Tucker Peak

Chapter 12

Linda Bettina looked up as I entered her office on the top floor of the Mountain Ops building. “Where the hell have you been? Your supervisor’s been bitching like a jilted girlfriend, which I don’t need.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is he?”

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

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

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

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

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

“I was unconscious at the time.”

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

“I’m all right.”

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

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

I rose and stuck out my hand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She looked grim. “Yup.”

“What suspicions?” McNally asked.

“They were sabotaged,” I explained.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That didn’t leave me with much to say.

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

“Something like that.”

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

“And falling revenues,” McNally added. “I got this morning’s figures from Conan-ticket sales are nosediving.”

“You think an employee might be behind the sabotage?” I asked her.

“Despite the fact I still work here,” she said, “I’m not a total fool. Who else is going to know how to mess with that equipment? A snow bunny?”

“Could be an ex-employee,” I suggested, “or someone with eyes in his head, a basic mechanical ability, and the opportunity to get around when no one’s watching.”

McNally had other priorities. “I suppose asking you to be discreet is a waste of time?” It wasn’t really a question.

“It’s not my primary concern,” I admitted, “but what with the protesters and the deputies going at it these last few days, people have at least gotten used to seeing cops around.”

“Sheriff’s deputies aren’t investigators hassling everyone they meet,” Linda said.

I stood up and walked to the door. “We’ll try to target who we talk to. You could both help us by giving this some thought-especially you, Linda. You know everyone on this mountain. You’ve shared their employment records with a couple of my men, which is much appreciated, but it’s more about how they interact with each other and with you folks that’ll reveal what they’re capable of. Like your reaction to Richie Lane-you obviously knew he was warped. If you can think of others like him that we should focus on, it’d be a big help and would get us off the mountain faster.”

She wasn’t happy with the idea, but I’d used the right bait. “For that, I’ll do what I can.”

I opened the door and stepped into the hallway. “That’s all I ask.”

Sammie Martens lived in an enormous studio apartment just down the street from the Municipal Building in Brattleboro. There are quite a number of these places in town-old ballrooms, concert halls, and meeting rooms-high-ceilinged, wood-floored, with huge windows overlooking the Connecticut River and the railroad tracks on one side and the steady activity of Main Street on the other. None of them are used for their original purpose, and some of those purposes have been lost over the years, leaving rooms as tantalizing and inexplicable as catacombs found deep underground.

But they aren’t all such wonderful places to live. Often on the top floors of the ancient, red-brick behemoths that make the heart of Brattleboro look like some gritty industrial mill town fringing Boston, many of these apartments are drafty walk-ups. They’re poorly wired, hard to heat, and equipped with minimal plumbing. They also suffer from splintery floors, sagging ceilings, and single-pane windows that rattle like rocks in a can on windy wintry days and whenever the trains pass by.

Sammie’s occupied a middle range, mostly because she’d put a lot of effort and money into fixing it up, much to her landlord’s heightening suspicions. She’d clustered her life in modules throughout its vast space: gym equipment in one spot, sofas and chairs in another, a TV and stereo entertainment area. Her salary precluded anything very fancy-I knew for a fact that she’d furnished it largely from yard sales-and the final result was less Manhattan shabby-chic, and more duct-tape-and-wire livable. But it was her own, had been for years, and as far as I knew, was the only place she could retreat to when things got tough.

As I guessed they might be now. I’d seen her expression when Willy had made that Blondie crack and figured it might be a good time to continue the conversation we’d begun in the alleyway outside the Butte.

I knew she’d be here-and be alone. Lester had told me she’d gone straight home after our meeting at the hospital, and I’d double-checked on Willy’s whereabouts on my own before coming over. I was surprised, however, to find her wearing only a bathrobe when she answered the door, her head swathed in a towel turban. It was barely six p.m.

I also noticed she looked terribly sad, which unfortunately didn’t surprise me. “I’m sorry, Sammie. This a bad time?”

She smiled, barely. “Just got out of the shower.” She patted her engulfed head. “Had to touch up the Swedish look before I head back to the mountain-didn’t want to blow my cover. Come on in.”

I followed her into the apartment, once more awed by how it made me feel like a mouse at the bottom of a bucket. My place was the exact opposite of this: a small, low-ceilinged, multi-roomed dwelling with its succession of hideaways, all linked by doorways and short, narrow corridors. I felt impermanent here, as if someone might come by, pack me up, and mail me to some unknown address.

“Coffee?” she asked, not bothering to look back, heading across the symphonically creaking floor toward the kitchen lining one wall.

“Sure. Thanks.” I followed her and sat on a stool to one side. “How’re you doin’?”

She kept busy, collecting mugs from a cabinet, milk from the fridge, not making eye contact. “Fine.”

“I’m sorry about Willy.”

She paused in midmotion, just for a second, before turning the heat on under the kettle. “What about him?”

I pointedly didn’t answer.

The silence stretched until I could almost hear it vibrate. Then she turned to me, her eyes pleading, and said, “Why’s he such a bastard?”

I thought about that for a moment, wanting to get it right. “Because he’s scared.”

“I don’t push,” she burst out, smacking her hand on the counter. “I don’t ask him questions he doesn’t want to hear, I don’t ask him to do things he doesn’t want to do. I bend over backwards not to box him in. What’s he got to be scared of?”

I shook my head slightly. “What attracts you to him?” I asked.

She looked at me, startled.

I rephrased the question. “Why do you hang out with him?”

She rubbed her forehead. “I don’t know. Why does anyone stay with anyone else?”

“Is it pity?”

She flushed. “No. He would hate that. And he doesn’t need it… I guess… I think it’s just the opposite. I mean, I know he’s a pain in everybody’s butt, but he tells the truth-always. He’s the most honest man I ever met. He’ll risk everything for that-hurting people’s feelings, losing them altogether. It’s like a religion.”

“Pretty gratuitous sometimes. Not everyone needs to know the truth.”

She sighed. “I know. And I know it’s mixed in with other stuff, too. All the sarcasm, the insecurity… that goddamn arm.”

“The badge of the crippled man?”

She smiled and shook her head. “You should know. You’re always pulling his fat from the fire. I should be grilling you. Why do you bother?”

Why indeed? I wondered. “I don’t do it to save him.”

“Wouldn’t he crash and burn without you?” she challenged me.

“Maybe… probably,” I conceded. “But I think it’s more so I can see him save himself someday. I always thought that might be possible.”

“Did you know he’s an artist?” she asked abruptly.

“I know he’d have a fit if he heard us talking about it. He damn near killed me when I found out. But that’s what I meant. He’s got that in him, like a gift given to someone nobody thinks deserves it, including the someone himself.”

Her eyes widened. “You figure that’s it?”

I reiterated what I’d told her earlier. “What do you think he sees when he looks in the mirror, Sam? A recovering alcoholic, a combat vet who worked behind the lines doing things I don’t want to know about, a wife-beater, a pariah, a physical, social, and emotional cripple. So, he tells the truth whatever the cost, he draws the beauty around him he won’t acknowledge in public, and he has you in his life, a stroke of luck he can’t believe and won’t trust. What do you think set him off about the blonde hair and the ski instructor gig?”

She considered that for a few seconds. “I thought it was jealousy at first. The ‘beautiful people’ thing he’s always ranting about. Now I’m not so sure.”

“Why not?” I asked, wanting her to hear her own answer.

She fiddled a bit with the cups, spooning in some instant coffee in preparation for the hot water. Finally, she admitted, “I started thinking maybe he was right-I was getting off on it, the glamour of it. He wasn’t jealous about me and other men; he was ticked off at the phoniness that I seemed to be liking.”

“He told you that?”

She ducked her head and placed both palms flat on the counter’s surface before her, as if suddenly exhausted. “No. That’s what wears me out. I just think that’s what he feels. He does that to everyone, puts the burden on us to figure him out. And then, it’s like we have to paint the best picture possible of him, or it’ll look like we’re the creeps. It’s not fair.”

I reached out and squeezed her hand. She slid over so I could drape my arm across her shoulders. “Sammie, it’s only unfair if you make it all your responsibility. He’s got to carry some of the weight, too. Feed him some of that honesty back.”

“He runs when I try that.”

“He runs to think. He always has. Then he comes back. Why do you think he was attracted to you in the first place?”

She sighed so deeply her entire body shuddered. “He likes you a lot.”

I laughed. “Christ. Let’s hope I don’t have enemies.” I hugged her once and then turned the heat off under the boiling water. “I like him, too, God knows why. Way down, he’s got things to offer, I don’t mind carrying some of his load in the meantime.”

I looked her straight in the eyes. “But only as long as he shows signs of making an effort, and only as long as you think it’s worth your time. Okay?”

She smiled and kissed me on the cheek. “Yeah. Thanks, boss.”