Walter was listening.
“What he couldn’t play was the sucker game at the creek. Trading safety for sex.”
“No,” Walter said. “That was not grownup business.”
I ached, for a moment, thinking about Lindsay’s role in it. I still saw no reason to lay that on Walter. I said, “Well, the thing with Jeanine almost worked. A lot of bad press. It really looked like he was going to be replaced. And so at that point, time’s really against him. He can’t just wait any more for me to find the fissure. He needs to push. So he makes the bargain with me. With us.”
Walter grunted.
We fixed our attention on the Blazer, which parked in front of Walter’s Jeep. People piled out. Council bigshots and the man himself, Adrian Krom.
“Is that all?” Walter finally asked.
I nodded. I had no more. Walter waited, perhaps for me to whip out the missing piece of evidence, the magic stone that would tie Krom to the fissure, to the scene of death, to the scenario I’d just spun. I didn’t have it.
He cleared his throat. “There are holes, dear.”
I knew.
“Why does he transport Georgia’s body to the glacier?”
“He needs it to be found. He needs the evidence on the body to be traced to Gold Dust. Which it was. And we found the fissure. Which is what he needed.”
“The body was found only by chance. By an ice climber.”
I said, “The climber phoned in the report. Voice was garbled, staticky. Maybe the ‘climber’ was Adrian — when he’s ready to set his plan in motion.”
“There’s still a difficulty. He needs to know that the evidence on the body will be traced to Gold Dust. That is a large assumption. He didn’t know about the geology — according to what you told me — until that day at Casa Diablo when he learned how we could track the soil. And, further, he couldn’t count on the fact that it would lead to the site of death, and the fissure.”
I shrugged. “You’re right. I haven’t got it all worked out.” Not that I hadn’t twisted it a dozen ways. “Okay, let’s say he had plan A to help the cops along. Whatever it was, he set it into motion with that meeting at the Inn. And then he found me and the geology at Casa and hatched a better plan. Plan B. And it worked. I found the fissure for him.”
“No dear, the timing doesn’t work. What if you took too long?”
“I don’t know.” The damnable timing. What if things heated up before I found the fissure, what if he didn’t have time to build a new way out before we had to go? I watched him, now, herding the Council. He’s a master manipulator but he can’t time the volcano. Any more than Lindsay can.
Walter said, “Are you planning to present this theory to John?”
“Not until we have some proof.”
“We have no proof,” Walter said. “And there’s simply too much we don’t know.”
“We know plan B worked. The only snag, for him, is if we can place him at the scene.” My pulse gave a little leap. “Maybe he has a plan C, in case we can.”
Walter looked at me in alarm.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “we seem to be failing at that.”
There was a long silence and then Walter, bless him, laughed.
In that, we caught the attention of the person I’d hoped to avoid. Krom was walking the site with the Council in his gravitational field. Now he changed direction and intercepted us before we could reach the Explorer.
“You here for me?” he asked, and when I shook my head, he asked Walter, “What’s funny?”
“Very little,” Walter said. “A small release of tension.”
Krom gave a sympathetic shrug. His attention pulled back to the Council. He smiled to himself and moved on.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I was in the shower when Jimbo banged on the bathroom door. I shut off the tap. “What?”
“Get on a towel,” Jimbo said, “I’m coming in.”
Despite the steam, I was abruptly chilled. Not since childhood has Jimbo entered the bathroom when I’m showering. I hastily wrapped up.
Jimbo came in, examined the tile floor, then took me in a hug so tight my head knocked his chin. My stomach turned hollow. “Mom and Dad?”
He muttered into my hair, “Lindsay. John Amsterdam called and said we’ve lost her.”
“Lost?” I had a crazy vision of Lindsay fleeing across the caldera, playing my role in the nightmare, and then I thought, she’s angry at being out of the loop and she’s left town and the chief of police is going to retrieve her, but none of this made sense, and even if it had it would not have driven my brother into the bathroom with me. Lost? A thousand alarms went off and cutting through them was the rising wail of my own voice. Jimbo picked up the towel and wrapped it around me. I said, “Lost how?” Jimbo was watching the floor again, the blond wings of his hair shielding his face, and he said “dead, shit, she’s dead” and he took away the world as I knew it.
My brother drove me downtown and ushered me through the congestion outside the scene at Lindsay’s office building. He lifted the police tape for me and left me in the care of a uniformed officer we had both known since kindergarten, whose name I could not produce.
“John’s in the office.” The officer stared at my shoulder, her round face blanched by the cold. “He said to send you straight in. Cassie? Man, I’m sorry.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Margy.”
I moved into the hallway and pressed against the cold plaster wall. Someone came around the corner. Slat-thin, angling headfirst into his walk. Disappearing blond hair, buzz cut on a tanned field of scalp. Chief of Police John Amsterdam. Gossiped with him two weeks ago after hypothesizing with Walter up at Pika Canyon. Almost gave him my half-baked theory. Now, he looked past me at the wall, filling me with terror.
He said, “Such a loss.”
Loss — that confusion again. If only she were lost. Then she could be found. John led the way, as if I couldn’t find Lindsay’s office all by myself.
At first I saw only backs, a roomful of people with their backs to the door. Someone was laying dust over the map cabinet, someone was draining a coffee cup into a vial, someone was taking photos. Everyone’s back was to me. A back was bent low over the creamy woolen legs and calfskin ankle boots on the floor. I knew all the backs. Mammoth P.D. The officers doing the crime-scene ident were Bo Robinson and Lupe Cruz-Rios and Jim Breuss. The photog was Don May, Stobie’s roommate. Eric was here. Randy Burrard from the ME’s office was on the floor, attending the body.
There was an awful odor in the room, body waste and a stale coppery wash of blood that I could taste as well as smell.
I had to cover my mouth and turn away. Lindsay’s lost, isn’t she? That’s not Lindsay. John caught me as I buckled and put me into a chair. A couple of the backs turned. I shut my eyes. Hideous hot tears burned my face.
Someone breathed on my cheek and whispered, “Here when you need me, Cass.”
I looked at Eric through blurred eyes. “Where’s Walter?”
Eric led me across the crowded office and I punctiliously skirted the open evidence collection kit, not out of crime-scene etiquette but out of horror. I caught a glimpse of the body, prone. It lay on Lindsay’s periwinkle blue jute rug.
Walter was in her high-backed desk chair, turned to the window. He appeared to be taking in the view. His head lay against the leather cushion, his hands were folded in his lap, his legs sprawled like a rag doll’s.
I knelt.