Killer Summer

22

Tell me again why I’m awake at this ungodly hour?” Fiona asked. It was five-thirty A.M. A melon-colored light graced the ridgetops of the eastern mountains, as seen from the asphalt of the small Sun Valley Airport. She wore a down vest zipped snugly over a blue jean jacket, the July dawn registering only forty-five degrees Fahrenheit.

She’d reluctantly accepted Walt’s invitation to a predawn flight in his glider, an olive branch he’d offered via voice mail following the debacle of the night before. She didn’t love the idea of the flight-her last flight with him had landed her in federal custody-but his voice mail had left her smiling, and here she was. She nursed a slight hangover with a cup of green tea.

The glider was towed to ten thousand feet and released, the tow plane banking sharply away and leaving them to the whine of wind over the wings and the orange sun rising over the horizon.

She sat directly behind him, her camera around her neck, brought along voluntarily this time. She took a series of pictures, working with the play of morning light as it caught the western spine of mountains framing the Wood River Valley, the ridges aflame with a yellow light that sank slowly down the slopes toward the valley floor.

“Outstanding,” Fiona said into the headset’s microphone.

“This is my form of meditation, where I come to find myself… whatever that means.”

“I can’t believe all the planes at the airport,” she said, looking down. A lower ramp packed with parked aircraft revealed itself from the air.

“The wine auction.”

“There must be fifty jets, or more.”

The glider bumped and shook as he found and caught a thermal uplift. They spiraled higher, approaching eleven thousand feet.

“We’re going to dive lower in a minute,” Walt warned. “There’s nothing to worry about, okay? I want to get a look out Democrat Gulch… where we found the wrecker.”

“This is a business trip?” she complained.

“I can’t pass up the opportunity.”

“Do you want me to make pictures?”

“Your call. If we see anything, sure.”

“Such as…?”

“Tents… a campground. But I’m not expecting to see anything. Those two fled north, and we never saw any hint of them. That’s been bothering me.”

“Have I been shanghaied?”

“Camera work is optional. Honestly, I thought you’d enjoy the view. No ulterior motives.”

“None?” she said, regretting it immediately.

“I was an asshole last night.”

“Yes, you were.”

“I will work on being less of one.”

“I saved your voice mail.” She regretted he couldn’t see her smiling. “Evidence,” she added.

“Here we go,” he said, dipping the left wing slightly.

The view of the terrain from above was wondrous. The rugged landscape of ever-larger mountains and more dense wilderness rose in a progression of deformities like shark’s teeth. North and east of Croy Canyon, where Democrat Gulch lay like a dirt ribbon on the valley floor, there was not a structure to be seen. The barren floor of waxweed and rabbit bush gave way to aspen groves, intermingled with fir and lodgepole pine, from where a blanket of green conifers rose toward the jagged rock and the lifeless realms of gravel fields and ice-all that remained above the tree line.

Sunlight drew a sharp, brilliantly bright line across the rock, reminding her of a scratched negative. A pattern of shadows moved in unison-deer or elk on the run-then vanished, absorbed by forest.

Fiona struggled for words to convey her awe, or at least her appreciation, without sounding stupid or overly spiritual. But failing to find any, she raised her camera and recorded the moment instead.

The glider rose. As her insides pressed through her feet and out through the floor, she rested the camera on her chest and shut her eyes, holding on to the cold frame of the seat for a sense of security.

“Holy shit!” she said.

Walt lifted the glider higher in ever-widening circles. It gained over a thousand feet in a matter of minutes.

“One more pass,” Walt warned. “I saw some shapes in the willows below those mine tailings.”

She collected herself and pressed the TALK button. “Shapes?”

“Might be tents or something.”

“I’ll make pictures.”

The glider dove. Even the headphones’ noise-cancellation feature couldn’t hold back the roar. She ran off a series of pictures.

The glider began its lazy climb.

“There!” he said. “Two o’clock!”

She aimed and saw the dark shapes, zoomed in.

Click. Click.

Fiona listened as Walt contacted the airport tower and asked for a message to be relayed to his dispatcher. He requested a patrol explore the area.

When Walt was off air, Fiona pushed the button and spoke.

“I got a pretty good look at those shapes. Smaller than tents.”

“ATVs?” he asked.

“Why not?”

“Parasailors,” he said, pointing through the canopy. “Off the ski mountain.”

Three colorful parachutes-red, green, and blue-hung in the air, with their ribbed foils bulging, just below the top of the Sun Valley ski mountain, the silk caught in the glare of the morning sun. They were too far away for her to see the nylon cords, the jumpers appearing to float beneath their chutes.

“Beautiful,” she said.

He steered the plane north, flying directly above the parasailors, and she took more photographs. To the east, the butterfly-winged canvas roof of Sun Valley’s new outdoor amphitheater caught her eye, and, nearby, the enormous white tent that would shelter the wine auction later that evening.

She thought he might overfly this venue as well, but instead he looped south and soon returned to the airport. In a matter of minutes, they were on the ramp near the hangars.

“You’re good at your job. You know that?” she said.

“I’m a hack,” he said.

“Why do you do that?” she asked, shaking her hair out. “Why can’t you accept a compliment?”

“My father makes a point of it when the Express covers my men chasing a bear out of a backyard or arresting a man for riding a lawn mower down Main Street. You say I’m good at it, and I want to agree, believe me. There’s a jazz standard called ‘Compared to What?’ You hold my job up against even a rookie cop in Los Angeles or New York and it looks like I’m sleepwalking.”

“But we’re not in New York. And I meant it as a compliment.” She paused.

“Okay. So, thank you.”

He was dancing on ice. It made her uncomfortable.

“I’ll e-mail you the pictures,” she said. She could sense his impatience to get going.

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Don’t hide from me,” she said.

Walt looked at Fiona curiously, and she wondered if she’d gone too far. Again.

“I’ve known you for, what, two years? I barely know you.”

“You know me better than most,” he said.

“Then that’s a shame.”

“What are you looking for?” he asked.

“I plead the Fifth, Sheriff.”

He fought back a grin.

“I need to hangar the glider,” he said.

“I’ll help you.”

“It’s light. One person can do it.”

“Consider this: maybe it’s easier with two. You think that’s possible?”

Their eyes met.

“I’d appreciate the help,” he said.

“That’s better,” she said, moving behind the wing and awaiting instructions.