White Fire (6 page)
It was a pattern that would be repeated ten more times over the course of the summer.
From the beginning, Roaring Fork—and indeed much of Colorado Territory—had been plagued by aggressive grizzlies who were being driven to higher altitudes by settlements in the lower valleys. The grizzly bear—it was noted with relish in almost every newspaper report—was one of the few animals known to hunt and kill a human being for food.
During the course of that long summer, eleven miners and prospectors were killed and eaten by the rogue grizzly at a variety of remote claims. The animal had a large territory that, unfortunately, encompassed much of the upper range of the silver district. The killings caused widespread panic. But federal law required miners to “work a claim” in order to maintain rights to it, so even at the height of the terror most miners refused to abandon their sites.
Hunting posses were formed several times to chase the grizzly, but it was hard to track the animal in the absence of snow, amid the rocky upper reaches of the mountains above the tree line. Still, the real problem, it seemed to Corrie, was that the hunting posses were none too eager to find the bear. They seemed to spend more time organizing in the saloons and making speeches than actually out in the field tracking the bear.
The killings stopped in the fall of 1876, just before the first snow. Over time, people began to think the bear had moved on, died, or perhaps gone into hibernation. There was some apprehension the following spring, but when the killings did not resume…
Corrie felt her phone vibrate, plucked it out of her handbag, and saw it was a call from the police station. Glancing around and noting the library was empty—save for the ski bum librarian, sitting at his desk reading Jack Kerouac—she figured it was okay to answer.
But it wasn’t the chief. It was his secretary. Before Corrie could even get through the usual niceties, the lady was talking fast and breathily. “The chief is so sorry, so very sorry, but it turns out he can’t give you permission to examine the remains.”
Corrie’s mouth went dry. “What?” she croaked. “Wait a minute—”
“He’s tied up all day in meetings so he asked me to call you. You see—”
“But he said—”
“It’s just not going to be possible. He feels very sorry he can’t help you.”
“But
why
?” she managed to break in.
“I don’t have the specifics, I’m sorry—”
“Can’t I speak to him?”
“He’s caught up in meetings all day and, um, for the rest of the week.”
“For the rest of the
week
? But just yesterday he said—”
“I’m sorry, I told you I’m not privy to his reasons.”
“Look,” said Corrie, trying to control her voice without much success, “just a day ago he told me there wouldn’t be any problems. That he’d approve it. And now he changes his mind, refuses to say why, and…and then dumps on you the job of giving me the bum’s rush! It isn’t fair!”
Corrie got a final, frosty
I wish I could help you, but the decision is final
, followed by a decisive click. The line went dead.
Corrie sat down and, banging her palm on the table, cried: “Damn, damn,
damn
!”
Then she looked up. Ted was looking over at her, his eyes wide.
“Oh, no,” Corrie said, covering her mouth. “I’ve disturbed the whole library.”
He held up his hand with a smile. “As you can see, there’s nobody here right now.” He hesitated, then came around his desk and walked over. He spoke again, his voice having dropped to a whisper. “I think I understand what’s going on here.”
“You do? I’d wish you’d explain it to me, then.”
Even though there was nobody around, he lowered his voice still further. “
Mrs. Kermode.
”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Betty Brown Kermode got to the chief of police.”
“Who is Betty Brown Kermode?”
He rolled his eyes and looked around furtively. “Where to begin? First, she owns Town and Mount Real Estate, which is
the
real estate agency in town. She’s the head of the Heights Neighborhood Association, and was the force behind getting the cemetery moved. She’s basically one of those self-righteous people who run everything and everybody and brook no dissent. Fact is, she’s the real power in this town.”
“A woman like that’s got influence over the chief of police?”
Ted laughed. “You met Morris, right? Nice guy.
Everyone
has influence over him. But especially her. I’m telling you, she’s fearsome—even more so than that brother-in-law of hers, Montebello. I’m sure Morris had every intention of giving you permission—until he called Kermode.”
“But why would she want to stop me? What harm would it do?”
“That,” said Ted, “is what you’re going to have to find out.”
A
t nine the next morning, Corrie pulled her Rent-a-Junker up to the gates of The Heights. There the guard—not nearly as friendly as the last time she’d passed through, with the chief of police—spent a long, insolent amount of time checking her ID and calling to verify her appointment, all the while casting disdainful looks at her car.
Corrie was careful to remain polite, and at length she was driving along the road toward the clubhouse and development offices. A cluster of buildings on the valley floor soon came into view: picturesque, snowcapped and icicled, their stone chimneys smoking. Beyond, well up on the far side of the snow-blanketed valley, Corrie could see a massive dirt scar of ongoing construction—no doubt the new clubhouse and spa. She watched backhoes and loaders busily at work digging footings. She couldn’t help but wonder why they needed a new clubhouse when the old one looked pretty amazing.
She parked in the visitor’s lot and entered the clubhouse, where the secretary pointed her toward the offices of Town & Mount Real Estate.
The reception area of Town & Mount was sumptuous—all wood and stone, with Navajo rugs on the walls, a spectacular chandelier made of deer antlers, cowboy-style leather-and-wood furniture, and a stone fireplace in which a real log fire burned. Corrie took a seat and settled in to wait.
An hour later, she was finally ushered into the office of Mrs. Kermode, president of Town & Mount and director of the Heights Association. Corrie had dressed in her most corporate mode, a gray suit with a white blouse and low pumps. She was absolutely determined to keep her cool and win Mrs. Kermode over with flattery, charm, and persuasion.
The previous afternoon, she had done her damnedest to dig up dirt on Kermode, heeding the Pendergastian dictum that if you want something from somebody, always have something “ugly” to trade. But Kermode seemed to be a woman above reproach: a generous donor to local charities, an elder in the Presbyterian church, a volunteer at the local soup kitchen (it surprised Corrie that a town like Roaring Fork would even have a soup kitchen), and a businesswoman of acknowledged integrity. While she was not exactly loved, and was in fact heartily disliked by many, she was respected—and feared—by all.
Mrs. Kermode surprised Corrie. Far from being the dowdy woman conjured up by the name Betty Brown Kermode, she was an extremely well-put-together woman in her early sixties, slender and fit, with beautifully coiffed platinum hair and understated makeup. She was dressed in high cowboy style with a beaded Indian vest, white shirt, tight jeans, and cowboy boots. A Navajo squash blossom necklace completed the ensemble. The walls of her office were covered with photographs of her riding a stunning paint horse in the mountains and competing in an arena, charging through a herd of cows. A water cooler stood in one corner. Another corner of the office was dominated by a magnificent western saddle, tooled all over and trimmed in silver.
In an easy, friendly way, Mrs. Kermode came forward and shook Corrie’s hand, inviting her to sit down. Corrie’s irritation at being kept waiting for an hour began to dissipate in the warm welcome.
“Now, Corrie,” she began, speaking with a pronounced Texas accent, “I want to thank you for coming in. It gives me a chance to explain to you, in person, why Chief Morris and I unfortunately can’t grant your request.”
“Well, I was hoping to explain—”
But Kermode was in a hurry and overrode Corrie’s attempt to present her talking points. “Corrie, I’m going to be frank. The scientific examination of those mortal remains for a…college thesis is, in our view, disrespectful of the dead.”
This was not what Corrie expected. “In what way?”
Kermode gave a poisonous little laugh. “My dear Miss Swanson, how can you ask such a question? Would you want some student pawing through your grandfather’s remains?”
“Um, I would be fine with it.”
“Come, now. Of course you wouldn’t. At least where I come from, we treat our dead with respect. These are
sacred
human remains.”
Corrie tried desperately to get back to her talking points. “But this is a unique opportunity for forensic science. This is going to help law enforcement—”
“A college thesis? Contribute to forensic science? Aren’t you exaggerating the importance of this project just a
teensy
little bit now, Miss Swanson?”
Corrie took a deep breath. “Not at all. This could be a very important study and data collection of perimortem trauma caused by a large carnivore. When a skeleton of a murder victim is found, forensic pathologists have to distinguish animal tooth marks and other postmortem damage from the marks on the bones left by the perpetrator. It’s a serious issue and this study—”
“So much Greek to me!” Mrs. Kermode gave a laugh and waved her hand, as if she understood nothing.
Corrie decided to shift tack. “It’s important for me personally, Mrs. Kermode—but it could be important for Roaring Fork, as well. It’s doing something constructive, something positive with these human remains. It would reflect well on the community and the chief—”
“It’s just not respectful,” said Kermode firmly. “It’s not
Christian
. There are many in this town who would find it deeply offensive. We are the guardians of those remains, and we take our responsibility seriously. I just can’t under any circumstances allow it.”
“But…” Corrie could feel her temper rising despite her best efforts to keep it down. “But…you dug them up to begin with.”
A silence, and then Kermode spoke softly. “The decision was made long ago. Back in 1978, in fact. The town signed off on it. Here at The Heights we’ve been planning this new clubhouse and spa for almost a decade.”
“Why do you need it when you’ve already got a beautiful clubhouse?”
“We’ll need a larger one to serve Phase Three, as we open up West Mountain to a select number of custom home lots. Again, as I’ve repeatedly said to you, this has been in planning for years. We are responsible to our owners and investors.”
Our owners and investors.
“All I want to do is examine the bones—with the utmost respect—for valid and important scientific purposes. There’s no disrespect in that, surely?”
Mrs. Kermode rose, a bright fake smile plastered on her face. “Miss Swanson, the decision has been made, it is final, and I am a very busy woman. It is now time for you to leave.”
Corrie rose. She could feel that old, horrible, blood-boiling sensation inside her. “You dig up an entire cemetery so you can make money on a real estate development, you dump the bodies in plastic boxes and store them in a ski warehouse—and then you tell me
I’ll
be disrespecting the dead by studying the bones? You’re a hypocrite—plain and simple!”
Kermode’s face grew pale. Corrie could see a vein in her powdered neck throbbing. Her voice became very low, almost masculine. “You little bitch,” she said. “I’ll give you five minutes to vacate the premises. If you ever—
ever
—come back, I’ll have you arrested for trespassing. Now get out.”
Corrie suddenly felt very calm. This was the end. It was over. But she wasn’t going to let anyone call her a bitch. She stared back at Mrs. Kermode with narrowed eyes. “You call yourself an elder in the church? You’re no Christian. You’re a goddamn phony. A fake, grasping, deceitful
phony
.”
On the way back to Basalt, it began to snow. As she crawled along at ten miles an hour in her car, windshield wipers slapping back and forth ineffectually, an idea came to her. Those anomalous marks she’d noticed on the bones…with a flash of insight, she realized there was possibly another way to skin this particular cat.
L
ying on the bed of her room at the Cloud Nine Motel in Basalt, Colorado, Corrie made her decision. If those marks on the bones were what she thought they might be, her problems would be solved. There wouldn’t be any choice: the remains would have to be examined. Even Kermode couldn’t stop it. That would be her trump card.
But only if she could prove it.
And to do that, she needed access to the bones one more time. Five minutes, tops—just long enough to photograph them with the powerful macro lens on her camera.
But how?
Even before she asked herself the question, she knew the answer: she would have to break in.
All the arguments against such an action lined themselves up before her: that B&E was a felony; that it was ethically wrong; that if she got caught, her entire law enforcement career would be flushed down the toilet. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be all that difficult. During their visit two days before, the chief hadn’t turned off any alarm systems or other security devices; he’d simply unlocked a padlock on the door and they had walked in. The shed was isolated from the rest of the development, surrounded by a tall wooden fence and screened by trees. It was partly open to one of the ski slopes, but nobody would be skiing at night. The shed was marked on trail maps of the area, and they showed a service road leading to it from the equipment yard of the ski area itself, bypassing The Heights entirely.
As she weighed the pros and cons, she found herself asking the question: what would Pendergast do? He never let legal niceties stand in the way of truth and justice. Surely he would break in and get the information he needed. While it was too late to achieve justice for Emmett Bowdree, it was never too late for the truth.