“Norm! One other thing: these cabin doors. Could one man force them open once they’re closed?”
The two attendants looked at the automatic doors on the gondola cabin sliding past them. They both nodded.
“Not with his bare hands, maybe,” said Norm. “But you can sure enough lever them apart. Have to be able to do that so we can evacuate the gondola if we have a power failure.”
Jesse was walking toward them now. He continued, “And once they’re opened, do they stay open?”
Frank shook his head. “Not while the cabin’s moving,” he said. “Once it enters the loading zone here, it hits a safety trip that keeps ’em open. But while it’s moving down the hill, you’d have to prop them open or the emergency switch would shut them again.”
“Thanks, guys,” Jesse concluded. “Like the sheriff says, you’ve been more help than you know.”
The two men looked a little more satisfied at that. They weren’t sure what they’d said that had been helpful but they were content to think that it must have been something.
“You finished with us now, Jess?” asked Norm and Jesse pointed them toward the gondola again.
“That’s all I need from you,” he said, and the two men waved, then bent and climbed aboard the cabin. The doors sighed shut and it moved out into the night, gathering speed as it hit the high-speed section of the cable.
“So,” Lee said at length. “We’ve got us a bearded killer with a knapsack.”
Jesse snorted derisively. “Don’t be too sure about the beard. My guess is it’s long gone, dumped in a trash can somewhere.”
“Disguise?” Lee raised her eyebrows in a question.
Jesse nodded emphatically. “Can’t think of a better way of obscuring a man’s face. Can you?”
He took her arm and led her toward one of the cabins. “Come on,” he said. “We’re going for a gondola ride.”
She held back a moment. “What for?” she asked. He took her arm again and moved her more forcibly toward the loading point.
“We’re going to survey the ground. Our killer got on board. We know that. He killed our victim here, and somewhere on the way down, he forced the doors open and got out. Probably on a rope.”
“I guess so,” said Lee. “You figure he had it in his knapsack?”
“That would be my guess,” Jesse replied patiently. “So let’s take a look at the ground under the gondola and see if there’s a likely spot to get out at.”
Lee nodded her understanding. There was one more detail to take care of, however. She stopped and called to the cop on duty. “Keep an eye on things here for half an hour, would you?”
Her gesture included the gondola station, the detached cabin and the body of Andy Barret. The cop, a little thrown out of his stride, gestured to the body.
“What do you want me to do with him?” he asked.
Jesse cut in before Lee could answer. “If he moves, read him his rights,” he said, and shoved the sheriff into the cabin moving past them.
TWELVE
T
here was the customary lurch as the cabin accelerated out into the blackness above the brightly lit gondola station. Lee and Jesse sat side by side on the forward facing bench of the gondola. Jesse sprawled his long legs out, resting his feet on the opposite bench.
Lee shivered. “Goddamn it’s cold!” she complained. “Couldn’t you have given me a few minutes to grab my sheepskin out of the car?”
Jesse gave no sign that he’d heard her complaint. As the car rose swiftly above the first slope, he sat up and began to pay more attention to the landscape passing by below them. Lee sighed and patted her arms to keep warm.
“We looking for anything in particular?” she asked.
Jesse shrugged. “I’m not sure. Probably for a spot where the cabin isn’t too far from the ground, where there’s plenty of ground cover—like trees-and deep snow.”
“Why deep snow?”
“If it were me, I’d want deep snow, just in case something went wrong with my ropes,” he replied. “You still got that flashlight?”
He held out one hand, his face glued now to the window, staring out into the blackness. Lee took the Maglite from its small pouch and handed it to him. He shone it out the window, was defeated by the reflection, and swore softly to himself. He reached up and unlatched the ventilator, yanking it down and shining the torch through the gap onto the snow below. The bitter wind howled through the open window. Lee moved forward onto the opposite bench, peering through the front windows of the cabin, shielding her gaze with her hands to stop reflections spoiling her sight.
“There’s a grove of aspens up ahead,” she said, “just after the gondola crosses Valley View. That could be the sort of thing you’re looking for.”
Jesse angled the little flashlight to point ahead and down. The effect of the small beam was almost negligible. There was so much ambient light reflected from the snow, he hardly needed the torch. He studied the spot Lee had pointed out as they hummed over it.
“How far would you say we’re off the ground right now?” he asked her.
Lee looked down, considering. “Twenty, maybe twenty-five feet,” she ventured. “I don’t think it gets much lower than this.”
“Uh-huh,” grunted Jesse. He peered down, trying to reach the most acute angle possible. But the bottom half of the gondola blocked his downward view. “Can’t see if there’s any disturbances in the snow.”
“Like ski tracks?” Lee asked him and he nodded.
“Ski tracks. Footprints. Signs that someone landed in the snow.”
“Damn!” he said finally. “We’ll have to check it on the ground.” He sat back, thinking.
“They keep any snowmobiles up at Thunderhead?” Lee asked.
“Bound to,” Jesse replied. “We’ll get hold of one and come back down for a proper look around.”
“Anywhere else?” Lee asked.
“There are three or four places that are possibilities. That’s the best of the lot so far.”
The gondola had started to rise higher and higher from the slope of the mountain now and it was passing over the open, groomed areas of the Heavenly Daze ski run.
“I doubt he’d try to get out here,” said Jesse. “Too high for one thing. And it’s a bit out in the open.”
Lee shook her head. “I’m surprised that nobody saw him doing it, anyway. I mean, surely someone in one of the other cabins must have noticed a man hanging by a rope underneath the gondola?”
Jesse shook his head. “Not necessarily. Take a look around yourself.” He indicated the view around them. The internal light shining on the perspex windows of the cabin created reflections that defeated their vision. The most they could see of the downward moving cabins was an occasional dark blur sliding past.
The cabins above and below them were hardly more visible.
“Remember,” he pointed out, “the doors are on the far side, so even if you did look at one of the cabins, chances are you’d see nothing. Besides, most people, if they’re looking out, will look at the lights down in the valley.”
He indicated the brilliant spread of light that was now far below them.
“I guess so,” she agreed.
“Remember too,” he added, “he knew there was nobody ready to get in the cabin directly behind him. And he’d probably seen there was nobody in front either. He could wait and pick his time until he got the right conditions.”
Lee nodded slowly, thinking it through. It sounded logical. It sounded so damn logical.
“I guess his biggest risk would be being spotted by people on the ground itself,” she said.
“Not too many of them around at night,” he said. “Just the groomers and the occasional patrol from the… oh, Jesus!” He stood up suddenly, his head crashing into the low ceiling of the gondola, lined with carpet to prevent condensation forming inside. He dropped back onto the bench, setting the cabin rocking wildly, then craned around to stare back down the mountain.
“Jesse, what is it?” Lee moved to his side, staring out the window behind them. She could see the headlights and the yellow strobe lights from one of the slope groomers moving down the mountain below them. Huge, tracked vehicles, with a bulldozer blade in front and dragging a heavy rubber mat behind, they were out every night, regrooming the slopes for the following day’s skiing. Smoothing over the ruts and bumps and tracks that had been left behind and restoring the face of the mountain to an immaculate, smooth finish. Lee now knew what had set Jesse off.
“Oh, Christ, no,” she said.
The groomer was heading straight for the area they planned to search. In five minutes’ time, there’d be no sign of ski tracks. No footprints. No nothing. Just an immaculate, pristine, groomed slope. She looked at her wristwatch. They had another six or seven minutes before they reached the top. As she’d noted earlier that night, there was no way they could communicate with the top station and get them to radio through and stop the groomer.
“I don’t suppose,” Jesse said slowly, “you happened to bring your cell phone with you?”
She looked at him helplessly. The cell phone was in her car, safely nestled in the pocket of her sheepskin jacket.
“Sonofabitch!” she said angrily.
Jesse shrugged and sat back on the bench, his long legs splayed out in front of him again. “I thought you wouldn’t,” he said.
The following morning, they examined the site by daylight. As they’d expected, there was little enough to see, once the groomer had gone over the area. Close to the grove of aspens that Lee had pointed out, there were traces of ski tracks in the deep snow that had been left untouched. However, as evidence, they were hardly positive proof that this was where the murderer had left the cabin.
“I guess,” said Lee heavily, “you’ve got to expect to find ski tracks in a ski resort.”
Jesse was down on one knee in the snow, getting a closer look at the twin grooves cut in the white surface.
“Could be cross-country skis,” he said without total conviction. “The tracks look narrow enough.”
Lee considered them skeptically. “Hard to tell,” she replied. “They may or may not be. They could just as easily be alpine skis.”
Jesse rose to his feet, absentmindedly dusting the dry snow from the knees of his Levis. “What you’re saying,” he said, “is that we’re no wiser this morning than we were last night.”
“That’s about it.” Lee craned back to look up at the gondola cabins humming overhead. “But I still think this is the most likely spot for him to have got out.”
Jesse followed her gaze. “Not that it does us much good, unless we know he’s planning on doing it again.”
“And unless we know
when
he’s planning on doing it again,” she added heavily.
“Well,” said Jesse after a while. “I guess the next thing to do is see if there’s any link we can find between the two victims.”
“I’ve got Tom checking on that already.” Lee took a final look around the site. The first of the morning’s skiers were beginning to make their way down the mountain, their skis virtually silent in the fresh fallen snow. Jesse walked to the snowmobile they’d ridden up the mountain. He flicked the kill button up to the on position, then tugged on the starter cable. The two-stroke engine purred easily to life and Jesse swung his leg over the saddle.
“Nothing much to gain by standing around here,” he said, gesturing for Lee to climb on the pillion. She moved toward the snowmobile, then stopped, leaned forward and pushed the kill button in. The noise of the engine died. Jesse twisted in the saddle to look at her.
“Something on your mind?” he asked her.
She nodded. “Jess, I appreciate your help on this. You know a hell of a lot more about this sort of homicide case than me,” she began.
He shrugged. “Maybe so. Maybe not. Regardless, I’m pleased to help out.”
“I was thinking,” said Lee, choosing her words carefully, “that it might be time to make your position a little more… official. I guess you could take a few weeks’ leave from the Patrol, couldn’t you?”
Jesse considered the suggestion. His poker face told her nothing about what he was thinking. Finally, he replied. “I guess. You trying to give me a badge here, Lee?”
She nodded. “That’s about the size of it, Jess. Of course, you don’t need an actual badge but it might speed things up if you were a deputy—on a temporary basis, say.”
Jesse rubbed the side of his jaw with the palm of his hand. “Don’t see that it would make much difference, Lee. I’m happy to help out. Don’t need to be no temporary deputy to do it.”
She frowned at him. “You’re not concerned about working for a woman, are you, Jess?” she asked. “Or maybe it’s because it’s me?” she added as an afterthought.
Jesse grinned widely at her. “Well, I’m working for you anyway, Lee, so I can’t see that I’m concerned about it either way. I just don’t see any reason to make things any more official than they are.”
Lee sighed. She’d known that he was going to react this way. It was probably linked back to what had happened in Denver. Jesse watched her patiently, waiting for her to speak again. He wasn’t helping any, she thought. Finally, she said, “Look, I assume that you’d like to look around Barret’s room in the Harbor?” She made it a question and he nodded slowly.