Into Thin Air Read online

  He saw her hesitate, her fingers feeling the intricate weave, the coarse threading. “Pretty,” she said, probing at the unusual texture.

  She slipped her fingers into the fold of cloth and spread open the drawstring. A hint of color rose in her cheeks. She slid her hands underneath the bag and lifted, measuring its heft and give.

  “Did you notice the fragrance?” she asked.

  The scent of her hair in the brush. “No,” he said.

  “It’s amazing,” she said. “You can actually smell the woman.”

  She dumped out the contents and spread the items across her desk. Room key, ballpoint pen, postcards. She opened the passport and studied the photograph.

  Kurt didn’t want to linger over Graciela’s personal effects again. “I’ll leave my report of the shootout with Libbie,” he said. “Right now I need to get back to Lennon. Mrs. O’Carroll says he’s real nervous when I’m gone. I don’t know how long it’ll take him to get over last night. I’m going to check with a shrink.”

  “Hold on a sec,” she said, her attention remote, distracted. “Something came for you.”

  She reached across the desk for a paper-wrapped rectangle secured with string. “About an hour ago a courier delivered this for you.” She handed the package to him. “Expecting something special?”

  Omar Quiroga’s journal. Staggs’s reminder of their unwritten agreement.

  “It isn’t ticking, is it?” he said, reading his name typed neatly on the address label.

  Muffin noticed the wallet in the mess of Graciela’s belongings and picked it up, ripping loose the Velcro strip. “Jesus,” she said, thumbing through the stack of hundred-dollar bills. “There must be four or five thousand dollars here.”

  Kurt looked at Jake Pfeil’s wallet. “Somebody should’ve told her about traveler’s checks,” he said.

  He was satisfied that Muffin would turn over everything to Graciela’s husband. The wallet, everything. Kurt knew that giving him Jake’s money was little more than a facile attempt at absolving his own guilt, but it was the only thing he could do right now, and he needed to do something. Someday he would find another way to say he was sorry, but until then, a small gift for the children. Gitter would know what it was for.

  Muffin tossed the wallet onto the pile. “Aren’t you going to open that thing?” She pointed to the package.

  “I know what it is,” he said.

  They stared at each other. They both knew he was going to lie.

  “It’s for Lennon,” he said. “I’ll let him open it at home.”

  He tucked the package into his parka and walked toward the door. “I’d better make out that report and get going,” he said. He couldn’t risk Muffin getting her hands on the journal and finding out about Octavio Panzeca. That was the bargain he’d struck with Staggs: I keep Panzeca out of the press, you leave my mother alone and my brother’s memory in peace.

  “Kurt.” She raised her voice, speaking his name with urgency.

  He turned around.

  “Not that you give a damn,” she said, “but it’s been hell around here trying to keep the department together in the middle of all this insanity. But I’ve always liked the work, and I think I’m handling the pressure pretty well so far. I guess it’s because I had such a good teacher.”

  He tried to smile. She was the best cop he’d ever worked with.

  “But I can’t stay friends with somebody who doesn’t respect me enough to cut me in.”

  He was sorry there were details about this business he had to withhold from her. She would end up hating him for it.

  “When you fill out your report,” she said, “do us both a favor, will you? Try to work out the thing that’s bothering me about your story.”

  He looked at her, his eyes narrowing.

  “Try to explain why the gunman in Jake’s suite didn’t just take your gun and walk away,” she said. “Why he chased you down in front of a thousand witnesses instead of saying adios and driving off.”

  She was good. He wished he could take credit for some small measure of her intelligence.

  “I don’t like the idea that I can’t tell a husband how his wife died,” she said. “Or who killed their best friend and dumped him in the river.”

  Kurt expelled a lungful of breath that tasted dirty and old. “I don’t like it, either, Muffin,” he said.

  She stared at him, her eyes cold and dark and hard. “Is this the part where you keep something for yourself, Kurt?” she asked.

  He saw his mother leafing through the family album. Heard the doorbell ring.

  “Or is there something you want to tell me?”

  “Yeah, there is,” he said. “I hope you find Jake before I do.”

  Chapter twenty-four

  He arranged for Lennon to spend the night with Mrs. O’Carroll and then joined them for supper.

  “Except there’s one thing, Dad,” Lennon said, one of his standard introductions.

  “What thing is that?” Kurt smiled at him.

  “Don’t forget to pick me up tomorrow.”

  Kurt could see the worry in his son’s eyes. “I won’t forget, sweet pea,” he said, softly raking the boy’s cheek with a knuckle.

  “I can only miss one more day of school,” Lennon said, spooning mashed potatoes into his mouth, “or my friends will be very sad. I tell all the jokes.”

  Kurt left them playing dominoes at the kitchen table and drove into the clear starry nighttime toward Woody Creek. At the archway to John Romer’s property he could make out the empty, floodlit corral and a scattering of illuminated tack sheds and outbuildings, but the flagstone fortress itself appeared dark and solemn, a shadowy presence lurking over the tidy structures of ranch life.

  He got out of his Jeep and walked past their assortment of vehicles—camper truck, Suburban, Volvo, classic T-bird—and wondered if Romer was at home, if this would constitute an awkward situation. In the end he knew he didn’t give a damn and crossed the cinder drive to a breezeway cluttered with stone frogs and flowering plants in large clay urns. On both sides of the door tall panels of smoked glass emitted anemic light from within. He banged the heavy brass knocker. After a few moments he banged again. Finally he tried the latch and discovered that the door was open.

  “Hello!” he called out. “Hello! Is anybody home?”

  He stood in the foyer by a huge gilt-edged mirror and gazed across the sunken living room. All was still, deserted, a formal space bathed in soft lighting. He could hear the laugh track of a television program somewhere upstairs.

  “Maya!” he called. “Are you home?”

  He walked up the stairway and followed the muted sounds down a long dim hall toward the gray incandescent light spilling from an open door. Inside the room Maya reclined on a canopied bed in a silky negligee. Waves of light from a large high-resolution TV flickered across her body like flames from a fireplace.

  “Knock knock,” he said in a quiet voice.

  Her eyes opened. “John?” she said. She sat up and rubbed her face. “I’ve been waiting for you, baby.”

  “Maya,” he said, “it’s Kurt Muller. I’ve got to talk to you.”

  “Kurt?” she said in a sleepy groan. “Mmm, I thought you were John.”

  “I’m sorry if I startled you. We’ve got to talk.”

  She brought her feet to the floor and stood up, her legs unsteady. Hugging a bedpost for support, she reached down to search the nightstand for her tumbler. When she came toward him, weaving, her bare shoulders thrown back, she paused to take a long drink and stumbled a step, spilling the liquid down her chin. He could see her perfect white teeth through the glass.

  “Excuse me, garçon, could you freshen my drink?” she said, rattling the ice.

  Her floor-length negligee was little more than a gossamer drape. She had put on weight these past few years, the good life, but even in an inebriated state she still carried herself with the poise of a black-diamond skier. Her breasts were fuller now and bobbed
slightly as she walked.

  “Can I help you?” she said. “Or are you just browsing?”

  She pressed her soft, sleep-warm body into his, the tumbler cold and wet against his shoulder blade. He felt himself becoming aroused and pulled back.

  “Maya,” he said, glancing around the bedroom, “can we go somewhere and talk?”

  “What’s wrong with here?” she said, pointing the glass toward the bed, sloshing drink. “You always did your best talking under the sheets.”

  She was slurring drunk. Her breath smelled of vodka.

  “It’s important,” he said. “Let’s go downstairs and get some coffee.”

  She gave him a haughty look, her eyes struggling to focus, her head floating. “You never turned me down in the old days, my dear,” she said. “I still can’t drive past Redstone without getting a little wet.”

  They once took a room in the Redstone Inn and bathed each other for an entire afternoon in an antique clawfoot tub, then ordered a candlelight dinner from room service.

  “Maya,” he said, removing her arm from his waist, “it’s about Bert.”

  A lost memory passed over her face, erasing the dreamy smile. She turned to wobble off across the room. “I expect my husband home any minute,” she said, weaving her way to the private bar. “He’s been gone a fucking week doing the important work of the landed gentry. He won’t be happy to see a man in his bedroom.”

  Kurt strode up behind her. “Maya,” he said, taking her arm, “did you know about Bert? Did you know he was the one who killed Chad Erickson?”

  She stopped and closed her drooping eyes. “Let go of my arm,” she said. “I only take that from a man if he intends to bed me.”

  He grabbed her shoulders and turned her around. Her straps fell and the negligee slid lower, catching on the soft swell of her breasts.

  “Maya, goddammit,” he said, shaking her, “why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t somebody tell me?”

  She lowered her eyes, her chin. “Let go of me, Kurt,” she said. “I need a drink.”

  He let go of her and she tugged at her negligee, attempting to cover herself. She stepped to the bar and filled her glass with straight vodka from a bottle that had no cap.

  “You could have told me after he died,” he said. “Are you listening to me, Maya?” He pounded his fist on the bartop. “I can understand why you didn’t tell me when I was investigating the thing, but you could have fucking told me after he died. It’s been four years, Maya. It might’ve helped me understand.”

  She dropped an ice cube into her drink. “Understand what, Kurt?” she said in a husky voice. “Understand why he jumped off a mountain?”

  She started to raise the glass but he caught her wrist and slammed it down, splashing cold vodka over their hands. “So now you’re going to tell me everything,” he said, the heat rising in his face. He held her wrist pinned to the bar. “You’re going to tell me why my brother killed a man. And why you’re so fucking sure he took his own life.”

  “You’re hurting my wrist,” she said. “Jesus, no wonder Meg left you, you son of a bitch.”

  He slapped the glass and ice splattered across the bar.

  “If you’re such an expert on marriage,” he said, “why isn’t your husband ever home? Do you spend every night like this, Maya? Just you and the bottle? I don’t remember you being a lush.”

  He stepped back and looked around. The bedroom was the size of a schoolyard. Sofas, dressing tables, closets just for shoes. For purses. Doors leading to other doors.

  “You’re living like all the old broads in Aspen now,” he said. “Locked up in a rich man’s chateau. Pampered. I thought we promised each other, the four of us, we would always be different.”

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Oh, yeah, we promised a lot of things,” she said. “We promised we would never hurt anybody, didn’t we, Kurt?”

  She was sobbing now, wiping at the tears. In spite of her denial yesterday, she was still bearing the wounds. They were as fresh as the day the Mountain Rescue men unzipped the body bag.

  “Why did he do it?” Kurt asked in a quiet, angry voice.

  She set out across the room, her hands groping in front of her for something to hold on to, and sat on the edge of the bed. Her chest was heaving; she struggled to control herself. “You think you know somebody,” she said. “Sixteen, seventeen years together, you figure you know a man. Who says there aren’t surprises? I’m still not sure I really believe it about him.”

  Kurt took the handkerchief from his pocket and walked over to her.

  “I’m sorry I got her mixed up in it,” she said, dabbing her wet eyes. “I’m sorry, Kurt.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Meg,” she said, raising her puffy eyes to him.

  He stared at her, confused.

  “Oh, Kurt,” she said, the tears coming again, “you’re such a poor stupid boy. Sheriff Kurt. Did you really think you could change the world by being a cop?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  She pressed the handkerchief to her eyes and held it there. “I had to tell somebody,” she said, catching her breath. “I found some old photographs in his army trunk. Horrible pictures from Vietnam. Dead people in cars. Souvenirs, I guess. Reminders of the person he had been. I was freaked by what I saw, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it with him. And then,” she said, fighting tears, “and then Chad was killed the same way.”

  “You told Meg?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. You were his brother, for god’s sake. The fucking cop making a big deal out of the investigation. Meg was always there when I needed her.”

  “Maya,” he said, closing his eyes.

  “I’m so sorry, Kurt. I never should have told her.”

  He laid his hands gently on her shoulders.

  “She was always such a missionary, bless her heart,” she said. “She thought she could save him. She went to him and tried to be a friend. They got along so well. Meg wanted to help him find a way out of what he’d done.”

  “Did he threaten her?”

  “No, no, of course not,” she said. “He would never do something like that, Kurt. He loved her. He loved you. No, he denied it all. He had a good laugh that she would think he could kill somebody. He didn’t know she’d seen the pictures.”

  She twisted the handkerchief. “But somehow Jake Pfeil found out she knew something,” Maya said. “I guess Bert told him, I don’t know. Meg thought she was being followed. There were anonymous phone calls. That’s why she took Lennon and moved to Telluride. She figured if she left town, nobody would bother her. She was worried something might happen to your son.”

  Sweat broke out on Kurt’s neck.

  “Then one day Jake walked up to her in a shop in Telluride,” she said. “He started showing up in her life like that. On the slopes, in a café. He didn’t have to say anything—she got the message. That’s when she decided to bring Lennon back to you and leave the state. She knew if the boy was with you, Jake wouldn’t do anything to hurt him.”

  Kurt began to tremble with rage.

  “Darling, darling,” she said, grabbing his arms and pulling herself to her feet. She held him close, her warm tears wetting his shirt. “Every day without her son is a heartbreak.”

  He remembered how Meg had brought Lennon into the world. Twelve hours of hard labor, moving from bed to floor, struggling to avoid the cesarean. They had never done anything together with so much practiced understanding. Contractions, waves of pain, breathing in rhythm, the long slow drip of Pitocin into her veins. Kurt and the nurse-midwife held her upside down so the baby’s crown would shift in her cervix. And in the end, at the last possible moment before exhaustion and the scalpel, their lovely boy pushed out into the light through one final scream of agony and relief. A child with wisps of red hair and sweet, full lips. A child as beautiful as his mother.

  Kurt held Maya for a long time without speaking. “Just tell me on
e more thing,” he said. “What makes you think my brother jumped?”

  Her body sagged into his and he could feel the soft give of her breasts. “It was all falling in around him,” she said. “The things he lived for weren’t going to last. Our world was disappearing, Kurt.”

  She pulled back, her hands on his shoulders. Her face was swollen, her eyes a blur of tears. “He took a couple of wrong steps, my dear,” she said in a hoarse voice. “I think he knew where they would take him.”

  He left Maya on the canopied bed in the dark stone fortress and drove back along Woody Creek Road toward Aspen. He knew Jake wasn’t foolish enough to return to his suite in the Blake Building. He was probably in Mexico by now, or across an ocean. Kurt also knew that if by some small miracle the man was still in the Valley, there was only one way to find him. The conventional wisdom was ‘follow the money.’ In Jake’s case it was ‘follow the penis.’ The one thing that had always got in his way.

  He took the unmarked turn to Starwood, his headlights cleaving to the narrow winding road as it ascended the steep grade to the guardhouse. Harley Ferris was on duty. He stepped into the open doorway and leaned a large forearm against the frame.

  “Evening, Harley,” Kurt said, his motor idling.

  “Evening, Kurt.” Harley rested his other wrist on the ivory stock of the Colt in his holster.

  “You going to let me in?”

  Beneath a thick ridge of forehead Harley’s small eyes narrowed. “Nope,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, man,” Kurt said. “I didn’t know it would turn out that way.”

  “The old dago wanted my ass. He tried to get me fired.”

  “I’m sorry, Harley. It’s a nasty situation.”

  “Pussy always is.”

  Kurt glanced up the hillside at the mansions softly glimmering beneath the black tarp of stars. “Is she up there?” he asked.

  Harley worked the bill of his blue cap up and down, an unconscious habit from the playing field. “Far as I know,” he said. “The dago brought her home this morning. She looked like hell. Couple hours later Dwight dragged in her Miata. She musta got fucked up real bad.”