Killer Summer

She was in her briefs and bra by the time he turned around. Covering herself up gave her back her confidence.

“Awesome,” he said.

Her mother would have been proud.

19

Walt had Brandon to thank, and he was not about to do it. Brandon had apparently correctly written down the registration to the car driven by the wine-party crasher. Walt had feared it would come back a rental, but to his surprise it was a Blaine County plate registered to Nick Gilman. The mailing address was a post office box in Hailey, but the residence was in the Starweather subdivision.

Having transferred the Adams bottles to a safe-deposit box in a Ketchum bank following the tasting, Walt headed down valley.

Walt knew Nick and L’A

The Gilmans had installed a controversial steel sculpture, a nude giving birth to the earth, on their front lawn that had twice been vandalized, requiring investigation by his office. She had also installed a quarter-million-dollar cairn of rocks on the back lawn by a British landscape artist, which had fueled rumors of unexpected wealth. Not just anyone in the valley could afford to fly in British stonemasons to stack rocks. And those stonemasons, being big brutes and not averse to ending the day with a few pints at the local pub, had made themselves known to the Sheriff’s Office by putting their rock-hard fists in the faces of some locals who found it necessary to deride them for their thick accents.

It was those brawls-three in all-that had introduced Walt to the Gilmans. And Nick, having a welcoming smile, and L’A

The Gilmans lived in a sprawling log home on the Big Wood.

Walt was greeted at the front door by a female employee of the Gilmans’, who introduced herself as Betty. He was told the Gilmans were attending one of the wine-auction preview di

Walt asked about the whereabouts of their Toyota Land Cruiser, having its registration number in his top pocket.

“Janet has it,” Betty answered, “a friend visiting from California, a grad student at UC Davis. She’s staying in the Sheep Wagon. The Land Cruiser goes with the Sheep Wagon.”

“Sheep Wagon…?”

“I’m sorry. L’A

A uniform always generated curiosity. People had no right to ask, but they always did.

“Nothing to worry about.”

“I’m not sure she’s around. I thought I heard her leave a while ago,” Betty said, “but maybe I’m wrong. I could tell her to call you.” She was fishing for information.

Walt thanked her, told her there was no reason to bother the Gilmans about his visit, and drove off in search of the Sheep Wagon.

He found the Land Cruiser parked beside the cabin, if one could call an eighteen-hundred-square-foot log home a cabin. It appeared to have been dropped into the middle of the aspen grove where it stood, the white-barked trees seemingly glowing in the darkness. It also abutted the Big Wood, the gurgling river reminding Walt of his aborted fly-fishing with Kevin. He owed the kid a rain check.

Walt was about to knock on the cabin’s door when a blur of movement caught his eye. He froze, believing it an elk or deer or even a moose watering at the river. He cherished such sights-one of the reasons for living here. But the shadow moved again. It was clearly a human being.

“Hey!” Walt called out, instinctively reaching for his sidearm.

A trespassing fisherman, maybe. But with a woman in the cabin he couldn’t rule out a Peeping Tom, and that required a discussion. A thief would go for the main house, not a guest cabin. Or a transient, one of the dozens of mountain men who squatted in the national forest during the summer, causing his office no end of trouble.

He eased his hand off of his weapon. He might be able to run this guy down, or at least run him off the property.

As the shadow took off, so did Walt, his Maglite in hand. The light briefly caught the man from the back, but it was enough to spot the gloves he was wearing. Gloves in late July.

Walt dodged through the maze of white-barked trees.

“HALT!” he shouted.

Back at the cabin a floodlight came on and the trees made prison-bar shadows.

The man slalomed through the aspens, increasing his lead.

Walt, who prided himself on his fitness, pushed hard but failed to catch up. He broke out of the aspen grove, stumbling over an asphalt curb and falling down hard, and found himself on a neighbor’s driveway.

The whine of a car engine starting interrupted the river’s growl. By the time Walt made it to his feet, the sound grew smaller.

He took hold of his radio but had nothing to call in-no description of the suspect or vehicle. He stubbed his boot into the driveway’s gravel. “Shit, shit, shit!”

Walt wiped his sweating face with a handkerchief and banged on the cabin’s front door. The same young woman he’d seen at the wine tasting answered the door, her reaction to his uniform typical.

“Janet…?”

“Yes?”

“Walt Fleming, county sheriff. I was at the reception tonight.”

For the moment, Walt held off telling her about the man outside her cabin.

Janet had a sharp Roman nose, some faint acne scarring in her sunken cheeks. Her pale eyes were a remarkable grayish blue. She appeared tired, even drained. He wondered if she might be ill.

“I crashed it, I know. Guilty. Okay? I didn’t realize I’d broken a law. Is there a fine, or what?”

“Or what,” he said. “I’d like to talk with you about Arthur Remy.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

She waved him inside. The cabin would have qualified as a Native American extension museum.

“Blackfoot?” he asked, looking around.

“I’m afraid I don’t know.”

“Northern Paiute,” he said, correcting himself, identifying an impressive horsehair basket. “Ba

“Are you a collector?”

“I dabble. An uncle of mine-kind of an uncle, not by blood-is a Blackfoot. He got me interested in the culture.” He fingered a blanket, wondering if the Gilmans knew it was a fake, and studied two pieces of pottery in a glass case.

“Your interest in Mr. Remy is…?” he asked.

She’d taken a seat in a willow-branch chair on the other side of a walnut-slab coffee table. She motioned for him to take the couch, but he declined and continued studying the collection.

“Arthur Remy,” Walt repeated.

“Did he lodge some kind of complaint?” she asked. “What a jerk.”

“No complaint. Should he have?”

Her forehead creased.

“I didn’t catch your last name,” Walt said.

“Finch… Janet Finch. What’s this about, exactly?”

“My office is providing security for the Adams bottles,” Walt said.

“Well, then, you’re wasting your resources.”

“Because?”

“There are no Adams bottles. Something Arthur Remy does not want to hear evidently.”

“Okay. You’ve got my attention,” he said. He took a seat across from her.

“I’m a Ph.D. candidate at UC Davis, Sheriff. Oenology… wine-making,” she finally said, answering his blank expression. “My thesis concerns the Jefferson collection.” She searched his face. “Are you familiar with Thomas Jefferson’s obsession with wine?”

“The Adams bottles,” he said, “they were a gift from Jefferson, right?”

“Fiction,” she scoffed. “That’s Arthur Remy’s story, but that’s all it is, a story.”