Line of Fire (8 page)

Or the gun left visible meant that Amanda’s friend had left his gun visible. That was all. It might have been the cigar that was a cigar. “Let’s talk about the help your friend might need,” I said.

She comported her face into something that resembled a smile, revealing a dimple on her left cheek. But no twin on the right side of her face.

“Thank you,” she said.

12

M
ost people would choose a car to get to a place as far away as the town of Frederick. But I lived in Boulder. And I wasn’t most people. Unless I had to transport something bulky, I rode my bike to places like Frederick.

In Boulder, few people would give my choice a second thought. Riding bikes long distances, even ridiculously long distances, was an accepted part of the culture. In Frederick? I suspected that the town’s longtime residents would think me odd.

For a bicycling enthusiast, the ride was a mere jaunt. Twenty miles, maybe, one-way. Almost no vertical to speak of on the way out. The most moderate of climbs on the way back. I would hardly work up a sweat.

Although I was sure I’d been to Frederick before, I couldn’t recall when I might have made that trip. Or why. I had no mental images of the town that weren’t interchangeable with mental images of a half-dozen other small towns east or north of Boulder. Maybe I was confusing Frederick with Erie, or Meade, or Dacono, or with distant memories of once-small towns like Superior or Lafayette that development and progress had forced big.

When I’d pulled up a map of the eastern border of Boulder County on my laptop, I was surprised that Frederick was located east of I-25, the north-south concrete spine that runs roughly parallel to the Front Range, border to border, from Wyoming to New Mexico. I would have placed the town west of the highway.

Sam Purdy, I knew, had been to Frederick. And Justine Brown had lived there. Most crucial? Frederick was where Sam had killed her. That murder was the reason I was riding my bike to Frederick that Saturday morning.

I’ve crisscrossed the High Plains north and east of my Boulder home on my bike more times than I can remember. Going from Spanish Hills, where I lived, northeast toward Frederick meant a trip from Boulder County into adjacent Weld County while sharing long straight county roads with speeding commuters, distracted carpooling parents, impatient big-rig drivers, and whatever motley collection of agricultural vehicles and equipment might be required that particular day to allow a rancher or a farmer to move from this field to that pasture, or from this silo to that market.

The more substantial the road, the more diligent was my attempt to avoid it on my bicycle.

The City of Boulder was often renowned as a bicycle-friendly environment. I knew few experienced riders who shared that assessment. After many years pedaling Boulder’s roads, I didn’t consider Boulder to be bike friendly; on a good day it was, maybe, a little more bicycle tolerant than other places.

One of the places that the city was more tolerant than was the eastern, more rural part of Boulder County.

Another of those places was just about anywhere in rural Weld County. I knew from experience, and from a few square meters of accumulated road rash, that I would need to be watchful on my Frederick jaunt, a route that would carry me quickly from barely bicycle-tolerant territory to likely bicycle-intolerant territory.

The moment I turned toward the east I felt a blow of wind in my face. The bone-dry grasses in the adjacent fields rustled with the breeze. By the time the mammoth form of the interstate loomed in front of me, the wind was a constant in my face. I was grateful that the blow would be at my back on the ride home to Boulder.

• • •

Before I’d left the house, I spent about ten minutes online tracking down the precise location where Currie and Sam had spent her final moments alive, together. Meager press accounts of the initial investigation of her death revealed that my destination was a ranch just past Frederick off County Road 16, a street that the not-too-numerous urban dwellers of Frederick knew as First Street.

I crossed I-25 and then pedaled through Frederick. I knew what was expected of me. I slowed. I stayed right. I stopped at stop signs. I obeyed traffic lights. I yielded even when I had the right-of-way. A couple of minutes later, I turned onto the country lane that was my destination. I rode the entire length of the lane, which dead-ended at the northernmost of the three properties that used the road for access. Two of the three properties were on the west side, one at each end. The third was on the east side, a little less than halfway between the county road and the dead end.

Although I hadn’t been able to locate the address of the house in my online search, I could tell from a news photo that my target was the solitary farm on the east side. The photo taken from the lane on that clear day showed no mountain backdrop. In rural Frederick, on a clear day, no mountain backdrop on a north-south road meant that the camera lens had been pointed east.

I rode back slowly along the length of the lane, eyeing a barn and corrals, which said ranch. But the adjacent land was cultivated, which said farm. I thought the field was planted with a late crop of alfalfa, but I wasn’t confident. At the Boulder Farmers’ Market, I could discern Italian parsley from cilantro, or pea shoots from garlic scapes, at twenty paces. I didn’t like what it said about me that I couldn’t identify acres of my neighbors’ crops.

I stopped to focus on the cluster of buildings—homes, and barns, and outbuildings—that marked the heart of the property.

“You looking for the rental?”

I spun on my saddle to see who had spoken. The speaker was a young woman in her midtwenties. From her outfit—linen pencil skirt, tailored blouse, fashionable flats—I was guessing maybe a real estate person, but not a local.

I opened my mouth to say I wasn’t looking for the rental, but beside her I caught sight of a clean, crisp
FOR RENT
sign nailed to a fence post.

The woman said, “You’re quick. I only got it up on Craigslist last night.”

She stuck out a hand. “I’m Isabel Kane. Izza.” In flats she was only a few inches short of my six-two.

She’d spoken with the wind at her back. I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly. “Izza?”

“I-z-z-a,” she said, as though she’d spelled it too many times in her life. “Isabel was my mother’s idea, but my daddy thought it was too formal.”

I shook her hand. “Alan,” I said. As I omitted my last name from the introduction, I realized I was setting the table for the possibility that I was about to tell Izza Kane a lie, or two, or three. A lie, or lies, that would prove vulnerable to a Google search if the searcher had knowledge of my last name.

Izza said, “Did you see the sign at the corner? It’s not very big. I tacked it up this morning, then drove all the way to Greeley before I realized I left my cell phone here.” She made an exasperated noise. “But now I’m here to show you around. Life is funny, isn’t it?”

Izza had intriguing eyes and wavy, barely red hair that the wind was blowing away from her face. Her skin was flawless. Her body was athletic, but she was a step or two shy of toned. I had an impression that she fought her weight—a battle she was currently winning. I also suspected that months went by when the pencil skirt and her favorite jeans never made it out of Izza’s closet.

“Do you always ride your bike when you’re out looking for places to live?” She smiled. Two of her lower teeth were crooked.

“I like to ride,” I said. “And I like to ride in the country. I wasn’t thinking I wanted to live this far north, but I thought I’d see what the area is like. Now that I see how close it is to the highway, it doesn’t feel that far north. I do like the open space. I could get to Denver fast, be back home after a short commute.”

“I’m an honest person,” Izza said. “If the wind wasn’t blowing from the east like it is, right here where we’re standing we would be hearing the big rigs on 25. Inside? No. Windows are double-glazed. But when the wind isn’t upslope? The truck noise is real. A Denver commute? Stay away from rush hour. The other side of 120th is a pain in the butt.”

“I could live with all that, I think. And I like being around horses.”

I had leapt from misleading Izza to lying to her. I don’t actually dislike horses, but my feelings about them are closer to neutral than to general affection. The lie had been unnecessary, and the moment it escaped my lips, I recognized the door I had kicked open.

“We used to keep a lot, but we’re down to a few. Do you ride?” Izza asked.

That
door. “Used to, a little. Had an incident. Maybe someday I’ll get back on.”

Izza crinkled her nose. “I’m the same about bikes. Sorry,” she said. She grabbed her hair to keep it from blowing into her face. “You want to get out of the wind, see the place? It’s nice. Everybody likes it. It’s always just a question of money. It’s nicer than other places out here, but people feel they shouldn’t have to pay for nice.”

“Is it ever a question of whether people want to live in . . . Frederick?” I said. “Sorry.”

She laughed. “Don’t apologize. I grew up here. I moved away.”

I stepped off the bike and rolled it beside me as we walked onto the property, past a big midcentury single-story house and around a large barn of a much older vintage. On the other side of the barn was a small house. Unremarkable. Shingle roof. Siding. Concrete walk. No garage. I hadn’t even noticed it on my ride.

“My grandma lived here. Daddy built the bungalow for her when I was a little girl. I was maybe five or so. I used to get in trouble playing in the construction before it was done. Grandma Bridget died the day George Bush, the second one, was reelected.” She made a face I could not interpret. “So there you go,” she said.

I wondered if Izza meant that Grandma had died with a smile on her face, content with the results of our democratic process, or that she had expired with grave disappointment at the electoral judgment of her fellow citizens. I didn’t ask for clarification. It didn’t take much intuition to surmise that politics in Frederick and politics in Boulder involved making selections from two entirely different food groups.

I said, “I’m sorry. Were you close?”

“She raised me. With my dad. My mama left when I was little. A toddler. She’s in Florida.”

I said, “That must have been hard. To have your mom leave that young.”

“Barely even remember. It was always just me and Daddy and Grandma. But you can’t want to hear about me and my family stories.” She waved an arm out in front of her. “We pay electric, but you buy your own propane. No a/c, but you can see there’s a swamp cooler on the roof. It does a fine job most days. We keep it working, don’t worry. There’s always a day or two each summer where evaporative cooling’s not enough, but . . . Anyway, six-month lease. I’ll negotiate a deposit. But I need two good references, and I’m going to run a credit check. All that’s nonnegotiable. Pets?”

She made a face that suggested that she was hoping I didn’t have pets.

I asked, “Is that a deal killer?” I was looking for an out.

She rocked her head from side to side. “It’s been a problem. When we had more horses. Probably depends on the pet. If it works, it works. Is it just you? Do you have a roommate? Or a . . . significant other?”

“It’s just me,” I said. Another lie. I told it cognizant that my cropped riding gloves concealed my wedding ring. I was wishing I had actually seen that Craigslist ad.

“You never answered my pet question,” Izza said.

“I was kind of thinking about getting a dog. Not right away, but . . . soon. Living out here, it’d be nice.”

“Ah,” Izza said. Her cell phone rang. “Puppies and horses aren’t always a great mix.” She stepped a few feet away from me before she answered her call. The gusty breezes were coalescing into a steady wind; she used her free hand to corral her hair. I could tell from the bits of conversation I could hear that she was making arrangements to show the cottage again that evening.

“Some competition,” she said to me, wiggling her phone as she stepped back toward the door. “You may have to act fast. Shall we go inside?”

13

W
hile Izza was on the phone I had been trying to imagine how Sam had chosen to approach the cottage the night that Currie had died.

I couldn’t see Sam driving onto the property in clear view of the ranch’s main house, knowing what he was about to do. Nor could I see him parking his Cherokee on the lane in front of the ranch and then sauntering in the open toward Currie’s home. Not with suicide and homicide on his mind.

The cottage backed up to the edge of the huge cultivated field, separated from the crops only by a narrow dirt road that provided farming equipment access to the fields. If Sam had chosen an inconspicuous location to park out on the county road near town, he could have walked the third of a mile or so to the dirt access road, which would have taken him directly behind Currie’s cottage.

I decided that’s what he did. With the big barn providing a visual barrier blocking the cottage from the main house, Sam had approached Currie’s place on the field access road, without ever becoming visible to anyone in the ranch’s main home.

He had probably exited that same way once his ex-girlfriend was dead.

• • •

I followed Izza inside, eager to visualize what had happened between Sam and Currie in between Sam’s arrival at this house and his departure a while later.

“Partially furnished, as you know,” Izza said.

I didn’t know. I forced my attention back to the moment. “You never know what that means,” I said. “Sometimes ‘partially furnished’ means a beat-up old couch and maybe a wobbly table in the kitchen.”

Izza stopped two steps inside the door. I stopped beside her.

“With us, it means no bed, but almost everything else. I don’t like used mattresses. It’s just not sanitary.” Izza exhaled in a way that accentuated the discomfort she felt about the old-bed issue. “If you don’t have your own bed, you’re going to have to get one. There’re ads in the Sunday papers almost every week. Decent deals. They all deliver. Couple hundred bucks for a full. More if you want a queen. Bedroom really can’t handle a king. If you’re that type. The king type.”

I was tempted to ask what type that was, but I didn’t.

The front door opened into an L-shaped combination living room and dining room. A slice of the kitchen was visible on the far side of the room.

Currie died in this room.

“Oak floors, like the ad says. Good windows, like I said already. The fireplace works, but it’s not very efficient. Keep that flue closed or you’ll have trouble staying warm on cold nights. There’s some firewood out back, been there a couple of years. Elm, I think. Maybe some ash. Nice and dry. You’d be welcome to it.

“We replaced the dishwasher about—oh, I don’t know—six months back. Not top-of-the-line, but not a cheapo, either. Do you cook?”

I was distracted. My attention was focused on the circuitous route that Izza chose as she walked from the front door toward the kitchen. She bypassed what would have been the most direct path from where we were to where she was headed.

“I do cook,” I said. “It’s kind of a hobby.”

Currie died right there,
I thought
. In the area between the dining room table and the sofa and chairs in the living room. The part of the room that Izza circumnavigated.
I wondered where Currie had been standing. Where Sam was. What direction the barrel of the gun had been pointing. Which way the blood had splattered.

I corrected myself:
spattered.
Other liquids splatter. Blood spatters.
Thank you,
Dexter
.

• • •

I replayed the first conversation that Sam and I ever had about Currie’s death. I’d been in a derelict phone booth in an even more derelict filling station in the hills above Los Alamos, New Mexico. Sam had been at a pay phone in Boulder. Somewhere near Ideal Market, or maybe across Alpine near the Boulder Wine Merchant.

Sam had mentioned whiskey and pills on the table. I looked at the dining table. The table was solid and simple—dark stained oak that showed the wear of fifty years of dining. I imagined an amber pill container and a bottle of bourbon. A solitary glass. In my imagination I made it a highball glass, with etched vertical flutes.

Had Sam said Jack Daniel’s? I thought he had.

I clarified the image. I made the whiskey a square bottle of black-labeled Jack. I screwed the lid off the bottle and set it on the dark wood.

I poured a double shot into the highball glass. I doubled the double.

• • •

“You coming?” Izza said. “Hello.”

“I am. Sorry—I was imagining what it would be like. You ever do that?”

Izza shivered, her arms covered in gooseflesh. “Yes. Sometimes,” she said.

My question had rocketed her someplace she didn’t want to go.

I took the same wide route around the center of the room that she did. She was rubbing her arms. “Nice,” I said. I stood beside her in the kitchen doorway. It was a good-sized room with plenty of counter space. A big farm sink. That new dishwasher.

“Grandma was a baker,” she said. “It was built like this for her. She didn’t care about much else in the house, but she cared about this kitchen.” She smiled. “And she wanted a deep bathtub. She took long soaks. That’s what she called them.”

The kitchen had its own table and chairs. The table was a linoleum-topped model with three chrome diner-style chairs with vinyl cushions. I could almost feel that vinyl sticking to my bare skin on hot summer nights.

• • •

During that phone conversation from New Mexico to Boulder, Sam had said that the whiskey and the pills had been on the
kitchen
table. He hadn’t meant the oak table in the other room. I rearranged my imaginings.

The black Jack and the drugs reappeared in front of me as though I’d Photoshopped them into the frame. In real life, I didn’t know how to Photoshop. In my imagination, I was a wizard.

Did Sam and Currie sit here for a while, in the kitchen? Did they talk, discuss her options? The mess she was in? Did they share some of the bourbon?

I decided they didn’t drink together. Given the threat she represented, Sam wouldn’t have been comfortable with that.

I didn’t mentally Photoshop a second highball glass into the picture.

I wondered if Currie believed that she could somehow thwart Sam’s plans. Was she seducing, or dissuading, or plotting her big escape while they sat at this table and talked? Perhaps she had a counterattack in mind? A quick move for a kitchen knife?

Or was Currie accepting her defeat, feeling the mantle of martyrdom, or the weight of her approaching death, as she sat with Sam? Was this where she admitted that she indeed planned to kill our children?

I tried to feel some compassion for her. It gave me pause that I was unable.

• • •

I realized time had passed. Too long an interlude for a potential renter who should have been doing nothing more than taking a quick look at a cottage kitchen. I tried to recover. I said, “Just seeing myself here some morning. Having coffee. Maybe some pancakes. A nice breeze from that window. In winter, I could see the sun rise.”

“You’re up early,” Izza said.

I smiled. “Sometimes.”

“Me too,” she said. “I like the quiet. The bedroom? Shall we?”

She blushed at her own words before she rushed ahead of me out of the kitchen.

“Onward,” I said. I was apparently tamping down any incipient discomfort by adopting the absurd pretense that I was a Christian soldier.