“Of course. Please, take it easy. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Discouraged and depressed, I returned to my paperwork, but my heart wasn’t in it. So I brewed some coffee and took a cup out to the balcony, hoping to distract myself with the lodge’s late-afternoon scene.
My private little perch was almost as high as the surrounding evergreen trees, so I could look straight down into the terrace restaurant and beyond it to the skating rink. The restaurant was closed, but waiters were moving briskly about, laying the tables for dinner and setting up a buffet. Their occasional voices carried through the hot still air, punctuated by the clink of plates and the rattle of silverware.
Out on the rink, a polo-shirted man steered his little Zamboni machine back and forth, polishing the glistening white ice. I stood quietly, lulled by its whirring hum, and gazed east to the horizon. There, in a composition worthy of Georgia O’Keeffe, the high empty ridges rose in curves like the backs of whales against a fading, empty sky of silvery blue. Lovely, but somehow melancholy...
The hiss of ice skates drew my attention back to the rink. The Zamboni was gone, and a single skater in shirtsleeves and khakis was slicing expertly across the rink, faster and faster. He reached the railing, skidded to a showy stop—and fell right on his butt.
I chuckled, expecting curses, but instead the skater laughed aloud and scrambled to his feet, quite unselfconsciously, to try again. I caught my breath and leaned out from the balcony.
His next attempt was faster yet, but it wasn’t his style I was watching.
I know that laugh.
This time he halted skillfully at the rail, his blades spraying ice crystals in a glittering fan. Then, satisfied with his performance, he began to circle the rink in long easy glides. As he rounded the far corner his face turned toward me, and I felt a sudden surge like a motorcycle being kick-started.
Aaron.
With a private smile I bore my coffee inside, poured it out, and called B.J. to tell her I’d be spending the night in the suite after all.
Chapter Eighteen
“STRETCH, CAN I ASK YOU A PERSONAL QUESTION?”
“Of course.” Seeing as how Aaron and I were lying naked in bed by the dawn’s early light, with our pulse rates only now reentering the earth’s atmosphere, his delicacy was touching. “Wait, though, what time is it?”
Aaron dragged the clock around to face us. Seven-thirty. Plenty of time before Beau descended. Had we slept much at all? I couldn’t remember. Absence may not make the heart grow fonder, but it sure does wonders for the rest of the body. Too bad it didn’t magically solve Commitment Issues.
I sat up and pulled a fold of sheet across my chest, the way girls do in the movies. Though I suspect they use duct tape. “OK, what’s the question?”
Now that I was all the way awake, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it. According to Aaron, he had flown in because the
Sentinel
assigned him a story on regional population shifts, and Sun Valley was a good place to start his research. Yeah, sure. Dollars to demographics he’d shown up because he was worried about Jack Packard.
Of course, he had nothing to worry about, and I was delighted to see him, but I didn’t feel like discussing Jack. Not naked, not the way I blush.
“I was just wondering,” said Aaron, drawing his forefinger along the folded sheet in a way that sent tremors down to my toes. “Since when do you sunbathe in the nude? I’m not seeing any tan lines here.”
“Oh.
Oh.
” I swung my legs out of bed and looked down. What was it Mrs. White Coat said, “a soft golden shade”? Yes, indeed. I could have ’fessed up about the spa, but why spoil a good illusion? “Well, Idaho can be kind of informal. The great outdoors, hot springs, that kind of thing.”
“I think I’m going to like it here.” Aaron’s finger drifted lower, but I left the bed and pulled on my terry-cloth robe.
“I’m wondering something myself,” I said, yanking the belt into a decisive knot. “How come you took the time to go ice skating yesterday instead of rushing right up here to find me?”
He leaned back on the pillows and grinned, a swift white lopsided grin that I’d had trouble resisting right from the start. “Stretch, did I ever tell you I once worked at Boston Garden?”
I shook my head, suppressing a smile. Aaron’s employment history was rich and strange.
“Telephone ticket sales, a really cruddy job. But when the Bruins set up for hockey, they let us skate during our lunch breaks. Man, I loved to skate. So when I got here and saw that awesome ice in the middle of summer, well...”
“You chose ice over me?”
Aaron threw a pillow in my direction, so I gave up the woman-scorned act. I’m not good at it, anyway, and we had more important matters to consider. I sat back on the bed and reached for his hand.
“Seriously, now that you’re here, I could use your help with something. It’s about my cousin...”
In the clear light of morning, talking to a skeptic like Aaron, the notion of murder sounded worse than far-fetched. I half expected him to dismiss my suspicions as paranoia, but he listened without interruption—another one of his skills. When I got to the bloody scene in the parachute loft, he made a sharp sound of distress and squeezed my fingers hard enough to hurt.
“Jesus, Carnegie, why didn’t you call and tell me? I would have flown over that night.”
“Would you really?” That sounded remarkably like commitment to me. “That’s so sweet...”
My thoughts must have shown in my eyes, because Aaron dropped my hand like a snake about to bite and glanced across the room at the dresser. I recognized his expression immediately: he was longing for a smoke. On top of the dresser were his watch and wallet and the spare keycard to the suite that I’d given him. But in the top drawer, I knew, was a package of cigarettes.
I had pretended not to see Aaron slip the pack out of sight, and I kept pretending now as I watched him waver. But his resolve held, and I was proud of him for that. He folded his arms across his bare chest, and some part of my mind noted that he’d been working out at the gym lately. Maybe testosterone wasn’t so bad after all.
“So,” he said briskly, “what were the local cops up to while all this was going down?”
With a rueful sigh, I recounted Chief Larabee’s theory about the guard’s death. I also explained how the BLM managers had refused to take Dr. Nothstine seriously.
“If we could discover a motive,” I said, “maybe they’d listen. Even better, if we could figure out the connection between the two murders. That’s the real question.”
“No, it isn’t.” His left eyebrow quirked. “The real question is, why are you getting mixed up in this?”
“What do you mean? Brian was my cousin!”
“Who you weren’t crazy about, right? I seem to remember you calling him a jerk.”
“So what?” I strode to the window and looked out at the hills that Brian Thiel was never going to see again. “He was family. Someone killed him and I’m going to find out who, whether you help me or not.”
Aaron hesitated, but not for long, and then threw back the sheets. He’d been working out a
lot.
“You win, Stretch. Let me grab a shower and then we’ll put our heads together.”
“Thanks.” I closed my eyes, aware that my own head was aching, though not from beer this time. “You know, I never ate dinner last night and I’m ready to faint. Let’s have breakfast first and then talk. Unless you’re going to be too busy with your research?”
Another quick grin. “I believe I can spare you the time. Where shall we eat?”
“I’ll take you to the Kneadery, a Ketchum institution. Maybe B.J. can join us.”
B.J. did join us, as I knew she would. She was intensely curious about my new man, and quite willing to leave me in peace with my trout and scrambled eggs while she peppered Aaron with questions. Where he was from and what school he went to, what made him choose journalism and how he liked Seattle. She kept it light, but she kept it up, all through the meal.
As Aaron’s replies grew shorter and less enthusiastic, I found myself noticing just how loud B.J.’s voice could be. Then she went one question too far.
“So, Carnegie says you just got divorced,” she said archly. “How’s that playing out for you?”
Ouch.
Over the rim of my coffee mug, I watched Aaron’s eyes go flat. He was still smiling, but only with his mouth.
“Excuse me?” he said.
B.J. glanced at me for support, but I concentrated on huckleberry-jamming my toast. Something had just dawned on me. I’d taken it for granted that Aaron and B.J. would like each other right off the bat. But I loved B.J. for our history together. If I met her for the first time today, I might find her pushy manner a little tiresome myself.
“I just meant, how’s the single life?” she said uneasily. “Um, dating and all that?”
“Fine. Just fine.” Aaron took a long look around at the packed tables and the Kneadery’s woodsy, old-barn interior. “I guess this place is nonsmoking. Back in a minute.”
B.J. reddened as he walked away, but her best defense had always been a quick offense. “Your man’s a little touchy, isn’t he? Is that some kind of Napoleon complex?”
“Oh, don’t be stupid,” I said, mad at her, mad at Aaron for backsliding with his cigarettes, and just mad in general. I clenched my teeth and took a time-out while the waitress brought our check, but it didn’t help. I was still mad.
“Just because a guy isn’t big and beefy like Matt,” I told her, “doesn’t mean you can be rude to him. How’s divorce
playing out
? For heaven’s sake, B.J., would you have said that to a woman friend of mine the minute you met her?”
“Maybe,” she grumbled. “OK, maybe not. But—”
“Look, Aaron is really important to me. I trust him, and he’s the smartest person I know. I’ve asked him to help me think this through, so behave yourself. All right, Muffy?”
“All right, Muffy.”
Aaron returned to the table then, calmer after his smoke. B.J. didn’t apologize to him directly, but she did offer to pick up the check, and he accepted with constrained but courteous thanks.
That’s right, kids,
I thought.
Learn to play nice.
Then both of them kept quiet as I laid out everything we knew or guessed about the grim events of the last week. Aaron even pulled out his ubiquitous notebook and scribbled in it as I talked.
When I was done, he riffled backward a few pages. “Tell me again why Dr. Nothstine is so sure that your cousin was murdered?”
“She studied the photographs from the scene,” I said. “At least, she did until the BLM investigators shut her out. She says the body was facedown, with a wound on the back of the head that she’s convinced came from a blow, not a fall.”
“And you believe her?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
He flipped the notebook closed. “OK, then. Assuming it’s murder, the killer had to be either Todd Gibson, Danny Kane, or this Tyke woman. Or some combination of two, or even all three, of them together.”
“Right,” I said. “And once the wedding is over and the crew goes back on the active list, the three of them could be sent anywhere in the West, for any length of time. If we’re going to find out enough about this to make the police take us seriously, so they’ll start a real investigation, we have to do it by Saturday.”
“And it’s already Thursday. Not much time.” Aaron frowned, considering. “OK, where do we start? Thiel was a recent arrival, so the others didn’t know him well. We can probably rule out a personal motive.”
“We can ask around about their relationships,” I said. “Get other people’s impressions, maybe pick up some gossip.”
“We could. But first let’s see who we can eliminate, by checking on their alibis for Tuesday night. Anyone who’s cleared of the guard’s murder is probably clear of Thiel’s.”
“According to the Tyke,” I mused, “Brian didn’t really have a relationship with Danny or Todd. And she’s in the clear for Tuesday, because she was at the Pioneer all evening with Jack.”
“
Claims
she was,” retorted Aaron. “That’s different. We need to interview someone who wasn’t drinking that night, like the bartender.”
“I could handle that,” said B.J., being extracooperative to make up for her rudeness. “I know most of the staff at the Pio.”
“Good,” he said approvingly. “We have to keep in mind that someone could have slipped out of the Pioneer and back in again without being noticed, but we’ve got to start somewhere. So you do that, B.J., and Stretch, you talk to Jack Whatsis again.”
“You won’t have to twist her arm,” B.J. murmured, reverting for a moment to her usual troublemaking self.
Aaron looked at her quizzically, so I hastened to say, “She just means I have wedding business to talk over with him.”
“Well, while you’re doing that, get his recollection of who was at the tavern when, and we’ll cross-check it with the bartender’s. Meanwhile, I’ll try to interview the police chief, in case there’s anything else we should know, and I’ll take a look at the local newspaper’s archives. I always do that anyway when I’m in a new—”
“Wait just a minute,” I said, nettled by all these marching orders. I wanted Aaron to help me think, not tell me what to do. “Let’s go back to motive. It seems to me—”
“More coffee?” The waitress was back. When we declined, her eyes slid pointedly to the people standing in line for tables. “You folks all set, then?”
We took the hint, and tried to take our conversation outside. But it was too hot, even this early in the morning, and far too public anyway. So B.J. led us back to her house and I took up where I’d left off.
“It seems to me,” I said, “that if the key to all this isn’t a long-standing relationship, it might be a single incident. Something that happened on the morning of the Boot Creek fire, or even at the fire itself.”
“Could be.” B.J. waved us to the couch. “Maybe we should talk to the spotter on that flight. I think it was Al.”
“What’s a spotter?” Aaron took a seat right where I’d fallen asleep Tuesday night. It seemed like a long time ago.
“The one who sends each jumper out of the plane,” she told him. “He, or she, drops streamers to gauge the wind, then coordinates with the pilot and picks the jump spot and so on. But the spotter’s also kind of the baby-sitter for the crew, so if Brian was having trouble with one of the others, Al might have picked up on it.”
“You mean Al Soriano?” I asked. “Sam introduced us. I could talk to him at the bachelor party this afternoon. It would seem natural for me to ask about my cousin’s last flight.”
“If you want,” said Aaron dubiously. “But I still think the alibis are the critical point.”
“And
I
disagree,” I insisted. It was just like Aaron to be so contrary. The more I leaned one way, the more he tilted the other. Why did things get so complicated once we got out of bed? “You said yourself, someone could have slipped out of the Pioneer without being noticed.”
“It’s still worth checking,” he said stubbornly. “Besides, even if this spotter did notice bad blood between Thiel and the other jumpers, how would that explain killing the security guard?”
But I’d been considering that very question. “Maybe Brian’s murder wasn’t personal. We keep hearing that no one knew him very well. And why choose such a risky moment for a murder? Maybe he saw something there in the woods, or—”
Aaron snorted. “What’s there to see in the middle of a fire?”
Now I was really peeved. “They don’t jump into the flames, idiot. I’ll ask Al about the Boot Creek area, along with Brian’s relations with the rest of the crew. I have to talk with him anyway, he’s on my list of substitute ushers. Danny doesn’t want to do it now.”
“Oh?” Aaron looked up sharply. “That’s odd behavior, ducking out of your own sister’s wedding.”
“Half sister,” I corrected, and explained about Sam’s notorious divorce. “No one’s really behaving normally right now, but I suppose Danny could be the killer and that’s why he can’t face being in public. Sam said he’s been drinking a lot since Brian died.”
We talked about Danny, his past troubles and his present behavior, though neither B.J. nor I could picture that subdued, passive man as a murderer. Then I told Aaron about my dinner at Dr. Nothstine’s with Todd Gibson.