the site. The first of the morning’s skiers were beginning to make their way down the mountain, their skis virtually silent in the fresh fallen snow. Jesse walked to the snowmobile they’d ridden up the mountain. He flicked the kill button up to the on position, then tugged on the starter cable. The two-stroke engine purred easily to life and Jesse swung his leg over the saddle.

  “Nothing much to gain by standing around here,” he said, gesturing for Lee to climb on the pillion. She moved toward the snowmobile, then stopped, leaned forward and pushed the kill button in. The noise of the engine died. Jesse twisted in the saddle to look at her.

  “Something on your mind?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “Jess, I appreciate your help on this. You know a hell of a lot more about this sort of homicide case than me,” she began.

  He shrugged. “Maybe so. Maybe not. Regardless, I’m pleased to help out.”

  “I was thinking,” said Lee, choosing her words carefully, “that it might be time to make your position a little more… official. I guess you could take a few weeks’ leave from the Patrol, couldn’t you?”

  Jesse considered the suggestion. His poker face told her nothing about what he was thinking. Finally, he replied. “I guess. You trying to give me a badge here, Lee?”

  She nodded. “That’s about the size of it, Jess. Of course, you don’t need an actual badge but it might speed things up if you were a deputy—on a temporary basis, say.”

  Jesse rubbed the side of his jaw with the palm of his hand. “Don’t see that it would make much difference, Lee. I’m happy to help out. Don’t need to be no temporary deputy to do it.”

  She frowned at him. “You’re not concerned about working for a woman, are you, Jess?” she asked. “Or maybe it’s because it’s me?” she added as an afterthought.

  Jesse grinned widely at her. “Well, I’m working for you anyway, Lee, so I can’t see that I’m concerned about it either way. I just don’t see any reason to make things any more official than they are.”

  Lee sighed. She’d known that he was going to react this way. It was probably linked back to what had happened in Denver. Jesse watched her patiently, waiting for her to speak again. He wasn’t helping any, she thought. Finally, she said, “Look, I assume that you’d like to look around Barret’s room in the Harbor?” She made it a question and he nodded slowly.

  “Could be I’d turn something up. I was going to suggest we do it.”

  “Well, that’s the point, see, Jess?” she said, seizing her opportunity. “We’d both have to do it. If you want to nose around a crime scene, I have to be along to make things official, don’t I?”

  He hadn’t thought of that point and he nodded again, considering. “I guess that’s true enough.”

  Lee developed the thought further. “And let’s just say that you turn up a piece of evidence. Let’s say you find something that points us right to the murderer—”

  Jesse stopped her, holding up one hand and grinning at her. “Slow down, Lee. I may be good. But I’m not that good. Don’t go expecting me to walk into Barret’s room and solve this case straight up now.”

  She shook her head in exasperation. “That’s not what I’m saying, Jess. But if you’re involved in this investigation and you’ve got no official capacity to be involved, that could corrupt any evidence you find, couldn’t it?”

  His grin faded and he frowned. “I’m not sure,” he said slowly. “I hadn’t really thought about that.”

  She did
n’t give him time to allay the doubt that had arisen. “Well, think about it now,” she said. “Say we arrest a suspect and some smart defense lawyer works out that the investigation has been handled by a civilian with no official authority to be asking questions or handling evidence …” She let that last thought hang in the air for a few seconds. “It’s just possible that a technicality like that might destroy any case we try to make, isn’t it?”

  There was a silence between them. Jesse rubbed his jaw with the palm of his hand. She knew he was thinking. She knew he was thinking that she had a point.

  “Might be best,” he ventured finally, “if I just got out of the way altogether.”

  “No, Jess!” she said vehemently. “I need you on this case! Damn it, you were one of the best homicide detectives they had in Denver!”

  He looked at her quizzically, his head tilted to one side. “Is that right?” he asked her. “And who might have told you that?”

  She flushed suddenly. She hadn’t ever intended to let him know that she’d spoken to his bosses in Denver about his resignation. She hesitated, then said, “Your old boss, Chief Douglas, if you have to know.”

  His eyebrows raised sardonically. She kicked angrily at a small pile of snow in front of her, scattering it into wind driven powder.

  “Chief of Detectives William Harris Douglas himself?” he mused. “And what occasioned you to be chatting with him?”

  She felt the color mounting to her cheeks, faced him squarely and met his gaze.

  “We were talking about you,” she said bluntly. “I wanted to know if you were all right so I asked Chief Douglas what had happened. Damn it,” she added. “You weren’t going to tell anyone, I could see that.”

  “But he did,” Jesse said softly. It was a statement, not a question.

  Lee nodded. “Yes,” she replied, keeping her voice even. “He did. He felt I ought to know, as the local sheriff and as a friend.”

  Jesse let out a long pent-up breath and dropped his gaze away from hers. He looked out over the Yampa Valley spread out below them, shook his head once or twice. After a while he said, “Then, as a friend, you’ll understand why I’m in no hurry to put on a badge of any kind again. Lee, when I came back here, I told myself I was finished with that kind of thing.”

  “But you’re not, Jess. You’re not now and you never will be. Goddamn it, I’ve watched you these last few days. It’s like you’re alive again. You’ve been wandering around town in some kind of fog for the past two years, Jess, and now you’re almost back to the way you were.”

  He laughed bitterly, turned to look at her again. “There’s a matter for concern, Sheriff. I come alive only when other people are suddenly made dead. I’m not sure if that’s something about myself that I like.”

  She was angry now and she let him know it. “Damn you, Jesse! That’s not the way of it and you know that! You’re alive again because you can see a chance to do what you do best. You’re a cop and a good one. That means you can’t just sit idly by while people are being killed and throw your hands in the air and say, ‘Oh my, how terrible.’ Now don’t pretend it’s anything else.”

  Again, his gaze dropped away from hers. When he spoke, she could barely hear the words. “Yeah … maybe you’re right at that, Lee.”

  She dropped a hand on his shoulder. He still wouldn’t face her so she shook his shoulder gently until he did. “Jesse, I need you working on this case. I told you already, I’m out of my depth. If it would help you decide, the people of this town and this county need you working on it. No, damn it, they deserve to have you working on it because you’re the best homicide investigator we’ve got.”

  She paused, watching his eyes carefully. She could see the acceptance growing there. “But I need you on this case officially. As a sworn-in deputy. That leaves me free to get on with running my department and you free to investigate anywhere and anytime you like.” She shook him again, gently. “C’mon jess. You know it makes sense.”

  He let go another deep breath. “Well, hell,” he said. “If it means so damn much to you, let’s make me a deputy.”

  THIRTEEN

  The fire chief also acted as a notary public. They went back to the

  Public Safety Building on Yampa Street and he witnessed Lee swearing Jesse in as a deputy. At the end of the brief ritual, he nodded to them both and took his leave, returning to his office, downstairs from the sheriff’s department.

  Lee rummaged in the top left-hand drawer for a few moments, then tossed something on the desktop.

  “There you go, Jess. Now you’re official.”

  Jesse picked it up and studied it. It was a deputy sheriff’s star. He looked at her quizzically. “Thought you said I didn’t have to wear any badge?” he asked her.

  “You don’t have to wear it. I just have to issue you with it. Hell, keep it in your pocket if you want to. It might just make things a little easier if you want to question someone, is all.” She hesitated, her hand hovering over the still open drawer.

  “I’m supposed to issue you with a gun as well. I’ve got this Beretta here if you want it.”

  Jesse shook his head. “Got my own if I need one. Doubt that I will in any event.”

  Lee nodded and closed the drawer firmly.

  “Figured that might be the case,” she said. She was going to say more, but the phone on her desk shrilled and she turned to pick it up.

  “Sheriff Torrens,” she said. From where he stood, across the room, Jesse could recognize the high-pitched tones from the other end of the line. Ned Puckett, the Mayor of Steamboat Springs, was obviously pretty damn excited about something. Lee listened to the torrent of words, caught Jesse’s gaze and rolled her eyes to heaven. Finally, there was a break in the torrent, presumably as Ned paused for breath. Lee managed to get a few words in.

  “Well, of course I’m doing something about it, Ned. I’ve just been up on the mountain right now, inspecting the scene.”

  She paused as Ned opened up again, then had to admit, a little reluctantly, “Well, no. We didn’t find too much of anything, as a matter of fact… No. No clues so far, Ned… No. No suspects either. I mean, let’s face it, Ned, if we had us a suspect, chances are, we’d have us a few clues, don’t you think?”

  She breathed heavily, obviously holding her temper in check. “No. I don’t think it’s the slightest bit amusing, Ned. I get damned well unamused when someone starts murdering people in my jurisdiction… Well, hell! I know they’re tourists, Ned! That doesn’t make it worse, does it?”

  Apparently it did. Ned seemed to go ballistic over the phone. Lee let him run, drumming her fingers impatiently on the desktop as she did. She met Jesse’s gaze once and shook her head in exasperation. He shrugged his sympathy. Officialdom didn’t vary much from place to place. He’d listened to similar conversations in Chief Douglas’s office in Denver. Politicians took heat from the electorate about crime, so they passed the heat onto cops. Jesse shrugged. That was just part and parcel of being a cop. He knew it. So did Lee. Finally however, she decided that Ned had said enough. She cut across his tirade.

  “Ned … Ned! All right! I get the picture. You’re concerned—” There was a brief chatter of words from the phone before she could cut him off again. “All right, deeply concerned. We all are. Tell you what, you’re in your office?” Again, a brief answer, which Lee didn’t allow to become more lengthy. Jesse grinned. Ned Puckett could turn the word “yes” into a ten-minute election speech.

  “Fine. Well how about I come over there now and fill you in on what we know so far and what we plan to do about things? Okay?”

  Obviously it was. Ned’s voice had dropped a few octaves now. Even from across the room, Jesse thought he sounded as if he were somewhat placated.

  “Okay, that’s fine, Ned,” Lee continued. “I’ll be right over. Tell you what, I’m still waiting on those forensic boys from Denver to send in their report. How about I call them? Maybe they’ve turned something up.”

 
She looked up, met Jesse’s gaze and shrugged. Part of being sheriff was placating the other town officials when something went wrong.

  “Fine,” she repeated. “I’ll see you in a quarter hour.”

  She hung the phone up and let go a long sigh.

  “You want to come with me?” she asked, without too much hope.

  Jesse grinned and shook his head. “I think I’ll head over to the Harbor Hotel and look over the victim’s room. Maybe I’ll find something.”

  “You think?” Lee asked and he shook his head.

  “Not really. But you never know. Have fun with Ned.”

  FOURTEEN

  The desk clerk at the Harbor Hotel rummaged around in a drawer and handed over a key to Barret’s room.

  “Heard you were helping out on this one, Jesse,” he said, then added with a slightly anxious tone, “Think you’ll get her cleared up soon?”

  Jesse took the proffered key and shrugged. “Just as soon as we can, Linc,” he told him. Obviously, murders weren’t good for trade. Linc, shaking his head, confirmed his suspicions.

  “Terrible, terrible affair, Jesse,” he said portentously. Jesse nodded as the other man continued. “Had a group from LA cancel their bookings only this morning. Six rooms,” he added heavily, “three of them doubles at that.”

  The new deputy looked at the desk clerk quizzically, not sure if his verdict of a terrible, terrible affair related to the murders themselves or the canceled bookings. He decided, on balance, it was the latter.

  “Not the first time you’ve had people change their minds, I’ll be bound,” he offered, and Linc nodded immediately.

  “Oh, that’s true enough, Jess. Matter of fact, we re-rented those rooms right away. Got a waiting list long as your arm at this time of year.”

  “Not a problem, then,” Jesse stated and Linc agreed but only conditionally.

  “Not yet, at any rate. But I sure hope you and Lee catch whoever’s doing this before it gets to be a problem.”