Trapline

by Mark Stevens

  “The shooter wasn’t on top of the train station,” said Chadwick. “The angle from there would have been too much from the side.”

  “How about that apartment building on this side of the train station?”

  “The angle still isn’t right,” said Chadwick.

  “But you checked it?”

  Chadwick let out a heavy, slow sigh.

  sixteen:

  tuesday mid-day

  Bloom knew some of the country’s best newspaper reporters—real writers with long-form journalism credentials and book credits under their belts—were moving in to investigate the investigation, always a winner, or to start laying out pieces to prove that Glenwood Springs harbored the kind of mentality that could have bred the assassin. Bloom could write these fill-in-the-blank pieces now. But the pressure was on, to not lose the local edge.

  The ideas percolated—more than a few directions to head.

  There were two local gun clubs—one a couple miles off I-70 closer to Glenwood Springs and one in Basalt, about halfway to Aspen. The Basalt shooting range had been in the news due to neighborhood complaints over noise. The facility was run by a sporting club and leased public land. They were under pressure to build enclosures. The club’s website mentioned nothing about long-range rifles and, besides, Basalt was a good fifteen miles from Glenwood Springs. Too much time to risk.

  But the search engine coughed up a name in connection with the club. The name was Lee Kirbinowicz, a prominent and vocal member of the club. The name turned up in letters to the editors from the Post-Independent, Aspen Times, and Carbondale Sun, too. Kirbinowicz was a busy beaver producer of opinion, vehemently anti-immigration.

  The Glenwood Springs Gun Club was promising, too. A map on its website showed the road from the highway back into the range and then another map showed the layout of the range, with distinct areas for trap shooting, rifles, handguns, and archery. It looked more secluded, which might be more inviting to whackos.

  He would have to check in with the cops, not only to please Coogan. There was another formal news briefing at noon and he had to call DiMarco, to find out what was really happening. Bloom had spotted a strange item in the morning paper about the discovery of a dead man in the Flat Tops. It was odd how the item had been underplayed. It wasn’t an everyday occurrence, after all. DiMarco might have a lead on that.

  Another idea was to track down Troy Nichols and ask him to elaborate on “inevitable.” If he retracted the statement, easy story. If he defended it, he could call up any Lamott supporter and extract a reaction in a counter-quote.

  But all story ideas seemed subordinate to thinking about the shot. The whole matter of the long-range shot appealed to Bloom’s inner boy and he knew the place to satisfy his desire to see what skill was required.

  YouTube.

  One video showed a bunch of guys plunking a Pepsi can from 900 yards, shouts of “yee haw” and high-fives when they hit it. In another, a military weapon took out an Afghan “rebel” from 1,800 yards. More than a mile. And a bull moose, standing on the shores of a broad river in Alaska, was felled from 800 yards. That video’s comments section included discussion about the use of a ballistics calculator and, of course, the inevitable epithet-filled anger lobbed back and forth between hunters and animal rights activists, who were sure the moose had suffered, given the inability for the shooter to quickly administer a kill shot, or even to determine if one was necessary.

  Certainly the combination of an angry anti-immigration zealot and talented long-range marksman would limit the pool of suspects in Glenwood Springs to no more than, say, three. Throw in the new factor, a man stupid enough to buy a disposable phone and use it in connection with the shooting, and you’re down to one.

  Two more story options occurred to Bloom.

  One, follow up on the ICE process. Where did those illegals get taken? Where are they now? What were the rules?

  Two, do what Coogan wanted. Get as close as possible to the cops and see what he could glean. Given the high-stakes nature of the situation, any local cops he might know were probably under strict rules about making eye contact with media, let alone conversing.

  But maybe he’d relied too much on DiMarco. Maybe the cops were using DiMarco to monitor him. He wouldn’t stay long at the scene where all the cops were converged up on Lookout Mountain, but he wanted to get a true flavor of the investigation scene and, if possible, find out why the hell it was taking so long to get on somebody’s tail.

  seventeen:

  tuesday, early afternoon

  “All the witness statements pointed right up here,” said Chadwick. “We had a team in the apartments and there are investigators who favor that as the site. But they cleared it.”

  Allison studied the apartment building, knew she needed to see it up close.

  For appearance’s sake, she tried lining up her imaginary shot but she couldn’t find a comfortable position. The grade was so steep she almost slid downhill. Some hunters used bi-pods to steady a long shot, but the best position she could imagine would have been lying prone. Except with the steep downhill, it would have been an impossible position, head down a couple feet below your toes. Your head would need to be tilted so far your neck would break. And if your neck was made of rubber your downhill arm, the left, had no support.

  Allison stood, made a show of stepping carefully down the hill, as if she was trying to spot tracks. The summer heat had baked the dirt so it had as much give as a brick. An orange plastic tag hung limply off the tip of a fir tree that had seen healthier days.

  “What’s that?” asked Allison.

  “The exact elevation as the pedestrian bridge,” said Chadwick. “Straight across.”

  The optics were deceiving. Allison would have sworn on a stack of GPS devices they were still ten or fifteen feet higher than the bridge, maybe more.

  She stepped past the tag and studied the ground and bushes and weeds and grasses. Chadwick stayed behind. At the base of a dilapidated fir, no more than sixty feet tall and looking windblown and weary, she wormed her way through the low-hanging branches and climbed as far she could. The top of the tree was too dense, too thick and the branches had not been cut, nicked or disturbed in any way. The idea of a tree stand was one last notion that might put the hill back on her list of possible places where the shooter had taken cover. But why would a sniper want the trouble of dismantling a tree stand? The load would make for an encumbered getaway. Besides, these trees were too flimsy to guarantee a rock-like perch.

  Allison let herself down. “Anyone see anyone leaving?” Chadwick was back up the hill so she had to raise her voice.

  “Nothing credible,” said Chadwick. “Someone thought they remembered a black old-model Buick screaming down 8th Street shortly after the shots, but we found the Buick and the couple had a fight, you know, that kind of thing—the wife was getting out of the house. A fight over finances, what else? We also thought maybe the shooter would have taken off up the trail up Lookout Mountain. There were a dozen hikers on the trail up that day, including a couple of runners and nobody saw anyone suspicious or anything out of the ordinary.”

  Back at the cop’s base camp near the head of Scout Trail, Allison kept her gaze up and square, looked others in the eye. By previous agreement, Allison drifted over to Chadwick’s car while he quietly reported the details—specifically, the lack of any new details—to a higher authority. Leaning on Chadwick’s car, sipping a bottle of water she had plucked from a communal cooler, Allison hoped he wouldn’t take long. The plan was to go down to the apartment building in a low-key mode, not drag the whole entourage along. She might be wrong about the rooftop, but if the sniper had stood or squatted on the hillside, he was one of the most skilled sharpshooters in the state, hands down.

  Allison pulled out her cell phone and found William Sulchuk in her contacts.

  Yes, Colin, I’m getting all tangl
ed up.

  He answered immediately and they exchanged quick greetings. He didn’t seem surprised to hear from her.

  “Just wanted to see how Gail is doing and let you know they’ve got the body off the Flat Tops,” she said.

  “Well, the Sunday outing is not Gail’s favorite topic,” said Sulchuk, “and not sure she slept much the first night.”

  “I’m sure it’s not easy,” said Allison. There were images from the Long Island Sound she’d never forget. Pictures were one thing, lifeless flesh was another.

  “What did the cops think?” said Sulchuk.

  “Not much,” said Allison. “And didn’t say much, either. No jumping to conclusions, that sort of thing.”

  “No ID?” said Sulchuk. “Any idea if he was a local?”

  “No,” said Allison. “They’ve got the body somewhere being processed and who knows maybe there’s a missing-persons report that’s a match. The cops told me they have an artist working on a sketch of his face. You know, using what was left.”

  “The morning paper had a small item,” said Sulchuk. “Buried, given everything else that was going on.”

  A man emerged from the sea of uniforms, but he was too scruffy to be with them. He was ten steps away. Allison wanted to put her head down and slip into Chadwick’s car. He walked right up to her and Allison turned slightly, gave him the universal index-finger indication to wait.

  “By the way, you’re pretty sure the body didn’t get disturbed in any way—before you got there?”

  “What?”

  “Were you up there when they found the body, with the mushroom hunters?” said Allison.

  Sulchuk paused. “I don’t get what you’re asking,” he said.

  “Gail said all the kids were up there looking for mushrooms,” said Allison. She hoped Sulchuk would fill in the blanks.

  “Yeah, we were all in the general vicinity and then Gail screamed and we all came running. We were all right there.”

  She wanted Sulchuk to feel free to embellish the story, maybe mention something about why everyone already seemed so tense when she and Colin had arrived, but Sulchuk didn’t bite.

  “Well, we’ll see what the cops come up with,” said Allison.

  “Yep,” said Sulchuk. “Not exactly the experience I had planned for Gail—but that is the big old outdoors. You never know.”

  Allison said goodbye and hung up, still unhappy with the pictures in her head from how the whole scenario happened—finding the half-corpse, standing around, and how the adults had all left the kids at Lumberjack Camp.

  The guy waiting was a reporter—the same guy who had been in Trudy’s kitchen writing up a profile months ago.

  “Allison.”

  She remembered him—the strong, thoughtful face, the deep-set eyes—but not the name.

  “Duncan Bloom,” he said. “We met at Trudy’s house, if house is the right word. Her greenhouse.”

  “I remember,” said Allison. She smiled and guessed she looked about as sweaty and strung out as a junkie.

  “How are you?” he said.

  “Mostly hot,” said Allison. “But fine.”

  Allison reminded herself: he’s a reporter. He’d written a beautiful piece about Trudy, captured her essence, but he was a reporter. “So they took you to the spot?”

  There was no sign of a notebook. A pen was clipped to the pocket of his shirt.

  “Not for me to say,” said Allison. “Better ask the ones with uniforms.”

  “The police are saying diddly,” said Bloom. “Lots of words, but it’s fluffier than the down on a baby goose’s butt.”

  Another reporter, video camera on his shoulder and microphone in his hand, was jogging across the street.

  “I bumped into Trudy before the shooting,” said Bloom. “Minutes before.”

  She didn’t want it to look like she was giving him any information and stepped away. “I don’t mean to be impolite. I can’t talk.”

  The reporter with the video camera held out a fuzzy gray microphone fatter than a bottle of wine.

  “This isn’t an interview,” said Allison. “We’re acquaintances.” She gestured to Bloom.

  “What did you find?” said the cameraman, ignoring her assertion.

  “You’ll have to ask the police,” said Allison. “I’m hired help.”

  She said it calmly and with enough sincerity that the cameraman looked instantly deflated. He turned and drifted off.

  “Cops are a stone wall,” said Bloom. “No cracks.”

  Allison let the comment hang. The cops didn’t have much to tell themselves, let alone anyone else.

  “So this was a favor?”

  “Least I can do.” He wasn’t bad looking at all. He looked bookish, had a thoughtful air. “The whole town is hurting.”

  “They seem pretty stumped,” said Bloom. He had wavy dark brown hair and he was maybe three inches taller than Colin. Bloom looked strong through the shoulders, too.

  “You’re not trying to get me to confirm—”

  “No,” said Bloom. “Look.” He folded his arms, leaned back against Chadwick’s car. “That day I spent with Trudy last spring was one of the finest days of my life, work-wise anyway. I’m not going to burn you or Trudy to grab a two-bit quote for a story.”

  “Do you even have to mention I was here?” said Allison.

  “I’m afraid I’m not in control of that,” said Bloom. “When the cops don’t make progress, the media can get a bit ornery, you know, and they track every move the cops make.”

  Chadwick emerged from the throng of milling cops and crossed the street, eyeing Bloom suspiciously. He gave Allison a “let’s go” head nod, climbed in behind the wheel of his car.

  Bloom had his business card ready. She stuffed it in a back pocket.

  “Here’s what you can do,” said Allison. It was a hasty thought. She hadn’t completely processed it. “A body was found up in the Flat Tops two days ago. Badly decomposed—”

  “We had it in the morning paper,” said Bloom.

  “Come on,” said Chadwick, suddenly on her shoulder. “No reporters.”

  “Stay on it,” said Allison. “See if they come up with an ID, anything useful. If you hear anything, if it’s not too much trouble, call me or call Trudy.”

  She gave Bloom her cell number. “Sometimes I’m out of range up there, but leave a message. I’ll get it.”

  Bloom looked happy to have an assignment. “You were there when they found it?”

  “Time to go,” said Chadwick. “Unless you want to walk.”

  Allison leaned in close to Bloom, half-whispered. “Stay on the cops about that body from the Flat Tops. The whole town is focused on the politician and I get that. But this one has got something to it, too.”

  “Do what I can,” said Bloom. He gave a quick smile. It was more than she could have hoped.

  eighteen:

  tuesday afternoon

  Throughout the “Down to Earth” store and farm, well-scrubbed young white girls worked side by side with Mexican men. Every job was a group effort. Jerry insisted on team work, no strict division of labor. An employee’s personal skills might help determine the right job at first, but cross-training was a big theme.

  Their roadside stand west of Glenwood Springs, just off the highway, was the size of a two-car garage, with the herbs, seeds, bedding plants and produce displayed on a series of shelves and tables around the perimeter. Local honey. Local eggs. Bedding plants. Books and magazines. The stand was where customers shopped and milled about, but they were welcome to tour the five greenhouses behind the stand, too.

  A customer service ethos had taken over Trudy’s crews, including how the stand was run and how visitors were treated. Customers were cooks and gardeners and green thumbs who liked to ask questions, learn something. Trudy’s the
me was “keep it simple.” Plants, herbs and flowers, and vegetables all knew what to do. They’d been growing in a wide variety of environments long before the invention of fertilizer. Trudy pushed for organic. But it was more than that, too. She promoted going rustic. She was growing home crops with the same attitudes as farmers from the 1930s, before things got complicated. Grow a winter crop to improve the soil. Use simple tools like a good grab hoe for the vast majority of your needs. Don’t over fertilize, don’t over water. Listen to your soil and sunlight, let it tell you what it wants and watch what thrives. Her new push was promoting self-fertilizing gardens, where the goal was to build a self-sustaining eco-system that required minimal external interference. The idea emphasized care of the soil as a living organism and managing the ecosystem so the garden could take care of itself. Tricky in the semi-arid Glenwood Springs climate, but it could be done.

  Deep down, though she would never say it out loud, Trudy believed herbs, flowers, and plants all fared best when they weren’t guarded by helicopter parents who buzzed around over every new shoot or who were alarmed by any slight flaw in a textbook growing environment. To most gardeners, she wanted to say, relax.

  Now, she tried to give herself the same advice. But with the missing worker and the clear warning from the cop, it hadn’t taken hold.

  Trudy followed the path around back and headed toward the third greenhouse, where Juan Diaz was working. Jerry had recommended Diaz as someone who knew the Loya family and who could provide an update, if there was one.

  Juan Diaz was working with a crew of five harvesting Thai basil, each plant being plucked whole, including the roots and some dirt, and placed in a loose plastic wrapper. The basil grew in beds at waist level to make for painless harvesting. Trudy loved the serenity of a well-maintained greenhouse, all the plants in neat rows, happy to be together. She savored the rich aroma of loamy soil and the soft pungency of the Thai version of basil, lacking that sweet note of the regular variety. It packed a more workmanlike punch.