Killer View

by Ridley Pearson

  The fluid was a horrible color and consistency. He couldn’t see how this could do anything but kill someone, but Aker was on his way out as it was. He pulled down Aker’s loose pants and stabbed the syringe into the man’s flank and gave him 20 ccs.

  Aker’s reaction was surprisingly quick. Less than two minutes after the injection, he snapped awake, lifting his head. Color had returned to his face. He glanced around the cabin. “Interesting,” he said.

  Coats noticed beads of sweat forming on the man’s brow.

  “You’re sweating.”

  “Juice,” Aker said. He grabbed the arms of the chair as his limbs began to shake. “Get the juice, you moron!” he shouted. The entire chair was shaking now, dancing on the floor.

  Coats had neglected to have this ready. The only juice he had was frozen orange juice. He placed the can into the sink and ran water on it. But Aker’s chair was going like a paint shaker. It tipped over and crashed to the floor. Coats fumbled with a water glass, spooned sugar in it, and filled it with water. He stirred it up, and slopped it out of the glass as he hurried to Aker. Sat Aker up and got him drinking, the water spilling down his front.

  Aker returned to the living, and, unable to measure his blood sugar, took inventory of how he felt. Five minutes after he’d been going like an earthquake, he sat calmly in the chair.

  “We can expect some secondary problems, Coats,” Aker said.

  “Such as?”

  “The extract will be weak. I’ll need injections every few hours. But we’ll have enough for that. Dosage is obviously going to be the problem. There will be warning signs: I’ll know when I need more. But the bigger issue will be the allergic reaction to the extract. Possible infection at the site of the injection. That’s basically a given. The reactions can be anything from some discomfort, in the form of a skin rash, to something much more severe. We won’t know until we see them. And we will see them. You’ll want to watch me fairly closely, and I’ll do my best to monitor how I’m feeling. Tell your guy I need Lantus. One dose lasts for twenty-four hours. Until we get the Lantus, we’re not out of the woods. Not yet.”

  Coats barked out a laugh. Some spittle escaped onto his beard and he wiped it away.

  “Something funny about that?” Aker asked.

  “Doc, we are so deep in the woods it would take an army to find us.” He amused himself. “A very big army.”

  “Get me a clean shirt,” Aker said, testing how much leverage he’d gained over his captor. “Mine’s filthy.”

  Coats hesitated a moment, unsure how to respond; but then he crossed to a footlocker by the only bed in the room and dug around in it for a shirt.

  Mark Aker did not allow his captor to see the smile that slowly formed. Coats had done as he’d asked.

  There was hope yet.

  28

  SENATOR JAMES PEAVY’S WHITE HAIR ESCAPED FROM BENEATH his cream-colored, beaver-felt Stetson, his blue, steely eyes never leaving Walt as he paced the living room of his homesteaded farmhouse. He was the fourth-generation Peavy to run the twenty-thousand-acre sheep ranch and he looked the part, with his large belt buckle, the pressed blue jeans, and the pair of Tony Lamas.

  “That’s a hell of a question, Sheriff,” he said.

  “It’s simple enough, Senator.” The man hadn’t been a senator for twenty years, but respect where respect was due.

  “What’s your man doing out there?” Peavy asked, his back to Walt as he faced the window.

  “You said he could look around.”

  “He’s walking across my pasture.”

  “He’s an overachiever,” Walt said. “Let’s not worry about him.”

  “We use Mark- Sun Valley Animal Center-exclusively. It’s not as if it’s unusual for him to pay us a visit.”

  “It’s not as if you’re answering the question,” Walt pointed out.

  “We run nine band of sheep, Walt. That’s nine thousand head. I have a ranch foreman, an overseer for each band. It’s not as if I know every time we call a vet or what the ailment was.”

  “So you don’t know why Mark was called? That’s simple enough.” Walt stood from the couch. “Maybe you could introduce me to your staf f?”

  “Sit down,” Peavy said, his voice suddenly too loud for the room. He moved to another window, still fixated on Brandon ’s activities. “Enough of what Mark Aker did or did not do for us. What difference can it make? What’s important here is your next election. That’s what I thought you came here for. Let’s get down to brass tacks: what can I do to help?”

  “You’ve always been more than generous, Senator.” Peavy supported sheriffs in at least three counties, including Blaine.

  “I hear you have some real competition this time around in Richie Dunik.”

  “Well-organized.”

  “And I hear you’re… distracted by this divorce. Damn sorry to hear about that. Talk about bad timing.”

  Walt clamped his open palms between his knees and leaned forward, trying to keep from saying something offensive about Peavy’s insensitivity.

  “I could arrange for each of my bosses to make contributions, Walt. Up to the accepted limit. There are ten to twelve who would do this, if I asked.”

  “I don’t think I’m supposed to talk about ways to get around the election laws, Senator.”

  “Christ! Do I look like I’m wearing a wire? I’m making you an offer. I’m trying to help.”

  “Help is always appreciated.”

  “If you need financial help, I can arrange it. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “I need to know what brought Mark Aker out here. I need to identify whatever it was that made your sheep sick.”

  “Who said my sheep were sick? Don’t go jumping to any conclusions, Walt. I’ll tell you what. Mark comes out here as much to vaccinate and geld and deliver calves as he does to doctor.”

  “Did you know he’d recently made house calls to two of your neighbors?”

  “Should that surprise me?”

  “There’s no paper trail for any of these visits over here. His office knows next to nothing about them. This, from a type A, meticulous professional who, I’m told, would never have made a trip this distance without billing for it. Much less three such trips.”

  “And this interests you because…?”

  “If I could just say something here, Senator? That is, that every time I ask you a question, or say something about Mark Aker’s visits, instead of an answer I get a question. We both know what a skilled orator you are, but, frankly, you’ve never treated me the way you’re treating me today. I find it offensive. I’m sitting over here wondering what the hell is going on.”

  Peavy abandoned the windows for the time being, moving into the center of the room. It was a luxurious living room, with leather couches, a Remington sculpture, some western landscapes on the wall. The hearth was stacked stones covered in a patina of black carbon surrounded by a wire-mesh spark screen. The hearth had the original wrought-iron hook for warming pots. Peavy stopped on an enormous sheepskin rug that was covered by a tan pelt of some four-legged creature that, without its head, was impossible for Walt to identify.

  “I heard about Randy. He’s come over here for us as well. I assume your questions about Mark, being that it’s you asking and you’re a long way from home, must have something to do with that tragedy. I don’t know what it is exactly that you’re asking me, Walt. Mark’s visits to my neighbors is news to me. Maybe we all got a bad batch of vaccine or something. Maybe it’s something contagious I have yet to hear about. I just don’t know. I’ll ask my boys and I’ll get back to you. That’s the best I can offer.”

  “Can’t argue with that.”

  “I’m serious about helping out your campaign.”

  “Much appreciated.”

  Lingering on Walt’s tongue was a question about the quality of the senator’s water supply. He kept that to himself for now.

  Peavy stepped closer to shake Walt’s hand. He had a firm grip, for a
n older guy, and he looked Walt in the eye. Walt sensed he was about to say something as well. They shook hands for a little longer than was comfortable. If that was supposed to communicate something to Walt, he missed it. Gail would be the first to tell anyone who would listen that Walt’s communications skills were lacking.

  Peavy opened his mouth. Once again, Walt expected him to say something. The senator shook his head, more of a twitch than anything else, and exhaled deeply.

  What? Walt wanted to ask.

  But his host left him guessing, as he ushered Walt to the door and saw him off.

  Brandon was tromping through the snow, making his way back toward the farmhouse. He picked up his pace when he saw Walt waiting by the Cherokee. The house was a mile behind them before Brandon broke the silence of the car’s interior.

  “There are five automatic waterers in that field, all over by the hay shed, in the southwest corner.” He paused to adjust his arm in the sling, which Walt thought was more for dramatic effect than anything else. “Not one of ’em’s working.”

  “Not working or not turned on?”

  “Dry. And the same’s true of three more over by one of the barns. I tried to get into that barn to check the stalls, but a Mexican basically kept me out, saying, ‘Mr. Jim. Mr. Jim.’ Meaning Peavy, I assumed. I passed a stop and waste on the way back. Get this: locked.”

  “The stop-and-waste valve was locked,” Walt repeated. A stop and waste was a freestanding water spigot that ran year-round.

  “You’ve been in Idaho ten times longer than I have, Sheriff, but I’ve never, ever-not once-seen one of those locked. For one thing, that’s about the only absolutely guaranteed water in winter, in case of fire, since those things never freeze.”

  “The senator skillfully avoided lying,” Walt said, his hands gripping the wheel more tightly.

  Far in the distance, but presumably still on Peavy’s ranch, rose a charcoal gray plume of smoke. Probably ranch hands burning off slash, thought Walt. Winter snow made for the safest time to set such fires. It looked beautiful in the slanting afternoon light, lifting and coiling into the blue sky.

  “Damn!” Brandon said, rolling down his window. “That’s that same funky smell.”

  Walt sniffed the air and knew Brandon was right: a sour, bitter stench. Memorable. He turned the wheel. The car skidded on the snow floor. He backed around in a three-point turn and headed for the fire, stopped ten minutes later by an unplowed road. Brandon consulted the topo map: the road they traveled showed on the map as dirt. It went unplowed in winter.

  Brandon ’s thick finger traced a second road-also marked as dirt- that accessed that same area from Peavy’s ranch.

  The stench was noticeably stronger there, at the end of the road, the connection to the fire inevitable though unconfirmed.

  The two men got out of the car and climbed the snowbank. Walt slipped his hands into his pockets to fight the cold. Brandon tried to warm the fingers that protruded from the sling.

  A sign on a fence warned PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO HUNTING, NO TRESPASSING.

  “The senator couldn’t keep his eyes off you the whole time you were out in his field.”

  “What was that about?”

  “He kept what he told me very controlled, but I was much more interested in watching him.”

  “What’s this about, Sheriff? You think it’s something to do with the water? That makes the most sense, right?”

  “Makes the most sense,” Walt agreed.

  “You think we’re going to find Aker? Alive, I mean?”

  “We sure as hell better.”

  “You think he’s over here somewhere?”

  “I haven’t the slightest.”

  “You think the senator knows?”

  “No. For whatever reason, I doubt that. I didn’t get any sense of that.”

  “But he’s involved.” It was a statement.

  “He basically offered to single-handedly pay for my reelection,” Walt said, taking his hands out and rubbing them together vigorously. “He’s definitely involved.” Walt turned around and looked back over the vast expanse of the valley, stunning in its emptiness. A neighbor might see such a fire, but he’d never smell it, not given the distances between ranches. “There’s something connecting the three ranches. Mark knew what it was and it got him kidnapped. Got his brother killed.” He headed back to the car. “You hungry?”

  “I could eat a horse,” Brandon said.

  FRIDAY

  *

  29

  “ARE YOU GOING TO COME INSIDE OR JUST SIT OUT THERE all night?” Walt held the phone pressed to his ear while staring out his front window at Fiona’s Subaru.

  During the long silence that followed, Walt could imagine her backing out and driving away, trying to pretend she hadn’t been parked out there for nearly twenty minutes. Nearly two days had passed since the drive to the Pahsimeroi. With Mark Aker still missing, it might as well have been a month for Walt. He battled the fatigue of twenty-one-hour days while trying to maintain a father’s patience for the sake of the girls. He’d put them to bed after twenty minutes of reading, during which he’d fallen asleep, not them. They’d tickled him awake. He told them a bear story and then turned off the light.

  He slogged through his daily paperwork and meetings while exhausting every resource in his bid to find Mark Aker alive. Predictably, the Challis-led investigation into Brandon ’s shooting had produced nothing; if Brandon had died up there, with their history, Walt might have been accused of it. Francine Aker had failed to surface. The lab was taking its sweet time, as always.

  The car arriving at his house, and just sitting there, had immediately won his attention, the midnight visit to his back porch still kept firmly in mind. But with the Subaru out front identified as Fiona’s, he’d given her a liberal amount of time before calling her.

  He heard footsteps approach the front door, and he put away the phone. He greeted her and invited her inside. She stood by the open fire, warming her backside. He studied her body, in silhouette against the fire, his first unhurried appraisal of her. Despite all the time they’d worked together, only now did he really see her narrow hips, athletically lean figure, and the muscular curve of her backside.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “For?”

  “Sitting out there.”

  “No charge for parking.” A pause. He added, “I’m terrible at jokes.”

  “The night of the search and rescue-Randy-I was skiing with Roger Hillabrand.”

  “I don’t think that’s any of my business.”

  “I was flattered. Enchanted, even. No, charmed. I was charmed.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “He sent a guy of his out to deliver a message. This is after the search and rescue. Late, late, I’m talking about.”

  “Fiona-”

  “No. You’ve got to listen. You’ve got to help me make sense of this.” She turned away to face the fire. “He invited me to some gala event in San Francisco. He was flying private. I was supposed to drop everything and join him.”

  “You and I were at the hospital the next day.”

  “Exactly. I turned him down.” She moved to her left, standing in profile now, the reflections of the flames bouncing off her chest and below her chin. Her face flashed orange. “So now he tells me he didn’t go. He canceled the trip because I turned him down. At least, that’s what he told me. This, while he’s inviting me to dinner-”

  “I still don’t see-”

  “Can you just listen?”

  The question hurt. Gail accused him of constantly interrupting.

  “Please,” she added. A word Gail had seldom used.

  “I’m listening,” he said, wishing she would get back in the Subaru and leave him the hell alone.

  “He invited me over for tea this afternoon. Tea, just so he could ask me out for dinner. This guy is a very smooth operator.” She turned again. “But not too smooth. He gets a phone call after I’m there less than f
ive minutes. There’s a phone right there in the living room, but, of course, he takes it somewhere else. Leaves me to watch the light on the phone glow for the duration. After fifteen minutes, I ask to be driven home.”

  “Driven?”

  “He lives halfway up Baldy. His people drive you up from the bottom of the hill. I’ve got all-wheel drive, but they won’t even let me try it. The gate is locked at the bottom. So I tell his guy Sean-Sean Lunn-it’s either he drives me or I walk. And he drives me. What’s interesting is, Sean doesn’t interrupt the boss and tell him I’m leaving. He just drives me down the mountain.”

  “And that’s interesting because…?”

  She snarled. “Because Roger was going to rip his head off when Roger found out he let me leave.”

  “Let you.”

  “You know…”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Are you listening?”

  That was another line borrowed from the Gail playbook. He was beginning to wonder if Gail hadn’t sent her here to torture him.

  “My role in this is?” he asked.

  “Oh, God. I’m sorry.” Her expression moved through embarrassment to a feverish glance at the door. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to… But… The reason I had to see you… I don’t think he’s as interested in me as he is in you.”

  “What?”

  “My working for you.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I wish it were. But I’m not so sure. He and I have so little in common. I admit that. He flirts with me at a wedding I’m shooting. I wanted to think that was for real, but I’m not so sure. He takes me that same night skiing down Baldy-very romantic-but doesn’t make anything like a pass. I have to leave him because you call me up to the search and rescue. He barely objects, and he isn’t surprised when I tell him I work part-time for you. Not surprised at all. And another thing: I got that wedding at the last minute. Who waits to hire a wedding photographer until the day before? Not in this town. Not in any town. Just isn’t done. Sean, his guy, is waiting for me when I get home that night-this is in a snowstorm, don’t forget. Parked outside the fence. Scares the hell out of me, coming up behind on foot. Says he’s there to invite me on the private jet the next morning. Hello? Ever heard of cell phones? You think a guy like Roger Hillabrand can’t get my cell number?”