Compound Fractures

by Stephen White

  I checked the online edition of The Coloradoan, the local Fort Collins newspaper, hoping for details. The only article was brief. The truck and trailer had been parked along the shoulder of Tatonka Trail just beyond the intersection of North County Road 23E, not North County Road 23. The Coloradoan reported that the death appeared to have been “accidental,” and that the horses—plural, not singular—were uninjured and in the temporary care of a large animal vet at his nearby ranch.

  I slammed my laptop closed.

  I cursed Lauren, again, for fucking my friend.

  I cursed Elliot for tormenting me.

  I cursed Sam for killing a monster.

  My rage was unfocused.

  That fact didn’t alarm me as much as it should have.

  32

  SAM AND LUCY

  SAM WAS DRIVING. LUCY was giving directions. It wasn’t going well.

  “We’ve had a productive day, Luce. Don’t you think?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t expect to close either of those cases so quickly. That’s it on the left, the blue house.” The last stop of their shift was to pick up a forty-three-year-old man for questioning about stealing tens of thousands of dollars from his ex-mother-in-law.

  Sam pulled to a stop across the street from the house. He started to get out.

  Lucy said, “He’s not home yet. Let’s talk Prado. You’re not going to take my advice, are you? About walking away from it?”

  Sam squirmed. “Can we discuss Prado after we roust this guy? He’s going to lawyer up. After he does we can talk till dawn. How can you tell he’s not here?”

  “Did you say ‘roust’? He’s an accountant, not a gangbanger. Detect, Sam. That’s an Amazon box at his door. A new Kindle. No way he leaves it out there if he’s home.”

  “Did you just tell me to ‘detect’? Maybe he’s so distracted by all his larceny he didn’t notice the box. Anyway, it’s ill-gotten gains. All the money he stole from his mother-in-law? DA will confiscate his damn Kindle.”

  “His ex-wife told us he has an OCD streak. He probably had UPS email him when they delivered it. It’s bugging him that it’s sitting there.”

  Sam started the engine. “Okay, then we’ll go someplace I can pee, come back in a while, maybe interrupt him playing with his new Kindle. That’ll be satisfying.”

  Lucy removed the key from the ignition. “If you won’t agree to walk away from Prado, we are going to figure this thing out. Prado’s a puzzle. Puzzles have solutions.”

  “Right now? You think we’re going to solve it sitting here?” Sam knew he was being an ass. That didn’t bother him. That it wasn’t having the desired effect with Lucy? That bothered him.

  “Yeah. Right here, right now. Why not?”

  “I really do have to pee. I wasn’t kidding.”

  “I really don’t care. What was your plan? You were going to ask to use the guy’s john? Splash urine all over his bathroom floor before you read him his rights?”

  Sam released the latch on his seat so he could extend his legs to remove pressure on his bladder. The car was parked on an incline. Sam was slightly overweight. The seat flew back on its rails as though it was rocket powered.

  Lucy laughed. “Don’t be a jerk, Sam. Let’s get this done. We have to figure out the bungee.”

  “That’s the part of the puzzle I like least.”

  “That’s why we’re going to use a decision tree.”

  He groaned. “I hate your decision trees.” Sam tried to put his elbows on the armrests, but with the seat all the way back he couldn’t reach them without sitting forward, which defeated the purpose of having his seat all the way back. He tried resting his arms on his gut but he felt conspicuously Buddha-ish in that posture, and it didn’t quite offer the comfort he was seeking.

  “You hate most things. If you avoided all of them you’d never get out of bed except to eat and have sex. Maybe watch hockey. Here’s how I see it: First branch? A, the gun that Jumble Guy found is the gun that killed Doctor Doctor, or B, the gun that killed Doctor Doctor is some unknown handgun of the same caliber. Pick.”

  “You said this is about the way you see it. If I pick, it becomes the way I see it.”

  “Why are you being such an assbite?”

  “’Cause I feel like a hostage. What neighborhood is this? Is this still Boulder?” They were east of the Flatirons golf course. Sam knew it was Boulder. “This is probably a good neighborhood for trick-or-treating. Pricey houses, but not too far apart. Maybe our guy gives out full-size candy bars. Are thieving accountants generous or cheap? Probably cheap.”

  “This nice neighborhood is called Sombrero Ranch. Pick a branch, damn it.”

  Sam said, “The chimney gun killed him.”

  “Good. Our next branch has two options. Vic’s manner of death? Suicide or homicide?”

  “Vic has a name, it’s—”

  “Yeah yeah. Did Doctor Doctor kill himself or did someone else kill him? Are your hemorrhoids bothering you again?”

  “The problem is my bladder, not my butt. Doctor killed himself. The damn bungee broke his index finger after he fired the gun.”

  “A fine choice. Next? Who did Doctor think was going to find his body?”

  “Whom. And … what? Find his body? I don’t get that part.”

  “Don’t correct my grammar. You know I can’t stand that. This is when the decision tree gets tricky—this branch has four options: His roommate. Somebody else he was expecting to come over. Law enforcement. Or a random stranger.”

  “Why are those my choices?”

  “That’s what I came up with. You’re free to add your own. That’s why we’re discussing this together. It’s called collaborating. It involves two or more people—”

  “Oh, I get it. To make sense of the bungee we have to have an idea whom—whom whom—Doctor intended to deceive with the disappearing pistol. That’s good thinking, Luce. I like it. That’s why I picked you for my partner. Because you’re smart.”

  Lucy wasn’t about to get distracted by the compliment. “To us? That day was 9/11. But when Doctor Doctor pulled the trigger he didn’t know it was 9/11. To him, it was Tuesday. He died never knowing we were attacked by Al Qaeda.”

  “That’s nice for him,” Sam said. He liked pondering the 9/10 world much more than he liked pondering the 9/11 world.

  Lucy said, “Take 9/11 and Osama bin Laden out of the equation and tell me the next person who should have walked into the house on Prado. That’s who-oom Doctor expected to discover his body. And to be perplexed by the absence of a suicide weapon.”

  “I see where you’re going. The ME says time of death was late on September tenth or early on the eleventh. The roommate was due home—what did you tell me—later that day?”

  “His flight was due into DIA five thirty-ish. Had to get his luggage and grab the shuttle to Boulder. Say he was due home about seven thirty. So Doctor could have been planning for his roommate to discover the body then. If the flight wasn’t grounded.”

  “No,” Sam said. “Doesn’t compute. Doctor does this complicated setup with a bungee and a vanishing gun. Took planning. He’s meticulous. We have to assume he knew exactly what time his roommate was due back. Would Doctor allow for such a large window of time between his suicide and someone finding his body? No. It introduces unnecessary variance. Doctor wasn’t an unnecessary-variance kind of guy.”

  Lucy said, “I’ll buy that—he wasn’t and he wouldn’t. So Doctor wasn’t expecting the roommate to find his body. We can rule him out. See, we’re making progress.”

  Sam was getting into it. “And I don’t want to hear any serendipitous random stranger bullshit,” Sam said. “Same issue. Doctor planned this well. He wanted someone specific to find his body. And to not find the gun. Someone he was certain would come by—”

  “The morning of 9/11,” Lucy said. “On schedule. Shortly after Doctor killed himself.”

  Sam agreed. “Yes, yes. And definitely before the raccoons. But that person di
dn’t show up like Doctor expected. Or? Maybe that person came by but didn’t call 911. Why? Twice.”

  Lucy said, “The same why works twice. The person didn’t come by on the eleventh because the towers had been hit. And the Pentagon had been hit. And Shanksville had happened. Or the person came by on the eleventh but didn’t call it in because the towers had been hit. And the Pentagon had been hit. And Shanksville had happened. And that had changed things.”

  “If 9/11 explains everything,” Sam said, “it may explain nothing.”

  Lucy said, “Then we go back to the decision tree. Either the person Doctor expected didn’t come by or the person came by but didn’t call 911. Pick.”

  “I have a new twig for that branch,” Sam said. “Try this: the person came by on 9/11 like Doctor expected, but didn’t call it in until the fourteenth.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Lucy said. “Who would see a dead body on Tuesday and wait to call it in until Friday? Popeye?”

  Sam laughed. “Good one. But you’re thinking of Wimpy. Tuesday was the eleventh,” Sam said. “You said so yourself.”

  “Mimicry? That’s all you got?”

  “Somebody called it in on the fourteenth, Lucy. We know Doctor didn’t plan it that way. Either somebody he expected on 9/11 showed up later in the week. Or somebody, random or not, showed up on the fourteenth.”

  “That’s it? Those are my choices, Sammy?”

  “The decision-tree bullshit wasn’t my idea. But feel free to make additions. The possibilities about who showed up on that Friday are unlimited. Remember, the 911 call on the fourteenth was anonymous.”

  “You’ve said that before. But why?” Lucy said. “Why do it anonymously?”

  Sam said, “Do decision trees have whys? Is that allowed?”

  “I gave you a why earlier. I get a why, too. Look,” Lucy said.

  The OCD accountant was pulling into his driveway.

  “Ha, an Acura,” Sam said. “How did I know he’d drive an Acura? Turns out I’m pretty good at this detecting shit.”

  Lucy gave him about ten seconds to be pleased with himself before she said, “On the way over here I told you he drove an Acura. I even told you it was silver.”

  Sam laughed.

  He tried but couldn’t manage to get his seat to slide forward.

  Lucy laughed.

  She told him he could go home after they had the accountant in custody. She’d process him and hang around until his lawyer showed up.

  33

  ALAN

  I WASN’T IN A GOOD place.

  My smoldering rage at Lauren’s betrayal was refueled by the ellbell email. In the heat of my anger I convinced myself that going unannounced to Sam Purdy’s house to confront him about the events on Tatonka Trail was a fine idea.

  The three-minute drive didn’t give me much time to reconsider the wisdom of the visit. The fact that his Cherokee wasn’t in its usual spot at the curb did. But Sam not being home didn’t dissuade me. I parked at the end of the block. I turned on the radio, took a deep breath, and tried to find a calm place while I waited for him to get home.

  I didn’t find the calm place. Instead I began to feel trapped by unwelcome erotic images of Lauren and Raoul, by echoes of the infuriating, barely couched accusations in the ellbell email, and by the vision-compromising ground fog that was already accompanying LA Amy’s return into my life.

  When I finally succeeded in corralling those intrusive meanderings, I discovered that all I had left in my head were ugly thoughts about Big Elias Contopo and Sam Purdy together in a horse trailer on Tatonka Trail.

  BEFORE I KNEW ABOUT any of them, the three Elias Contopos lived in a distinctive, multigabled home on a compact ranch on the eastern edge of Frederick. That’s where Big Elias had been in the horse business.

  The morning she was shot, Lauren traced out the recent branches of the Contopo family tree for me. She offered it as foundation so that I might understand why she was informing me that she was about to have Sam Purdy picked up for investigation of a homicide on the property of one of Elias Contopo’s rural neighbors in Frederick.

  The enduring Contopo family tragedy extended back many years. The concise version was that the patriarch, Big Elias, was a bully, a rapist, and a child abuser. He was likely also a blackmailer and an extortionist. Everything else was consequence.

  The first Elias Contopo was the ill wind that proved the proverb by blowing no one any good.

  During Izza’s visit to Lauren the morning of the Dome Fire, Izza had made clear that she was desperate to rescue her nephew—her half brother Segundo’s son—from his grandfather’s home and to raise him herself. Lauren told me all that before she was shot.

  Eighteen hours after Lauren was shot, at the conclusion of a brief negotiation that took place in the middle of the night, I had handed Sam Purdy the drawing that young Elias Tres had made the night Sam had killed Justine Brown in Frederick. The drawing would help convict Sam if it surfaced, and would help exonerate Sam if it disappeared.

  I would have given the drawing to Sam either way. But, in return for the drawing, I asked him to give me his word that he would try to find a way to make Big Elias pay for his numerous previous crimes, and to do what he could to make things right for young Elias Tres. As part of the negotiation, Sam had demanded one concession from me.

  He got me to agree that anything he did, he could accomplish his way. Without my interference. Now that Big Elias was dead, I felt compelled to know if Sam had been involved.

  Involved as in responsible for his death.

  I HAD ALMOST CONVINCED MYSELF to go home when Sam drove up. He jumped from his old Jeep as though it were on fire and sprinted to his house.

  I recognized a man who needed to pee when I saw one.

  I pulled forward from the corner and parked across the street before I texted him.

  Look out your window.

  Sam’s home was modest—truly modest, not just modest by Boulder standards—but his neighborhood below North Boulder Park was no longer so modest. Sam’s was one of the few remaining Levittown-ish post–World War II bungalows.

  Nobody knew when the Great Recession would ease or when Boulder’s next housing bubble would ignite, only that it would happen. Once Boulder property values took off I had trouble seeing a real estate future that included the survival of Sam’s aging cottage. Most lots in Sam’s neighborhood were too small to cram much of a McAnything on, but the location—against the mountains north of Mapleton Hill—was glorious. His house offered easy proximity to downtown, a great nearby park, and a short stroll to the mountain trailheads. Sam’s investment strategy was to hang on to his crappy house in its ideal location until somebody offered him too much money to tear it down.

  That moment was coming.

  Two minutes after I sent the text Sam’s head appeared in the diamond-shaped opening cut into his front door. Sam’s head was bigger than a normal person’s head and bigger than the window in the door. Through the glass I could see no part of either ear, no chin, and only a triangular portion of his too-big forehead. My lip-reading skills were in fine tune. When he spotted me his lips and teeth were mouthing the word fuck.

  I was curious for an indication about which type of surveillance Sam was most concerned. Would he phone my cell and risk the chance there was a tap on our phones? Would he return my text and risk that there was a trap on my digital accounts? Or would he walk out the front door, march right up to my car, scream at me about my stupidity, and thus make an in-person wager that the DA’s investigators didn’t have the budget or the legal justification for real live surveillance on my butt?

  I had my money on Sam choosing the last option. In-person surveillance was an inefficient use of dollars. The current budget environment in Boulder County had no margin for inefficient use of dollars. As worried as I was about taps, and bugs, and cameras, I didn’t waste much of my paranoia looking over my literal shoulders.

  While I waited impatiently for Sam
to make his next move I began to reset the buttons on the radio. Jonas had changed my available options to an incongruous combination of annoying pop stations, annoying hip-hop stations, and one Spanish language station that played Banda music. Jonas enjoyed neither pop nor hip-hop; he remained entrenched in his Feist-before-she-was-cool phase, the advent of which had predated Lauren’s death. There was no radio preset available for coffee-house Feist.

  What Jonas did enjoy was screwing around with my radio presets. He would be most disappointed to learn that I was developing a taste for Banda.

  Sam made his move. The communication tool he chose was one that I had not considered but one that was relatively surveillance-proof. The living room of his little home had a solitary picture window. I watched the curtains swing open fast, as though someone—Sam—was making a point with the alacrity with which he pulled the cord.

  Sam stood in the center of the picture window holding up a fractional sheet of fluorescent green poster board. On it was scrawled, “THE DAMN PARK.”

  He had the Sharpie he’d used for the scrawl clenched between his front teeth. He was scowling at me as though he wanted to appear to be a particularly mean pirate, or as though the Sharpie tasted poorly. I guessed the latter.

  He pulled the board down and flung it. It acted like an airfoil, flying above the plane of the window before drifting back down toward the floor. Sam then held up both hands in my direction, his fingers spread. After allowing me time to count to ten, or to multiply two times five, he reconfigured his hands so that they each featured a solitary middle finger in prominent erection.

  I drove away from the curb. I thought the song on the radio was Katy Perry, but I was far from certain. Differentiating the current crop of female pop artists was beyond my capability. I switched stations. The Banda option was playing commercials. My sung Spanish comprehension was so undeveloped I couldn’t tell what the ads were selling, only that they were mightily enthusiastic about selling it.

  I found myself yearning for a little early Feist.

  SAM SAT DOWN BESIDE me on a bench near the playground. “Bad friggin’ move.”