Pariah Page 15

  The sheer volume of interview requests overwhelmed him. After more than a dozen urgent appeals, his mind went numb and the other messages droned past him. His mother in Scottsdale. The Bauer attorney. Muffin Brown.

  He pulled himself together when he heard her voice. She had finally obtained the call lists from the telephone company: “You were right, Kurt. Miz Bauer received two phone calls just before she died—one at three fifty-two A.M. and one at four fifteen. They were from a phone located backstage at the Wheeler. Same number that called you at ten forty-three this morning. Sounds like our boy the Phantom of the Opera.”

  How long had the creep been hiding out in the building? The first letters had arrived two weeks ago.

  The final message was from Carole Marcus, who again offered to take Lennon for a few days. “You may need some time alone, Kurt. I know this has been rough on you. If I can do anything—anything at all,” she ended her message, “please give me a call.”

  As he bundled himself deeper in the blanket, watching the quiet entrance to Gahan’s drive, the soothing rhythms of Carole’s voice lingered in his head. He didn’t want to dwell on her tonight in this cold and isolate condition. Better to push those thoughts out of his mind. Ever since last summer he had been trying hard, without success, to forget their night together in his tent.

  They had taken Lennon and her two youngest boys on an overnight campout high into the Collegiate Peaks Wilderness near Lincoln Creek. At the last minute Corky had bailed out on them to work on an urgent legal case and to keep an eye on their sullen twelve-year-old, who refused to make the trip. After a long day of hiking and fly-fishing and the usual campfire meal of hot dogs and s’mores, Kurt had collapsed in his two-man tent and was struggling to read a paperback mystery by lantern light while Lennon whooped it up with the Marcus boys in the larger tent. Around midnight he heard footsteps in the grass. Someone was unzipping the flap.

  “Knock knock,” Carole said, her face appearing out of the darkness. “I can’t take it anymore, Kurt. May I join you?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Come on in.”

  “If I hear one more reenactment of a Simpsons episode, I will lose it.”

  “I’m surprised you held out this long,” he laughed. “You deserve the door prize. Here,” he said, digging into the pack beside his sleeping bag. “I’ve brought something in case of emergency.”

  She crawled into the tent and sat on Lennon’s unfurled sleeping bag. He offered her the small flask.

  “Schnapps, Kurt?” He had never heard this laugh of hers. It was girlish and charming, a laugh from her teen years. “I haven’t had schnapps since I was in college.”

  “Me either,” he said. “Seemed like a good thing to bring along to the mountains on a summer night. My Austrian roots.”

  “As long as you don’t start yodeling,” she said, tasting the liquor. “My god, it’s sweet. Too much of this stuff and I’ll be bouncing off the tent with the kids.”

  They sat facing each other in lotus positions, passing the bottle back and forth, laughing and making easy conversation. He had known her as long as he’d known Corky, more than ten years now, and had always been attracted to her. The men in their circle of friends often needled Corky, wondering how he’d been so lucky. She was a beautiful, elegant woman with instant warmth and good humor. Kurt admired her intelligence and her lively arguments, her concern for those larger matters that touched him as well. When he was with her and Corky he always felt a melancholy longing for Meg and their lost moments together.

  After an hour of friendly talk they had finished the flask, but the boys were still wrestling around and screeching like wounded birds in the Marcus tent. “I wonder how much longer they can go on like that?” Carole said.

  “At our house they usually crater around three A.M.”

  She laughed and touched his arm. “What a good dad you are. Corky always reads them the riot act at midnight. Whoever gets caught talking after that has to sign a letter of intent to law school.”

  Her warm hand lingered on his sleeve and he made no effort to move. “Lennon and I lead such a boring life, we both enjoy the chance to go wild when kids come over.”

  “Are you saying there isn’t a romantic interest in your life, Kurt Muller?” she asked with a teasing smile. “I’ve always suspected you were carrying on a torrid affair with someone in secret.”

  Her remark had made him blush. He was no longer involved with Nicole, but he’d worried that their affair had become common knowledge in Aspen society circles.

  “Who has time for romance?” he’d said, eager to dispel her suspicions.

  “Don’t you read the gossip columns? You’re Aspen’s most eligible bachelor.”

  “Men stay eligible bachelors,” he’d said, “when their first choice is spoken for.”

  He didn’t know what had made him say this. Corky was one of his best friends and there was nothing in this world he would do to alter that.

  Later he would blame the schnapps and the heady mountain air. He would convince himself he’d been overwhelmed by her physical proximity in the dusky, claustrophobic tent. They were so close he could almost taste her peppermint breath.

  In response she’d dropped her eyes—demure, embarrassed, he wasn’t sure—and he’d felt like a fool. He was prepared to make light of his remark when she raised her eyes and gazed at him with a serious, exploring look. “Be careful what you wish for,” she had said, leaning forward to kiss him tenderly on the lips. When she pulled away he saw in her face a mirror of his own confusion and surprise. The kiss had left him speechless.

  “Do you want to go to bed, Kurt?” she had asked, smiling behind half closed eyes.

  In his memory the tent had suddenly filled with the white sound inside a seashell, as if he were sitting on a beach listening to the roar of wind and surf. “Carole, I—”

  “I’ve kept you up long enough,” she said, and he realized her question hadn’t been an invitation but an apology.

  “I suppose I should go calm the savages,” she said. He could hear fatigue and alcohol wrapping themselves around her tongue. “I’ll send Lennon back. That’ll break up the party.”

  He caught his breath, worked his jaw to stop the roaring in his ears. “Okay,” he had said. He didn’t want her to leave, but he didn’t trust what might happen if she stayed any longer. “I guess it’s time to call it a night.”

  She handed him the empty schnapps flask and pressed herself against him in a long, limbering embrace. “We’re getting too old to keep this up,” she said, kissing his lips again before crawling toward the flap. “Good night, bachelor number one,” she giggled, slowly sliding open the zipper. “Sweet dreams.”

  Kurt flopped back deadweight onto his sleeping bag. “I enjoyed that, Carole,” he’d said.

  Standing outside the tent, she blew into her cupped hands. “Me too,” she said, stomping circulation into her legs. “I’d forgotten how easy it was.”

  He wasn’t sure what she’d meant. “Getting drunk on peppermint schnapps?” he asked.

  “Being with a man. You know, another man. I’m glad it was you.”

  He propped himself up on his elbows. Chilly night air was seeping through the slit. “Did I miss something?” he’d asked.

  She laughed that girlish laugh again. “Your icky schnapps took me back to the days before I became a happily married woman.”

  “I wish I’d known you then.”

  “Mmm. What an intriguing thought.”

  She zipped up the tent flap until all he could see was her small white face floating in the darkness like a luminous moon. “I’ll send Lennon back with a flashlight,” she had said. “Sweet dreams, buckaroo.”

  He had almost settled into sleep when a bright beam flashed across his face. He thought it was his son returning to the tent, but then he realized he was sitting in his Jeep and a vehicle’s headlights were zagging down the long private drive, turning onto the county road. He retrieved the Night Vision binocula
rs and quickly framed the driver of the Ford Explorer as it passed in front of him. Gahan Moss was wearing a beret and a neck scarf and he seemed to be talking to himself while toking on a fat joint.

  Kurt pulled out of the cottonwoods and followed the musician down to Highway 82, where he made a right turn and then a squealing left at the traffic signal on Cemetery Lane. The street cut through a suburban neighborhood en route to Starwood and Woody Creek, and Kurt was prepared for a lengthy tail out in the moonlit countryside when Gahan abruptly wheeled off at the dark entrance

  to Red Butte Cemetery. Kurt cruised slowly past the turnoff and saw Gahan’s brake lights fade out beneath the black trees near the cemetery gate. He knew this place. His father was buried here, and on Sunday mornings he sometimes brought Lennon to the grave site with flowers and silent prayers.

  He drove on for another block, then circled back and found an empty space in the line of cars parked along Cemetery Lane. There was a party going on in one of the large suburban houses on a cul-de-sac side street, and he could hear faint music and the chatter of voices.

  Sitting in the Jeep’s dark enclosure, he caught snatches of conversation from the couples crunching past him in the brittle snow. Don’t you adore these jodhpurs, darling? They’re making a comeback, you know. No one seemed to notice him. It was the perfect cover from which to observe the cemetery entrance. Whatever Gahan Moss was doing in there, he had to come out sooner or later.

  A lone figure emerged between cars about thirty yards ahead and crossed the road. At first he thought the woman was a partygoer returning to her vehicle, until she passed behind a Land Rover parked near the cemetery fence and pressed farther into the darkness. Kurt grabbed the binoculars lying on the passenger seat and tried to read her before she disappeared into the trees surrounding the headstones. She was wearing jeans and a jacket with a fur-fringed hood, her hands tucked into the pockets as she strode on with an urgent purpose, swiftly receding into the impenetrable forest of dark limbs.

  Had Gahan Moss arranged a rendezvous with this woman?

  He crawled out of the Jeep and tested his foot. The swelling had gone down in the ankle and there was less pain now when he put pressure on his step. He turned off his beeper and limped across the road without a crutch, slowly finding his way down the gravel drive to the cemetery’s entrance gate, where Gahan’s Explorer was parked in the darkness. He sought cover behind one of the tall oak trees looming along the lane and peered around the thick trunk, training the CB-4 binoculars on the back windshield. The Explorer appeared to be empty. He waited, listening for voices. Castle Creek streamed past the far boundary of the cemetery, a loud white hiss blocking out all other sounds. Kurt wouldn’t be able to hear their words no matter how close he got.

  Slipping up behind the Explorer, he gazed through the back glass and saw that there was no one inside. He hobbled over to the old iron-spear fence and scanned the deep shadows with his binoculars. The area covered only an acre or two, a few hundred shady plots, postwar family names with lasting attachments to the town, the merchants and small-time innkeepers who had kept Aspen alive during the quiet years before the rebuilding. What were Gahan and his friend doing here at such a late hour?

  He found them standing next to one of the tall spired markers in the middle of the cemetery, about fifty yards away. Gahan was gesturing wildly, a flurry of hands and pointed fingers and hostile body language. The woman watched him in silence, her own hands tucked stoically into the jacket. With the hood up it was impossible to see her face.

  Who is she? he wondered. A secret affair? One of Gahan’s porno queens with an angry boyfriend at home? Or someone from the old days. Someone Gahan desperately needed to talk to about Rocky and a snooping sheriff.

  After one final outburst of irritation, the musician turned abruptly and stormed back toward his vehicle, leaving the woman alone near the tombstones. Kurt retreated into the foliage and dropped flat against the cold ground, pain shooting up his leg from the sprained ankle. Soon Gahan’s headlights were sweeping above him as the Explorer ripped into reverse and sped away in an adolescent fury. What had made him so upset?

  In a short while the woman rattled open the cemetery gate and walked back down the dark tree-lined lane. Favoring his ankle again, Kurt followed at a safe distance. He watched her cross the public road and join a small band of latecomers sauntering along the sidewalk toward the party. They all knew one another. Their laughter rang out with the familiarity of friends.

  Kurt slid into his Jeep and waited for the group to reach the party site before he raised the binoculars. At the doorway the woman dropped the hood onto her shoulders, revealing the back of her short, stylish hair. Then she went inside with the others.

  There were only eight houses in the cul-de-sac—sturdy, two-story suburban family homes that belonged on the outskirts of a large city rather than in a quaint mountain resort. The subdivision bordered the municipal golf course, explaining the country club effect. An avid golfer could walk out his backyard onto a long green fairway.

  Kurt shoved the binoculars back in the glove box and rested his head against the seat, listening to music and the hum of voices coming from the house down the street It had been a long day and he was exhausted. A party full of jolly drunks was the last thing he needed to endure. But he was too curious about the woman to let her go. If he waited for her to reemerge in her fur-lined hood at the end of the evening, that might take two or three more hours. And as staking out Gahan Moss had proved, the Jeep wasn’t properly equipped for a long surveillance in the frigid night air.

  He got out and walked down the sidewalk to the party house. Furtive smokers huddled in the dark near the triple garage. In spite of the brisk temperature, several uncloaked revelers stood on a second-story balcony with drinks in hand. An older woman called down to him, “You’re missing all the fun, Marty. Come back up and fill my glass!”

  It appeared to be a casual free-for-all spilling out from its crowded center, the noise swelling toward a frenzied pitch. Kurt wanted to go inside and look for the woman—find out her name, something certain about her—but his face was too familiar and it wasn’t possible to mill about unnoticed. He suspected that after the disasters of the past twenty-four hours, he would be as welcome at an Aspen society party as O.J. Simpson at a policeman’s ball.

  His plan was to circle the house a couple of times, glance through windows and patio doors, breeze past the hardy souls gathered around outside, and hope to catch sight of the woman without entering the premises. All he had to go on was an Audrey Hepburn haircut and a brown suede coat with a fur-fringed hood. And she wouldn’t be wearing the coat indoors.

  Venturing around the east side of the house, he passed the kitchen windows and saw several Latina servants preparing hors d’oeuvre trays around a large oakwood island. As he moved on, the brick exterior gave way to a long glass wall that looked in on a spacious den with a crackling fireplace and grand-scale Japanese paintings of snowcapped mountain landscapes. People stood shoulder to shoulder, snacking, raising their drinks and laughing. The couches were filled with lively conversationalists. Red, white, and blue streamers fluttered from the ceiling around clusters of balloons. It looked like a patriotic Fourth of July celebration on the wrong day of the year.

  He recognized many of the faces: the older, more established social clique whose photos appeared often in the local celebrity columns. An aging ex-mayor from the late ’60s who had caused a furor over his anti-hippie policies was lecturing the daughter of a famous movie mogul. A professional soldier of fortune who owned a hotel in Belize strolled arm in arm with the waxen grande dame who had bid $3,000 for a date with Kurt. Two architect partners named Guerin and McCord who specialized in ski resort hotels stood off in a corner sharing pâté crackers with the director of the local ballet company. It was all very Aspen. He studied the scene, searching for a woman to match the haircut he’d glimpsed through his Night Vision binoculars.

  A small group trailed out of the roo
m, shifting the body dynamics, and in their wake Kurt could see something propped against the wall near the fireplace, a tall stiff poster the size of a door. He took a few steps to the right for a clearer view of the photo image and the words below:

  BEN SMERLAS FOR U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COLORADO, THIRD DISTRICT

  An enlarged picture of Smerlas smiled at him across the crowded room. This was a party to announce his candidacy, Kurt now realized. This was Ben Smerlas’s home.

  It should have come as no surprise to discover Nicole’s two brothers among the guests; still, Kurt was astonished to see them at a party on the same day their sister had been found dead. Walt and Jeffrey Bauer both owned second homes on Red Mountain, not far from where Kurt had grown up and now lived, and they often attended Aspen fundraisers and charity benefits. Ben Smerlas was their kind of politician: a pro-business, pro-development water boy who would happily carry their interests to Congress, if the price was right.

  Kurt watched the two brothers and wondered if he was being too old-fashioned about this. Maybe no one in America believed in a period of mourning anymore. Maybe it was time for him to give up that quaint practice and move on.

  Known by his friends and the press as Walt IV, the oldest Bauer brother was tall, angular, ruggedly handsome, bearing a striking resemblance to Nicole. Though in his mid-fifties, he was still fair-haired and buoyant, with the ruddy coloring of a year-round sportsman and a penchant for khakis and waffle-soled hiking boots even at corporate board meetings. Kurt remembered the news clips of the telegenic Walt IV testifying before Congress during the Iran-Contra hearings, proudly defending the Bauer family tradition of patriotic causes. But tonight he was in a relaxed mood, smiling roguishly and sharing a drink with the former Playmate who had emceed the auction benefit last night at the Hotel Jerome.