BY THE TIME he reached the sheriff’s office, an unremarkable one-story brick building with the jail’s coiled-razor-wire exercise area slung off the back side, he pushed Gail aside, expecting that Nancy would have found Mark Aker while hoping she might have word on the missing teenage girl as well.
Instead, he saw Tommy Brandon and two other deputies across the street from the office, the lights of one of their cars flashing.
Walt parked and joined them, his heart sinking. Crazy Dean Falco was chained to a tree.
“The sheep are all dying!” Falco shouted for Walt’s sake. “The environment is a killer. All corporate profiteers should be hanged!”
Falco himself had been arrested and tried no fewer than six times for similar stunts. He usually found a small group to join him, but, typically, in the summer months, not in twenty-degree winter weather. The chain was big and thick, and was padlocked with a hardened steel lock that would be hell to cut. Using an oxyacetylene torch might scar the tree, giving Falco added ammunition to his cause.
He began shouting his message again, though louder-animals in peril, the poisoning of the environment-causing Walt to check behind him, wondering at his audience.
He saw Fiona, with her camera gear, and a reporter, Sue Bailey. They crossed the street, suppressing grins. Everyone knew Dean.
Falco strained the chains, working himself up to a lather.
Brandon was on his cell phone, working with Elbie’s Tire and Auto to bring a cutting torch up there; no bolt cutter was going to handle that heavy-gauge steel.
Walt’s father, Jerry, enjoyed ridiculing his son about the small-time nature of his sheriff’s job. Though Sun Valley had grown into an internationally recognized playground for the rich and famous, big-city crime had, for the most part, not found its way here yet. The Wood River Journal still carried stories on its front page about bands of sheep stopping traffic and the Senior Center ’s vending machine being robbed. Jerry Fleming made fodder from all of it. For this reason, Walt hoped to avoid being in any of the photographs. Jerry subscribed to both local newspapers, the Mountain Express and the Wood River Journal.
He shuffled over to Fiona. “I know you’re wearing another hat at the moment,” he said, “but I’d sure appreciate it if I didn’t end up in any of the pictures.”
“Keeps your name in front of voters,” she suggested.
“Makes me look like all I’ve got time for is babysitting tree huggers,” said Walt. “If I arrest him, I’m antienvironment; if I don’t, I’m a flaming liberal.”
“What if you just set him on fire?” she asked.
He barked a laugh and then hid his smile behind his hand. “A reasonable reaction, I think.”
“Or, better yet, just leave him. Do nothing.”
“You think like a cop,” he said.
“He’ll freeze his butt off out here with no one to preach to.”
“I think I’ll take your advice,” he said, squeezing her arm-a nice, firm arm. He headed for his office.
Nancy offered him a grim look. “Nothing on Mark,” she said.
“Cell phone?”
“Not answering.”
“Work?”
“They don’t open until ten. I tried the emergency number, but the woman who answered hadn’t heard from him. She reminded me- unnecessarily-how close he was to Randy. She said he may have just shuttered himself in for the morning.”
“I doubt that.”
Despite the mountain of paperwork, Walt had to admit that he loved his office. It gave him an excuse to shut the door and lock the world out. Yet these days, thanks to Gail, he would catch himself behind his desk, staring into space, ten minutes lost to the black hole.
“What about the Runaway Bride?”
“Bridesmaid,” Nancy corrected. Her sense of humor stopped when she occupied that chair. “Her name is Kira Tulivich. No, still no word.”
He’d made up his mind. “I’m going over to Mark’s,” he said.
“I’ve called,” she reminded. “We could send a cruiser by, if you’d rather.”
“No, I’m doing it myself.” Before he left, he gave Nancy his wish list: he wanted more on Kira Tulivich, all her friends, boyfriends, and fellow bridesmaids; he wanted to know why the ERC had not yet provided the caller ID for the Search and Rescue call that had sent them up Galena in the first place; and he wanted photos from Fiona of the tire tracks.
“Got those,” Nancy said. “She just dropped them by.” She handed Walt a manila envelope, and he double-checked the contents.
“If you get a minute, call the Barkin’ Basement and see if they have a kid’s winter coat, Nikki’s size. Zipper, not snaps.”
HE DROVE the four miles north to the Starweather subdivision, marveling at the beauty of a fresh snowfall sparkling in the sunlight. A sky of perfect blue. Sugarcoated evergreens bowing to gravity.
Highway 75 ran north-south, bisecting the twenty-mile-long valley. It was the only road that connected the three main towns: Bellevue, Hailey, and Ketchum/Sun Valley. For most of the drive, the south faces of the mountains were without trees. Covered in a fresh snowfall, they looked like giant marshmallows, forming a V with Sun Valley near the tip that pointed north. Dozens of smaller roads, all hosting million-dollar homes, led east or west off the spine of Highway 75.
He drove his department-issue Cherokee down a small hill into a forest of aspen trees. Starweather formed a large oval through the woods.
Aker’s driveway hadn’t been plowed. Snow slipped down into Walt’s boots and melted around his ankles, as he headed from the Cherokee. The multiple tire tracks he followed suggested vehicles coming and going at a very early hour. When Walt had arrived home just after two A.M., the snowfall had still been steady. The tracks he was following had been left somewhere before three A.M., when the storm had stopped completely.
The driveway curved to reveal a modest one-and-a-half-story log home with a river-rock chimney. About an acre of trees had been cleared around the house, and Walt knew from many summer evenings spent on the back deck that it overlooked a small lawn, leading to the edge of the Big Wood River.
A magpie floated overhead on fixed wings, landed between Walt and the house, and then took off again. No motion in any of the windows. A pair of spotlights, on the corner of the roof nearest the garage, left on. Another light glowed by the front door. Combined with the lack of any interior lights, Walt didn’t like the look of the place. It was possible, of course, that a grieving Mark Aker had turned off all the phones and was sleeping in. Possible, but unlikely.
As a small-animal vet, Mark lived with death. No matter his emotions, he was not a person to hide himself away. And even if he had needed some time, Francine would be fielding calls.
He rang the front bell to no success. Maybe they’d headed south to Mark’s parents and the family farm.
He walked around back and tried to see into the kitchen. He knocked loudly on the living room’s French doors. But there was no sign of life.
He tried the back door. Locked. Tried it again. Stared at it.
Mark never locked his doors. The fact that he’d done so now and had apparently left town-in the middle of an awful night-told him something was terribly wrong. Mark not answering his cell phone also needed explanation-he was on call 24/7.
The more Walt looked at this, the more it stank. Mark had brought up politics the night before, had done so with difficulty. They never talked politics. Coincidental or related? Had it had something to do with Randy?
Returning to his Cherokee, Walt took a minute, sitting on the back bumper with the tailgate up, to clean the snow out of his boots and brush off his socks.
The rumors about Randy had to do with big-game poaching. Hunting violations belonged to Fish and Game, so Walt had steered clear.