Kevin went quiet, looking on in horror, longing for a PAUSE button that didn’t exist.
The paramedics, not giving up, finally got the gurney into the back of the ambulance.
Kevin sank wordlessly by his uncle’s side.
“God . . .” Kevin finally choked out.
“Let’s hope so,” Walt said.
6
C
antell heard the insectlike buzzing of the two ATVs approaching the rendezvous. He’d parked the Yukon, engine running, on Deer Creek Road at the intersection with Harp Creek. Their reckless speed, along with the fact that they’d been told to keep a low profile, told Cantell all he needed to know.
Roger McGuiness and Matt Salvo drove the ATVs straight into a thicket of golden willow along the creek and disappeared. They ran out on foot a moment later, frantic and panicked.
The two piled hurriedly into the vehicle. McGuiness shouted “Go!” too loudly for the confines of the truck’s interior.
Salvo climbed into the front passenger’s seat and dragged a sleeve across his face, mopping off the sweat and dirt. “Cops!” he said.
“Sheriff ’s Office,” Roger McGuiness clarified. An Irishman of unpredictable temper, McGuiness was a hell of a wheelman. Cantell wished he were driving.
“Did we—?”
“No,” Matt Salvo cut him off, “we lost the case.” A wiry man of thirty, Salvo could bench-press two-eighty, run a 4.6 forty, and contort himself into ungodly positions. He was their spider, capable of free-climbing anything. “The shit had it handcuffed to the seat frame.”
“Resourceful,” Cantell said, keeping his disappointment in check.
A vehicle approached in the distance. Cantell slowed the Yukon.
“Get down,” he instructed. “Matt, into the far back. Roger, between the seats. Use the blankets.”
Salvo scrambled into the back.
Cantell pulled the Yukon over. He was climbing out when McGuiness spoke up.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“My part. Stay put.”
He closed the car door, rounded the back of the Yukon, unzipped his fly, and spread his legs. He urinated into the scrub.
It was a Blaine County Sheriff ’s cruiser. It pulled alongside the Yukon just as Cantell zipped up. “Help you?” Cantell called out to the young deputy, who was just rolling down his window.
“Looking for a pair of ATVs. We got a complaint.”
I’ll bet you did,
Cantell thought. He made a point of keeping his back to the deputy, not allowing him to see anything more than his profile, no face to remember.
“News to me. This is the road to the dump, right?”
“No, sir, that’s Ohio Gulch you want. To the left as you enter the highway heading north. It’s up the road, then head east.”
“East?” Cantell said. “Wouldn’t you know!”
“Be safe,” the deputy said. He rolled up his window and took off.
If trained well—and he had no reason to believe otherwise—the deputy had made note of the Yukon’s license plate. That meant Salvo would have to steal some plates or they’d have to dump the Yukon, rent another or do without.
And so the challenges began. But rather than resent them, he savored the chance to prove himself.
He climbed back behind the wheel.
“Stay down,” he ordered.
“Are you telling me you just stood out there taking a piss with your back to a cop?” Salvo called out from the back.
Cantell said nothing, angling the mirror so he could see himself.
“What now?” Salvo asked. He talked too much. “We got some kind of backup plan? We’re going to get the case, right?”
“We’ll see.”
Only Cantell knew the full plan. He returned the mirror to its center position, and drove on.
7
W
alt walked Kevin to the back of the ambulance.
“I’m going to ask you not to say anything about this,” he said, “not even to Myra.
Especially
not to Myra.”
“If she’s picking me up at the hospital, it’s going to be kind of obvious, isn’t it? I mean, what do I say?”
“You got dizzy out on the river . . . I wanted you looked at.”
“Seriously?”
“Whoever did this . . . attempted to do this . . . they don’t know the guy died. They don’t know the kind of charges they’re facing. Thieves, an organized robbery like this, they don’t give up easily. They may hang around. That’s in my favor. But Myra, God bless her, loves a good rumor.”
“Got it,” Kevin said. “I’d still rather not go to the hospital.”
“No choice in that.”
“My gear?”
“I’ll get everything together.”
“How come it’s always got to be something?” Kevin asked. “You and me, this family, one crisis after another? What’s with that?”
“It just
seems
that way.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it. When do you and me ever get ten minutes together? I saw a lot more of you when Dad was alive . . . Is that it? I remind you of him . . . or something?”
“You’re not so much like your dad,” Walt said. “We can talk about this later.”
“We can, but we never do.”
The paramedic was ready to shut the door.
“Not a word,” Walt reminded.
“I love you too,” said Kevin, climbing down.
Walt called Myra next, relieved to reach her voice mail. Kevin had fainted but appeared to be okay. He was headed to the hospital for tests. Walt would see her at the hospital or he’d drive Kevin home. Then he tried her cell, got through to her, and endured high drama for five minutes.
Fiona Kenshaw’s Subaru crested the small rise. She parked and disembarked, laden with two camera bags. Part-time fishing guide and sometimes wedding and local news photographer, she’d been on her way to Silver Creek for a pleasure fish when located by dispatch. She looked good in her forest green Silver Creek Outfitters polo, the shirt tucked into a pair of brown canvas cargo shorts belted tightly at her waist. Her right knee bore scars, either from an operation or an injury; her left ankle was bruised. A pair of gray Keens kicked up the dusty road. She peered out from under a baseball cap that read KISS MY BASS, several dry flies stuck in the brim. Along with the bags, she carried a grim expression on her face. The sight of the ambulance did that to her—he knew this about her. That, and the latex gloves Walt was wearing. She couldn’t be considered chatty. Thoughtful, maybe. And part turtle: if challenged, she retreated inside herself. He’d known her to spend whole days in the Engletons’ guest cottage that she called home, alone and content, the world shut out. He never asked about these times she spent by herself. She had enough looks and brains to be doing much more than scraping by working three jobs in Ketchum, Idaho, but that was part of the allure and mystique of the place. Ph.D.s worked as waiters, former CEOs played at being ski bums.
“Hey,” Fiona said, tucking an errant sprig of brown hair up under her cap.
“We’ve got a body on the way to Elmer’s,” Walt said. “I know that’s not your favorite, but we’ve got to shoot it. Apart from the body, I need close-ups of the scene. All the details. There are some broken toothpicks on the mat of the driver’s side of the wrecker, strapping and rigging on the wrecker’s undercarriage, some kind of gas canister attached down there near the back. And get a shot of the plastic tubing leading through the grille of the Taurus, plus interior and exterior shots, along with a shot of that black attaché case that’s locked to the passenger’s-seat frame.
“The victim’s carrying a boarding pass for a flight that just landed,” he continued, “so chances are, it came through security, which means it’s not an explosive. We’ve got some shoe and tire impressions. I marked them for you.” He pointed.
“We’re losing light fast,” she said. “I’m on it.”
Fiona Kenshaw’s ability to separate her social self from her work self was one of the qualities he most admired in her.
She worked quickly and methodically against the fading light of the setting sun. Fifteen minutes into it, she added a flash and a light stand that bounced a strobe off a silver umbrella.
“What was his name?” she asked.
“Randall Everest Malone. He was carrying a loaded handgun in a holster at the small of his back. He had two boarding passes in the billfold pocket of his sport coat. No way he flew with that weapon on him. So it was in his checked luggage—all legal—and he took care of it immediately after landing. That tells me something about him, maybe about the contents of the case, which is high-tech like nothing I’ve seen.”
As Fiona continued shooting pictures of the wrecker, Walt reviewed the contents of several evidence bags he’d kept with him. He’d collected a money clip holding one hundred seventy-seven dollars; three receipts, all labeled SUN VALLEY in pen; a Tul pen; a BlackBerry; and a roll of Tums. In a separate bag was the man’s credit-card wallet containing three cards, a California driver’s license, a medical insurance card, a vehicle insurance card, a twenty-four-hour health club membership card that, by the look of him, went unused, and six business cards.
“So who is he?” she asked.
“The business card says ‘Branson Risk, LLC.’ I’ve worked with them during the Cutter Conference. Personal security, drivers, surveillance . . .”
“Private eye?” she asked.
“They don’t call themselves that, but, yes, essentially.”
“That makes the briefcase, or what’s in it, all the more interesting.”
“Doesn’t it, though? I’d like to have a look inside before Branson Risk puts their attorneys to work.”
“Can you do that?”
“I can try.”
They moved to the Taurus. Walt used a pair of bolt cutters from the Cherokee to liberate the bag.
“Boys and their toys,” Fiona said. “Looks like something from Sharper Image.”
“More like an exhibit at the Spy Museum,” Walt said.
“You think?”
“He’s not a spook, he’s private.”
“I’m done with the front seat,” she said.
Walt unsealed the freezer bag containing the dead man’s wallet and tried each of the four credit cards in the slot beneath the handle. None worked to open it.
He rummaged through Malone’s overnight bag. There were no other cards.
Walt tried every zippered compartment, the toilet kit, the pockets of the clothes.
“Judging by the single change of clothes, he wasn’t planning on staying long,” she said.
“Longer now,” Walt said.
“Can you break it open?”
“I’m tempted to try,” he admitted, “but Malone took the time to arm himself at the airport before getting into the rental. Maybe he was expecting trouble. Given the sophistication of the case, its contents are either valuable or dangerous or both . . . possibly rigged.”
“You’re frustrated by this, I can hear it in your voice.”
“A private courier delivering something up here? It could be anything. This guy took this job very seriously. That’s worth noting.”
Fiona spent the next few minutes finishing up the photography and then caught back up with Walt. He was behind the wheel of the Cherokee, Malone’s BlackBerry in hand. He was taking notes.
“I’ll e-mail you the pictures within the hour,” she said.
“Sorry to cost you the fishing.”
“Hey, it’s a paycheck. Anything there?” she asked, indicating the BlackBerry.
“A reservation at the Sun Valley Inn. An unspecified appointment at nine.”
“Who calls his family to tell them?” she asked.
“I’ll talk to Branson, and we’ll take it from there. But it’ll likely be me.”
Fiona Kenshaw looked sad and sympathetic at the same time, looked like she wanted to say something more than what she did say. “I’ll get these to you.”
8
T
he Sun Valley resort, with its two hotels, outdoor mall, condominiums, golf course, year-round outdoor skating rink, and a two-thousand-seat amphitheater, was situated at the mouth of Trail Creek, a canyon that narrowed as it headed east toward the Copper Basin.
The mile-high air was so clean, it was almost drinkable. Window down, Walt inhaled, savoring his choice of lifestyle. A red-tailed hawk patrolled overhead—predators seldom rested. SUVs bearing bikes, kayaks, and canoes were stacked up at one of the town’s five traffic lights.
A bustling porte-cochere fronted the Sun Valley Lodge, a newly redecorated version of the grand hotel that had once hosted Marilyn Monroe, Gary Cooper, and the Kennedys. Ernest Hemingway had written part of
For Whom the Bell Tolls
in Suite 206. Walt drove across the packed five-acre parking lot and borrowed a space reserved for deliveries in front of the modest Sun Valley Post Office. He carried the carbon-fiber attaché case with him, its cut chain dangling like a dog collar. He passed a golf shop, a jewelry store, a bank, and a bookstore on his way to the slightly less prestigious but equally luxurious Sun Valley Inn.