Killer View

His office informed him that AmeriCell had traced the emergency call that had sent Search and Rescue into the mountains the night before. The owner of the cell phone that had made the call had a billing address in West Ketchum.

He returned to the door, thanked Jillian, and asked that she keep their discussion private. “You know about this valley and rumors,” he said. “Mark doesn’t need that on top of everything else.”

“I wouldn’t think of it,” she said.

AS WALT PULLED DOWN Bird Drive in West Ketchum, a KPD patrol car pulled away from the corner and followed him. Out of courtesy, he’d called ahead to his friend, Cory Limon, the Ketchum police chief, detailing his intention of making an arrest, and Cory had assigned the backup.

Walt and one of the KPD officers approached the front door of a gray-and-white, board-and-batten single-family residence while the other officer sludged through the snow to cover the back. The clutter of snowboards, mountain bikes, and other gear on the covered porch suggested a rental property. Walt rapped sharply on the door and called out: “Sheriff’s Office. Open the door, please.”

It took another try before the door finally was opened, by a girl in a tight-fitting T-shirt, black Lycra stretch pants, and gray wool socks. Walt and the officer stepped inside. For the time being, Walt ignored the faint smell of pot, looked past the clutter of pizza boxes and the clumps of clothes on the floor. A dormitory room.

“May I help you?” she asked, a little taken aback by their entering.

“I’m looking for Charles Jones,” Walt said, glancing around.

“CASEY!” she shouted over her shoulder. Then, more softly, “Can I help you?”

“Do you live here?” Walt asked.

“No. Just a friend. We all went boarding today. Amazing powder.”

“You might want to take off,” Walt said. “I’m only interested in Charles-Casey. But Officer”-Walt read the man’s name tag- “Shanklin might have an interest in the incense.”

“Got it,” she said, and immediately went searching for boots and a jacket. She was out of the house before the boy arrived downstairs.

“Charles Jones?”

“Yeah?” he said.

He was a gangly boy with curly, unkempt hair, a skier’s tan, and a failed attempt at facial hair. Like most of the kids his age that Walt encountered, he did not cower at the sight of law enforcement. He carried his shoulders straight and high, and his mouth remained small as he talked, like he’d been sucking on a lemon.

“Your cell phone placed an emergency call to the county’s ERC- the Emergency Response Center-at six thirty-two P.M. yesterday.”

The boy appeared to be chiseled out of marble. For a moment, he didn’t breathe and didn’t blink.

“Think carefully… Casey,” Walt warned. “Can I call you ‘Casey’?”

“Yes, sir.” The shoulders hunched forward. Eye contact was broken.

“Think carefully about how you answer. These next few minutes are critical. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your cell phone bills are being sent to this address,” Walt said. “That’s how we found you. You’ve cost this county time and money. The money will have to be repaid. But whether or not we treat this as a crime… well, that depends on you and how forthcoming you are.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was it a prank? A dare?”

Jones looked up, his face a pool of shame.

“It wasn’t, was it?” Walt said. “A thing like this… you get one chance and one chance only. That chance is to tell the truth. You lie to me, son, and you’ll pay for it for the rest of your life. So you want to think about that, okay? You want to think about your parents, your friends, your family, and how this is going to reflect on all of them. Because there are no second chances. You lie to me and you’ll start a progression of events that you’ll look back and regret forever. I need to know you understand that.”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right, then. There are two ways to do this. I can arrest you, right here and now. If I do, Officer Shanklin here is likely going to search your residence and that may complicate your situation, judging by the odor in the air. The situations of others living with you as well. So that’s one way. The other is to talk this out for a few minutes, for you to tell me the truth. For me to decide where to go from here. You agree to do that and Officer Shanklin goes back to his cruiser and waits for me. Do you understand? It’s just you and me. But I’m only interested in door number two if you’re interested in sharing the truth with me. In my line of work, you get so you can spot the truth, son. So don’t even think about trying to lie to me. The choice is yours: door one or door two? Time’s up, so which is it?”

Shanklin shut the door on his way out.

Walt took a seat on the spongy couch, moving an Xbox controller out of the way. Jones took the dilapidated, overstuffed chair across the coffee table from him.

“You all set?” Walt asked.

The boy nodded.

“Did you make that call to 911?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Was it the truth?”

“No, sir.”

“There was no skier left behind on Galena?”

“No.”

Walt fought back the emotions that set his teeth grinding.

“Why’d you do it?”

The boy wouldn’t answer. Walt asked a second time.

“I was paid. By the government.”

“The government?” Walt said, unable to disguise his astonishment.

“A guy from, you know… I don’t know… some agency. He told me, but I forget exactly which one. He said it’s, like, routine to check the response time of Search and Rescue teams. That with caller ID, and everything, the government can’t make the calls, because then people know it’s a test, so they ask common citizens-like me-to make the calls for them.”

“You were paid to make the call.”

“Exactly. Then they time the search and rescue…” His voice trailed off. “What are you saying, exactly? This guy was for real, right?”

Walt removed his notebook from his uniform’s breast pocket. “Can you describe him, please?”

“I don’t know. About my height, I guess. Khakis. Coat and tie. Mustache. Kinda short hair. Your color-you know, kinda sandy and gray. Normal-looking dude.”

“He told you what to say,” Walt stated. Gray? he wondered.

“Yeah. Said it had to be done a certain way to make all the tests comparable. He had it typed out.”

“He had the message you were to read typed out?”

“Yeah.”

“And you read it exactly as he’d written it.”

“Yes.”

“And do you have that… I don’t know… card, sheet of paper, currently in your possession?”

“He took it back.”

“Of course he did,” Walt muttered.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

“Did I fuck up or something?”

“How much did he pay you for this service?”

“A C-note.”

“A man offered you a hundred dollars to make a phone call and you didn’t question it?”

“I questioned it, all right. I demanded to see the money up front.”

Walt hurried out to the car and radioed in to call off the search. He took a minute to settle himself, reeling over the wasted manpower and the risk to the searchers.

When he returned inside, his voice was irrationally calm.

“How ’bout credentials? Did you demand or did he show you any credentials confirming he was with the government?”

“He flipped open some ID when he first came up to me. Not that I took that good a look or anything. I wasn’t going to blow off some government dude. And then when he got explaining it, it sounded good to me.”

“But not too good to be true?”

“What’s that?”

“Would you recognize him if you saw him again? A photo maybe?”

“I don’t know. I guess so.”

“Lay off the pot for a while, okay? I need your memory clear.”

If the boy could have dissolved into the chair, he would have. Eyes to the dirty carpet, chin down, he said nothing for a moment. Then he looked up. “I take it he wasn’t with the government.”