Death Takes a Honeymoon (29 page)

“That’s nice to hear.” His smile was still lopsided. “Now let me go, Stretch. See you soon, I promise.”

He got in the Jeep. Jack kissed Tracy through the window and drove them away. I watched them go, streaming with tears, until the road was empty.

And then, galumphing up the empty road toward me, came the only creature in the world who could end my weeping at a moment like this.

“Gorka! Oh, Gorka, you dear idiot. Come here, boy, come here.”

And come he did, his rope leash flying as he tore up the hill at full speed. He had something clamped in his huge drooling jaws as usual, and as usual he dropped his trophy at my feet and barked in triumph.

I had to wipe the tears away to see properly, but even then I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

Gorka’s trophy, covered in ashes and soot, was pale gray and roughly spherical, the size of a stone you could hold in your two cupped hands. But stones don’t have eye sockets, or a gaping darkness where a nose had once been, or a few teeth still attached to what remained of the upper jaw. There was another, smaller hole on one side, and I thought I knew what had caused it. In fact the only thing that kept me from fainting in horror was curiosity about whether I was right.

If I was right, Gorka’s trophy was a human skull with a bullet hole through the temple.

Chapter Thirty-Two

I WOULDN’T HAVE PEGGED THE CHIEF AS A SHAKESPEARE buff, but then, you never know. Sitting upstairs in the master bedroom, holding the skull in one hand, he rubbed his chin with the other and lifted his eyes to me wryly.

“I feel like Hamlet,” he said. “Alas, poor Yorick.”

I didn’t answer. I was busy looking for somewhere to tie Gorka’s leash, now that he’d slobbered all over me and Sam, and been ordered away from her pretty pink handbag and then off the pretty purple bed by an indignant Cissy. Paw-prints on the bedspread seemed to bother her more than the skull. Julie Nothstine, the cat lady, was far more interested in the skull, but she kept her post at the window and kept well away from the dog. Everyone else was still at their labors down below.

I had taken the skull directly and discreetly to Larabee, and when he brought Sam and me upstairs that meant bringing Gorka. We needed a private place to confer without losing contact with a lookout, so we stayed in the master bedroom. But Gorka was clearly an outdoor dog.

“Just shut him in the bathroom and he’ll settle down,” said the chief. “Go on there, Max, good dog.”

“Max?” I said, as I followed his advice and pulled the bathroom door closed. From behind it came the sounds of scratching, a whine or two, and then silence. “Domaso said his name was Gorka.”

“Never heard of any Gorka,” he said, “but I’m telling you, that’s Edie Hammond’s dog Max. She lost him from her place down in Hailey about a month ago. Come to think of it, she’s a redhead, too, about your build.”

“Let me guess. They play fetch a lot?”

But the chief had gone back to contemplating mortality, or at least the mortality of the owner of the skull.

“Wonder where Max found it,” he said. “Looks like it’s been in the woods a while. Sam, you know of any missing person cases up here, hunters or whatever?” Seeing Sam shake his head, he went on, “Not that this entry wound looks like any hunting accident. If that’s not a small-caliber pistol, I’ll eat my hat. No telling how old it is, though, not till I get it back to—”

A knock on the bedroom door interrupted him. He set the skull on the low vanity table and sat himself squarely in front of it, then nodded at me to answer.

Danny Kane stepped in, rank with sweat, and said, “Al wants a report on the fire from up here.”

“It appears to be stationary at the moment,” said Julie. “But the winds are still fitful.”

“Check.”

What happened next was all because of the three-way mirror in the corner where, incredibly enough, Tracy had tried on her wedding gown only this morning. As Danny turned back to the door, he happened to catch a glimpse of the skull behind Larabee’s back—and I happened to be looking at him when he did.

Danny’s small, bunched-together features went absolutely stiff with shock, and his eyelids fluttered like a man about to lose consciousness. He took a stumbling step forward, unspeaking, but no one else had noticed his expression. To them he must have seemed tired, nothing more.

“Do you recognize it?” I said sharply. Larabee frowned at me and Sam began to say something, but I ignored them. “Danny, was that skull in your truck? Was that why you were yelling at Domaso?”

He stood frozen, his fingers on the doorknob. I heard Cissy give a little gasp. Then he turned around to face his stepmother and his father. His eyes were haunted, and when he spoke, he spoke to Sam.

“He was going to report it,” said Danny in a dull monotone. “I didn’t mean to hit him so hard, but then he went down and it was too late....”

His voice trailed off and he stood there swaying, a tree about to fall. Larabee got up slowly and took him by the arm. Danny let himself be led to a chair, moving like a sleepwalker, mumbling again, “Too late...”

“Sit down, son,” said Larabee gently. Something in his manner warned us all to stay quiet, not to break the spell. “Now tell me, what was it that Duarte was going to report?”

“Duarte?”

“You said that Duarte was going to report something, that’s why you hit him. Just tell me about it from the beginning, son. You saw Domaso Duarte at the hot spring, and then what?”

“I wasn’t at the hot spring.” The younger man scowled in confusion. “I never hit Duarte. I wanted to, after his dog got into my gear and ran off with... with...”

“We know what the dog ran off with,” the chief said. “But then who are you talking about? Who did you hit?”

Danny turned his face away, and as he did, he saw me. His eyes widened and then filled with tears. “God, Carnegie, I’m sorry. Forgive me?”

Larabee and I exchanged baffled glances, but Danny’s next words brought everything into focus like the click of a kaleidoscope wheel.

“Bri was your cousin,” he moaned, “and I killed him. I didn’t mean to hit him so hard, I swear. I’m sorry!”

“I don’t believe it.” Sam strode over to his son. “
You
killed another smoke jumper? Why? How could you possibly—”

“I was protecting you!” Danny leapt to his feet, his lethargy burned away, his face dark with fury. “You thought I didn’t know, you thought I was just a kid, but I saw you. I saw you getting out of your plane with blood on your hands, and I saw you that night getting rid of a gun.”

Now we were the ones frozen with shock. Julie motionless at the window, Cissy still sitting on the bed, Sam and Larabee and me standing in the middle of the room. None of us moved as Danny’s grimy hand dove into a pocket and pulled something out, flat pieces of metal that clicked against each other as they slid along a tarnished chain. Dog tags.

“I
was
just a kid,” said Danny despairingly. “I thought I must have dreamed about the gun because everyone said that he drowned, but it’s always been in the back of my mind, and then Brian found these and I knew!”

As he waved the chain at Sam his voice began rising, louder and higher. “Bri read me the name, he said Kane, Roy J., that’s the same name as you. I told him to hand them over, I told him it was a secret, but he laughed and said what was it worth to me. I grabbed at them and we fought and I hit him with the handle of my Pulaski. I didn’t mean to hit him so hard. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry...”

Danny was sobbing now. None of us moved.

“I brought the... I brought that back with me, but then I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t want anybody to see it, like that security guy did. But I couldn’t just get rid of it, could I? It’s all that’s left of Roy, for God’s sake. There should be a funeral, there should be some
respect
—”

Sam took a step toward his son, and Danny’s face changed.

“It wasn’t a dream, was it?” he snarled. “You shot your own brother, you son of a bitch, and you flew over Boot Creek and dumped his body out of the plane where no one would ever find it. You killed my Uncle Roy and I’m going to kill
you
!”

He sprang at Sam then, and that snapped us all out of our trance of disbelief. For a man with heart trouble, Larabee moved like a snake, pinning Danny facedown on the floor and snapping handcuffs on him while Sam was still backing away in horror.

“The boy’s gone crazy,” said Sam, in a shaky, old man’s voice. His face was gray. “He’s... I never...”

“Sit down, Sam,” said Larabee. “Get him some water, please.”

This request was directed at me, not at Sam’s wife, because Cissy was sitting on the bed, wringing her pudgy hands and making tiny moaning sounds, the very picture of utter uselessness. Julie went to sit by her, and I went for the water.

The room had two sinks, one outside the bathroom proper, which was lucky because Gorka/Max was pawing at the door and barking. I kicked the door to silence him and brought Sam the glass. He accepted it with trembling hands and thanked me, and he didn’t say another word as Larabee walked Danny out of the room.

Danny did, though, as he came past me.

“Bri
could
have died in that fall,” he said. “He tied off wrong, you know. He had a lucky break coming down through the branches the way he did, but he could have died, even if I hadn’t... It could have been an accidental death, just like it said in the official findings.”

I couldn’t find my voice, and then he was gone. And I don’t know, to this day, what I would have said.

The chief came back looking grim. “I’ve locked him in the squad car. You want to tell me about this, Sam?”

“Not without my attorney.” Sam smiled bleakly. “If I ever see him again. And a shrink for Danny, of course. Anybody with eyes in his head can see that he’s disturbed, hallucinating even. You can’t leave the boy cuffed, Howard, not if the fire comes.”

“Well, I’m damned if I know what else to do,” said Larabee. “He’s killed three people, for God’s sake, one of ’em right in the middle of this party. I’ve been asking questions. Somebody saw Duarte just before the cake cutting, and then the Russian fellow found his body right after. Danny must have sneaked down to the hot spring in between and—”

“No, he didn’t.” Julie spoke up from her place beside Cissy. “Danny was on the veranda with me throughout the party. He’s always very attentive. He couldn’t have gone to the hot spring.”

“She’s right. I saw him, too,” I said. Then I spoke what was in all our minds. “But if Danny didn’t kill Domaso, then who did?”

“What does it matter?” Cissy blurted. “We’re all going to die anyway, why don’t we just admit it?”

Julie glared at her in disapproval and Cissy fell silent, a scolded child.

“As I said before,” said Julie sententiously, “it may have been an accident, after all. People do fall, especially when they have been drinking alcohol, or perhaps even using drugs.”

“Duarte wasn’t known as a user,” the chief said, as if to himself, “but you never know. He might have been smoking dope, or popping some kind of pills.”

Cissy made a small movement with her foot. She saw me looking and made a show of crossing her legs, but not before I saw her foot nudge something small and pink under the purple dust ruffle of the bed.

“You know,” I said casually, “I’m feeling awfully upset about all this. Cissy, do you have any more of those tranquilizers?”

We had a bit of a scuffle over the pretty pink handbag, but in the end Julie clamped her long hands over Cissy’s pudgy ones and prized it away from her.

The tranquilizer bottle, which I’d seen full only a few hours ago, was completely empty.

Chapter Thirty-Three

IT WAS THE WEIRDEST CONFESSION OF MURDER YOU CAN imagine—and not one that would ever stand up in court, because the defendant seemed to be stoned.

“If it wasn’t for that awful dog...” said Cissy, her eyes glazed and her voice dreamy. “I saw it run off with
that
”— she nodded at the skull, still glaring at us blindly from the vanity table—“but of course I had no idea what it was until Danny told me.”

“He
told
you?” I blurted, and someone else made a small sound of wonderment. Outside the picture window the light was dimming as the streamers of smoke became overlapping veils, but none of us really registered the fact. We were mesmerized by Cissy’s high-pitched, little-girl voice.

“Oh yes, he told me on the way back to the party.” She fluttered those curly eyelashes, inviting us to share a tidbit of gossip. “He hardly knew what he was saying, poor boy, just mumbling about dog tags. I pretended not to hear him, but then he said Roy’s name and that’s when I realized. And to think Danny knew about the gun all these years!”

Sam stirred. “Cissy, honey—”

“Oh, I know, we never talk about it, even in private.” She giggled. “Never, never. That’s why I had to make sure Domaso never talked about it either. I fixed him a little drink with my pills, and then I said, Sweetie, I’ve got something special to show you down at the honeymoon cottage. I said, You know that old crown you keep asking about? Well, you come down to the cottage with me. So he came.”

Cissy gave a contented little sigh and looked blandly around, as if the story was done.

“And then what?” Larabee said it quietly, but his eye was twitching nonstop. “You got to the hot spring, and then what?”

“Well, what do you think?” she said petulantly. “He got sleepy and laid down on the ground by the water. I tried hitting him with a rock, but that was messy, so I just rolled him into the pool and left. Howard, sweetie, I’m sorry about your nice radio, but I didn’t want you to tell anyone, you know? Never, never, never, that’s what Sam says. But it doesn’t matter now. We’re all going to die.”

Larabee was gentle but relentless. “You’re saying that you killed Domaso Duarte to conceal the murder of Roy Kane.”

“Oh, it wasn’t murder,” she pouted. “It was just—”

“That’s enough,” said Sam. He wasn’t shaky anymore. He had control of himself, and he seemed to think he could control this situation, too. Old habits die hard, and Sam had a lifetime of being in charge. “She was protecting me, Howard, and that’s all there is to it.”

“But why, Sam?” said Julie. “What possible reason could you have for killing Roy?”

Sam refused to look at her, but addressed himself to Larabee. “Once we’re back in town and I’ve got my attorney with me, I’ll tell you all the details. But we’re not going to talk about this anymore, understand?”

“Talk about what, Daddy?” Tracy stood in the doorway, her bare arms dirty and her long hair in strings. “And why’s Danny in the police car? What’s going on?”

“Nothing to worry about. You go back downstairs,” Sam told her. But first he crossed the room to embrace her, perhaps for the last time. Perhaps he was grateful that she’d never know the truth about him.

“Be brave, sugar,” he murmured into her hair. “But you always are. I’ve always been so proud of you. You’re the joy of my life, you know that, Tracy girl? The joy of my—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Cissy burst out. “She isn’t even yours!”

Sam and Tracy turned to gape at her. With nothing left to lose, plump little Cissy shook herself like a hen settling her feathers, and triumphantly played her final card.

“That’s why I had to shoot him, don’t you see?”

“Shoot who?” said Tracy. But her mother didn’t seem to notice. Cissy was far away, far in the past.

“We were on the way to Bitterroot Lake in the Twin Otter,” she said. “Sam was piloting, and Roy and I were in back. I told Roy my news, about being pregnant, and I asked him to promise not to tell Sam. But he said no!”

She frowned to herself at the foolishness of men. “Roy said that Sam had to find out about us sooner or later, and that he’d marry me himself. I had my little gun that Sam got me for burglars, and I pulled it out and said, Listen to me, Roy Kane. I am going to marry the next governor of Idaho and that is that, so you keep quiet! He tried to take the gun away and so what else could I do?”

“You told me...” Sam’s voice caught and choked. “You told me Roy molested you. I would never have—”

“You would never have staged your brother’s suicide?” demanded Julie Nothstine. Her strange blue eyes burned from the pallor of her face. “You would never have blackened the memory of a fine man, a hero? How dare you, how could you—”

“People!” bellowed Boris from downstairs. “All people come to safety zone, now!”

We stood like statues, struck motionless by Cissy’s revelations. Then a more pressing question came back to me, and I rushed out to the landing.

“Has Jack come back?” I called down, but of course I meant Aaron. “Did they bring the chain saws?”

I already knew the answer, because Tracy would have told us if her new husband had returned. But when Boris shook his head I felt a cold fist gripping at my heart.

“Let’s go,” said the chief behind me. He sounded calm and official, but urgent, not to be disobeyed. “Everybody downstairs, pronto.”

I stepped aside as he led Cissy past, holding her by the elbow as though guiding a blind person. Sam followed, his long cheeks slack and ashen, with Tracy beside him looking like a lost child.

Julie Nothstine came last, blinking back tears. But when she stumbled a little on her twisted foot, Tracy returned to her and slipped a supportive arm around her waist. Julie leaned gratefully against Roy Kane’s daughter, and they left the suite.

But I wasn’t the last one left. I heard a faint scrabbling behind the bathroom door, and then an inquisitive whine. Gorka—Max—had been patient all this time, but he could tell that everyone was leaving and he didn’t like it.

I opened the door carefully, ready to grab at the rope leash, but Max rocketed past me and made for the hallway, barking in excitement. When I caught up with him on the stairs, Sam had him by the collar.

“Thanks for remembering him,” Sam said quietly. He looked old and defeated. “You’re a good girl, Red.”

I didn’t reply, but wound the frayed end of Max’s leash around my knuckles and followed Sam out the front door. And into a changed world.

While we’d been inside, a poisonous-smelling shroud of dense brown smoke had overtaken White Pine. Through the smoke came soft pale flakes of ash, sifting down in a constant shower like some surrealistic fall of snow. The heat in the air was a brutal assault to the senses, and I stopped for a moment to brace myself against it.

Out in the gloom and the falling ash, dim figures were shouting to each other over the distant deep roar of the fire. But the roar wasn’t so distant anymore. The beast was approaching. Max stiffened all four legs, planting his paws and growling back at this invisible enemy.

“Come on, buddy,” I coaxed. “Come on, stay by me.”

I dragged at the leash and followed the shouts to the parking area. The once-narrow strip of weeds along the road had been scraped down to bare soil and widened several yards on either side. But this safety zone looked pitifully small with thirty people crowded into it, even with all the cars moved to a distance.

All the cars but one. Squinting through the murky air, I saw Chief Larabee and Al Soriano in private conference by the squad car. The chief still had Cissy by the elbow, but Al took over that duty as the chief unlocked the back door, helped Danny out, and removed his handcuffs.

Both Danny and his mother moved listlessly, like sleep-walkers, their eyes on the ground. I looked around for Sam but he was on the far side of the group, his arm around Tracy, keeping as distant from them as he could.

“Toddy!” Al shouted. “You want to move this vehicle for me?”

Todd emerged from the smoke and calmly took the keys that Larabee proffered. He slid behind the wheel and started the engine, and as the brake lights came on they made angry red embers in the smoke.

The Tyke appeared at my shoulder as the car rolled away. She had ashes in her hair, and her voice was a harsh croak.

“We don’t want any gas tanks too close to us,” she said grimly. “You OK? Larabee told us what went down with Danny and his mom. I can’t believe it.”

Neither could I, but I wasn’t thinking about them anymore. I was thinking about Aaron, and trying so desperately to contain my dread that I couldn’t say his name for fear of breaking down.

“No sign of them?” I asked her.

“No.” The Tyke’s eyes were blood-colored from working in the smoke, but I could see dread in them as well. “They could have gone the other way, you know. This is a fluky fire and we can’t tell what it’s doing. They could have gone downhill if they couldn’t make it back up. They’re probably down there someplace worrying about us.”

She didn’t believe that and neither did I, but it helped a little to pretend that we did. I nodded and bent down to stroke Max, and kept stroking him as the Tyke moved away.

Max was shuddering now, and whining like a puppy, so I knelt beside him in the dirt and put my arm around the heavy muscled neck. His coat was rough and bristly where I laid my cheek against it.

“It’s all right,” I murmured. “It’s all right, Maxie. I’m right here.”

“Is he OK?” asked Todd, squatting beside me. “You need help with him?”

Todd was clear-eyed and calm, as he’d been since the crisis started, the very model of the stoic smoke jumper that he’d always idolized.

“Thanks,” I said. “We’re taking care of each other.”

“Listen up, everybody!” Al called out then. I grabbed the leash as we gathered around him, eager for leadership. Eager for a miracle. “Listen close, ’cause this is important. We could be here for a while. The head of the fire might not even come in our direction, but if it does, you’re all gonna want to lie flat and keep your nose and mouth down on the ground.”

“We are to put our faces into the dirt?” asked Beau Paliere, affronted. Which was ironic considering the amount of dirt already on his face. His elegant shirt and jacket were long gone, and his undershirt—the sexy tank top kind—was filthy.

“Is right!” Boris called from the back of the group. “Air is cooler at ground.”

“Exactly,” said Al. He, too, had ashes in his air, and his eyes were like wounds. “You want to scoop out a little hole for your mouth and nose and take shallow breaths, understand? But like I said, it might not come to that. The most important thing is to stay right here in the safety zone. Buddy up with the folks next to you, and help each other stay put....”

There were nods and murmurs all around me. People were embracing now, and the roar of the fire from behind its curtain of smoke was a background to their weeping. I felt myself slipping into a sort of numbed trance.

This can’t be happening. This is happening. Take care of Max.
I stood quietly petting him, grateful to have someone who needed me to stay calm. The shuddering had stopped, but he was panting hard in the mounting heat and his eyes were blank and staring.

The rest of Al’s words were lost in a sudden roar of the fire. It wasn’t a roar, though, more of a drone. A motorized drone, growing louder...

A small plane burst into view between the smoke clouds, skimming perilously low over the treetops. A crate tumbled from the plane’s belly and plummeted down like a stone, and then a parachute blossomed above the crate like a round white flower.

As we held our breaths, the crate jerked and swung and floated, to land heavily on the road just down the hill from us. We stood speechless for a moment, then Al let out a wild rejoicing whoop.

“What is it?” asked Boris. “What is in box?”

“Chain saws, man,” Al crowed. “Freakin’ chain saws!”