Mountain Rampage

by Graham, Scott

  While Gregory grabbed a chair from a neighboring table, Janelle fixed Chuck with an icy glare. When he shrugged in self-defense, her glare turned icier. Gregory returned with a straight-backed chair. Chuck nosed it up to the end of the table between Janelle and the doctor. The tabletop was littered with the remains of their meal. How long had Janelle and Gregory been relaxing and talking here together?

  The doctor cleared his throat. “I was just telling Janelle, er, your wife, uh, how well Rosie’s doing.”

  Chuck nodded stiffly. “Thank you.”

  “Do you think…would you like to grab some lunch? This place is pretty popular. Good prices, great food.”

  “No, thanks.”

  Gregory swallowed. “So, what brings you downtown?”

  “Errands.”

  An awkward silence followed.

  “Well,” Janelle said finally, “I guess we should get going.”

  “Of course,” Gregory said. He stood abruptly, bumping the edge of the table. “Whoa.” He grabbed the table to steady it. “Sorry.”

  Neither Chuck nor Janelle replied. Janelle said to Carmelita and Rosie, “Gather your things, please.”

  The girls stacked their paper cups and plates and plastic utensils on their cafeteria trays. Gregory picked up his tray and said to Janelle, “Thanks for stopping by. I think it was a good idea.” He reached to touch her shoulder but dropped his hand to his side instead.

  Chuck clasped Janelle’s shoulder. “We appreciate what you did for Rosie the other night,” he said to Gregory.

  Janelle looked down, busying herself with her tray.

  The doctor offered a strained chuckle. “No trouble. No trouble at all. That’s what I, er, we do here.” He cast his eyes around the cafeteria.

  Janelle stood, lifting her tray and shrugging Chuck’s hand from her shoulder. “Chuck is absolutely right,” she said to Gregory, her voice flat. “We owe you our thanks, taking such good care of Rosie the other night, then checking back with us not once, but twice, to make sure she’s doing all right. That’s what I call true patient care.”

  “It’s nothing,” Gregory said. He turned to Rosie. “How could I not make sure you were doing okay?” He raised his palm to her for a high-five.

  Rosie slapped the doctor’s hand. “Howdy do, cowboy,” she said.

  Gregory and Janelle exchanged tight smiles. Chuck forced himself to smile, too.

  “Come on,” Chuck said to the girls. “I’ll help get your trays to the kitchen.”

  Janelle waited until she and Chuck were outside and around the corner of the building before she whirled on him.

  “How could you?” she hissed as the girls walked ahead of them along the sidewalk.

  “How could I what?” Chuck asked innocently.

  “You know very well what. There’s no excuse for what you pulled in there.”

  His jaw tightened. “All I did was come looking for you. The librarian overheard that you were taking Rosie to the doctor. I had no idea what—”

  “Don’t try that with me,” Janelle cut in. “If you ever think it’s okay to spy on me, I’ll…I’ll…” She sputtered to a stop.

  “I was just trying to find you.”

  “You were spying, Chuck. All you had to do was call.”

  “Radio silence, remember?”

  “That’s between you and Clarence, not you and me, and you know it.”

  She was right, but he couldn’t bring himself to admit it out loud, not quite yet. “The librarian said you were headed over here.”

  “Gregory called and offered to check her again. You have to get over this, Chuck.”

  “I have. I am,” he said, stumbling over his words. “I wasn’t sure what to expect, and then there you were, having lunch. I’m not really jealous—not that I shouldn’t be. I mean, look at you.” He took in her fitted blouse, her shorts cut high on her slender legs, her sandals showing off her bare feet.

  “You’re not going to get off that easy,” Janelle said, the edge to her voice diminishing.

  “You and I both know what that guy’s after. An emergency-room doctor checking in on his patients? Who ever heard of that?”

  Janelle shrugged. “I was…well, yeah.”

  “I guess you, I, should be flattered. Handsome, skier-dude doctor way up here in the mountains? The guy deserves his own TV show.”

  The sides of Janelle’s mouth ticked upward. “Stop.”

  Chuck intoned, “Surviving avalanches by day, saving little girls by night. It’s ‘Doc Gregory,’ Tuesdays at eight, seven Central.”

  She grinned and shoved him off the curb. “I said, stop.”

  He stepped back up to the sidewalk and slung his arm around her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said as they followed the girls into the parking lot. “I really am.”

  “I don’t like how prickly things have been between us.”

  “Neither do I. But it’s kind of to be expected. The murder, the blood, the cops and Clarence—it’s a lot to deal with.”

  “I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about us.” She stopped and turned to him. “You just need to remember one important thing. You won. Understand? You won. It’s been more than a year now, and I’m more in love with you than ever.” She slipped her arm around his waist. “Can’t you just enjoy your victory?”

  She drew him to her.

  “Whoop, whoop, whoop!” Rosie crowed from where she stood at the open door of the truck, observing their kiss.

  She held the skull up in front of her face and rotated it side-to-side as she cheered.

  FORTY

  Chuck shook his head, unable to hide his smile. So much for keeping the skull away from the girls. He should have figured on Rosie’s curiosity leading her back to it.

  He let Rosie and Carmelita finger the bullet’s entry and exit wounds before tucking the skull back in his pack and taking it with him in the van to the resort, following Janelle and the girls in the truck.

  Janelle turned the truck left, past the lodge and conference center, headed for the cabin. Chuck continued on around the grass fields.

  Several employees were gathered in front of Falcon House. Four dark-complexioned men were dressed for work in white aprons and short-order-cook hats, while three young white women wore street clothes. They stood next to an old sedan parked in front of the employee dormitory. Wildflowers were tucked beneath the wiper blades against the car’s windshield. A small bouquet rested on the hood.

  Chuck saw, as he parked, that the employees surrounded Clarence.

  The employees looked warily at Chuck as he approached from the van. Clarence appeared unfazed in their midst.

  Chuck held out his hands in a peace-making gesture. “I’m sorry about what happened with Nicoleta,” he said, stopping before them.

  A stout, young woman, dishwater-blonde hair hanging straight down the sides of her face, spoke with a thick Eastern European accent. “You was there, yes?”

  “That’s right. I was.”

  “I am Anca.” The young woman’s voice caught in her throat. “Did she say some things, some words, to you before she…?”

  “I’m sorry,” Chuck said. “No, she didn’t. She couldn’t speak. And…and that was all.”

  “No one else was there?” Anca asked.

  “I heard her scream. I ran to her, but I was too late. Whoever did it was gone.”

  “You have no idea who does this thing?”

  “No.”

  She aimed a finger at Clarence. “Earlier, I think it was him. I try to—How do you say it in this country?—rip his face off. But the others, they tell me no.” Her glance took in her co-workers. “They say this guy, he a good guy, and I know, inside me, they are right.” Her voice quivered. “Then I say it must to be you. You was there. You was with Nicoleta. But they say you could not do that to Nicoleta and stay with her, that the polices would know.”

  “Your friends are right,” Chuck said.

  “But Nicoleta, she is died.” The young wo
man teared up.

  “The two of you were roommates, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you good friends with each other?”

  “I have done some things with her, but she was many of the time on her own.”

  “And the night before last, when she…she…?”

  “I was no with her that night. For the first time of the whole much summer, I go to the town with some of the other peoples for to a restaurant and a bar, like I was told the polices. No more television watching, finally. I was very much happy. It was a much fun town on the night. I was asleep, for not long, in another room, and then there was a scream, and I look in our room, and she was not there…” Anca’s voice trailed off.

  Chuck thought of the many nights Anca had been forced to spend in other workers’ rooms. It sounded like it had almost become routine. “Nicoleta had many other friends?”

  “With your people.”

  “My people?”

  “Your student peoples, the—How do you say it?—the partiers.” Anca gave Chuck a calculating look.

  He bristled. “None of my students had anything to do with it. Not Clarence, and not anyone else.”

  “This is what you are saying to us.”

  “The police don’t think so, either.”

  She blinked away her tears. “I am not caring about these polices. If I am learning who has done this thing, I will take care of it on myself.” She reached into a large cloth handbag hanging from her shoulder and lifted a handgun into sight, just above the top of the bag.

  Chuck stepped back. “Whoa.”

  At the sight of the gun, the four men turned on their heels and made for Falcon House. The two other young women exchanged worried glances while Clarence edged to Chuck’s side.

  “Please,” Chuck implored Anca. “Put that thing away. There’s no need for that.”

  The young woman slipped the handgun back into her bag.

  “Where’d you get that?” Chuck asked her, dumbstruck.

  She shrugged. “Is easy. Is America. My father, he tell me I must to have gun in this country. And now, with Nicoleta, I know he is right.” She touched the bouquet of flowers left on the sedan in Nicoleta’s memory. “Where I come from, this killing never happen.”

  “I—” Chuck began. He looked at Clarence, then at the three young women. “I just came over here to tell you, all of you, how sorry I am. I know there was some…fraternization…between Raven House and Falcon House residents over the summer. But I’ve had no indication from the police, or from anyone else, that it had anything to do with Nicoleta’s—” He stopped, started over. “I want you to know I’m with you, we’re with you. We want to do everything we can to—”

  Chuck stopped again, his eyes darting toward the sound of vehicle tires crunching on the gravel road. He, Clarence, and the three young women watched as Parker drove his bright blue pickup to the front of the dormitory and parked.

  The resort manager climbed out of his truck and addressed the group as he walked up to them. “I saw you talking over here.”

  Chuck looked across the fields at Parker’s office window, visible in the top floor of the conference center. He glanced at Anca, her gun-bearing satchel over her shoulder. Surely it was against resort policy for employees to be armed.

  The three young women shuffled their feet. “We are talk about Nicoleta,” Anca told Parker. She pointed at Chuck and Clarence. “They speak with us. Is all okay.”

  The other two young women looked anywhere but at Parker.

  “You’ve probably done enough talking for now,” the resort manager said.

  Anca bowed her head and stepped back. The three young women pivoted and headed for Falcon House.

  Chuck rested his fingertips on the hood of the sedan. “It’s Nicoleta’s?” he asked Parker.

  “It is. She bought it at the beginning of the summer, planned to sell it before she went home. A number of them do that each year so they can get around.”

  “They’re turning it into a memorial?”

  “It’s a reminder for people. I’m sure her keys are in her room, but that’s still off limits. Meantime, it’s sitting out here for all the world to see and focus on.”

  Chuck looked at the car, eyes narrowed, tongue pressed against the roof of his mouth. “You should have it towed,” he told Parker.

  “Chuck’s right,” Clarence agreed. “Out of sight, out of mind.”

  “Hmm,” Parker said. “That’s not a bad idea. I suppose we could move it over to the maintenance yard.”

  “Where’s that?” Clarence asked.

  Chuck answered for Parker. “Behind the lodge, through the trees from our cabin.” He looked at the resort manager. “No telling how long the cops are going to take to finish their investigation. Meantime, you can bet the car’s going to get more and more attention.”

  “I know.” Parker folded his arms and frowned at the sedan.

  “No time like the present,” Chuck prodded.

  “Oh.” He loosened his arms. “Right.”

  Parker reached for his phone to call Jake, proprietor of the only wrecker service in Estes Park.

  FORTY-ONE

  Chuck took Clarence by the elbow while Parker made his call.

  “There’s something I want to show you,” he said. He explained his suspicion regarding Jake as he led the way to the van.

  “You really think it’s him?” Clarence asked.

  “There’s a lot of logic to it. Hopefully, we’ll find out in a few minutes.” Chuck reached inside the vehicle. “Meantime…” He handed the baggie of calaverite to Clarence.

  “What’s this?” Clarence asked.

  Chuck aimed a finger west, at the mountains and the mine, high above town. “There’s gold in them there hills.”

  He described his retrieval of the black material from the shaft and explained what Elaine had said.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Clarence said when Chuck finished. “We’re rich!”

  “Sorry. Rocky Mountain National Park is rich. Not that anything will happen. There’s no mining allowed within park boundaries.”

  Clarence stared at Chuck in disbelief. “You’re going to tell them?”

  “Of course.”

  Clarence lifted the baggie. “You say it’s ten percent gold. A few loads of this…” His voice died away in wonderment.

  “Not gonna happen.”

  “So what will happen?”

  “It’ll be pretty big news at first, I imagine. They’ll have to plug the tunnel with concrete or something to keep out treasure hunters like you.”

  “You’re nuts, man.”

  “It’s not ours to take.”

  Clarence tossed the baggie back to Chuck. “I’m telling you, you’re an idiot.”

  Chuck returned the plastic bag to the van and motioned Clarence to his side. “There’s something else you should see.”

  With Clarence at his shoulder, he unzipped his pack and took out the skull. “Somebody already died because of the gold in the mine,” he said, handing the skull to Clarence. “I don’t want you or anyone else to be next.”

  Clarence touched the bullet hole in the forehead. “Jesucristo,” he breathed. He looked over his shoulder to be sure Parker was still occupied on the phone. “You found this in there, too?”

  “In the bottom of the shaft, along with the rest of the skeleton.”

  “What do you think happened?”

  “I have no idea.” He took the skull back from Clarence. “See how small it is? It must have been one of the miners. It’ll be up to the rangers to figure out, if they ever can.” He returned the skull to his pack.

  “I can’t believe you, of all people, are gonna turn that thing in—the gold, too—and just walk away.”

  “I admit I’m tempted. But, at this point, I just want to get us out of here.”

  Clarence groaned. “I almost forgot about all that for a minute.” He tore his eyes away from Chuck’s pack. “Guess I ought to get packe
d up—and hope they let me leave with everybody else tomorrow morning.”

  Clarence disappeared inside Raven House. Parker ended his call, climbed into his truck, and drove back around the fields. Chuck stowed his pack out of the way against a far wall of the Raven House common room, then returned to the van and busied himself emptying trash from it and sweeping out its floor with a whisk broom while awaiting Jake’s arrival.

  Thirty minutes after Parker’s call, the long, black flatbed wrecker bounced through the front entrance to the resort and headed around the fields to the dorms. Parker followed in his pickup.

  Chuck closed the rear doors of the van as the wrecker pulled to a stop behind Nicoleta’s sedan. He walked toward the tow truck as the driver descended the ladder-like steps from the cab, grasping the handles on either side of the door. The driver hopped to the gravel lot, pulled a baseball cap from the back pocket of his grease-stained coveralls, and tugged it over his close-cropped, salt-and-pepper hair. He looked to be in his late fifties, lean and fit, his face browned by the sun. His green eyes sat close on either side of a long nose. The collar of a white T-shirt showed in the V of his coveralls. He wore leather work boots, the treads of which Chuck wanted badly to see.

  “You must be Jake,” Chuck said to him.

  “That’d be me.” Jake’s voice was reedy and high-pitched.

  “I’m an old friend of Parker’s,” Chuck said. “Nice truck you got.” He took in the wrecker with an admiring gaze. “Diesel?”

  “Gas. Got the V-10 in her.”

  “Ford’s best.”

  “Step on her, she’ll bark,” Jake agreed.

  “I’ll leave you to your work,” Chuck said, addressing both Jake and Parker as the resort manager approached from his pickup. Chuck let his eyes rove over the flatbed a second time and asked Jake, “Mind if I have a look?”

  “Be my guest.”

  Chuck set out around the wrecker. He checked the front tire first. Its lightning-bolt-shaped tread matched the marks in the dirt of the Fall River Road pullout. Of course, the tire’s sidewall featured the logo for Goodyear, the most popular truck-tire manufacturer in the country.

  While Jake and Parker knelt at the back of Nicoleta’s car, surveying its undercarriage, Chuck made his way around to the driver’s side of the tow truck. A large, rectangular toolbox, painted black to match the rest of the truck, was bolted to the vehicle’s frame just behind the cab, beneath the flatbed. The box was a foot and a half wide, two feet tall, and nearly five feet long—easily long enough to contain a rifle.