Douglas Preston - White Fire

“Any possible motive?”

“Nothing concrete. We’re looking into various possibilities.”

“Such as?”

“Burglary, revenge, perverted kicks.”

“Wasn’t it true that one of the victims worked in your office?”

God, he had hoped to avoid that line of questioning. “Jenny Baker was an intern in my office, working over her winter break.” He swallowed, tried to go on despite the sudden fuzziness in his voice. “She was a wonderful girl who had aspirations to a career in law enforcement. It was…a devastating loss.”

“There’s a rumor that one of the victims was tied to a bed and doused with gasoline,” another reporter interjected.

Son of a bitch. Did Chivers leak that? “That is true,” said the chief, after a hesitation.

This caused a sensation.

“And another victim was found burned to death in a bathtub?”

“Yes,” said the chief, without elaborating.

More uproar. This was getting ugly.

“Were the girls molested?”

The press would ask anything; they had no shame. “The M.E. hasn’t concluded his examination. But it may not be possible to know, given the state of the remains.”

“Was anything taken?”

“We don’t know.”

“Were they burned alive?”

Rising furor.

“It’ll be at least a week before most of the evidence has been analyzed. All right — please — enough questions from the press — we’ll move on to the public.” The chief dearly hoped this would be easier.

The entire section was on its feet, hands waving. Not a good sign. He pointed to someone he didn’t know, a meek-looking elderly woman, but a person in front of her misunderstood — deliberately or not — and immediately responded in a booming voice. Christ, it was Sonja Marie Dutoit, the semi-retired actress, infamous in Roaring Fork for her obnoxious behavior in shops and restaurants and for her face, which had been lifted and Botoxed so many times it bore a perpetual grin.

“Thank you for choosing me,” she said in a smoke-cured voice. “I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say how shocked and horrified I am about this crime.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Morris. “Your question, please?”

“It’s been thirty-six hours since this terrible, horrible, frightening fire. We all saw it. And judging from what you just said, you haven’t made much progress — if any.”

Chief Morris said, calmly, “Do you have a question, Ms. Dutoit?”

“I certainly do. Why haven’t you caught the killer yet? This isn’t New York City: we’ve only got two thousand people in this town. There’s only one road in and out. So what’s the problem?”

“As I said, we’ve brought tremendous resources to bear, bringing in specialists from as far away as Grand Junction, as well as the involvement of the NCAVC. Now, I’m sure other people have questions—”

“I’m not done,” Dutoit went on. “When’s the next house going to get burned down?”

This led to a susurrus of muttering. Some people were rolling their eyes in reaction to Dutoit’s questions; others were beginning to look ever so slightly nervous.

“There’s not a shred of evidence that we’re dealing with a serial arsonist,” the chief said, eager to cut off this avenue of speculation.

But Dutoit, it seemed, was not yet through. “Which one of us is going to wake up in flames in their own bed tonight? And what in the name of God are you doing about it? ”

It was hard to believe the Mineshaft Tavern was part of Roaring Fork, with the sawdust on the floor, the basement rock walls hung with rusty old mining tools, the smell of beer and Texas barbecue, the scruffy working-class clientele — and above all, the talentless stoner at the mike strumming some tune of his own composition, his face contorted with excessive pathos.

As she walked in, Corrie was pleasantly surprised. This was much more her kind of place than the restaurant of the Hotel Sebastian.

She found Ted at “his” table in the back, just where he’d said he would be, with an imperial pint in front of him. He stood up — she liked that — and helped her into her seat before sitting down again.

“What’d you like?”

“What are you drinking?”

“Maroon Bells Stout, made right down the road. Fantastic stuff.”

The waiter came over and she ordered a pint, hoping she wouldn’t get carded. That would be embarrassing. But there were no problems.

“I didn’t know a place like this could exist in Roaring Fork,” said Corrie.

“There are still plenty of real people in this town — ski lift attendants, waiters, dishwashers, handymen… librarians .” He winked. “We need our cheap, low-down places of entertainment.”

Her beer arrived, and they clinked glasses. Corrie took a sip. “Wow. Good.”

“Better than Guinness. Cheaper, too.”

“So who’s the guy on stage?” Corrie kept her voice neutral in case he was a friend of Ted’s.

Ted snickered. “Open-mike night. Don’t know him, poor fellow. Let’s hope he hasn’t quit his day job.” He picked up his menu. “Hungry?”

She thought for a moment: could she spare the money? But the menu wasn’t too expensive. If she didn’t eat, she might get drunk and do something stupid. She smiled, nodded.

“So,” said Ted. “How are things going in the charnel house up on the mountain?”

“Good.” Corrie contemplated telling him about what she’d discovered but decided against it. She didn’t know Ted well enough. “The remains of Emmett Bowdree have a lot to say. I hope to get permission to work on a few more skeletons soon.”

“I’m glad it’s working out for you. I love to think of Kermode getting her knickers in a twist while you’re up there doing your thing.”

“I don’t know,” Corrie said. “She’s got worse things to worry about now. You know — the fire.”

“I’ll say. Jesus, how awful was that?” He paused. “You know, I grew up there. In The Heights.”

“Really?” Corrie couldn’t hide her surprise. “I never would have guessed that.”

“Thank you, I’ll take that as a compliment. My dad was a television producer — sitcoms and the like. He palled around with a lot of Hollywood people. My mother slept with most of them.” He shook his head, sipped his beer. “I had a kind of messed-up childhood.”

“Sorry to hear that.” In no way was Corrie ready to talk to Ted about her own childhood, however.

“No big deal. They got divorced and my dad raised me. With all the sitcom residuals, he never had to work again. When I came back from college I got my butt out of The Heights and found an apartment in town, down on East Cowper. It’s tiny, but I feel better about breathing its air.”

“Does he still live up there in The Heights?”

“Nah, he sold the house a few years back, died of cancer last year — only sixty years old, too.”

“I’m really sorry.”

He waved his hand. “I know. But I was glad to get rid of the connection to The Heights. It really frosts me the way they handled that Boot Hill thing — digging up one of the most historic cemeteries in Colorado to build a spa for rich assholes.”

“Yeah. Pretty ugly.”

Then Ted shrugged, laughed lightly. “Well, stuff happens. What are you going to do? If I hated the place so much, I wouldn’t still be here — right?”

Corrie nodded. “So what did you major in at the University of Utah?”

“Sustainability studies. I wasn’t much of a student — I wasted too much time skiing and snowmobiling. I love snowmobiling almost as much as I do skiing. Oh, and mountain climbing, too.”

“Mountain climbing?”

“Yeah. I’ve climbed forty-one Fourteeners.”