The Main Corpse

After the gold was gone, the underlying ore, full of lead and zinc, had provided a bonanza for Albert Lipscomb’s grandfather until the war was over. Whatever enthusiastic belief Albert’s grandfather may have had that there was still gold in his mine was based on hope rather than reality. This hope, a common pipe dream in Colorado, had been fed by Albert, Tony, or both, in securing questionable assays and, I was now willing to bet, buying off a shady geologist. But the partners hadn’t counted on Victoria Lear making a trip to the state archives.

Still – how did you get from there to Albert disappearing with all the money? And why had he felt he had to kill the teller? And what was Tony Royce’s role in all this?

I sped up the van. Marla couldn’t have murdered Tony, I told myself. She was impulsive, yes. She had a temper. But as far as I knew, she hadn’t investigated the Eurydice beyond getting Macguire to show one of the Kepler assays to someone at the School of Mines. There was just no way she would fight with her boyfriend, knife him, steal his watch, throw him in the creek, then march over and assault the person who’d photographed their presence at the campsite. And to follow that up by hitchhiking back into town, then hiding out until she could claim she was assaulted by an unknown attacker? No way.

Now, it was possible that Marla had been extremely angry with Tony. She had ample reason to be, I countered as I braked hastily behind a grocery truck. Tony had been two-timing her. Make that three-timing, if you believed in the existence of the stripper. Or four-timing, if Eileen had lied about their breaking up. No matter what, Tony certainly had been involved with all manner of women until he’d made a pretense of loyalty to Marla. And if Marla knew of his playtime with the med student… I didn’t want to think about it. Besides the infidelity, she could have been upset about Albert’s absconding with her money. Tony hadn’t warned her that his partner might be using a disreputable assay lab. And Tony might have suspected that Albert would steal money from the Prospect partnership account if one of their deals went bad.

So maybe Marla and Tony had had an argument. Maybe she had even hit him. But Marla wouldn’t, couldn’t hit Macguire. Of course, in the storm, and with him in the rain poncho, she may not have known it was Macguire. Then again, perhaps Tony had been the one to hit Marla and Macguire, plant the evidence, and take off with the gun. But Tony wasn’t bald. And although he’d been wearing a watch, it was not his ultraexpensive one. The Rolex, I was willing to wager, was not a bauble you’d absentmindedly leave behind at your girlfriend’s house if you were taking off for parts unknown.

“I just don’t get it,” I said aloud. At the exit to the upscale Genesee area, I wondered if the De Groot-Hersey investigative team was spending any time over at Tony Royce’s house in Eagle Mountain Estates. His place was near Albert’s. Perhaps the cops were still up at the campsite, or, for that matter, at Marla’s house. Actually, I rather favored the idea of them being out in the rain.

Once I exited to Aspen Meadow, I passed a popular creekside picnic site that had been claimed by the overflowing Cottonwood. This was probably the place Sam Perdue and his sprained-ankle customer in the ambulance had encountered the near-drowned child. I shuddered. Water had boiled above the edges of the creekbed and now ran freely through a wide area of flattened grass. It gushed up the sides of a picnic table and bench. On the far side of the site, the grill stood just a few inches higher than what now looked like a fast-flowing river.

I wondered where Albert Lipscomb was at this very moment. I hoped that he, too, was soaking wet and suffering. Suffering abysmally.

I began driving down the new, recently widened highway that led to Aspen Meadow’s Main Street, eight miles away. Mountain residents had bitterly fought the widening of this byway, formerly a tortuous two-way road. A broader route would bring more unwanted people, with their blight of problems, to our little burg, the protesters claimed. These invaders would drive away wildlife, wildlife that was viewed by a preponderance of Aspen Meadow residents as being a higher life-form than humans. Now, with the clouds lifted just above the treetops, the tawny meadows on each side of the road looked deserted. Suddenly, though, the meadow seemed to shiver. I slowed and pulled the van onto the muddy shoulder. Moving deliberately across the sodden grass was a herd of elk, maybe forty head. Half a dozen calves trod haltingly next to their mothers on impossibly thin, delicate legs. Coming from the East Coast, Marla and I treasured this kind of sight. Lord, how I wanted her back.

I revved up the van and drove home. Without Marla to talk to and plan with, and without Tom to give me updates, I felt anchorless.

I’d been on the periphery of some of Tom’s cases before. From time to time, I’d even become more involved than he would have liked. But with my friend under arrest, things didn’t look promising for my taking merely a benign interest in the case. I sighed. My idea might not be feasible. It certainly wasn’t legal. But what was the alternative? Go home and wait for your friend to call. It might as well have been, Go home and wait for your friend to have a heart attack. Go home and wait for us to maltreat her. Go home and wait for our captain to convict her of murder.

I ran toward my front door. I had to do something for Marla, because nobody else would.

“Gosh, Mom, where have you been?” Arch demanded as he came bounding down the stairs with fake’s long, nut-brown body at his heels.

“Did you get hold of Marla?” I demanded. Jake gave me his usual mournful, slobbery look.

“Yes, and I told her to eat Jell-O,” Arch said. “She ;aid you’d better bring her Epipen down to the jail. She said you’d know what that was.” His face lengthened. “Mom, she said she was miserable.”

My weight of guilt doubled. “Any other messages?” “General Bo called. We had a nice talk. He asked all about how I was doing and about Jake.” He paused to pat the hound reassuringly. “Anyway, Bo kept saying he wanted to talk to you bad. He’s on his way over.”

“Really?” It was just past three o’clock. I had lots to do, but I needed to talk to Arch. “Listen, hon, I want you to hear this from me instead of from your friends. Tony Royce is missing from the camping trip he took with Marla. The police think Marla hurt Tony. They arrested her this morning, and that’s why she’s in jail – “

“Yeah,” he said, interrupting me, “Marla told me. I turned on the news, but there wasn’t anything. Do you suppose the arrest will be in this week’s copy of The Mountain Journal?”

I had no idea whether Marla was a big enough fish to warrant news coverage, even from our weekly excuse for a paper. I certainly hoped not.

“Probably not, hon. Arch, uh, may I borrow Jake?” His face clouded. He clasped Jake’s collar and the two of them awkwardly backed away from me.

“Why?” His voice cracked. “For how long?”

“Well, he needs to be part of the thing I’m planning with Marla. But I want you to stay home, because it might be dangerous.”

“No,” he said stiffly. His fingers held Jake’s collar in a death grip. “You’re not taking him. He’s my dog and he trusts me. Jake was mistreated by his last handler. What do you want him to do? I’m his handler now. He won’t perform well for anyone but me.”

“Oh, please, Arch, I’m not going to mistreat him, and this is for Marla – “

Arch turned to go up the stairs. “C’mon Jake, let’s go to my room.”

“Wait, honey, wait.” He stopped and gave me a hostile gaze. “Okay, Arch, you can come. But you have to promise to obey me if we get into a dicey situation.”

“Dicey how?”

“I’m not quite sure yet. Please just go pack up clothes for an overnight. As if you were going camping,” I added.

I ran up to Tom’s and my room. The clock said three-fifteen. Dicey how? Good question. I packed some warm clothes. In the kitchen, I loaded paper bags with Jake’s spare leash, kibble, homemade dog biscuits, and large plastic bags as well as small ones that zipped closed. I scribbled a note to Tom, telling him not to worry, no matter what happened. Then I glanced around the room – what could I have forgotten? Oh, yes.

“Arch!” I called up the stairs. “I need you to bring all your fake blood!”

While he was objecting, the front doorbell rang. Arch, Jake, and I arrived at the door simultaneously, and a quick glance through the peephole revealed General Bo Farquhar in a black sweat suit and heavy jacket. At least it wasn’t camouflage gear. Arch turned off the alarm system and opened the door.

“Well,” Bo boomed as he stepped inside, “long time no see! As in less than five days.”

It might as well have been five months. Miraculously, General Bo’s distracted air had vanished, as had his slumping posture and three-day growth of beard. He was freshly shaven, and I wondered how he could have become so tanned, given all the rain we’d been having. If his face seemed older for his prison ordeal and his bout with depression, he now had a firmness in his facial muscles that spoke of new resolve. Apparently the compound did have a barber. He’d had his pale blond hair cut so short he was almost bald. His pale blue eyes, cloudy and unfocused when I had visited him at the compound, now possessed the razor clarity and mesmerizing intensity I knew of old. He quietly closed the door behind him.

“Hello there, General. How’s your ankle?”

He shrugged dismissively and held out his hands. “My dear Goldy. Arch, my buddy.”

I shook his right hand, but Arch opened his arms and threw himself against the general’s chest. Bo embraced him warmly.

“Wow! I can’t believe it’s really you!” Arch exclaimed as Jake gave a low, suspicious woof. My son pulled away. “This is my bloodhound, Jake. Jake, meet General Bo Farquhar.”

I shook my head in disbelief as Bo stooped and put both his hands under Jake’s chin. He said, “Jake, I’m very happy to meet you.” The dog whined joyfully and wagged his entire body.

The general turned his ice blue gaze on me. “You want to tell me what your plan is?”

“What plan?” asked Arch. “What kind of Jell-O plan using Jake needs fake blood?”

Quickly, I outlined the essentials of how I thought we might be able to clear Marla.

“Gosh, Mom,” Arch commented when I finished, “Tom is going to be so ticked off with you.”

“That’s something I’ll just have to risk,” I said. “First we need to make a stop at Marla’s house.”

It took longer than I expected to pack up the jet black Jeep Grand Cherokee General Bo Farquhar had borrowed from someone at the compound. I led the way in my van; Bo and Arch followed in the Jeep. By the time we reached Marla’s house it was just after five o’clock. Fog still curled through her garden, and the house looked ominously deserted.

I hopped out of the van and approached General Bo, who had put on sunglasses despite the fog. His commando outfit, no doubt. I said, “Can you stay here with Arch? Explain to anyone who comes along that I’m just getting a few things to take to Marla?”

“Absolutely,” he replied.

“What if somebody comes along and starts giving you a hard time?” I asked dubiously.

“No one’s going to come along, Goldy.” He lowered the sunglasses and gave me his spellbinding gaze. “But if they do, I have a nine millimeter semiautomatic Glock under my jacket. Want to see it?”

Arch said, “Yes.”

I said, “No.”

There were no police ribbons barring entry to Chez Marla. At least I wasn’t breaking any laws. Yet. I grabbed the spare key and two large plastic bags I’d brought and walked purposefully up the front steps. Once inside, I retrieved the Epipen, an autoinjector containing epinephrine, from the upstairs bathroom. The label read: For emergency intramuscular use. Cardiac patients may experience dangerous side effects. Use only under care of a physician. I wrapped the injector in a hand towel, put it into the plastic bag, then stuffed a warm change of clothes for Marla on top. I looked around her still-messy bedroom and tried to remember what she’d said to the cops this morning. He has his own closet here. I strode quickly into the green-yellow-and-white guest room and pulled open the two-doored closet. The first side yielded four plastic-covered hangers from the dry cleaner, each with slacks and suits. I yanked on the second door, where a single hanger held a pair of blue pants I knew to be Tony’s. It looked as if he’d worn them once, wrinkled them slightly, then hung them neatly until Marla’s maid could send them out to the cleaners.

“Hallelujah,” I breathed. I put my hand into the remaining plastic bag and, touching the slacks only through the bag, carefully slipped them off their hanger. Then I clutched the bag upside down until the plastic fell like a shroud over the pants. I twisted the plastic hard and prayed that this would work.

Once we were out on Interstate 70, General Bo kept a two-car distance behind my van. Down through the gray mist we followed the road, until we passed the exit for the sheriffs department. Just after the highway re-entry from that exit, I signaled and pulled onto a slice of shoulder. Following my instructions, Arch and Jake bounded out of the Jeep and stationed themselves twenty yards above us, where they had a good view of the interstate. Arch signaled us with a flashlight Bo had given him. It was nearly six o’clock. I prayed that this harebrained scheme would work.

Dinner was being served at the jail. I tried to picture Marla: She would have been fingerprinted and put in an orange prisoner suit. Right now she could be eating the Jell-O. Lime Jell-O: the gelled substance that contained artificial food coloring, specifically Yellow No-5. Because Marla was allergic to that dye, it would close her throat, cause her to break out in hives, and make breathing difficult. The cops might disbelieve Marla if she feigned a heart attack, but there was no way a person could fake the physiological signs of an allergic reaction. And any nurse worth his or her salt would know that an extreme allergic reaction in a former cardiac patient was not something to fool around with.

The jail authorities would have to send her to the, hospital. I was pinning all my hopes on Sam Perdue’s report: The parents flagged down the ambulance, and the, EMT gave the kid mouth-to-mouth and CPR. They have to do that when it’s a matter of life and death. It was yet to be seen how convincing Bo and I could be in doing a life-and-death scene.

Six-fifteen came and went. With my face pressed against the van window, I watched for Arch’s signal through the fog. Both Bo and I had left our car lights blinking; I fervently hoped that would be enough to keep people from pulling over to see if we needed help. . Behind the wheel of the Jeep, General Bo looked serene. To him, this was probably routine covert operations.

At six-forty, I was about to give up. She hadn’t eaten the Jell-O, she hadn’t had a reaction, they weren’t sending her to the hospital. And then an arc of light from my son, as well as the distant sound of sirens, said otherwise. I waved to the general and he revved his engine. I hopped out of the van, ran up past the Jeep, and watched as Bo signaled to get back on the road.

No one was coming, thank God. Only the ambulance. With, I hoped, the department standard for a female prisoner: one paramedic driver, one female guard.

Bo accelerated rapidly. There was a crunch of metal and crash of breaking glass as he rammed my empty van into the road barrier. He leapt out of the Jeep and flung himself down on the pavement next to the rear of my crumpled vehicle. I trotted down to him, opened Arch’s bottle of fake blood, and poured it out-first on Bo’s face, chest, and legs, then on my face and hands.

And not a moment too soon. The ambulance slowed as it approached the scene of our ‘accident.’ I jumped up and waved my arms.

“Help!” I cried. “Help! My husband’s been hit!” I motioned wildly and shrieked, “Stop, or he’s going to die.”

The ambulance swerved and came to a stuttering halt on the shoulder. Bo murmured to me, “Just get out of the way when the paramedic arrives. Let me handle this.”

A uniformed paramedic vaulted out of the ambulance and trotted toward us. “Okay, ma’am, can you make it down to the ambulance? Just move back and let me take a look at your husband.”

I moved awkwardly to the shoulder as the ambulance driver knelt over General Bo Farquhar. I didn’t even see how Bo managed to grasp the man’s shirt and pull the Glock from the holster inside his jacket. But I did limp in front of them toward the ambulance so that the guard, still in the ambulance, wouldn’t see them, either. When I came up to the driver-side window, I did what Bo had told me and got out of the way. Above us on the road, Arch and Jake climbed into the Jeep.

Wielding the Glock, Bo barked commands into the ambulance. I stationed myself behind the rear doors as the driver and the attendant police officer lined up by the emergency vehicle. The police officer was a woman I knew, but her name eluded me. She unlocked the ambulance doors. Marla, clad in an orange prisoner suit, emerged slowly. She hopped clumsily down onto the graveled shoulder. Her face was swollen with hives and she was gasping. Seeing me, her rasping breath turned instantly into wrenching sobs.

Bo demanded the guard’s gun and got it. He threw it off the cliff that abutted the road. Down, down into the ravine the gun fell.

Holding the Glock high, Bo yanked something that I guessed to be the radio wire out of the ambulance. He ordered. the ambulance driver back into the disabled vehicle. Then he ordered the female guard to do something to the driver. She leaned into the cab to follow Bo’s orders.

“Marla! How sick are you?” I demanded anxiously. “Are you breathing okay?”

She wheezed, then said, “Well, I look a lot better than you, I can tell you that!”

“Blood’s fake. Your epinephrine is on the passenger-side front seat of that Jeep up there. Go, take care of yourself.”

“Is that you, Goldy? Goldy Schulz?” the female guard called from the ambulance. “Are you nuts? Don’t do this!”

I stared down at the policewoman. I still could not for the life of me, recall her name. To my horror, General Bo raised his gun and brought it down on her skull. Her body crumpled to the pavement.

“Come on!” Bo yelled at me. The fake blood streaked on his face made him look ghoulish. “Bring that car down!”

My muscles felt as if they’d turned to sponge. “I don’t believe he did that,” I muttered as I jogged to the Jeep. I threw the car into gear and checked the rear-view mirror for traffic. Beside me, Marla rasped a request to Arch that he avert his eyes so she could have privacy. Then she rolled down the waistband of the orange prisoner pants, took a shuddery breath, and stabbed herself in the hip with the Epipen. She rolled the pants back up and whispered an all-clear to Arch. My son stared, openmouthed, at General Bo and the unconscious policewoman. He looked confused and scared, as if what we had just done had finally penetrated his consciousness.

I veered onto the road and brought the Jeep to where Bo stood. He holstered his gun and assumed a paternal tone. “Please get into the back, Goldy.”

As I hopped out of the car, a blue van traveling eastward slowly passed us and stopped on the shoulder twenty feet below the ambulance. The Front Range ambulance lights flashed inexorably: red and white, red and white. The guard’s body did not move. I couldn’t see or hear the ambulance driver.

I opened the door to the back seat. Jake began to howl. On the shoulder twenty feet from the ambulance, two women emerged from the van. They were calling to us: Need help? Everything all right? Need… call on … cell phone? Suddenly I felt Bo’s hand grip my shoulder.

“Get back in the goddam car, Goldy. Climb back there with your son, now!”

Arch was crying. His body was stiff with fear. I lost my balance trying to sit and ended up both beside and partly on top of Jake. The dog snuffled and whined. I was sorry to have scared Arch. But seeing Marla so weak and frightened strengthened my resolve.

Bo checked the mirror, then zoomed the Jeep across three lanes and careened up onto the bumpy median. The Jeep rocked from side to side as it bounced, too fast, over the rocky, unlandscaped strip dividing the interstate. Finally the car shot up on the westbound side of the highway. Bo snapped the steering wheel to straighten the shuddering car. The Jeep’s engine ground ominously as we sped back toward Aspen Meadow.

Marla struggled to breathe. The rash on her chubby bruised face made her look monstrous. Jake snuffled and licked my hand. General Bo was staring straight ahead, pushing the Jeep to high speed.

I looked back. Below the median, I could just make out the two women approaching the ambulance. The guard’s body was still sprawled, limp, on the road.

We were fugitives.

16

“Goldy… I’m sorry you had to …” Marla rasped. “I can’t believe you and… Bo … what you did…”

“I need your wrist,” I said matter-of-factly. “I’ve got to monitor your pulse. That epinephrine could zap your heart right into overtime.”

“Great.” She struggled to catch her breath. “So then what? Call an ambulance?” Finding this amusing, she wheezed with laughter.

“Look,” I replied, “cool it. I can’t do blood pressure or EKG, but you need to let me check you for extra heartbeats. We may end up at the hospital yet.”

Marla cackled and gasped again. “Leave it to Goldy to break me out of jail using food. Marvelous – “

“Try to calm down,” Bo ordered her gently. Instead, to my dismay, she gulped for breath and started to weep. She thrust her left hand in my direction. I clasped it, felt for a vein, and checked my watch. Normal. I knew enough about adrenal-type stimulation to expect bad side effects, if there were going to be any, within thirty minutes. On the other hand, the epinephrine should start alleviating her allergic reaction within a minute. Let us pray.

With her free hand, Marla opened the glove compartment. A cellular phone fell out. Sniffling, she slammed the compartment shut, groped in the storage compartment between the bucket seats, and pulled out a tissue. Awkwardly, she blew her nose. “Bo … I’m so … sorry I haven’t been nicer to you…” She laughed between sobs. “Great time for remorse, huh?”

“Would you please stop talking and hold still?” I demanded. Still, the wheeze appeared to be fading from her voice. I concentrated on the vein in her wrist.

But Marla would not be quiet. “When I heard Bo’s voice, saw the two of you, I … I didn’t know what to think. What… what have you done? What’s going to happen to us?”

Bo’s smile beneath the fake blood streaks was small and guarded. He took a clean tissue Marla offered and dabbed at his face. “Is that allergic-reaction medication working? Do you need some ointment for your hives?”

She ignored his questions. “Why, Bo?” she insisted. Her pulse remained normal. The scratchiness definitely had cleared from her throat. “Aren’t you violating your parole? Why are you here?”

He glanced over at her. “You’re beginning to sound better.” He frowned. “Why am I here? Because Goldy asked me to help. You know me, I’m a military-action kind of guy.”

“Cut the crap,” Marla snapped.

“All right, then,” he snapped right back, “I did it because whatever’s gone on between us, we’re family.”

“I don’t know, guys,” Arch interjected. His voice wavered. “This is all pretty… heavy.” With my free hand, I patted his shoulder. He shook me off with a muttered, “Quit it.”

Still clasping Marla’s wrist, I twisted in the leather seat to check whether anyone was coming for the guard and the ambulance driver. But the roadside scene had long ago been swallowed in fog. I tried not to imagine how much trouble Tom would get into when news got out that his wife had held up an ambulance. I turned back and focused on Marla’s pulse. Hunched over the wheel, General Bo sailed up the interstate. His prominent chin jutted out at a determined angle. The speedometer needle quivered just above seventy miles per hour.

“That guard’s going to be fine,” Bo reassured Arch. His grip tightened on the wheel. “She must have studied acting, that one. Or maybe she was truly passing out. When I want to kill or maim someone, I do it.”

“So…” Marla groaned. “Where are we going? How is all this… going to end up?”

No one answered her. Bo glanced into the side mirror and changed lanes. 1 checked my watch: Ten minutes had passed.

“Getting back to cutting the crap,” General Bo said mildly, “why don’t you, Marla, dear, tell us what’s going on. Goldy didn’t have a lot of time to fill me in. She said you’d been accused of killing your boyfriend. Did you?”

Marla bit her bottom lip and said nothing. “Self-defense?” Bo prompted. His eyes didn’t move from the road. “Maybe you were just pissed oft? God knows, I invested in that mine, too. I’m pissed off”

Marla shuddered. “I did not do anything to Tony. I know it looks bad, because I was the last one with him… .”

“Well, next to last, anyway,” Arch added helpfully.

Marla went on: “Besides my hundred thousand in Prospect, he’d borrowed another eighty thou from me to put down on land in Steamboat Springs. He probably owes money all over the Denver metropolitan area. I want my money back. But I didn’t kill him.”

“Maybe he was cheating on you, and you just thought you’d hurt him,” Bo offered, his eyes still fixed on the road. “Maybe he insulted you. Maybe you’d just had enough. Frankly, I don’t care. But before we go farther, it would be best to know all we can.”

Marla didn’t bother to hide her hostility. “You’re as bad as the cops. I haven’t even begun to tell you how they treated me.” She turned around. Even with the hives receding, her bruised face seemed hideous to me. “You should have heard them. ‘What were you mad at Tony about? Did you hit him? How many times did you stab him?’ “

The general groaned sympathetically, but glanced at her expectantly, as in, Well? How many times did you stab him?

Marla’s tone was frosty and deliberate. “I don’t know who hit me, I don’t know why, I don’t know who hit Macguire, I don’t know who put the bloody shirt and knife in my car. I didn’t take Tony’s damn watch, and I certainly don’t know where Tony is.” She glared at us.

Another uncomfortable silence filled the Jeep. “Jake could f-i-n-d Mr. Royce,” Arch spelled out confidently.

“Dead or alive,” the general whispered. “So what are we going to do?” Marla asked angrily. “Go back to Goldy’s house and wait for Tony to call?”

Twenty minutes had elapsed, and Marla’s heartbeat, if not her humor, was in good shape. I took a deep breath. “Okay, look. You were attacked by a bald person. Maybe it was Albert. Maybe it was someone else. Tony’s vanished. I think our only hope is to go back to the campsite. The Furman County Sheriffs Department has access to just one bloodhound these days – “

“Oh, yeah!” Arch interrupted. “The police in Aurora asked to borrow that dog a couple of weeks ago, and the handler’s been involved down there, so they haven’t been able to work that dog up in the mountains – “

“Are you kidding?” Marla exclaimed.

“Look, Marla,” I protested, “it’s our only hope.”

“What is our only hope?” she squealed. “Going back to that damned campsite? In this weather? To look for what? Besides,” she added sarcastically, “I thought Arch’s dog was retired. Something about how he’d become untrustworthy. Please tell me I’m wrong.”

Jake, sensing he was being discussed, began to whine. Perhaps the canine was smarter than I was giving him credit for.

Arch piped up, “Jake just had trouble with three trails last year! It was because the department got a new handler who didn’t know what he was doing. Jake was mistreated and got all nervous. The department thought his smeller was off. But Tom and I know that isn’t true.”

“I think we should try to track Tony’s movements,” I said. I added mentally, And rely on Jake’s smeller not being off.

“Mom’s finally beginning to understand what Jake can do,” Arch said with an eagerness that made me uneasy. “See, even with the trail going to the creek, we should be able to locate the body. In the water, I mean. All that stuff in movies about prisoners getting rid of their scent? You know, by wading in a stream or something? That is completely wrong. You leave your scent in the water just as much as you do on the ground. See, bloodhounds can follow the trail along the creek – “

To my astonishment, Marla burst into tears. “My life is hell,” she wailed.

“Please stop,” I murmured. “Please don’t, you’ll just – “

“Who is trying to ruin my life?” she bawled. “What did I do?”

“Don’t try to talk,” I told her gently. Bo pulled into the far right lane and slowed slightly until we came to a lighted green highway sign.

“All right, listen to me,” the general began, as he peered through the mist. “Goldy’s plan is good. We go to the site. We track Tony to the last place he was seen. Maybe he was kidnapped. We track him to where a car j picked him up. Or say he was killed, thrown in a ditch. . Ditto. Then whoever did it must be the one who planted the evidence implicating Marla. Arch, you said you and Tom have worked with Jake. You don’t think the dog’s unreliable, do you? We’re all telling the truth here, young man.”

“Okay, look. Jake had a couple of problems our first time out,” Arch admitted. “He got confused by a pool scent. But he did better after that.”

“My number-one priority on this trek is to keep everyone safe,” General Bo announced fiercely. “With you first, Arch. I promised your mother. You take care of Jake. I’ll take care of you. Okay?”

“All right,” Arch replied angrily. “You don’t need to baby me.”

I said, “We’re just looking for clues that De Groot and Hersey might have missed. And to track Tony’s last movements. Maybe with Marla gone, the sheriffs department will search a little harder for Albert.”

I looked tentatively at Marla. Her face was set in deep doubt. No point in discussing any more until we got to the site. But to do that the fastest way, we had to go into Aspen Meadow and turn onto the state highway that led to Blue Spruce and the Grizzly Creek campsite.

We rounded the lake. I held my breath as we began the descent to the light on Aspen Meadow’s Main Street.

“Christ,” muttered General Farquhar. He pointed and I felt my heart clench. The law, it seemed, had already arrived on my street. Two patrol cars, lights whirling, were double-parked by the turnoff to our home.

The light at the intersection of Main Street and the highway leading to Blue Spruce and Grizzly Creek changed to red. With no place to turn around and the light against him, General Farquhar rocketed the Jeep through the intersection. He swerved wildly around a Volvo with a Kansas license plate, then barely missed a pickup truck as he plowed down the left lane. I guessed he was trying to find enough room to make a U-turn. He finally careened onto the sidewalk in front of the Aspen Meadow Cafe, plowed down a bush, and gunned the Jeep back up Main Street. Behind us, a siren sounded.

At the light, an enormous Safeway truck lumbered into the slow, tortuous turn toward the lake. The Jeep tires squealed as General Bo darted wide around the truck. The truck driver, confused by the Jeep’s sudden appearance, braked. All traffic was suddenly blocked as we zipped through the narrow opening made by the truck. Bo veered left, heading west on the highway. Belatedly, the truck driver let loose with his horn. Drivers on three sides joined in the cacophony.

“What was that about keeping everybody safe?” I yelled. No one listened to me.

When we had gone less than a hundred yards, General Farquhar gunned the Jeep up the grass-covered hill next to the road. We slammed through a flimsy wire fence and careened across private property. For the next ten minutes, the general took us through two more yards and then across back roads until we came to the acreage of Furman County Open Space property. We met with some strange looks and barking dogs, but no police cars and no angry-tempered Coloradans wielding .357 Magnums. Thank heaven.

“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked, once we were on a pathway that cut through a county-owned meadow. Bo did not answer. The overgrown, muddy path was sort of an off-road road. The Jeep wove around rocks and smashed back through someone else’s fence before returning to a rural paved road that eventually intersected the highway leading northwest out of town. Maybe he did know where he was going.

We drove the next forty minutes in near silence. Carl’s Trout Pond, High Country Auto Repair, and Blue Spruce all whizzed past. The road climbed until a sign swathed in tendrils of mist announced we were driving through national forest. At seven-thirty, we would have less than another hour of daylight. It was extremely unlikely that the police would still be at the campsite. When Tom had a team of investigators at the scene of a crime, they rarely stayed past a few hours, long enough to take photographs, make a videotape, and collect evidence.

At a dirt road where a collection of dilapidated signs stood propped like abandoned rakes, General Farquhar finally slowed. The rusty markers with their skewed arrows named a host of camps, picnic areas, and campsites that included Grizzly Creek. Grunting, Bo negotiated the razorback turn to get onto the dirt road. We jolted over a wooden bridge. Less than a foot below us, muddy, swollen Grizzly Creek teemed and foamed.

After crossing the creek, we wound swiftly upward through national forest. Occasionally, the fog cleared, revealing vistas of rock-strewn steppes and hillsides dense with evergreens. Stands of lovely white-skinned aspens randomly interrupted the green. We came into a narrow canyon where lodgepole and ponderosa pines stretched up bluffs on either side of the road. There were no cars, bicycles, or hikers. I dreaded the prospect of all the unknown territory out there – even more than I feared arriving at the campsite.

“You need to show me where you turned off,” General Bo told Marla, and she pointed mutely to a still narrower, unmarked dirt road. We rocked through muddy ditches, turned and once again found ourselves next to Grizzly Creek, this time heading upstream. We paralleled the bloated waterway until it disappeared upward into a ravine. The water crashing over rocks roared so loudly we could hear it inside the car. We pulled up to a rough parking area lined with logs. Marla drew in a ragged breath. Arch leaned forward to peer outside.

Arch told General Bo to cut the engine immediately. My son said, “Carbon monoxide from the engine exhaust can destroy the scent at the site. All the rain will make Tony’s scent stronger. A person drops individual bacteria and skin cells everywhere he goes,” Arch added. “When there’s little wind, no car exhaust, and a lot of moisture, the trail of a person’s movement can be detected for a long time, even weeks.” Even, as I had just learned, if he’s gone into or through water.

My eyes skimmed the abandoned campsite. Because we had climbed from the main road, what had been a lowlying gray cloud just above us was now a mist drifting between the pines. A picnic table had been upended, either by campers or by the investigators. Bits of tissue, crusts of food, and torn paper plates spotted the mud. It looked as if the trash can had been emptied. My guess was that this had been done in search of evidence.

“Okay, I’m going to get out first,” General Bo announced. He emerged stealthily from the Jeep and checked every corner of the campsite. His movements were hawklike, aggressive.

General Bo signaled to us to come. Jake began to snort excitedly. When Marla opened her door, I nodded to Arch, who hopped out with Jake in tow. I glanced at the cellular phone on the floor of the front seat. Call Tom now or later? I was going to call him, I was determined. I jumped out of the Jeep. Later.

Arch crouched next to Jake and murmured. Marla limped over to the creek and stood next to the raging water with her arms hugging her body. Arch reached into his backpack and pulled out his dog-handling gloves, then the working harness, which he snapped into place around Jake’s powerful torso. My son’s face was serious. I suspected he was beginning to understand the possible consequences of what we had done – or what we might find.

The general strode back to the Jeep and pulled out a large backpack on a frame. He hooked his arms through the metal support and fixed the straps around his waist. I took a deep breath of the cold, moist air and tried to think. Arch had told me that the record for a bloodhound tracking was one hundred forty miles in a day. Before darkness obliterated this fog, I doubted we’d go

more than a tiny fraction of that distance.

At Arch’s request, General Bo hauled out the bulging plastic bag that held Tony Royce’s pants. Bo signaled to me to come, then handed Arch the bag and reached into his pocket for a tightly folded laminated map. In the gathering gloom we squinted at the map: Ragged red lines marked Grizzly Creek, Bride’s Creek, Clear Creek; blue lines indicated the back roads; a double yellow line showed Interstate 70. To the west lay Idaho Springs; to the east, Aspen Meadow. Bo looked up and scowled.

“You ready?” I asked him. He nodded. In one fluid motion, Arch expertly opened the bag and clutched it from the bottom so that the open end was near Jake’s nose. Don’t ever overwhelm a bloodhound with scent, he’d told me. You just give him a whiff; and that’s enough. Arch held up the bag and leaned toward his dog. Then I was startled to hear my son’s mature command cut through the fog.

“Find!”

And off Jake went, glossy nose to the ground, long ears brushing the mud, long brown legs swaying from side to side. The hound cast around for a moment, then, tail curled up, ambled purposefully up the path away from the creek. Sensing that something was finally happening, Marla pulled away from her somber contemplation of the creek’s edge. Thirty feet beyond, Jake made his way with determination up the hill. The dog tugged so hard on the leash that Arch’s arms were straight and taut. Maybe I should have called Tom. But what would I have said to him? Arch and I are trying to pick up on the trail of a guy who might be dead. With us are a) my friend who’s been accused of murdering the maybe-dead guy, b) her brother-in-law who was so crazy the Pentagon dumped him and you sent him to prison, and c) a bloodhound the police retired for being unreliable. Wish you were here! I sighed deeply and trotted toward the path. Marla called that she would follow at a slower pace.

Within moments the campsite was gone from view. I tried to recall the most Arch had tracked with Tom and Jake in a day. Two miles? Five miles? Far above the fog, the sun was beginning its decline to the west, and soon the light we did have would drain away. I wished I’d checked our exact location on the map.

My feet slipped on the dense, slick carpet of pine needles, and I stopped to wait for Marla. By the time she caught up with me, the mist was thickening to a light rain. Our scraggly company halted when Jake snuffled in an erratic circle. I hustled up in Arch’s direction, then walked beside him as Jake scrambled over a cluster of rocks. Abruptly, the dog stopped by a pile of granite outcroppings.

“Pool scent,” Arch muttered under his breath. “Maybe he or they sat down here.”

Increasingly excited, Jake continued to wheel in a tight circle. I looked up into the pines. Every now and then the object of a search would climb a tree, as Arch’s friend Todd had done on a trail only last week. The last thing I needed was to stare down the barrel of a gun aimed at me by Albert Lipscomb. But the lodgepoles and ponderosas were empty. The trees stood with perfect, eerie stillness in the swirling mist.

“Wait!” came General Farquhar’s brusque command. He was peering at the ground. “Arch, pull Jake up.” Arch obliged. “There’s something here,” the general insisted.

I walked carefully over the sodden ground to where Bo and Marla stood by the granite outcroppings. “Marla,” I said as I stared at the ground, “would you reach into the pack and bring out the plastic bags?” Bo dropped down on his knees to make the backpack accessible, and Marla awkwardly unzipped the pack and dug around until she found the cardboard box of Ziplocs, which she handed to me. I impatiently opened the box, carefully removed one bag, and unfolded it over my hand. Then I reached down and snatched the object from the ground, folding the bag up and over, the way I had seen Tom do.

Jake started off again. General Bo stood quite still and looked at the plastic bag in my hand. Then he snared me in the spell of his eyes. In the fading light, I carefully maneuvered my hand around the article I’d picked up.

Marla stared at the bag in disbelief. I couldn’t compute what was there. Any graduate of Med Wives 101 knows that, my inner voice reprimanded. What I held in my outstretched hand was a Vacutainer tube, the kind used in blood tests. The nurse sticks you with the hypodermic needle, draws out your blood, and it goes into a sterilized plastic tube. If you’re in for a complete physical, first she fills one tube, then another. The tubes are labeled and capped: one to have your hemoglobin checked, another your thyroid, and so on.

But this was one plastic Vacutainer tube only, and it was broken. The shards were covered with dried blood.

17

Marla spoke first. “So what does all this mean?” she demanded impatiently. “Is that Tony’s blood? Albert’s? Or somebody else’s?”

“Here’s my best guess,” I said. “This tube?” I pointed. “This is where the blood came from that ended up spilled all over the shirt in your trunk.”

“But whose blood is it?” she repeated impatiently. Before any of us could answer, however, Jake darted off: away from the granite outcropping, up the hillside path. Tugged along by his dog, Arch yelled for us to follow. General Bo gave one quick shake of his head, leapt to his feet, and jogged up the path in pursuit. I held Marla’s arm as the two of us struggled to follow.

The rain thickened to icy drops. Thunder rumbled overhead. The shaggy pine needles overhanging the path trembled as the chill rain pelted downward. I pulled up my jacket collar and looked anxiously up the trail for Arch.

“Safety alert,” Bo called down to Marla and me. “We shouldn’t be out in a forest, at this altitude, in a lightning storm.” We mumbled assent, and Bo called for Arch to pull Jake up. Then Bo loudly summoned us to a retreat action. “Back to the Jeep, everybody! Time to get dry and look at the map!”

I made a U-turn on the path. No matter what you were doing, it seemed, the general wanted to be in charge. The rain leaked down my collar. My skin was chilling as fast as the thin membrane of ice that forms on Aspen Meadow Lake each November. Thunder boomed again, much closer this time.

I hustled up to Arch, who was unfastening the leash from Jake’s working harness. Talking quietly to his dog, Arch then removed the harness itself. This was Jake’s signal that the day’s tracking was over. I held the working harness while Arch clipped on Jake’s regular collar.

“You’re done, boy, good boy,” Arch murmured. “Dinner soon. I hope.”

As we ran back toward the car, Jake’s whines at being pulled off the trail almost rivaled the boom of the creek. Did I really want to find Tony? Yes, I said to myself as I gritted my teeth. I did. Dead or alive. I needed to know the truth.

“Lord,” said Marla when we were all packed back into the car. “I’m an icicle in an orange prison suit.”

I pointed to the storage area behind the back seat. “I brought a bag from your house. Extra sweaters, dry clothes.” She mumbled a thanks but only hugged herself for warmth.

After snapping on both the overhead and dashboard lights, the general wiped the laminated map and offered it to me. He asked gruffly, “So what’s the next part of the plan, Goldy? Now that both rain and night are falling?”

I tried to sound confident as I took the map. “Just give me a minute.” On the seat between Arch and me, Jake shook himself and nudged closer.

Marla was immediately dubious. “What are we doing, a scavenger hunt? Or is this an off-road trip? How long do you think it’s going to take the sheriffs department to swoop down on us?”

“Please relax,” I said as I traced Grizzly Creek with my index finger.

Arch embraced Jake, who slobbered over his face in gratitude. General Bo turned on the engine and clicked on the heat.

“Do you think,” Marla wondered aloud, “that the sheriffs department would take the investigation in a different direction, if we turned in that test tube?”

I snorted. “Do you want to risk the reactions of Hersey, De Groot, and Captain Shockley to what may or may not be evidence in your case? Especially now that you’re an escaped suspect? It’ll take them at least a week to run the tests to figure out whose blood is in your car. Matching with the stuff in the tube could take even longer. And then they’d have forty theories on what it proves.”

She shook her head dolefully. I went back to the map. Rain pounded on the roof. The only other sounds were Jake’s snuffles and the persistent roar of the creek.

I’m not great with maps, especially ones of the mountain areas that show elevations, streams, and roads. But this particular map was unusually complex. In addition to the main roads and towns, it depicted trails, campsites, four-wheel-drive roads, and historic landmarks. I had never heard of the Perdito Ghost Town or the Fallen Angel Mine. Making a mental note to check them out sometime, I searched for the Continental Divide. After a moment I made out Interstate 70, Clear Creek, Cottonwood Creek, and the Arapahoe National Forest.

“Jake’s hungry,” Arch announced to no one in particular.

“I’ve got food for him,” I said, still bent over the map.

The general assumed a jovial tone. “Anyone for camping out?”

Marla groaned. “No, no, no. Not now. Not ever. In fact, there is nothing that would get me back into a tent at any point in my lifetime. Especially when it’s raining. Besides, the last time I camped out on a night like this, bad things happened that I’m still paying for.”

“Let me see the map,” Arch offered helpfully. Jake awkwardly scrambled into the storage area behind the backseat. “Okay, here’s Aspen Meadow.” Arch’s finger indicated our town’s lake. Then he traced over to Interstate 70, eastward to the approximate point where we had taken Marla from the ambulance. “And here’s where we’ve come.” His stubby finger then indicated the road that ran northwestward out of Aspen Meadow, past the turnoff that led to the general’s compound in Blue Spruce, toward the entrance to the national forest and Grizzly Creek. “That trail we were on t goes over a lot of hills, and then just ends up back at I-Seventy, by Georgetown. Mom. Where do you suppose this guy or guys we’re tracking are going? What do you think they’re after?”

“Honey, that’s what I’m trying to figure out. There are all kinds of roads back to these campsites.”

“But,” Arch objected, his concentration back on the map, “why would you go up that path instead of back toward the campsite road, where you could have a car?”

The general turned on the wipers. They swept thick ripples of rain off the windshield.

Arch chewed his bottom lip the way he did with a particularly odious math problem. “Okay, we’re not going home or to the general’s compound. And we’re not going to camp out.” He straightened his glasses. “I gotta tell ya, Mom, I don’t think there’s enough room for all of us to sleep in this car.”

No one commented. Marla asked Bo to pop the trunk, which he did. She hopped into the rain. A moment later she ordered Jake to hold still as she clambered around behind us, looking for dry clothes.

“Okay everybody,” I said solemnly, “Bride’s Creek isn’t too far away. Remember when we did that party at the Hardcastles’ place, Arch? I think that’s where we should go.”

Arch said, “Some of the Prospect. Financial people were there, weren’t they? That’s where I met Sam the soup guy.”

I said glumly, “No one is supposed to be there now. Let’s just hope the property isn’t under water.”

The general pressed the accelerator. The engine roared in response, and Bo snapped the car into reverse. Unanchored by a seatbelt, Marla squealed as she bounced across the storage area.

“Wait a minute!” she cried.

Bo braked and Marla yelped again. “I know where Bride’s Creek is,” he announced. “Adele’s ashes are scattered there.” At the mention of her dead sister, Marla groaned. Bo ignored her. “How do we get to this cabin?” he demanded.

I endeavored to keep the irritation out of my voice. What had I been thinking – getting us all into this mess? Tom was going to kill me. If the general didn’t manage to do it first. “We need to be very careful,” I said. “If I ever get back home, I’d like to have a business to go back to. We’ll spend the night under a real roof and come back early tomorrow to pick up Tony’s trail.” It shouldn’t be so bad, if we don’t break anything, I consoled myself. Then I added mentally, I’ll give Edna and Whit a discount on their next party. If I have a next party.

18

Marla scrambled back to the front seat, now in a sequined burgundy sweat suit. The general made an efficient three-point turn. As we zipped along recalled the details of the roast pork luncheon Arch a I had done for the Hardcastles in the fall. It had been lavish fund-raiser for historic lands preservation. I hadn’t met Albert Lipscomb that day, but I knew he been a guest. Marla and Tony had been in attendance too, as had Amanda Trotfield, although her husband had been flying a charter to Buenos Aires. Edna Hardcastle had hired Sam Perdue to make vichyssoise. She told me she was trying to spread her money around among Aspen Meadow food folks. At the time, ] been miffed, but I’d been assured by Eileen Tobey, whose bank was a big sponsor of historic land preservation, that Sam’s cold potato-leek soup couldn’t touch mine. Now, I didn’t give a hoot about the luncheon what had been served. I concentrated on trying to r member where the Hardcastles kept the spare key to their cabin door.

With a screech and thud, the general catapulted the Jeep onto the state highway. To the east were his compound and Aspen Meadow; to the west, the Continental Divide and the high mountains. I half expected to see a dozen police cars lying in wait for us where the dirt met the gravel. But there was only the rain.

“May I see the map?” Marla asked meekly. I handed it to her. She turned the light on over her seat and bent over it.

Incredibly, undoubtedly from habit, I tried to decide what we were all going to have for dinner. I had no idea what foodstuffs General Bo had brought for us. The more I stared at the rain streaking our windows, the more unwelcome, catering-type worries crowded my mind. There was the problem of the Hardcastles’ wood stove-would there be enough dry firewood to keep it going through the evening? And what would we have for breakfast? I almost laughed. Then my mind posed another question: Didn’t the Hardcastles have a caretaker living near the cabin? Would he see us breaking in? If he did, wouldn’t he call the police?

Within thirty minutes we turned onto the road paralleling Bride’s Creek. After following the swollen, turbulent waterway for a few miles, we came to the split rail fence that announced the beginning of the Hardcastles’ extensive property. Arch excitedly pointed to the driveway with its stone pillars. I held my breath as the Jeep rocked over the narrow wooden bridge that barely spanned the muddy wash of the usually idyllic stream.

Peering through the gloom for signs of life at the caretaker’s white house, I quickly realized there wouldn’t be any. Set in a lowlying area near the water’s edge, the diminutive clapboard residence had been claimed by the creek’s overflowing banks. Water rippled around the house, which stood like a beleaguered island.

“So much for the caretaker,” muttered Marla. “It’s just us and the ghost of the bride.”

“Excuse me?” said Bo, his eyes on the road. “When we scattered Adele’s ashes up here, it was because her Episcopal church was still arguing about a columbarium. I never heard any of the history.”

Marla tsked. “They gave us the spiel on the reason for the creek’s name at the historic lands luncheon. There was a popular hotel downstream. Early in the century, the place was famous for luxurious honeymoon cabins.” She sighed, as if renting a honeymoon cabin was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard of: “In the twenties, one newlywed couple came up in their Rolls and took over the most spacious cabin. Under a full moon, and presumably after the marriage had been consummated, the bride stepped out for a stroll. She got too close to the creek, slipped, and drowned. Now people say they see her ghost by the water. Especially when there’s a full moon.”

“We probably won’t be able to see the moon tonight,” Arch commented pragmatically. “Too cloudy.”

“Yeah, well,” Marla said knowingly. “That doesn’t mean she’s not still out there. They couldn’t do autopsies back then, the way they do them now. My guess is her new husband pushed her into the creek and held her down. You’d have to be pretty dumb to fall into the water. Pushing somebody, that’s altogether different. At least, that’s what they kept telling me down at the Furman County Jail.”

“Tell me about the cabin,” Bo demanded as we rounded a stand of evergreens. The rain had once again turned to mist. “I suppose it’s historic, too?”

“Yes, we heard all about it last fall, too,” I said wearily. “Built around… oh, what did they say? 1860. It was a trapper’s cabin by the stream. The cabin became a stage stop and then a schoolhouse – the only one between here and Aspen Meadow. Then it morphed into a general store. Furman County came up about twenty years ago and claimed the cabin was on their right-of-way. They needed to pave the road along Bride’s Creek, and they wanted to tear the cabin down. Mrs. Hardcastle’s mother, Maureen Colbert, stepped in and waved a preservation flag, probably one of the first. Mrs. Colbert, who was also a big benefactor of the Denver Zoo, bought the cabin from the county, purchased this adjoining property, and had the cabin reassembled, log by log, on higher ground. When she died, she left it to her only daughter, Edna, who married Whitaker Hardcastle, a petroleum geologist. They’ve got a daughter, too, and she was supposed to get married up here this spring, but she reneged.” I remembered how much my bank account and I had been looking forward to catering the Hardcastles’ daughter’s wedding reception. Now my bank account seemed like the least of my problems.

“Yeah,” Arch interjected, “but we did that lunch fund-raiser here last fall, after Julian left. It was one of the first times I helped Mom on my own.”

We passed the toolshed, pump, and outdoor shower the Hardcastles had constructed near the cabin. Mrs. Hardcastle’s mother had wanted the cabin not just to be moved but to be restored, so that when you came up to visit, you could stay there and imagine yourself a trapper.

Make that a very wealthy trapper. A real trapper wouldn’t have built a fake well next to the pump. In her desire to make the cabin look authentically rustic, Edna Hardcastle had constructed a cute little well superstructure – the round, roofed type the Disney folks might have put by a cabin in Frontierland. It was in the well bucket, I remembered suddenly as we pulled up, that the Hardcastles kept their spare key. I thanked heaven I’d remembered, and then silently requested forgiveness for felony trespassing.

We all jumped out. Jake immediately lifted his snout to the skies and howled; Arch shushed him. The well crank squeaked ominously as I hauled on the rope, but the bucket popped up, and I fished out the dark plastic container that held the key to the cabin’s massive front door. As the general busily unloaded gear from the rear of the Jeep, Arch continued to reassure a nervous, !barking Jake that he would eat soon. Marla stood apart, refusing to join us. Her arms were crossed, and she gazed into the distance. More than ever, I wanted to get her through this mess.

With a determined shrug – we were, after all, adding breaking and entering to our list of crimes – I put the key into the lock. Before turning it, I noticed deep, new grooves beside the doorjamb. It looked as if someone with a crowbar had preceded us.

Without touching the key, I pushed on the knob. The door creaked on its hinges and opened wide. Immediately a flood of damp, musty air washed out onto the stoop. I said weakly, “Somebody’s broken in.”

“All right, let me check this out,” the general ordered. He assumed a straight-backed military bearing and pulled out his gun. In his free hand he brandished a I high-powered flashlight that made the silver tube affairs I’d known from summer camp look like toys. Skimming silently across the floorboards with the Glock poised, he swept the interior space with the beam of his light. After a few minutes of probing, he seemed satisfied that the place was empty. He put the gun and the flashlight down on a table, fished out matches, and scraped one of the more sturdy-looking chairs into the center of the room. Then he lit the kerosene lamps hanging from the ceiling. Light filtered to the far edges of the cabin interior.

The small interior space – about four hundred square feet-was authentically without electricity or telephone. No sign of an intruder was evident. The antique furnishings that came into view were as lovely as I remembered: rocking chairs, a wooden love seat, two small beds, a fireplace that had been put in when the cabin had been reassembled, a spinning wheel, the black cookstove in one corner, an antique corner cupboard in another. There was even a chair that had a bucket underneath-a frontier toilet. But who had broken in? And when?

“Hold on,” said the general as he scanned the room. The glow from the lamp also illuminated the room’s most unusual furnishing: an enormous tiger skin, complete with head. When Maureen Colbert had been a benefactor of the Denver Zoo, she had paid for a tiger to be brought from India. When the large female tiger – named Lady Maureen by the zoo director, to pay homage to Mrs. Colbert – had died some years later, the zoo had sent the animal to the taxidermist, then presented it to Mrs. Colbert. This way, she would forever have a reminder of her gift-albeit on the floor of her restored cabin. I didn’t know what Jake would make of the Lady Maureen rug, and wasn’t eager to find out. The general nodded to me, and I moved toward the tiger skin. When I’d heated up the pork on the cabin cookstove last fall, I’d spent quite a bit of time looking at Lady Maureen. Now something about the dead tiger didn’t look right.

“Damn, it’s cold,” Bo muttered. “Looks like who ever broke in didn’t leave much of a trace. I don’t suppose the owners keep firewood inside. Or whoever’s been here used it up.”

“There should be plenty of wood under a plastic cover,” I said quietly, “out by the toolshed.”

When he reholstered the gun and nipped out the door, I knelt beside the tiger skin. Outside, I could hear Marla and Arch insistently telling Jake to hush up. I turned back and examined the rug from one side, then the other. After a moment, I figured out what looked strange. Someone – perhaps with a sense of humor – had wedged a flesh-colored balloon deep inside the tiger’s mouth. The balloon was packed in so deeply that the plastic was barely visible between the tiger’s teeth. I felt along the sharp incisors and touched the folds of the object. It was thicker than plastic, more like latex. Carefully, I pulled the rubbery thing out.

It was not a balloon. It looked like a flesh-colored covering of some kind. In the dim light, I could discern drops of dried liquid. I rubbed the pale bumps gently. Makeup came off on my fingers.

Check the trash, I could hear my mother’s voice saying in my ear, her favorite means of getting to the source of the problem. I scanned the room and made for the stenciled trash can beside the wood stove. At its bottom was a small pile of crumpled sheets. I set the pink rubber thing aside and examined the sheets. They were pristinely dustless; they had not been in this trash can very long.

Five cellophane wrappers from Oriental noodle packages crinkled in my hands. I put these aside and reached for the rest: crumpled pages of type that appeared to have been photocopied from a book. The first was a sheet of instructions that included a diagram of an ear. Above the diagram in capital letters was the warning: “Be very careful when cutting around ears, that you cut only the cap.” And at the bottom, a new section: “Applying Makeup.”

I flipped through the pages until I came to one of photographs of men. The heading read: “Woochie Professional Quality Bald Cap.” The introduction to the instructions began: “Woochie premium bald caps can sometimes be reused… .”

I stared at the pink balloon. A bald cap. Who’d put this thing in the tiger’s mouth, and why?

I stuffed the papers and cap into the trash, replaced the can, and ran outside to check on Arch. My son was driving down on the water pump handle with all his strength. Water was not issuing from the spigot. Jake continued to howl. Marla yelled at the dog to hush as she showed Arch how to prime the pump with a full rain bucket. General Bo stood by the toolshed loading his arms with firewood. I ran over to him.

“Whoever hit Marla that night has been here,” I told him. “I think. Been and gone, it looks like. The guy … left trash… a disguise that makes you bald.”

General Bo shook his head. “Hold out your arms.” I did so and he handed me the logs. He was already moving in Arch’s direction. “We shouldn’t have taken the working harness off the dog. He could have told us if what he’s smelling up here is Tony. Maybe that’s why he’s barking so much.”

“We could try him with the harness,” I said as I hustled along behind him.

“No. It’s too dark to get any tracking done. The dog needs to eat and rest. Start the fire. I’ll get Arch, Marla, the dog, and the supplies inside.” He pulled out the Glock. Suddenly Jake howled more fiercely than ever.

The general called impatiently, “Come on, everybody inside! Carry as much as you can.”

I stumbled with the wood to the cabin door. Jake yelped. If a person or persons was indeed nearby, they could be in no doubt of our presence now. Arch grabbed the bucket and Jake’s leash. Marla limped toward us. I couldn’t believe she was carrying a bag from the Jeep trunk. When the two of them were safely through the door, I brought it almost closed. A moment later, the general backed into the cabin, his non”-gun-holding hand grasping a last bag of supplies. He bolted the door.

While I stuffed wood into the stove, my mind raced. Not believing he or she would be followed, this criminal had left evidence gleefully. Catch me if you can. But] where was he going? Did he have Tony with him? And : most important, would we sort out what had happened before the Furman County Sheriffs Department caught up with us?

Food, I told myself. We’ll eat first and worry later.

By the time Arch had poured Jake a bowl of water and’ Marla had dished out some kibble, I had the beginning of a fire going in the stove. Arch assured us that Jake would let us know if there was anyone in the vicinity of the cabin. I knew that to be true, as Jake had certainly alerted us to every rustle of movement on our street. We all agreed to relax. If possible, Marla said with a sigh.

The general built a fire in the main fireplace, and soon the cabin was lit with a cozy glow. I poked through the cabinets lining the cabin walls. The corner cupboard yielded an array of crockery and pewterware that looked authentically nineteenth-century. I thought with a pang that Tom, with his great love of antiques, would have admired the tankards and chargers. The Hardcastles had stocked two sets of plates: a collection of plain ironstone, and a lovely set of spatterware with a rose in the center of each plate. This, too, Tom had taught me the name for – Adam’s Rose. Soon, I thought with a pang, he would return to an empty house, see my note, and wonder if we were still alive. Perhaps he was already home. As the rain beat down on the roof I was thankful, finally, for one thing. At least we weren’t outside.

While Marla and Arch tried to figure how the four of us would make do with two small beds, Bo unpacked the bags of food. A large bundle of fresh asparagus lay next to a package of chicken breasts, a bag of rice, and several small jars of condiments. He had brought half a dozen eggs. Five of them were now broken.

“Thought you’d like to do a stir-fry,” he announced solemnly. “Since I didn’t know what our cooking situation would be.”

Marla burst out laughing. Arch gave me ashy, oh-well sort of smile. I asked Bo to set us up on the small table while I hunted for, and found, a heavy cast-iron skillet that would do for a wok. In another pot, I started water for the rice and then turned my attention to the chicken. Anything to get away from thinking about the unknown lurking in the mist. And speaking of the unknown, why shouldn’t I call Tom? That would at least put my mind at rest, if not his.

“Did you bring the cellular phone in from the car?” I asked General Bo.

He shook his head grimly. “No, and I don’t want anyone going out until morning. Too risky.”

Oh, great. I assessed the Oriental-style ingredients. I started the rice and sliced the chicken breasts. While the chicken marinated in egg white, sherry, soy sauce, and cornstarch – a tenderizing trick I’d learned from a television food show – I pressed a pungent garlic clove and sliced a pile of bright green asparagus and fragrant white onion. Soon the chicken, garlic, and onion were sizzling in the pan and a mouth-watering scent filled the cabin. I steamed the sliced asparagus and stirred in dark, tangy black bean sauce. At least I was making something for Marla that was lowfat, I thought grimly.

“Marla, I need to talk to you about something,” I said when we dug into the heaps of steaming Chinese food. “I’d like you to take a good look at that map. You know the partners and the investors better than any of us. There could be a bank, an airstrip, somebody these guys know in a nearby town… anything that looks reasonable as a possibility of where one or both of them could have gone. We could skip going back to where we were tracking Tony, and try to assess his direction, pick up a fresher scent.”

When we finished, Bo and Arch washed the dishes in water they’d brought in from the pump and heated on the cookstove. Marla and I spread out the map on Lady Maureen’s striped back. We studied it and tried to peer into the mind of Albert Lipscomb. Or were we trying to psych out Tony Royce? Or both? Or someone else?

The campsite was a stopping point amid a network of trails that ran through the Arapahoe National Forest: The trail we’d been on with Jake was clearly marked. It followed Grizzly Creek and then crossed it, then came down to a four-wheel-drive road that led to Interstate 70 and Georgetown to the west, Idaho Springs to the east.

I pointed to the map. “Whoever we’re tracking, whoever has Tony, has a two-day lead on us. So where would one or both of the Prospect partners, or one of their clients be going?”

Marla nestled her large body into the tiger skin and stared down at the map. A scarlet-painted nail pointed. “If one of the clients is behind all this, then I have no idea. They could be at Denver International Airport, they could be in the Nevada desert.” She paused. “But if it’s Tony and/or Albert, we could look in one of two places, I’d say. The two of them shared a house, sort of a mountain hideaway, in Estes Park. What’s that, seventy miles from here? But you’d have to go east and then north from here. That’s not the way Jake was leading us.”

“Seventy miles,” I repeated. I was suddenly so tired. My wet hair had dried, finally, but my muscles ached from the strain of the day. “What’s your second idea?”

Marla said, “If Albert has three and a half million in cash from the Prospect account, he wouldn’t want to carry it in this weather across a mountainous forest trail to find his partner, for whatever reason. So he’d have to stash it someplace.” She tapped the map. “This is the direction we were heading. Northwest. Straight in the direction of the Eurydice Gold Mine.” She looked at me. “Someone could have stashed the cash in one of those buildings by the mine. There’s nobody up there, since they haven’t hired a team to start exploration work. Plus, there’s that safe deep in the Eurydice Mine, about a half-mile in. You know, that’s where they keep those gold bars and samples.”

I said, “And guess what I’d be willing to bet? They weren’t samples from the Eurydice. But why wouldn’t somebody, Captain Shockley especially, have gone inside the mine in the last week to check whether the samples were still there? I know he went up there when Albert was first missing, but the place was all locked up.”

Marla shrugged. “Well, Albert knows the place well.

Stir-fry Chicken with Asparagus

4 chicken breast halves (approximately 1 ˝ pounds), cut into 1/2-inch-thick, bite-size pieces

1 egg white

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 tablespoon dry sherry

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 small (6-ounce) onion, halved and thinly sliced

1 garlic clove, pressed

2 tablespoons canola oil

1 ˝ cup water

1 pound fresh asparagus, trimmed of woody stems and cut diagonally into 2-inch slices

˝ cup canned water chestnuts, drained and sliced

˝ cup black bean sauce (available in the Oriental food section of the grocery store)

Freshly ground black pepper Approximately 4 cups of cooked, hot medium-grain rice In a glass pie pan, thoroughly mix the egg white, cornstarch, sherry, soy sauce, onion, and garlic. Marinate the chicken pieces in this mixture for 30 minutes to no more than an hour.

In a large frying pan or wok, heat the oil over moderately high heat. Stir-fry the marinated chicken for several minutes, until it is just done. Do not overcook the chicken. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Reheat the pan over high heat and add the water. Quickly stir up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan, then add the asparagus, water chestnuts, and black bean sauce. Cover the pan and cook over medium heat for 2 to 5 minutes, until the asparagus is bright green but still crunchy. Add the chicken. Stir over medium-high heat until the mixture is heated through. Season to taste with pepper. Serve immediately over hot rice.

Serves 4.

If you cannot find flack bean sauce in the Oriental section of your local grocery store, the grocery manager should be able to order it for you. The brand I use id Ka-Me. I ceased being frustrated by its frequent unavailability at my local store once I started ordering it by the case. Order forms are usually available at the customer service desk; the order generally takes about two weeks to a month to fill. Ordering by the case usually means you will receive a substantial discount.

I mean, he’s the owner, but they didn’t have him around to sign a consent-to-search. And what are the cops going to do, get a warrant to traipse through a mine? That string of lights doesn’t go back very far I can’t believe someone from law enforcement would go deep into the Eurydice Mine just to look around.” She paused. “On the other hand, Albert certainly wouldn’t make a getaway without all that gold. It’s worth a couple hundred thousand at least.”

I said, “But still… if Albert’s – or the disguised bald person’s – point was to steal Prospect’s assets, why wouldn’t he or she have gone into the mine to get the gold samples sometime in the last week?” Wait a minute. I remembered back to the party, when Albert and Tony had both entered the mine to get the samples. Why wouldn’t just one of them have gone, with a wheelbarrow? Why would they both go? “What do you know about the mine safe?” I quickly asked Marla. “How hard is it to get into?”

“Oh my gosh,” Marla said suddenly. “Oh, Lord. This isn’t generally known. I’ll bet even Captain Shockley doesn’t know. Opening that safe is like using nukes on a sub.”

“Wow,” Arch interrupted. “You mean when you have two guys with encoded messages? Then each guy uses his key to activate the weapons? It’s so cool. You can’t do it alone. That’s to keep some crazy guy from like, blowing up the world.” I gave Marla a hard look. She said, “It takes Albert and Tony both to open the mine safe.”

19

General Bo rubbed his hand over his mowed scalp. “So,” he observed, “if our villain is after money – and so far he’s proven that he is, if he’s the same guy who hit the bank-then he’s got to drag his partner up to that mine to get the gold out. Framing Marla was a brilliant way to get the authorities off his track, so he could have time to cash in and then get out.”

“But why ruin the company?” I asked. “And why wait a week to do all this? There has to be some other explanation. Maybe this evidence points to some other person. Some other motivation.”

Marla and I hashed it through. Eileen Tobey would know about theatrical disguises, the proximity of the cabin, the existence of the gold bars. Plus, she hated Tony and loved money. The clients closest to Tony and Albert were the Trotfields and the Hardcastles. They stood to lose a lot of money if the mine investment was a scam. Sam Perdue desperately needed capital for his soup restaurant chain. Victoria Lear, one of the primary rebuffers-of-Sam, had learned the lie of L-208.

Had anyone else? Who besides Marla and the two partners knew of the two-lock safe deep inside the Eurydice? Maybe Tony had another girlfriend. Maybe Albert had told someone else, like the police captain in charge of security.

“Go to sleep,’: Bo chided after we’d spent a fruitless hour trying to figure out who knew what and when they knew it.

Marla and I lay down on the cold, musty-smelling beds. Arch and Jake claimed the back of Lady Maureen. The general extinguished the kerosene lamps, and stretched out on the floor. The fire’s embers glowed, crackled, and waned, from time to time shooting up a flare of flame. I tried to sleep. Exhausted as I was, slumber eluded me. After a while I crept over to one of the windows arid tried to send thoughts to Tom: We’re all right. We’ll be home soon.

Eleven o’clock. My son’s measured breathing, a sound I would recognize even if he were thirty feet away, filled the darkened cabin. Midnight: The rain ceased, and Marla was snoring. By two, I thought I was the only one awake, although the general’s breathing was as hushed and catlike as his movements. Out the window, the clouds had thinned to fast-moving wisps. When the moon emerged from behind a skein of haze, I glanced in the direction of the creek, half expecting to see the ghost of that tragic, long-buried bride. But there was only fog, wafting through the trees. Tom, I thought, how are you? But I heard no answer and saw nothing. The only spirit I felt was my own, and it was full of pain.

I must have fallen asleep. I was startled awake with my forehead pressed against the frigid windowpane. I tensed and brought my head up abruptly. What was that sound? It was nearby: a door creaking open. Narrowing my eyes, I could make out Arch and General Bo Farquhar moving through pewter-colored predawn light. My son gripped the leash of a panting, nervous Jake. For a fleeting moment, I thought I must be trapped in a lost episode from Little House on the Prairie. Where was Michael Landon and his ever-hopeful little family? And why was I staring at the large head of a dead tiger?

I rubbed my eyes, surveyed the cabin interior, and tried to think. The chaotic events of the previous day welled up. I shivered and checked my watch. It was Tuesday, June 15, just after five in the morning. Outside, Bo, Arch, and Jake stopped beside the pump. The bloodhound was sniffing, his nose pressed to the soggy earth, his tail curled high. Ever wary, Bo held his deadly-looking gun at his side. Below the cabin, a milky fog poured between the trees. Usually a fast, low white cloud means a front is moving through. With any luck, the frigid vapor would soon burn off. Maybe we’d even have a clear day.

Marla roused herself to her knees, peered out, and grunted. “If we’re going to have English weather, can’t we at least have crumpets?”

Her eyes met mine across the cabin space. A lump formed in my throat. What a mess. My best friend had been arrested for murder and neither ‘my policeman husband nor I had been able to help her. Now we were all outside the law, and the person who’d framed her for the crime was probably long gone.

I said, “How are you doing?” Marla answered ruefully. “Wait until I have some caffeine, before you ask me that. I know, I know – I’m not supposed to drink the stuff, but I’m desperate. Is there any?”

“Is there what?” General Bo Farquhar’s arrival startled me, as he always moved so silently. He entered with a load of firewood, Arch and Jake behind him. The dog looked crestfallen. “What do you girls want now, eggs Benedict?”

I pointed my finger at him. “Don’t call me a girl, boy. Did you bring in that cell phone?”

He deposited the wood, spanked his hands together to rid them of mud and bark, and brought me the phone. “Try not to get the police onto us. Also, if you want breakfast, you’ll have to improvise, since all the eggs are broken.”

Breakfast could wait. Bo had activated the cellular; I punched in our home number and suppressed a worry of how cops traced cell calls. In any event, I seriously doubted the Furman County Sheriffs Department possessed such technology. The phone rang once.

“Schulz.” His voice was scratchy with sleep. “

It’s me.”

I heard him sigh. “Where are you? Are you coming home? Is Arch all right?”

“He’s fine, we all are. We’re out in the wild trying to track Tony.” He groaned. I went on: “Listen, I’m certain that Tony Royce didn’t drown in that creek. And after I talked to you yesterday, I got information that Prospect Financial was lying about the mine being closed down during the 1940s. Also, we’ve found a bloody test tube and a disguise.”

“A test tube and a what?”

“A bald disguise. Like a cap. That someone would wear to look bald. Say, if a person wanted to look like Albert Lipscomb. Think those two items would be enough to clear Marla of drowning her boyfriend? Talk fast, I don’t want anyone to trace this.”

“No way. Your skipping with Marla makes her look more guilty. And I’m supposed to remind you to obey the law, wife.”

“But what about that evidence?”

“I’d have to see it, Miss G. And with the current atmosphere down at the department, it’ll take an act of God to clear Marla. Please – “

“I’ll call you later. I miss you.” I hung up abruptly.

With the possibility of a trace, there was no time for extensive sentimentality. Unfortunately. Poor Tom. I hadn’t even asked what kind of fallout had rained on him from the ambulance incident. I took a deep breath. Time to think of food. Cooking was low on my agenda. On the other hand, feeding everyone brought a sense of purpose, and might help me move beyond the guilt I felt for betraying Tom. While the general built up the cookstove fire and hauled in water, I scrounged through the Hardcastles’ meager cupboard again. Flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, buttermilk solids. No beef jerky, no dried fruit. I guess the Hardcastles thought trappers would feast on the fresh game they’d snared. After a few moments of grumbling, I came up with three stray teabags, an unopened jar of apple butter, shortening, cream of tartar –a find – and a griddle. A silly memory intruded-Arch’s fourth-grade science fair question. What makes cookie batter puff up? The answer: an acid-cream of tartar – and a base – baking soda. Mixing the reconstituted buttermilk and dry ingredients to a soft batter made me stop fretting, if only temporarily. I kneaded the feathery dough, patted it into a circle on a wooden board, cut it into wedges, then dropped the scones into hot, bubbling shortening.

Cinnamon Griddle Scones

1 cup all-purpose flour

˝ teaspoon cream of tartar

ź teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

˝ teaspoon baking soda

˝ teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons dry buttermilk solids (available canned in the baking goods section of the grocery store)

˝ cup water

2 tablespoons solid vegetable shortening such as Crisco

Preheat griddle over medium-high heat. Stir together flour, cream of tartar, salt, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and buttermilk solids. Add water and stir until well combined. Turn the batter out on a well-floured surface, knead a few turns, and pat into a circle about 6 ˝ inches in diameter. With a sharp knife, cut the dough into 8 wedges. Melt the shortening on the griddle. When the shortening is hot, lower the heat to medium and place the scones on the griddle. Cook until the first side is golden brown, then turn and cook the other side. Test for doneness by splitting one scone. It should lot be doughy, but should look like biscuit. Remove the scones from the griddle and serve with butter and apple butter.

Makes 8 small scones.

Ten minutes later, while Jake attacked his kibble, the four of us hunkered down on the striped back of Lady, Maureen and proved the adage that hunger makes the best sauce. We slathered the hot scones with butter – the general had brought a stick with his supplies – and apple butter, courtesy of the Hardcastles. The butter and apple butter oozed comfortingly between the moist, tender, biscuitlike layers. A morning coffee devotee, I was surprised by the delicious taste of the English Breakfast tea I’d brewed. Any port in a storm.

“Time to pack up,” the general announced. He wanted to get to Idaho Springs and the Eurydice Gold Mine as soon as possible.

We left the Hardcastles’ cabin somewhat cleaner than we’d found it, and my only hope was that a new layer of dust would cover the interior before the Hardcastles took it upon themselves to visit their country property.

When we drew up to the mine an hour later, it appeared utterly abandoned. The heavy grates across the menacing portal were wrapped shut by a thick chain. The sheds were tightly locked. How different the old site seemed now, with no tent, no portable ovens, no food, and no partygoers. Arch talked to Jake, who had howled on our way up High Creek Avenue. Jake scrambled over his lap, poked his nose out the window and let loose with a grandiose, ear-splitting wail.

“Not again,” muttered Marla.

“Close the damn window,” the general commanded.

“Okay,” Arch said meekly, “but it’s like up at the cabin. Bloodhounds remember a scent. When they smell it in the air, they howl. It’s just the way they are. I think Tony’s been here.”

“Honey,” I said mildly, “Jake always howls.”

“Not true,” Arch maintained, ever loyal.

“Well, then,” I asked as we piled out of the Jeep, “what if whoever kidnapped Tony was here, and then went off? Or say the kidnapper got the gold, then came back down this dirt road? The dog certainly won’t be able to distinguish between coming and going, will he?” And particularly not this dog, I thought somewhat peevishly.

“Bloodhounds always go after the freshest scent,” my son replied earnestly, anxious to exhibit his beloved pet’s unique skills. “At this point, the whole idea in Jake’s mind, his whole purpose in life, is just to f-i-n-d Tony.”

Arch coaxed the working harness, a leather and metal contraption attached to a thicker leather leash, back over Jake’s head. Jake immediately lowered his nose to the train track leading into the mine. I turned and saw Marla staring at the portal. There was fear in her eyes. Jake cast along the area where the party tent had been, nose to the ground, paws taking him first here, then there. He sniffed out a ditch, then the entrance to a shed. My heart sank. This would never work. And even if it did, and if we did find Tony in the mine, what would we do? Suppose he really was dead? Would we call the sheriffs department? I couldn’t imagine De Groot and Hersey driving up in a department vehicle with big smiles on their faces. Hey, sorry everybody! Marla didn’t kill Royce! Nobody got pushed into Grizzly Creek! Big mistake!

ake had a scent. He was pulling dementedly on his leash.

“Hold up,” said the general. “There’s a road around the side of the mountain. It goes down some rough terrain and ends up on a back road to Central City, not far from Orpheus Canyon Road. Maybe Tony and his abductor came for the gold samples, and they went out the other way. Be very sure to let the hound cast for the freshest scent, Arch.”

But Jake was determined that there was only one scent to follow, and that led straight into the Eurydice Mine. He stopped at the closed grate, and howled.

“Wait,” the general commanded briskly. He strode over to the corrugated metal shed on the right side of the mine, where the party tent had been pitched less than ten days earlier. He pushed hard on the door until the wood splintered and gave. A moment later, the string of lights leading into the mine lit up. I recalled that Marla had told me the lights had been specially hung for the investors’ tour of the mine, and did not go in very far. But to me, the tiny lamps seemed to go down and in forever, like a vision out of Alice in Wonderland.

Bo poked his head out the shed door and signaled to us.

“I don’t know this place at all,” he said, almost apologetically. “And I have no idea what the scent will be like inside the mine. I don’t even know where the safe is, but the tracks should take us to it. I’m hoping that’s where we’ll find Tony.” He looked hard at Arch. “I really don’t want you to be subjected to this, son. Please let me take Jake. You can stay here, in the car if you like, with your mother.”

Arch pushed his glasses up his nose and squared his shoulders in unconscious imitation of Bo. “Wherever Jake goes, I go. That’s the way it is. My dad’s a doctor and Tom’s a homicide guy. I know about life and death, and you know my mom’s been involved with solving some crimes before.”

Bo scowled. Then he nodded. Maybe he recognized that Arch could be as stubborn as he was.

“All right then,” he said. “Here’s the deal. Sorry to take over, Goldy, but with safety an issue, I’d feel better being in charge.”

I nodded an assent. The general went on: “I want Marla to stay at the portal with my gun. Arch, Goldy, and I go in wearing mine safety equipment. We follow the rails with Jake to the safe. No matter what happens, we stay together. A lamp goes out, Jake starts to howl, we all come out and I go back in alone. Got it?”

Arch said yes. I nodded. General Bo led us, catlike, through the shed. He handed Arch and me hard hats, then put one on himself Arch clamped his foot over Jake’s leash while he fastened the hard hat strap under his chin.

“Put these on, too,” Bo advised. He held up bulky belts whose loops were crammed with equipment. When we had fastened the cumbersome leather straps around our waists, Bo grinned. “Before we take off, ladies and gentlemen, we’d like to demonstrate the safety features of your belt.” He reached to one side of the belt and pulled on a round reflective device attached to a cord. “This is a cap lamp.” He slid the light into a metal bracket in the front of his hardhat. “Used one of these once when I went into a VC tunnel in ‘Nam.” He flipped a switch on the lamp, and it came on. “Only use this if you have to.” He touched the cord on the lamp. “It’s attached to a wet cell battery back here.” He grasped what looked like a miniature flask from the belt. “This is what’s called a self-rescuer. If there’s a fire in the tunnel, what you most need to worry about is carbon monoxide. You use this like diving equipment.” He glanced around the shed, tucked his self-rescuer in his belt, and reached for another of the flasks. Unlike the ones on our belts, this flask was red.

“This is a training device. Nonfunctioning, that’s why it’s painted red. You pry up this lever to break the seal and discard the cover. Then you bite on this mouthpiece.” When he pulled the cloth cover off the flask, underneath was a metal container with an attached nose clip. He held the mouthpiece of the training flask up to his mouth. “Then close your nostrils with this” – he pointed to the nose clip – “and breathe. The filter inside the self-rescuer turns carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide for about an hour, depending on the concentration of carbon monoxide. You probably won’t need it.” He nodded, his eyes sternly assessing us for signs of cowardice. “Okay? Ready?” Arch said yes, eagerly, and scooped up Jake’s leash. I bobbed my head inside the hard hat. It was tight on my head, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to fit the cap lamp into the hat’s bracket if I had to, much less use the respirator. All I wanted to do was find what we had come here for, and get home to Tom. If Tom wanted me back home.

General Bo carried a hammer out to the portal entrance, where he examined the chain and padlock, Loudly, he said, “Okay, here we go.” A few swings of the hammer broke the padlock, and Bo unthreaded the chain.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” Arch told me as we neared the iron doors that Bo pulled open. Jake surged forward expectantly. “Mines are really safe these days. Not like they used to be.”

“What a comforting thought.”

Marla listened to Bo explain that the safety on the Glock was a small lever on its trigger. His ice blue gaze held her as he explained in a no-nonsense voice, “You aim and shoot. This is a nine-millimeter semiautomatic and you’ve got nine rounds. You see a guy. You see a jackrabbit. You see a bumblebee. You shoot. Got it?”

Marla nodded mutely and took the gun. I had my doubts about her ability to use it. General Bo lithely stepped out of the way so Jake, tugging Arch with all his canine might, could enter the mine first. I was the last one to step into the tunnel.

The dank air struck my nostrils like a blow. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t cold, musty dampness blowing gently in my face. The moist breeze stank of metallic earth.

“Fifty-one degrees year-round,” General Bo reported cheerfully. “No matter what the weather is outside, that’s the temperature inside a mine or cave.

Might get a tad warmer as we go in.” Jake tugged forward down the tunnel, then made a quick right into what General Bo informed us was a “drift” cut out of the rock. This was the way, I surmised, to the magazine that held the explosives I’d read about in the inspectors’ reports. Once he was in the drift, however, Jake seemed to become confused. With his long ears flopping, he backtracked from the drift and sniffed energetically along the floor of the main tunnel. He sniffed up the walls, around the tracks, started up the tunnel, then headed back to where Marla stood.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Pool scent,” Arch said as he tugged Jake back. He sounded discouraged. “Tony’s been in here, Jake can tell that. But because of the enclosed space, Jake thinks Tony’s everywhere. In this kind of situation, it’s very hard for a bloodhound to be able to tell exactly where the scent was, or how far back the person he’s tracking went.” He grimaced with dismay. “That’s why they use German shepherds in places like this, like when someone’s trapped in a building. Shepherds don’t get overwhelmed by so much scent.”

“Just give him time,” Bo advised. I felt less hopeful, but said nothing.

After more uncertain sniffing, Jake shuffled down the railroad track. The general pointed to the shadowy tunnel ahead. We were to move into the mine. Just what I was dreading.

Step by echoing step, we moved deeper into the earth. Twice I tripped on the old, rusted track. The damp breeze coming from inside the mine grew mustier and staler. Only three feet over our heads, the rough-hewn rock was occasionally covered with chain-link fencing.

“To sheath unstable rock,” the general explained. “By the way, the top of the tunnel is called its back.” He reached over to touch the stone walls. “These are called the mine’s ribs.”

The cold air was seeping through my outerwear and into my underclothes. Our footsteps echoed eerily. About fifty feet in, I looked back. Marla stood motionless in the entry, guarding the portal. I wished with all my heart that Arch and I were back there with her.

About seventy feet in, the tunnel and the track made a right-hand turn. Jake, still sniffing up the ribs, turned right also. But again he seemed confused. Water dripped from overhead. By the light of the lamps along the wall, I could just make out a crack in the rock above us.

“Fault,” General Bo said matter-of-factly. “Why does the air smell so bad?”

“That’s one of the biggest problems, bringing ventilation to the miners. They ventilate the place with raises that go up the mountain. They’re like shafts, only miners climb from level to level via ladders – “

We were diverted from discussing this by Jake scrabbling frantically up what looked like a timber wall built up on the left side of the tunnel. I glanced backward. Because of the turn we had made, I could no longer see Marla.

“What is it?” I said. “What’s he found?”

“More pool scent, I think,” Arch responded. He held out his hand to the wall. “Maybe this is the sump.” He clambered up the side of the wall, put his hand over the side, and made a splashing sound. “Yep, it’s water.”

“The sump,” the general explained, “is the reservoir of water that drains down from the mine. They use the water for the drilling, as I was saying – “

Jake was going nuts. He sniffed up the side of the sump wall, came back down, sniffed up again. He pulled furiously on his thick leash. It was all Arch could do to restrain him. Tony, or Tony’s scent, had spent some time by the sump.

General Bo reached back to get his cap lamp. Arch stepped firmly on Jake’s leash but couldn’t keep his balance to get up on the sump step without pulling too hard on his dog. I mimicked Bo’s actions and groped along my belt for the cap lamp. Clumsily, I pulled the cord out, snapped the lamp into its bracket, and turned the knob. Given my current frame of mind, I was almost surprised when the light flashed on. My small thin beam swept over the ribs of the mine. While Arch struggled to secure Jake’s leash, talking to and soothing the excited animal, the general and I climbed up the uneven steps leading to the sump. The hound whined as Bo and I shone our pale cones of light into the liquid depths.

The water was so still it was almost impossible to tell it was there. The pool seemed to go back about fifteen feet, and down about eight. We swept our lights along the murky surface of the water, and then down to the sump floor. I cried out in shock.

At the bottom of the pool, fully clothed, bald head shining, eyes wide with surprise even in death, was Albert Lipscomb.

20

“Stay still, Arch,” I commanded sternly as I turned away from the corpse to protect my son. “Just… wait until we get down.”

“Why? What’s there?” He was bent awkwardly over Jake. The leash had become tangled between his legs, and Jake was paying no heed as he pawed up and down and moaned deep in his throat. “Tony Royce must have sat down here or something,” Arch said, frustrated. “The scent’s really strong. That’s why Jake’s going ballistic. Is there something in the water, Mom?”

I turned back to the sump. If that fool dog was correct, we’d find Tony’s body next. General Bo moved his light over the length of the dead man. I swallowed hard.

“It’s Tony’s partner,” I murmured.

“I figured,” Bo said. “This is the corpse we’ve been looking for, I’d wager.”

I struggled to clear my mind. But yes, he was right. Victoria Lear had died because she had discovered the Eurydice was worthless. Albert had disappeared, ostensibly with all the money from the Prospect account. A bank teller who could have identified someone had been strangled. Marla had been accused of the murder 9f Tony Royce. But in discovering Albert Lipscomb, we’d found the main corpse, the key to unraveling the bizarre happenings of the last week.

His body did not float. This was Colorado, not Florida. As Tom had told me several times, it takes a month in forty-degree water for a corpse in a lake to come to the surface. Underwater, Lipscomb’s narrow, surprised face had a waxy, bluish appearance. His skin was shriveled. His long fingers, splayed outward, looked like those of a person too long in the bath. I didn’t remember him having age spots on the backs of his hands. I blinked and focused on the dark, round marks. They looked suspiciously like burns. As if someone had tortured him –

“No, no!” cried Arch. He’d unfastened the leather lead. “Jake, come back!” But even as Arch called frantically, Jake trotted away. Apparently his powerful nose was telling him to go back down the track in the direction we’d come. Or perhaps he was again confused by the pool scent. Or maybe, like me, he desperately wanted to get as far away as possible from the presence of death. Arch took off after his pet, but the general was faster, bounding off the sump steps and racing nimbly down the rails with the same stamina I’d come to expect from him. Arch tripped and made a spectacular spill in the mud. As I stumbled after my son, a gunshot cracked loudly down the close space of the tunnel.

“Arch!” I yelled. Sprawled on the earth, he didn’t move. “Arch! Arch, tell me you’re all right!” He did not appear to hear me. “Arch, please!”

Finally, he sat up and shook himself dazedly. “It’s okay, Mom. I just fell. I have to go get Jake!” He scrambled to his feet, heedless of the danger behind us.

In the distance, Jake howled. The general was nowhere in sight. I heard Marla scream. “No! No! Damn it! Damn you!” And then another gunshot exploded. I grabbed Arch and shoved him against the rock wall, out of harm’s way. After a breathless moment, we heard the general’s voice bellow down the dark passageway:

“Arch! Goldy! Get down! Go back! Back where you – “

Light burst from the main tunnel like a blinding photo flash. A deafening boom flung us backward. In that instant, I somehow registered that all the light bulbs along the mine’s ribs were shattering. Then it was like a flame suddenly snuffed in a blackout. Darkness abruptly engulfed us. My nostrils picked up the faintly acrid smell of smoke.

I don’t know how long I lay, stunned, on the cold, moist stone before I tried to use my voice. “Arch,” I said into the blackness. “Arch, please, please, where are you?”

The darkness was ominously silent. Then, to my immense relief I heard a cough.

“Here,” Arch called hoarsely. I struggled to my feet, but could see nothing: There was no light whatsoever. “Sorry, Mom.” Arch’s voice was close. “I don’t know where here is. What was that? Do you know where Jake is?” As usual, his first concern was for his dog.

“I don’t have a clue.” Get your bearings, get your bearings! I ordered myself. We’ve got to get out of here. It’s not safe. I held my arms out in both directions. But there was nothing to get bearings from. The dark was absolute, unyielding.

“Mom.”

I strained my eyes into the blackness. I squatted and felt along the damp floor. No Arch. Then my fingers fumbled against a metal chain, and thick leather: Jake’s leash. I crammed it into my jacket pocket.

“Arch? Where are you?”

“Here.” Two feet away? My son drew in his breath sharply. “Jake, Mom! What happened to Jake? Is Jake okay? Oh, Mom!” he cried. In the dark, I heard him fumbling, then the scrape of his footsteps on the damp stone floor. “Hey! Jake! Jake!”

There was no response to his calls.

Suddenly, Arch pulled off a miracle. He switched on his cap lamp. Tucked in his belt, the bulb had somehow survived the explosion. I blinked in astonishment to see that he was only a few feet away from me. In the distance, I heard the general’s voice calling to us. Are you in there? I fought off panic. Bo’s voice was impossibly faint, as if he were miles away. Goldy? Can you hear me? Are you all right? There was an explosion. . ” Goldy?

“Yes!” I called, but my voice, too, was swallowed by the impenetrable rock that surrounded us.

“Mom?” Arch wailed. “Oh, Mom, I have to get Jake.”

“Arch,” I said, forcing my voice to sound calm, “hold my hand.” I reached for his gritty fingers, then clasped them tightly. Perhaps too tightly. He’s okay, I told myself. He’s not hurt. We’ll get out of this.

Arch turned his head toward the sump, then swept his light across the rib of the mine. “That’s the way out. Without the light bulbs along the sides, we’re going to have to go carefully, Mom.”

The smoke stung my eyes and made me cough. Was it getting thicker? Hard to tell. I called again to the general: “Yes! Yes! We’re coming!”

“Do you have Jake?” Arch shouted.

But neither Bo nor Marla answered. Cautiously, holding hands, my son and I started back up the tracks. Arch kept his lamp beam down, focused on the rails. Had we heard one gunshot or two? Two. And then the general had shouted his warning, and the blast had rocked the mine. But why? Why a blast? I shook my head. My thoughts were whirling too fast.

I trod carefully, holding Arch’s hand tightly in mine, determined to get us out of this claustrophobic hell. ! The smoke was indeed becoming thicker as we approached the bend. We made the turn. Arch lifted his beam toward the portal… or to where the portal should have been.

When he swept the light of his cap lamp down the tracks, all we could see was darkness and coils of smoke. My hopes plummeted. There were two explanations for our predicament: The blast had brought down massive quantities of rock, and a wall of heavy boulders now barred our way to safety. Or we were lost, and we weren’t anywhere near the mine’s entrance. I refused to contemplate that possibility. It also seemed to me that the smoke was not coming from the source of the explosion. Something was on fire – probably the timbers. Arch started to hack.

“Mom! Mom! Put on your respirator!”

“Okay, okay,” I said, floundering along my belt. The more I tried to catch my breath, the more smoke I inhaled. In front of me, the tiny light on Arch’s head began to wobble and fade. Don’t let me pass out, I prayed. I must get Arch out of here.

I wrenched the self-rescuer out of the loop on my belt and tore off its cloth cover. To Arch, I said, “Do … you… have yours on?”

For a long moment he was silent, then, “Yes,” came his nasal reply. “Need light?”

“No.” I pulled up on the tether holding the nose clip, clamped my nostrils shut with it, and tentatively bit on the lug of the mouthpiece. I breathed. To my surprise, the carbon dioxide burned ravenously down my lungs. Disgusted, I let go of the lug. “I can’t,” I croaked into the increasingly smoky darkness. “The gas is too – “

“You have to, Mom!” Arch’s voice was sharply adult. “Now breathe with that thing and let’s find a raise back in the other direction! I have to find Jake!”

His gentle squeeze on the fingers of my free hand belied the harshness in his voice. I bit on the lug and breathed. It was like inhaling paint. Tears stung my cheeks as we turned and retraced our steps. Arch pulled on my hand just as Jake had tugged on the leash, up the tracks, back into the darkness.

After an eternity, we rounded the bend. Our footsteps grated over wet gravel as we passed the sump. Yes, there were shafts-technically called raises – -for ventilation. This much I knew. But where were they? And what was at the top of them? A fan? Another locked grate? Wasn’t there some law in Colorado about not having openings to mines, so people couldn’t fall down them? And if we did somehow succeed in climbing the ladder of a raise, how on earth would we ever move a fan, if we encountered one?

Down, down the tracks we went, deeper into the dark bowels of the earth. I breathed smoke and cursed Tony Royce. And I cursed my own inability to see that he was the one who had caused the terrible problems which plagued us. Tony had somehow deceived his ever-hopeful partner, of that much I was now certain. And he had deceived us. Of course, the impact of Tony’s wrongdoing had been compounded by the idiotic arrogance of Shockley’s storm troopers, De Groot and Hersey. Their arrest of Marla had provoked our current disastrous situation. But most of all, I cursed my own stupidity for allowing Arch to track Tony on this ill-fated trip into the mine. With the pool scent that chronically baffled Jake, the hound had been utterly confused, scenting Tony Royce everywhere. In truth, it was my guess that Tony had been hiding out here since he’d left the Hardcastles’ cabin after attacking Marla and Macguire and once again pointing the finger of guilt at Lipscomb. Perhaps he’d seen or heard us coming, quickly closed the gates, and hidden in the powder magazine. Then he’d only had to wait for us to get deep enough into the mine to seal it forever with God only knew how much dynamite. He had done all of this, so he could make it away with a fortune in stolen cash and gold. Poor Albert Lipscomb, like Marla, had only been a pawn in Royce’s ruthless game.

We came to a fork in the mine passageway. The drift with the track went off to the left, into what seemed to me to be utter blackness. To the right, when Arch swept his cap lamp over it, the passageway narrowed sharply, and the rock surrounding the drift became much more rough-hewn. An unfinished corridor? Perhaps. Almost certainly another dead end. Arch’s hand tugged me left.

One step at a time, one railroad tie after another. The rock was so rough, the darkness so total, and Arch’s light so feeble, that I was afraid he would miss an escape route, if indeed there was one. When your eyes become accustomed to dark, I’d always believed, it is because your visual sensors learn to utilize the tiny amounts of light available to see. But when no outside light is available, then what? Then you watch your son flash his cap lamp, left to right, right to left. And breathe. Feel your lungs fight the smoking air. And breathe.

We’re dying, I thought suddenly. I felt oddly light-headed. Poor Arch. He should have had a better mother. Not someone who went tearing off at every opportunity to solve crimes. A mother who stayed in her kitchen where she belonged and left police work to the police… I bit hard onto the flaming-hot lug of the respirator. And kept walking into the fetid darkness with my son.

Suddenly, Arch clenched my hand and tugged me forward. His light had picked out a metal rod set in the wall. No – not a rod. His lamplight swung crazily over the stone. Not a rod-a metal chair. No.

Arch placed my palm around one of the rods. His nose-clipped ‘voice rasped with triumph: “Ladder, Mom! It’s a raise. Climb up!”

I pulled the respirator from my mouth. “No,” I told, him. “You first. Then if you fall, you’ll fall on me instead of straight down. Use both hands. Clamp the self-rescuer in your mouth.”

He groaned, but quickly acquiesced. I moved out of the way, listened to the weight of my son moving onto the metal ladder, and watched as his cap lamp lurched higher. He was ascending. I clamped my mouth back on the self-rescuer, and awkwardly started up behind him.

In the darkness, I had to grope for each new metal rung, tapping it like a blind person, moving my hand across its corrugated surface to assure myself it was really there. The one time I looked up, dust from Arch’s sneakers fell into my eyes, and I resolved not to do that again. I breathed in and thought instead about Tony Royce. Up, up, I went, keeping myself sane by replaying all the incidents with Tony Royce that I could remember, vowing all sorts of nasty revenge. I even had a gratifying vision of testifying against him in court – This man, Your Honor, is responsible for three murders, not to mention embezzling on a massive scale. And he duped my best friend. And framed her for his crimes. I resolutely shoved that fantasy away. Stick with what you know. What do you know?

Arch was stamping on something. My fingers fumbled upward: a grate. No, it was a landing. I slid my body through the opening and felt around the edges of the landing with my hands and feet. Arch was already moving upward on another ladder, and I groped for the sides of these new metal steps, working hard to avoid the hole I’d just come through. Then I started upward again.

I breathed in the fiery carbon dioxide. Think about Tony, I ordered myself When you get out, what are you going to do to Tony? But my lungs screamed with pain. The mouthpiece was so hot I could feel blisters forming. I would never get used to inhaling carbon dioxide, I thought. And how long did I think I would have to become accustomed to this gas, anyway? What had the general said? An hour? If the carbon monoxide in the smoke was not too concentrated – two hours? How far up did we still have to go? Yes – the mountain sloped back, and with any luck we would come out eventually on the grass and rocks of the steep hill, well above the mine. But how many feet would that be? Forty? A hundred? Two hundred? And how long would that take? Would our air supply last long enough for us to reach safety?

We arrived at what must have been our fourth landing. I wondered if Marla had shot Tony. Or vice versa. There had only been two shots. Albert’s body, Jake scrambling away, the explosion, being trapped. It was all too much. I started up a fresh set of ladder rungs, hearing Arch’s steps above my head. We’re not going to make it, I thought as I breathed in the boiling-hot, acidic gas from the respirator. Oh, Tom, I’m so sorry. I’m such an idiot. I didn’t mean to get us buried alive. Tears stung and I cursed them, too. Damn it, Goldy. Think of Arch and go up a rung, then another, reflect back on what you really know about Royce. Why would he stay here for three days? Why wouldn’t he have left the country right away? Because… because he was waiting. He was waiting for something or someone. Someone who could give him something. What? What did he need? Escape. Escape, the same as what you want now… .

Arch paused. He was stamping around on one of the landings, but this one seemed to be bigger than the previous ones. And was some distant gray light seeping down, entering the landing, or was it a hallucination? Arch swept his light upward to a metal grate. On one side of the grate was a fan, but it was not revolving. The electricity which moved it had probably been, knocked out by the blast.

“Let me try to open it,” I said, since I was taller than Arch. I pulled off the nose clip. Oh, blessed, blessed air. It was smoky, but it contained sweet, sweet oxygen. I panted voraciously. I was a starved person, wolfing! down air like the first food in a week.

“Move, move,” I ordered the grate, and shoved hard at it. It didn’t budge. “Could you point your lamp to the edge?” I asked Arch.

He did so, and I saw a lock like the type used on a fence gate. It appeared rusted shut. I heard – clear and close as a bell – Jake’s mournful howl. Clenching my despised self-rescuer with all the force I had left, I swung at the lock. It made a hideous grinding sound before clanging away from the locked position. I stepped up two rungs of the ladder leading to the grate and desperately, with every ounce of strength I’d gained from hefting food trays, heaved my body against it. The grate screeched open. I wriggled through, onto a passageway that led horizontally to the side of the mountain. I held my hand out to Arch. His smiling face made my heart sing.

We ran down the sloping passageway. And then we were in the open, on grass, between rocks, looking out at the sky. The misty air smelled like heaven.

“Look, Mom!” Arch called excitedly. He was pointing down. There were the sheds, there was the Jeep, there were Marla and General Bo, puzzling over a map. And there, tethered to the general, with the spare leash, twirling awkwardly because he had caught the smell of his master on the breeze, lifting his nose to the air, and howling joyfully, was Jake.

21

After we had scrambled down the mountain above the Eurydice, after we had all hugged and confirmed that we were okay, after we had marveled at the fall of huge rocks caused by the explosion, after Jake had licked the bloody scratches on Arch’s face at least a hundred times – after all that, we got the bad news.

“He got away,” the general reported, disconsolate. “Royce. I saw him. I was thirty feet away from him… .” He gestured with the hand that clasped Jake’s spare leash, and sighed.

Marla’s spangled sweat suit was smeared with mud. So was her face. “I tried to shoot him. The son of a bitch. I missed twice. Then he just pushed me down, into the mud.” She shook her head, disgusted almost beyond speech. But Marla was never beyond speech. “I wish to hell I had killed him.”

“But… where did he go?” I was incredulous, and felt a whiff of fear. Who knew what more he was capable of? I scanned the sheds and the road below. But the shabby storehouses still looked deserted, as did the wide ribbon of mud that led away from the mine and down to Idaho Springs. “I’m still not clear on exactly what happened. How do you know he’s not still around?”

Before they could answer, however, there was a sharp cracking sound. We jumped, thinking it was another gunshot. But this sound was thunder. Fat, chilly raindrops pelted out of the clouds. The general stuck out his chin. “I caught up with the dog and grabbed his collar. Then I saw the fuse. Smelled it first, actually. I saw Royce running, wearing a big backpack, holding a suitcase… or maybe it was a briefcase. Next thing, Marla was firing at him.” He ran his fingers across his close-cropped head of pale hair. “I kept hold of the dog, but I ran like crazy after that guy. Only problem was, he knew where he was going, and I didn’t. He escaped around there.”

He pointed to the mountainside. There was a small garagelike hut on the far right side of the mine opening. I took a few steps in the thickening rain. Heading away from the garage was one set of muddy car tracks.

General Bo continued, “There’s the four-wheel-drive road I told you about. Fifty feet down that hill – I checked the map. It goes to Central City, but first it crosses Highway Six heading back to Denver, so Royce could basically be anywhere.” His keen blue eyes caught mine. “I called the authorities, Goldy, when the two of you were trapped inside there.” He checked his watch. “At eleven hundred hours. That was thirty minutes ago.”

The cold rain was turning the grime on my arms to a thin sheen of mud. Half an hour, and not a single law enforcement or rescue vehicle had yet arrived? “Did you… call the Idaho Springs fire department?” I asked. “They should have been right up here.”

The general glanced down the wet road. “No, I called your sheriffs department. Furman County. I said we had a dead man and two people trapped in a mine. Maybe they figured it was a hoax. But they could be here soon, if only to check it out. So, if you still want to protect Marla and keep running, we should be going – “

“We can go,” I said, decisively. “But I want my son out of this mess. Now.”

“We can’t do both,” said Marla sourly. “Come on, Arch.” She put an arm around his thin shoulders. “I know where there’s a shower in the shed over here. We’ll get soap and water on those scrapes. We’ll have a little while until the sheriffs department comes to bust me again.”

Arch shot me a confused glance, but allowed himself and a damp, wriggling Jake to be led off by Marla without protest.

I asked Bo, “Did you tell the department who you were, and that you saw Tony Royce?”

“Yes, of course I did.” His voice was flinty with anger. “I even said he drove off in a green Explorer, although God help me, my eyes aren’t as good as they used to be, I couldn’t catch the plate number.”

So Tony had come up here in Albert’s car. He’d thought of every detail. How long had it taken him to plan all this out? From the thinking I’d done ascending those interminable ladders in the mine, I had an idea that this faked-death scheme had been percolating in Tony’s cranium for some time. He’d planned, he’d schemed, he’d set things up; he even had a backup strategy, in case anything went wrong. Marla’s very public squabble with Albert at the party probably changed Tony’s original time frame for his crimes, but that hadn’t meant he’d abandoned his escape hatch.

“Look, Goldy,” the general pleaded, “we could track him in less than a day – “

I held up a hand. “No.” I had had at least ten flights of metal rungs to think about what I was going to say to General Bo Farquhar, so I let him have it straight. “Here’s my idea: I think Tony’s trying to get out of the country, and for some reason he couldn’t do that until this afternoon, possibly even tonight. You and I and hopefully the police can stop him, but I want Arch and Marla and the dog out of it.”

He narrowed his eyes against the rain, gave a considered glance down the mountain road, then nodded. “Whatever you say. I just want this guy. I’m listening.”

I shook my head. “We need to get out of here, because the Furman County Sheriff’s Department probably still has it in for Marla. We need to take Marla, Arch, and the dog back to the Hardcastles’ cabin. And then I’ll tell you where I think Tony’s headed.”

The general gave me the full benefit of his commanding glare. “I hope for your sake, Goldy, that we’ll have time.”

“Either I’ve guessed his scheme or I haven’t. You’ll just have to trust me.”

The general scowled. “Marla is the only family I have left… .”

“She’s my oldest friend,” I said quietly. “And I love her, too.” In the distance, sirens sounded. “it’s time to go. We’ve got a criminal to catch.”

An hour later, I watched Arch wave from the cabin stoop. Marla held up one hand in halfhearted farewell. With the other she gripped Arch’s shoulder. Jake beamed with idiotic happiness as we climbed into the Jeep, probably delighted to see me go.

Then the general gunned the engine, and we catapulted back toward Bride’s Creek. “Okay, what do you have in mind?” he asked, as if we were going out for dinner. I glanced out the window at the thinning clouds. Then I asked, “Do you remember when I told you about Prospect’s chief investment officer being killed in a car crash? Victoria Lear discovered that the gold ore at the Eurydice had played out. My guess is that she confronted Tony Royce with what she knew, and got killed for her pains. Then the party – that was when Marla and Albert Lipscomb had their terrible argument. They argued about an assay report from a disreputable lab. Albert didn’t believe the ore was worthless, I’ll bet, and he didn’t know Tony was using an untrustworthy laboratory. Albert always trusted his grandfather’s claims about the Eurydice still having gold in it. Whenever Marla heard about the mine, it was, ‘Albert says.’ Never, ‘Tony says.’ Never. But Tony was the person running the fraud, and in this state, gold scams are the oldest ones in the book.

“My theory is that after Marla confronted Albert about the rigged assay, Albert and Tony argued. Tony knew the ore he sent to the lab wasn’t good. But he never thought anyone, least of all his girlfriend, would complain, after the splashy success the firm had had with Medigen.”

The general turned the windshield wipers from constant to intermittent, but kept his eyes focused straight ahead. “Continue.”

“So say they argue. Tony goes to Albert’s house, says he wants to talk. What do they talk about? These two men had tried to run a scam before, with their cashmere-yarn-and-goat-cheese enterprise. Maybe Albert thought they were going legit, once they’d scored with Medigen. But Tony, I now believe, wants with the mine to take their enterprises one level deeper, and he’s in too far with the Eurydice to go back. Maybe Albert doesn’t have time to disagree before Tony knocks him unconscious. I don’t know what he used. Tom’s told me even spraying someone with a can of engine starter fluid would do the trick. Anyway, once Albert is out cold, Tony works fast, packs up all Albert’s stuff so it looks as if he’s left town. Takes him up to the Eurydice, waits until he comes to, and then tortures him until he gets Albert’s half of the combination to the safe containing the gold ore. Then Tony kills him. But Tony can’t take the gold then. If he does, even Captain Shockley, who knows about the gold and the safe, could figure Tony’s responsible for Albert’s murder. But iŁ by some remote chance, Albert’s body is discovered in that first week, Tony, who’s still around, can say, Marla did it, she was mad at Albert, wasn’t she? Everybody knows that.”

The general muttered, “That guy is such a son of a bitch.”

I went on: “Shockley did go up to the Eurydice after Albert disappeared, but without jurisdiction he didn’t take the risk of going in. In any event, Tony always planned to have Marla take the fall for him. She knew too much about assays, and was too insistent on knowing the truth, to be easily shut up. But if she was busy defending herself she wouldn’t have time to try to reconstruct all that he had done. Especially if it looked as if she murdered him in a jealous rage, after she supposedly killed his partner. Royce figured on covering all his bases. It was a foolproof scheme.

“He gets his blood drawn by his girlfriend the med student. A Vacutainer tube has a blood preservative in it: You can keep it in the refrigerator for a week, sometimes two, and it won’t coagulate. And he has ten days.

He buys the bald cap. He fakes some of Albert’s identification, which Tom is always telling me is fairly easy to do or get done. Then on Monday after the party, he tries to withdraw the cash from the partnership account. He can’t get it that day, but he gets it on Tuesday, when he proceeds to charm the teller and then strangles her so she wouldn’t identify him. Now he’s got three and a half million in cash, plus two hundred-thousand in gold from the mine safe. After all, why leave it behind, when it’s so easy to make someone else look responsible for the theft and murder?”

I took a deep breath. “He persuades Marla to move up the fishing trip they planned. He pretends to be interested in investing in restaurants, the new venture for Prospect Financial Partners. He leaves his fancy watch at Marla’s so it’ll look as if he didn’t mean to be absconding permanently. And now we know how he staged his whole fake stabbing and drowning death.

Unfortunately, he spotted Macguire Perkins, so he let him have it, too.”

“Macguire’s lucky Tony didn’t kill him,” the general observed grimly.

“Macguire’s strong,” I replied with a smile, “that’s one of the reasons he’s such a good catering assistant. He probably gave Tony a bit more muscle than he was expecting.”

“Sounds like you were a bit more than Tony was expecting, too,” Bo said with an answering smile.

“Yeah, I guess all of us might have been. Especially Jake. When Jake scented Tony up at the mine and howled, that was what let him know we’d really found him.” I paused. “Tony always wanted something from me. And from other people, too, like his old girlfriend Eileen Tobey. He felt as if we owed it to him.”

The general furrowed his brow. “Owed him what?”

“Oh, attention. Contacts.” I could remember Tony’s persuasive smile, the charming twinkle in his eyes. Know any rich doctors? Guess not. Dentists? No. Plumbers? No. How about pilots?

Pilots. Yes, I knew one. One unemployed ex-Braniff captain who had received a FedEx delivery last week of navigational maps. I had been the one who told Tony about Sandy Trotfield. I had told him, too, that Trotfield’s wife – the one with the money – invested in art, but she might want to get into venture capital. Tony appeared to be interested in them as clients, but nothing more. Albert had even given them a cookbook. But I knew something else that I’d learned when the Trotfield’s had booked me for last week’s party: Sandy Trotfield was due in today from Rio de Janeiro. It was my guess that it was Sandy Trotfield whom Tony Royce had been waiting for. Sandy Trotfield who had. acted so angry when the cops had invaded his kitchen. Sandy Trotfield who could fly Tony Royce out of the country without attracting attention, and be paid handsomely for his efforts. All this I told the general. I looked out at the sky. The clouds were breaking up, offering a rare glimpse of a Wedgwood-blue expanse. The fast-moving front appeared to be passing through. Could this actually be happening? Could the sun truly be appearing, like Eurydice after a lengthy stint in the underworld?

The general groped under his seat for the cellular phone, found it, and punched in the numbers L told him.

“Yes,” he said gruffly. “Mr. Alexander Trotfield? This is Investigator Beauregard Farquhar of the Furman County Sheriffs Department. We have a fugitive, a murder suspect, a man we believe has contracted you to fly him out of the country? Name of Anthony Royce. We need to know everything about your contact with Mr. Royce.” He listened for several minutes, then gave me a thumbs up. “Furman County Airport? When? One-thirty. Your Citation. Which hangar?” Bo waited while Sandy talked. “Mr. Trotfield,” Bo said urgently, “you may keep this appointment with Mr. Royce. But tell him there’s been a delay. Do not act alarmed. When I arrive, please introduce me as your copilot. We will meet you at the hangar. Yes, the sheriff’s department will reimburse you for all the expenses you incur. Thank you for your cooperation.” He pressed a button to disconnect.

I said breathlessly, “Do you think he believed you?” General Bo glanced at the clock on the dashboard and grimaced. “I’ve got an hour to buy a bomber jacket and find some dye to rub through my hair, just in case Royce got a glimpse of me at the mine; which I doubt.” He reflected. “Did Trotfield believe me? I don’t really care. The one I have to do a good acting job for is Royce.”

I shivered. Sandy Trotfield wanted to be reimbursed for his time and effort. What a joke.

“Hey,” said General Farquhar. “You better trust my acting ability, too. I’m going to need to talk my way close enough to Royce to snag him.”

“Oh, yeah? And where am I going to be?” The general’s face was grim. “Nearby. Holding my gun.”

22

“No,” I said quietly. “I’m not using a gun. I’m calling Tom.”

Bo’s glance was chilly. “You’d better not have him bring those two cops who arrested Marla.

“Don’t worry.”

I called; once again, Tom was not at his desk. I almost screamed with frustration, but instead left a two-sentence message on his voice mail: “The armed and dangerous person you seek is attempting to leave the country from the Furman County Airport this afternoon. We need help to catch him at Hangar C-9.”

By twelve-thirty General Bo Farquhar and I had made two stops. The first was a sporting goods store in the foothills, where the general bought a leather bomber jacket and aviator sunglasses. His prominent chin held aloft, he scanned the outerwear racks as if he owned the place, and had just stopped in to pick up a new outfit in which to circumnavigate the globe. I saw him flash his thin-lipped, much-knowing smile at the female sales attendant, who predictably melted. How would he pay for his purchases, I wondered. There was probably a kidnapping charge outstanding against him, and any credit card use was sure to be traced. Well, if we were successful in trapping Tony Royce, we could worry about Marla’s prison break and its consequences later.

“All I need now is a Navy pilot to give me grief,” the general mumbled as we pulled up to our second stop. “They do get their noses so out of joint when a nonflyboy wears a bomber jacket.”

I grinned. “I do believe Navy pilots are the least of our problems, sir.”

General Bo grinned. He was loving this. But I suddenly felt the weight of what we were about to do. The sheriffs department was twenty, perhaps twenty-five minutes from the airport. I judged we were a little less than half an hour away. This was all wrong. When I couldn’t reach Tom, I should have called someone else at the sheriffs department and come clean. But thinking about Shockley made me shudder. I just want to see him and Arch again, I thought. And maybe even Jake.

We zipped along toward the airport. Since Furman County is mostly mountainous, the people who built the airport had been at some pains to find an area large and level enough for hangars and a runway. They’d eventually paid a rancher a staggering sum to move his herd of cattle to eastern Colorado. The starry-eyed airport builders had proceeded to divert a local brook, destroy two prairie dog villages, and pave over an elk migrating area while smoothing the rancher’s fields. Then they’d failed to build hangars and purchase computers that were even close to within their budget range. The airport had not been profitable, and the resultant wrath of environmentalists and downgrading of the airport’s municipal bonds had provided juicy material for The Mountain journal for several years.

“Hangar C-Nine,” the general muttered as we came down the incline to the south gate security fence. “Now if we can just… oh, for Pete’s sake.” He stopped the Jeep. Ahead of us a dozen cars stood motionless while a tow truck pulled a station wagon out of a large pool of rippling water. “What the hell – “

I craned my neck. “Flooding. No one’s going in or out of the south gate for at least a quarter of an hour.” I pointed. “That’s the brook that used to go through the ranch.”

“What ranch?”

“The ranch that used to be where the airport is.”

He wheeled us in a U-turn. “Is there a north entrance to this godforsaken place? We need to find another way to C-Nine.”

At my direction we raced up the state highway until we came to a sign for the small northern entrance to the airport. Like its southern counterpart, the north entrance road also sloped downward to our right.

“Ha!” exclaimed the general, triumphant. He careened the Jeep onto the road and accelerated down the hill. Just as quickly, he braked and stared at the road ahead. “Holy Mother of God.” Hangar C-9 was up a hill to the right, about a hundred feet away. But the security gate and fence were underwater, claimed by the fast-rushing, no-longer-diverted brook. On the far side of the fence, the roofs of two cars were barely visible above the swirling, muddy torrent. “Damn this rain. How are we ever going to get around that?”

I sighed. “Fly.”

Of course, I didn’t think he’d take me literally. But I should have remembered who I was talking to. Bo turned the wheel sharply and gunned the Jeep off the road. Up and down we rocked, with Bo keeping a sharp eye on the water. Finally the road took us past the perimeter of the airport property. Abutting the highway was a small cliff that rose above the original brook. Over the centuries, the water had cut through the stone, so that on the far side of the brook, perhaps fifteen feet away, was another cliff. Bo expertly piloted the Jeep off the road, then brought-it to a stop at the bottom of the hill that led up the cliff.

“Ready?” he asked.

“No, I’m not,” I replied. “Remember the last time you and I were together on a cliff over water? With all the moisture in the rock, we could easily precipitate another slide – “

“So you’re just willing to let Marla go back to jail for, killing this guy who’s about to split forever?”

“There must be another way – “

“There isn’t. I could take a tank over that cliff: We’ll make it, Goldy.”

What other choice did we have? “We’d better,” I told General Bo.

His face set with determination, Bo pressed the accelerator. The speedometer needle soared upward. My breath seemed permanently caught in my throat. We raced to the edge of the cliff, and then suddenly, we were airborne. My heart beat out the seconds as we flew through the air. Oh, Tom, I’ll never, ever get involved in crime again. I’ll –

We landed with a thud on the opposite cliff. But before I had a chance to express relief, there was a deafening roar behind us. I twisted around and experienced a sight that was familiar, but still terrifying: rocks and dirt disintegrating in a landslide. Where there had been two cliffs and a picturesque brook, there was now a landfill created by an avalanche of dirt.

“Damn,” murmured the general as the Jeep hurtled through the only nonflooded gate into the airport. “I just got kicked out of the Sierra Club.”

Hangar C-9 was a large, pale green building with no cars parked outside. The general scanned the area, then said, “I want you to drive over to C-Seven, leave the Jeep in back. Royce might have seen this car when he ran out of the mine.” He paused, his face as serious as I had ever seen it. “Goldy, I’m going to take this guy out. I don’t want you involved. Watch for him from outside. Call in the troops if things get rough. I don’t mean Tom, I mean the whole damn sheriff’s department. Trotfield said his plane’s a small jet, a Citation with the numbers four-eight-two-six Golf. I’ll go into the hangar at the front. You watch for Royce or Trotfield from out here, then come in after me only if you don’t see or hear Royce. If you do see or hear him, call the cops as quickly as possible. Last resort. With any luck, though, we’ve got at least fifteen minutes before they arrive.” He checked the Glock. “Got that?”

I protested feebly, “Isn’t the hangar locked?” “A numbered security lock, and I got the code from Trotfield. Don’t worry. You just do your job, and I’ll do mine. Okay?”

I nodded and drove the Jeep to C-7, where I parked in back. The weather was finally clearing; where were all the pilots? Probably waiting to come in through the south gate. I scanned the road to C-9 for a dark green Explorer, and saw none.

I could not let the general undertake this alone. There had to be something I could do. I hopped out and sidled along the back of C-8. I listened and waited. Not a sound. I knocked on the door to C-9 and felt dizzy when the handle turned.

The barrel of the gun was pointed straight at me. “Goldy, for crying out loud,” the general said amiably. He quickly holstered his gun inside his new bomber jacket.

“I want to help.”

He glared at me, then pointed. “Go stand in the office behind that Gulfstream. Stay where you can get a good look at the Citation without being seen. Don’t turn the light on. Check for a phone. And please, don’t get involved… .” His head turned sharply to a sound that hadn’t reached my ears. “Here he comes. Move.”

I scooted into the office and scanned the space quickly. In the corner of the office was a shovel. I picked it up just as I heard Tony’s all-too-familiar voice. “Excuse me? Who are you?” he demanded of General Bo. “How did you get in here?”

“I’m Trotfield’s copilot,” Bo announced genially. “Came in by the north gate. Glad to meet you, Mr. Royce.”

No time to close the office door; it would make too much noise. Through a crack in the blinds, I saw Tony stride in wearing chinos and an expensive red leather windbreaker. His hair was perfectly blown dry, his mustache was evenly clipped. He was carrying a metal briefcase. The general gave Tony a huge smile. I gripped the shovel.

“Now all we need is Sandy,” General Bo persisted in a jocular voice. “He’s got the approach plates for Ordaz International, and our flight plan is already filed in the county’s airport computer. Are the cars coming through the south gate pretty smoothly now?” He really appeared to be enjoying this. He even made a mock salute, before he turned and trod smartly toward the plane.

“It’s not too bad. Look, we have some bags,” Tony announced in a voice that indicated he expected the copilot to fetch them. But when General Bo continued I toward the Citation, Tony followed. He asked mildly, “You been Sandy’s copilot before? How do you think he looks with that new beard?”

The involuntary, incredulous grimace on the general’s face as he turned back to face Tony sent nervous ripples up my skin. But Bo instantly wiped the look off and assumed the same easy tone. “Oh, I thought he looked better – “

But it was too late. Royce had tested Bo and he’d failed. The metal briefcase sailed up toward the general’s head and caught him offguard. Bo flailed backward awkwardly and went down with a thud. He grabbed for his gun, but Tony ran forward and kicked itout of his hand. The heavy gun skittered across the hangar floor.

Oh, God, help me, I prayed. I raised the shovel and leapt for the office door. Tony trotted toward the hangar entrance. When I called his name and started to run toward him, Tony hesitated, his mouth open, stunned to see me. The caterer, of all people. And armed… .

Behind us, there was a shot. The general had scooted’ over to his weapon, fired at Tony, and missed. Startled, Tony reached inside the red windbreaker and pulled out a small gun. He took aim at the general and fired: pop, pop, pop. Then he walked toward the general. Two more shots reverberated. I didn’t think. I ran toward Tony and brought the shovel down with all my might. He groaned and cried out. As his body buckled, his gun sailed from his hand and landed near the hangar door. I swung the shovel down on his head. This time, he went down and did not move. Relief and anxiety mixed in a wave through my bloodstream. I struggled to catch my breath.

“My tellers will really miss their muffins,” said a calm, cold voice behind me. I turned.

At the hangar door Eileen Tobey stood, holding Tony’s gun. Sunlight silhouetted her muscular frame. I dropped the shovel.

“Don’t, Eileen,” I said. “You can’t… I thought you hated Tony.”

“Shut up. I’m just a great actress.”

She held the gun aimed at me, but to my surprise, she didn’t pull the trigger. I couldn’t see her eyes. I slid my hands in my pockets. “Get your hands out where they’re visible,” she said. . “I’m just looking for my keys,” I told her, fighting to keep despair from my voice. “Don’t you need them to get away?” I kept my hands in my pockets and started walking toward her. “The sheriff’s department is going to be looking for Albert’s Explorer. They know Tony killed Albert. If you take my Jeep, you’ll be able to get away, far from all this.”

I was three feet away from her. I stopped, both hands in my pockets, as if awaiting her response. I assumed a puzzled look. She seemed to be struggling with what I was saying about the sheriff’s department and Albert’s Explorer.

“So do you want the Jeep or not? Let me get medical help for General Farquhar, and you go – “

“All right,” she said impatiently. She held out her left hand, and as she did so, the gun in her right hand dropped slightly. “Give me the damn keys.”

Do it, I thought. I appeared to fumble in my pocket, then whipped out Jake’s leash, the leash I’d put in my pocket in the mine, and swung it at her hand holding the gun. The metal bit into her hand. Startled, she dropped the gun. I flung my whole body against her. We went down together, out the hangar door.

Fury gave me an edge. I pulled Eileen’s hair and whaled away like a madwoman. As I pushed her face into the dirt I heard her curse. I pushed harder, grinding her face into the mud until she stopped flailing. If only Tom could see me now… .

Tom said, “It’s over, Miss G.” His voice was angry, disappointed, relieved. “I shouldn’t believe this, but I do.”

My husband stood ten feet away from me, his .45 raised. When I gasped in surprise, he lowered his gun and signaled to the cops behind him to come get the woman I was sitting on.

Painfully, I stood up and allowed two policemen to cuff Eileen. To Tom, I said, “I’m sorry.”

“I swear, you always say that.” Two uniformed policemen rushed past us. Tom pointed at Tony Royce, who was clutching his head and cursing. The policemen swiftly handcuffed him. Ignoring his howls of pain, they led him outside.

Tom said to me, avoiding my eyes, “First we get a call saying Albert Lipscomb has been murdered and is up at the Eurydice Mine. The paramedics get there and radio back there’s been some kind of an explosion. Then I pick up your message. So we hightail it out here. Good thing.” ‘Tom scanned the hangar and groaned. “Oh, Christ.”

The general lay motionless on the concrete floor. While Tom barked into his radio for an ambulance, I ran over and knelt at Bo’s side. Blood stained the bomber jacket and spurted to the floor. Tony had shot hin.

“You can’t die,” I heard myself order General Bo Farquhar. My voice rang in my ears. “You can’t die. Oh, please – “

The pale, pale blue eyes that I had known so well these past few years opened. “Goldy,” Bo murmured. . “Schulz … Marla didn’t…”

“You did a great job,” Tom told him, kneeling beside me. “Marla will be cleared. Just hold on, sir.” I’d; never heard such respect in Tom’s voice.

With enormous effort, Bo turned toward me. “I’m going to be with Adele… .” He raised his head feebly, then let it sink back to my lap. “I … you all … very much… .” And then he died.

A rescue team from the Colorado School of Mines cleared the entrance to the Eurydice Gold Mine. They’ brought out the corpse of Albert Lipscomb. Tony Royce was charged with, among other things, the murders of his financial partner and the First of the Rockies teller. The investigation into the death of Victoria Lear was reopened. Eileen Tobey was charged with grand larceny and being an accessory to murder.

Once Marla was cleared of wrongdoing, she called her lawyer to sue the sheriffs department for false arrest, harassment, and anything else the two of them could think of. The case against De Groot and Hersey looked very bad. At that point, the Furman County Sheriff, the boss of bosses and certainly the boss of Captain Shockley, invoked a long-standing Colorado statute, called “at pleasure.” Back in the old days, when a Colorado sheriff gathered a posse and went after a criminal, he would release the deputies from duty after they caught the perpetrator. The posse served at the sheriff’s pleasure, period. If he fired them, there was no appeal. There was no review. Three days after Tom apprehended Tony Royce, the Furman County Sheriff fired Investigators De Groot and Hersey. Rather than face the same fate, Captain Shockley promptly withdrew his newly recovered money from Prospect Financial Partners and took an early retirement.

His face set grimly, Tom informed me that I probably would be charged with complicity in aiding an escape. But the female guard had actually fainted before General Farquhar hit her, just as Bo had maintained.

She was fine, she told me repeatedly, and so glad to be rid of Shockley she could kiss me. So at least I wouldn’t be charged with assault.

Two days later, with obvious reluctance, the District Attorney held a press conference. Because Bo, Arch, and I had helped clear up Albert Lipscomb’s murder and aided in the apprehension of Anthony Royce and Eileen Tobey, there would be no charges filed against us. Despite this vindication, Marla’s blood pressure went through the roof. Tony Royce, the man she loved, had deceived her, stolen her money and her heart, and killed people. And her loving brother-in-law had died trying to help her. Her cardiologist ordered her to spend a week in the hospital for tests. For once, too weary to protest, she allowed herself to be admitted, but talked her way into an early discharge so she could come with us to Bo’s memorial service.

A week later, the five of us-Tom, Arch, Marla, Macguire, and I, took on the responsibility of scattering the general’s ashes. As his wife’s ashes were scattered by Bride’s Creek, we decided that would be an appropriate place for Bo’s. We would take a small picnic that would include Bo’s favorite food-chocolate.

The bad weather had come to an end and summer had finally arrived in the high country. On a brilliantly sunny day, we piled into the newly repaired van. Of course, we took Jake, whom I now cherished like a human friend. After all, without Jake’s persistence, we would never have found Tony Royce and broken his chain of crimes. From the knowing, eager expression in the dog’s liquid eyes whenever he looked at me, I knew that he knew I’d had a change of heart toward him. By the creek, we ate liverwurst sandwiches and tomatoes vinaigrette and munched Chocoholic cookies, and talked about our wonderful and dangerous times with General Bo Farquhar.

“He loved us all very much,” Marla said, raising her voice above the thunder of Bride’s Creek, when we’d finished our recollections. Lifting the urn above the water, she emptied the ashes into the raging water.

I said a silent prayer. I’d never known anyone like Bo Farquhar. The world would seem an emptier, less colorful place without him. Even as I thought it, Tom’s fingers closed around mine.

As we turned to go back to the van, Jake flung his head up and howled. Arch tugged on his leash, but the hound wouldn’t budge. Instead, Jake pointed his body in the direction of the pines and howled again, heart-breakingly. Arch shook his head, then squinted at the trees.

“Mom,” he said softly. “Everybody. Look.” We turned. Moving through the sunlit trees was a solitary wisp of vapor. It seemed to have a military bearing.