Tucker Peak (17 page)

“He told me about a few of the people who work here. That was quite funny. He described some real characters.” She hesitated and then shook her head. “He mostly asked me questions. It was very flattering, really. Women don’t usually have attractive men ask them about themselves. He couldn’t get enough of it. I have to admit, I’m still finding it hard to accept that he’s done what you’re accusing him of.”

“Trust me. Did he say anything about what he does during the off season? Someplace he goes to?”

Her eyes widened. “Oh, yes—that’s very good. He did. He said he teaches tennis at Mount Snow.”

I nodded. It was probably as accurate as his European geography, but he might have let something slip. I pulled out a card with my name and phone number on it. “Okay, Mrs. Manning. I guess that’s it for the moment. If you think of something else, I’d appreciate a phone call.”

She held the card between her fingers as if it were covered with glue, which, metaphorically, it might have been. “I don’t want my husband to find this.”

I took it back, figuring it had been wasted anyhow. “Vermont Bureau of Investigation. It’s in the book. Ask for Joe Gunther or anyone in the Brattleboro office.”

She pursed her lips like a child memorizing a poem. “Got it.”

I slid open the door. “You’re free to go. Thanks.”

She crabbed by me clumsily, bent over to spare bumping her head, and stepped onto the parking lot, slipping her dark glasses back on.

“Mrs. Manning?”

She looked over her shoulder at me.

“I’d be careful about being picked up like that. Even in Vermont, these situations can get dangerous.”

She scowled at me and opened her mouth to protest. I slammed the door in her face and watched her through the dark glass as she stalked off in rigid outrage.

I then turned to the mobile phone mounted on the van’s wall, got directory to locate the Mount Snow employment office, and was routed through to that number. I asked the voice that answered if Donna Repsher was there.

She came on in a couple of minutes. “This is Donna.”

“Donna, it’s Joe Gunther.”

“Joe. I don’t believe it. Such a long time. How’s the new job?”

“Interesting. Little tough getting other cops to play now and then, but we’re working on it.”

“And Gail?”

“She’s fine. Saw her yesterday. Busier than hell, but that’s the way she likes it.”

“You watch out. She’ll end up governor or a senator someday, and you’ll be driving her car. I know you didn’t call to chat, Joe, so what’s up?”

“Cruel, Donna.”

“You going to make a liar out of me?”

“No, you’re right. I need to know if you ever had an employee named Richie Lane—said he taught tennis there.”

She laughed and told me to hang on. An old friend from where I’d grown up in Thetford, Donna was part of a vast extended family I maintained throughout the state, in part out of friendship, but also because of where they worked or who they knew.

The phone clicked in my ear. “Joe? I’m at the computer and I don’t see anybody with that name.”

I closed my eyes and struggled to remember what Lester Spinney had told me earlier. “How ’bout Robert Lanier, Marc Roberts, or Lenny… no, Lanny Robertson.”

I heard her tapping on the computer for a while, before finally chuckling to herself. “Tennis teacher? Cute. Was that his pick-up line?”

“You got it. What was he really?”

“Marc Roberts is on the summer grounds crew payroll—grunt-labor level, basically restricted to picking up trash, cleaning gutters, and other intellectual pursuits. Good place to work on a tan, though.”

“You got a home address?”

She did, in West Dover, Vermont, which Mount Snow calls home.

“That current?”

“It’s where we sent his last check. I wouldn’t know beyond that.”

I thanked her, hung up, and called the Dover Police Department. The chief there, also a friend, said he’d make some discreet inquiries about the address’s validity and call me back.

Both Sammie and Lester were conducting interviews similar to the one I’d just had with Mrs. Manning—with married women who’d owned homes ripped off by Marty Gagnon. I wondered if either one of them had picked up anything linking Richie to Mount Snow. If they had, it could mean we were onto something solid. In any case, I could barely believe my luck so far.

While I was waiting to hear back, however, there was a conversation I felt honor-bound to have. I started the van up and headed back toward Tucker Peak.

LINDA BETTINA LOOKED UP AS I ENTERED HER OFFICE
on the top floor of the Mountain Ops building. “Where the hell have you been? Your supervisor’s been bitching like a jilted girlfriend, which I don’t need.”

I sat in the chair across from her desk. The office was large, lined with windows overlooking the equipment yard on one side and the ski slopes on the other, and conceptually at least, could have been outfitted to advertise the high rank of the executive inhabiting it. Instead, it looked like a mad scientist’s workshop jammed with piles of computer printouts, strewn-about bits of oil-stained, insulated clothing, and dismembered, arcane pieces of rusting, twisted, broken, or grimy hardware—some quite large—presumably dumped here either to be analyzed, returned to the manufacturer, or maybe because the room’s owner wouldn’t notice their presence. I’d seen five-car pileups that looked tidier.

“Sorry. I should’ve called,” I told her, reaching into my pocket. I removed my shield and laid it before her. “And I owe you another apology, too.”

She picked it up, leaned back in her chair, and studied it carefully. She did not look amused. “I knew you were bullshitting me.”

“Not about the private eye, though. He is here and he is asking questions, why I don’t know.”

She gave the badge one last look and tossed it back to me. “Very fancy. You have fun jerking me around?”

“I did what I had to do. We’re running a murder investigation and had reason to believe the man we were after was working here.”

“Is he?”

“That’s still up in the air. We did discover one of your ski instructors was part of a burglary ring ripping off the condos.”

She quickly held up her hand. “Hold that thought.” She picked up the phone next to her and ordered, “Get Phil in here—
now
.”

She replaced the receiver and looked at me more carefully. “It’ll just take a minute, he’s in the building. Where’d you get that bruise?”

“The guy I was talking about. He bushwhacked me in the parking garage.”

Her tone hadn’t softened any. “You let him get away?”

“I was unconscious at the time.”

She laughed despite herself. “Sorry. You okay?”

“I’m all right.”

There was a quick knock at the open door and a man in his forties walked in—small, trim, with thick, graying hair. Phil McNally, who’d been spending so much time honing his damage-control skills.

“Close the door, will you, Phil?” Linda asked, staying seated.

I rose and stuck out my hand.

Linda spoke for me. “This is Special Agent Joe Gunther of the VBI, whatever the hell that is. He’s got a real pretty badge, and he’s been working undercover here as a carpenter. You know anything about this?”

McNally froze in mid-handshake, his mouth half open. “Undercover? No. What’s it all about?”

I repeated what I’d told Bettina. McNally felt for the back of the second guest chair and sat down heavily, groping in his pocket for a small pill box. From it he pinched a tiny tablet, which he immediately put in his mouth. “Sorry—bad heart. My God. Who is this ski instructor?”

“You know him as Richie Lane. That’s an alias.”

“I know him,” Linda said disgustedly. “Never liked him. I would’ve fired his butt if he hadn’t been so popular with the ladies.”

“His scam was to pick up married female condo owners, get information on their home layouts and schedules, and arrange with another man to burgle them when no one was there. The women, assuming they even realized what had happened, kept their mouths shut to protect themselves.”

Phil McNally was beginning to recover, seemingly helped by his pill. “Holy cow. I knew about the robberies. Sheriff Dawson and his men have been working on them.”

“He called us in so he could free up more men to deal with the protesters.”

“What about the murder you mentioned? Do we still have someone to worry about? I mean, I’m assuming you have Lane under lock and key, right?”

“Wrong,” Linda Bettina said bluntly. “They let him get away.”

His eyes widened. “So, we have
two
guys out there?”

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” I explained hastily. “Richie Lane isn’t likely to come back here, and his partner’s laying low. As for who the murderer is, we’re still working on that. I should warn you, by the way, that the Tramway Board’s getting ready to tell you that chair was rigged to slide back, which, given the nature of the woman’s injuries, makes it attempted manslaughter.” I looked straight at Linda. “Were your suspicions about the water pipe and generators borne out?”

She looked grim. “Yup.”

“What suspicions?” McNally asked.

“They were sabotaged,” I explained.

His face reddened, which told me that Linda’s veiled resentment about his possibly not having told her about me cut both ways—there were definite issues of turf here. “That god-damned TPL. I bent over backwards to accommodate those bastards. I fed them, for Christ’s sake. That son of a bitch Roger Betts, pretending to be some sort of Mahatma Gandhi. What a crock—”

I cut him off, as much for his heart as to staunch his outburst. “We don’t have any proof it was the TPL. In fact, this is my first hard-core confirmation that there was any sabotage beyond the chair.”

McNally looked from me to his mountain manager, his breathing markedly ragged. “What’s that mean? You were keeping this from the police, too?”

Linda glared at him, totally unsympathetic. “Don’t give me that, Phil. He knows and you know we try to keep this kind of shit under the carpet. That’s probably why we have a fucking private eye crawling around poking into our business.”

McNally’s mouth fell open again. “Jesus. We do?”

“Wake up, Phil. You wander around here patting people on the back and playing Dr. Feelgood. This place is a mess. I’m not surprised we’re harboring thieves and murderers. We spoil the guests rotten, close our eyes to the underage drinking, the drug use, the sexual highjinks, and hire people who’re just short of criminally insane—no questions asked—to take care of them, all to make ourselves more attractive than the next whore up the street and save a few bucks in the bargain. Are you surprised this is where we’ve ended up?”

I was caught off guard by McNally’s reaction. He laughed, raised his eyebrows at me, and jerked a thumb at Bettina while unconsciously massaging his chest with his other hand. “Isn’t she great? And right, too.”

He pushed himself out of his chair and crossed over to the window overlooking the base area where the lifts angled up the mountain like a fan of black yarn pinned to a map. Throngs of skiers were either standing in line to ascend or simply wandering around, darting to and from the large wooden ski racks like colorful bees around a hive.

“No,” he answered her rhetorical question, his back still to us but apparently completely recovered. “I’m not surprised. But unless you have a workable solution, we’re stuck—you with your frustrations and me pretending everything’s perfect.”

At that point he turned and looked at us, his demeanor at last indicating why he was the CEO. “’Cause that’s the problem, Linda. You’re not the only recipient of all that shit running downhill, nor are you the only one aware of what this business has become. You and I merely occupy different spots on the same slimy slope.” He shook his head and added, “To use a disgusting analogy.”

Then he smiled at me. “Welcome to the ski industry, Agent Gunther, where the inmates run the asylum and don’t compare notes in the bargain. It does help explain the appeal of moving to Luxembourg.” He switched his attention to Bettina. “I’m sorry if you think I’m leaving you out of the loop. You’re my right hand and the best mountain manager I know. I trust you enough not to spend much time with you, which I guess makes it seem just the opposite. But I’m not being dodgy, Linda. I’m just preoccupied with an antsy board, a lot of nervous new investors, a shitload of bills, a penny-pinching CFO, and the definite sense that if this whole reinvention scheme doesn’t work out, it’ll be my head on the platter.”

Linda was already motioning him to be quiet. “I know all that, Phil. I was just blowing off steam at the one person who doesn’t need to hear it. You think one of them hired the private eye?”

He nodded. “Oh, hell. I wouldn’t doubt it for a second. I might’ve done the same in their place. Forearm yourself with any dirt you can find, so when the
Titanic
does sink, you’ve already got the anchor ready to weigh down the captain in case he tries to swim for it.”

“I was thinking embezzlement, myself,” I suggested.

“Normally, I’d agree with you,” he conceded. “And I’ll run it by Gorenstein, but since I didn’t know about this, I have to assume I’m the target, not some embezzler. Makes more sense, given the current climate around here.”

“Well,” I said. “If it’s any comfort, he told me he hadn’t found anything yet.”

McNally shrugged that off. “Doesn’t matter. If they feel they need it and it’s not there, they’ll cook it up.”

“I know this guy,” I disagreed. “He’s a straight shooter.”

He looked at me with a pitying expression and explained, “Then they’ll hire one who isn’t.”

That didn’t leave me with much to say.

Linda had a question for me, though. “Does the Tramway Board finding mean you’re going to be wandering around here asking everybody what they were doing on the night of the crime?”

“Something like that.”

She looked disgusted. “Great. So, on top of the Phantom of the Opera trying to put us out of business, we’ve got the sheriff itching to roust the TPL, you guys bugging the condo owners and the employees for both theft and sabotage, and a private dick doing Christ knows what.”