Trial by Ice and Fire

by Clinton McKinzie

  I weigh this in my head, taking into account what I suspect about her feelings toward him and the number of drinks she's had. It doesn't add up to a lot, evidence-wise. Wokowski's still at the top of the list. The only guy on the list, as a matter of fact.

  “Tomorrow my partner, Jim, is going to try to find out who's been buying stun guns around here. I'm going to go through your old cases and look for any other potential subjects. Right now the playing field is wide open. But, Cali, you've got to admit that Wokowski looks pretty good. You need to watch out for him.”

  We sit in silence for a while. The jukebox is playing some old Led Zeppelin now. People are yelling at one another and crowding the floor. I finish my beer without thinking and regret it immediately.

  “I'm going to the bathroom,” she tells me, sliding out of the booth.

  I stand up, too, and Cali laughs quickly. “I'm a big girl, Anton. You don't need to hold my hand in the toilet. No one's going to mess with me in a bar full of cops and witnesses.”

  I look around the bar one more time, searching faces and the breadth of turned backs for something resembling Wokowski's, then let her go. She slips between a shouting couple and disappears into a narrow hallway at the back of the bar.

  Alone, I'm more aware of the scrutiny I'm receiving from the bar's mirror and the busy floor. The music is so loud it's giving me a headache. Robert Plant is screaming from the jukebox about a wicked woman standing on street corners. The song ends abruptly just as I'm glancing at my watch to calculate how long it's been since I've slept.

  Even over the usual bar noise of laughter and yells, the sound of a distant scream knifes through the smoky air. It's more of an angry shout, really, than a fearful shriek. But it's the same voice I'd heard shouting something far happier this morning. A banging sound accompanies it: thump-thump-crack! The jukebox abruptly smothers the noise by launching into something else with lots of guitars and heavy drums.

  TEN

  NO ONE SEEMS to pay any attention to the shout and bangs that could be heard during the music's interlude. Even the cops I'd noticed earlier only glance toward the rear of the bar—a little puzzled, maybe—before they go back to drinking and yelling over the music. Catfights and domestic spats would be common in a place like this. But hadn't they seen that it was the assistant county attorney they'd been so deliberately ignoring heading back there only minutes earlier? The one they all knew had been the victim of an attempted kidnapping?

  I stand and begin to shove through the big men and big-haired women. I push at a broad back that blocks my path, knocking a man and the mug of beer in his hand into the little group gathered around him. Someone pushes me back and curses, spraying the back of my neck with spit. As I half run past the jukebox, I punch the glass over the display hard with the heel of my fist in an attempt to shut it off. The CD bounces and begins to repeat. A new chorus of obscenities rises up from all around me. I don't bother stopping to try to turn it off more permanently. I don't bother trying to explain.

  Paneled with fake wood and down two short steps, the hallway leading to the bathroom is even darker than the bar. But three doors are evident in the gloom; two small doors on the right and a bigger steel door at the far end. That last one is swinging shut as I leap down the steps. It has an aluminum bar running across its middle and is marked with an “Emergency Exit Only—Alarm Will Sound” sign. I don't hear any alarm.

  The first door on my right opens, spilling light into the hallway. A man in a cowboy hat steps out with his hands at his crotch where he's working the buttons on his fly. He looks at me as I approach then steps back. “What?” he says. Behind him is a toilet stall missing a door, a stained urinal, and a sink. Other than that it's empty. “What?” he asks again, looking at me then looking away. He looks nervous and scared as he gently closes the door in my face.

  I push open the second door with my left hand so as to keep my right hand free.

  This time no light pours out to fill the hallway—it's pitch-black inside. But from the minute amount of ambient light coming from the neon lights in the bar I can make out the gleam of a porcelain toilet bowl and a pair of pale, booted legs kicking on the floor. Over the raucous beat of the now-revived jukebox, I hear angry grunts coming from the writhing shape.

  “Cali!” I say as my eyes adjust to the darkness. Four pale limbs are now visible, skittering toward my feet on the floor. My gun is in my hand, pointing at the flailing arms and legs.

  The limbs all seem to belong to one person. The torso is cloaked by the black dress that has been pushed up above the triangle of dark-colored underwear. I feel the inside wall for the light switch, find it, and flick it on.

  The sudden light reveals Cali swimming out from beneath the scarred wooden walls of an open toilet stall, her shoulders half pinned beneath it as she scoots backward and feetfirst. When her head appears I notice that her hair has become a Medusa tangle. Her eyes are so wide they're almost bulging. A peeling gray strip of duct tape is plastered unevenly across one side of her face. Even when she sees me and the gun pointing at her, she continues making the strange sounds, half outraged grunts of exertion and half sobs of fear.

  “Are you hurt?” I yell at her, already turning toward the fire door.

  She doesn't answer the question but she doesn't look hurt. Not seriously, at least. There's only a little blood on her forehead from a cut at her hairline.

  Holding the H&K in the guard position, two-handed and pointed in front of my feet, I step back into the hall and shove open the emergency door with my hip and shoulder. It swings out into an empty alley full of trash cans and cars. It reeks with the scent of rotting food and stale urine. There's no one in sight, and not even the sound of footsteps fleeing into the night.

  The alley is searched by me, uniformed members of the Jackson Police Department and the Teton County Sheriff's Office, several off-duty cops who'd been in the bar, and a couple of drunken “volunteers.” After the alley we search the block and then the surrounding blocks but find nothing. It isn't surprising, as none of us are sure exactly what—or who—we're supposed to be looking for. I'd love to find Wokowski crouching behind a trash can, but I don't share this with his brother officers.

  Paramedics stay with Cali in the bar, which is now more or less quiet and brightly lit. When I return from my laps around the neighboring blocks they tell me that she's uninjured and alert-and-oriented times four, meaning that there's no indication of impairment to her level of consciousness. Obviously they haven't given her a breath test. Her forehead is a little swollen around where the cut has been cleaned and covered with a Band-Aid.

  There's a brief tug-of-war between me and the responding officers. The locals, both town police and county sheriffs, want to be in charge. Only with a lot of badge-waving and declarations of “This is my case”—which one of the off-duty cops snickers at because it appears I haven't been managing it too well—am I able to get Cali alone. We sit at a booth in the far rear corner where I face the room and use my best glare to keep the onlookers at bay.

  “The lights went out and I said ‘Hey!' or something,” Cali tells me, her voice unnaturally calm and her eyes still wide and slightly unfocused. “I stood there in the dark for a minute, thinking one of those bastards at the bar was playing a prank or something—you know, turning off the light and leaving. Then the stall door blew open and banged into me. Someone grabbed me and started pulling me out by the neck and hair. He tried to slap something across my face.”

  I have the strip of duct tape, which the paramedics sealed in a bag for me, in my pocket. But I already know it will be clear of prints, just like the stun gun and the tape that had been left behind during the previous attempt at kidnapping her.

  “I fought him as I hard as I could. I yelled and thrashed around, hoping I could get him to let go. Our legs got tangled together. We both fell down and I tried to crawl back to the toilet while I kicked at him. I must have got him good, because he let go. It wasn't like he was trying to rape
me—he wasn't grabbing those places—just like he was trying to control me. Subdue me or something.”

  “Did you get a look at him?”

  “No. I told you—he'd turned out the lights.”

  “What did he say?” One or two of the sheriff's deputies are staring back at me as they talk to each other. I think I see a derisive smile on both their faces. Those DCI “special agents” can't even guard a victim properly, is what I imagine them saying.

  “He didn't say a word. He just grabbed me and started pulling, trying to get a hold on my wrists—”

  “C'mon, Cali,” I say, “try to remember. There must be something you can tell me about him.”

  “Don't get mad at me! It was pitch-black in there, and I didn't know what the hell was going on! It was only when I started yelling and pulled myself back under the stall that he took off.”

  “How did his hands feel? Big or small?”

  “I don't know, Anton!”

  “Could you get a feel for how tall he was? When he held you from behind?”

  “I don't know!” She starts to tremble. An emotional response is overdue. Her eyes begin to fill with water and her lips quiver before she puts her face in her hands. “Maybe he's tall. He felt tall to me. But I don't know.” Her whole body starts to shake.

  I lean back in the booth and grit my teeth. Then, after a minute, I say in a softer voice, “Hey, Cali, you did great. You fought the bastard off. But I should have been there for you. I really should have been there.” I get out of my side of the booth and slip in next to her. I put one arm around her, pulling her to me and holding her while her overdue tears and running nose soak my shoulder and neck.

  It's painfully true. I should have followed her to the bathroom, checked it out to make sure it was empty, then stood with my arms folded outside the door. But I hadn't imagined someone who'd tried to creep in her window late at night would also be so bold as to make a move in a bar full of cops. I had underestimated both his audacity and his drive.

  Over the next half hour I interview the bar's patrons—off-duty cops and civilians alike—but no one had noticed anyone or anything unusual. No one had seen a man lurking in that unlit hallway. The entire bar had been crowded and dark. And it turns out that the back door was unlocked during operating hours, so that anyone could enter from the alley or vice versa. The bartender tells me that the fire-exit alarm connected to the door was disengaged years ago because people kept tripping it by going out to use the alley as a bathroom when the regular toilets were occupied.

  At one point I close my eyes and try to recall the men and women I'd seen around the bar before Cali got up. I try to recall if anyone had headed toward the hallway before or after she had. But every time I think of a particular face, I look around the well-lit room and spot them talking to uniformed officers. Anyone who left could have simply walked back in the front door. I finally suck up my courage and approach the SWAT team officer I'd noticed at the meeting.

  “Where's Sergeant Wokowski? Is he on duty tonight?”

  The man, a short, tough-looking guy, eyeballs me for a long moment before saying, “You're out of your fucking mind if you think Wook had anything to do with this.”

  “Just tell me if he's on duty or not, Deputy.”

  “If he was on, he'd be here right now, doing your job for you. But he doesn't clock in 'til midnight.” Although it feels far later, midnight is still forty-five minutes away.

  “You're going to stay at my place tonight. Okay?” I say to Cali.

  She'll be safer there than she would be at her own house. And I'm not really up to dealing with the stalker if he decides to put in a further appearance tonight. I ignore the part of my brain that suggests that the two of us alone in my cabin might not be such a hot idea. Especially not with my brother prowling around.

  Cali's still in the corner booth, slouched beneath the high-backed wall, with her back to the room. She has my jacket covering her like a blanket. It's pulled up so that the upturned collar hides the lower part of her face.

  She nods without opening her eyes. Her eyes and nose have long since gone dry. When she stands up and takes my arm, I notice that her face is locked into what seems an almost comical scowl. It doesn't fit her pretty features. The fingers on my arm are tight enough to leave a mark. She's no longer scared, I realize. That emotion's fled. Now she's mad. And I know how she feels.

  As we walk out I see elbows being nudged into ribs by the bar. The entire place watches us leave.

  ELEVEN

  MY RENTED CABIN, nestled on a hillside above Cache Creek, is only about fifteen minutes from the center of Jackson. Cali talks most of the way out there, her voice getting more and more slurred, saying repeatedly, “I want you to get him, Anton. I want this to stop.”

  I reassure her the best I can. I want to get him, too—not only for her, but also because whoever he is, he's made a complete fool of me tonight. It could have been far worse, though. He could have taken her out of there and carried her off into a waiting car in the alley. The thought of what might have happened then makes my empty stomach clench and my head ache.

  We walk up the three steps to the porch with me holding her elbow, steadying her. The alcohol and the attack seem to have taken away her center of balance. Over the sound of young aspen leaves rattling in the wind, I hear the cabin's rear door being shut softly.

  I freeze, thinking, Roberto, you maniac.

  “Stay here for a sec,” I tell Cali. “Don't move.”

  I unlock the front door with the keys in my left hand. My right is up under my shirt and resting against my lower ribs, touching the gun again. Just in case. There's no sound of anyone walking up the hillside behind the cabin, no sound of crunching leaves and snapping twigs. But then Roberto has always moved like a panther—he wouldn't make a sound.

  When I push the front door open the main room is brightly lit and empty except for Mungo, whose body faces the rear door although her head is craned back to look at me. With a glance I see several bottles of beer are on the kitchen table and that the labels have been peeled off. Roberto does that when he drinks. He shreds the labels down to the glue and the glass. I hear myself blow out a short, exasperated breath.

  Cali steps past me through the open door. Suddenly, at the sight of the animal, she is fully animated again, saying, “A real wolf! I can't believe it!” She rushes the poor creature.

  With her yellow eyes wide, Mungo tries to slink away but Cali soon has her cornered. Mungo lowers her head and stands shakily with her legs spread wide in abject submission as Cali reaches out to scratch her ears. “Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?” she coos, bending over to hug Mungo around the neck. Mungo's lips are pulled all the way back and she's shaking. I'm impressed by the speed with which Cali has recovered her spirits. Or maybe this, too, is a reaction. I've seen assault victims seesaw wildly between euphoria at their survival and abject terror at what could have happened.

  “She's probably not full-blooded. I think she's got something else in her—some husky or German shepherd, maybe.” I say this as I go to the back door and raise the lace curtain to peer out the window. There's nothing out there but night. I push the button to lock the door and make a mental note to install a dead bolt.

  “Look at that shit-eating grin! You sure look like a real wolf, like you've been up to something. I've never seen a dog do that!” Cali is saying, addressing first Mungo then me. “How long have you had her?”

  “Only a few weeks. She was at a private reserve in Ft. Collins. The reserve was going to be shut down if they didn't get rid of some of the animals. Timorous neighbors didn't like wolves being kept near their pets and kids. They were going to put Mungo to sleep.”

  “You poor thing. What the hell kind of name for a girl is Mungo, anyway?” Cali asks, trying to peer into her scared eyes. “No wonder you look so unhappy.”

  I open the front door again so Mungo can escape. She slides around Cali and darts for the door. I hope she won't try to follow my b
rother to wherever he's headed. Her tail rises from between her legs as she scurries past me.

  “This place looks like a hotel room,” Cali informs me, looking around. “I know this isn't very PC, but seriously, Anton—you could use a woman.” Her eyes—the whites now very red and watery—are crinkled with amusement for the first time in hours. She peeks into the second bedroom with all the gear strewn around and laughs. “So the famous Antonio ‘QuickDraw' Burns is a slob.”

  I wince at the nickname but say nothing. I look around me at the main room and realize again how stark and barren it is. How empty. There are no pictures on the walls but the standard Ansel Adams prints that came with the place, no personal effects of any kind. Not even a photo of Rebecca to remind me of what I'm in the process of losing.

  “Give me a break. I just moved in.”

  She studies a cardboard box full of books that's shoved against one wall. They are mostly outdoor adventure books with titles like Touching the Void, Kon-Tiki, Endurance, The Worst Journey in the World, and The White Spider. There is also a compilation of old magazine articles called The Sharp End that includes a chapter on my brother and me and a climb we did on Foraker. I notice her pause when she sees to one side the book I'd bought the day before, Smoke Jump, after I'd done my Internet search on her. She looks like she might say something about it but then decides to hold her comment in.

  After a while she says, “So, where am I going to sleep?”

  “Either the couch or I can dig out the bed in the back room.” Cali makes a face at both options. “I sleep upstairs,” I add, pointing up at the open loft, “and I don't have any clean sheets.”

  She takes a second look at the piles of ropes, skis, and boots in the back room and decides on the couch.

  “Mind if I take a shower? I'm feeling pretty grungy after crawling around on the bathroom floor.”

  “Go ahead.”