He sucked down what remained of lukewarm coffee. Dryer nursed a milk tea, but kept looking into the cup, his acne-scoured face snarled in disapproval. They occupied Walt’s small office, overcrowded with stacks of journals piled on the floor and some backcountry gear crammed into the far corner. Dryer sat facing Walt’s desk.
“ Brandon!” Walt called out, his voice echoing down the hall.
His deputy arrived promptly, the only person in the office who didn’t look completely exhausted at 1 A.M. “Sheriff?”
“Shut the door,” Walt said.
Brandon closed the office door and stepped inside. Walt did not offer him the only remaining chair. He lowered his voice, despite the fact that both Holms and Guyot were down the hall behind closed doors, each being guarded by a deputy. “I want you to find me a plaster cast, a boot impression, in the evidence room. I’m thinking the Thompson case, or maybe the Ramone arson. Adult shoe size, no matter what. I want it in an evidence bag marked ‘Hill Trail, Adams Gulch.’ Date it yesterday: Saturday.”
“Got it,” Brandon said.
“And I need a contact lens. Find someone out there who doesn’t mind making a sacrifice for the cause. The office will buy ’em a new one. Now here’s the important part: Julie has a whole rainbow of highlighters in her desk. I want to use the blue highlighter to make a small dot on the side of the contact lens. Not too small, not too big. You got all that?”
“Shoe impression. Contact lens,” Brandon repeated.
“Go on. And close the door behind you.”
Brandon left them alone.
“I don’t follow,” Dryer said, once they were in privacy.
“The AUSA out of Boise isn’t going to get up here until tomorrow around noon,” Walt said, referring to the assistant United States attorney. “You and I both know that Stuart Holms will have four or five attorneys around him by that time-most from out of state-and that what we caught on Trevalian’s wire, while incriminating, and enough to give us probable cause, may not carry the day in court.”
“I’m no legal scholar,” Dryer said.
“We have Trevalian’s use of one of my deputies’ cell phone-he stole it at the hospital-that may be able to be connected to an incoming call he received. If we can confirm that call was from Guyot, then we have a substantially stronger case against them, and we took a cell phone off Guyot. Cloned or not, that could be the smoking gun we need.”
“I can hear in your voice that you’re doubting all this,” Dryer said.
“Holms is a shrewd businessman. You hear words like ‘tenacious’ and ‘ruthless.’ I have to think that if Guyot’s involved, and I believe he is, that Holms has promised him the moon if anything ever went wrong. Now it has. You can bet the two of them have coached each other, rehearsed, and worked through all possibilities, including this one: arrest. They’re following a plan that’s been in place for at least six weeks-we know that from the Shaler seating plan. Maybe six months. They’re too well prepared on the Shaler front. They know what to expect, what’s coming. My one hope is to end-run them before the attorneys get involved.”
“Fucking attorneys.”
“How are your acting skills?” Walt asked.
“With a baby face like this?” Dryer asked. Even a weary smile did nothing to improve his gangster looks.
Two
I ’m not speaking until I have representation,” Stuart Holms announced from the far side of the conference table. He looked at home, as if this were another of his boardrooms.
“You just spoke,” Dryer said, “but I get what you mean.” He sat across from Holms, who’d been given time back at the estate to lose the terrycloth robe and don a pair of slacks and a plaid shirt. He wore loafers with no socks. He looked old.
Dryer’s chair fronted a corkboard where Walt had had the Shaler seating plan hung prior to Holms’s arrival. The man had been facing it now for the past ten minutes.
“The thing about businessmen like you: They’re always trying to save money, conserve resources.”
A tape recorder ran on the corner of the table. Stuart Holms could barely take his eyes off it. He said nothing. He seemed to be working hard to keep contempt off his face, but it was a losing battle.
“The sheriff has an interesting theory. You want to hear it? I’ll take that as a yes. It’s a little far-out for me-his theory. But he’s convinced Mr. Guyot has a lot more to lose than you, and so he’s starting there. With Mr. Guyot. Down the hall. The point being that one of you will deal. You think you won’t, but of course you will. Everyone goes into this thinking they won’t deal. And whoever deals first rolls on the other guy, and then that other guy is…pardon my French…fucked.”
Dryer sipped from his tea, and gave it that same look of disgust. “If you spend the night here, don’t ask for the tea.”
“I’ll be home within the hour,” Holms said.
“A Sunday night, early Monday actually, in July? You think? You could be right, I suppose.” He sampled the tea again; same result. He said, “So here’s the thing. Have you had a chance to look at this seating plan behind me?”
Holms looked up and gave the impression this was the first time he’d paid any attention to it.
“You know why we got that out to take a look at it? Because we wondered if any of Cutter’s invited guests had missed the Shaler brunch. Because there could be two reasons for that: Someone was sick, or had a scheduling conflict; or someone wanted to avoid being present when the bomb they’d arranged to kill Shaler went off. And, as you can see by the Xs, only two people missed the talk: you and your late wife.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“This is the sheriff we’re talking about, but your point is taken. Anyway…the sheriff said something about a guy named Raphael. Your chef, I believe?”
Holms did a very good imitation of being bored by all this. Dryer knew differently-he had his eye on a vein in the man’s neck. His pulse was elevated, his eyes dilated, and he was growing increasingly restless. Walt’s emphasis had been on taking away the man’s sense of control. It seemed to be working, Dryer thought.
“He said how you don’t eat anything that isn’t prepared by this guy Raphael. And I suppose that’s a personal thing, and I’ve got no comment, although my personal chef is a guy named McDonald, but I doubt the two know each other. So, anyway, the problem for the sheriff is this seating chart, prepared back in June, that has you down for the regular meal. No Raphael. And I’ve got to admit, he has a point: It seems to suggest you knew back in June that you wouldn’t be attending the Shaler brunch.”
Holms glanced up at the seating chart. Then his eyes darted to meet Dryer’s before once more landing on the chart. Wisely, he chose not to comment. The blue bead on his neck was growing, and beating wildly. His Adam’s apple jumped as he tried to swallow.
“I figure-or rather the sheriff does-that you wanted to save Raphael in case the bomb took out the kitchen help. So you didn’t book him. Why lose a good chef? Here’s where it gets a little extreme, even for me,” Dryer continued. “The sheriff believes not only that you killed your wife-or had her killed-but that you planned it far enough in advance to make sure it gave you the ultimate excuse not to attend the Shaler brunch. Who was going to question a grieving widower? But that’s where the irony comes in: because here I am questioning you. So maybe that part didn’t work so well.”
Holms blinked rapidly but still managed to say nothing. Dryer smiled openly, well aware that when contrasted with his acne-scarred cheeks, he looked menacing when doing so.
“Here’s what may interest you, Mr. Holms. It did me. The sheriff has no intention of pursuing Trevalian and you for the attempted assassination of Elizabeth Shaler. That’s why I’m here-I’m federal, he’s state. He’s leaving all that to my office and the AUSA to sort out. He’s focused on one thing and one thing only: the murder of your wife. That was done on his turf. He says you’re good for it-something about a fingerprint developed on a contact lens-and who am I to argue? It’s his show. If he wants to make an ass out of himself, who am I to interfere?”