Point of Law (33 page)

Her face is almost a perfect oval, rising from a pointed chin, and curving around prominent cheekbones. Her eyes are emerald green. Short blonde hair lifts from beneath the headband in a single curl.

On flat earth she might be considered a little plain because of a broad nose and too pointy a chin. But up on a mountain like this, with her eyes bright in the dawn and the smile on her lips, she could be modeling for a brand of expensive vodka. She’d sell a lot of it. I have to admit that my wariness toward her is thawing.

“Do you want to go all the way?” I point at the granite spire above us and to the right. It makes me feel a little strange, stopping short of the actual summit. My brother likes to say that the best place to be is where
the only way to get higher is to fall.

“Hell no, Anton. Not unless we can ski down. I’m a skier, remember, not a rock jock like you.”

To follow the spiny ridge up to the apex would take a lot more time and the use of the rope and other gear. I have all that in my pack but I’m relieved she doesn’t want to continue. The rising sun is already starting to heat the couloir. Soon rocks will start screaming down and ripping through the snow.

I take out a bottle of sugary tea, drink some, then offer it to her.

“How are we going to do this?” she asks. At first I think she means the descent, but she continues, “How are you going to look after me and find this guy at the same time?”

“My partner and I will work the case when you’re in your office or in court. You should be safe enough in both places. After work, I’ll follow you around. Basically, I’ll stalk you myself.”

She makes a wry face. “Great.”

“Don’t worry about your privacy. I’ll keep my distance as best I can.”

She drinks half my tea. “No, that’s all right. I don’t have much to keep private these days. No boyfriend or anything. Not anymore. Besides, I want to hear firsthand about that wild shootout in Cheyenne.”

I smile back but without any pleasure and don’t respond.

After a minute she asks, “Do you have any idea who’s doing this?”

“I heard there’s a possible suspect. Your ex-boyfriend. Wokowski or Wookie or something like that.”

She shrugs. “Wook. Sergeant Charles Wokowski. I don’t know if it’s him or not. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned his name to my boss—I only did because everyone knows we haven’t been getting along. A month ago, before we broke up, I would have said there’s no way it could be him. Now, I don’t know . . . Wook’s been acting pretty weird around me lately. And the County Attorney’s pissed off at him because of an excessive-force case.”

Most stalkers I’ve dealt with were ex-boyfriends or ex-husbands, so it makes sense to give him a very hard look. Although with her being a celebrity, some random freak who would be tougher to find could have easily fixated on her. I hope that isn’t the case because it will require a lot more work. But I don’t want it to be a cop either. Arresting fellow officers is dangerous—I should know. At DCI we frequently have to investigate cops for a variety of allegations. They are always armed and know the rules of the game too well. And arresting a cop never fails to stir up a political maelstrom. But I also know that cops all too often become infatuated with their former lovers. Cops are so used to being dominant and in control that sometimes they can’t take it when they’re rejected.

I push away a thought about Rebecca and ask, “Tell me a little more about him.”

She shrugs again. “He’s with the Teton County Sheriff’s Office. He’s a big deal in the department. A leader, kind of. Maybe the next sheriff. Everybody looks up to him. They would protect him. But I just can’t believe it’s him. It’s not his style. He’s an in-your-face guy, not some sicko who’d try to crawl in my window with a stun gun.” As she says this she shivers.

Then she drinks some more from my bottle, fixing me with those green eyes. “He can be a mean bastard, though. He never touched me in anger or anything, but he looked like he wanted to a couple of times. When we broke up last month he said he wished we were both dead. Is that a threat or what? A guy I dated in law school said the same thing once. What do you think?”

I hesitate for a moment. Despite her saying it isn’t his style, this Wokowski is already looking pretty good for it. “It sounds like you have lousy taste in men.”

She hands me back the now-empty bottle and laughs. “I’m sorry to hear you say that, Anton. I was beginning to like you.”

I smile too. “I guess that proves it.”

I’m not sure if she’s flirting or just screwing around. Either way, it makes me think of Rebecca again. We’d been living together in Denver for the last six months, the first three of which I was on mandatory leave and the second three during which I was the primary witness in the trial of the state’s governor-elect. Our life in her apartment started out great. We visited my family in Argentina for Christmas. Back in Denver I climbed and skied the Front Range while she worked at the paper. Then a few weeks ago—just as the trial fell apart and I began to doubt the last flimsy strands of faith I had in the law as an instrument of justice—everything changed. There were sudden and totally uncharacteristic crying jags as well as questions of my long-term intentions asked with searching eyes.

I feel like I don’t know her anymore. She’d once been the most stable woman I’d ever known. So poised and confident. She’d been my life preserver when I was tumbling down rapids. Now we’ve become cautiously formal with each other, where a few months earlier we were as happy and exuberant together as a couple of puppies.

I tried to call her late last night only to discover that she wasn’t answering the phone. And reporters always answer the phone, no matter what the hour. It wasn’t until after I’d left a message—probably not concealing my irritation very well—that I realized my name had been taken off her answering machine.

Screw it. Focus on where you are now, Ant. Look around. There’s no better place than this.

“Are you going to confront Wook?” Cali asks, bringing me back.

“Maybe. First I want to talk to some people, see the report on the attempted break-in, and find out more about what’s going on. Then I’ll see about talking to him.”

She puts on a pair of amber-tinted glasses that only half hide her eyes. “I know everyone says you’re a badass, Anton. But take my word for it—you’ll want some backup around if you get in his face.”

I don’t bother trying to refute the undeserved reputation. I’d done enough of that on the witness stand. Instead I just nod and say, “Okay.”

After a few minutes’ rest we unstrap the skis from our packs. I walk out onto the rocks to one side of the cornice and study the chute below, trying to fix the dangerous gray patches of ice in my mind. I don’t want to make a mistake today. It isn’t just because of McGee’s warning about not screwing it up, but also because it’s been a long time since I’ve skied anything this steep. The first few hundred feet of the couloir are about ten degrees steeper than anything I’ve done in years. A fall here could easily be fatal. I would slide faster and faster, bouncing off the couloir’s stony walls that stand like the brown-stained teeth lining some great beast’s mouth. There would be no way to self-arrest on something this steep. The rock and ice and snow would chew me up until it vomited out what was left in the forest twenty-five hundred feet below.

Fear wraps its arms around me, embracing me with a cold but familiar hug.

As I stare down I hear a faint whispering. It doesn’t come from the rising wind beginning to rush over this high notch in the ridge but from somewhere deep inside my chest. The Rat is calling. He’s hungry for a meal, that surge of adrenaline required to calm and sate him. He’s starting to feed.

“How are we going to do this?” This time Cali means the descent. Her voice is sharper, her face a little paler with excitement. “I haven’t done much off-piste, you know. Nothing like
this.
”

“Jump turns. Don’t even think about pointing your skis downhill.” I say this more to myself than to her. She’d been the captain of her college ski team so she’s probably a far better skier than I. But because I’m supposed to be the former big mountain guide as well as the state cop who’s protecting her, I add, “I’ll go first.” It seems like the gentlemanly thing to do. Maybe I’ll somehow be able to stop her if she falls.

My heart rate is starting to accelerate. The thought of flying from the cornice’s lip, of my stomach floating up into my throat, of the thirty-foot free fall through space and then leaping down the steep chute below, makes the Rat begin to sing with something approaching delirium.

“I hope your edges are sharp,” I tell her as I finger my own.

Looking me in the eye, she picks up one of her skis and holds it before her face. She grins then sticks out her tongue.

“Don’t—” I start to say, realizing what she’s about to do.

But she ignores me. Her pink tongue touches the ski’s metal edge and she licks a short distance along it. Then she spits in the snow at her feet. A red stain appears. “Okay?” she says. “They’re sharp.”

I shake my head. This girl is full of surprises. She’s going to be a lot of trouble. But she’s not at all reserved, not at all like Rebecca in recent days. The Rat is delighted—he thinks he’s found a new friend.

I check my bindings to be sure the DIN setting is maxed out. A prerelease would be fatal. Then we both click in and slide out, snowplowing, onto the wave of wind-packed snow. Leaning over our quivering poles, we try one more time to examine the couloir below. But it’s hard to see from this angle on top of the cornice. There’s just the sloping forest far below. And beyond that, more than a vertical mile down, is the blue water of Jenny Lake. It feels like with a powerful enough leap I might be able to splash into it. Cannonball among the white shapes of the small fishing boats that are already starting to dot the lake.

I look over at Cali and she’s staring back at me. Still grinning with a bit of blood reddening her lower lip. Despite her sunglasses, I see white all the way around the jade irises. I can almost hear her heart beating over the pounding roar of my own. The adrenal glands are squeezing out their sweet juice. The sky has turned Wyoming blue—the kind of blue that’s neon through my own colored lenses.

“Still want to do this?” I ask, smiling back now.

“Hell yes!” she shouts.

The Rat is howling some frantic, mad chant. Enticing me to
Jump! Jump! Jump!
And I do it, too scared to scream, too ecstatic to whoop, trying to just focus on leaning forward and fighting the instinctive reaction to slump back. If I hit the snow with anything but my skis springing beneath my hips I will bounce out into space. Into the forest. Into the lake. I stretch out my arms and the poles that are clenched in my fists like frail wings.

Suddenly, in midflight and with the wind tearing at my clothes, the fear blows away. It’s replaced by absolute rapture. The adrenaline shoots through my veins as if it’s being plunged there by an enormous syringe. I’m truly flying, like an eagle in the heavens, soaring far out above the dry earth.

But somewhere buried deep beneath the thrill and the rush is a sense of foreboding. If I could see just a week into the future, I might imagine my wings being plucked clean off. I might imagine falling hard and fast then crashing—breaking right through the planet’s crust. Right into the fire that some people say burns below.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CLINTON McKINZIE is the acclaimed author of THE EDGE OF JUSTICE and POINT OF LAW. His third novel, TRIAL BY ICE AND FIRE, is forthcoming from Delacorte Press. He was raised in Santa Monica and now lives in Colorado with his wife, son, and dog. Prior to becoming a writer, he worked as a peace officer and deputy district attorney in Denver. His passion is climbing alpine walls. Visit his website at
www.clintonmckinzie.com
.

Also by Clinton McKinzie

THE EDGE OF JUSTICE

TRIAL BY ICE AND FIRE

POINT OF LAW

A Dell Book / May 2003

Published by Bantam Dell

A Division of Random House, Inc.

New York, New York

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2003 by Clinton McKinzie

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.

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eISBN: 978-0-440-33380-7

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