01 Storm Peak (4 page)

Read 01 Storm Peak Online

Authors: John Flanagan

Tags: #Mystery

BOOK: 01 Storm Peak
11.94Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
They’d stayed in touch in the years he’d spent in Denver. She went down for his wedding to Abby, then, later, spent hours on the phone letting him talk out the details of the divorce. They’d see each other on weekends when he drove up to Steamboat to ski. They’d swap stories of cases and investigations the way cops do everywhere.
And never, not once, in all those years, did either of them mention the time when they had been lovers.
So in light of that, it bothered Jesse somewhat these days that the images of that time kept recurring to him at the most unlikely and inconvenient times.
And it was happening more and more frequently.
FOUR
A
lexander Howell’s body was covered by a sheet. Jesse reached up and lifted the covering away from the dead man’s face.
The skin was a light shade of blue by now and the body was already stiff. He looked critically at the evidence of internal bleeding around the chin and neck, then, with thumb and forefinger, tilted the dead man’s chin up so he could see the entry wound. He nodded once when he saw it. It was as he had suspected when Lee had first described the injury. He flipped the sheet back over the victim’s face and rolled the drawer back in again. He stripped off the surgical gloves and dropped them in a bin.
“Seen enough?” Lee was watching him expectantly.
“It looks like what I thought it might be,” he replied and she cocked her head interrogatively, motioning for him to continue.
“Looks like a jigger,” he explained.
Lee frowned. “A jigger? What in all hell is a jigger?” she asked. He wiped his hands absentmindedly on his jeans. In spite of the gloves, his fingers still felt slightly clammy and cold from their contact with the corpse. They always did. He knew it was his imagination, but he kept on wiping them anyway.
“Very popular with the white street gangs down in Aurora a few years back,” he explained. “Full name was a ‘Nigger Jigger.’ ”
He saw the instant look of distaste cross Lee’s face and hurriedly disclaimed, “I didn’t make the name up, Lee. Just telling you what they called it.”
She leaned her rump on the edge of the autopsy table behind her.
“Okay, so what exactly is a jigger?” she asked.
“Basically, it’s a spring-loaded spike concealed in a handle-usually about ten inches long. You cock the spike down into the handle, place it under the chin of your victim and release the trigger.”
Lee was nodding her understanding. “And the spring does the rest.” she said. “That explains how such a powerful blow can be delivered with such accuracy.”
He nodded. “Exactly. And, the handle itself can be disguised as something totally innocuous. Then you just have to poke it at your victim, hit the trigger and—bing!” He gestured to show how easy it could be.
Lee began to pace around the room, talking as she went, more to herself than him.
“So … we’re looking for someone who used to be in one of those white street gangs down in Aurora …” she said.
Jesse shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe someone who just knows how to make himself a jigger.”
She stopped and looked at him. “Do you enjoy making things hard for an honest cop?” she asked, with a slight smile.
He spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “It’s the only way honest cops like it,” he said.
She gave him that same exasperated look. “You want a coffee?” she asked and he nodded his acceptance. She led the way out of the cold room, switching off the light behind them and continued up to her office on the next floor. Tom Legros was on duty and she sent him to get them both a cup of coffee from the kitchen they shared with the fire brigade. She unbuckled her gunbelt and dropped it, clattering, on the desktop. Then she dropped into her seat and swung her boots up onto the scarred wood beside the gun.
Jesse eyed the single action .44 Magnum in the holster with amused tolerance.
“Still using that old Ruger, I see?” he asked her.
“Never saw a reason to change,” she replied.
Jesse pursed his lips slightly as he considered her answer. “You should try one of those new Berettas they’re issuing these days,” he suggested.
Lee shook her head slowly. “Not fond of autos,” she replied. “One round jams and that’s all she wrote. At least with a revolver, you can just roll right on to the next chamber.”
“So … look after your ammunition and make sure you don’t have a round jamming. With one of those Berettas, you can crank off thirteen nine-millimeter rounds before the bad guy has a chance to move.”
Lee nodded, allowing the point. Then added, with devastating logic, “Never usually need more than one round myself.”
Jesse grinned at her. “I’ll bet you don’t at that,” he admitted. “You must be the world’s most parsimonious woman with your ammunition. Anyone’d think the county made you buy your own.”
“They do,” she replied morosely, leaning forward to slide open the top left-hand drawer on her desk. She took out a heavy pistol in a regulation belt holster and tossed it across the desk to him. “They only supply me with rounds for this useless damn Beretta.”
Jesse shook his head slowly, examining the big, blue-black automatic that she’d passed him. “You’re still stubborn as ever then,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.
Lee shrugged. “I get used to a gun, I like to keep it she said simply. “What about you? You telling me you used one of those teeny short barrel .38s they issue to detectives when you were down in Denver?”
“Not exactly,” Jesse grinned, conceding the point.
“I thought not,” said Lee. “My guess is you hung on to that old 1911 Colt auto of yours. Right?”
“That’s right enough. As you say, you get used to a gun, you want to keep it.”
“And those old Colts, they certainly had some stopping power,” Lee mused, and instantly regretted it. She saw the quick flash of pain that crossed Jesse’s face. Then it was buried under his usual inscrutable mask.
“They certainly did,” he said. There was an awkward silence for a few seconds. Lee knew she’d put her high-heeled foot right in it there, but couldn’t find a way to get out of the predicament. Fortunately, the silence was broken as Tom Legros pushed open the unlatched door with his hip, and entered with two mugs of coffee.
“Here you go, Sheriff, Jesse,” he said cheerfully, setting the mugs down. He glanced curiously at the Beretta on the desk between them. Reminded of its presence, Lee leaned forward and scooped it into the drawer again.
Tom leaned against the nearest of the two filing cabinets that graced Lee’s office, arms folded.
“So, Jess, any ideas on our victim in there?” he asked. Jesse shrugged noncommittally. Lee answered her deputy.
“Jess thinks the murder weapon was a gizmo called a “jigger,”’ she said. “A spring-loaded spike that you push up against the victim, then trigger off.”
Tom shook his head, wondering. “Never did hear of anything like that,” he said.
He thought about it for a second or two, then pushed himself away from the filing cabinet and headed for the door.
“Meant to tell you, Sheriff, some of the local kids have been causing a ruckus out at Payne’s Crossing on their snowmobiles. Thought I’d better get down there and take a look around.”
“Couldn’t the town police look after that, Tom?” Lee asked him. “We’re going to have our hands full around here.”
Tom Legros rubbed his jaw. “They’re saying it’s not their jurisdiction. Payne’s Crossing is way past the town limits.”
Lee sighed. Everyone had manpower problems. “Take care of it then, Tom,” she said. After a pause, she added, “Don’t be too hard on them. They’re just kids, after all.”
Tom touched a finger to the brim of his Stetson. “I’ll attend to it,” he said, and went out, hitching up his gunbelt as he went. Jesse was interested to see that he also wore a non-regulation, single action peacemaker. He wondered if it was Lee’s influence, decided it probably was.
“He’s a good man,” he said. Lee nodded her agreement.
“Not the most imaginative person I’ve ever met,” she said. “But he’s painstaking and he’s stubborn. He doesn’t give up once he’s started on something.”
“Good qualities to have in a cop,” Jesse replied, and yawned. “Guess I’d better be getting home.”
Lee started to rise from behind her desk.
“I’ll drive you back to the Tugboat,” she said, but he waved her back down again, checking his watch.
“Shuttle bus’ll be picking up outside the Harbor in a few minutes,” he said. “You’ve got work to do.”
She sighed and sank back. “That’s true.” Adding, a moment later, “I hate this kind of case, Jess. Don’t know how you stood it down in Denver.”
He looked at her, a little puzzled. “This kind of case, Lee? What other kind is there?”
“Oh … you know,” she gestured vaguely. “A guy holds up a convenience store and takes off for the high country. That sort of case. I know what I’m doing, where I’m going, who I’m after. I just head out after whoever it is, catch him and bring him back.”
“Just like that,” Jesse interrupted, smiling slightly.
But Lee didn’t pick up on the irony. “That’s right. It’s black and white. You’ve got a reason, a crime and a motive. It’s straightforward. Not like this.” She gestured with her thumb in the vague direction of the morgue and Alexander Howell’s body.
“There’s always a reason, Lee,” Jesse said gently. “You’ve just got to find it, that’s all.”
FIVE
T
he first killing had been almost too easy.
He wondered how long it would take the local cops to catch on to the hint he’d left. Wondered if they would be bright enough to realize that the body’s hand simply couldn’t have jammed in the hatch accidentally. It was all part of the game he’d begun to play with them. All part of focusing their attention. Well, the next one should do just that, he thought. Because the next one would be different. The next one would be a total puzzle.
That is, if tonight’s experiment proved successful.
He’d had to wait ten minutes for an opportunity to board the gondola without anyone else being around. But he was prepared to be patient. Patience, in fact, was going to be essential to his task as the next few weeks unfolded. He was going to have to wait for the right conditions every time. And he was prepared to do so.
As the cabin slid quickly down the mountain from Thunderhead, he noticed with some satisfaction that the inside light, combined with the misting of the windows and the darkness outside, made the other cabins nothing but vague blurs. So far so good. Working quickly but with no undue haste, he slipped off the rucksack and began to unpack his equipment. The seventy-foot coil of rope came first. He knotted it securely to the chest harness that he was already wearing under the long-line parka.
Next, he took the lever jack that he’d built himself in his workshop back home. He fitted the two ends into the rubber seal of the gondola doors and wrenched the lever suddenly. With the mechanical advantage of the lever system, the doors were thrust open about two feet
—
sufficient to give him egress.
There was a length of two-by-two pine in the rucksack. He found it and jammed it between the doors to keep them open. The lever jack, released, went back in his rucksack. Then, standing in the open doorway, he reached up to the roof of the car, passing the free end of the rope through the rail that ran around the top edge. He formed the rope into a loop over itself, inserted it into the abseiling loop on his harness and dropped it clear into the night below. He glanced at his watch. Just under two minutes. Plenty of time. He shouldered the rucksack again, then retrieved his skis from the racks on the outside of the door. They were fastened together and a looped strap went quickly over his shoulder, where he could discard it in a matter of seconds. He slipped an abseiling glove onto his right hand and, holding the rail above the doorway, stepped out to hang outside the cabin, his feet resting on a small ledge at the base of the gondola. He took up the tension on the rope, jamming his right hand into his side to lock it for a few seconds, then released his left-handed grip on the railing. He balanced there, supported by the rope, his feet braced against the cabin. He raised his right foot and kicked one end of the pine-door holder. The piece of timber spun clear, dropping away into the night, and the doors sighed shut in front of him.
He checked his watch again. Three minutes. Just about perfect, he thought. Then, unjamming his right hand from his side, he allowed the abseil rope to run smoothly through the ring and drop away into the darkness beneath the gondola.
He began spinning slowly as he descended, and he was annoyed that he hadn’t thought of that possibility. Still, he reasoned, it was no big deal. He’d simply have to time his release over the last few feet to a moment when he was facing downhill. He flicked on the flashlight attached to the side of his rucksack. Pointing vertically down, it had a red lens designed to throw a visible light on the snow below him, to give him a reference point and help him judge height. He looked down between his legs now and saw it
—
a small red dot sliding over the snow, a little faster than a man could run.

Other books

Hickory Smoked Homicide by Adams, Riley
Literary Occasions by V.S. Naipaul
A Prudent Match by Laura Matthews
Salvation for Three by Liza Curtis Black
All That Matters by Wayson Choy