Free Fall (20 page)

Mark Beamon, private dick.

Not quite the right ring.

Mark Beamon, crime scene clean up you club 'em, we scrub 'em.

Maybe not.

Hi, I'm looking to buy a piece of shit VW van cheap.

Not quite right either.

Beamon entered the circle of light and started toward the van, but was distracted when he saw the cathedral-like cave that guarded one end of the clearing. He could see bright blue slings hanging every ten feet or so on the cliff's face and then continuing through the enormous roof. He changed his trajectory and walked toward them.

"They're called quick draws came a deep but unmistakably female voice behind. He didn't turn at the quiet scrunch of approaching boots, but continued to examine the eighty feet of overhanging rock in front of him. He'd read all about it. People climbed up these things, clipping their rope through the slings. If they fell, the theory was that the rope would break their fall before the ground did.

"They're called quick draws the woman repeated as she came up alongside him. He still didn't make eye contact, concentrating on the cliff face.

In the reflected light, he could see small areas along the ridge that looked white. Gymnastics chalk, he knew climbers used it to keep their hands dry. Other than that, he didn't see much. Little flaws, tiny ledges and holes. He craned his neck and looked up at the roof above him.

"I understand the concept, but I sure as hell don't know how they get up there."

He heard the rustle of fabric as the woman shrugged and he glanced over at her, taking in her wide face, thick neck, and the broad hat that identified her as the sheriff. He was starting to feel a twinge of suspicion at her behavior. Shouldn't she be driving him off her crime scene with a stick by now?

The answer came to him as he continued to scan the wide stone roof for invisible handholds. After twenty-odd years of dealing with reporters, he was damn near willing to have them shot on sight. His small town counterpart, on the other hand, was probably more than happy to see her face in the papers. He turned to her and stuck his hand out.

"Mark Beamon. I was with the FBI." He artfully slurred the was, taking advantage of the fact that the new drama surrounding his life hadn't yet hit the papers.

The sheriff leaned to one side to get a better angle on his face, then took his hand hesitantly.

"Sure, I recognize you from your pictures. What are you doing here?"

Beamon smiled at her directness. Clearly a woman he could talk to.

"Same thing you are. We have a passing interest in Darby Moore and Tristan Newberry."

Of course she would assume that we meant the FBI. But that wasn't really his problem.

The as-yet-unidentified sheriff screwed up her face as if to say that even she wasn't that interested in them.

"Really? Why?"

Good question. He wished he knew the answer.

"It's not really something I can talk about." Again, perfectly true. He wasn't breaking any laws here. No major ones, at least.

"I'd love to swap a few notes with you, though." He held up his hands in an innocent gesture.

"Obviously, this isn't FBI jurisdiction I'm not interested in the collar If I should stumble over her first, I'll hand her over to you."

That seemed to satisfy her. She motioned for him to follow and plodded off toward the van. As they came up behind it, she grabbed a nasty looking implement leaning against the back tire and held it up into the light. It looked like a small pickaxe about a foot and a half long. The handle was covered in rubber to improve grip and the serrated edges running along the business end of it looked razor sharp.

"Newberry was killed with one of these the actual one is at the lab."

She gripped it and gave it a short swing in Beamon's direction, causing him to jump back. She laughed and held a hand out.

"I'm sorry Mr. Beamon. I didn't mean to scare you. People use these to climb up ice.

They have two of them and wear these pointy things on their feet, then up they go."

"Crampons," Beamon said, deciding it was safe to step forward again.

"What?"

"The pointy things on their feet. They're called cram pons "Oh." She looked disappointed.

"I've never actually seen one of those on the hoof," Beamon said, pointing to the ice axe in her hand.

"Do you mind?" She handed it to him and he took a few practice swings.

There was no doubt that you could kill the shit out of someone with the thing.

He followed obediently, still playing with the axe as she moved around to the other side of the van. When he finally looked up, he froze for a moment.

"Jesus." He let the axe slide from his hand and took a hesitant step toward the open side door.

"Quite a mess, ain't it," the sheriff said.

"Boy looked like Swiss cheese.

She even punched holes in his feet."

"Mess" was an understatement. The van looked like someone had butchered a live cow with a chainsaw inside.

The brightness of the floodlights surrounding them amplified the gore, giving it a weird television quality. Blood was spattered over almost every surface and item inside dried, thank God. The smell of wet blood in any quantity had a tendency to make him physically ill. Beamon let his eyes wander to the floor and saw something about the size of a quarter with what looked like dried gelatin clinging to it. A closer inspection revealed a few strands of dark hair. Part of Tristan Newberry's skull and brain.

Beamon wanted nothing more than to light a cigarette, walk to the other end of the clearing, and erase this picture from his mind. But he couldn't. The macho code of law enforcement clearly stated that he was to look unaffected and poke his head in farther.

"Of course, a lot of the stuff that was in there has been removed and cataloged including the victim." The sheriff pointed to the bed in the back of the van.

"There was a sleeping bag back there with what looked like recently dried semen on it. We're checking to see if it belonged to Newberry."

"No lack of blood samples," Beamon observed.

"Reckon not," Beamon nodded at what looked like a full canvas sack still lying on the bed.

"What's in there?"

"Rice. Probably used it as a pillow."

"She used a bag of rice as a pillow?"

The sheriff frowned deeply.

"Climbers." She fairly spat out the word.

"Most of 'em don't have a pot to piss in. When they first started coming here, a bunch of 'em came to the Chamber of Commerce and told us how much money it would bring into the area. What a load of crap. When it's sunny they're out here squatting on public land. When it's raining they're sitting in the local cafes all day, drinking free coffee refills and reading yesterday's newspapers." She pointed to a blood-painted box full of vegetables behind the driver's seat. Most were still covered with dirt.

"Stolen from a local farmer's field would be my guess."

Beamon stepped away from the van and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jacket. He nodded toward the vegetables as he lit one.

"I've seen it before. Usually starts with turnips. Pretty soon they're on to rhubarb and Belgian endive." He waved in the general direction of the blood spattered interior of the van.

"Then this."

From her expression, he could see that she didn't appreciate the humor.

"Were there any other tracks around?" Beamon asked, letting the smoke roll satisfyingly from his mouth.

The woman didn't say anything for a moment, then shook her head.

"Lots of people come up here and, you know, there's been a lot of rain."

Beamon nodded in what looked like agreement, but knew from her body language that when they'd gotten the call, every cop within a hundred miles had driven his cruiser up there and parked within ten feet of the van to have a look.

"It seems pretty cut and dried," she continued.

"How so?"

She looked at him with a touch of suspicion etched into her face.

"She Darby Moore probably asked Newberry out here to go climbing.

Near as I can tell, they'd had a long-term relationship. Newberry had sex with her and then told her he was seeing someone else." She was starting to sound a little worked up.

"I'll bet it was about that scar on her nose have you seen pictures of her? He probably didn't find her attractive enough for him anymore. You can kind of see why she would react the way she did."

Beamon wasn't sure how to respond to that piece of conjecture, so he didn't.

"We found an article on a climbing area in Mexico in the van and a map with a route down there highlighted," the sheriff continued.

"We're guessing that's where she went. Her wallet was gone and Newberry's was empty."

"Why didn't she take the map?"

"Too bloody."

"She must have been a mess, too," Beamon observed.

"Probably washed off in that waterfall."

"Did you find the clothes she was wearing when she killed him?"

She shook her head.

"Well, I doubt you could get that much blood out in a waterfall, but then, I've never showered in one. You would think, though, that some body would have noticed a very bloody or very damp woman hitchhiking up Route 19."

"Maybe she didn't have any clothes on when she killed him.

Newberry was in his underwear."

Beamon shrugged.

"It's possible worked for Lizzie Borden. But I've got to think that most people would just feel silly axe-murdering some one naked."

Mark Beamon looked through the windshield at the deep blue of the sky and the intricately woven foliage above him as he slowed the car to a crawl. The sun was filtering through the trees and coaxing from them a murky vapor that flowed through the open windows of the car and condensed inside.

He'd spent the better part of the morning at the local sheriff's office going through the artifacts from Darby Moore's van. He hadn't found much, beyond finally getting the sheriff's name: Bonnie Rile. And that general waste of time had left the more athletic part of the investigation for the full heat of the day.

He pulled off the quiet dirt road into a clearing, stopping his car about twenty feet from a small group of young people. There were ten or so of them, sitting in a rough circle on tattered lawn chairs and sleeping bags.

A couple pulled joints from their mouths and shoved them under whatever was handy as Beamon stepped from the car.

"Howdy," Beamon said as he came up next to them. No one spoke.

They just held their ground and stared at him.

It wasn't a surprising reaction. He hadn't really come to West Virginia expecting to play George of the Jungle. The most appropriate thing he'd been able to fish from his overnight bag was a pair of khakis, a leather belt, and a white button-down. His only real accommodation to the terrain was a pair of obnoxiously colored and outrageously expensive tennis shoes he'd bought in Fayetteville. Or, more precisely, that Reynolds, Trent, and Layman had bought in Fayetteville.

The young man who seemed to be in charge gave Beamon only a cursory glance and then went back to the map spread out on his lap.

"Good afternoon, officer," he said as the two kids unfortunate enough to have their backs to Beamon abandoned their chairs and moved to a safer distance. He suddenly felt like he was in a spaghetti Western and it was high noon.

"I guess you'd be Jared Palermo. They told me I'd find you out here,"

Beamon said, watching the young man draw a large circle on the map in his lap and then cross it out. He had a strange build not the symmetrical puffiness of the more dedicated members of the gym Carrie had insisted he join. Palermo's back and shoulders created an exaggerated V shape that looked out of balance with his scrawny legs and hard, flat chest. Most noticeable, though, were the Popeye-like forearms that looked to be larger in girth than his biceps, and the way his tan skin looked paper-thin where it stretched over his meticulously defined musculature. Beamon still didn't know all that much about this rock climbing crap, but from where he was standing, Palermo's reputation as one of the best looked well deserved.

"Don't tell me the cops have finally decided to support our search for Darby," Palermo said with a sarcastic edge.

"I know how much they'd hate to get the psycho rednecks that kidnapped her in trouble being their cousins and all."

That wrung a few quiet snickers from the bravest of the circle, but a scowl from Beamon shut them back up.

"Don't know that much about what the cops are doing, Jared, but my advice to you would be not to hold your breath."

He finally looked up.

"If you're not a cop, then who are you?"

"My name's Mark Beamon. I was wondering if you could help me out and answer a few questions."

Palermo's eyes narrowed and his bare torso tensed, causing an impressive anatomical display.