Stephen White - Cold Case

"Ideal," he declared.

I was a reluctant chauffeur. I held no illusions that Dorothy Levin was still alive and didn't really want to be around when her body was discovered after so many days in the wilderness. And I felt relatively certain that her body would be somewhere in the wildneress. Because, other than a few working ranches, including the one owned by the Franklins, and a couple of dude ranches for tourists, pretty much all there is around dark is wilderness. I wanted to remember Dorothy for her insouciance and her wit. I didn't want a picture of her decomposing flesh etched in my memory. I hoped that Flynn and Russ didn't expect me to identify her.

As we drove past the gate to Glorias Silky Road Ranch I decided that I would deliver Kimber to the general store in Clark and announce to Flynn and Russ that my errands were over for the evening. I would drive back down to my cozy bed in Steamboat, sleep as late as I could, and enjoy a big breakfast the next morning.

I didn't see any reason to change my plans to return to Boulder.

* * * A sign along the right side of the county road welcomes visitors to Clark, Colorado. The sign states that the town was established on September 16, 1889, that its elevation is 7271 feet above sea level, and that its population is "?"

A quick glance at the tiny village convinced me that when Flynn, russ, Kimber, and I rendezvoused at the general store we would temporarily elevate the population of Clark from the single to the double digits.

When Kimber and I arrived, the parking area outside the store was empty except for a pair of old analog gas pumps and a white Ford Econoline that appeared to have been parked in the same spot for many more days than Dorothy had been missing from her hotel room. A moment after I stopped the car Kimber sat up on the backseat. His complexion was pasty, his face was dotted with beads of sweat, and he was on the verge of hyperventilating.

"I'm not doing real well," he announced.

My clinical appraisal was that Kimber's assessment was an understatement. I asked, "How's your pulse?"

"Too fast"

"Chest pains?"

"Not yet." Great.

"Do you take any medication for this?" I'd wanted to ask that question since I'd learned about the panic disorder, but I'd been hesitant to relate to Kimber as a clinician. Many sufferers have their symptoms largely controlled by medication.

"I've tried them all. I either can't tolerate them or they don't help."

Wonderful.

"Don't worry, I'll be okay. Are they here yet?" He didn't bother to look for himself.

Panic disorder is a physical ailment more than a psychological one. In the face of no apparent danger, the body begins to prepare the organism for a potentially cataclysmic confrontation. It prepares for the coming fight by releasing adrenaline, increasing respiration, changing blood-flow patterns, and sharpening the senses. I could talk to Kimber until he and I were both blue in the face-I wasn't going to do anything to readjust his raging hormone secretion. In fact, the stimulation of my efforts might aggravate his condition even further.

I answered, "No, they're not here. We must have made good time. What would be helpful to you right now, Kimber?"

"I think I'll lie back down until they get here. Close my eyes. The dark is good for me usually. And the music helps, if you don't mind."

I didn't mind. I set the ignition so that the accessories had power and stepped out of the car. The sky was cloudless and most of the stars in the universe seemed to have chosen that night for a convention above the Mount Zirkel Wilderness. The air at seven thousand plus feet was cool, and I wished I'd grabbed a sweater from my room before leaving Steamboat.

Van Morrison crooned at me from inside the closed car.

What did I wish right then? I wished I were in a cozy cabin somewhere on the outskirts of Clark reclining in front of a warm fire with an arm around my wife.

What did I have instead? Beneath a canopy of stars I was standing sentry for an agoraphobic forensic genius who was having a panic attack in the backseat of my car while I was waiting for a guided tour to the site of the decomposing body of a woman who I wished had never died.

Either I was fresh out of wishes or my genie was on vacation.

I walked far enough from the car that I couldn't hear the music that was comforting Kimber in the backseat. Three dozen steps away I was blanketed in a quiet that was absolutely surreal. The air was still and it was as though the trees were holding their collective breath, trying not to rustle a single leaf.

I strained to hear the water rushing over stones in the Elk River a quarter mile distant, but couldn't. Even the crickets had paused from their incessant chirping. The loudest sound in the universe was the blood rushing through blood vessels near my ears. That sound seemed to roar.

I spotted headlights weaving up-valley through Clark before I sensed the hum of an approaching engine. The headlights moved toward me patiently, deliberately.

As the car slowed and began to forge a slow turn into the dirt lot in front of the Clark general store, I'd already come to the conclusion that the person driving the car couldn't possibly be Russ Claven.

The vehicle, an early Ford Explorer, approached mine in the lot. I stayed put outside the arc of lights from the store and watched as the car stopped not alongside, but rather directly behind mine. I didn't think

Kimber could hear its approach above the lyrical strains of Tupelo Honey. The door of the Explorer opened. Using both hands on the frame of the door for support, Phil Barrett pulled himself from the driver's seat and stepped out.

My mind generated quick questions. Where are Russ and Flynn? How did Phil know he could find Kimber and me up here? Why did he park his car behind my car?

The crickets resumed their symphony and the wind lifted a thousand million leaves all at once. The blood rushing to my ears quieted. I moved sideways two steps until I was hidden behind a tree.

Phil Barrett banged on the window of the car and seconds later tugged open the driver's door. The interior lights flashed on. I was afraid that the intrusion was a sufficient shock to give Kimber a coronary, but when Kimber popped up in the backseat, it was Phil who hopped back, startled. With the door open Van Morrison was blaring loudly enough to awaken everyone who lived within a hundred yards. I assumed that was no one. Phil reached into the car and killed the ignition power.

"You alone, Mr. Lister? I was told to expect to find both you and Dr. Gregory here." Who told you that, Phil?

I couldn't hear Kimber's reply. He was cupping both hands over his eyes.

Finally his rotund voice crossed the dusty lot. I heard him say, "Would you close that door, please, Mr. Barrett? The lights are so bright." Phil said, "The sheriff asked me to bring the two of you along to join Dr. Claven and Ms. Coe." "The sheriff of… what?" Kimber continued to shade his face with both of his hands.

"Routt County. It's his jurisdiction. The body was found up in the Mount Zirkel Wilderness. The whole blow down up there is in his jurisdiction."

Kimber was climbing out of the backseat. He asked, "What is that? What's a blow down

I knew what the blow down was. It had been big news a few years earlier. In October of 1997 freak winds, estimated at over 120 miles per hour, tore across the ridge tops on the western side of northern Colorado's Continental Divide.

In one specific area of the Mount Zirkel Wilderness called the Routt Divide, just a few miles south of Clark, the winds were so fierce that they flattened entire forests that had once extended over twenty thousand acres. Where the winds struck hardest they either felled the trees or uprooted them. Not occasional trees toppled, but every tree fell to the ground. From the air, the massive forests appeared to have been harvested by a giant scythe. Forest Service estimates had over a million trees either uprooted or sheared from the landscape in a matter of minutes. On the ground the once grand forests were reduced to immense mounds of unstable rubble.