Tough Cookie (30 page)

Tom set two cookies on a small china plate and left it by my espresso. The crunch of almonds, tang of cherries, and rich, luscious chocolate woke me right up. I decided to call the upcoming day's TV menu "Feel-Your-Oats Holiday Breakfast." Rashers of crisp Canadian bacon, a bowl of icy vanilla yogurt, and a mountain of fresh fruit would go perfectly with the two starchy dishes I'd decided to prepare-spicy Swiss oatmeal and homemade bread. By seven-thirty, I had called early-rising Julian. He was flattered to fax me his new five-grain bread recipe. I thanked him, then proofed yeast while measuring out the cereal. A fresh, dimple-skinned orange, a new jar of Indonesian cinnamon, and more tart cherries beckoned to go into the oats.

By nine-fifteen, I was actually humming to myself, a sure sign the culinary work had once again helped me get life back into perspective. I realized the time set for Arch and Todd's presentation was only half an hour away. I checked that the bread dough had risen properly and sent the boys a silent prayer of encouragement.

The phone rang. Concerned that it might be the hospital calling about Eileen, I picked up rather than letting the machine answer. It was not the hospital. It was Boots Faraday.

"Look, Goldy," she said without preamble, "Arthur Wakefield insists I owe you an apology."

"What?"

"Arthur's an old friend, and he didn't mean any harm by running that article about you." She paused, struggling, I supposed, to adopt an unfamiliar apologetic tone. "I . . . I heard about your friend Eileen Druckman, and that awful Barton Reed, and that you were there when it happened. I realized that you really are in the middle of a mess."

"Yes, it's bad," I admitted. But why call me? Unless, of course, she wanted to confess that Doug Portman's mean critique of her work had driven her to kill him six days ago.

"There's something I didn't tell you," Boots went on. "I . . . I . . . don't know whether it's relevant But. . . I've decided to tell you anyway - It doesn't matter anymore." She took a shaky breath. "I do know what Nate was doing the day he died. It wasn't tracking lynx. That was just the standard story he told me to put out if he ever got caught."

"Got caught doing what?"

"Filming in Killdeer's out-of-bounds area. He . . . didn't think he'd get killed, of course." She sighed. "He was trying to make money, before his baby arrived. He . . . was making a sports-genre video."

"A what?"

"An outdoor sports film, haven't you ever seen them? You can catch them on the sports channels. The most popular around here are the extreme snowboarding videos. They show boarders leaping and spinning and jumping off ledges and generally risking death for a ride."

"Okay, yes," I said, remembering the big screen at Cinda's. "But. . . what kind of money could you hope to make from one of those?"

She laughed at my naïveté. "Big money. The good ones sell for fifty to a hundred thousand. For the great ones, you can make two hundred fifty thousand to half a million."

"You're kidding!"

"No. Nate had talked to a distributor who was a friend of mine, a collage client. The distributor wanted to see a rough cut of whatever extreme snowboarding film he could do. But Nate didn't want to get Rorry's hopes up, so he begged me not to tell anybody."

"Was Barton Reed the snowboarder who was with him?"

"I . . . don't know."

"Were you the boarder?"

She groaned. "Of course not. I don't engage in risky behavior. By the way, that includes sleeping with married men, in case Rorry has been filling you in on her paranoid baloney."

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"Listen," she said brusquely, "I've been trying to protect Nate's good-granola-guy reputation for three years. Don't you think died tracking lynx sounds better than died making money? But I wanted you to know the truth. I don't know if it will relate to any of your problems."

Or your problems, I thought, such as my wondering if you triggered the avalanche, and that's why you've been lying for three years. After a moment, I asked, "Did Nate or Rorry know Doug Portman?"

"Nate knew about Portman through the artists' association. I'm not sure whether Rorry knew Portman or not. I just wanted you to know the truth about Nate. Because Arthur asked me to talk to you," she added stiffly. "And he's a good friend."

"Thanks, Boots." I didn't say, Is it the truth? Or, Is Arthur more than a friend to you, by any chance.? I said only, "You. . . don't know anything more about Doug Portman, do you?"

"Only that he wouldn't have known a decent piece of artwork if he'd run into it." She banged the phone down before I could comment.

I slid the bread into the oven, set the timer, and simmered some of the cinnamon-orange oatmeal mixture to test it. I took a bite of the creamy concoction with its moist tan cherries. Heavenly. I was about to spoon up some more when the phone rang again. Boots, I figured, remembering more truth.

"I hear you're still trying to figure things out up in Killdeer," came the raspy voice of Reggie Dawson.

I exploded. Enough was enough. "Who are you? You're not a journalist. I checked. What do you want?"

"If you don't want your son hurt, you better start skiing at Vail, caterer. Quit being such a busybody."

"You leave my family alone!" I hollered, but whoever it was had hung up. I pressed buttons to trap the caller's number, and prayed that the telephone company's central computer had indeed registered the call. Then I called Tom's voice-mail and told him there had been another threatening call, and could the department please try to trace it, again?

Thoroughly unnerved, I called Elk Park Prep. Yes, I was assured, Arch Korman and Todd Druckman were fine. No intruder could get into that school, the receptionist told me, what with all the metal detectors and video cameras that had been installed over the summer. But hearing the anxiety in my voice, she put me on hold and went to check on Arch's exact location. When she returned, she said Arch and Todd were just going into English class. Oh, yes, I replied, as relief washed over me. The Spenser report was due in fifteen minutes. I thanked the receptionist and hung up.

The comforting, homey scent of baking bread wafted through the kitchen. Outside, snow fell. I told myself I'd done everything I could to figure out who "Reggie Dawson" was. Arch was safe, and Tom would find the threatening caller. And nail him.

I fixed myself a cup of espresso laced with cream and ordered myself to think positively. At nine-forty-five, I sent good vibes to the boys as they faced the class to perform. I tried to send a telepathic message to Arch to look only at kids he knew would not laugh when he began. I visualized him standing confidently and speaking clearly. . . . Whatsoever from one place doth fall, is with the tide unto another brought: For there is nothing lost, that may be found. . . Wait a minute. "Found if sought," I said aloud, and stared out at the falling snow.

Numerous times, I'd heard an avalanche described as a "killer tide." A tidal wave of snow that comes down the mountain.

I thought of Arch's physics experiment. Most of the frosting had spattered on the cookie sheet. But a very few drops, in places only one, had spattered far away. This was what had happened in the hospital waiting room, when Diego had been hit in the eye by a very errant chunk of dried frosting. That's quantum mechanics. Or quantum physics, if you prefer.

He was filming a sports-genre video, Boots had said.

His camera was stolen along with the TV, Rorry had insisted. But the TV had been the only item recovered.

Whatsoever from one place doth fall, is with the tide unto another brought. . . . In the killer tide of an avalanche, maybe some things - one item in particular-had followed the patterns observed by quantum physicists and spattered far away.

I chugged the last of the espresso and dialed the main number for Killdeer. After an eternity of punching numbers for menu options, I was finally connected with a woman in Killdeer Security.

"I'm calling about a missing item," I began.

"Let me get into my program for the Lost and Found," she said pleasantly. Computer buttons clicked. "How long ago was the item lost?"

"Three years."

She gurgled with laughter. "We only keep items sixty days, ma'am. Then they get sold at a police auction or sent to a shelter in Minturn. Sorry."

"Wait a sec," I replied. "Let me think. Look, I have another question. What happens to all the stuff that gets rolled up into an avalanche? You know, besides sticks, rocks, and trees? Say a person goes down and you find his body without his skis. Do you ever find the skis? In the spring, maybe?"

"Hmm." The poor security woman tried to sound as if she were pondering my question, but her dubious tone said she thought I was some kind of nut. "Well. . ."

"Look," I said patiently. "The snow slides down. Say it knocks down a house. Do the chimney bricks and furniture end up at the bottom of the hill? How and when do you clean up the debris left by an avalanche?"

"Actually, in an avalanche everything gets thrown all over the place."

"So how does the debris get picked up?" I persisted. "I mean, not just from an avalanche, but from the whole ski area?"

She sighed. "When our maintenance guys groom the slopes in the spring, they scoop up everything they find. Wallets, jewelry, hats, mittens, you name it. Those items get logged into our Lost and Found for sixty days. You mentioned an avalanche. Where did it come down?"

"Elk Valley. Three years ago." Her voice stiffened. "I see." After a pause, she went on: "Even though it's an out-of-bounds area in the winter, Elk Valley is used in the summer as a nature trail. Each year before the trail is opened, our maintenance team cleans up the valley. The items they might have picked up would have come to Lost and Found. For sixty days. All items would have been logged in, and logged out to go to charity." She added tentatively, "Unless the item happened to be very valuable. We keep jewelry in the safe for longer. Up to a year."

"And your log goes back how long?"

"Five years."

"Can you do a computer search," I said, feeling my heart start to race, "for a certain log entry? I'm looking for a - " What was it Rorry had said? "A Sony, urn, VX-One Thousand. A videocamera." Quantum mechanics, I reminded myself. The camera might have been thrown anywhere. Might have been found anytime. "It might have been turned in at any point in the last three years. If it went to a shelter or police auction, I can try to track it down. I just need to know if you ever had it."

She tapped buttons. "Okay. . . nothing from three years ago." More clicking. "Nothing from last year." She paused and tapped some more. "Hmm," she said at length. "How about that."

"What?"

"Our construction workers in the expansion area were cutting down trees this September. They found a camera inside its case under a pine tree and turned it in."

"Is it a Sony - "

She wouldn't let me finish. "So, it's yours? Were you caught in that avalanche?"

"I, I - It's not important after all this time, is it?"

"Yeah, it is. There are initials on the case. Can you identify them?"

My heart was pounding in my throat. "N.B." She said, "Yes. Is that you?"

"No. It was Nate Bullock's camera. He was killed in the avalanche."

"Okay," she said blithely. "Bring ID to prove you're a family member, and you can get it between nine and four any day of the week." She hung up.

My skin was cold. Bring ID to prove you're a family member. I tried to call Tom on his cellular but the mountains were obscuring the signal. Even if I could talk my way into claiming Nate's camera, would it actually work after all this time? Wait: Julian's film class. 1 reached for the phone.

"Hey!" Julian cried. "Twice in one morning. How'd the bread come out?"

I turned on the oven light and peered in at the risen, golden-brown loaves. "Almost done. And the scent is heavenly."

"Great," he said, pleased. "Listen," I said, "I have a video question for you," "Shoot," he replied. Then he laughed. "Sorry. Film joke."

"If cassettes have been in a camera, or in a case, outside, for three years, would they be usable?"

"Gosh, Goldy. First bread, now old cameras. The stuff you come up with." He reflected for a few seconds. "Was the case protected?"

"Under a tree."

"Wait, let me ask my roommate." He left the line for a few minutes, then came back. "Okay. The film should be all right unless the camera's rusted shut and moisture has gotten into the apparatus itself. Just the cold alone shouldn't hurt it. In Colorado, some folks even keep their film cassettes out in their garages, to keep them fresher. But. . . why do you need to know this? Are you going to film your cooking show in the snow?"

"I'll tell you Christmas Eve."

He laughed again. "Whatever." I hung up and contemplated the problem in front of me. I desperately needed to prove I was a family member. I punched in the numbers to Rorry Bullock's trailer. She picked up and dropped the phone. Then she declared in a gritty, sleep-saturated snarl: "Whoever you are, you better have a great reason for waking me up. Otherwise, I'm going to kill myself for forgetting to shut off my ringer."

I identified myself and apologized. Working a double shift that included nighttime, of course she'd be upset to be roused.

"It's okay," she said grumpily. "Goldy. I'm glad you called. I broke off a chunk of the frozen lasagne and heated it in the microwave. Fantastic! The baby loved it so much he twirled around in utero. I thought I was I going into labor."

I laughed, then asked seriously, "Rorry, could I come over this afternoon? I might have some answers to your questions about Nate. But. . . I need you to claim his camera from Killdeer's Lost and Found."

"Someone found his camera? It's in the Lost and Found after three years?"

"This fall, workers in the expansion area discovered it under a tree. They turned it in. Because it was valuable, it's been in a safe there ever since."

"I, I can't. . . ."

"Please, Rorry." I made my voice calm, comforting. "Please listen. You don't have to do anything with the camera. But I need it, to see if there's anything left of the tape Nate was making." When she said nothing, I went on: "Four people have died after suffering accidents at that ski area. Nate, Fiona Wakefield, Doug Portman, and now a guy named Barton Reed - "