Stephen White - Cold Case

Russ made a noise with his lips and said, "Nada."

"Until we got to the splinter."

"What splinter?"

"A postmortem splinter in Mariko's left arm, just below her elbow. The splinter was large-over a centimeter-and was totally embedded beneath her skin. Like the rock fragments removed from Tami's skull wound, the splinter was removed and cataloged during the original autopsy, but its significance was never appreciated."

"The splinter is of a hardwood with a polyurethane finish. It's sanded flat on one side. We assumed it had come from a hardwood floor or a finished piece of furniture, like a tabletop."

The phone rang. Lauren jumped up to answer it in the kitchen.

Flynn took over the story.

"I sent it out for more analysis. Turns out the wood is ebony. An unusual wood for furniture, a highly unusual wood for flooring. For us, that's good. We went back to the contractor who built the new buildings at the Silky Road and asked him if the flooring sub used any ebony." "The doorways," I said.

"There's a dark border on each side of all the entry-door thresholds. Is that ebony?"

Flynn nodded.

"That's right. According to the contractor, that wood bordering each door is ebony," Flynn said.

"We've concluded that there's a high degree of probability that the girls were killed at the Silky Road."

Two minutes later Lauren rejoined us in the living room and said, "Excuse me.

Everybody? Percy Smith is on the phone. There's a fire burning at the Silky Road Ranch. He wants to talk to Flynn."

Before he'd called my house trying to track down Flynn Coe, Percy Smith had already interviewed Sylvie Amato.

Sylvie had first smelled smoke while she was watching ESPN, hoping for some late coverage of women's tennis, which was her main summer thing. Skiing was her main winter thing. Sylvie had been killing time while waiting for her boyfriend, Jeff, to get home from his bar tending gig in town. They rented the old frame house that the two lesbian housekeepers had occupied when Gloria Welle was still alive. Sylvie also earned a few extra bucks by working as resident caretaker on the ranch and by acting as loyal gofer for Welle and his entourage during their infrequent visits to the Elk River Valley. I recalled that Sylvie was the one who had fetched me coffee in the Dilbert mug while I was cooling my heels with Phil Barrett waiting for Ray Welle to return from hitting nine with Joey Franklin. I imagined that her two jobs left Sylvie plenty of time to play tennis in the summer and to ski in the winter.

The smell of smoke on a warm early-summer night had been sufficient to yank Sylvie's attention away from the tube. She lifted her strong body from the floor in front of the TV to an open north-facing window and sniffed enough dry mountain air to conclude that the source of the smoke was probably an illegal campfire. She guessed the trespassers were somewhere down by the river or maybe even farther east, along the banks of Mad Creek. God, she hoped that nobody was camping on the ranch. She'd catch hell from Phil Barrett if he discovered that the perimeter of the Silky Road was being violated.

Sylvie pulled on some shoes and stepped from the kitchen out onto the covered porch that wrapped around three sides of the old ranch house. She was hoping to see the flicker of campfire flames someplace down-valley to reassure herself that whoever had pitched a tent had done so well outside the fences of the Silky Road.

She scanned the western sky and searched the wooded banks of the Elk River. She didn't see any sign of a fire down there, but the smell of smoke was even stronger than it had been before. As she turned the corner of the porch to check in another direction she couldn't miss the fact that the sky to the southwest was lit up like a carnival midway. Sylvie was certain that she was looking at a forest fire that was burning dangerously close by.

She ran inside and called 911.

The volunteer fire department from the tiny up-valley town of Clark arrived at the Silky Road Ranch minutes before the professional firefighters made it up the hill from Steamboat Springs. Both companies had steeled themselves for the grueling task of trying to contain an incipient forest fire that would immediately threaten life, property, and some of the most beautiful wilderness in the state. But what they discovered instead was a building fire that had fully engulfed the bunkhouse at the Silky Road Ranch. The roof of the adjacent stable was just starting to smolder. The closest woods were at least two hundred yards away though, and so far, no embers had drifted over to ignite the trees.

Since the bunkhouse was unoccupied, the firefighters sacrificed it and concentrated their attention on the stable, which they saved. They also managed to keep embers from igniting the drying grasses or the nearby trees.

Percy Smith harbored no doubts that the cause of the fire had been arson.

Lauren decided to stay in Boulder.

I could tell that she was eager to go to Steamboat with her, Flynn, Russ, and me, and I assumed that she was staying behind in order to conserve her strength for the baby. It was one of the first of countless sacrifices she and I would make for someone we had not yet met.

Kimber and I drove up to Steamboat in my car, with Flynn and Russ following in the rented Taurus. Kimber donned dark sunglasses and stretched out in the backseat with headphones from a CD player over his ears and a big felt hat resting on his face. Every twenty minutes or so he said something reassuring like, "I know you're worried about me and I'm fine." I was worried and I appreciated the reassurance, but the three-hour-plus drive passed slowly. With him in back acting dead, I thought it was kind of like driving a hearse.

Kimber had been dreading checking into a big hotel in Steamboat, and when I described the B and B Lauren and I had stayed at near Howelsen Hill he seemed enamored of it. I used my portable phone to call Libby, the owner of the bed-and-breakfast, and reserved the last three rooms she had available. Once again, it appeared that Flynn and Russ were going to need to come to some sleeping accommodation. I told Libby not to expect any of us until midafternoon.

She wouldn't let me off the phone until she had told me everything she knew about the fire at Glorias Silky Road. The whole town was apparently already talking about the arson. She said word was that the accelerant had been gasoline. Everyone was still working to come up with a satisfactory motive. She was pretty certain she'd hear something good by the afternoon.

The midday sun burned through a cloudless sky. Tourists packed the sidewalks along Lincoln Avenue in Steamboat Springs, wandering aimlessly from shop to shop. Traffic crawled stoplight to stoplight behind an endless parade of construction trucks. The combination of the heat and the mindless tourism was discouraging to me. I was grateful to make it the entire way through town and begin the gentle climb up into the valley that ran along the banks of the Elk River.

I told Kimber we were entering some beautiful country that he might want to see.

I had to yell to be heard above his music. He groaned back, equally loudly, "Don't worry about me, I'm fine." He remained supine on the seat with the hat still planted over his face. I knew at that moment that if my clinical practice fell apart I wasn't likely to make it as a chauffeur.

Russ and Flynn had passed us at a light in town and were waiting at the closed gate of the Silky Road.

"We haven't buzzed anyone yet," Russ said.

"Figured you would be along soon. Where's Kimber? In the trunk?"

"Kimber's right here," Kimber said, raising himself to a sitting position in the backseat. He fumbled with his headphones.

"Of course there is no way that Beethoven could have imagined it, but his symphonies provide a remarkable accompaniment to a long automobile ride. I wonder why that is."