Trial by Ice and Fire

by Clinton McKinzie

  Less enthusiastically, I tell her, “I've got another suspect, too. A local kid who sometimes works on Ski Patrol at the resort. He was diagnosed as schizophrenic two years ago, and before that he was charged with stalking a high-school girl. Letters and all, although I haven't seen them. His mother abandoned him at an early age and his father disappeared after going bankrupt and selling the family's home. Cali prosecuted him for hijacking stiffs from the coroner's office and trying to sell photographs of them. His defense, in part, was that the cops had a vendetta against him. That he was being framed.”

  “Why are you bothering with the cop, then? A schizo with a history of stalking sounds right on target. Particularly when Cali was the one who stood up in court, in public, and pointed her finger at him. He might view her as his persecutor, a symbol of all that he imagines is wrong with the world.”

  I want it to be Wokowski, not Armalli. I don't like the way everything seems to point away from Wook except his constant menacing presence. But I resolve to do my job and follow the evidence instead of my machismo. “Why would he want to kidnap her, though? Why not just take a shot at her, or run her down in the street or something?”

  “He probably wants to scare her as well as do something symbolic, make her suffer in some way. More than anything, he might want to get her alone so that he's the dominant one, in control, and where she has to listen and do whatever he says. A role reversal from the jail and courtroom, you know?”

  That makes a lot of sense. Armalli has once again overtaken Wokowski and eased back into the top position.

  “This is all just speculation, but it sounds like you're playing a dangerous game. You should get Cali out of town until you find this guy and get him under control.”

  I explain that I'd tried to do exactly that, but that Cali is determined to go through with tomorrow's trial—the case where Wokowski's beating of the old man will be revealed to the public.

  Angela looks out at the faces pressed in on the glass and keeps talking.

  “When I was in grad school I did an internship for a professor who worked at the forensic unit of the state mental hospital in Virginia. She took me to this conference with her where they had these virtual-reality goggles and earphones. It was some drug company thing, trying to show you what an unmedicated schizophrenic's world was like. You'd look through them and see the world the way a schizophrenic does.” She shivers and crosses her arms. “It was unbelievably freaky, Burns. Through the earphones you heard all these voices—some of them commanding you to do things, others just shrieking or totally incomprehensible. It was chaos. What you saw through the goggles was even worse. Every time you looked at someone's face it was a different face. Sometimes it was an old man's or a baby's and sometimes it was a monster's. Spiders would crawl by like they were crawling over your eyes. It was un-fucking-real.”

  I remember something I'd noticed in Armalli's most recent file. “He's supposed to be taking a drug called Haldol to control his symptoms. Is that kind of thing effective?”

  “Antipsychotics like that can be. They're commonly used to treat diseases like schizophrenia and dementia. But they call these guys paranoid for a reason. They often won't take them unless it's monitored.”

  “How well would Armalli be able to function without the drugs?”

  “It depends on his level of psychosis. Timing, too. Some people are so inundated with voices and mania that they can't function at all. They just sit in a corner and sort of get comatose. Others can be quite resourceful. Look at John Hinckley. He had enough intelligence to get past Reagan's Secret Service with a gun. Or Ted Kaczynski, who hid for years in Montana despite the Bureau's best efforts, wrote very lucidly, and built some pretty impressive explosives from scratch. They can be very cunning.”

  I thank her for her help and turn to shoulder my way back through the crowd outside the door. Angela touches my arm to stop me and says, “You'd better get this guy locked up quick.”

  EIGHTEEN

  YOU GOT A WARRANT?”

  How many times have I heard this? When you're a cop, it seems almost like an automatic greeting—How's it going?—anytime you show your badge.

  The man in the gun shop is tall and big bellied. His gut swells out over the counter far enough to almost hide the cheap handguns that are displayed below with paper price tags tied with string around the trigger guards. He wears an army-surplus tank top to show off his fading tattoos. His breath smells of hot dogs and beer. Around his waist is a holster that holds a ridiculously large revolver. Behind him, mounted on the wall, is an assortment of pepper sprays and stun guns.

  “No, sir. I'm simply asking for your help with a case I'm working on.”

  “I'm not gonna tell you nothing 'less you gotta warrant,” he says with a barely concealed belch. “Don't have to.”

  “Why not help me out, save us both the trouble? It's better to be asked than told, isn't it?” I try out that smile I've been practicing.

  “You guys think you can take away our God-given right to bear arms. You should read the Constitution, pal. It's right there in the Second 'mendment—”

  “Mr. Richter, I'm not trying to take away your guns. All I'm trying to do is find out if—”

  “You look kinda familiar. Lemme see your badge again.”

  I sigh and flip it open again. Badge envy, I'm thinking. More than guns, these yahoos want badges. As if carrying a gun isn't enough power. If they were to get a badge, too, they'd just learn that they're still powerless. Wives and girlfriends will continue to ridicule them, and their parents will still tell them they're wasting their lives. Respect has to be earned. And sometimes even then you don't get it.

  But I'm wrong when it comes to Leon Richter, owner of Leon's Pawn and Guns. It's my name he wants another look at.

  “Holy shit, you're that guy—”

  “Look, I'm kind of in a hurry, Mr. Richter. Could you—”

  But he's not listening. He slaps the worn leather holster with a practiced move and mimics pulling the gun off his hip. He points his index finger at my chest. “Bang bang bang,” he says. “Planted those three spics in the ground.” He looks suddenly worried and lets his hand drop back to the holster. “No offense, man. There's spics and then there's Mexicans, just like there's niggers and then there's blacks.”

  “Kind of like how there's trash and then there's whites, right?”

  He nods and smiles at me. “Yeah, that's right. We got our trash just like everybody else.”

  “Can you tell me who's bought a Stun Master 625 from you lately?”

  He considers this as he continues stroking his holster's cover. “Law doesn't require me to keep any records of that. Normally, I'd tell you to go to hell. Just on principle, you know, not 'cause I got anything to hide. See, I don't like cops. But seeing as how you're sort of a celebrity, and 'cause far as I know none of those fucking liberals in Washington is trying to take the zappers away, I guess I can help you out.”

  “I'd appreciate it.”

  “But first you got to do something for me.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to sign something.”

  While he rummages under the counter, I wonder if he means a receipt or something. Or some sort of waiver stating that I promise to never try and take away his guns. Or even a petition saying that I believe every insecure asshole in the great state of Wyoming deserves a concealed weapon on his eighth birthday.

  He pulls out a paper target from behind the counter. It shows the silhouette of a man. Three bullet holes make eyes and a mouth, and there are several more through the chest. One humorously intended hole has been punched through the groin.

  “You want me to sign this?”

  “That would be great, Mr. Burns.”

  Feeling stupider than I've ever felt in my life, and with my face turning red, I sign the damn thing. It's easier than getting a judge to sign a warrant. But after doing it I actually look over my shoulder to make sure McGee isn't about to walk into the store. />
  Then Leon Richter tells me he can't really say who's bought the ten or so stun guns he remembers selling in the last year. “Don't take names, man. No registration required.” Now that he's gotten what he wants—my signature on the target lying on the greasy glass counter before us, he's turned churlish again.

  “If they pay cash, like most of the geezers who buy these things, I don't got even a credit card receipt.”

  “Do you recall if anyone young has bought one lately? Someone about my age or even younger?”

  “Nah, like I said, it's the geezers that want 'em. Afraid of muggers or something. Sorry, dude. That's all I know.”

  After enduring the shame of signing his target, the only thing I learn from Leon is that Stun Masters can be ordered through the mail and over the Internet. And I remember that Myron Armalli is web-savvy, that he sold his charming birthday cards over the Internet. I can call the company, but there's no doubt that they'll demand a warrant before turning over records of sales to Wyoming. While it will be useful when it comes time to prosecute the stalker, it's going to take too long. Weeks, maybe months, to get it signed and served to their corporate headquarters.

  This thought, as well as Leon's lack of information, allows me to get a little churlish in return.

  “How much you sell these targets for?”

  “A quarter. That one, with your name on it, I bet I can get a hundred bucks.”

  I put a quarter on the counter.

  “Hey! What are you doing?” he yells at me as I walk out the door tearing up his target. As he'd told me, he doesn't like cops anyway.

  The grass in the meadow is so dry that it crackles beneath my shoes. Flying insects dart and drone in the heat above the parched stalks. Thorny seeds stick to my pants and shoelaces as if autumn is already here, and the plants are clawing at me with the desperate need to breed. Encircling the small clearing are woods so dense that it looks like it would be impossible to move through them. At some time over the past few years a storm had knocked down half the trees in the forest and created an enormous blowdown—a labyrinth of tangled branches and splintered pine trunks.

  Despite the buzzing insects and clinging seeds, this place feels very dead. But underneath that cemetery sensation there is a strange sort of volatile energy, and I realize that this entire valley could explode with the drop of a match.

  Mungo seems to sense some danger, too, because for once she doesn't sprint for the trees. Instead, uncharacteristically, she stays close by my side.

  As I'd seen on the big county map in the Sheriff's Office, the old Armalli homestead almost borders the large ranch Alana Reese has owned for twenty-eight years. They are separated only by a narrow strip of public land, two miles wide, that is a part of the Elk Refuge. According to the case files I'd borrowed, Myron Armalli was born and raised on this same piece of land. It's easy to imagine young Myron creeping through this oppressive forest, binoculars or perhaps a camera swinging from his neck, to spy on the celebrity's daughter growing up almost next door. Or heading off on a dark hike to set horses afire when he wasn't photographing hijacked corpses.

  The Armalli land was a small twenty-acre parcel, dwarfed by Alana's two thousand and some. This clearing is where the house stood until it was condemned and knocked down by the Forest Service, after Myron's mother abandoned him and his father went bankrupt. Then Dad abandoned him, too. It lies in a small valley bordered by high ridges on two sides. The weedy double-track road I'd come in on is the only open end. The valley dead-ends a few hundred yards to the east in a third ridge bordering the Elk Refuge.

  “Stay close, Mungo,” I say as she snuffs her way toward the pile of broken concrete that was once the Armalli residence. My words must have been sharper than I intended, because she flinches and looks at me with a guilty expression.

  “You don't want to get a rusty nail in your paw,” I explain in a softer voice.

  Sheriff Buchanan had told me that Myron was believed to still be living somewhere on his parents' old property. Squatting there. She also told me that Myron was currently under investigation by Game and Fish for hunting violations—it was suspected that he'd been shooting deer and elk out of season and without a permit.

  Circling the ruin, which is little more than a pile of rubble squared off by four corner pillars and a stone chimney, I can't shake the feeling that I'm being watched. The sensation is all the more disturbing because it's still daylight—you should only feel something like this at night. A Wyoming boy and a hunter, Armalli is sure to have a rifle. The .40 H&K clipped to my sweating side would be about as useful as a squirt gun against a rifle in the woods.

  And I can't shake the recollection of Angela Hernandez telling me what it had been like to see the world through a schizophrenic's eyes.

  I hadn't seen any other cars on the long, bumpy drive in, but the road branched off everywhere into little trails that were probably made by logging survey crews. A thousand cars could be parked unseen in woods this thick. There were fresh tire tracks in the dirt closer to the highway. When I got out and studied them, it appeared that several different cars had left them. There was no way to tell if one of them was the '88 Ford F-150 pickup that, according to Motor Vehicle Services, Armalli drove.

  Mungo is sniffing at something and looking off into the trees in the direction of the northern ridge. She scratches one paw in the dirt and sniffs again. Looking at the ground where she's focused, I see freshly cracked stalks of grass and some seeds scattered in the dirt. I look around again and now see trampled plants ringing all the way around the ruined house. The clearing is littered with them. A faint, fresh trail leads off in the direction the wolf is staring. It looks as if heavy things have been dragged in that direction, scarring the dry earth.

  It would be easy to follow even without Mungo pointing her nose toward the dense forest below the ridge. But I don't. The sun has sunk behind the distant hills that obscure the Tetons, and I know it will be night in less than an hour. And I don't like being out here by myself, with only Mungo the cringing wolf to watch my back. All the bravado I'd felt in the gun shop has fled. Time for me to be fleeing, too.

  Calling for Mungo to follow, I start crunching back through the meadow to where the Pig hulks at the end of the Forest Service road. A cold spot the size of a silver dollar suddenly slides across one shoulder and settles just above the small of my back. It's got to be my imagination, but the impulse to dive into the weeds is almost overwhelming. I stay on my feet, though, as pores all over my body release a clammy film of sweat.

  Pride is the only thing that keeps me upright. If he is out there watching me, I'm not going to crawl on my belly all the way to the truck. Crawling wouldn't keep me from getting shot anyway. Instead I walk faster, and Mungo senses my urgency and leaps into the backseat without being ordered. I press hard on the gas pedal, spin all four wheels in the dirt, and get the hell out of there.

  NINETEEN

  THE PLAN FOR THE NIGHT is that Cali will stay with me again at my place while Jim attempts to discreetly trail Charles Wokowski. The Teton County Sheriff's and the Jackson Police Department have BOLO instructions—Be On the Lookout—regarding Myron Armalli and his Ford truck, as do the Highway Patrol and the park rangers. They'll hold him for questioning if they come across him. Tomorrow I'll go exploring around Armalli's place with someone to watch my back other than my cowering wolf. With luck I'll find both him and enough evidence to arrest him. For the time being, I think, I have all the bases covered.

  At seven o'clock Cali answers the door with an overnight bag in her hand. She doesn't look particularly happy to see me. When I'd called ahead I initially told her she should go to her mother's, where there was an FBI agent in addition to her mother's regular bodyguards. Cali refused, which really wasn't such a bad idea because that would have just put her that much closer to where I suspect Armalli is hanging out. She counterproposed spending the night at her uncle Bill's in town, but I couldn't trust a dying old man—even one who is a legendary hard
man—to protect her. So we settled on the unhappy compromise of her staying another night in my rented cabin.

  Initially there's not a lot for us to say to each other. She no longer looks hurt like she had in the afternoon. Instead she looks a little angry. And I'm still carrying the guilt from kissing her last night. God, what a stupid thing to do. What the hell had possessed me? But thinking about that quickly leads down a black path to even gloomier thoughts about Rebecca.

  Cali gets in the Pig and slams the door shut behind her, shaking the truck's rusty frame. I wince. I'm in for a fun night. Mungo grins painfully as she gets a quick, unwanted pat when Cali twists around in her seat to greet her. “I'm glad to see you, at least,” she tells the wolf.

  We stop by a health-food store and pick up pasta and jarred sauce for dinner. Some fresh vegetables, too. Cali speaks to me for the first time, saying she's hungry, that she should carbo-load before her trial in the morning anyway. “I get so nervous during those things that I burn calories like a blowtorch,” she adds, momentarily, it appears, forgetting to be angry. Remembering then, she looks at me with suspicion. “I just hope you don't expect me to do the cooking.”

  I only shake my head.

  By the time we get inside the cabin, Cali is addressing me through Mungo again.

  “How can you live with this guy?” Cali murmurs loud enough so that I can hear. “He doesn't know how to treat a girl, does he? I don't think he knows what he wants. What do you think, wolfy?” Mungo lets out a low groan of assent before slumping down on her sleeping bag.

  They're both wrong. I know what I want—I'm just afraid that I can't have it.

  To keep from thinking I try to keep busy. I go into the second bedroom to drag the pile of cams, ropes, and carabiners off the bed. I throw it all into a corner, making a jangling racket. I'd picked up a set of twin sheets in town earlier and I toss them on the bed for Cali to use. I don't intend to make it up. Out in the main room my portable stereo/CD player comes to life. She's selected Train's first album from the small stack of CDs. Maybe the music will mellow us both. Assuage my guilt and lessen her anger. After a moment of further straightening—kicking at the gear to get it out of the way—I find myself ripping open the plastic-wrapped packages and stretching the sheets over the bed. I should listen to music more often.