Ridley Pearson - Killer Summer

Remy pursed his lips.

“Here’s where it gets a little dodgy for you, Mr. Remy…”

Walt drank half the coffee in two swigs. He was starving, couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten.

“Cantell was not only behind stealing the wine, he stole the jet… the missing Learjet with two teenagers aboard, a young girl and my nephew. That means you, Mr. Remy, are in all likelihood not only connected to the death of Mr. Malone but also to the theft of that jet and the kidnapping of those kids. You, Mr. Cantell, and the others are all in serious trouble.”

For a third time, Walt looked down at Remy’s leg.

“Let’s say,” he continued, “ just for speculation’s sake, that you had nothing to do with the jet…”

“I had nothing to do with any of this.”

“When this all comes unraveled-and it’s already started to-you’ll be charged. And you’ll need to dig yourself out.”

“Innocent until proven guilty…”

“Yeah, right. I’m not talking about our legal system.”

Walt bumped his leg into Remy’s cast, and Remy flinched and gasped.

“You’ll need to dig yourself out,” he repeated. “You know the rule of thumb about the first person to confess, the leniency shown by the courts. Which leaves you in that dodgy position I just mentioned. Because when your attorney arrives, he’s going to shut this interview down, shut you down. And he has every reason to do so. Nine times out of ten, it’s the smart move.

“But this isn’t one of those times. In fact, you and I are preciously short on time.”

Walt called out to the front of the bus.

“How long?”

“He’s about five minutes out,” came back the reply.

“See how on top of things we are?” Walt asked Remy, who was struggling to look at ease. “We have only your best interest at heart.”

Walt pulled back his sleeve and looked at his watch.

“Go on…” Remy said. His eyes ticked toward the front of the bus.

“Me? I’ve got nothing more to say. Should I keep the recorder going?” He reached for the device.

Remy glanced toward the front of the bus once again.

“Decisions, decisions,” Walt said. “Maybe they’ll stop with the knee.”

Walt’s hand touched the OFF button.

“Stop… Leave it running.”

Walt sat back. At times he found the work boring and tedious. Then there were times like this.

“I had nothing to do with the theft,” Remy said, “either one. I knew nothing about them.”

Walt kept his face expressionless, but inside he was churning. Remy seemed so self-righteous.

“The bottles will not go to auction,” Walt said. “They’ve been pulled.”

Remy searched the bus as if looking for an escape.

“In that case,” he said, “I need protection… tonight… going forward.”

“We’re not in the protection business.”

“Then arrest me, Sheriff.”

“How can I? You deny being involved with the bottles or the jet.” Walt made it a statement for the recorder. He rapped his knuckles on Remy’s cast.

“The Adams bottles are fakes,” Remy said, head down, “forgeries. My doing, it’s true.”

“You have to convince me, Mr. Remy. You have to provide details that, as an investigator, I can substantiate. I have to bring something to my prosecuting attorney. Facts are often a good place to start.”

“The Jefferson bottles are authentic.”

“I don’t remember discussing the Jefferson bottles…”

Walt looked Remy in the eyes. Tick, tick, tick, he thought. The lawyer will shut us down.

“I did very well off of that sale,” Remy said, his eyes devoid of light. “Then the economy tanked, and people weren’t exactly beating a path to buy wine. Up here in Sun Valley is different, I don’t need to tell you. ‘What recession?’ people are saying. But, still, the rest of the world is broke. So I decided to find some new bottles, something to tide me over. It didn’t come cheap. Neither did verification. I had to find an investor, which I did, who put up a substantial amount of capital. But then there were questions from one of the verification experts-”

“Amsterdam,” Walt interjected, wanting Remy to know he was ahead of him, thanks to Janet Finch.

Remy could not contain his surprise, though he recovered quickly.

“The theft… the attempted theft here… I’m being blamed for that?”

“Makes sense to me.”

“But it wasn’t me.”

“What’s done is done.”

“It wasn’t my investors either. But they think it was me. It’s a mess.”

“Tell me about your relationship with Christopher Cantell.”

“Never met him.” He waited for Walt to say something. “You don’t believe me!”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Walt said.

Tick, tick, tick.

Remy had gone ashen. He ran his hand through his stubby hair. He couldn’t stop looking toward the front of the bus.

“Have I heard of Christopher Cantell?” Remy said. “Of course I have.”

“That’s better.”

“No, you misunderstand… Have I met him? No. Spoken to him? Never. But he had his fifteen minutes. You’re aware of that, right?”

Walt’s head swooned. He cursed not eating. He should have looked more deeply into Cantell.

“You do go to the movies?” Remy asked.

“Apparently, not often enough.”

“Christopher Cantell,” Remy said. “That movie. Italian Job ? No, that was a different one. Mark Wahlberg, right? Was it that one with Hanks? No, no, that was a con man, I think… I don’t know, I forget… But they made a movie based on this guy Cantell, a heist movie. Above average, nothing great. But I remember the press: they played up the real-life side of it… That’s as much as I know about him.”

“A movie,” Walt said. He felt the rug going out from under him.

“Look it up,” said Remy, “IMDb it. What do I care?”

“And you think Cantell just happened to go after your wine?”

“Ask him!”

A fine line of sweat pearls had formed on Remy’s upper lip. They both sensed the imminent arrival of the attorney.

“How should I know?” Remy continued. “There was lots of publicity, advance press-believe me, I saw to that. Churn up the market, you know? And part of that is churning up the rumor mill. The trades have been covering these bottles for the past six months.”

A man came onto the bus. Walt recognized Terry Hogue, one of the valley’s best attorneys. The Christensens had helped their friend out indeed.

“I forged those bottles,” Remy leaned forward and whispered harshly. “So, charge me.”

“A movie?”

“Charge me!”

“That’ll be enough, Sheriff,” Terry Hogue called out to Walt from the front of the RV. “We’re all through here.”

“Charge me!” Remy pleaded.

Ranches gave way to national forest, and soon there was not a structure in sight. The pale moonlight played off the towering blue-gray boulders to the right, the rolling carpet of evergreens to the left. A pair of amber eyes suddenly glowed at the side of the two-lane road, a black-tailed fox darting across in the glare of the headlights just barely in time to reach the other side.

“Sixteen miles on horseback,” Brandon reported, “four to five hours, if we can stick to the trail. If we’re lucky, we can cross to the east side of the Middle Fork by dawn.”

Jerry checked his watch. He’d been doing so often, far more than necessary. Walt was pushing seventy-five miles an hour with the light rack flashing.

“You understand, it could get ugly,” Jerry said to Brandon in the backseat.

Brandon looked up from the map and the handheld GPS, which he was programming, but didn’t speak. He and Walt met eyes in the rearview mirror.