One Mile Under (12 page)

“Respond how I would respond myself. I don’t know. Soon. If Foley needs to reach me, he knows my number, same as you.”

“He said he’s tried, Ty.”

“Well, yes, in fact, he has,” Hauck admitted. “Somehow I always seem to be at sea.”

Brooke laughed. She’d worked at Talon when Hauck arrived there. But over time she had proven again and again how loyal she was to him. “Last I heard, Colorado isn’t anywhere near the coast. I think he’d be pretty mad if I didn’t connect you.”

“I’d be mad if you did.”

“Very nice of you to put your executive assistant in the middle between you. I didn’t take this call, okay? So what is it you need?”

“I have a Colorado license plate number. I want to know who it belongs to.”

“How do you want me to find out?” The company had several ways to go about it. Both above and below board. Proper channels was to put though a request through Motor Vehicles, but they would need to know why and that could take a few days. Hauck was hoping to clear this up and get back to his boat as quickly as he could.

Less transparently, they could lean on their various law enforcement contacts they had. In the police or FBI. That could get the information in an hour. Those kinds of favors were called in every day. But then there would be a trail. Someone would know. And sometimes, you didn’t want a trail.

The third way was to just pay someone off. There’d be no trail. No one would ever know. They’d get the information in a flash. Just a ledger in the company’s cash account.

“You choose. It’s all aboveboard,” Hauck said. “And it’s not that kind of getting involved. At least not yet. I just want it back as quickly as you can. Being on land is making me dizzy.” If Brooke was one thing, she was resourceful. And discreet. “Okay …?”

“I’ll have it for you soon as I can … And what about Mr. Foley …?”

Hauck paused. He could simply take Brooke off the hook and just speak with him. “Tell Tom it’s nice out here if he’d like to meet me for a drink at the Ajax Tavern …”

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll appreciate the humor. I’ll be back with the information you’re looking for as soon as I have it,” Brooke said. “In the meantime, try and stay out of trouble. The mountains are beautiful out there. How are you spending your day?”

“On the water.”

Dani took him whitewater rafting. She took her normal shift on the afternoon run. There were seven people on board, a myriad of ages, and Hauck went along.

“I want to introduce my favorite godfather sitting up in front,” she said, as they coasted toward Entrance Exam. “Just want everyone to know, no special treatment for him … You gotta earn your place up there and paddle like everyone else …”

“Not a problem,” Hauck called back.

“Well, he’s just used to a desk job these days. So we’ll see. The rest of you are gonna have to make up for him. And by the way, that’s our first challenge up there.”

Hauck loved it. The reckless feeling of speed and that you might careen over at any point. The bumps, like doing the moguls on the slopes. The feel of icy whitewater against him. He even went in for a plunge at some point, at the end of the course when the water was calm.

“How’s that water feel, Uncle Ty? Not exactly like the Caribbean, huh? Funny how the jet stream doesn’t quite make it up here … The ol’ Arctic vortex does, though …”

Everyone laughed.

Hauck saw what it was that spoke so personally to her out here.

On the ride back, he sat next to Dani on the bus and they talked about her life out here. She was pretty and funny, and seemed to cater to the younger kids, who no doubt thought she was about the coolest, sexiest counselor they’d ever had.

And she was sharp, pointing out some geological details—how the river was formed, the sturdy characteristics of the aspen trees that are always the first to come back after a forest fire and are all connected by the roots. The massive avalanche fields, and how they occur. Nothing like the brash, obstinate gal he had met in jail.

When they got back to the company headquarters, she introduced him to Geoff, the owner, who was behind the counter showing videos of the raft going over the falls, which his crew had already put on a disk. Hauck noticed how he looked at Dani in a certain way, and how he said, “Nice to meet you, mate,” in that likable Aussie manner, and how maybe they would run into each other later on. Outside, as Hauck and Dani went to get in her wagon, he asked leadingly, “So is that the ‘no one special’ …?”

Dani shrugged. “Geoff’s okay, really. Though it’s probably not the best thing in the world to take up with the boss, right?” She opened the door and stepped in, without giving him his answer.

He shrugged as he got in. “Seemed nice to me.”

Inside, Hauck dug into his jacket and took out his cell. He kept it there while they were on the river. He saw that an email had come in from Brooke with a note: “I think this is what you’re looking for. No worries about the trail.”

He opened the attachment.

“You know anyone named Colin Adrian?” he said to Dani.

She shook her head. “Who’s that?”

“The white Jeep you’re so interested in seems to be registered to him.” He looked at her.

“
Adrian?
” She leaned over and took a look. It was just a registration. No driver’s license. Nothing else. “We could ask Allie. But I think she’s already up in Trey’s hometown with their son. The funeral’s on Wednesday.” Dani handed the phone back to him. “I don’t know anyone named that around here.”

“No reason you would. It says his address is on Tuttle Road. In Greeley.”

“
Greeley?
” Dani’s eyes looked over at his.

“That mean something?” he asked.

“I don’t know …” But her face took on a pallor that suggested that it did. “But Greeley’s where Trey was from, Uncle Ty.”

“It doesn’t prove a thing,” he told her, over a venison steak and a long-overdue beer at Allegria on Main Street that night. Dani was clearly excited about what they’d found. “I looked it up. Greeley’s got a hundred thousand people in it. There’s even a university there. It’s not exactly much of a coincidence that someone else might have come from there.”

“I’ll give you that,” Dani said, over salmon in a tamarind glaze, “if you tell me what that someone is doing at the river for literally only forty-five minutes. He pretty much followed Trey in. He probably had no idea his car was being recorded. And he didn’t stick around any longer than it would have taken to drive down ahead of him and head down to the river. He could have been waiting for Trey there. Not to mention everything else that doesn’t make sense: the spot where he was killed; the missing helmet, the path I found.”

“It could have been for any reason.” Hauck cut a slice of his steak. “He could have just been driving around. He could have been taking nature shots for
National Geographic
for all I know.”

“You’re starting to sound like Wade,” Dani said.

“Speaking of whom, it’s my intention to hand this information over to him in the morning, just so you know.”

“You’re kidding?” She put down her fork. “
Why?
”

“Uh, because he’s the police chief in town … Not to mention I gave him my word I wouldn’t go around his back. I’m supposed to be keeping you out of this, Dani. Not getting you further in.”

“But Wade already has this information,” Dani said. “And if he doesn’t, he’s even more lame than I thought. He picked up a copy of that tape the day after it happened. The ten-thousand-dollar question is
why …?
If he thought this whole thing was just a stupid accident like he’s been saying. So why hasn’t he gone back up there to run this guy’s name by Allie, and see if it means anything to her? Or find out who he is.”

“I don’t know.”

“Truth is, Uncle Ty, he hasn’t gotten off his ass, except to take the parks inspector out to lunch, or go to Aspen and stand behind Sheriff Warrick and try and act smart while they’re looking at that balloon.”

Hauck dipped a bite of venison into a chipotle tomato sauce. “I sure hope when I leave you have nicer things to say about your godfather than you do your stepfather.”

“
Uncle Ty …
” Dani looked at him. “Besides, I don’t really even know you yet.” She gave him a crooked smile behind a bite of salmon.

“Gee, thanks.” They continued eating for a while. Hauck asked her, “So what are you thinking the right thing is to do?”

“I’m thinking the right thing would be to drive up there to Greeley, or wherever Trey is from—I think the town’s actually called Templeton, just outside of it. It’s up on the plains north of Denver.”

“And then do what?”

“And then see if this person Adrian has any connection to Trey. This is possibly a murderer, Uncle Ty. And like you said, look at what they did to try and cover it up. It might all be part of something much larger.”

“Sorry.” Hauck put a piece of venison in his mouth. “No way.”

“
No way …?
”

“I’m not on board with that, Dani. Anyway, I gave my word. Not just to the chief, but to your father, too. Your stepfather and your father. Besides, if I land you back in hot water,” he said with a grin, “I’ll be out of a job.”

“Some job … You know, don’t you, if we don’t do that, it’ll just get buried? That’s why Wade kept me in jail. Not to teach me a lesson. To shut me up. The minute I said I would take it to Sheriff Warrick or to the newspaper, he got all crazy. I know the guy. He’s sitting on
something
, Uncle Ty. You want to tell me what or why?”

Hauck couldn’t, of course. Only that while he sat there for a while, chewing on his venison and polishing off a second beer, he knew in his heart that what she said was right. About what to do next. And right about one other thing at least. Why would Wade even go to the trouble of requisitioning that security footage, if all along he was certain that what happened was just an accident?

“What are you thinking about?” Dani stared at him.

“Nothing. A good night’s sleep. I was up at five
A.M.
, and I’m still on Caribbean time.”

“That’s all? You’re sure?” Dani cocked her head. “All right, since you’re taking me to dinner I won’t tell anyone that the famous Ty Hauck can’t handle a little jet lag.”

“I can handle jet lag. What I’m having a hard time handling is
you
!” He took a last swig of his beer and signaled for the check. “Catch me tomorrow. I think better in the morning. And thanks for the trip down the river. That was really fun.”

She dropped him off back at his motel room. It was 9:30
P.M.
The sun had set, leaving a dark purple haze over the hills. He stripped off his clothes and washed up. His lids were sagging. It had been one long day. He sank into the bed and turned on the television. He found a local baseball game, the Rockies against the Giants, and watched for a while. He knew he wouldn’t need an alarm in the morning.

His mind drifted back to what Dani had said: Why would Wade go and ask for the tapes? He might have been just doing his job, crossing off the possibilities, going through every possible angle. What any good cop would do. He probably had everything Dani was saying on a list: the spot on the river where Trey died, the helmet, this Rooster character calling her up—
and where the hell did they get these nicknames out here, anyway?
—in spite of what he was divulging.

It’s all what
he
would do himself, Hauck knew.

But Wade was certainly right on one thing, though … Dani was a handful.
When she gets her mind on something …
He could certainly see traces of Judy in her. The way she seemed to single-mindedly get onto things and not let go. He remembered a particular incident back in college. Judy was petitioning the school about some company she said had been dumping waste into the nearby Androscoggin River. The owner was now looking to build a new hockey arena at Bates with their company name on it. Judy got half the student body to sign a petition against it, and a good slag of alumni, too. Hauck recalled how the administration tried to tamp down her protest. They contacted her parents. Threatened to throw her out of school. She responded by organizing a rally directly in front of the president’s office.

Eventually the college agreed not to name it after him.

Judy won.

A handful.
Hauck smiled. Chip off the old block

The game receded into background noise and Hauck felt himself drifting off to sleep. The name kept popping back into his mind. Adrian.

Someone would have had to have gone to a shitload of trouble to kill that kid as Dani said, then cover it all up … Shoot down that balloon, Hauck thought, dragging himself back from the edge of sleep. And why did Wade sit on that tape? If he knew the same thing they did. What if he
was,
as Dani suspected, sweeping something under the rug?

He rolled over and took his phone off the bed table. Eyes heavy, he texted another message to Brooke. Knowing it was after midnight back east and she was likely asleep.

“Me again. When you get in I want to know whatever you can find on that car owner. Colin Jerrod Adrian. Greeley, Colorado.

If he wanted something really thorough on Adrian it would have taken a couple of days.

They could have canvassed Adrian’s phone records, his bank transactions, his trips in and out of the country. Talon surely had the means.

They could have gone to the Internet providers and tapped into his email account. Pinpointed where he had lunch the day before. Who his friends were. Whom he spoke to. Gone through his tax returns. All the things they say you couldn’t do, but you can if you know the right buttons to push. Down to what color dress he bought his wife for their anniversary.

As it was, though, in the time allotted, they checked his criminal history, his military service, and credit history. Standard stuff. It still gave you a pretty good picture of the kind of person they were looking into. Who you worked for? Your banking arrangements? Where you went to school? Whether you were married or single? Whether you owned or rented your home. Whether you’d been sued or had ever declared bankruptcy.