Chill Factor (37 page)

Her thoughts crystallized around a sudden realization. The
caresses
that she had believed part of a wonderful dream hadn't been dreamed at
all.

As though attuned to her thoughts, he turned his head and
fixed his
blue gaze on her. "I think it's time we went to bed."

CHAPTER  24

BETSY CALHOUN'S DAUGHTER HAD LITTLE TO SHARE WITH Agents
Begley and
Wise except cups of hot tea and homemade oatmeal raisin cookies. She
explained that her husband was out of town on a buying trip for their
office supplies store on Main Street. She wept when she told them about
the last time she'd seen her mother.

"I stopped by her house to check on her. It was three o'clock
in the
afternoon, and she was still in her nightgown."

As Begley had guessed, Betsy Calhoun was suffering from
clinical
depression over the loss of her husband.

"She rarely left her house anymore," the woman said. She idly
stroked the yellow cat, which had moved from the windowsill to her lap
shortly after their arrival. "I encouraged her to get involved in
community and church activities, volunteer for charity work, do
something
.
But without Daddy, she couldn't be motivated to do anything."

"If I'm not mistaken," Hoot said, "her car was found in the
parking
lot of the bank."

"That's a mystery. She hadn't been in the bank for months.
Since
Daddy passed, I've been taking care of all her money matters. I can't
explain why her car was there. Except she evidently took my advice to
get out of the house more often." She dabbed her eyes with an
embroidered hankie. "When they found it with that awful blue ribbon
tied to the steering wheel, I knew something horrible had happened."

"Could she have met someone there in the parking lot?"

"Like who?"

"That's why we're asking," Begley said with uncharacteristic
patience. "In the hope of learning who that someone may be."

"I've racked my brain, believe me. I can't think of anyone.
Mother
just isn't a social, people person." Indeed, Betsy Calhoun's circle of
friends was limited to the ladies in her Sunday school class.

"With all due respect to her and your father's memory," Hoot
said
hesitantly, "is it possible she's been seeing a gentleman friend and
keeping it a secret?"

She shook her head adamantly. "Not Mother. She's had the love
of her
life. She's actually shy of other men. I don't think she's ever even
been on a date with anyone except my father. Mother's only outings are
to the hair salon every Friday morning, church on Sundays, and an
occasional trip to the market."

To her daughter's knowledge, she'd never had reason to go into
the
sporting goods store. "What in the world for?"

They asked if she knew Ben Tierney. "Who's that?"

Hoot gave her a brief description, but she shook her head and
told
them she could safely vouch that her mother wasn't acquainted with any
such individual.

"I just want her to be found and brought home," she said,
sniffing
into the handkerchief. "If God doesn't grant me that prayer, at least
I'd like to know what happened to her." Looking at them tearfully, she
asked, "Do you think you'll ever find her?"

"We're going to do our best," Begley pledged, pressing her
hand
between his.

A few minutes later, as they pulled away from the cozy
cottage, he
remarked, "Nice lady."

"Yes, sir." Once again Hoot was shivering inside his coat,
waiting
for the sedan's heater to warm up. He didn't remember what it felt like
to have dry, warm feet. "Whistler Falls Lodge, sir?"

"For lack of someplace else."

Ordinarily, having to spend the night in one of Gus Elmer's
cabins
without benefit of public utilities would have been a daunting and
dreary prospect, but Hoot was so exhausted he actually looked forward
to it. "Do you think he could put together a meal for us?"

The question about dinner didn't register with Begley, who was
deep
in thought. "Here's the thing," he said, musing out loud, "we've
deduced that Tierney is our most likely suspect."

"Why else would he be keeping such close tabs on the
disappearance
cases, hoarding all that information we found in his rooms?"

"Precisely, Hoot. That certainly lent credibility to your
hunch
about him. We've also surmised—and accurately, I
think—that his
motivation is to be the savior of women in need. Correct?"

"Yes, sir." Actually Begley had surmised it, but Hoot had
agreed,
and so far, they'd uncovered nothing that would invalidate that theory.

"This is my problem," Begley continued. "Where would a shy
widow
lady who only went to the beauty parlor and Sunday school ever meet
Tierney? She wasn't a kayaker, that's for damn sure."

"No, sir."

"Mrs. Calhoun has a small number of acquaintances, and her
daughter
had never heard of Tierney. So how did he get to know Betsy Calhoun
well enough to select her as his next victim? Two diverse people like
that, where did their paths cross?"

"I think that could be asked of all the victims with the
exception
of Torrie Lambert, whom he literally happened upon, and Millicent Gunn."

"Carolyn Maddox is plausible," Begley said. "A stretch, but
plausible. Maybe he met Laureen Elliott in the medical clinic where she
worked. He could have had the flu or something. But a timid widow and
an adventurer?" Begley shook his head. "Doesn't compute."

Not in Hoot's mind either. He mulled it over for several
minutes.
"Suppose Tierney read her husband's obituary in the local newspaper.
Remember the transponder he ordered from the catalog? Maybe he
surveilled Mrs. Calhoun and realized what a lonely and dejected lady
she was." The explanation sounded lame even to him. Begley wasted no
time shooting holes in it.

"He's too active a man to keep surveillance over someone.
Besides,
that would take a lot of time, and he's not always here. I suppose he
could have bumped into her in the parking lot of the bank. Maybe her
car had stalled and he rendered help. Something like that. Saw
instantly her loneliness and need. She was another random selection,
like the Lambert girl." It was credible, but there was no conviction in
his voice. He stared through the windshield while tapping his left hand
fingers on the console between the seats.

"Are you having second thoughts about him, sir?"

"I don't know, Hoot," he grumbled.

"If he's not Blue, how do you explain all the materials he's
collected on the disappearances?"

"First thing I'm going to ask him." He smacked his lips with
irritation and muttered something about the goddamn case, and why the
fuck couldn't he get a handle on it. Hoot didn't catch every word, but
that was the gist of it.

Suddenly Begley turned to him. "Heard any more from Perkins?"

"No, sir. But trust me, he's on it. As soon as he learns
something,
he'll be in touch."

Begley gazed up at the sky. "I hope to hell a chopper can get
here
tomorrow. I don't know how long I can keep our jealous police chief at
bay." He snorted his contempt for Dutch Burton. "However, as long as
that road is blocked, he can't get any farther up the mountain than we
can."

"And Tierney can't get down."

"Right, Hoot. We've got that going for us. And that's the sum
total
of anything good I can say about this whole frigging mess."

Wes went into the high school gym's weight room ahead of
Scott. They
had to rely on the windows for light. The gloom was oppressive. There
were no soft surfaces to absorb the cold. "Once you get going, you'll
warm up." Wes's voice bounced off the tile walls, making it
inordinately loud.

Scott remained moodily silent as he shrugged off his outer
coat,
then unzipped the jacket of his sweat suit and took it off. Beneath it
he was wearing a tank top.

Wes took a moment to admire his son's physique. It was that of
a
natural athlete. He was long waisted and long limbed. His body fat was
maybe ten percent, if that. Each muscle was well developed and
perfectly toned, impressively delineated beneath his skin.

Wes envied Scott's near-perfect structure. He hadn't been that
lucky. Thanks to his mother
,
his legs were
shorter
than ideal, and he had a propensity for osteoarthritis that had come to
him via his old man's family, most of them bent and bandy-legged by the
time they were fifty.

But Scott had been genetically favored with the best of Wes's
and
Dora's genes. He had inherited strength and stamina from him, grace and
coordination from her.

Watching him now as he approached the weight bench, Wes
thought that
if only he'd been blessed with Scott's body and natural ability, he
could have made it into the pros, he could have made it big.

Scott could if he wanted to, but that was the hell of it. The
desire, the drive, the bloodlust for competition wasn't automatically
issued along with physical superiority. Scott hadn't been born with the
determination necessary to make a good athlete into a champion, but Wes
was going to make damn certain that he acquired it. He was going to
build a fire in the boy's belly if it was the last thing he did.

Scott was hardly on fire now. The effort he was putting into
the
free weight warm-up was uninspired. "None of those weights have the
heft of that chip on your shoulder," Wes remarked.

Scott looked at him in the mirrored wall behind the bench but
didn't
respond.

"What's the matter with you tonight?"

Scott continued doing alternating biceps curls. "Nothing."

"Are you mad because I made you come here and work out instead
of
letting you go over to your friend Gary's house?"

"Gary's a jerk."

"So what's the problem?"

Scott propped the weights on his shoulders and began a set of
squats. "Nothing's the matter. Everything's wonderful."

"Then why are you sulking like a four-year-old?"

"Gee, Dad, I don't know." He returned the weights to the rack,
keeping his gaze locked with Wes's in the mirror. "Do you think it
could be a mood swing because I'm being pumped full of steroids?"

Wes grabbed him by the arm, spun him around, and roughly
pushed him
backward against the mirror. He
thrust
his finger into
Scott's face. "You smart-talk me like that again, and I'll whip your
ass."

Scott only laughed. "Like I'd care."

"When I got finished with you, you'd care. Believe me, you'd
care."
Wes glared at him angrily, then flung his arms out to his sides. "I
don't get you, Scott. I don't get your ingratitude. You think I want to
give up my evening to be here spotting you white you work out? I'm
doing all this for you."

"Who do you think you're kidding?" Scott shouted back
.
"You're doing it for
you
."

Wes knew from experience that Scott had inherited not only
Dora's
supple musculature but also her tendency to become mule-headed when
pushed too far. He felt like smacking his son for talking back to him.
But he reined in his temper and kept his voice at a reasonable level.

"You're wrong, son. Okay, sure," he said before Scott could
interrupt, "I'll admit that it does my ego good to know that you're the
strongest, the fastest, the best, but—"

"But you don't give a shit about me."

Wes was genuinely dismayed. "How can you say that after
everything
I've done for you?"

"You didn't do anything for me today, did you? When those FBI
agents
asked why Millicent and I broke up, I was the one in the hot seat, not
you. I stuttered some stupid explanation while you sat there and didn't
say a single goddamn word."

Speaking softly, Wes said, "Would you have rather I told them
the
truth?" He saw a flicker of uncertainty in his son's eyes and took
advantage of it. "We've never talked about it. Would it have been a
good idea for us to thrash through this for the first time in front of
them? In front of your mother? Wouldn't it have embarrassed you just a
little for them to learn that your girlfriend preferred me to you?"

"She didn't."

Wes chuckled. "That's not what she said. You were there. You
saw.
Did it look to you like she was having just a so-so time, or like she
was so into it she was about to buck me off her?"

He saw Scott's hands ball into fists at his sides. His face
was
flushed, and not because of any exertion he'd put into his warm-up. He
was enraged. His breaths were shallow and quick, as if he was on the
verge of erupting.

Wes wished he would. He would have liked nothing better than
for
Scott to lay into him and fight with all his might to win. It would be
good for the boy to vent some spleen. He wanted to see him act like a
man rather than the sniveling titmouse Dora would have preferred him to
be.

But to his vast disappointment, almost disgust, he saw tears
welling
in his son's eyes.

"You set me up to see you together," Scott accused.

Wes didn't deny it. "It was time someone woke you up to the
fact
that the girl you'd become so ga-ga over was a slut."

"That's not true. You… you…"

"I dropped a few suggestive remarks, and she recognized them
for the
come-ons they were. This was no innocent virgin, Scott. I didn't force
her. Hell, I didn't even have to try hard. She knew damn well what she
was getting into when she came to my office that evening. Getting into
her pants was as easy as one, two, three. Truth is, she wasn't wearing
pants, and she made sure I knew it.

"If you would stop being mad at me long enough to think about
it,
you'd realize what that says about her. She'd been toying with the idea
of having both the son and the father before I ever touched her."

"You're disgusting."

"Me? I'm disgusting? Why am I the bad guy? She was the one who
did
it for the novelty, for the fun of it. I did it for you."