Impulse (4 page)

7

K
WIND’s phone had three lines, one
for station business, t
wo for callers. The way the pro
gramming worked, Mike would answer the caller lines, then type the caller’s name into his computer, which would then show up on Faith’s monitor.

With both lines blinking, she chose the call from Mothertrucker, a female long-haul truck driver, one of her core group of loyal listeners.

“You’re talking after midnight on 91.5 FM KWIND with Faith.”

“You hear anything about what’s goin’ on over at Silver Lake?”

“Not a thing,” Faith responded, suspecting all those snowmobilers who’d invaded the town for the upcoming race must’ve gotten together for an impromptu party that had gotten out of hand.

Faith had never given much thought to snowmobiles, but after the past few days, she feared she’d hear the wasplike drone of the engines long after they’d left Hazard.

“Sounds like Tso’appittse’s been doin’ his thing again.”

“Tso’appittse?” She had difficulty getting her tongue around the unfamiliar syllables.

“The Shoshone Bigfoot.” Mothertrucker huffed out a breath. “Reckon you ain’t heard of him?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“He’s big. Giant-size. And rocky, with pitchy hands. And he feeds on human flesh.”

“Yikes,” Faith said lightly. She grinned at Mike, who, oddly, did not smile back. “I wouldn’t want to run into him in a dark alley.”

It was probably some sort of teenage prank, kids out of school for the holidays, trying to liven things up by scaring the lowland city slickers who’d ventured up into the mountains to ski the Wind River ski resort’s deep- powder slopes.

“You don’t want a believe in him, that’s your choice,” the caller said. “But if you’d been listening to your police scanner, you would a heard the sheriff’s calling for the coroner.”

On the other side of the glass, Mike was vigorously nodding and pointing to the scanner he kept on just in case some fool movie star—his words, not hers—got a toot on and skied off White Owl Mountain.

“Well, that’s certainly intriguing,” Faith said. And a bit unnerving, given that her house just happened to be on the shore of that very lake. “And since we here at KWIND like to think of ourselves as the voice of the community, we’ll check it out right away. Stay tuned for
updates. Meanwhile, we’ve got Alan Jackson, Toby Keith, and Martina McBride on tap.”

Faith put the prerecorded song mix into the rack. But not wanting to leave the other caller—named B. Hunter—holding, before starting the mix she hit the blinking button.

“You’re talking with Faith after midnight on KWIND.”

Radio work often required being able to think on two levels at once, which is what she was doing now, talking with a caller while her mind scrambled to figure out how, if something newsworthy had really happened at the lake, she could cover it without risking several minutes of dead air.

“If this is about whatever might be
happening out at Silver Lake…”

“Don’t know anything about any lake.” The deep male voice was roughened with the twang of the desert Southwest. “Just thought I’d call and chat with you for a while, Faith, baby.”

Her mouth went dry as the Nevada desert she’d believed she’d managed to escape. The glibness that radio work required deserted her.

“This is a talk show, right?” the man she’d desperately hoped never to see again prompted. “Talk and music?”

“It certainly is,” she said over the roar of rushing blood in her ears. “B
ut we seem to have a slight…
event
…
to cover.”

Faith would willingly venture into the lowest circle
of hell to avoid any further contact with Salvatore Sasone.

“We’ll be back live as soon as we can. Meanwhile, we’ve got a lot of good music still on tap for your listening enjoyment.”

Fighting off a wave of light-headedness, Faith cut off the man she’d come here to escape before he could respond. Then put her elbows on the table and dropped her head in her hands.

Oh, God. Disbelief and fear pounded in her heart. Wyoming in winter was the last place she’d ever expect the man to turn up. He and cold weather went together like Budweiser and caviar.

How the hell had he found her? She’d done her homework. Read pages of articles online about how to create a new identity, had spent hours plotting logistics with a friend who ran an underground railroad for women hiding their children from abusive spouses, and had even risked getting arrested when she’d paid $500 for a phony driver’s license and Social Security card.

She’d thought for sure she’d covered her tracks, working at below-minimum-wage waitress jobs across three states for six months before she’d finally felt safe enough to try getting back into radio.

She’d believed that short of leaving the lower forty-eight states to hide out in Alaska, this would be the last place Sal would ever think to look for her.

She’d been wrong. Dead wrong.

“What’s the problem?” Mike said into her headphones.

She lifted her head, which felt as if some maniac were swinging away with an ice pick inside it.

“Nothing,” she lied.

Was he out there now? Watching her? Waiting for her?

“What did you hear on your scanner?” she asked, struggling to beat back the sharp, mouth-drying panic Sal’s call had instilled.

“Nothing that Mothertrucker didn’t tell you. The sheriff’s out at the lake with the medical examiner. Could just be someone decided to go for a midnight stroll across a frozen lake and keeled over from natural causes. Or maybe we got lucky and one of those blasted sledders who are keeping everyone from getting a good night’s sleep fell through the ice.”

“Wouldn’t it be pretty to think so.”

Faith pushed herself to her feet, hoping her wobbly legs would hold her as she made her way to the control room—which, although only a few feet away—felt like a mile.

“But we won’t know,” she said, “unless we go out to the lake.” She didn’t add that they could both well be killed if they stayed here.

“Aw, Christ, Faith.”

He glanced out the window at the fluffy white flakes illuminated by a bank of outdoor lights. Beyond the warm yellow glow, the woods looked cold and black and deep. And dangerous.

“It’s starting to snow again out there.” His frowning face was reflected back at them in the glass. “Why the
hell would you want to go freeze your butt off playing Lois Lane?”

“Because if something has happened, this is our chance to scoop all the Jackson press.”

That much was the truth. Being at the center of things in this remote corner of the state, reporters in Jackson typically got all the action.

“And I should care about that why?”

“Because we’d get people talking about us, which would make more tune in, which would boost us on the Arbitrons, which in turn would relate to more advertising dollars, which could earn us all a raise in the new year. There’s always a chance the brass might even throw in an extra bonus to go with those Christmas turkeys they gave us all.”

She glanced up at the oversize wall clock. How long ago had Sal called? Was he on his way? If so, how much time did they have before he showed up?

Mike was a nice guy. But even with that twelve-gauge, he was no match for Sal Sasone.

“I wouldn’t turn down a bonus. What with the spike in the cost of fuel and feed this winter.” He’d been building up a horse-breeding business with the hopes of leaving the station to work it full-time. “But Kendall’s KWIND’s go-to guy for news.”

“Brian’s in Idaho, spending the holidays with his family.”

What Mike didn’t know, and Faith wasn’t about to tell him, was that Brian Kendall had confided he was auditioning for a drive-time news slot on Boise’s KIZN.

“Shit. That leaves Leon.”

Leon Ducett was a senior at Wind River College. He was also only an intern—though possessing testicles, he’d probably be more appealing to Fred Handley, the chauvinistic Cheyenne dinosaur who owned a string of rural radio stations stretching from western Idaho into the Dakotas.

Apparently having never heard of laws against workplace discrimination, he’d made it all too clear that he didn’t believe women’s voices had the depth of authority to give listeners the news.

More than a little desperate when she’d interviewed, Faith had hoped she’d be able to change Handley’s mind. But so far that hadn’t happened.

“Doesn’t matter, since Leon’s got a hot date,” Mike divulged. “He was leaving just as I got here and warned me that if I called him for anything less than an invasion of body snatchers, I could kiss my scalp good-bye.”

“Well, that sounds pretty definitive. I wouldn’t want to risk your scalp.” She reached over and rubbed his shaggy blond hair. “A coroner means a body. If we leave now, we’ll be the first ones on the scene,” she coaxed.

He rubbed his jaw. “With all those entertainment- magazine and TV folks up there in Jackson covering those movie stars, it could turn into a media three-ring circus. Like O.J.” His grin suggested he liked that possibility. “Next thing you know, your pretty face could be all over TV and you’ll be sitting on the couch next to Matt Lauer.”

"If I’d wanted to be on television, I wouldn’t have gone into radio.”

TV was much more regimented. More dependent on looks. Flash over substance.

There was also the fact that if she’d been on TV, she wouldn’t have been able to hide from Sal for as long as she had.

The caller line rang again; her nerves tangled into tight, cold knots.

“Okay.” Mike blew out a long breath and stood up. “Let’s see if we can find you a newscast.”

Saved by the bell. And the pretaped mix that would, if necessary, continue to play for ninety minutes. “Have I ever told you that I love you?”

“Yeah, yeah.” He shot a resigned look out at the falling snow. “That’s the same thing all the drop-dead gorgeous women in my life say.”

Dearly hoping she wouldn’t encounter an armed bounty hunter parked outside the trailer, Faith yanked her snow-white, hooded parka from the hook and together they walked out the door, leaving Toby Keith calling for whiskey for his men and beer for the horses.

8

T
here was blood.

So damn much blood.

Erin Gallagher lay on her back in a grove of trees near the bank of the lake, arms outstretched as if she’d been crucified, the shiny silver blades of her white figure skate
s pointed outward at forty-five-
degree angles.

The front of her white parka and ski pants were soaked with blood;
more blood surrounded the fur-
trimmed hood like a crimson corona. It had, unsurprisingly, already frozen to the consistency of a raspberry Sno-Kone.

The 2 million candlepower halogen lamp Sam had fastened onto the roof rack of his SUV was like looking into the sun. Will felt as if he ought to be wearing a welder’s helmet.

But while the harsh white light combined with the flashing red, white, and blue police beacon to create a flat, surrealistic look to the landscape that reminded him of a bad Salvador Dali painting, it managed to light
up the area well enough for the deputy to photograph the scene.

“Her throat was cut.” The gash was deep, but narrow, as if it had been done with a razor. Or scalpel.

“Exsanguinated,” the coroner confirmed. “Both jugulars sliced by someone who knew what he was doing. Another few centimeters deeper and it would’ve taken her head off.”

Dr. Jack Dawson’s
complexion usually wore a year-
round tan from summer sailing and winter skiing. In the glow of the halogen light, it looked a little green. Which made sense, since, as Hazard’s orthopedic surgeon, he was more accustomed to dealing with skiers’ broken legs and shoulders. Having so little crime, the county didn’t need a full-time coroner, so local physicians rotated monthly.

The last murder anyone could remember was back in 1992, when Earl Monroe had gotten sick and tired of Lyle Pollard playing “Achy Breaky Heart” over and over again and shot the jukebox down at The Watering Hole Saloon.

Unfortunately, Earl—who’d just learned his wife had been stepping out on him with a used-car dealer from Jackson—was hammered, causing his aim to go high. The bullet hit the metal frame of the Coors light hanging over the pool table, ricocheted, and struck Tom Wheatly, who was minding his own business, nursing a beer at the bar, smack in the middle of his forehead.

After Earl sobered up, on the advice of his attorney (given that the bar had been filled with witnesses at the
time), he’d pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to three to eight years, landing himself in the state penitentiary in Rawlins.

Six months later, his exemplary behavior got him moved to the Wyoming Honor Farm, where he was put to work in the farm’s wild-horse adoption program and demonstrated such a natural gift with horses that when he won parole after five years, the warden actually said he was sorry to see Earl go.

But this death was much, much worse than any drunken juke shooting.

“Who called it in?” Will asked.

“A couple sledders.” Sam, looking sicker than Will felt, nodded toward a pair of men standing beside pricey, green racing Arctic Cats. “One of them had to take a piss, pulled into the trees, and tripped over the body. I’ve already taken their statement, but Desiree’s keeping them occupied in case you wanted to talk with them.”

Will decided that the deputy had made the perfect call, assigning Desiree Douchet the job of keeping the witnesses at the scene. Desiree was what Josh would call a hot chick, though any male who dared call her that to her face was risking getting slapped in the slammer.

“Convenient that out of all the miles of woods, the guy just happened to feel the urge to pee in the only spot where there’s a dead body.” Will had never trusted convenient. Nor coincidence. “Did either one of them see anything? Another snowmobile? A cross-country skier, or SUV in the vicinity?”

“A black Yamaha sled passed them, going toward town about a quarter of a mile up the road, but they didn’t think much about it, since the damn things are all over the valley this week. There’s no telling if it had anything to do with this. Maybe Desiree can get something else out of them.”

“I strongly doubt that, given the fact that most males’ brains turn to mush when talking with Deputy Douchet,” Jack said.

“Helps that it’s winter,” Will said. “She’s more covered up in that parka.”

Will’s gaze shifted to Trace Honeycutt, who was busily roping off the crime scene.

Having graduated this past June with an associate arts degree in criminal justice from Wind River College, the deputy was as young and green as spring meadow grass. Watching the enthusiasm with which he was stringing the tape made Will feel about as old as the mountains surrounding the town.

Sighing, he returned his attention to the victim. His stomach slid north, into his throat. He swallowed, forcing it south again as he crouched to study footprints in the frozen blood.

“What’s this?” Pulling a pen out of an inside pocket, he used the point to lift up the blue-and-white woven lanyard around her bloodied neck.

Laminated between two sheets of plastic was what appeared to be a poem.

“Not your typical ski pass,” Sam observed.

“Not by a long shot,” Will agreed.

He stood up and rubbed the back of his neck as he scanned the frozen, white landscape.

Although he’d always found being a murder cop too staid for his blood, given that detectives always came in after the fact, when all the shooting and stabbing had been done, the two years he’d spent on the homicide squad had taught him to put himself in a victim’s place.

So, now, as his dark eyes scanned the frozen lake and forest of dark trees, he tried to see what this dead girl would have seen. To experience what she would have felt in those last moments of her life.

The lack of defense cuts on her gloves suggested she hadn’t fought back. Had she known her attacker? Had the person who’d wielded the blade that had nearly decapitated the victim come out here with her?

It was unlikely that she’d come out to such an isolated location all by herself. Then again, she could’ve been drunk. Or high. Or maybe just fucking foolhardy.

Whatever her reason for being here at the lake, a young woman who’d undoubtedly had dreams and goals, and friends and family who cared about her, was now dead in his town, on his watch. It was up to him to find her killer. And make goddamn sure he paid.

“I don’t suppose you can give me an approximate on the time of death?” he asked Jack.

“Not from examining her body. Being frozen invalidates the usual death indica
tors, like rigor mortis, livid
ity, and changes in body temperature.

“The most valid way to determine death is by stomach contents. When her body froze, whatever was in
her stomach froze, as well, and didn’t get any further digested.”

“So if we can find out where she had her last meal,” Will said, “you’ll be able to tell by the state of digestion how long she lived after eating it.”

“Theoretically.” Dawson’s frown deepened. “But I gotta tell you, Will, while I’m comfortable enough handling the coroner’s job for run-of-the-mill car wrecks, drownings, and the occasional skier ramming his head into a tree, this could end up being way beyond my forensic skills. Especially when it’s obvious that we’re talking a capital crime.

“The DA’s going to want all the details nailed down tighter than a tick when he goes to trial. Since Evergreen High’s science department probably has more equipment than I do, I think we ought to send the body to the coroner in Jackson.”

Will couldn’t argue with that suggestion. Nor did he allow himself to consider that there might not be a trial. That would mean someone would get away with murder in his town. Which damn well wasn’t an option.

“That’s probably not a bad call.”

He wondered if he should also call in the state DCI guys, then decided that while he might have burned out after the shooting, he hadn’t gotten stupid since leaving Savannah. If he couldn’t handle a single murder in a town of less than three thousand full-time citizens, then he may as well turn in his badge.

He glanced over at the dark green Legacy Outback
parked in the gravel lot. “You check that vehicle out yet?”

“Didn’t want to leave the body,” Sam said. “What with all the company we’re getting, I figured since she wasn’t going anywhere, it could wait until you got here.”

Another good call. “You done taking photographs?”

“Yep.”

Will found the keys in her outer parka pocket. As he crunched his way across the snow, he wondered, as he often did, if Sam had resented not being promoted to sheriff when Don Bohannon had retired to Galveston.

Sam was, after all, more than qualified. But he was also full-blooded Shoshone, bo
rn
and raised on the Wind River Reservation, and while local prejudice might not be as bad as it had been when they were both kids, once Will had decided to return to Hazard, Sam’s chances had probably been about equivalent to those of a tropical hurricane hitting Wyoming in January.

The door of the Subaru chirped as he hit the button on the key fob. A bright red, white, and blue backpack lay on the front passenger seat. Will opened the front flap and found a slender nylon wallet.

There were two credit cards, a photo ID card from Wind River College, a Colorado driver’s license, and $60 in cash. That the three twenties were crisply new suggested she’d recently visited an automatic teller.

Her driver’s license listed her height as five feet two inches, weight a whopping ninety-eight pounds. With her blond hair and blue
eyes, she’d been a pretty, all-
American girl.

Bad enough that Hazard had just experienced its first murder in over a decade. That the victim was the girl the press had dubbed America’s Ice Princess was going to create one helluva lot of press attention.

Especially during this week between Christmas and New Year’s when neighboring Jackson was ass-deep in celebrities. Following those celebrities were a horde of reporters who followed them around like flies buzzing around a herd of bison.

Speak of the damn devil…

Headlights flashed across the ice. As if conjured up by his dark thoughts, a red-and-black van with
KWIND
painted on the side in blinding yellow letters pulled into the far side of the parking lot.