Chill Factor (19 page)

Although he never discussed his days of service in the Middle
East,
the story was that Begley had talked himself and three other men out of
being executed for conducting intelligence operations against Saddam
Hussein's regime. Although that was exactly what they were doing,
Begley convinced their captors that they had the wrong guys, that it
was a case of mistaken identity, and that there would be hell to pay if
they were harmed, mistreated in any way, or murdered.

Five days after their capture, the quartet of dusty, thirsty
men
walked into the lobby of the Hilton Hotel in downtown Baghdad to the
amazement of colleagues, diplomats, and media personnel, who'd given
them up for dead.

The story had been elaborated with each retelling, but Hoot
didn't
doubt the essence of it. Begley was as straight as an arrow, but he had
the soul and mind of a con man. His reputation for manipulation was
well deserved.

He had revealed nothing of consequence to young Harris but had
appealed to his ego by including him in their "top-priority, extremely
delicate matter" and thereby made him forget that they didn't have a
search warrant and that, basically, they'd been caught red-handed
breaking and entering.

Begley also had emphasized that Harris contact his chief
without
further delay, which effectively got rid of him, freeing them to
question Gus Elmer without an audience.

"I'd love some coffee, wouldn't you, Hoot?" he said suddenly.
"Mr.
Elmer, may we impose upon your hospitality?"

The old man squinted at Begley with misapprehension. "Huh?"

"Have you got any coffee?" Hoot said, interpreting.

"Oh, sure, sure. In the office. And a good fire going, too.
Watch
yore step. These steps is as slick as snot on a doorknob."

A few minutes later they were seated in ladder-back rocking
chairs
in front of a crackling fire. Snow was melting inside Hoot's shoes,
making his feet cold, wet, and uncomfortable. He placed them as near
the fire as possible.

The coffee mugs Gus Elmer gave them were as chipped and
stained as
his three teeth, but the brew was scalding, strong, and delicious. Or
maybe it just tasted good because Hoot had been craving it so badly.

For all his willingness to assist in an FBI investigation, Gus
Elmer
didn't provide them with much more information than Hoot had already
obtained from him. Ben Tierney was a quiet, personable guest whose
credit card charges always cleared. About the only thing odd about him
was that he refused to let the lodge's housekeeper clean the cabin
while he was occupying it. That peculiarity had been explained by what
they'd discovered in the second bedroom.

"But if that's his only quirk, I ain't complainin'," Gus told
them.
"Ax me, he's the ideal guest. Always leaves the cabin in good
condition, turns out the lights, puts his garbage in the cans so the
bears and coons cain't get to it. And on the day he checks out, he's
out by noon. Yessir, he follows the rules, all right."

"That's an impressive stag, Mr. Elmer," Begley remarked,
pointing to
the stuffed head mounted on the rock wall above the fireplace. "Was
that your kill?"

It was a tactic Begley was famous for. During an
interrogation, he
would periodically toss out an unrelated comment. He said it served to
keep answers spontaneous. By suddenly switching subjects, he kept the
person he was questioning from anticipating what he was going to ask
next and mentally formulating an answer. It was a means of getting an
unfiltered response to a pertinent question.

"Has Mr. Tierney ever talked to you about women?"

Elmer, who'd been admiring his hunting trophy, whipped his
head
around and looked at Begley quizzically. "Women?"

"Wives, ex-wives, girlfriends, lovers?" Lowering his voice, he
added, "Did he ever make reference to his sex life?"

The old man chuckled. "Not that I recall, and I think I'd
recall
that. I axed him once if his missus would be joining him, and he told
me no, on account of he was divorced."

"Do you think he's straight?"

The old man's mouth dropped open, affording them an
unappetizing
view into the toothless maw. "You tellin' me he's a
queer?
Him
?"

"We have no reason to think he's homosexual," Begley replied.
"But
it seems a little strange that a single, good-looking guy like him
never mentioned the fairer sex to you."

Again, Hoot was impressed. Begley was probing Gus Elmer's
memory
without appearing to. He'd counted on Elmer being a ho-mophobe. A man
like him wouldn't want his regular lodger, with whom he'd become
friendly, to be anything other than a man's man, hetero to the marrow.
So if Tierney had ever introduced a woman's name into a conversation,
the old man would now be racking his brain to remember it.

While he was concentrating, his grubby little finger plunged
into
the tuft of hair sprouting from his ear and began mining it for wax.
"Now that I think on it, he did say to me the other mornin'
same—thin'
'bout that last girl who's gone missing."

"Mind if I pour myself another cup?" Without waiting for an
answer,
Begley got up and went to the coffeemaker on a table across the room.

"He came here to the office to pick op an issue of the C
all
and was reading the front page. I said, 'Ax me, seems like this town's
cursed with some kinda nutcase.' He said he sympathized with the girl's
folks. What they're goin' through and all."

Begley returned to his rocking chair, blowing on his coffee to
cool
it. "This is excellent coffee, Mr. Elmer. Special Agent Wise, make a
note of the brand, please."

"Of course."

"I'd like to take some back to Charlotte with me for Mrs.
Begley.
That's all Mr. Tierney said about the girl?" he asked Elmer.

"Uh, let's see," the old man said, trying to keep up. "Uh, no.
He
remarked he'd seen her just a day or so before she disappeared."

"Did he say where?" Hoot asked.

"In the store where he buys his gear. Said he'd stopped in
there to
get a new pair of socks and she rung 'em up for him."

"What time was that?"

"That he was in the store? Didn't say. He folded the
newspaper,
picked up a map, and said he was going hiking up on the peak. I warned
him not to let a bear get him. He laughed and said he'd try not to let
that happen, and anyway weren't they hibernating this time o' year?
Bought a couple o' them granola bars outta the machine yonder and left."

"Has he ever talked about any of the other missing women?"

"Naw. Cain't say as I recall—" Suddenly Elmer
stopped. He gave
Begley a shrewd look, then shifted his rheumy gaze to Hoot, who tried
to keep his expression impassive. When Elmer looked back at Begley, he
swallowed hard. Hoot could only hope he'd spat out most of his tobacco
first. "Y'all thinkin' Mr. Tierney's the one snatching those women?"

"Not at all. We just want to talk to him so we can cross him
off our
list of possibilities."

Begley had shown more emotion when talking about the Book of
Jeremiah, but Gus Elmer wasn't fooled by his nonchalance. He shook his
head, sweeping his chest with his dingy beard. "He's the last person
I'd've thought would've did any meanness like that."

Hoot leaned forward, asking, "Have you ever heard him make any
derogatory remarks about women?"

"Derog… de… what?"

"Negative or unflattering comments."

"Oh. 'Bout women, you say?"

"Either about women in general or about a particular woman?"
Hoot
asked.

"Naw, I done told you, the only time he said anything
'bout—" He
paused, reached for an empty Dr Pepper can, and spat into it. "Hold on.
Just a minute now. I just thought on somethin'." He closed his eyes.
"Yeah, yeah, it's comin' back to me. It was last fall. I remember,
'cause we was sitting together on the deck out yonder admiring the
foliage. He axed did I want to share a drink, and I said sure. Just to
take the chill off the evenin' air, you understand. And somehow we got
off on Dutch Burton."

"The chief of police?" Hoot asked, showing surprise.

"Yep, yep. Dutch hadn't been chief long, only a month or so,
and me
and Mr. Tierney was talkin' 'bout how he'd bit off an awful big bite
what with the missing women and all."

"What did he say about that specifically?"

"Nothing. Just that." He spat into the can again, wiped his
mouth
with the back of his hand, and grinned at them. "Ax me, he was more
interested in Dutch's wife. Ex-wife now."

Begley glanced at Hoot as though to make sure he was paying
attention. "What about her?"

"Seems Mr. Tierney had met her back during the summer." Gus
Elmer's
grin widened with what appeared to be relief. "Matter of fact, I can
say for sure he ain't no fag. Ax me, he seemed right taken with Dutch's
former missus."

Begley stopped his idle rocking. "Taken with her?"

The old man gave a phlegmy laugh. "Moony eyed, smitten, horny,
whatever you want to call it."

CHAPTER  14
LILLY WOKE UP COLD. It TOOK A MOMENT FOR HER TO remember where she was
and why. Fully clothed, she lay beneath a triple layer of blankets with
her knees pulled up nearly to her chest. The bone-chilling cold had
penetrated all the layers.

She lay facing the fireplace, but it was no longer giving off
heat.
The embers that had been smoldering when Tierney turned out the lights
had long since turned to ash. She tipped the blanket down, away from
her face, and exhaled through her mouth. Her breath formed a cloud.

The propane tank must have emptied during the night. The
fireplace
would be their only source of heat now. She should get up and stack the
firewood in the grate, get the kindling going. Moving

! around would help her warm up. But she couldn't bring
herself to
leave this cocoon of relative warmth. The room was still dark, with
only dull, gray light limning the edges of the drapes. The wind was as
strong as it had been the night before. Every now and then an
ice-encrusted tree limb would knock heavily against the roof. If ever
there was a perfect day for snuggling, this was it.

Perhaps she should have accepted Tierney's proposal. If she
had, she
might not be shivering with cold now.

But no, she'd made the right decision. That much togetherness
would
have changed the tenor of their isolation and complicated the situation
tenfold. It had been complicated enough by a mere kiss.

Mere
kiss? Hardly.

It had been breathtaking but brief. Tierney had released her
immediately. Turning his back to her, he'd continued their conversation
as though the kiss had never happened. He said that it was probably
safe for him to sleep, since it had been several hours since he'd
suffered the concussion.

Trying to appear as blase as he, she had agreed.

He urged her again to eat something, but she said she wasn't
hungry,
and he said he wasn't hungry either.

He'd offered her first use of the bathroom. While she was in
there,
he'd dragged the mattress off the bed and into the living room. She'd
chided him for not waiting on her to help him, and he'd said she had no
business struggling with a mattress when the exertion could bring on an
asthma attack. She'd reminded him that he had a brain concussion and
shouldn't be exerting himself either. But it was done, so the argument
ended there.

By the time he came out of the bathroom, she was huddled
beneath her
share of the blankets. He switched off
the
lights and
stretched out on one of the sofas. He asked if she was warm enough and
offered her one of his blankets, but she declined it, saying she was
fine, thanks.

He was restless. It took him a while to settle. She asked him
if his
head was hurting, and he said it wasn't too
bad.
She
asked if he wanted her to check it for him, apply more antiseptic and
new bandage strips, and he said no thanks, he had checked it while he
was in the bathroom. She wondered how he'd managed to see the back of
his head when there was only one mirror, but she didn't pursue it.

He mentioned that although he was bruised as hell, he hadn't
noticed
any signs of internal bleeding, and she'd responded with an inane
understatement like "That's good." His unintelligible grunt of
agreement had signaled an end to their dialogue.

It took her at least an hour to fall asleep, and she was
fairly
certain that he was still awake when she finally drifted off. During
that time between lights out and when she'd fallen asleep, she'd lain
stiff and silent and… what? Expectant?

After the kiss, the tension between them had been thick enough
to
cut with a knife. Their conversation became stilted. They avoided
making eye contact. They were overly polite toward one another.

Ignoring the kiss had made it all the more meaningful. If
they'd
joked about it, said something like "Whew, at least that's out of the
way. Now that our curiosity has been satisfied, we can relax and get on
with the business of surviving," the kiss would have been more easily
dismissed.

Instead, they'd pretended it hadn't happened. Neither knew how
the
other felt about it. Consequently, because each was afraid of bungling,
of doing or saying something that would upset a tenuous balance, it
went unacknowledged.

And yet, after all their clumsy parrying and phony
indifference to
the kiss, she halfway expected him to mutter something like "This is
bullshit," leave the sofa, and join her on the mattress beneath the
blankets. Because it hadn't been a mere kiss. It had been a prelude.

"I'm not that nice," he'd said.

A heartbeat later he was holding her face between his strong
hands,
which she had been admiring all evening, and pressing his mouth upon
hers. He hadn't hesitated or asked permission. Apologetic or tentative?
Not in the least. From the moment their lips touched, his were hungry
and demanding.