Endangered Species (18 page)

Wager figured that by the time Mallory had arranged for a plane, pilot, and ground transportation at both ends, they could have made the drive to Steamboat Springs. But then they’d face the long drive back; and besides, Wager suspected that saving time wasn’t the real reason for the flight. The real reason was that Mallory wanted to make the Denver office kiss his butt with a little personal service by way of apology for that news leak. So they made use of the plane and pilot that the local office leased for short trips in the region. It was what he’d told Elizabeth when he called to say that tonight was going to be another long one.

“Steamboat? Why in the world are you flying out there?”

“I’ll tell you when I get back.” Some of it anyway—as much as he could.

“Any idea what time?”

He told her no and added that he and Max had a job to do later in the evening.

Her soft laugh mixed exasperation and wonder. “Your day sounds worse than mine! Doesn’t it seem as if life’s going faster and faster in more and more directions?”

“I haven’t had time to think about it.”

Another laugh. “I suppose that’s the best way to handle it. I’ll leave the light on.”

That would be the small lamp by the sofa in the living room. Wager could see it in his mind’s eye and, sinking into the isolation caused by the roar of the straining engines, savored the warmth in the thought that Elizabeth was willing to waste electricity on him, and—more important—that she would be waiting.

He gaped to relieve the pressure on his ears and watched jagged spires of shattered, naked rock pass very, very close beneath the wing. In fact, a couple of the ice-crusted peaks seemed to rise higher than the plane, and Wager figured the pilot was crossing one of the passes between mountains. Pawnee, maybe, or Arapaho. It was hard to tell, looking down on them from this angle. The rocky cliffs writhed and dropped away, marked here and there by ledges of green tundra and small turquoise lakes tailing out from cirques and snowfields. Then the close, shattered ridges were gone, and the engines stopped straining as the plane tilted into a long, shallow glide.

Below, gorges widened into canyons and then broader valleys that were scored by the straight lines of section roads marking ranches and farms.

“You have anything yet on King’s automobile?” Mallory raised his voice over the buzzing drone of the engines.

Wager shook his head. Something might have come in this afternoon, but he wouldn’t know until he got back to the office.

Mallory turned back to the windshield. The pilot said something to a hand-held microphone, and the plane banked slightly. The level green of Middle Park started rising again into the wooded peaks of the Gore Range, and the small plane bounced in its updrafts as they passed over dark pines and golden swaths of changing aspen. Then the pilot banked more sharply and began a steeper glide. On the flanks of one mountain, the trees had been shaved away in long streaks for now-grassy ski runs. A network of roads, paved and unpaved, began to converge on a spread of ranches, mountain homes, condominiums, and finally the cluster of brick buildings that was Steamboat Springs. The pilot said something else and banked again, and a few minutes later, Wager felt the wheels jolt softly against the runway.

A tanned and smiling blond woman handed Mallory the keys to a rental car, and they headed north on a narrow two-lane road that cut across an empty expanse dotted with sagebrush and wire fences.

Neither man said much; they concentrated on reading the names and numbers on the mailbox posts as the road crested a long ridge and dipped gently into another broad valley. Ahead of them, the horizon was a line of mountains mottled with green and yellow and orange.

“Getting close,” Mallory said once. “It should be one of these up ahead.”

It was, a mailbox whose post was anchored in a plastic bucket filled with concrete. No name, just the route number and two dusty ruts across a cattle guard and winding over a ridge of blue-green sagebrush. Mallory nosed the softly sprung car carefully down the rough path.

The cabin was a good half mile in, an A-frame set at the edge of the woods whose shimmering yellow was touched here and there by the pale green of late-turning leaves. A sun-glittered car was parked in a turnaround at the cabin’s front. Mallory stopped to study it through a pair of small binoculars. He had his look and then handed the glasses to Wager. “It’s not the Toyota.”

Wager looked. It was a light car, not a dark-blue one, and it didn’t have Denver plates, either. The license plate was the cheery blue-on-white of California’s latest style.

They coasted to a halt at the edge of the turnaround and got out, both men closing the car’s doors softly. Mallory checked the cylinder of his two-inch Police Special and replaced it loosely in his shoulder holster. Wager chambered a round to load his Star PD. Before walking nearer, they looked the cabin over. Two-story, it had a small balcony tucked under the roof’s peak, probably off the main bedroom. An LP gas cylinder glinted in an open area a hundred yards from the house. An electric wire ran into the trees behind, probably to a well pump. Higher up the hill, in a clearing, a television dish pointed skyward. The only sound was the tiny whisper of aspen leaves that quivered and shook in the cool breeze.

Standing to one side of the doorframe, Mallory knocked loudly. Wager remained at a corner of the building, where he could watch the back.

Mallory knocked again and called through the open door. “Mr. Pipkin?”

A startled answer. “Yeah—just a minute!”

The sound of bare heels on the plank floor, and a man stood buttoning his flannel shirt and stuffing its tail into his jeans. “Caught me sleeping.” His dark hair was tousled, and a stubble of whiskers made shadows on his lean cheeks. He glanced at Wager, then back at Mallory, caution coming into his eyes.

Mallory showed his card and identified himself. “This is Detective Wager, Denver police.”

Pipkin didn’t offer to shake hands or open the screen door. He was around six feet, slender build, and the caution deepened into suspicion. “What’s the problem?”

“We’re looking for Libeus King. We thought you might know where he is.”

Pipkin scratched at his jaw. “You mean you thought he might be here.”

“That too, Mr. Pipkin. Mind if we come in?”

He pushed open the door and held it for Mallory and Wager. “Well, he’s not. You can look around if you like.”

Wager would like, and Pipkin’s invitation took care of any need for a warrant. He walked through the open room as he listened to their conversation.

“When did you last see King, Mr. Pipkin?”

“Not for a long time.”

“Do you have any idea where he might be?”

“No.”

“Has he contacted you in any way?”

Wager went up the spiral iron staircase to the second floor. Here, the angled walls pinched together at an overhead rafter, but plenty of light came through the glass triangles at each end of the building. A bathroom, one bedroom, with an open doorway, a sleeping loft that also served as a television room. The downstairs was a large open area marked off by furniture groupings rather than walls: kitchen and dining, living and lounging, with a stacked cabinet of stereo components, a worktable, and a bulletin board with a series of schematics tacked to it. They looked like engineering projects of some kind. A large bookshelf held loose-leaf notebooks, spiral-bound texts, and a few volumes with titles like
Stress Factors in Concrete Structures
.

“He sent me a postcard from Arizona a few weeks ago. Just to say hello.”

“He didn’t telephone you from Denver?”

Pipkin shook his head.

“Strange. Detective Wager has a record of a call to this number from King’s Denver residence.”

“You asked if Libby called me. He didn’t.”

“Who was it?”

“Why all these questions, Mr. Mallory? Libby’s not here, and you have no reason at all to harass me. I don’t know where he is. That’s it.”

Wager turned from studying the quiet, golden view out the back of the A-frame. The shimmer of leaves, the pale tree trunks, the calm blue of clear sky, all underlined the distance from the frenetic pace of Denver. But even here was no refuge. “King’s a murder suspect.”

“A what?”

“We think he killed Pauline Tillotson.”

“Pauline? Pauline’s dead?”

“Killed and her body burned in an arson.”

Pipkin groped to pull a stool from under the breakfast shelf and sit on it. “My God. Pauline.”

“Who called you from Denver?”

The man looked up at Wager, the question finally registering. “She did. Pauline.”

“What about?”

He shook his head. “Just …” His fingers scratched at his neck, rasping in the whiskers. “We just talked.”

“Were you good friends?”

“Yes. I liked her—she … she was sincere. She really wanted to make the world a better place.”

“She was good-looking too.”

Pipkin’s eyes focused on Wager. “I said I liked her. I wasn’t in love with her. We were friends. She and Libby were together anyway.”

“Did they fight a lot?”

“No.” He stared at something only he could see. “You don’t fight with Libby. You either agree with him or … or leave.”

Wager thought that was bullshit; everybody fought at one time or another. “What do you mean, ‘leave’?”

“Walk away. Leave. He’s that way: either you go along or you don’t. No argument, no questions, just yes or no.”

“What happens if you say no?”

“No hard feelings—it’s your privilege.” Pipkin tried to explain. “Libby believes everyone should act from the heart. Do what you really believe in. If someone comes up with a”—he glanced at Mallory—“proposal for a project, say, then they talk it over and think about it. Anybody who wants to join says yes. If Libby says no and somebody else wants to go ahead, they can.”

Mallory asked, “What about fundamental differences of opinion? Philosophical differences?”

The man shook his head. “No problem there—we all want the same thing: an end to environmental destruction. Any”—he shrugged—“debate—I couldn’t call it argument—would be over specific tactics.”

“That’s what you mean by a ‘project’?” asked Wager.

“Yes.”

“Suppose somebody wanted out of a project?”

He tried again to explain. “Look, somebody comes up with a project, it’s discussed thoroughly before any decision’s taken. It’s the way the Indians used to do it—tribal democracy: you talk over whether or not the idea’s worthy, how it can be done, what are the ramifications. Then everybody makes up their mind to join or not. If there aren’t enough people willing to join—however many it takes to do the project—it fails. No one is blamed for not joining, but once you say yes, you’re in; no backing out.”

“But suppose somebody had second thoughts. Suppose somebody didn’t understand fully what they were committed to and tried to back out of something?”

The man once more gazed at some other place or time.

“Pipkin—could Pauline have been killed for backing out of something?”

Wager waited; Mallory leaned forward. “She was murdered, Mr. Pipkin. Somebody killed her in a house rented by Libeus King, and he’s disappeared.”

Pipkin’s head wagged slowly from side to side, but he still said nothing.

“Make a guess, Pipkin,” said Wager. “You’re thinking something. What is it?”

Tongue licking dry lips, he grunted a few words.

“What?”

“‘No one gets hurt.’ He swore that from the very beginning. ‘No one gets hurt.’”

“That’s what King said?”

“Yes.”

“Has he changed his mind?”

Pipkin was silent.

“Did King and Tillotson fight with each other?”

“I never saw it, if they did.”

“Who besides King might have killed her?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know if he did it. I swear to God.”

Mallory pulled a wooden chair around to sit and stare up at Pipkin hunched on the stool. “It’s more than property damage now, Mr. Pipkin,” he said reasonably. “More than trespassing on federal installations. It’s murder.” He waited, but the man said nothing. “Care to tell us why you’ve apparently quit your teaching job and moved here?”

His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “I haven’t quit. I’m on sabbatical—the district has a sabbatical program. Half pay for the year.” He waved a hand at the cabin walls. “It’s cheap rent in the off-season—and peaceful.” He looked past them at the shimmer of leaves. “I like to hike around. I’ll be able to cross-country ski soon.”

“And you’ve been up here for the past week?” asked Wager.

“For the past six weeks.” Then he understood. “Do you mean did I go to Denver recently? The answer’s no.” He frowned. “When was Pauline killed? What day?”

“She was found early Monday morning.”

He thought a moment. “I was here. I can’t prove it—I live alone. The only place I drive to is Steamboat, to the grocery store. But I haven’t been to Denver at all.” He nodded toward a large poster tacked to the sloping boards of the wall; it showed a tusked elephant standing alert and tall against a background of lush trees. An inscription read
WE’RE ALL ENDANGERED SPECIES
. “I don’t believe in killing. That’s why I support Greenpeace and Earth First!—pollution’s a form of slow killing.”

And to Wager’s way of thinking, murder was a form of pollution. “Then why did Pauline Tillotson think of you as King’s ‘weapons expert’?”

Mallory winced, but Pipkin didn’t see it. His eyes widened slightly, and he hesitated. “She said that?”

“She wrote it,” lied Wager. “We found some letters that hadn’t been burned in the fire.” He wagged a thumb at the worktable. “You teach science at your school, and these are engineering drawings. Is it a ‘project’ for King?”

“It’s a—ah—problem he asked me to look over. I’m not sure if it’s a project.”

Mallory strode quickly to the table to look. “What kind of problem?”

Pipkin rubbed a knuckle along the whiskery ridge of his jaw. “Demolitions. Of a concrete structure. Reinforced concrete.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. He just asked me what if there was a reinforced concrete building—how much of what kind of explosives would it take to penetrate it.”