The Perfect Suspect (24 page)

Nick gave Catherine a sideways glance. She could read the expression in his eyes: Detective Beckman was a pro. Of course she hadn't left any trace of herself.

Finally the officers grouped together in the living room, the detective warning Catherine to keep her doors locked, call immediately if anything unusual happened. They said they'd keep her posted, then filed out the front door. The pounding of their boots across the porch sent little tremors through the floor. Nick locked the door, then disappeared into the kitchen. She heard the sounds of a broom swooshing across the tile, the gritty tinkling of glass, followed by the sharp thwacks of a hammer.

“Thank you,” she said when he dropped down beside her again.

He shrugged, and she felt the weight of his arm slipping around her shoulders. “Serve and protect is our motto. You now have kitchen counters and floor with no glass and a cardboard window. I suggest you get a real window as soon as possible.” He went quiet a moment, and she knew he had slipped back into the detective mode. “Jeremy Whitman was shot with a .38,” he said. “We'll have to wait to see if it was the same gun. Strange that Beckman didn't get rid of it after last night.”

“She was planning to use it again.” How many times, Catherine wondered, would Detective Beckman use the gun before she got rid of it? And she would get rid of it. She would not leave any trace.

“You said Whitman had seen Mathews and Beckman together in Aspen,” Nick said. “Anywhere else they might have gone together?”

Catherine shifted sideways and stared into his face. “What are you suggesting?”

“That we take a drive to Aspen tomorrow and show some photos around. Stop at other mountain towns they might have been seen in. Can you get a list of mountain towns Mathews went to this summer?”

Catherine nodded. She got to her feet, went into the bedroom and pulled her cell out of her bag. She punched in the number for the campaign headquarters and left a message for Cannon to get back to her ASAP. “It's important,” she said.

Then she called the
Journal
and left a message on Jason's voice mail. Someone had fired a gun at her house. She was inside the house and was unhurt. Police are investigating. He would get the police report anyway, but now he would have her statement. Then she switched to Marjorie's voice mail and left a message that she would be out tomorrow working on her part of the Mathews homicide story.

She walked back into the living room and was about to ask him if he would stay the night when he said: “Want me to stay?”

They started at dawn and drove west on 1-70, past warehouses and shopping malls and long stretches of industrial buildings etched in the first sunlight, until at last the city fell away and they were in the mountains, winding around the pine-studded slopes, the vast, blue sky overhead. Nick was behind the wheel, steady intensity about the way he guided the sedan with the fingers of one hand. The air conditioning emitted a stream of cool air, but Catherine had rolled down her window a little. She took in a deep breath of the cool pine-scented air. Occasional gusts of wind set the pines and bushes jiggling outside the window. She was glad to get out of the city, as if the mountains rising all around and far vistas could obliterate for a short time the images of Jeremy Whitman lying dead in an alley and Sydney Mathews charged in a murder she didn't commit. And last night—Ryan Beckman waiting in the garage, aiming a gun at her kitchen window, wanting her dead! She pushed the thought away.

“Try not to dwell on it.” Nick gave her a sideways glance, and she mustered a smile. He must have been reading her mind. “We'll check the hotel in Glenwood Springs first,” he went on, shifting the topic to the e-mail Cannon had sent. Twenty minutes after she had left the message last night, Cannon had called back and she had asked him for a list of places in the mountains where Mathews had stayed this summer.

“You haven't heard the news?” Cannon had said. “Sydney's been arrested. I have to say it wasn't a surprise.”

“Why is that?” she'd asked.

“Come on, Catherine. You're the one who asked me about the rumors. Sydney heard the rumors, too.”

“You're saying she believed them and killed her husband?”

“The way I see it, she confronted him and they got into one of their big arguments. Look, David was a helluva guy. He had it all, money, power, charm coming out of his ears. Everybody loved him, and that includes every woman he met. Don't try to tell me you were immune because I wouldn't believe it. Sure he and Sydney had some, shall we say, heated discussions over the women around David. I told you how Sydney went ballistic once at campaign headquarters. I guess I always feared one of their discussions could escalate into something horrible. Looks like that's what happened. So what's your piece of this?”

“I'm working on the side story,” Catherine said.

“You gonna smear David's reputation?”

“That's not my intention. Can you get me a list right away?”

A loud noise, half cough and half sigh, had burst from the other end. “I wish you and the cops would get on the same page,” he said. “They didn't want any lists. What do you know they don't know?”

“Trust me, Cannon. The cops and I want the same thing.”

Now she glanced at Nick, staring at the highway, shoulder muscles knotted beneath the blue cotton shirt. She had told Cannon that she and the cops both wanted Mathews's killer brought to justice. Thirty minutes later Cannon had called back and told her to check her e-mail.

Aspen was not on the official list. As far as the campaign knew, candidate Mathews had never stayed in Aspen. No one would have known if Jeremy Whitman hadn't wandered into the bar at the Hotel Jerome.

There were three places where Mathews stayed while campaigning along the I-70 corridor in the mountains, but he covered a lot of territory from each place. From Grand Junction, he traveled the Western Slope, no doubt giving the same speeches to the rotary clubs and chambers of commerce and teachers unions that Catherine had heard him deliver in Denver. Breckenridge put him in the center of Summit County, not too far from the population up and down the Vail valley.

They had agreed to eliminate Grand Junction, farther to the west, on the border with Utah. Catherine knew Nick wanted to be back in Denver by tonight. They would start in Glenwood Springs, then drive over to Aspen and hit Breckenridge on the way home. Westbound traffic was thin, and they made good time, plunging deeper and deeper into the mountains. On the high peaks, the aspen trees had started to turn gold, and a golden blaze spread like bonfires over the slopes. The small towns of Idaho Springs and Georgetown and Silver Plume slipped past. Just outside Georgetown, Catherine pointed out the Georgetown Loop, the high railroad trestle that floated above the valley, like a ghost from another time. A small narrow gauge train was huffing over the trestle, spilling black smoke into the air.

They plunged into the Eisenhower Tunnel and emerged near the top of Ptarmigan Peak. Nick took his foot off the gas as they drove down the steep grade. In Dillon, they picked up a cup of coffee at a drive-through, then kept going, reflections of the pine forests shimmering on the surface of Lake Dillon.

The jazz on the CD, volume low, riffed through the swoosh of air over the window. Nick talked about going fishing in the mountain streams with his father when he was a kid, camping in a tent and cooking hamburgers on a cookstove. The world a simpler place then, he said. He'd asked what she had done as a kid, and she'd gone on about swimming lessons and piano lessons and Girl Scouts. She watched the mountainsides flying past and talked about the white couple who had adopted and loved a five-year-old girl, part Indian—no one was certain which tribe she might have belonged to. It was only last year she had learned she was part Arapaho. Until then she had felt like an apple tree in a pine forest, always trying to be like the pine trees. She laughed at the idea.

Nick gave her a half-second look. “It's nice to hear you laugh,” he said.

She wasn't sure why she was going on like this, what it was about this man that made her want to tell him about herself. She took a moment before she said, “What good do you think this will do?”

“We might get lucky and find someone who can connect Mathews and Beckman. You can put another message to the caller in your blog and we can hope she'll get back in contact. In the meantime, I might be able to talk Internal Affairs into reopening the investigation.”

“A lot of mights and hopes,” Catherine said.

“It's our only shot,” she remembered Nick saying. She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew, they were in Glenwood Canyon, the spectacular rock-carved slopes jutting above them and the highway suspended over the deep canyon as if it had dropped from space. Beyond the edge of the highway, the white waters of the Colorado River crashed over the boulders. Another thirty minutes and they strolled into the lobby of the Hotel Colorado.

23

The man behind the check-in desk looked like he was in his thirties—sharp nose, blond mustache and shaved head that glowed a sunburn pink under the fluorescent lights. Except for two teenage girls in bikinis trailing bath towels behind them, flip-flops smacking the wood floor, the hotel lobby was empty. Sounds from the gigantic hot water swimming pool outside drifted through the opened doors. The air felt warm and moist.

“Reservations?” The man looked up. He wore a white tee shirt with “Hotel Colorado” emblazoned on the pocket and a small, gold-toned pin that said “Eric.” The knotted muscles in his tanned arms bulged below the sleeves.

Nick had pulled open the wallet with his badge and held it up, and in that instant, Catherine saw the man blanch and rock back on his heels. “We're looking for information,” Nick said.

Eric shot a furtive glance toward the closed door on the right. “Manager's tied up right now,” he said, a nervous, desperate look invading his eyes. He blinked a number of times. “Maybe I can help you.” It was obvious he didn't want the police detective talking to the manager.

“I want to confirm the dates David Mathews stayed here,” Nick said. He had slipped the wallet back inside his pocket and pulled out a small notepad, which he flipped open. He recited the dates that Cannon had e-mailed this morning. A two-night stay in late June, another two nights in July, four nights in August. Catherine wasn't sure where the pen he was holding had come from.

“Mathews! He's the guy that got murdered, isn't he? I was thinking about voting for him.” Eric dipped his head over the counter. “Look, I'd like to help you but . . .” He bit on his lower lip a moment. “I can't comment on guests. Privacy issues, you understand.”

“I can talk to the manager,” Nick said, starting along the counter toward the side door.

“Wait!” Eric looked as if he'd had to stop himself from grabbing Nick's shirt to pull him back. He tossed another furtive look toward the closed door and started tapping at the keyboard in front of a small screen. “June dates, confirmed,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. He continued tapping. “David Mathews here on the July dates. August dates as well.” He looked up, relief draining from his face. “That's all I can tell you.”

Nick produced the three photographs he had brought from headquarters and set them on the counter. Sydney Mathews, Ryan Beckman and the photo of a blond woman from the police photo lineup. The woman resembled Beckman. “Recognize any of these women?” he said.

“Oh, man,” Eric said. “I need this job. The manager finds out . . .”

“This is a police investigation,” Nick said. “I can arrange to have the Glenwood Springs police bring you in, and we can continue our chat.”

“Jesus!” Eric blew out a gust of breath. He fingered the photos closer and bent over them. “Isn't that Mathews's wife? I saw her picture on TV this morning. She's the one that shot the poor bastard.”

“What about the others?”

“Never seen 'em.” Eric slipped the photos together and shoved them back. The moment Nick put them in his shirt pocket, Eric broke into a grin. “Hey, I'd remember two babes like that. They never came around this summer or I would've known. I'm here almost twenty-four seven. Management lets me stay in one of the cabins out back. It's a good gig'til skiing season gets going.”

The sedan's air conditioning was going full blast in the parking lot. Catherine said, “Let's suppose David Mathews was cautious enough not to allow his girlfriend to show her face at any of the official stops on the campaign.”

Nick backed out of the slot, then looked over and smiled at her before he drove onto the street. “We still have Aspen,” he said.