Ridley Pearson - Killer View

He balanced and bounced the loaf in his hand a couple of times, weighing it. Unusually heavy. “I want a record of this,” he said as he placed the loaf on the cutting board. He didn’t like that he had missed this; liked it even less that she had pointed it out to him. But there was no changing that now; and he wasn’t going to ignore it simply because she had brought it to his attention, though the thought crossed his mind.

“Pictures of you opening a loaf of bread? Seriously?”

“Just shoot it, please.”

She ran off a series of shots, as Walt unfastened the plastic clip and opened the wrapper. His gloved hand reached in and pulled out the first few slices.

The center of the loaf had been hollowed out. A brick of money wrapped in stretch plastic wrap filled the cavity.

Click, click. Fiona gasped while running off more shots.

Walt peeled back the stretch wrap, revealing one-hundred-dollar bills. Three inches high.

Walt whistled. “There’s got to be thirty or forty thousand dollars here.”

“Good Lord,” she said. “I’ve never seen that much cash.”

“His own little in-joke. Bread? Dough? And that’s where he hid it.”

“Poaching?”

“It’s got to be dirty,” Walt said. “But he’s a doctor, don’t forget. It could be poaching. It could be drugs. Abortions. Blackmail, I suppose.”

“And we’ll never know,” she said.

“What are you talking about?” Walt said irritably. “Of course we’ll know! It’s my job to know. To find out. Don’t say things like that, you’ll jinx it.”

“You? Superstitious?”

“Careful, is how I think of it. The weirdest things can squirrel an investigation. Never speak ill of the dead, and never, ever claim you’ve got a suspect until the court case is over and he’s behind bars.”

“Sage advice for a freshman deputy?”

“Just take the pictures, Watson , would you please?”

Walt began counting the money.

WALT LOVED TECHNOLOGY. HE DIDN’T UNDERSTAND IT HALF the time, but the beauty of good technology was that he didn’t have to understand it. Just use it.

His patrolmen were currently taking advantage of a quiet evening by updating the score of Monday Night Football over the police band radio, mistakenly thinking their boss off air, otherwise, they wouldn’t have dared do it. In fact, Walt was a Seahawks fan, so, on the ride home, he listened in guilty pleasure.

Lisa had been kind enough to stay with the girls while Walt had dropped Fiona back at her car. He’d then spent thirty minutes talking to employees at Mark and Randy Aker’s veterinarian practice.

Jillian Davis was Mark’s head nurse and sometime bookkeeper. She led Walt into the “family room,” where, for an additional fee, boarding pets were treated to a “home environment” that included two couches, some throw rugs, and a television running all the time. The room’s popularity with customers spoke to the excesses of Sun Valley. Mark had turned wealthy guilt into a profit center for his boarding clinic.

Jillian worked to keep her composure. A sturdy woman in her early forties, with kind eyes and a severe brow, she wore blue scrubs with a pilled cardigan sweater. He’d caught her at the end of what had to have been a long, difficult day. He cautioned her that, for both their sakes, he was going to speak directly, warning her that anything discussed must not leave the room. She agreed, then turned up the television to cover their voices.

“I have circumstantial evidence that Randy was involved in poaching,” he said. “High-stakes stuff. Probably mountain goat, cougar, and bear. Any talk around here to that effect?”

She nodded reluctantly. “Only that: talk. It came up when our inventory was off. Incapacitating meds that we rarely use were found to be in short supply.”

“So Mark knew.” He made it a statement.

“I’m sure he suspected, as did I. To my knowledge, no one else. And before you ask: if Mark confronted Randy, I never heard about it.”

“Would Mark have considered the whole subject matter of hunting tags and fees political ? Did he look at it that way?”

“I’ve heard both of them talk about their childhoods, when there were no restrictions on hunting. Some limits, to be sure, but the state wasn’t running lotteries and such.”

“Does Mark talk politics with you?”

“No. Just business. We’re very busy here-all the time, these days.”

“Was he doing anything political? Volunteering? Fund-raising?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Did you see anyone, anything, bothering Randy? Giving him trouble? Visitors that you wouldn’t have expected? Phone calls?”

“Nothing like that. We all loved Randy. He was a terrific guy. Really good with the large animals.”

“Any conflicts in either of their practices lately? Threats? Lawsuits?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. Business was down on Randy’s side.”

He could read it in her face: she was holding back. “But?” he said. She hesitated. “By talking to me, you’re helping him, Jillian. You have to believe that.”

“Mark’s been up to something.” It came out of her like a confession; she hung her head, as if ashamed of herself. “Secretive. Brooding, at times. You know how up he usually is. That kind of went out of him lately.”

“Trouble at home?”

“No. At least, I don’t think so. He spent a lot of time here, at the clinic, after closing. And he wasn’t training. Wasn’t doing paperwork. The one time I checked on him, he was in the lab, and he blew up at me for surprising him like that.”

“Any idea-”

“No. That’s just the thing,” she said, interrupting. “None. He’s been spending a lot of time at their cabin in Challis. Been going there a lot lately. Sometimes overnight. Was he following Randy or something? I don’t know. Some of our deliveries… he’d put them straight into his truck, and that was always when he’d go north for a day or so.”

“Do you know what was in those boxes?”

“No clue.”

“Receipts?”

“I could check with Sally, our bookkeeper. There might be records.”

Walt had forgotten about Mark’s cabin, and chastised himself. “It’s on Francine’s side. The cabin? I didn’t think they used it, some family battle they got embroiled in. A relative lived up there, didn’t he?”

“You’re right. Her brother. But he moved to Maine, I think it was. This is like a year ago, and Mark and Francine took over caring for the place.”

“So he’d been going up there to fix it up.”

“Initially, yes. But then he and Randy started using it…”

“To hunt,” Walt said, when she failed to finish.

“Yeah. You knew about that? They didn’t exactly want that to be public knowledge. Bad for business.”

“I’ve known Mark a long time,” Walt said, still angry at himself for having forgotten about the cabin. “Do you know where it is, exactly?”

She shook her head. “Randy’s death was an accident, right?”

“Sure looks like it,” Walt said, not wanting to start anything, “but we have to investigate it, anyway.”

“They were superclose. It doesn’t surprise me Mark’s gone off like this.” Tears formed in her eyes. They weren’t the first.

“Who else might know?” Walt said. “About the cabin? Anyone who works here?”

“I doubt it. Francine, of course.” As she met eyes with Walt, a spark of realization ignited in hers. “She’s missing too, isn’t she? Oh my God. You can’t find either of them.”

“As you said,” Walt reminded, keeping his voice level, “they probably just need a day or two in private to grieve. My guess is, we’ll find them at the cabin. I might give them another day before trying.”