"I'm waiting for your mother. She asked me to go grocery shopping with her. Sounds like fun, huh?"
"Didn't you hear me when I came in?"
Burke mounted a stool along the counter that separated the kitchen from the dining area. "Sort of I was snoozing on the couch. You woke me up."
"Do you know where my father is?"
"Nope. I haven't seen him or Ed."
Will always felt vaguely uneasy when he was alone with Burke, and now, after the last note from
Fanz
, he felt wary and suspicious. "I'm going downstairs to study for a while."
"Wait a minute, Will." Burke slid off the stool and walked over to him. "Tell me what's been going on. Is there any news about Myra?"
For a moment, he was tempted to confront Burke about the notes, but decided against it. "Nothing that I know about."
"How's it going in school?"
Will shrugged. "Everybody either ignores me or acts as if nothing ever happened."
"It must be hard to keep your thoughts on your schoolwork."
Burke was being more chatty with him than he'd been in some time. "Actually, it helps me forget about all of this stuff for a while."
Burke laughed. "Escaping into your studies rather than away from them. That's a twist."
"Yeah."
Suddenly, Will recalled looking down at Burke from his grandfather's office window while Burke was talking to a couple of men outside the Ute City
Banque
. He mentioned it to Burke. "Were they friends of yours?"
Burke blinked several times. His features stiffened, and it seemed as if he were having a hard time forming words. "I don't remember talking to anyone outside the bar."
"One guy had a ponytail. The other one had a dark beard."
"Oh, wait a minute. Those guys. Sure, I gave them directions to the airport."
Will thought Burke was lying. "Well, I better get started on my homework." He headed for the stairs again. Burke followed him.
"Listen, I want you to know something. I don't have any problems with your father being here. I liked talking to him last night. He's an interesting man."
Will paused at the top of the stairs. "Good. I'm glad he's here."
"Will, there's something important I need to talk to you about. Now is as good a time as any."
He waited for Burke to continue."We don't get a chance to talk very often. I mean, just you and me. I know you don't think of me as a father and I can understand that. A stepfather for a teenager is almost always awkward."
"But you're not my stepfather."
Burke didn't answer, and suddenly Will knew that his mother and Burke were planning on getting married. The realization triggered something in him and the words burst from his throat. "Did you ever see Myra while I was gone?"
The air around him suddenly turned cold as Burke's icy stare held his gaze. "What are you talking about, Will?" His voice was low and soft. "The only times I ever saw her was when she was with you."
"You never saw her last summer?"
Burke shook his head, looking puzzled. "Jeez, Will. Give me a break. Where did you come up with this?"
Will's throat tightened. He pushed past Burke and bolted toward the front door.
"Hey, wait!" Burke raced after him.
Will jerked open the door and nearly knocked over his mother, standing there with her keys in hand. "What's going on?" she asked.
Will sucked in a breath of air and a familiar scent of perfume. He didn't know what to say.
"I'll tell you, Marion," Burke said. "We've got a problem here."
She looked between the two of them.
"You're not going to believe what Will just laid on me."
"Let's go inside," she said and closed the door behind her.
They walked over to the kitchen counter. Marion put her purse down on a stool and turned to Will. "Okay, I'm waiting. What is it?"
He told them about the E-mail messages he'd been getting and described what the last two had said.
"Who's writing this stuff?" Marion demanded when Will had finished.
"I don't know. I've been trying to find out."
"I can see how you might be upset, but you don't really believe Tom was seeing Myra, do you?"
Will realized he'd been letting his imagination run wild. He shrugged, feeling foolish and embarrassed. "I guess not. No."
"I'm thirty-five, Will. If I'd been messing around with a sixteen-year-old this past summer, you know I'd be the first one the cops would be questioning. Hell, they'd be on my trail day and night."
"That's right," Marion said. "I don't know who's done this to you, Will, but I'd like to take the little jerk's computer and throw it off a mountain right after him."
Will nodded, regretting that he'd said anything about it. He didn't know what to think anymore.
L
ittle Annie's Eating House in downtown Aspen was one of the few places left that wasn't chichi. (That was Ed Connors's term for pretentious, expensive dining.) The atmosphere was relaxed and casual. The place was dimly lit and noisy at times, with the kitchen activity spilling into the dining area, but the waiters and waitresses were friendly and the food was good. In Will's opinion, it was the best restaurant in town.
Will, his father, and grandfather found a table in the corner away from the kitchen and after several people had greeted Connors, a waitress left them menus.
Lansa
studied it, but Will and his grandfather already knew what they were going to order.
"I'm glad you've allowed me to take you out to dinner tonight, Pete. I know that when you and Marion were married, I acted like a horse's ass sometimes. Well, maybe more than sometimes. I wasn't a very good father-in-law."
Lansa
put down his menu. "It's okay, Ed. I wasn't exactly expecting a warm welcome in those days."
"Well, I've learned a lot since then. I'd take you as a son-in-law any day over these rich Hollywood snobs who've destroyed this town."
"Thanks,"
Lansa
said in a noncommittal tone.
"Dad, can you tell me now what you've been doing today?" Will asked, hoping to steer the conversation away from his grandfather's obsession.
"I went to Ashcroft earlier this morning and had a look around,"
Lansa
said.
"What do you think?" Connors asked.
"Well, I can understand why Will hasn't been arrested. The scenario doesn't work. It's even more implausible than I'd imagined."
"What do you mean?" Will asked, feeling encouraged.
"The sheriff's got a big problem, and I think he knows it. Not only is the body missing, but so is the blood. If Myra was stabbed at Ashcroft, there would be more blood than what was found on the knife."
"What's that mean for Will?" Connors asked.
"It's the key to his innocence. If Myra wasn't killed in Ashcroft or in the surrounding fields, then she was killed either inside a vehicle or somewhere else. Will's Jeep is clean. Same with the minivan Myra was driving. It would mean that Will took Myra somewhere else, killed her there, then drove back to Ashcroft to dispose of the knife in a field where it would most likely be found, thus incriminating himself."
"Of course," Connors crowed, then lowered his voice. "It doesn't make any sense at all."
The waitress appeared with their drinks and they ordered their meals: steaks for Connors and
Lansa
, a cheeseburger and fries for Will.
Lansa
sipped his soft drink and continued.
"It looks like the knife was planted. I think any decent detective would suspect the same thing."
Connors nodded. "Any ideas on where the body might be?"
"I had a dream Monday night that Myra's body was in a cave," Will said.
Both men looked at him. "What else did you see?" his father asked.
He wanted to say that the dream had begun with the sensation of waking up and finding
Masau
in his room. But the
kachinas
were sacred to his father and speaking of one of them in such an offhand way might offend him. It wasn't the right time, not here with his grandfather present. But there was something else he could say.
"I saw John Wayne standing by the entrance of the cave."
"John Wayne!" Connors chortled. "He didn't kill her."
"But his initials are J. W.âJerry Wharton. That's why I went to see him the next day."
"I don't know why you'd dream about John Wayne, but I don't think the idea about the initials is right,"
Lansa
said.
"Why not?" Will asked.
"This afternoon I had a talk with Detective Olsen. She talked to Wharton after you left the ski resort. He's got a sound alibi. He went to a movie Thursday evening and three people were with him."
There was still something about Wharton that Will couldn't remember, but maybe it didn't matter now. If Jerry had been at a movie, he couldn't have killed Myra.
"Did Olsen say anything else helpful?" Connors asked.
"She's trying to link Myra's apparent murder to drugs, but she's having trouble figuring out how Myra fits in, unless she knew something about someone she wasn't supposed to know."
Lansa
leaned over the table toward Will. "Any ideas who that might be?"
Will shook his head. "If I knew who was sending the E-mail to me, it might help." His mother had already told
Lansa
and Connors about the cryptic messages. Burke had done his best to dispel any doubts about his innocence.
"The problem is that she's getting pressure from above to make an arrest."
"Our mayor is probably behind it," Connors said. "He hates negative publicity."
To Will, it looked like Olsen was looking for a way to arrest him and charge him with murder.
Their dinners came, and as they ate they avoided talking about Myra's disappearance or Will's predicament. When they were about to leave, Detective Olsen stepped through the doorway, accompanied by two men. They took a table near the rear. The place was crowded now and Olsen hadn't looked their way. As they left, Will stole another glance at the men at Olsen's table. They looked familiar to Will, but at first he couldn't place them.
"Well, I'm going down to the Ute City
Banque
for a nightcap," Connors said as they paused outside. "I'm sure you two have plenty to talk about."
As soon as his grandfather mentioned the nightcap, Will recalled that he'd seen the two men outside the bar talking to Tom Burke. If they'd just been asking directions to the airport, as Burke claimed, they hadn't gotten around to leaving yet. And what were they doing with Olsen?
As they walked away, Will told his father about the two men and their apparent connection to Burke and Olsen. "It's a small town, Will. People bump into each other."
Will wasn't satisfied with that explanation, but he didn't say any more about it. As they continued on through downtown,
Lansa
occasionally peered into shops, but showed no interest in stopping at any of them. When Will pointed out his mother's clothing shop on Cooper Avenue,
Lansa
paused and looked at the window displays.
"Nice," he remarked as they walked on in the direction of City Market.
Half a block later, they reached a small plaza, and
Lansa
asked Will if he wanted an ice cream cone.
Will hesitated a moment. The espresso and ice cream bar was where Myra had worked part-time. "Sure."
When they entered the shop, Will saw Taylor Wong working behind the counter. Her parents owned the place, and Taylor worked here a couple of nights a week.
He greeted Taylor and introduced his father. "Nice to meet you, Mr.
Lansa
. I hope you're enjoying Aspen." There was a slight hitch in her voice as she realized he was probably here because of his concern for Will. She quickly asked what they would like.