forty-nine:
friday afternoon

Deputy Sheriff Chadwick sounded weary.

“Heard about Search and Rescue up your way,” said Chadwick. “Think they’ve got an investigator assigned and should be calling you pronto.”

“I’m available,” said Allison. “But one lone investigator isn’t going to cut it. You need a whole pack of cops up here now—there are people hunting other people. With dogs.” She paused. “For sport.”

“What the hell?” said Chadwick.

“I know,” said Allison. “But this isn’t a case for a lone investigator. You’re going to need some troops.”

Carefully, Allison walked Chadwick through the same details she’d given Trudy.

“Do you think those guys are coming back to that same camp?” said Chadwick. “And you can find it again?”

“On a moonless night walking backwards,” said Allison. “I spent last night waiting for them, but they didn’t come back before I left this morning. If their dog is injured or worse, you could check with some of the vet clinics down there. Track who brought the dog in, you’re on your way.”

Chadwick asked her to double back over key parts of the story one more time. “We need the doctors to work some magic in Grand Junction,” he said, speaking with about as much urgency as a cop might ever let on. “A witness would change everything. And I need that blindfold as soon as possible.”

Allison didn’t want drive it down—shouldn’t the cops come get it? But another idea was brewing and she was the lone candidate to do what needed doing.

“What’s new with the hunt for Lamott’s shooter?” For a second she thought the call had dropped.

“Manhunt,” said Chadwick. “Picture your big Hollywood movie manhunt and quadruple it.”

“I’ve seen the sketch,” said Allison.

“If you’ve even uttered the word immigration in the past five years, we are in the process of tracking you down to find out if you’ve seen this guy.”

“That’s a lot of people,” said Allison.

“That’s a whole heck of a lot of people,” said Chadwick.

“And so far?”

“Still looking.”

The news station switched back to a live shot of a reporter standing on the pedestrian bridge. He appeared to be college-fresh. But he already had the appropriate reporter face: weighty dejection.

The mug shot sketch replaced him on the screen. If you wanted to attempt assassination in broad daylight, it was about the least advisable look you would want to adopt.

The mug shot stared back with fury. In her mind, she converted the sketch to flesh. “What time of day?” asked Allison.

“What do you mean?”

“Was it high noon when this guy was spotted?” said Allison. “Broad daylight?”

“Pre-dawn,” said Chadwick.

“And he had help, right?” said Allison.

“From one Emmitt Kucharski,” said Chadwick. “Resident of Glenwood Manor.”

Allison had the sound down on the television but knew that was the other mug in heavy rotation. This wasn’t a drawing of Kucharski, but a photo from a previous arrest.

“A third-rate tire mechanic is about Kucharski’s highest professional accomplishment,” said Chadwick. “He had about thirty-five lives and as many jobs before he moved here fifteen months ago. He’s got some backcountry experience, by the way, so maybe he slipped off into the hills.”

An uplifting thought.

Kucharski’s mug shot from an earlier burglary arrest showed a man with serious issues. He had short, disheveled hair groomed by scissors and mirror. His gaze could have been that of a stoner, but there was something clear-eyed and calculating about his stare.

“Can’t find him either?” said Allison.

Silence answered her dumb question and then he said: “We have some leads.”

“I need two things,” said Allison.

“And I need two people,” said Chadwick. “But, fire away.”

“I need an ID or some indication or whatever you’ve got on that body we found.”

“Thought I saw that we got something back on that,” said Chadwick. “Nobody called you?”

This time Allison let Chadwick decipher the silence to his own satisfaction.

“I’ll get the initial finding and call you back but I remember Hispanic male, approximate age of twenty. A pretty youthful coccyx bone from what I remember. There were traces of cocaine in his jacket or what was left of his jacket. More than traces. Enough to suggest he was transporting.”

“Cause of death?”

She heard her own sudden hesitance, like she didn’t want to know. Not really.

“Still not clear. Too much of him was gone. An animal of some sort got to him and might have consumed some evidence but he was healthy and fit from the internal organs they had to work with.”

“And the sticks? His clothes? DNA?”

“Nobody called you?” said Chadwick.

In this conversation, silence was the equivalent of saying “dumb question.”

“I had a retired cop friend who was headed for Mount Rushmore,” said Chadwick. “With his family. August and all, and they delivered the material that day on the way through Wyoming. I guess maybe they thought the evidence was somehow all tangled in the Lamott mess so they put a rush job on it and they e-mailed a report back to the office here two days ago. I asked that you be called. The only thing on them is fingerprints—one set of fingerprints over and over.”

A firm knock on the door.

“—I haven’t checked my e-mail yet today but they were supposed to send down images of the fingerprints, too,” said Chadwick.

“The people who found him—at first there were kids, then the adults—might have moved the sticks.”

“One set of prints,” said Chadwick. “All I know.”

A firm knock again.

Allison flashed on Trudy’s intruders, felt her breath shorten at the thought.

Colin would let himself in …

The door was unlocked …

“Okay, thanks,” said Allison. “Can I call you back?”

She was ready to yell “it’s open.”

She didn’t want to lose Chadwick.

And it wasn’t her house.

“Of course,” said Chadwick. “And I need that blindfold.”

She hung the phone back in the cradle, stepped lightly to the door. She could sure use a peep hole but that was a city touch, not common out here.

Cracked the door.

Smiled.

“Colin—why didn’t you just—”

Something in his look. Downcast.

Message in his eyes.

Bad news.

Trouble.

He didn’t move, but shifted his gaze slowly left.

The gun came from that same direction, gripped by a hand attached to a forearm like a four-by-four. The gun pointed at Colin’s temple.

“Trudy Heath?” came the voice.

Allison took a step back, held the door open, focused on the gun.

“Don’t fucking move,” said the voice.

Silence, in fact, was golden.