Killer Weekend (5 page)

   "It will be our pleasure to make your stay as enjoyable and comfortable as possible. I'll pass the word."

   Nagler's bag arrived. The bellman placed it on a stand and offered to unpack it. Nagler declined.

   As the bellman retreated toward the door, Nagler stopped him, saying, "There's a movie theater, isn't there?"

   "The Opera House. Yes."

   "Does it run a matinee, by any chance?"

   "
Sun Valley Serenade
shows every day at five."

   "Sonja Henie and John Payne with Glenn Miller. Excellent."

   "Can I escort you over?"

   "Yes, please."

   "Around four forty-five?"

   "That would be perfect."

   "See you then. The name is Karl, sir."

   "Thank you, Karl, for everything."

   "My pleasure, sir. I'll see you later this afternoon." The door clicked shut. Nagler was alone. He locked the door and threw the security lock; he then felt his way into the bathroom, closed the door, and locked this as well. He located the sink, closed the drain, and washed and dried his hands. He removed the mirrored sunglasses and, with his left index finger, held his eyebrow firm as he pulled down his lower lid with the other hand, exposing his eye—a bloodshot, yellowish orb. Then he pinched the surface of his eyeball and removed the contact lens.

And he could see again.

D
anny Cutter made two mistakes: The first was to look it in the eye; the second was to turn and run from it. 

          He'd been struggling at the time to catch up. He'd hooked into a snag off the western bank of the narrow Big Wood River. At first he'd thought it was a submerged branch, because he'd felt a little give as he tugged on the fly rod; but then, with no more give left in it, he was thinking rock: that the Adam's fly, intended to float, had nonetheless dipped below the surface and was currently tangled in some green moss adhered to a rock. Far in the recesses of his angler's mind lurked the distant possibility that he was actually onto a fish—a lunker—and that it had "sat down" and was awaiting his next move; so he moved toward it. But a moment later, he was certain he'd snagged.

   He wanted to catch up with Fiona, the guide, and Liz Shaler, now about thirty yards downstream, for two very different reasons. Liz was an important friend; Fiona was hot. Never mind that a pair of Secret Service agents, one on each side of the river, crept through the thick underbrush and shadowed the attorney general as best as possible. Never mind the ease with which they'd eavesdrop on any conversation, given the amazing quiet of the river. He could work around that.

   Fiona had led them across a private bridge to a secluded estate hidden deep within the Starweather subdivision. They were mid-valley, about five miles north of Hailey.

   The river turned slightly east about a half mile down. The water was knee deep and moving swiftly, the bottom rocky, uneven, and slippery. It was framed within walls of towering cottonwood trees on either side, broken by stands of aspen, tangles of chokecherry, and the colorful shock of golden willow.

   Slowly, the group in front of him moved in unison downriver. He stepped carefully toward his snagged fly.

   Reaching it, he slipped his hand underwater and followed the taut line. He pricked his finger on the sharp hook and happened to glance up.

A cougar. Less than ten yards away.

   For an instant he was stunned—awed—by the sight. Then something more primordial kicked in as he realized he was
too
close.

   The cat was poised, ready to pounce. To strike.

   This wasn't a Discovery Channel moment: She was hunting, and he was
meat
.

   He turned and ran, splashing forward, slipping on the mossy stones, sucking the waders heavily out of the water.

   Down the river, the sound drew the attention of the others, who turned hopefully, expecting to see Danny Cutter in control of some massive trout. Instead they saw him stumbling frantically across the river, aimed slightly downriver to allow the current to help his movement. His running was awkward and urgent.

   "Bees," Fiona Kenshaw said. "He got into—" But she cut herself off as the cougar burst offshore into the river as if running on the surface, her paws weightless, her flight graceful and undisturbed.

   "Good God!"

   Danny heard the charge behind him. It sounded like a bull elephant.

   In desperation, he glanced over his shoulder, turning slightly upstream. With this motion, his rod moved like a whip. With the cougar one pounce away from striking, the graphite tip of the nine-foot rod sharply struck the cat on the nose.

   The animal dropped its head and went head over heels—a half flip that threw a shower of water at Danny and knocked him down into the river.

   The cougar took off in the opposite direction without an ounce of lost momentum. It hit the shore in full stride, blurred into the tawny grasses, and vanished, living up to its nickname:
ghost of the Rockies.

   Cutter lost his rod as his waders filled. Fishermen drowned in less water, unable to regain balance, victimized by the panic and the weight of water-filled waders. Danny aimed his feet and legs downstream. He used the current to help him stand. Chilled to shivering, he staggered toward the river's edge and collapsed onto terra firma, winded and dazed.

   Somehow—miraculously—he'd escaped a cougar attack. He was alive. Unhurt. He took it as an omen, an arbitrary warning of the preciousness of life. And he swore to God it would not go unheeded.

W
alt's office door swung open, followed by a strong wind that turned out to be his sister-in-law, Myra. She, of the nervous constitution and skeletal frame.

   Her voice could crack glass. "What if you showed Kevin one of those horrible shots of a car all smashed up by a drunken teenager? Maybe that would shock him into thinking straight. Maybe he'd forget about those canyon parties. Or maybe you could lock him up for an afternoon, you know, right here in your jail, and show him what that's like if you're busted for drugs. He's your nephew after all."

   "I'll take care of it, Myra, I'll speak to him," Walt said without turning from his computer. "You can go now."

   "Am I interrupting?"

   He knew that voice. He angled to see Fiona just behind Myra, who blocked the door. Fiona wore the small tight T-shirt and hiking shorts he'd seen her in earlier, though her hair looked worse for wear and her face was shiny with sunscreen.

   "I called you," Walt reminded. "How could you be interrupting? Myra? Anything else? Good. Then get out of the doorway and let her in."

   Myra was none too subtle about looking Fiona up and down and then glancing back to Walt judgmentally.

   "Myra!" Walt chastised.

   But Myra couldn't help herself. "I like what you've done with the uniforms," she told him. Then she added, "You'd better call Kevin."

   "Out!"

   She huffed off.

   Fiona entered, slack-jawed.

   "My brother's widow," Walt explained, "has installed me as a surrogate father—sometimes an awkward fit."

   "I had a stepmother I hated," she said, sliding into a captain's chair that faced his desk in the impossibly small office. She kept her legs extended. Long legs, made longer by the shorts, but cut off by the desk, which was something Walt regretted.

   "Thanks for saving me," he said.

   "Anytime."

   "I called because—"

   "You need help with some photos. You explained over the phone."

   "It's been a long day."

   "Danny Cutter was nearly killed by a cougar."

   "You want to run that by me again?"

   She explained her witnessing the attack from thirty yards downriver.

   "We packed up and came back early, and Danny headed off to lunch with his brother. Men. You can't really just pick back up like that, can you? Let me tell you something; if that had happened to me, the first thing I'd have done is spend half the day on the phone telling anyone who'd listen. Then I'd have a long hot bath, or two. And then a bottle of wine. Or two. Business as usual? Forget it!"

   "That's two attacks in ten days. The yellow Lab . . ."

   "I shot the photos, remember? That was disgusting. You ought to do something about it."

   "The cougar? Not my department. Fish and Game. But you're right: They should certainly hear about the attack on Danny."

   "What do you think of him?"

   "Danny? He's okay."

   "Not professionally. I know you busted him. I mean as a person."

   "Don't really know him. Kind of difficult to separate the two."

   "But first impressions?" she asked.

   "He asked you out," Walt stated.

   "Yeah. Is that bad?"

   Walt knew Danny Cutter as a womanizing playboy who'd had a two-thousand-dollar-a-week cocaine habit prior to the bust. He thought the cocaine part had gone away. He wasn't sure the other part ever changed. He liked the man in spite of his criminal record.

   "We got some crime-scene photos from Salt Lake," he told her. "Pretty gruesome stuff. But they're lousy photos. I'd like to enlarge some, crop and zoom some others. Above my skill set."

   She looked out the top of her eyes at him and said disdainfully, "I see."

   "I need them pretty quickly."

   "It's a date, is all."

   "A guy named Capshaw—TSA down in Salt Lake—thought it important enough to send these. I have a five o'clock with everyone who's anyone connected to C
³
security. But as I said, the photos are pretty heavy. If you'd rather not do them, maybe you could give me a five-minute course in Photoshop for Dummies."

   "I'll do them myself." She sounded angry. "Just tell me what you want."

   The surprise in the photos, especially under enlargement, was the degree of the horrors. The victim's fingers had been cut off with precision. Teeth had been pulled, shown in the photos with a latex-gloved thumb holding the dead man's upper lip up over the gap. But worst of all: The face was disfigured and both eyes had been carved out of the sockets. Fiona battled her way through the work.

   "None of my business," she said, "but why do you even want these? You realize they're far more disgusting as close-ups, right? But evidence is evidence. You can see everything in the originals, so I don't get it."

   "Can you load them into PowerPoint and burn a disk for me?"

   "Of course I can. But it won't make them any easier to take."

   "What is it they say about first impressions?" Walt asked rhetorically.

   "You're a diseased individual," she said.

   "But you'd watch it?" he tested.

   "Of course I would. But I'm sick that way. Like you."

   "This goes no further than this office." He paused to make sure he had her attention. "There's been a credible threat on Liz Shaler's life." He watched as the shock registered. "At first I wondered if this killing in Salt Lake might be related. Happened this morning—less than eight hours ago. But once I saw these, once I went through what you just went through, it was no longer
if, b
ut
how.
"

   "Jesus. This guy's
here
?"

   He lowered his voice. "Now I need to get several others to make that same jump."

C
 ristina's lunch crowd had thinned out an hour earlier, leaving only a few tables occupied on the restaurant's back deck at 3:30.

       The wait staff, dressed in all black, hurried about servicing the remaining tables.

   "A cougar? Are you sure?" Patrick Cutter wore a pink golf shirt with the C
³
logo embroidered on the breast. He focused intently across the table at his brother.

   "Of course I'm sure. Give me a break!"

   "Did you tell anyone?" Patrick asked.

   "I got out of the shower about ten minutes ago. Besides, in case you've missed the news: I'm not overly eager to spend time with Walt Fleming."

   "Walt could have been a
lot
harder on you."

   "Yeah, yeah."

   "What about Liz? She's all right?"

   Danny set down his fork, eyed his brother with disbelief. "I almost get mauled by a cougar, and all you can think about is your keynote speaker?"

   Patrick pursed his lips.

   "Fear not, Paddy: She's all yours. She's going to give her talk, an

nounce her candidacy, and your precious conference will go down in history. Congratulations."

   Patrick shook his head but not a hair moved.

   "That is what it's all about, right?" Danny asked. "How many millions of your own money do you spend on this thing? And for what? A little respect? You're the Rodney Dangerfield of Wall Street, Paddy. The sad thing is, nobody has the balls to tell you."

   "If it was all about my vanity, would Bill Gates attend? Warren Buffett? Ian Cumming? The conference serves its purpose or I wouldn't do it."

   "That money could be put to better use."

   "Says the man who can't hold on to a dime. You're hardly one to talk. You're off fishing and chasing tail when you're still ten short on your angel round."

   "It irks you, doesn't it? My turning you down?" Danny asked, his tone softened.

   "The offer still stands," Patrick said.

   "And it's an incredibly generous one, but one I can't accept."

   "It just seems to me—"

   "Don't start! Please." Danny placed his napkin on the table and pushed his plate away, growing more serious.

   "Keeping it in the family—"