Pariah Read online

  Pariah

  By the Author

  Into Thin Air (1995)

  Hardrock Stiff (1996)

  The White League (2005)

  Thomas Zigal

  PARIAH

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright ©1999 Thomas Zigal

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN: 978-1-61218-755-6

  For the three people who have put up with me the longest: Billie, Frank, and Frances

  pariah (p r ī’ ) n. 1: a member of a low caste of southern India and Burma; 2: any person or animal generally despised; 3: an outcast.

  Contents

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Chapter five

  Chapter six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Chapter ten

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Chapter thirteen

  Chapter fourteen

  Chapter fifteen

  Chapter sixteen

  Chapter seventeen

  Chapter eighteen

  Chapter nineteen

  Chapter twenty

  Chapter twenty-one

  Chapter twenty-two

  Chapter twenty-three

  Chapter twenty-four

  Chapter twenty-five

  Chapter twenty-six

  Chapter twenty-seven

  Chapter twenty-eight

  Chapter twenty-nine

  Chapter thirty

  Chapter thirty-one

  Chapter thirty-two

  Chapter thirty-three

  Chapter thirty-four

  Chapter thirty-five

  Chapter thirty-six

  Chapter thirty-seven

  Chapter thirty-eight

  Chapter thirty-nine

  Chapter forty

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter one

  Perspiring through his rented tuxedo, Sheriff Kurt Muller stood on the dais in the hotel ballroom and smiled gamely at the audience murmuring under dimmed chandeliers. From the soft-glowing dinner tables Aspen society women were raising their jeweled hands, bidding on a date with him, and the banter between parties was lively and contentious.

  “Ladies, please. We’re at two thousand dollars. Two thousand,” said the auctioneer, a former Playboy centerfold presiding over the benefit.

  “Three k!” waved a waxen grande dame whose young husband had perished the previous spring in a hang-gliding accident. She wiggled her fingers at Kurt and flashed a naughty smile, and in that moment he understood why the gigolo had chosen to sail into a rock wall.

  Corky Marcus was sitting with his wife at a table near the dais. He gave Kurt a sympathetic shrug that said, Hey, whatever. Corky was the department’s legal counsel and this appearance was his brilliant idea.

  To beat the recall vote you’ll need more visibility, Kurt. A boy-next-door image. You’ll have to throw Frisbees in the park and kiss the rich gals on the cheek and show up at all their charity fundraisers. The numbers are too close to call.

  Over the summer a popular county commissioner named Ben Smerlas had circulated a petition to recall Kurt as sheriff, and the movement had received the four hundred names needed to place the issue on the November ballot. In two weeks the people of Pitkin County would decide by a simple majority vote if they wanted Kurt Muller to remain in office.

  “I hear three thousand dollars!” acknowledged the Playmate. Notorious for her gaudy ’70s apparel, she nevertheless appeared modestly contained tonight: silk turban, slinky white gown hugging her celebrated body, pearls dipping into deep cleavage. “Come on, ladies! Is that the final offer for a night of bliss with this studly gentleman of the law?”

  She hooked the auction gavel behind Kurt’s neck and pulled him closer, shoulder to shoulder. “You know what they say, girls. Cops know how to drive their unit.”

  There was a bawdy howl from the audience. Kurt glanced again at his attorney. Corky Marcus was history.

  Two aging matrons with more tucks and lifts between them than the Gabor sisters began bartering in hundred-dollar increments. Kurt felt like a sofa at a yard sale. He raised his eyes and prayed for a hotel fire to end this misery.

  “We’re at three thousand eight hundred,” the Playmate said after a lull in the bidding. “Is that all I hear? Three thousand eight hundred.”

  The silence lingered. She looked from one bidder to the other and lifted the gavel. “Okay, ladies. Three thousand eight hundred going once—”

  “Ten thousand dollars.”

  The husky female voice had come from a dark table in the rear. Heads turned. The entire ballroom grew quiet. Kurt thought he might have been hallucinating. The Playmate stepped to the edge of the dais and gazed out over the stirring patrons. “Hel-looo,” she said, shielding her eyes from the chandelier glare. “Was that a serious bid or were you trying to buy Carbondale?”

  A ripple of weak laughter. Everyone had shifted to stare at the woman sitting alone at an unlit table.

  “The offer is ten thousand,” replied the woman.

  Kurt recognized that bourbon-rich voice. Nicole Bauer, the town’s most infamous recluse. She was wealthy, she was eccentric, she had pushed her lover off a redwood deck twenty years ago and got away with murder.

  The Playmate turned and whispered in Kurt’s ear. “Do yourself a favor, hon, and hold on tight to the railing,” she said with a wicked smile. “It’s a long drop to the bottom.”

  After the last prize was auctioned off, a weekend for two at an Arizona mud spa, the orchestra swung into an old Big Band favorite and couples dispersed to the dance floor. Corky caught up with Kurt before he could sneak off to the men’s room. “That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?” the attorney said, clapping Kurt on the shoulder.

  “You’re fired, Marcus.”

  With his unruly mop of hair and sagging, beagle-like face, Corky looked more like a Catskills comic than a lawyer. “I’m trying to keep you in office, man,” he said, his eyes small and shrunken behind the thick horn-rimmed glasses. “You don’t seem to grok the situation here. Smerlas has the mo’. When five percent of the county signs a petition to kick your tush out, you’ve got some serious problems with public image.”

  The issues were simple. Smerlas contended that Kurt was too soft on drug crime, that he had lost control of the Latino immigration problem in the county, and that his department was uncooperative with the DEA, the INS, and other federal agencies who were struggling to clean up the Roaring Fork Valley. Smerlas also maintained that two high-profile murder cases in recent years had hurt tourism in Aspen. A local newspaper poll revealed that a significant number of voters agreed with the commissioner.

  “Roll the fucking dice,” Kurt said. “I like my chances. The people of this county have elected me three times. They know who I am. I don’t care who his friends are, Ben Smerlas had better watch his own ass in next year’s commission race.”

  Corky shook his head. “Smerlas has higher ambitions, Kurt,” he said. “Next year he’ll be running for the House seat that’s up for grabs, Third District. You’re his whole platform. He takes you down, his reputation is made.”

  “He’s not taking me down.”

 
“Wake up, man, it’s the nineties. The old ski bums you used to party with are wearing Rolexes and driving BMWs. They’re pissed about the Hispanics using up county services and becoming a burden on the tax base. And guess who they blame for not cracking down on all these scary illegals riding the valley buses? In case you haven’t noticed, everyone but you and me are sending their kids to private schools, where they still teach in English.”

  Carole Marcus approached, wineglass in hand. Kurt welcomed her intrusion. She was a petite, attractive woman with short dark hair gelled and glistening. Standing with her husband, a man barely five feet six, she looked like his matching miniature partner on a wedding cake.

  “Jesus, Kurt. Nicole Bauer,” Carole said, her small heart-shaped mouth teasing a smile. “Wonder what she’ll do with your body when she’s done with it?”

  He could already hear the jokes from his deputies in the department: Remember to practice safe sex, Kurt. Pack your Glock.

  “Sheriff Muller?”

  A handsome young man dressed in a dark blue chauffeur’s uniform had materialized out of the dancing crowd. “Miz Bauer would like to speak with you in private.”

  Kurt glanced over at the empty table where she had been sitting.

  “Would you come with me, sir.”

  “Oh, this is perfect,” Kurt said, raising his brow at the Marcuses.

  “Enjoy yourself, Studly,” Carole said with a bye-bye wave.

  Chapter two

  An unseasonable October snow had begun to fall earlier in the afternoon, dusting the city streets. Behind the Hotel Jerome a limousine was waiting for him, its roof and hood mantled in a soft white powder. When the chauffeur opened the back door, clinging snowflakes whirled off the window glass. Kurt watched a pair of long tanned legs shift under fur in the dark interior. “Get in,” she said. “I’ve warmed it up for you.”

  He hesitated, then lowered his shoulders and slid onto the seat beside her as the chauffeur shut the door. The motor was idling and there was a warm, pleasant hum from the heating system. The air smelled like roses and oiled leather. “You’re an expensive date, Sheriff,” she said, offering him a fluted glass of champagne. “I hope I get my money’s worth.”

  “I can’t imagine what ten thousand dollars will buy you.”

  She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the mouth. “You underestimate yourself,” she said.

  She was even more beautiful now, in her mid-forties, than when her pretty face had headlined newspapers two decades ago: BAUER HEIRESS ON TRIAL. Tonight her thick auburn hair was brushed back behind her ears, revealing small amber bears dangling from each lobe. She had a strong, classic jawline and a delicate complexion that freckled lightly in the sun.

  “I thought you were anti-fur,” he said, running his hand through the soft, sensuous pelt caressing her shoulders.

  “It’s faux, darling,” she said. Her warm fingers touched his face as she pressed closer, kissing him again. “Real animals bite.”

  He knew he shouldn’t give in so easily, but he felt powerless to pull himself away. His entire body tingled, aroused by the bare heel locked around his calf. Her teeth found his bottom lip, nibbled him, then bit down hard enough to break the skin.

  “Bastard,” she said breathlessly. “Why didn’t you return my phone calls?”

  He touched his lip and rubbed a trace of blood between his fingertips. “It wasn’t going to work out, Nickie,” he said.

  “Was there someone else?”

  He shook his head. The truth should have been obvious to her. No one in this town could afford to be associated with Nicole Bauer. Especially not a man in public office.

  “You didn’t give it enough time, Kurt,” she said in a husky whisper. “You should’ve trusted me. God knows, I can be discreet. I’ve had lots of practice.”

  He inhaled deeply, catching his breath, searching his pocket for a handkerchief to dab the blood. “We’re very different people,” he said.

  “All I wanted was your company, Kurt,” she said, tugging at the upturned collar of his overcoat. “We didn’t have to go public. I’ve never cared about that.”

  He had known that sooner or later he would have to face her for the way he’d handled their affair. “It’s been a year, Nickie,” he said. “Let it go.”

  A teardrop raced down her cheek. He felt like a prick. “I’m sorry,” he said, touching the sleeve of her fur.

  She snatched the handkerchief from his hand and wiped at a dark smudge under one eye. “Someone is trying to kill me, Kurt,” she said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be making such a fool of myself. I need your help.”

  He stared at her. This was how they had met. A year ago some crazed young Courtney Love look-alike had broken into Nicole’s mansion, bent on avenging the death of the mythic rock star who had plunged from her deck.

  “Come back to Starwood with me,” she said, drying her tears. “I’ll show you the letters. This isn’t just another strung-out junkie.”

  “Nickie,” he said, “if it’s a police matter, there are proper procedures for handling the case. I’ll assign an investigator.”

  “I know about police procedures, Kurt. And investigators. If you’ll recall, I’ve had some experience in that area. I could write a fucking book on the subject. I don’t want anybody but you seeing these letters.”

  A ten-thousand-dollar date was an expensive way of getting his attention. But the cold terror in her eyes told him she wasn’t playing games. Something had scared her badly.

  “He’s alive, Kurt,” she said, dropping her gaze into her lap.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Rocky,” she said, her voice quavering. “It’s him.”

  Rocky Rhodes was the legendary blues guitarist who had dropped forty feet onto the boulders below her bedroom deck. They were having a fight, she’d told the sheriff’s department and the news media at the time, and her bruised face, the scuffle tracks in the icy slush on the deck, sustained her statement. She testified in court that Rocky had lunged at her, lost his balance, and crashed through the railing. The tabloids didn’t believe her story, but twelve Aspen jurors let her walk.

  “The letters are very—” She considered her words. “Intimate,” she said. “Explicit. There’s only one person who could possibly know what went on between us.”

  “No,” Kurt said. “I’ve seen the coroner’s photographs. He was dead, Nickie. Very dead.”

  Because Rocky’s body had been stolen from the funeral home and never recovered, rumors had persisted for years that he was still alive. Like Elvis and Jesus, he had been seen among the living.

  “Then how do you explain this?” she said, offering her hand. “It was in one of the letters.”

  He examined the tarnished ring on her middle finger. Engraved in the gold face were interlocking yin-yang symbols encircled by several codelike marks, each one a variation of three broken lines.

  “It’s the ring I gave him for his thirtieth birthday,” she said. “The eight trigrams of the I Ching. He was wearing it when…” She paused, collecting herself. “When he died.”

  Kurt held her hand longer than he should have. “Somebody’s playing with your head, Nickie,” he said. He was surprised she wasn’t accustomed to this kind of harassment by now. “If you want me to be a cop and put a stop to the threats, I’ll be happy to. It’s my job.”

  She withdrew her hand and straightened her posture. “Oh yes, your job,” she said. He could hear an entire year of resentment in that single word. “That’s how we ended up in bed, wasn’t it? Your profession brought us together.”

  He closed his eyes and tried to empty his mind of those memories, the sweet nights he’d spent in her arms at the Starwood mansion. “We’re going to have to get past this, Nickie.”

  “Money is my therapy,” she said, raising her chin with the pride of a baroness. “I’ve just spent ten thousand dollars to deal with a chronic problem I can’t seem to resolve. Men in my past.” She lifted the champagne b
ottle from a silver ice bucket and refilled her glass. “Like it or not, you’re the only one who can help me, Kurt. I don’t care to have some young joker in a uniform reading about my sexual proclivities and laughing it up with his pals in the department. Especially when the descriptions are amazingly…” She hesitated, studying him with equal portions of sensuality and fear. “Accurate,” she said.

  He retrieved his glass from the limo floorboard. The cold champagne stung his cut lip. “You’ve bought an evening with Kurt Muller.” He shrugged. “You want to spend it reading crank letters, that’s your call.”

  She surprised him with another kiss. “And if I want to spend it in other ways,” she said, her hand resting warmly on his thigh, “is that my call, too?”

  He smiled. “Depends on what you have in mind.”

  With her fingertip she smoothed the broken skin on his lip. “You ought to show more gratitude,” she said. “I’ve saved you from a night in hell with some aging bondage queen.”

  “To think,” he said, “I might’ve gotten hurt.”

  She smiled mischievously and pressed a console button. The window whirred and a gust of snow danced into the warm vehicle. Outside in the darkness, large wet flakes floated in the orb of amber light from a corner streetlamp. “Take us home, Kyle,” she said to the young chauffeur standing at attention beside the driver’s door.