"And the initials by his name?" Walt asked. "Explain it to me."
"Exactly what it says: meal preference. Do you want a regular meal, vegetarian meal, do you have your own personal chef, are you allergic to wheat . . . You know how these people are."
Walt referred to his notebook and flipped back through the pages. He asked, "And what's that date printed down there by the file name? Bottom of the sheet?"
Dryer leaned closer. "Six-six. June sixth. What is it, Sheriff ?"
"Stuart Holms uses a personal chef. Name of Raphael," he said, consulting his notebook. "Won't eat a bite if it's not prepared by Raphael. He's fanatic about it."
"Well, that's Stuart Holms's seat, and he's down for a regular meal. What's it matter? I think you need some rest."
"What it means, I think, is that six weeks ago—on June sixth— Holms already knew he wouldn't be attending Liz Shaler's talk."
"And so, why bother with meal preference if he's not going to be there?"
Walt nodded. "Maybe. Yeah."
Dryer did a double-take, first looking at the seating plan, then back at Walt. His brow creased, tightening his eyes. "Naa . . ." But he didn't sound as convinced as a minute earlier.
A knock on the coach's door was followed by the big head of Dick O'Brien. "Sheriff, you got a minute?"
Twenty-five
W
alt climbed out of the Mobile Command Center wearing a fresh black T-shirt that read search and rescue on the back.
O'Brien apparently never stopped sweating.
"Hey there," O'Brien said.
"Hey there, yourself," Walt answered.
"How is he—your dad, I mean?"
"Came through the operation with flying colors."
"Good to hear."
"Yes, it is," Walt said.
"My guy . . . who shot him . . . It was meant for you: the gun and all."
"That's comforting."
"I just mean he was doing his job. If you can go easy on him . . ."
"We could make a trade, you and I," Walt proposed.
"Could we?"
"Must have steamed him, her taking to his brother all over again."
"Don't go there, Walt."
"Jealousy is a powerful motivator. A man like Patrick gets anything he wants, right? But when your rival turns out to be your own brother, what then?"
"This is a big mistake."
"
Was
a big mistake. His mistake," Walt said. "You helped me. On the bridge. Why'd you do that?"
"Don't know what you're talking about."
"Let's say your boss killed her—some kind of accident. Lost his temper. But who took her down there and put her in that cage? Who did that to her? Who was it carried her up the Hill Trail and dumped her?" He studied O'Brien, who seemed to be sweating more profusely. "It was his trying to implicate Danny that pushed you over the top, wasn't it? Danny was a good fit for it, and you knew that's how I'd see it. That Danny would go down for it."
O'Brien remained tight-lipped.
"You must have also known there wouldn't be near enough evidence to prove any of this—it would come down to a jury trial. And if Danny went down for it, he'd go down and that would be that."
"I wish I had the slightest idea of what you're talking about."
"The thing I don't get is the workout clothes. She'd already run that day. She wouldn't have gone running again. So you—or someone else—had to get her into running clothes. It had to be running clothes to sell that she'd been out Adam's Gulch. But where'd they come from, those running clothes? Did she keep some clothes at Patrick's? Was that it? Something she could jump into if his wife came home early? I don't get the clothes."
"I'm glad your dad is doing better." He turned to break off the conversation, then turned back again. "I've been within an arm's reach of Patrick for four solid days, Walt. That's the God's truth."
"You give me Cutter, and any of your guys involved in the cover-up will walk."
Brandon's frantic voice called out a series of codes over the radio.
Walt went running right past O'Brien, clutching his gun belt to keep it from slapping, wishing he'd had more time to see if the man had been ready to make a deal.
Twenty-six
W
alt paced Trevalian's empty room, Brandon standing in the doorway, watching. He checked the windows—all fixed glass, none broken. He wandered into and then back out of the bathroom. He approached the closet and slid open the doors. Walt had only glanced in there the first time. Now he returned for a more thorough look. They'd been searching the grounds for the past hour, with no sign of the suspect.
"There's a ceiling hatch leads up into the joists," Brandon said, breaking the silence. "Up over the bathroom. Three of the rooms on this floor have similar access."
"Climbing with that knee of his. You think?" Walt said.
He squatted and looked beneath the raised bed. He turned over a pillow, then another. He lifted the bedding and peered under the sheets. "This guy is seriously wounded, and he's clever. If we're thinking he climbed out through the roof, then you can bet he didn't."
He touched another pillow, then spun around sharply on his heels, facing the closet again. "You went through all this?" he asked, indicating the closet.
Brandon answered, "There's nothing in there, unless he's hiding in a drawer."
Walt reached up into the closet and pulled out the pillows. As he did so, he said, "Did you happen to notice that three of the pillows on the bed—the ones that were under his knee—were stripped of their pillowcases? Do you pay attention to
anything
other than the nurses?"
Brandon fumed but knew better than to answer.
Walt opened the end of one of the pillowcases taken from the closet, then looked up disapprovingly at Brandon and shook its contents onto the floor, discovering big chunks of foam and fabric. A section of a zipper. He hurried now and shook out the other pillowcase as well, spilling out similar contents. "Help me out," Walt said, spinning back around and lowering the hospital bed's side rail. The two dragged the mattress off the bed and flipped it over, upside down, onto the floor.
The bottom of the mattress had been cut away with something sharp into a human form—head, shoulders, legs, arms. Three sections of clear tubing had fallen to the floor.
"He was in the room all along," Walt said, "faceup, under the mattress. Breathing tubes," he said, picking them up. "In here the whole time we were
out there
looking for him." Furious at him now, Walt shouted, "One officer
always
protects the crime scene! Jesus Christ, Tommy."
He stormed out of the room, already putting himself into the contrarian mind of Trevalian. Where would he go? How could he hope to escape the valley? Was there someone helping him?
Then it came to him: Dryer's men and most of his deputies had been deployed to search the hospital, top to bottom.
He hoped he wasn't too late.
Twenty-seven
T
revalian had found his way into town on the most direct route available, and one he was quite certain the cops wouldn't think to search or roadblock: the bike path. He'd stoved in the head of a deputy who stood guard outside the bottom of the hospital fire stairs, and had left him unconscious and stripped of his clothes, a sock down his throat, his hands cuffed behind him. He had the man's cell phone and now wore his uniform, though the shoes were a size small and his feet were killing him. A wheelchair had gotten him most of the way into town along the bike path, while fifty yards to his right cop cars raced up and down the highway. He'd ditched the chair at the turn to the ski slopes. When the painkillers wore off, he was going to be in serious trouble.
From somewhere near the center of town, he called the memorized number and left a page when the recorded message told him to do so. He hoped he wasn't too late. If a contract had gone out on him, it might not be rescinded.
He waited. Five minutes passed. Ten.
Finally the phone rang and he answered the call.
"Go ahead," a male voice said.
"The engagement was broken off," he said.
"So I heard. Most disappointing."
"I had a little problem getting away from the church, but that's behind me now. I'm free."
"Free?"
"Yes. But my in-laws are never going to let me out of this town. I could use a place to stay."
"That's the problem with being single," the man said. "You'll think of something."
"I need your help with this."
"I'm afraid not. You failed to consummate the marriage."
At that moment, a helicopter passed overhead. At first Trevalian had trouble hearing, and hoped the contact hadn't hung up. But then, much to his surprise, the
same
sound of the helicopter was in his other ear: the ear pressed to the phone.
He scanned the sky and spotted the flashing red and white lights as it flew to the far end of town. It hovered and then landed halfway up Knob Hill. It looked to be a private home the size of a country club.
In the phone he heard nothing. The call had disconnected.
A moment later it rang again and he answered. There was no sound of the helicopter in the receiver, and he wondered if he'd actually heard it coming from the phone, or not.
"The bride is still in town," the voice said. "Her father's place. Try to work things out with her. If you're successful, contact me again. I'll see what I can do to assist you."
Trevalian hung up wondering if he could walk any farther.
Twenty-eight
W
alt reached the emergency room at a run. A Secret Service agent guarded the door.
"Dryer?" Walt asked, not slowing.
"Special Agent in Charge Dryer is in the Command Center."
"Tell him it's Shaler. He's going for Shaler."
"I'm not your message boy!" the agent shouted after him.
Walt jumped into the Cherokee—and sped away. Five minutes later he was negotiating the streets of Ketchum. He parked uphill a block from Shaler's house, pulled the shotgun from the dashboard, and doublechecked its load. He realized too late that his protective vest had come back from cleaning and was still in his office.
The crickets chimed. A dog barked in the distance. The smell of wood smoke lingered in the air. He moved stealthily in shadow, avoiding the streetlight, quickly closing the distance to Shaler's house. This was the identical route he'd ridden as a pedal patrolman eight years earlier, and for some reason he thought of his brother and how much he missed him. He snuck down a driveway and past a neighbor's house. He slipped over a rail fence that bordered Shaler's driveway, his heart tight, his breath short.
Procedures called for him to wait for backup: Dryer's men couldn't be far behind. His earpiece carried the monotonous prattle of his dispatcher's voice. He needed silence. So he called in his location and went off-air.
He approached Shaler's kitchen door stealthily but not wanting Dryer's sentries to mistake him for an intruder. He paused and studied the layout, looking carefully for signs of the agent guarding the back door.
No one.
Adding to his confusion, the interior lights were out. This went against protocol. The place should have been lit like a Christmas tree. He carefully made his way to the back door. His shoe hit something slippery right as his nose picked up the metallic smell of blood.
He one-handed the shotgun and checked the shrubbery with his Maglite. Twin soles faced him. The agent had been clobbered. His head was bleeding—a good sign. He was out cold.
Walt moved quietly through the door and into the kitchen. The all too familiar hallway stretched before him.
Trevalian would have taken the agent's gun.
No vest,
he reminded himself.
He crept down the hallway, the flashlight off but held beneath the shotgun.
The first door hung open: a small bedroom. Empty. The study door, to the right, also open. The room empty.
His eye caught a glint on the carpet. He reached down and touched it: sticky. Blood. It could have been an agent's, or Shaler's, but something told him Trevalian's stitches had popped. He worked down the hallway, passed a bathroom and a linen closet.
One door remained: Shaler's bedroom. Consumed by his memory of eight years earlier, his courage waned as his scar pulsed with pain.
He twisted the head of the flashlight, kicked open the door, and stood to the side, expecting a shot.
Then, an enormous crash of glass. Someone—something—going out a window. He dove into the bedroom, the shotgun pressed tightly against his shoulder. Looked left . . . right.
Clear.
Belly-crawled to the louvered doors of the closet.
Clear.
Walt got to his knees. Shaler lay in the bed, absolutely still. But then the flashlight caught her: It wasn't Shaler but a mannequin.
A safe room? A panic room?
He kicked some errant glass from the broken window and climbed outside.
A man in uniform—a sheriff 's deputy—was well up the hill, keeping to shadow. He dragged a leg behind him.
Walt heard sirens approaching.
"Halt!" Walt yelled out at the top of his lungs.
Trevalian ducked into shadow.
Police cruisers and sheriff 's vehicles slid around both street corners nearly simultaneously—behind Walt and in front of him. They stood off, aware of the limited range of the shotgun. Their overhead racks threw off colors as two searchlights were aimed onto Walt from opposite directions—each blinding the other car and leaving Walt a fuzzy, glowing image between them.