Diagnosis Murder: The Death Merchant (18 page)

Terry immediately called Hawaii and was able to catch agents Flannery and Witten before they boarded their main land flight. The two agents would remain in Hawaii and chase down Adele Urich.

Mark could tell Terry wasn't very pleased at the possibility the action might be in Hawaii after all and, to be honest, neither was he.

Feldman ran through the list of other possible suspects, but either Greene or Urich were clearly the most likely to be Diane Love.

Stella Greene was married with two kids, a four-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl. Her husband, Chester, worked as a real estate agent. They lived in a modest house in a wooded area on the outskirts of Keystone. Stella didn't exactly match the profile for a fugitive kidnapper and killer, but neither did Sara Jane Olsen, the Symbionese Liberation Army member who participated in kidnapping, bank robbery, and murder and transformed herself into a church going housewife and devoted mother. Olsen fooled everyone, baking cakes and arranging play dates for twenty years, before being apprehended. Her loving husband and kids never suspected that the only things she made better than cookies were pipe bombs.

The FBI had the Greene residence under surveillance, agents poised to move in as soon as the search warrant came through.

Mark and Terry were taken to River Run Village at the base of the Keystone ski area. The village was a recent development but the storefronts, restaurants, and condos had been built to resemble a nineteenth-century Colorado mining town. The architects used exposed stone, artificially weathered timber and rusted corrugated tin roofs to give the manufactured village its prefabricated history and carefully premeditated character. In a strange way, the detailed recreation reminded Mark of Las Vegas. While the River Run architecture was not quite as over-the-top, it was just as calculated. He wasn't surprised the Las Vegas native felt comfortable here.

The Ford Explorer was met by two agents in navy blue parkas with the letters FBI emblazoned in bright yellow on their backs.

That was Mark's first indication that something was very wrong.

He knew how much FBI agents loved to put on their logo wear at the slightest provocation, but this wasn't a situation where it made sense to advertise their presence. The last thing they'd want to do was spook their target. So why weren't they concerned about that now?

"She's gone," said one of the parka-clad agents as Terry and Mark emerged from the Explorer.

"What do you mean she's gone?" Terry snapped.

"She never showed up for work and her husband hasn't heard from her since she left around 7:00 AM. this morning," the agent said. "The gondola operator remembers taking her up at eight. Alpine search and rescue teams are on the mountain now, and we've got a chopper up, as well."

"Damn!" Terry said. "Is there any way she could have been tipped that we were closing in?"

The agents shrugged.

"Damn!" Terry said again. "Seal this village up tight. No one comes or goes. Get all the skiers off the runs and lock them down in the lodge or whatever. I want each one of them questioned. Pick up Greene's kids at school, her husband at work, and take them to their house. Keep them there, get a warrant, and bug their phones. You got all that?"

The agents nodded. That's when Terry noticed the cold and the snow, and that every agent except him had somehow managed to slip into an FBI parka while he was talking.

"And where the hell is my parka?" Terry said, his face red with fury.

Mark declined the offer of an FBI parka and the opportunity to go up the mountain to question skiers. He opted instead to wait at the Inxpot, a coffee house and bookstore in the village.

It felt like he was sitting in someone's comfortable, book-lined living room in a woodsy Alpine lodge. A roaring fire crackled in the hearth and the air was rich with the soothing aroma of hot coffee and fresh-baked muffins. It was a very pleasant place, and under ordinary circumstances he'd have enjoyed his time there. But the inviting atmosphere did little to ease his anxiety.

Mark sat on a couch, picking nervously at a blueberry muffin and sipping a cup of La Vita Espresso, which the chalkboard menu behind the counter described as "a flavorful blend of three coffees from South America and Africa."

He killed time by reading the local paper, browsing through some of the books, and staring into the fire. The minutes ticked away like hours. The hours passed like days. He had another muffin and two more cups of coffee. There was enough caffeine coursing through his veins to keep him awake for a month. He had a feeling he'd need it.

"I booked my condo months in advance, flew five hours to get here, and what do I get on my first morning? An absolutely perfect day. Fresh powder, clear blue sky, a skier's dream. I couldn't wait to get out on the slopes."

Mark turned to face the man who was speaking. The man sat at the counter, sipping a cup of coffee. He was tall and lean, with an angular, sharp face, and wore a heavy gray wool sweater, jeans, and pair of Timberland hiking shoes damp from the snow.

"There's just one problem," the man said. "They've closed the place. Can you believe it?"

"At least the coffee is good," Mark said.

"I can get coffee at home," the man replied. "What are you reading?"

Mark was holding a paperback copy of
A Confederacy of Dunces
, a novel he'd often thought about reading but had somehow never gotten around to. He handed the book to the man, who fanned the pages, not really interested.

"I was just browsing," Mark said.

"This one of those Civil War books?" the man asked. "I like those."

"I'm afraid not," Mark said. "It's a different confederacy."

The man shrugged and slid the book back to Mark. "I didn't know there was another one."

"The title comes from a quote by Jonathan Swift," Mark said. "When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."

The man smiled. "Who doesn't feel that way some times?"

"I guess that makes us all geniuses," Mark said, putting the book back on the shelf.

"Just means we all think we are," the man said. "Like the genius who thought it was a good idea to close down a ski resort on a perfect day for skiing."

As if on cue, Terry Riordan finally came in, his face tight.

"We found her."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"It looks like she wiped out and skied straight into the tree," Agent Terry Riordan said, standing behind Mark, who knelt beside Stella Greene's body.

Her face was like alabaster, her eyes like glass, tears frozen on her cold cheeks like streaks of wax. She didn't seem real. In many respects, Mark was pretty certain she wasn't.

"That's what it looks like," Mark agreed, rising to his feet. "But that's not what happened."

"You mean she didn't do a Sonny Bono?" Terry asked.

"She hit the trees," Mark said. "But those injuries aren't what killed her, though they might have eventually if she'd been left alone. But the killer didn't want to leave anything to chance."

"The killer?" Terry said. "What makes you think this wasn't an accident?"

"I read the snow. She hit that tree over there, and slid to a stop here," Mark motioned to her body and the blood around it. "You can see how the blood beneath her has pooled where she came to rest. But the wound by her head is different. There's blood spatter on the snow. You don't get spatter without impact."

Terry crouched beside her and examined the snow around her bloodied head. "Someone whacked her after she hit the trees, while she was lying here defenseless."

Mark nodded. "We were too late. He got her before we could."

"I wasn't aware it was a race."

"You are now," Mark said.

Terry rose to his feet and motioned over Agent Feldman, who had been standing with a handful of other agents, sipping coffee out of insulated mugs and comparing parkas with the search and rescue team. As Feldman trudged over, Terry surveyed the mountainside. Several snowmobiles were parked haphazardly along the tree line. The snow had been well trampled. Whatever signs the killer might have left were gone now. He sighed wearily.

"This is now a crime scene," Terry told Feldman. "I want this area secured and a forensic team up here right away. Get your lazy agents off their asses and tell them to start looking for a murder weapon. Have them talk to every skier at the lodge—maybe somebody saw something. Crack the whip, Feldman. The clock is ticking, and the hands are dripping blood."

Feldman nodded and trudged back through the snow to his men. Terry turned back to Mark.

"Now what?"

Mark stared down grimly at Stella Greene. "We see what story she has to tell."

Wyatt finished his coffee at the Inxpot a few minutes after Mark Sloan left with Terry Riordan, then he casually strode out to his rental car.

He hadn't booked a room yet and he needed a place to stay while he remained in Keystone, observing Mark's investigation from a safe distance.

Ordinarily, that distance would have been a lot farther than a bar stool away, but Wyatt hadn't intended to run into the doctor at the coffee house. It had been pure fate. Wyatt would have been foolish not to take advantage it.

Seeing the doctor sitting there, looking so old and impotent, he couldn't help saying something to the poor man.

While he engaged in meaningless small talk with Mark, Wyatt recalled the conversation he'd overheard the night before between Mark and his son. Mark had talked about his desire to catch Wyatt on his own, his belief that this was a contest between the two of them that the presence of the FBI might ruin.

It was laughable, Wyatt thought.

If Mark Sloan knew just how outmatched he really was, the doctor would have welcomed the FBI into the game. But even with the Bureau behind him, Mark Sloan still didn't have a chance at winning.

Even so, Wyatt admired the doctor's tenacity and instinct for the hunt. He wished he could congratulate Mark on unlocking the puzzle written on the recipe card. The discovery was a shock to Wyatt, who doubted he would ever have recognized, or deciphered, the puzzle himself.

The surprising turn of events, rather than making Wyatt feel inadequate, simply reaffirmed how wise he'd been to maintain his surveillance of Mark Sloan and use him as an unwitting ally.

Wyatt appreciated the sweet irony of it all. He wondered if Mark Sloan would be kind enough now to finish the job for him and lead him to the others.

It was almost too much to hope for.

When all this was over, Wyatt would have to send Mark a thank-you card, though he doubted Hallmark had some thing appropriate for the occasion.

Terry Riordan met Mark in the hallway outside the Summit County coroner's office four hours later. Mark had observed Stella Greene's autopsy while Terry remained on the mountain, looking for clues. They didn't find any. He was hoping Mark Sloan had had better luck.

Mark came out in bloody surgical scrubs. "I can't prove at this point that Stella Greene was Diane Love, but whoever she was, she had extensive plastic surgery. Her face was totally reshaped, her hair was colored, her teeth capped, and she had breast implants."

"You've just described the majority of the actresses in Hollywood," Terry said. "But if you had to make a guess, what would you say? Is she Diane Love?"

"Yes, I think so," Mark said. "We'll know for sure after Claire Rossiter arrives and gives us a computer sculpture of Stella's original face."

"You brought Rossiter into this?" Terry said. "We have our own experts."

"She's the best in her field, and she'll be on the next plane out," Mark said. "In the meantime, we were able to get a serial number off Stella's breast implants. That should lead us to the surgeon who did the work. If we're lucky, it's the same surgeon who worked on Stuart Appleby and the others. I've asked Amanda to check it out."

"You brought Dr. Bentley in on this, too?" Terry asked with a chastising tone. "I'd like to keep this in the family."

"It is," Mark said. "You've worked with Amanda and Claire before. They have my complete trust."

"I don't care. This is an FBI investigation," Terry said. "We have our own lab and our own experts. We don't out- source."

"What do you call me?"

"Damn lucky to be tagging along."

"You wouldn't have a case without me," Mark said, a slight edge to his voice. "So you might want to rethink who is tagging along with whom."

Terry sighed. "I appreciate everything you've done, but any information you develop from here on goes directly to me. If you want to play with the big boys, you play by our rules. Understood?"

Mark considered what the agent said. It was the FBI's case now; he couldn't pursue it as if it was a personal investigation any longer. At least not while he was riding along with the FBI.

"Understood," Mark said reluctantly. "But it works both ways. I need to know everything you turn up and see all the evidence you gather."

"Fair enough," Terry said.

"What have you got?"

"Nothing."

"No wonder you think the arrangement is fair," Mark said. "I wonder how you'd feel if the situation was reversed."

"You'd be shut out," Terry said. "Flannery and Witten have called in from Hawaii. They've been interrogating Adele Urich. They don't think she's the one, but they're still checking into her story."

"See if she will voluntarily submit to facial X rays," Mark said. "If she hasn't had plastic surgery, we can immediately rule her out."

"Good idea," Terry said. "Meantime, we've got Greene's husband, Chester, on hold at his house. We've taken his kids over to stay with a family friend so we can search the place without rattling them. We're also checking Stella Greene's bank accounts to see if we can find out what she did with the ransom money."

"What have you told Chester?"

"That his wife's been killed in a skiing accident," Terry said. "I thought I'd hit him with the rest a little later."

Mark nodded. "Which is when?"