Killer Summer

by Ridley Pearson

Fiona Kenshaw’s Subaru crested the small rise. She parked and disembarked, laden with two camera bags. Part-time fishing guide and sometimes wedding and local news photographer, she’d been on her way to Silver Creek for a pleasure fish when located by dispatch. She looked good in her forest green Silver Creek Outfitters polo, the shirt tucked into a pair of brown canvas cargo shorts belted tightly at her waist. Her right knee bore scars, either from an operation or an injury; her left ankle was bruised. A pair of gray Keens kicked up the dusty road. She peered out from under a baseball cap that read KISS MY BASS, several dry flies stuck in the brim. Along with the bags, she carried a grim expression on her face. The sight of the ambulance did that to her-he knew this about her. That, and the latex gloves Walt was wearing. She couldn’t be considered chatty. Thoughtful, maybe. And part turtle: if challenged, she retreated inside herself. He’d known her to spend whole days in the Engletons’ guest cottage that she called home, alone and content, the world shut out. He never asked about these times she spent by herself. She had enough looks and brains to be doing much more than scraping by working three jobs in Ketchum, Idaho, but that was part of the allure and mystique of the place. Ph.D.s worked as waiters, former CEOs played at being ski bums.

  “Hey,” Fiona said, tucking an errant sprig of brown hair up under her cap.

  “We’ve got a body on the way to Elmer’s,” Walt said. “I know that’s not your favorite, but we’ve got to shoot it. Apart from the body, I need close-ups of the scene. All the details. There are some broken toothpicks on the mat of the driver’s side of the wrecker, strapping and rigging on the wrecker’s undercarriage, some kind of gas canister attached down there near the back. And get a shot of the plastic tubing leading through the grille of the Taurus, plus interior and exterior shots, along with a shot of that black attaché case that’s locked to the passenger’s-seat frame.

  “The victim’s carrying a boarding pass for a flight that just landed,” he continued, “so chances are, it came through security, which means it’s not an explosive. We’ve got some shoe and tire impressions. I marked them for you.” He pointed.

  “We’re losing light fast,” she said. “I’m on it.”

  Fiona Kenshaw’s ability to separate her social self from her work self was one of the qualities he most admired in her.

  She worked quickly and methodically against the fading light of the setting sun. Fifteen minutes into it, she added a flash and a light stand that bounced a strobe off a silver umbrella.

  “What was his name?” she asked.

  “Randall Everest Malone. He was carrying a loaded handgun in a holster at the small of his back. He had two boarding passes in the billfold pocket of his sport coat. No way he flew with that weapon on him. So it was in his checked luggage-all legal-and he took care of it immediately after landing. That tells me something about him, maybe about the contents of the case, which is high-tech like nothing I’ve seen.”

  As Fiona continued shooting pictures of the wrecker, Walt reviewed the contents of several evidence bags he’d kept with him. He’d collected a money clip holding one hundred seventy-seven dollars; three receipts, all labeled SUN VALLEY in pen; a Tul pen; a BlackBerry; and a roll of Tums. In a separate bag was the man’s credit-card wallet containing three cards, a California driver’s license, a medical insurance card, a vehicle insurance card, a twenty-four-hour health club membership card that, by the look of him, went unused, and six business cards.

  “So who is he?” she asked.

  “The business card says ‘Branson Risk, LLC.’ I’ve worked with them during the Cutter Conference. Personal security, drivers, surveillance…”

  “Private eye?” she asked.

  “They don’t call themselves that, but, yes, essentially.”

  “That makes the briefcase, or what’s in it, all the more interesting.”

  “Doesn’t it, though? I’d like to have a look inside before Branson Risk puts their attorneys to work.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “I can try.”

  They moved to the Taurus. Walt used a pair of bolt cutters from the Cherokee to liberate the bag.

  “Boys and their toys,” Fiona said. “Looks like something from Sharper Image.”

  “More like an exhibit at the Spy Museum,” Walt said.

  “You think?”

  “He’s not a spook, he’s private.”

  “I’m done with the front seat,” she said.

  Walt unsealed the freezer bag containing the dead man’s wallet and tried each of the four credit cards in the slot beneath the handle. None worked to open it.

  He rummaged through Malone’s overnight bag. There were no other cards.

  Walt tried every zippered compartment, the toilet kit, the pockets of the clothes.

  “Judging by the single change of clothes, he wasn’t planning on staying long,” she said.

  “Longer now,” Walt said.

  “Can you break it open?”

  “I’m tempted to try,” he admitted, “but Malone took the time to arm himself at the airport before getting into the rental. Maybe he was expecting trouble. Given the sophistication of the case, its contents are either valuable or dangerous or both… possibly rigged.”

  “You’re frustrated by this, I can hear it in your voice.”

  “A private courier delivering something up here? It could be anything. This guy took this job very seriously. That’s worth noting.”

  Fiona spent the next few minutes finishing up the photography and then caught back up with Walt. He was behind the wheel of the Cherokee, Malone’s BlackBerry in hand. He was taking notes.

  “I’ll e-mail you the pictures within the hour,” she said.

  “Sorry to cost you the fishing.”

  “Hey, it’s a paycheck. Anything there?” she asked, indicating the BlackBerry.

  “A reservation at the Sun Valley Inn. An unspecified appointment at nine.”

  “Who calls his family to tell them?” she asked.

  “I’ll talk to Branson, and we’ll take it from there. But it’ll likely be me.”

  Fiona Kenshaw looked sad and sympathetic at the same time, looked like she wanted to say something more than what she did say. “I’ll get these to you.”

  8

  The Sun Valley resort, with its two hotels, outdoor mall, condominiums, golf course, year-round outdoor skating rink, and a two-thousand-seat amphitheater, was situated at the mouth of Trail Creek, a canyon that narrowed as it headed east toward the Copper Basin.

  The mile-high air was so clean, it was almost drinkable. Window down, Walt inhaled, savoring his choice of lifestyle. A red-tailed hawk patrolled overhead-predators seldom rested. SUVs bearing bikes, kayaks, and canoes were stacked up at one of the town’s five traffic lights.

  A bustling porte-cochere fronted the Sun Valley Lodge, a newly redecorated version of the grand hotel that had once hosted Marilyn Monroe, Gary Cooper, and the Kennedys. Ernest Hemingway had written part of For Whom the Bell Tolls in Suite 206. Walt drove across the packed five-acre parking lot and borrowed a space reserved for deliveries in front of the modest Sun Valley Post Office. He carried the carbon-fiber attaché case with him, its cut chain dangling like a dog collar. He passed a golf shop, a jewelry store, a bank, and a bookstore on his way to the slightly less prestigious but equally luxurious Sun Valley Inn.

  The dark beauty behind the registration desk wore a soft-gray suit, starched white blouse, and a bronze name tag that read SLADANA, and, beneath the name, CROATIA. She had an appealing, provocative accent that also made her difficult to understand. Her eyes so dark, he couldn’t see her pupils.

  Walt was three inches shorter than she, his eyes level with her mouth. She had nice teeth.

  “A Mr. Malone was scheduled to be your guest,” he said, his uniform introducing his authority. “I’d like to see the room, if I may. Any messages or packages. Anything at all you may have for him.”

  Short, dark purple-polished nails tapped the keyboard.
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  “Randall Malone?” she asked.

  Walt nodded.

  “I am show voice mail for Mr. Malone… You like?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “House phone across from restrooms, down hall to left. Room two-sixteen.”

  He had been hoping for a FedEx package containing a card that might unlock the attaché case. His disappointment was somewhat abated by the existence of the voice mail.

  He worked his way past designer-label hotel guests crowding the lobby bar-pearl-white teeth and breast implants, golf tans, loafers without socks.

  He connected with the hotel operator. The man on the voice mail did not identify himself. He recited a phone number and a time-“nine o’clock”-and hung up. The time matched Malone’s unnamed appointment in the BlackBerry.

  Walt checked his watch: forty-five minutes late. He had little patience for the cloak-and-dagger that private security firms often embraced. They were wannabe spooks. He doubted the call originated from Malone’s office; they’d have phoned his BlackBerry. So maybe the phone number had to do with the attaché. A ransom payment? Was it time-sensitive? Life or death? A kidnapped journalist in Iraq? An oil company employee in Venezuela? Not much would surprise him, given the residents of Sun Valley.

  Whom to call first: Branson Risk or the number left on the voice mail? If the person answering the call failed to hear Malone’s voice, would that have consequences? Convinced the attaché would disappear behind a wall of attorneys, he decided to hold off contacting the security company until he’d returned the call left in the voice mail.

  Concerned that the person on the receiving end of the call might be expecting to see the hotel’s caller ID, Walt first picked up the hotel phone and connected to the operator. But he quickly hung up. What if the caller ID from Malone’s BlackBerry had been supplied and was part of the verification procedure?

  Walt returned to the Cherokee, retrieved Malone’s phone, and searched its contact list for the phone number that had been left on the voice mail. It wasn’t stored.

  He contemplated his options, dialed the number left on the voice mail, and impatiently awaited an answer.

  9

  Summer Sumner spotted her mark as the black Escalade rolled to a stop in front of the Sun Valley Lodge. The boy’s lanky frame wasn’t well served by the gray bellboy uniform: the collar was too big, the pants an inch short. But he had an agreeable face that was currently caught in a faraway stare that resonated with her. She doubted he was of drinking age, which put them pretty much in the same boat.

  Her father was on the phone-surprise!-his face overcome with anguish, the money problems continuing. She sneaked the second button of her shirt open, a crass but necessary step. A boy like that… If her father had taught her anything, it was to take what you want.

  “You don’t get ahead by waiting for handouts.”

  An older bellhop helped her from the Escalade. This wouldn’t do. She worked to make eye contact with the boy her age, hoping to provoke him enough to come to her rescue. Instead, he moved toward the doors and pulled one open. She fired off a coy smile that she’d borrowed from a Beyoncé music video. He didn’t seem to react, which left her hunting for another easy mark. There was no time to waste. She had to put her plan in motion.

  They entered the sumptuous lobby of dark wood and brass fixtures, alabaster chandeliers bathing the space in honey-colored light. Foreign-accented voices of the receptionists mingled with small talk coming from the couches and chairs directly ahead. Beyond the couches was a second set of double doors that she saw led to a patio and an outdoor ice-skating rink.

  Her father handed her an envelope with a card key in it and joined the bellman in the elevator.

  “Don’t lose it,” he said, ever the voice of confidence.

  The last phone call had obviously not gone well.

  “Gee, I’ll try not to,” she said. “Tell you what: I’ll meet you up there.”

  They remained fixed in a staring contest until the elevator doors closed.

  She scanned the lobby: no one remotely her age. Maybe the pool or tennis courts would turn up a worthy candidate, although she was hoping for a local boy, someone with a car. She hadn’t given up on the hotel staff just yet.

  “You don’t get ahead by waiting for handouts.”

  10

  Hello?” a heavily accented voice answered Walt’s call. He wasn’t any good at deciphering accents, but just hearing it made him wonder if he’d stumbled into a kidnapping ransom drop.

  “Malone,” Walt said.

  “You’re late.”

  “Complications.”

  “Three twenty-five Aspen Hollow, Northwood. Twenty minutes.” The line went dead.

  French or Italian, he thought. He’d been to Mexico a couple of times: it wasn’t Spanish.

  He called dispatch, requesting backup. The office had eight patrols out at any one time, covering an area roughly the size of Rhode Island. He was told there were no cruisers in his vicinity.

  “How about Brandon?” he asked, his stomach turning.

  “He’s graveyard tonight.”

  Deputy Tommy Brandon lived close by, two miles south of Ketchum, with Walt’s soon-to-be ex-wife, Gail. It had been going on for the better part of the past two years, though Walt had only discovered the affair a year earlier.

  “On call?”

  “Yes, sir. You want me to raise him?”

  “Please.”

  Ten minutes later, a shiny black pickup truck pulled up beside Walt’s Cherokee in front of the Elephant’s Perch, an outfitting store in the center of town.

  Brandon, a big man with a boyish, rosy-cheeked face, had thrown on his deputy’s shirt and gun belt over a pair of blue jeans and running shoes. He walked with urgency to the door of Walt’s Cherokee.

  “What’s up?”

  Walt filled him in on Malone’s death and the discovery of the high-tech briefcase, currently in the Cherokee’s passenger’s seat.

  “If it’s a ransom drop,” Walt said, “maybe it gets tricky when I show up in place of this guy. I’m going to tape down the TALK button on my radio so you can monitor the situation.”

  “It’s just us?”

  “There’s a possible time element.” He checked his watch. “Let’s move.”

  “You get shot up, Sheriff, and I’m the one backing you up… Well, given our… situation… how do you think that’s going to look?”

  “Not good for you. Thankfully, that’ll be your problem, not mine.”

  “You’re making jokes?”

  Walt indicated his radio handset clipped to his shirt’s epaulet. “If you hear it going south, do something.”

  “Thanks for clearing that up,” Brandon said.

  Walt parked down the street to keep his Cherokee out of view and walked up a horseshoe-shaped driveway of hand-laid brick pavers, the attaché case in his left hand, his gun hand free. The driveway contained a small aspen grove with a man-made, rock-lined gurgling brook. The aspens blocked any view of the front door from the street. He heard a truck rumble past. Brandon.

  The log home was constructed of huge timbers, the gaps sealed with toothpaste-white chinking. Walt rapped the pewter cowboy-boot door knocker twice sharply.

  The door opened, revealing a thin man about Walt’s height, with a stubble of closely cropped black hair, black eyebrows, Euro-styled green-framed eyeglasses, and rough skin. He wore crisply pressed black trousers, Italian loafers, and no socks. He had a diamond earring in his left ear. His lips pursed in confusion as his eyes settled on the attaché.

  “Excuse me… Sheriff,” he said, reading Walt’s name tag. “I was expecting-”

  “A Mr. Randall Malone,” Walt said.

  It took the man a moment to recover.

  “I believe this is yours.” Walt said.

  “The contents, yes. Not the case.” He leaned to look down the driveway. “And Mr. Malone is…?”

  “Dead,” Walt said, adding, “Sheriff Walt Fleming
,” offering his hand.

  The two shook hands-the man’s skin was clammy. “Dead? How?”

  “Looks like a heart attack,” Walt answered. “You are?”

  “Arthur Remy.” He stepped back and gestured for Walt to come inside. “Good God… I’m a houseguest here.” He shut the door. “I’m a guest of-”

  “Doug and Ann Christensen,” Walt said.

  “Just so.” Remy sounded impressed.

  “Sun Valley could just as easily be named Small Valley,” Walt said.

  “Dead?” Remy repeated. “But I spoke to him not fifteen-”

  “That was me,” Walt said. “We traced him to the hotel.”

  “But then where? When? Has anyone called the company?”

  The living room smelled of vanilla, and from the cut-flower arrangements to the Chinese silk pillows atop the off-white couch it looked like something straight out of Architectural Digest. A nineteenth-century seven-foot Bösendorfer grand piano was parked in the corner. It cost roughly the same as Walt’s house.

  “Branson Risk? No, not yet. We had concerns about the contents of the case. If a ransom drop, then-”

  “Ransom? Not hardly.”

  The living room led to a stately dining room and through to the restaurant-caliber kitchen, off of which was a family room with hearth, four couches, three coffee tables, and a glassed-in breakfast nook. The interior of the log home was Santa Fe stucco, with hand-worked walls sponged with brick-tinted paint. Remy poured himself a glass of red wine from a bottle on the counter, offering Walt something to drink. Walt declined.

  “I need to view the contents of the case,” Walt stated, “for the sake of the investigation.”

  “What investigation?”

  “The heart attack may be related to an assault and kidnapping.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Remy sat down in an overstuffed chair pulled up to a harvest table beneath a deer-antler chandelier.

  Walt set the attaché onto the table, just out of Remy’s reach. “Malone died at the scene.”

  Remy’s hand shook slightly as he worked the wineglass to his moist lips.