The Colorado Kid

15

“Jim Cogan went to work at Mountain Outlook Advertising in Denver on Wednesday, April the 23rd, 1980, just like any other Wednesday,” Vince said. “That’s what she told me. He had a portfolio of drawings he’d been working on for Sunset Chevrolet, one of the big local car companies that did a ton of print advertising with Mountain Outlook—a very valuable client. Cogan had been one of four artists on the Sunset Chevrolet account for the last three years, she said, and she was positive the company was happy with Jim’s work, and the feeling was mutual—Jim liked working on the account. She said his specialty was what he called ‘holyshit women.’ When I asked what that was, she smiled and said they were pretty ladies with wide eyes and open mouths, and usually with their hands clapped to their cheeks. The drawings were supposed to say, ‘Holy shit, what a buy I got at Sunset Chevrolet!’ ”

Stephanie laughed. She had seen such drawings, usually in free advertising circulars at the Shop ’N Save across the reach, in Tinnock.

Vince was nodding. “Arla was a fair shake of an artist herself, only with words. What she showed me was a very decent man who loved his wife, his baby, and his work.”

“Sometimes loving eyes don’t see what they don’t want to see,” Stephanie remarked.

“Young but cynical!” Dave cried, not without relish.

“Well, ayuh, but she’s got a point,” Vince said. “Only thing is, sixteen months is usually long enough to put aside the rosecolored glasses. If there’d been something going on—discontent with the job or maybe a little honey on the side would seem the most likely—I think she would have found sign of it, or at least caught a whiff of it, unless the man was almighty, almighty careful, because during that sixteen months she talked to everyone he knew, most of em twice, and they all told her the same thing: he liked his job, he loved his wife, and he absolutely idolized his baby son. She kept coming back to that. ‘He never would’ve left Michael,’ she said. ‘I know that, Mr. Teague. I know it in my soul.’ ” Vince shrugged, as if to saySo sue me. “I believed her.”

“And he wasn’t tired of his job?” Stephanie asked. “Had no desire to move on?”

“She said not. Said he loved their place up in the mountains, even had a sign over the front door that said hernando’s hideaway. And she talked to one of the artists he worked with on the Sunset Chevrolet account, a fellow Cogan had worked with for years, Dave, do you recall that name—?”

“George Rankin or George Franklin,” Dave said. “Cannot recall which, right off the top of my head.”

“Don’t let it get you down, oldtimer,” Vince said. “Even Willie Mays dropped a popup from time to time, I guess, especially toward the end of his career.”

Dave stuck out his tongue.

Vince nodded as if such childishness was exactly what he’d come to expect of his managing editor, then took up the thread of his story once more. “George the Artist, be he Rankin or Franklin, told Arla that Jim had pretty much reached the top end of that which his talent was capable, and he was one of the fortunate people who not only knew his limitations but was content with them. He said Jim’s remaining ambition was to someday head Mountain Outlook’s art department. And, given that ambition, cutting and running for the New England coast on the spur of the moment is just about the last thing he would have done.”

“But she thought that’s what hedid do,” Stephanie said. “Isn’t it?”

Vince put his coffee cup down and ran his hands through his fluff of white hair, which was already fairly crazy. “Arla Cogan’s like all of us,” he said, “a prisoner of the evidence.

“James Cogan left his home at 6:45 AM on that Wednesday to make the drive to Denver by way of the Boulder Turnpike. The only luggage he had was that portfolio I mentioned. He was wearing a gray suit, a white shirt, a red tie, and a gray overcoat. Oh, and black loafers on his feet.”

“No green jacket?” Stephanie asked.

“No green jacket,” Dave agreed, “but the gray slacks, white shirt, and black loafers was almost certainly what he was wearing when Johnny and Nancy found him sittin dead on the beach with his back against that litter basket.”

“His suitcoat?”

“Never found,” Dave said. “The tie, neither—but accourse if a man takes off his tie, nine times out of ten he’ll stuff it into the pocket of his suitcoat, and I’d be willin to bet that if that gray suitcoat everdid turn up, the tie’d be in the pocket.”

“He was at his office drawing board by 8:45 AM,” Vince said, “working on a newspaper ad for King Sooper’s.”

“What—?”

“Supermarket chain, dear,” Dave said.

“Around tenfifteen,” Vince went on, “George the Artist, be he Rankin or Franklin, saw our boy the Kid heading for the elevators. Cogan said he was goin around the corner to grab what he called ‘a real coffee’ at Starbucks and an egg salad sandwich for lunch, because he planned to eat at his desk. He asked George if George wanted anything.”

“This is all what Arla told you when you were driving her out to Tinnock?”

“Yes, ma’am. Taking her to speak with Cathcart, make a formal identification of the photo—‘This is my husband, this is James Cogan’—and then sign an exhumation order. He was waiting for us.”

“All right. Sorry to interrupt. Go on.”

“Don’t be sorry for asking questions, Stephanie, asking questions is what reportersdo. In any case, George the Artist—”

“Be he Rankin or Franklin,” Dave put in helpfully.

“Ayuh, him—he told Cogan that he’d pass on the coffee, but he walked out to the elevator lobby with Cogan so they could talk a little bit about an upcoming retirement party for a fellow named Haverty, one of the agency’s founders. The party was scheduled for midMay, and George the Artist told Arla that her mister seemed excited and looking forward to it. They batted around ideas for a retirement gift until the elevator came, and then Cogan got on and told George the Artist they ought to talk about it some more at lunch and ask someone else—some woman they worked with—whatshe thought. George the Artist agreed that was a pretty good idea, Cogan gave him a little wave, the elevator doors slid closed, and that’s the last person who can remember seeing the Colorado Kid when he was still in Colorado.”

“George the Artist,” she almost marveled. “Do you suppose any of this would have happened if George had said, ‘Oh, wait a minute, I’ll just pull on my coat and go around the corner with you?’ ”

“No way of telling,” Vince said.

“Washe wearing his coat?” she asked. “Cogan? Was he wearing his gray overcoat when he went out?”

“Arla asked, but George the Artist didn’t remember,” Vince said. “The best he could do was say he didn’tthink so. And that’s probably right. The Starbucks and the sandwich shop were side by side, and they reallywere right around the corner.”

“She also said there was a receptionist,” Dave put in, “but the receptionist didn’t see the men go out to the elevators. Said she ‘must have been away from her desk for a minute.’” He shook his head disapprovingly. “It’snever that way in the mystery novels.”

But Stephanie’s mind had seized on something else, and it occurred to her that she had been picking at crumbs while there was a roast sitting on the table. She held up the forefinger of her left hand beside her left cheek. “George the Artist waves goodbye to Cogan—to the Colorado Kid—around tenfifteen in the morning. Or maybe it’s more like tentwenty by the time the elevator actually comes and he gets on.”

“Ayuh,” Vince said. He was looking at her, brighteyed. They both were.

Now Stephanie held up the forefinger of her right hand beside her right cheek. “And the countergirl at Jan’s Wharfside across the reach in Tinnock said he ate his fishandchips basket at a table looking out over the water at around fivethirty in the afternoon.”

“Ayuh,” Vince said again.

“What’s the time difference between Maine and Colorado? An hour?”

“Two,” Dave said.

“Two,” she said, and paused, and said it again. “Two. So when George the Artist saw him for the last time, when those elevator doors slid shut, it was already past noon in Maine.”

“Assuming the times are right,” Dave agreed, “and assume’s all we can do, isn’t it?”

“Would it work?” she asked them. “Could he possibly have gotten here in that length of time?”

“Yes,” Vince said.

“No,” Dave said.

“Maybe,” they said together, and Stephanie sat looking from one to the other, bewildered, her coffee cup forgotten in her hand.