"You heard right. As a recreational activity, all I can say for it is that it ranks well ahead of needing to dodge bullets and not quite pulling it off. I've been thinking about what Winston Churchill said-"Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result."
"I like that-there's definitely some truth in that. Case you're wondering, I made a call for you. The two victims are going to be fine. Both just lacerations from the ricochets. Ones already been released from the hospital.
The other one got a fragment in the eye. Nothing serious."
"That's good. Neither of them was Welle, right? Nobody at the scene would tell me."
"No, Welle wasn't even in the vicinity. He was still inside the building. So what were you doing there? At Welle's fund-raiser? You turning over a new political leaf? Something I might actually endorse?"
Politics was another one of those areas where Sam and I didn't exactly see eye to eye.
"Hardly. I needed to talk with Raymond Welle about an old case of his. I had an appointment to meet with him before the reception that he was at when everything went crazy."
"What? You were talking to him about a psychology thing?" I vacillated for a fraction of a second before I said, "Yeah," and knew that my brief hesitation wouldn't escape Sam's scrutiny.
"But not just a psychology thing?" he asked.
I said, "Remember A. J. Simes?" I knew he did. Sam had been intimately involved in helping Lauren and me sort out the mess with A. J. and her partner the previous year.
"Sure."
"She called recently and asked for my help investigating an old case she's working on. My role involves talking to Welle."
He lowered his elbows to the deck railing, leaned over, and cupped his chin in his palms.
"Is it Locard business?"
I exhaled audibly and shook my head a little before turning to face him.
"How the hell do you know about Locard?"
He laughed, and I felt the day's tension begin to tumble from my musculature.
"I checked her out for you last fall, if you recall. A. J.? You wanted some background research."
"Oh yeah."
"When I turn over rocks, I'm thorough. So is it Locard business that you're helping her with?" I nodded. He asked, "What's the case?"
"Two teenage girls were murdered up near Steamboat Springs in 1988. Place called the Elk River Valley Their bodies stayed hidden all winter. Were found during the spring thaw."
It obviously rang a bell.
"I think I remember that. The snowmobile thing? That one?"
"Yes"
"I do remember it. Weren't they mutilated or something? What's the connection to Raymond Welle?"
Again, Sam noticed my hesitation. He said, "A. J. asked you not to talk to me about all this, didn't she?"
"Not in so many words, Sam." I decided right then that I wasn't going to keep him in the dark.
"Welle used to be a psychologist in Steamboat. You knew that?"
He nodded.
"When Welle was still in practice he treated one of the two murder victims in psychotherapy. This was back when he was just a clinician, before his radio fame and political fortune."
I guessed that Sam was still working on trying to figure out two things. One, why A. J. didn't want him to know about me being involved in Locard. Two, why the hell A. J. thought I could be of any help.
Sam asked, "So, did you have your meeting? With Welle?"
"Yes. We talked before all the fireworks."
He examined his fingernails and half-jokingly he said, "You wouldn't want to tell me what he said."
"Sorry," I said.
"Why were you still hanging around? You said your meeting with Welle was before this campaign thing."
"A reporter kind of hijacked me. Thought I might know something about illegal fund-raising practices she's investigating."
"Regarding Welle?"
"Yes."
His eyebrows elevated a smidgen.
"Do you?"
"Nope."
Sam cracked the knuckles on the little finger of his left hand. Then he did the right.
His silence made me nervous. I said, "Lauren's helping out, too. With Locard.
She's the local legal connection."
The French door opened behind us and Emily barked once until she recognized our guest. The dog loved Sam Purdy and almost knocked him over while displaying her affection. Lauren told her to get off of him and said, "Here's your beer, Sam," and handed him a bottle with a cutthroat trout on the label.
He gazed at the bottle with some curiosity. He shook his head and mused, "Never thought I'd prefer one of your froufrou beers to a Bud. Wonder what's happening to me." I said, "I was just telling Sam about Locard."
We were still standing at the rail of the deck. The pastels had totally dissolved from the clouds and the western parts of the valley were starting to be soaked in dusty black. Behind us, Lauren lowered herself to the end of a weathered teak chaise. She said, "Ah."
Lauren had made an angel food cake before dinner. She excused herself and went inside to whip up a fresh strawberry sauce for it. I asked, "When you made your calls today, Sam, did you hear anything about threats? Against Raymond Welle?
There seemed to be a lot of security around when I was there."
He shook his head.
"Nobody said anything to me about any threats. But a lot of security doesn't mean much. Controversial politicians travel with plenty of muscle these days.
They need to. And Welle's a controversial politician. You know something specific about that? About threats?"
"No."
He sipped some beer.
"Do you wonder about a connection? Between what you're doing for Locard and the shooting?"
I was surprised at the question.
"No. Of course not. Not at all."
"Why not?"
"Just don't see any relevance."
He swallowed a yawn.
"You have to admit it was a pitiful assassination attempt.
I mean-a major amateur act. A nine-millimeter handgun at over a hundred feet?
The target not even in clear sight?"
"That's not totally accurate, Sam. There was a guy at the door who looked kind of like Welle. And who's to say it wasn't an amateur? As you just pointed out, Welle is plenty controversial. I'm sure he stirs up some resentment among that segment of the citizenry that is fond of guns and struggles with impulse-control problems."
He tapped his fingernail on the edge of his chair.
"And my guess is that reopening old murder investigations tends to stir up resentment among those people who are not only fond of guns but also have old homicide problems. You know what they say about sleeping dogs."
He was being obtuse, making me guess at things. It was his way of telling me what a pain in the ass I was being.
"You think somebody was trying to keep Welle from talking to me because of some old murders?"
Sam shrugged. His eyes were locked on the prairie grasses below the deck. It was apparent to me that my arguments were weighing on him with all the gravity of a slight fluctuation in atmospheric pressure. He said, "You're sure this out-of-town reporter you were talking to doesn't know anything about the Locard investigation?"
"Not unless she's lying to me."
He found that denial particularly amusing.
"God, that would be a first. A reporter misleading a source. Wow."
I smiled.
"She doesn't seem to know anything."
"And Welle wasn't evasive with you?"
I thought back on the interview.
"Sure he was, a little. But he's a politician.
He's evasive by nature."
Sam's smile was cunning.
"That's the facile explanation. It's also possible that he knows something he'd rather you not know he knows. Being linked to an old murder of teenage girls, even tangentially, is not exactly the stuff of a politician's dreams while he's running for the Senate."
I thought about it before responding.
"Raymond Welle rode the crest of his wife's murder pretty well, Sam, if you remember. Rode it all the way to national prominence on the radio, then to a seat in Congress. I don't think this investigation would swamp him, even if news about it got out. He'd probably use it to try to prove his point about our degenerate society."