Ridley Pearson - Killer Weekend

“You think you’re protecting us. I know your heart’s in a good place on this. But it’s boomeranging.”

“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,” Jerry said.

“We can’t help Bobby, but we can put this family back together, Dad.”

“You and Gail are doing your part. Right?” Jerry pulled on the Scotch, rescuing the ice cubes from drowning. He peered out from beneath his brow, cruelly, then set the drink down without a sound.

Walt spotted Myra and Kevin by the grill, scanning tables. “Here they are,” Walt said. “Remember, Dad, he’s not a little boy anymore.”

Jerry drained the drink. “Shut the hell up.”

T revalian occupied a high stool in a darkened corner near the entrance to the Duchin Lounge. At 11:15, the place was jumping.

Immediately to his left, a Madison Avenue type, remade in three-hundred-dollar jeans and colorfully stitched cowboy boots, made sloppy with a woman twenty years his junior. They drank from martini glasses; she had an annoying habit of reapplying her lipstick between sips and kisses.

Joe Fos-a Filipino in his sixties-animated jazz standards and show tunes with keyboard flourishes. The bass player pulled the drummer along, and the dancers never rested.

At standing room only, the volume of conversation overpowered the attempts of young waitresses taking orders.

Trevalian nursed a Drambuie, not out of any great love for the potent liqueur, but because it promised to color his breath for the next several hours, and that might prove important.

He had yet to find a way to work around the loss of Ricky. The idea had been to establish himself with the dog so that a substitution wouldn’t be noticed.

At the set break, he studied the clientele, the clubby, familiar way they moved from table to table saying their hellos with air kisses and firm handshakes. Bits and pieces of conversation reached his corner: golf, film, and some politics. Elizabeth Shaler’s name surfaced more than once. He kept an eye on the door in case she happened by. He’d read the New Yorker piece-he’d read nearly everything written about her. Knew her better than she knew herself. Old habits died hard.

When the band began again, it did so as a quartet, behind the enchanting voice of a dirty blonde in her midthirties. She wore a tight-fitting red cocktail dress with a plunging neckline that tickled her navel. She’d worked on her face to look young and innocent. But her smoky, emotionally charged voice added to her years. She won herself light applause, but deserved better. Another place, another time, and he might have been interested.

Shaler never showed. The combo stopped at 11:45, the snifter on the piano overflowing with twenty-dollar tips. The tables slowly emptied ahead of the 1 A.M. closing. Trevalian left the lodge, stepping out into the surprisingly chilly mountain air. He walked quietly along the beautifully lit paths, past the shops, the theater, and the pond, reaching the inn. He continued on, out into the parking lot and beyond, finally reaching a delivery alley.

Moonlit, gray scattered clouds raced overhead, sliced into pieces by the mountain peaks. He worked into a slight stagger, for appearance’s sake, and proceeded down the narrow strip of asphalt toward the loading bays behind the inn.

From the study off Cutter’s kitchen, Trevalian had found the wife’s Outlook program up and running, and he’d scanned her calendar for appointments and appearances. Two entries had mentioned Shaler by name: the opening luau on Friday night and the luncheon on Sunday at 10 A.M.

Rafe Nagler had an invitation to the luau but not to the luncheon.

His foray tonight was to study the layout of the banquet room ahead of her keynote on Sunday-to pace off exit routes and familiarize himself with the look and feel of the ballroom through eyes not clouded by prosthetic contact lenses.

His skin cool, his heart rate calm, Trevalian casually entered a loading bay and moved through a dark service hallway behind the banquet room. He passed food service trolleys, discarded aprons, and a wall phone with a stretched-out cord. The corridor smelled unpleasant but not unfamiliar-years of spilled salads comingling with the stain of human sweat. He pulled open a fire door marked BANQUET ROOM C.

He stepped inside.

Sand. The entire ballroom floor was covered in it. Three inches deep or more. Trevalian sank into it, both astonished and horrified. Then he recalled the Friday night dinner had been themed a luau, and he marveled at Patrick Cutter’s excess. Would it stay the weekend, or would it be removed by Sunday? If it stayed, it would prove a formidable obstacle for him.

His eyes were just beginning to adjust when he heard voices at the far doors.

Someone was coming inside.

N early an hour earlier, at 12:30 A.M., Walt had hit a wall of fatigue while attempting to catch up on paperwork. Preparing to call it a night, he’d been organizing the Salt Lake photos when he saw one of the retail space’s torn-apart ceiling. Then he checked Shaler’s master schedule, grabbed his gun belt, and took off at a run.

Now, at nearly 1:30 A.M., driving north, he called O’Brien’s cell phone.

“Did I wake you?” he asked.

“I wish,” answered the security man.

Walt asked, “Did your guys check the banquet room after the workers got out of there?”

“You worry too much. I like that about you. We’ve got all day tomorrow. The first real event is the luau tomorrow night.”

“Shaler’s scheduled for a walk-through and sound check at 10 A.M., preregistration.”

He could practically hear O’Brien thinking.

“We need to sweep the room,” Walt announced. “I’m heading up there. I’m going to do a walk-through tonight.”

“Tonight? How ’bout first thing in the morning? We’ve got to move Patrick back into the residence. He dined in town following the party.”

Walt could hear O’Brien’s despair. Private security often amounted to little more than babysitting. He’d never envied his father his six-figure salary for this reason.

O’Brien offered to send two of his guys over to help Walt.

“I’m good. I’ve got patrols doing nothing this time of night.”

With O’Brien still making offers, Walt politely signed off and called Tom Brandon. Brandon was off duty. When he failed to reach him, Walt turned off into the Red Top trailer park. With so many of the trailers looking the same, he drove past Brandon ’s on his first try. It wasn’t the trailer, but his wife’s car that stopped Walt on the second try: Gail’s minivan was parked in Brandon ’s driveway. He slowed, then continued on, catching sight of the trailer in his rearview mirror. Dark. Locked up for the night.

He pulled to the corner, stopped, and threw his head against the steering wheel. He couldn’t catch his breath. His heart was doing a tumbling act. He squeezed out tears before he knew it, then leaned back and wiped his face on his sleeve. He kept checking the rearview mirror, the minivan and the trailer now quite small in the frame, hoping he’d gotten the wrong place, the wrong car. He drove around the block again, and this time checked the plates. Stopped at the same corner. Ached the same way.

He thought back to Brandon ’s comment about running against him in the primary, and he saw it on a whole new level. His deputy was doing his ex-wife. Stealing the best thing in his life. Never mind that it had to end, it didn’t have to end like this, and for a brave moment Walt considered confronting them both.

Then he drove on, in a daze of confusion, a lump like a piece of coal rammed down his throat.

He did his best to control his voice and summoned his patrols over the radio. But a bear had been reported tearing up trash cans mid-valley and his two available cars had responded. He headed to Sun Valley, alone and afraid in a way he’d not felt. His father’s sarcastic sting about the nature of crime in the valley-his job-echoed uncomfortably in his mind. Gail had moved on. It was all but unthinkable-but think about it he did.