Sea to Sky (29 page)

“Hank, your hip. Your poor seventy-year-old hip. Get up off that cold cement and come in to bed. Brrr, it’s cold out here.” She reached down and ruffled the old man’s hair, and he brushed her hand away with a growl. “C’mon now,” she said.

“Okay, Momma. We’re coming in soon.” Hank held up his cigar. “Just about done.”

“Don’t bring that stinky thing inside,” she said. “I’ve made up a bed for you in your old room,” she told Sorry. “Good night, Danny.”

He got to his feet, swaying a little, and his mother stood on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. “I’m so glad you came for your father’s birthday,” she said. Then, “Why do you let people call you ‘Sorry’, Dan. It sounds like a sad kind of name, you know what I mean?”

Sorry shrugged. “No big deal, Mom. Just short for Sorenson is all.” He didn’t want to tell her that he’d been given the moniker when he was a prospect for the Cobras by some asshole of a senior biker gang member who was later shot by the police and good riddance to the sadistic fucker. At first he
had
found it a little demeaning, but later he got so used to it that he’d never thought to change it. He shrugged again, more to himself than his mother. Not worth the trouble to try to change it now.

Hank stubbed the cigar out on the side of the stoop, then held up a hand to Sorry. Sorry braced himself on the door jam and helped his father to his feet. Supporting each other, they followed his mother back into the house.

“G’night, son.” The old man reached up and clapped his hand lightly against Sorry’s cheek. He wasn’t smiling, and the look on his face made Sorry feel incredibly sad.

Sorry watched his mother help his father up the stairs to their bedroom, then went back outside for one last cigarette.

C
H
A
P
T
E
R

    SIXTEEN

“What’s up?” Hunter walked into Shane Blackwell’s office and pulled a chair back, preparing to sit down. When he saw the look on Shane’s face, he stopped short. “What’s happened?”

Shane motioned him to sit. “Want to tell me why two new witnesses have picked you out of a photo lineup?”

“What?”

“We’ve had several witnesses come forward in response to our public request. Two of them said they were in the chairlift line around the same time as the victim on Saturday morning. They said that prior to reaching the lift, they saw a man stopped at the edge of a slope that leads to the Harmony Express, and he was putting on a black balaclava. They gave a rough description of the skier they saw putting on the mask, so we showed them a photo lineup of six men who might fit the description. You were one of them.” Shane raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly at Hunter before continuing. “They both picked you.”

“Impossible. I was at Tom Halsey’s that morning.”

“So you say. Too bad Tom can’t confirm it.”

“He didn’t hear me leave, did he?”

“Tom says he can’t swear to it that you didn’t leave and return by the basement door.”

Hunter exhaled loudly through his lips and rubbed his forehead. “Who are these people?”

“You know I can’t tell you.”

“I can appreciate your position, damn it. But they’re mistaken.” He frowned. “Mistaken or flat-out lying.” He looked squarely at Shane. “What now?”

“I may be a fool, but I believe you. At some point, however, it won’t be my call whether or not to arrest you. If any more evidence turns up, I may be forced to make a recommendation to Crown Counsel. If the press gets wind of this, you know there’ll be a lot of pressure.”

Shane didn’t have to elaborate. The Mounties protecting one of their own — an active or retired member, it wouldn’t matter — would create just the kind of story the public loved. Corruption and conspiracy always made great fodder for the news media.

“Were the witnesses connected in any way to Mike Irwin’s circle of acquaintances? Why would they lie? Or why would they think they recognized me?” Hunter had to wonder if it was an attempt to point the police away from another suspect, or could it be someone Hunter had spoken to at some time, making his a familiar face. The third possibility was that whoever had been seen putting on the ski mask looked a lot like him. Would this rule out the possibility that a woman had committed the murder? Not necessarily, he decided. How many skiers might decide to put on a balaclava on a cold, snowy day? The witnesses could have seen someone else entirely who might not even have boarded the Harmony Express that morning.

Shane shrugged. “My hands are tied.”

“You know how unreliable eyewitness testimony can be,” said Hunter.

“Hey, it’s not me you’d have to convince.”

Hunter nodded. The police might know it, the lawyers might know it, but it could sound pretty convincing to a jury.

“So now what?” Hunter asked again. “Why am I here?”

“For the record, you’re a person of interest and you’ve come in voluntarily for questioning.” Shane picked up a notebook and slid a pen into his shirt pocket, then stood up behind his desk. “Colin’s got the interview room set up. We’ll pick up a coffee on the way.”

It was after ten a.m. when Hunter left the Whistler RCMP detachment, feeling exhausted in spite of three cups of coffee. They’d gone over his relationship with Alora, his interaction with the victim the night before the murder, details of his whereabouts on Saturday morning, all properly documented and videotaped, and finally Shane admitted that the witnesses who picked him out of the photo lineup hadn’t been sure it was Hunter, only that it looked something like him.

He shivered as he sat in the Pontiac, waiting for the engine to warm up and the fog to disappear from the front windshield after brushing a thin layer of fresh snow off the rear window with his bare hands. He’d been up at five thirty for a shower and a quick breakfast before leaving his North Van suite in darkness to head up the Sea to Sky to Whistler. There had been fresh snow on the highway north of Squamish, and the road surface was slick, so the drive had required his full concentration. The police interview was icing on the cake.

Waking up to the alarm this morning he’d still had Adam Marsh on his mind. He hadn’t found the boy in or near the Seabus station on the north side of the inlet, and he’d arrived home to find another worried message from Helen asking him to call as soon as he had any news. He’d decided against calling due to the late hour, but would have to break the news to her today. First, he wanted to connect with Meredith Travis again to see if she had anything new that would help clear him once and for all in the Irwin murder. There was no answer on her cell phone, so he decided to look for her at the hotel.

“I’m sorry, sir. Ms. Travis checked out early this morning.” The clerk was preoccupied with something on a computer, and went back to her keyboard without waiting for a response from Hunter. He thanked her and turned away. He would have to try to reach Meredith later, after she had arrived back in L.A. He was only too aware that the entire suspect list — except for himself — had now left the country, and his chances of pinning down the killer were evaporating.

He felt as if nothing was working in his favor, and hoped that a phone call to El Watson would change his luck. The phone rang seven times before she picked up.

“Watson!”

“What’s the latest on my truck, El? When’s Sorry due back?” He was in no mood for small talk.

“Hang on a sec.” El disappeared as quickly as she’d come and he was left on hold, listening to Shania Twain for what seemed like at least five minutes.

“Okay, here’s the thing.”

Hunter rolled his eyes. This couldn’t be good news.

“I think he’s in Yreka.”

“You think?”

“I haven’t heard from him since yesterday morning. I was trying to line up a load for him farther south, but he got an urgent message from his mother. I guess his dad was in rough shape, because Sorenson freaked out and wanted to head straight there. I told him to wait, but you know him.” She grunted. “Doesn’t take direction well, you might say.”

“You got a number for him there?”

“Yeah.”

“So phone it.”

“You phone it. I don’t want to call and ream him out if his dad just kicked the bucket.”

“Have you got a load for him or not?”

He heard her sigh. “I’ll call you right back.” And she hung up.

Hunter drove into the Village to find a deli so he could grab a sandwich. El’s call came just as he was waiting for his change.

“Best I could do for him was a load in Eugene. He’s already done 1100 empty miles, so what’s another couple hundred…”

“What! How far south did you send him?” Hunter almost dropped the phone trying to juggle the change and his deluxe roast beef sandwich. He was aware that all the heads in the deli had turned in his direction. ”Who’s paying the fuel for those empty miles? I sure as hell can’t afford it.”  He stuffed the sandwich in his jacket pocket along with the change and headed back outside.

He could hear El working her calculator before she finally agreed to give up her percentage on the load to Redding, as well as the load from Eugene. “My bad,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” She promised to call Sorry at his mother’s and try to get him back on the road as soon as possible. “Call me again later”, she said, and hung up.

Hunter sat in his car with the engine running and the heater on full blast, eating his roast beef sandwich. The deluxe part consisted of wilted lettuce leaves and pale, crunchy tomato slices. A slice of roast beef fell out and landed on the floor between his boots.

“This is definitely not my day,” he muttered as he put the car in park and headed back to the highway.

El Watson leaned back and closed her eyes. She had so little information for Hunter from Sorry’s expensive detour that she was afraid to tell him about her attempt to help his investigation. Don Julian Transport. Jorge Vasquez. That was all Sorenson had come up with. What good could that information possibly be? Now it was going to cost Watson Transportation the percentage on two loads and Hunter had to be wondering how she could make such a stupid mistake.

The only thing left was for her to see if she could find anything out about Don Julian Transport in Industry, California. She knew several brokers in Southern California. It was worth the cost of a few more telephone calls, although she was beginning to think that she was chasing a wild goose. Or following a red herring; wasn’t that what detectives called a false trail? She started thumbing through her rolodex cards again, pulling out two of them by the time the phone began to ring.

“Watson!”

“Hi, El. I’m ready to go. Got something for me?”

“Sorenson. Where are you? What happened to your dad?”

“He’s at work. Old bugger was totally shitfaced last night, but out the door at his usual time this morning.” His voice faded, but she could make out what he was saying. “Any of that meatloaf left, Ma? It would make a great sandwich.”

“He’s not sick?”

“My dad? Nah, he’s fine. My mom threw him a surprise birthday party is all.”

El felt her temperature start to rise. Two loads with zero income, a good load in Torrance that she’d wheedled out of another broker lost, Hunter pissed off, and it was this clown’s fault because he’d decided to go to a birthday party without telling her.

“You drove six hundred empty miles for a fuckin’ birthday party?” she said between clenched teeth.

“Hold on, woman,” he bellowed back at her. “You’re the one who told me my father was sick.”

She could hear a woman in the background say, “She did?”

“I said
maybe
, you jerk. I told you to
call
your mom, not drive six hundred miles to see her in Hunter’s truck. You know how much that’s costing me?” She lowered her voice and added, “I just might take it off your check.”

“You mean Hunter’s check. Let’s just see what he has to say about it.”

El knew she was SOL. Sorry would tell Hunter everything and it would all boil down to her own fault. “I had a load for you in Torrance. You shoulda stayed in L.A.”

“Well, I’m here now. You got a fuckin’ load for me here or do you want me to drive Hunter’s rig home empty?”

Now a woman’s voice said, “Danny, that’s no way to talk to your boss. I don’t want to hear language like that in my house.”

El heard Sorry apologize to his mother. It figured that he wouldn’t apologize to El herself. “Yes, I’ve got a fuckin’ load for you. Write this down,” she said, and gave him the address and directions to the shipper’s warehouse in Eugene. “Can you be there by four o’clock?”

It took him a couple of minutes to find something to write on and get all the details written down. “Got that?” she said.

“Yeah, I got it. Be there by four. See you in the morning.”

“Listen, Sorenson. Call me once you’re loaded. Tonight, okay? I don’t want any more surprises, hear me?”

All she heard back was a click.

The luggage was slow in coming. Meredith stood by the baggage carousel with her carry-on roller bag, watching the metal panels slide by, waiting for the sound of suitcases sliding off the conveyor belt. She turned on her cell phone and checked for messages. There was only one.

“Meredith. This is Hunter Rayne. Give me a call.”

She erased the voicemail and put the phone back in her pocket. She didn’t need anything more from him. She was sure that the police had nothing to tie her to the murder, and the trucker had nothing to contribute to the investigation she was doing for her client. If he really wanted to talk to her, he could call on his dime.

She had been relieved to find that neither Brent Carruthers nor his fiancée Tracy were booked on her flight to LAX. In her blond wig and at the speed she’d brushed past them last night, apologizing with a French accent for being late with the clean towels, they might not even have recognized her. Even if they had, as far as they knew, her name was Stella Clark and she was from Raleigh, NC. They would have found that nothing was missing from their hotel room, so if they suspected a break-in, police and security weren’t likely to waste any manpower on finding her. She wasn’t afraid of Carruthers anyway; it was only his connection to Cordero that worried her.

She thought about Todd Milton, who worked for Blue Hills’ biggest competitor and had talked to her about ‘purchasing espionage’. He had shared a table with Mike Irwin and Dave Cordero at the Chateau Grande Montagne the night before Irwin was killed. Todd was somehow connected to Cordero, and Cordero was now connected to Brent Carruthers, who considered himself a ‘shoo-in’ for the late Irwin’s position at Blue Hills. There was something going on that would affect her client — she was sure of it — and now she just had to figure out the details.