01 Storm Peak Read online

Jesse stood inside Andrew Barret’s room at the Harbor Hotel as the door sighed shut on its pneumatic closer.

  A queen-sized bed dominated the available space. There was a dark wood dressing table, antique in style, with a hinged mirror angled slightly above it. Jesse’s image stared patiently back at him with steady, brown eyes.

  A leather armchair was in one corner—comfortable looking and recently restored. The leather was deep red and quilted, the sort of furniture you expect to find in gentlemen’s clubs and attorney’s offices. The Harbor furnished its rooms with restored antiques. The rich tone of the leather was spoiled somewhat by the carelessly flung denim shirt hooked over one side of the back and the crumpled jeans that had been dropped on the seat cushion.

  Jesse edged round the bed—rooms in the Harbor weren’t known for their size-and checked the bedside table. Apparently Barret was a person who preferred to sleep on the left-hand side of the bed. There was a paperback edition of a John Grisham novel lying facedown on the table, and a handful of small change that had been carelessly dropped there as well. An inhaler, the sort used by asthma sufferers, was also standing on the table, along with the remote control for the television that was hanging on a bracket from the wall opposite the bed.

  Barret’s suitcase was open on one of those folding metal and webbing stands that you find in hotels and nowhere else. Taking a pen from his shirt pocket, Jesse turned over a few of the items in the suitcase. There was nothing there to excite interest. He pulled on a pair of thin leather gloves and carefully closed the suitcase, zipping it shut. He’d examine the case and its contents in greater detail when he took it back to the sheriff’s department offices.

  The dressing table was next. It had the usual drawers for clothes and underclothes and socks, as well as a series of smaller jewelry drawers. Jesse pulled them open, not expecting to see much in them. He wasn’t disappointed. One held a double-A flashlight battery, presumably used, and that was it. On an impulse, Jesse ran his fingers underneath the surfaces of the smaller drawers and was rewarded by the feeling of something taped there.

  He removed the drawer and turned it upside down. It was nothing but a Visa card, made out to A. Barret. Obviously the victim liked to keep a spare handy-and didn’t seem to trust hotel safe-deposit boxes. Jesse carefully peeled the tape away and put the card down on the polished wood surface of the dressing table. As a matter of routine, he’d check the Visa account number to see if any out of the ordinary transactions had been made in recent days. Odds were, however, Barret merely had it stashed away in case he lost the wallet containing his other cards. Jesse remembered seeing a Mastercard and an Amex Gold among the documents Lee had found on the body.

  The rest of the drawers contained nothing out of the ordinary, just underclothes, socks, sweaters and shirts.

  The closet held more of Barret’s clothes. Jesse noted the two Nevica ski suits. Either Barret was a good skier or he liked to impress people with the standard of his equipment. He wondered for a moment at the absence of boots and skis, then remembered that the Harbor asked patrons to leave them on the ground floor, in the equipment rooms. There was a denim jacket hanging in the closet and a couple of shirts. A pair of Topsider loafers stood toe to toe with a pair of moccasins on the floor of the closet. Jesse grinned wryly at the yachtsman’s shoes. Not a lot of sailing done in Arizona, he thought. Maybe Barret really thought the Harbor Hotel was built on a harbor.

  The quiet humor of place names in Steamboat Springs had always amused Jesse. The early trappers and mountain men, hearing the chugging sounds made by the sulphur hot springs that dotted the area, had been convinced that the valley was haunted by some phantom steamboat. Hence the name. In keeping with the nautical theme, the Harbor Hotel had sprung up, then other establishments like the Tugboat and even the Steamboat Yacht Club had followed.

  The Yacht Club, at least, could boast a river frontage, being built right on the edge of the Yampa River where it ran through the town. The fact that the river was, at that point, no more than twenty or thirty feet wide meant any yachts trying to dock there would suffer a pretty damn tight squeeze.

  Jesse sat on the edge of the bed, surrounded by the dead man’s simple belongings. The small clutter that seems to surround every skier was evident in the room: goggles hooked over the coathanger behind the door, ski gloves on the small table that held the ice bucket and tray. A pair of discarded ski socks that had been peeled off and kicked under the armchair. He’d hoped that there might be something, anything, that might give him a lead on Andrew Barret.

  He always had that same hope when he went through a victim’s room. He seldom found anything.

  He rose and went into the small ensuite bathroom. Usually, if he found anything, this was where it was. That’s why he’d left the bathroom until last.

  There was no external window. He flicked the light switch up and was greeted by the subdued clatter of an exhaust fan coming on simultaneously with the light. He frowned slightly. The Harbor wasn’t burning up any power bills with its bathroom lights.

  “You could cut your throat shaving in here,” he muttered, opening the small, mirror-doored cabinet set above the washbasin.

  No drugs. No syringes. No empty glassine bags. Just toothpaste—Colgate—a toothbrush and a bottle of plain saline. He looked at the small shelf beside the basin. There was a contact lens container there, alongside a plug-in sterilizer.

  The plastic shower curtain was closed. He pulled it back. Nothing there but a bottle of anti-dandruff shampoo on the soap dish. He opened it and sniffed it. It smelled pretty much the way he’d expect anti-dandruff shampoo to smell. He shrugged, put it back.

  He looked under the fresh face cleaner and hand towel that the maid service had left the morning before. Nothing there.

  Stepping to the toilet, he lifted the heavy porcelain lid of the cistern and looked inside. No suspicious articles left there in one of the most common of all hotel room hiding places. Nothing but water and the flushing mechanism of the cistern.

  “Nothing nowhere,” he said softly, going out and turning off the light and the fan behind him. “Nothing everywhere.”

  He sat down again, looking around the room. Looking at the forlorn evidence of occupation. Andy Barret had gone out, expecting to come back and pick up those ski socks under the chair, so he could put them in the plastic laundry bag that Jesse had seen in the suitcase.

  He’d planned to finish that paperback as well, and maybe watch a little HBO before he fell asleep. And if he had something of an asthma attack, maybe brought on by the altitude here in Colorado, why he’d planned for that too. There was his inhaler, all ready for him to use it.

  Only somehow, for some reason, his plans didn’t work out. Someone got right in the way of them, with a savage, razor sharp, ten-inch spike in a spring-loaded handle. Someone had fired that spike up into Andy’s brain and killed him deader than all hell.

  Jesse squeezed his jaw between his gloved finger and thumb, rubbing thoughtfully at the slight stubble there.

  “The question is, Andy, why did someone want to go and do that to you?” he asked the room at large.

  But the room at large wasn’t talking.

  FIFTEEN

  Sitting back in the chair, he laughed quietly, the sound of his laughter masked by the constant hum of the high-speed cable driving above him. The Storm Peak Express was whipping him up the mountain at high speed. On a day like today, with the wind blowing around thirty miles an hour and snow whipping in to all but white out the top of the mountain, he’d known there’d be no lines for the lifts.

  He glanced at the chair ahead of him. There was one occupant, difficult to see with the perspex hood of the chair lowered. He or she was nothing more than a vague shape huddled in the shelter of the plastic bubble against the cold. With the snow and the condensation on the bubble, it was even difficult to make out the color of the person’s clothing.

  He checked quickly over his shoulder, setting the chair swinging as he turned.
The chair directly behind was empty. He’d assumed it would be, as there’d been nobody close behind him in the lift line. Two chairs back, he could make out two shapes but the blowing snow concealed any details. They’d be too far away to see what was going on, he thought.

  The chair clattered as the drive cable ran over one of the pylons. The brief vibration stirred the huddled figure beside him, leaning into the far corner of the chair. Amusing, he thought as they sat together, how people strived to maintain their personal space. He shifted his skis on the footrest and sighed contentedly. Below him, the snowdrifted path that had been cut through the trees was virtually deserted. Only the occasional skier was coming down.

  The chair was passing the Four Points Hut now, coming into the last section of its run. He leaned forward expectantly, looking through the mist and snow of the whiteout conditions. He scanned the upper expanse of Storm Peak, looking for the most likely path to take down.

  As he’d thought, it would be a left turn at the top of the chair, then into the trees of the Triangle 3 run. Triangle 3 was a black diamond run, steep-pitched and heavily studded with moguls—the regular bumps in the snow, sometimes three or four feet in height, caused by the constant passage of skiers down a slope. As they turned, following the fall line, they cut a path in the snow. The twisting, turning action threw piles of snow up on either side, creating the bumps. The more skiers came down the same path, the larger the bumps grew.

  He knew that only a good skier—a very good skier—would follow him into the trees on Triangle 3. Only an excellent skier would have any chance of catching him—even if he could see him in these conditions. He grinned to himself inside the turtleneck collar that was pulled up to his goggles, then turned to the figure beside him.

  “Okay if we put up the footrest?” he asked politely. There was no answer, so he removed his skis from the rest and swiveled the metal frame up, taking the plastic bubble with it. The wind swirled in on the now unprotected chair.

  It was normal to ask, even though the other man wasn’t using the footrest. His legs hung down below the chair, the yellow Volkel carving skis swinging lightly in the wind and with the motion of the chair itself. They were the latest models, he noticed, almost six feet in length. They were a tough ski for a mediocre skier to handle, he knew. His companion on the chair had obviously been very good.

  Until he’d died, just three minutes ago.

  It had all been so easy. The other man—Harry, his name had been—was waiting at the gate to ski forward and load onto the chairlift as Murphy arrived, skiing quickly forward at the last minute to join him, and making sure nobody else was around to make up a threesome on the chairlift.

  They’d nodded hello, as people on chairlifts do, then Harry had slumped into a corner of the chair. As the bubble and the footrest had come down, Murphy had pretended to be caught under the support and, at the last moment, slid to the right to be one space away from his companion on the four seater chairlift.

  “Name’s Ed,” he’d said cheerfully, pulling down the turtleneck to speak more clearly and let his companion see his friendly, disarming grin. “Ed Montrose,” he’d added.

  There was no sense in using the name he was actually passing under, just in case things didn’t go so well with Harry here. Just in case he somehow survived.

  Harry had nodded, not too interested in conversation. “Harry Powell,” he’d said briefly, then looked away to discourage further chat.

  “Not too many out today,” Murphy had continued cheerfully. Harry had merely grunted assent. He’d looked across at Murphy for a moment. Murphy was fussing around the zipper of his gray parka, his heavy ski gloves making it difficult to find the tag. He’d looked up at Harry Powell, grinned again and held out his ski poles to him.

  “Mind hanging onto these for a moment?” he’d asked with the certain knowledge that Harry wouldn’t refuse. Powell had sighed, almost inaudibly. Murphy knew how annoying it could be when complete strangers on a chairlift couldn’t manage their own equipment and asked for help. Hold this. Hold that. Could you hand me that for a moment? Good skiers could manage their own odds and ends. While very few people ever refused such a request, he knew it made the requester look inefficient, unorganized.

  And unthreatening.

  Powell’s gloved hand had closed over the two stocks. Murphy had now managed to wrestle open the zipper on his parka. His left hand had closed over the hard cylinder inside, tucked into his belt. He’d felt with one thumb to make sure the cocking handle wasn’t back. The last thing he wanted was to snag the trigger in his clothing and fire a ten-inch spike into his own groin. Satisfied, he had withdrawn the black metal cylinder from his parka. Holding it in his left hand, he’d reached with his right for the ski poles.

  “Thanks,” he’d said. “I’ll take those now.” He’d made sure he had a firm grip on the poles, then, with a deftness that was a little out of character with his former apparent confusion, had tucked them quickly under one thigh and out of the way.

  Powell had stared with mild curiosity at the jigger. “What you got there?” he’d asked.

  “Safety flare,” Murphy had said easily. “Always carry one in these conditions. ”

  He’d racked the cocking handle back with a heavy double click, then held the cylinder toward Powell, as if offering it to him.

  “Take a look,” he’d said.

  Powell had recoiled a little into the corner of the chair. The mouth of the so-called flare was pointing directly at him and, it appeared to him, the other man had just loaded it.

  “Don’t point that damn thing at me!” he’d said a little angrily. “Didn’t you just prime it or something?”

  Murphy had laughed easily. “Hell, no!” he’d said. “That was just the safety. I was making sure it was on! See?”

  Again, he’d thrust the cylinder toward Powell. Still a little wary, but not so angry now, Powell had leaned toward him to inspect it. As he made the movement, Murphy had suddenly thrust forward at him, ramming the end of the cylinder under his left arm and into the left side of his upper body.

  There had been a ringing metallic crack as he’d released the trigger and the razor sharp spike had shot out of the tip of the jigger. It had slashed easily through the thick clothing Powell wore, then savaged the flesh itself, sliding upward between the ribs, as Murphy had angled it, piercing the heart itself, rupturing the papillary muscle, tearing through the left ventricle and all but destroying the right atrium and aortic valve on the way out.

  Powell’s jaw had dropped open. He’d tried to scream but could only make a choked, whimpering sound as he’d felt the searing pain in his chest just before he died.

  Murphy had dragged the spike clear, hurriedly slamming the cocking handle back in a move that he’d practiced hundreds of times, in case Powell wasn’t dead.

  The shocked, rapidly glazing eyes had told him there was no need for a second strike. Casually, he’d pressed the trigger again, allowing the bloodstained spike to slam out from inside the handle. He’d leaned across and wiped the blood on the sleeve of Powell’s parka, then, making sure the firing spring was in the detached setting, he’d brought back the cocking lever again, withdrawing the spike into the handle of the jigger.

  He’d checked that there was no blood on the outside of the jigger. Powell’s outer clothing had effectively protected it from any sudden discharge. Then he’d tucked the weapon away inside his own parka once more, and closed the zipper.

  The chair shook as it clattered past a pylon and Powell sank a little deeper into the corner. Murphy winked at him, then pulled the turtleneck up again.

  “Cheer up,” he said, “you’ll be famous tomorrow. ”

  Clive Wallace was warm and comfortable inside the hut at the top of the Storm Peak chair. He’d glanced out at the unloading ramp a few minutes ago. There was a little soft snow building up there. He guessed that in another five minutes or so, he’d have to go out and shovel some of it clear, packing down the rest with blows from t
he flat of the shovel. For now, however, he was content to huddle over the electric radiant heater, peering through the large windows in front of him at the nonstop sequence of chairs passing him by and heading round the bullwheel and back down the mountain again.

  “Oh, shit!”

  He said it aloud. There was no one in the hut to hear him but he said it aloud anyway. Just when his feet were finally warming up, some dumb bunny tourist had missed the unload point. He had a vague impression of one skier in a gray jacket skiing off the chair while the other passenger remained firmly and determinedly unmoving.

  As the chair started around the bullwheel, Clive’s hand shot to the big red kill button beside him. He hit it, sounding the alarm bell briefly and bringing the chairlift sighing to a halt.

  The figure in the chair was now eight feet or so from the ground. There was no way he could unload from there, Clive realized. He’d have to back the chair up, bringing the delinquent rider back to the unload ramp.

  “Shit!” he said again, reaching for the door handle. As he cracked the door open, the wind shrilled in around him and the telephone linking him to the down mountain loading station rang once. He scooped the receiver up. Before Louis at the base station could ask the obvious question, Clive let him know what was going on.

  “Got a skier tried to ride the chair around,” he said, raising his voice against the intrusive wind. “We’ll have to back her up a few yards.”

  Louis answered him. “Let me know when you’re doing it.”

  Clive nodded, even though the other man couldn’t see him. “Be as quick as I can,” he answered, then hung the phone on its hook and stepped out into the wind and the snow.

  He glanced around idly to see if the skier’s companion was waiting for him. There were a couple of skiers nearby, their attention drawn by the alarm bell. But on a day like this people didn’t stand around at the top of the chair. They skied or they went into one of the bars. He checked but none of them was wearing a gray parka. Dumb choice of color anyway, thought Clive. In this weather, a gray parka would blend into the background and the whiteout conditions to make its owner all but invisible.