Up in Smoke (11 page)

The railroad depot was made of local limestone. Quaint, loads of charm. The whole damn town was quaint. How did Susan live with this? Across from the depot was a squat brick building that housed the paper. Practical, ugly. Made him feel better already. The brass plaque on the front read 1866. Inside, he asked for the library and was directed down some rickety wooden stairs to a basement storage room. The walls were dingy white and hadn't seen paint in a long time. Rolling shelves had rack after rack of microfiche, and, farther back, manila folders filled with news clippings. Beyond that was only murky dimness. He told the troll at the gate that he wanted everything they had on Governor Garrett.

In about ten minutes, the troll brought a set of microfiche cassettes. Sean sat at an old-fashioned metal desk, and scrolled through five-year-old articles. Nothing turned up that he didn't already know. Any hint of something interesting required a different microfiche cassette and requisitioning another set. After the fourth request, the troll slid over the clipboard. “Fill it out and help yourself. Holler if you need anything. I'll be in the back.” He disappeared into the gloom.

Sean didn't ask in back of where. He read articles about the fire on Pale Horse Mountain in Montana that happened twenty years ago. One headline screamed
FIRE OUT OF CONTROL
, with a picture of Wakely Fromm in a jumpsuit with two parachutes hanging around his neck.

“The blow-up was just below me,” Fromm was quoted as saying. “The only thing I heard on the radio was ‘Run!' The top of the hill was probably a hundred and seventy-five feet straight up and the fire got there in maybe thirteen seconds. Everywhere was this wall of fire, three hundred feet high.”

The forest had exploded around them, intense heat turning oak and pine and piñon into fodder for spontaneous combustion. Temperatures reached two thousand degrees that day, hot enough to fire clay and melt gold. Tools dropped by fleeing firefighters were completely incinerated. “You know it's bad,” Fromm said, “when the guys are leaving equipment.”

Fromm was one of fifty firefighters caught by the swiftness and fury of a wildfire. Tragically, three hot shots and three smoke jumpers were overrun on a spine of Pale Horse Mountain called Horse's Teeth Ridge. They all died on the steep edge of a mountain in a fire that, initially, was so small crews didn't take it seriously. They died near enough to a highway that the cars going by could be seen. They died within view of camcorders held by people in the valley filming the walls of flame.

When Fromm raced to the top of the ridge, he thought he was the only one left alive on Pale Horse. With flames at his heels, he fled in such panic that he ran into a tree and knocked himself unconscious. He didn't know how long he was out. The next thing he knew, Jack Garrett was dragging him and a tree fell on them. He remembered thinking the fire's roar was more deafening than the rage of a tornado funnel.

When Fromm came to, on the other side of the ridge, Vince Egelhoff, another smoke jumper, was screaming. Ribbons of flesh hung from his burned hands. Garrett was wrapping them with wet T-shirts. When they stumbled down to the highway, Garrett made Egelhoff lie in the shade of a county car and watered him down to lower his body temperature, trying to ward off shock.

The incident commander was yelling names at the radio.

Six did not respond.

Sean leaned back. A stray thought wandered into mind. Friday night at the farm when he'd dumped Fromm in bed, Fromm was mumbling about horse's teeth. A touch of posttraumatic stress here? Horse's Teeth Ridge on Pale Horse Mountain? It certainly had sharp teeth. It had taken the lives of six firefighters. Why wasn't Garrett using this stuff?

“Hey, Dudly! You hear they found her?”

Sean turned around to see who was yelling.

A kid, early twenties, buzz cut, jeans and sweatshirt, clattered down the stairs. “Dud?”

“Back here,” a lugubrious voice came from somewhere in the rear.

“Did you hear me? They found her. Deader than yesterday's news.” He trotted over to Sean and stuck out his hand. “Ty Baldini. A pleasure to meet you, sir.”

Sean shook his hand. “Sean Donovan.”

“Yes, sir, I know. I've been following—well, covering the Garrett campaign. Just for, you know, the
Herald.
While he's in town. I work here. Reporter for—”

A loud snort came from the murky gloom. Sean assumed it was Dudly giving his opinion.

“Let me tell you, sir, I'm really blown by meeting you. I've read all your stuff and—well, sir, it's just great—”

“Thanks,” Sean said. He could do with a little less of the sirs, they made him feel a hundred years old. Ah youth, so fleeting. “Who was found?”

“Oh that. Local news, sir. Nothing you'd be interested in.”

“I'm always interested.”

“Yeah? Well, it's the woman who called 911 and said she was in a car trunk and didn't know where the car was. The cops tried to find her, but they didn't even know where to look.”

“Who is she?” Sean was thinking Susan wouldn't be happy about this.

“Don't know yet, I'm birddogging out to see.”

“Mind if I tag along?”

“No, sir, that'd be great, sir.”

“Call me Sean,” he said as he got in Ty's Trans Am.

Ty drove most of the way across town before he turned into a small park. There were cop cars, ambulance, uniformed cops, and silent onlookers. Sean followed Ty down a gravel path to a blue Mustang with its nose bashed into a concrete circular base around a statue of Horace Greeley. Go west, young man. Seemed like good advice to him.

The trunk lid was open. A kid was snapping photographs. He didn't see Susan anywhere. Just as well. She wouldn't be happy he was here. He edged up behind Ty and looked in the trunk. A woman was curled up next to the jack, head resting on one arm as though trying to make herself comfortable. The shape of her head wasn't quite right, one side was sort of flattened. Dark hair, tangled and bloody, matted to her cheek, pale skin, bluish in the fading light. She had on jeans and a white sweater. The sweater was hiked up in the back exposing two inches of bluish skin. From the side of her face that he could see, she looked early forties.

A crime scene tech was working around the body. That meant a coroner, or somebody, had already come and declared the victim dead. Unless, of course, things were different here, which they certainly could be.

“Who was she?” he asked Ty.

“Gayle Egelhoff.”

“Egelhoff? There was an Egelhoff fighting the fire—”

“Husband,” Ty said, scribbling in his notebook.

“Baldini!”

Another kid—he must be getting old, everybody he ran into lately looked eighteen—ambled over. Lanky and thin, he looked a bit like a scarecrow, complete with straw-colored hair.

“What are you doing here, Ty?”

Ty just grinned, introduced Sean, and jerked his head at the scarecrow. “This here's Osey Pickett. He's a detective.”

Wow, Sean thought, a detective. So this was what Susan had to work with. No wonder she looked sad. Maybe her old man was right, she needed to be dragged back home by any means.

The detective who seemed all knees and elbows jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Get lost!”

“Come on, Osey, I need information for the paper.”

“Scram!”

Ty scrammed and Sean scrammed along with him. “How did you learn her name?” Sean asked.

“Kids who found the body went through the glove compartment and looked at the registration.” Ty had a short stride and Sean adjusted his to keep pace.

“How did kids find the body?”

Ty told him about the great car caper.

“Does Egelhoff know about his wife?”

“He's dead. Weird skiing accident.” Ty shook his head. “Man, that was some unlucky family. First her parents get killed.”

“Recently?”

“Naw. More'n a dozen years ago, I guess. Twister went through and touched down in just the wrong place. The three of them, Gayle's mother and father and baby sister—I don't remember where Gayle was. Off visiting a friend somewhere. Parents and baby were sheltering in the bathroom, thinking that was the safest place. Turned out no place was safe. Whole house flattened to rubble. Baby didn't have a scratch. Parents killed.”

“Sometimes life doesn't give you a fair shake. What happened to Vince?”

“Liked to go skiing with a cousin lives in Colorado. Big snow fall in September. Vince ended up bashing head first into a tree. Died like that.” Ty snapped his fingers. He offered to drop Sean back at the hotel and Sean took him up on it.

The phone was ringing as Sean came into his room. It was his old friend Jerry at the
Wall Street Journal.

“Hey, buddy, you want to know what's going to be in my column tomorrow?”

A fist pounded on his door; this was not the discreet tap of hotel employee, but the fist of authority.

“Hold on.” Sean put the receiver on the bed and opened the door. Susan and her faithful sidekick, Parkhurst.

Sean picked up the phone. “Call you right back.” He replaced the receiver and turned to Susan. “What's up?”

“Tell me about Gayle Egelhoff.”

He could tell Susan was pissed, but he didn't know why, and he didn't have the vaguest notion why she brought reinforcements in the way of the sidekick. “Gayle Egelhoff, the woman in the car trunk?”

“Yeah, that Gayle Egelhoff,” Parkhurst said.

Susan sent him a shut-up glance. “What do you know about her?”

If it had been anybody but Susan asking, Sean would have said go fuck yourself. He wanted to say that to Parkhurst anyway. “Gayle Egelhoff, married to Vince Egelhoff, former smoke jumper, who helped battle the fire on Pale Horse Mountain. Badly injured, eventually recovered, died in a skiing accident.”

“When did you meet her?”

They were all three standing in the middle of the room and Sean was beginning to feel his space being encroached on, especially by her enforcer who stood around and looked menacing. “You want to tell me what this is all about?”

“You didn't answer the question.” Parkhurst moved to the credenza with the television, looked at the keys, change, wallet and other junk from his pockets spread across the top.

Sean watched him, wanted to throw the asshole out. “What's going on, Susan?”

“Police investigation,” Parkhurst said.

“Parkhurst,” Susan warned.

“And that concerns me—how?”

“Sean,” she said.

“You just got bumped up to suspect, pal.”

“Pal?”

Parkhurst folded his arms across his chest, like he wanted to hit the dipshit in front of him who wasn't answering questions and was making sure his fists were trapped.

“Oh, for God's sake, stop the pissing contest!” Susan rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. “Parkhurst, wait in the lobby. Sean, sit down and stop behaving like an ass.”

Parkhurst clenched his teeth so tight a muscle rippled in the corner of his jaw and sent Sean a warning glance. Sean glared back. Susan sighed. Parkhurst left.

“Sean, just tell me what you know about Gayle Egelhoff and stop acting like an adolescent.”

“I'm not acting like an adolescent, I'm acting like your big brother. I want to know what his intentions are.”

“Stop it!”

“Why are you asking me about her?”

Susan slapped a plastic baggie down on the bedside table.

He glanced at it. “My business card?”

“It was found in the trunk with Gayle's body. How did it get there?”

“Susan, you can't think I put her there.”

“How did it get in the trunk?”

He sat on the foot of the bed. “I have no idea. It's a business card. You hand them out, they get tossed away, they get picked up. It's a business card.”

“Tell me about Gayle.”

“I'm starting to get really ticked here, Susan. I didn't know the woman, I don't know anything about her, I don't know how the card got in the trunk. The only thing I know is what Ty Baldini told me and the only thing he told me was her name.”

Susan let that hang in the air.

“Susan—”

“You'll have to come down to the police department.”

“For God's sake, why? You can't think I stuffed her in the trunk.”

“I need your fingerprints.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You know, unless you charge me with something, I don't have to go anywhere.”

“I have a gun. If you don't get your ass down to the police department, I will shoot you. Don't forget, I'm the law around here.”

“Ah, since you put it that way…”

16

“Police!” Demarco pounded on the door. The house, single-story wood frame, white with dark blue trim, was owned by the deceased Vincent Egelhoff, who also had owned the blue Mustang with the dead woman in the trunk. Tentative ID, Gayle Egelhoff, wife of Vincent. Grass recently trimmed, flowerbeds holding the remnants of summer flowers.

Isolating what appeared to be a door key from the bunch found on the ring in the Mustang's ignition, Demarco unlocked the door and pushed it open. “Police! Warrant to search the premises!”

He stepped inside and stood listening, letting his senses absorb whatever the house might tell him, then pulled on latex gloves, covered his shoes with paper slippers and did a quick walk-through. Living room, red brick fireplace, large window looking out at the street, hallway leading to bedrooms. Master bedroom, bed made, paperback mystery on a bedside table, lamp on, closet door closed. He opened it. Clothes hanging on a rod, shoes lined up beneath. Second bedroom, empty, guestroom. Third bedroom, kid's room, mess, like the kid jumbled everything around periodically. Blue plaid bedspread and curtains, boom box on top the bookcase, pictures of male actors Demarco didn't recognize tacked to the wall.