“Sheriff? You there?” said the radio and she thumbed the switch again, said tiredly, “Yeah. I’m here, Denise. What’s the situation?”
“They’re bringing Walt down here, Sheriff. They’re on their way now. The other guy, he’s a tourist. They’ve taken him to the hospital. He was cut in the arm but Opie says he’s in no danger.”
“Okay,” Lee replied. “We’ll head on back from here. Have you contacted Jesse yet?” she asked.
“He’s out of radio range, Sheriff. He went over to Breckenridge this morning, remember?”
Lee nodded now. Jesse was chasing up another lead. One of the names on his list had rung a bell with the mountain management people in Breckenridge. Jesse had gone to talk to the Police Chief there. Lee glanced at her watch. Chances were he was still there.
“Phone him, Denise,” she said. “He’ll be with the Breckenridge PD. Tell him what’s happened and tell him to get back here.” She paused. That last order was unnecessary. “Just tell him what’s happened,” she said. Once Jesse heard the news, he’d waste no time at all getting back. She made a mental note that she’d have to issue Jesse a cell phone. He was one of the few people she knew who never carried one.
“Okay, Sheriff. Anything else?”
“No, Denise. That’s about all she wrote. We’re heading back.”
She re-hooked the microphone, turned to meet the two sets of eyes fixed on her. She shook her head sadly at the thought of Walt Davies.
“Jesus Christ,” she said bitterly, “we’ve got to stop this sonofabitch.”
THIRTY-ONE
L
ee left Tom Legros at the gas station to finish taking Cooley’s statement, then she barreled the Renegade back along Highway 129 to the Steamboat Hospital.
She was in no mood to take her time, so as she came into the outskirts of the town, she hit the siren and kept her foot hard down on the gas. She wailed up Lincoln, traffic scattering hurriedly in front of her, slammed the Jeep into a sliding left-hander at 7th Street and accelerated again, heading for Park Avenue.
She brought the Renegade skidding to a locked-wheel halt in the grounds of the small hospital. The siren wound down as she killed the ignition and swung down out of the car, slamming the door behind her and half running to the double glass doors that led inside.
Randall Hollings, the man who’d been stabbed, was in a private room on the first floor. This information was volunteered by the receptionist as Lee shouldered through the doors. She nodded an acknowledgment and, without breaking stride, headed for the broad staircase leading to the next level.
She saw one of Felix Obermeyer’s town cops outside a door and figured, correctly, that was the room she was looking for. Inside, the small, one-bed room was a little crowded. There was a doctor, two nurses, Felix Obermeyer, Opie Dulles from the ski patrol and the Hollingses—Mr. and Mrs.
His upper arm was heavily bandaged and he lay back against the pillows on the bed, his face ashen with shock and loss of blood. Idly, Lee noticed the bloodstained parka that had been cut away from the wound and discarded on the floor. So far, nobody had thought to clear it up. She guessed Randall Hollings to be around forty. He was thickset, with a powerful build, and he looked as if he worked out regularly. His arms, left bare by the hospital gown that he was wearing, were well muscled.
Mrs. Hollings looked five years or so younger than her husband. She was blond, pretty and had the sort of figure that comes from a lot of time and money spent in a gym. She’d discarded her parka and was wearing stretch ski pants and a pullover. Her eyes were wild and her hair was disheveled. Lee recognized the nervous, jerky movements and the wide-eyed stare as the first signs of incipient shock.
Jeff Hardy, the young intern who’d been on duty when the Hollingses were brought in, looked up as Lee pushed the door open and entered the room.
“Sheriff,” he said, and stood back from the bed to allow Lee to approach.
Felix nodded a greeting as well. She returned it and stepped forward to the bed, studying the injured man critically.
“So, put me in the picture,” she said briefly.
Dr. Hardy glanced briefly at the chart in his hand and summarized. “Puncture wound to the left upper arm … extensive laceration and internal tearing. Could be some nerve damage. There’s definite muscle damage there. Lost a lot of blood but he’ll mend okay.”
Mrs. Hollings stepped forward now, grabbing at Lee’s arm. “Are you the sheriff?” she demanded. Then, before Lee could answer, she continued. “You’ve got to do something about that man! He could have killed my husband! He tried to, sure as hell! Somebody here has got to do something about him!” Her voice was rising to a hysterical edge and the grip on Lee’s arm tightened. She turned to face the overwrought woman, considered prizing her hand loose, then decided against it.
“Mrs. Hollings,” she said, in a calm voice. “Your husband is going to be just fine, all right?”
The blue eyes, already wide, widened even farther.
“Just fine? That maniac tried to kill him, don’t you understand? And someone has got to do something about it! For all anybody seems to care, my husband could be dead!”
The grip was really tight now. Lee gripped the woman’s arm at the wrist, squeezed it firmly.
“Ma’am,” she said, “as I understand it, one of our people did try to do something about it, and he is dead.”
The woman stopped mid-sentence. She tried to say something further, failed. Tried again, failed again. Her eyes swam with tears. Finally, when she spoke again, her voice was barely more than a whisper.
“Oh, I know! That poor, poor man! I’m so sorry … I just didn’t …”
Her hand released Lee’s arm now. Lee maintained her own grip on the other woman’s wrist and moved her to one of the visitors’ chairs in the room.
“Why don’t you just sit down here, ma’am. I just have to ask you a few questions.”
Jeff Hardy stepped closer to the two of them now.
“She’s in shock, Sheriff,” he said softly. “I wanted to sedate her but Chief Obermeyer here thought it would be better to wait till you’d spoken with her.”
“Thanks, Felix,” she said, looking briefly at the chief of the town police. Felix was a stuffy, difficult man at times, but beneath it all he was a good cop. He nodded. She looked back to the young doctor again.
“I just need to ask her a few questions,” she said. “Then you can give her a shot. I guess you’ve already sedated the husband?”
Hardy nodded. “Had a bit of stitching to do in that arm wound,” he said. “Had to knock him out for that. Lucky for him he’s in good shape. The blade of that damn thing got caught up in the muscle of his arm. It saved his life, I’d say.”
Lee nodded absently, then turned back to Mrs. Hollings, who was now sobbing softly. She bent at the knees to bring her face down to the same level as the other woman, took both her hands gently in her own and brought them down, away from her face.
“I’m sorry to do this, Mrs. Hollings,” she said softly, her deep voice having a calming effect on the woman. “But I have to ask you a few questions.”
Mrs. Hollings nodded, took a deep, shuddering breath in to stop the sobbing and managed to compose herself.
“I’m sorry” she said. “I’m okay now. I’ll be fine.”
“That’s great. Now tell me Mrs. Hollings, do you remember anything about the man who attacked your husband?”
The woman frowned in concentration. She shook her head. “He came up from behind us,” she said, thinking back to the sequence of events. “My husband was between us. I didn’t get a clear look at him until we were off the chairlift.”
“Tall? Short? Slim? Well built?” Lee prompted.
“Tall … ish. I’d say around six feet … it’s hard to tell in ski boots,” she added apologetically. “And well built but not bulky … you know?”
“Did you get a look at his face?” Lee asked. “They told me on the radio that you pulled his scarf off.”
Mrs. Hollings shook her head. “I did, but I didn’t get a chance to see anything. He’d knocked me off my feet at that stage and I was falling. The other man though, he knew him.”
Lee dropped her hands as if they were red-hot. She looked quickly at Felix Obermeyer and Opie. They were both staring at the woman too.
“He knew him?” she repeated. “What other man?”
“You know … the one who was-the one who—the man who tried to help us.”
The tears were flowing again and she buried her face in her hands again as she thought of Walt Davies’s death. Lee exchanged another glance with Felix, then tugged the woman’s hands away again, gently, but firmly.
“Mrs. Hollings, I’m sorry, but this is very important. You say Walt”—she corrected herself. Mrs. Hollings wouldn’t know the name of the ski patroller who had died. “The ski patrolman who tried to help—you say he knew the man?”
Mrs. Hollings nodded several times. “He recognized him. I was on the ground. I’d grabbed at his scarf because I wanted to get a look at his face. Then he shoved me and I fell, holding the scarf. And then the other man, the patrolman, he said his name. He said—” She hesitated, trying to remember the name.
“His name?” Lee said, with a good deal more urgency than she intended. “He knew his name?”
Again, the woman nodded, her forehead furrowed with the effort of trying to remember that one elusive little detail. That one vital little detail.
“He said, ‘Is that you … Mac?’ ” she said doubtfully, trying out the last word, not sure how it sounded.
“Mac,” Lee repeated. “He called him Mac? You’re sure of that?”
The woman’s eyes were troubled. She knew there was something wrong with what she’d said. Something didn’t sound right. Then all doubt disappeared from them. It was like the sun coming out and dispelling a light morning fog. She actually smiled as she remembered.
“Not Mac, Mike. He called him Mike. ‘Is that you, Mike,’ he said.” She met Lee’s gaze now, one hundred percent confident. “Mike. That was what he said. I’m sure of it.”
Lee released her hands again and very slowly straightened up.
“You’re sure?” she said, but she’d seen the certainty in the woman’s eyes. She was sure, all right.
“Absolutely,” Mrs. Hollings replied.
Lee let go a long breath herself. She felt a hand on her arm. “If you’ve got no more questions, Sheriff, I really ought to give her something,” Dr. Hardy said.
Lee made an affirmative gesture. “You go right ahead, Doc,” she told him. Then, to the woman, “Mrs. Hollings, thank you. You have been a great help.”
The medical staff moved forward to take charge. Lee caught Felix’s eye and nodded to the door. Opie followed the two of them into the corridor outside. The cop on duty stepped aside as the three of them came out.
“The name Mike mean something to you, Lee?” Felix asked.
She nodded. All of a sudden, Wilson Purdue from Ketchum, Idaho, had been relegated to second place-by a long way. Now her prime suspect was the one Jesse had felt was too obvious, too easy because it was the first one that had come to light. Mike Miller, ex-ski instructor, fired for beating up a client’s husband.
Miller had threatened to get even when they fired him, according to Jesse’s notes. He was violent and unstable. And now, by God, they finally had a make on him.
“A guy named Mike Miller,” she said, “is one of our suspects. Right now, he’s gone to the head of the list.”
Felix whistled softly between his teeth. “Looks like you might have just got one hell of a break on this, Lee,” he said.
“I hope so, Felix. At least now we know who we’re looking for. All I’ve got to do now is find him.”
The young cop who had been on duty outside the door stepped forward apologetically. He didn’t like interrupting his own boss and the county sheriff. But he thought that what he had to say might be important.
“Sheriff?” he said uncertainly. “You talking about the Mike Miller who was on the ski school one or two years back?”
She turned to him quickly. There was something in his voice.
“That’s the one,” she said. “You know him?”
“Well, sure,” said the cop. “We used to drink some together. I did a bit of instructing myself a few years back. Didn’t get too friendly with him though. He had one hell of a temper to him when he had a mind. I wondered what he was doing back in town,” he added, and Lee couldn’t help herself. She grabbed his arm in a grip that made a vice seem gentle.
“You’ve seen him?” she said urgently, and the cop nodded confirmation.
“Ran into him in the Minute Mart across from the Harbor day before yesterday. Said hey and what was he up to. He said he was staying out past Beaver Creek Road on Highway 129. Got an old hunter’s shack there.”
“Damn!” said Lee. “I must have just driven past the place on my way in here. Can’t remember seeing any shack.”
Felix rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Could be the cabin that Lou Pickens owns out that way. He lets it out from time to time. You can’t see it from the road. There’s a lightning blasted pine marks the turnoff from 129.”