Stephen White - Cold Case

"Yeah. Let me get a shower, wake up a little. I want my head to be clear when I tell her what happened to Mariko. Ask her if that's okay."

Sam sauntered over and spoke to Satoshi before he returned to my car.

"She said that she's waited years and that minutes and hours are irrelevant."

While I was spending my day in custody, the bedrooms at the B and B had been shuffled. Satoshi was going to share Kimber's room with Flynn, and Sam was bunking with Russ. I was delighted to make room in my bed for Lauren.

I showered for almost twenty minutes. The shower could have been better only if Lauren had offered to soap my back and any other parts of my body particularly in need of attention. But she didn't.

Russ had made arrangements with Libby for us all to dine together privately in the breakfast room of the B and B. As barter he had offered her gossip-laden details that wouldn't be in the next mornings paper about what had transpired in the blow down Libby had made some calls to get enough food delivered for a feast and was supplying the beer and wine herself. Russ suspected that she was angling for an invitation to the repast. But it wouldn't be forthcoming. He asked me what I thought about Libby attending. I voted no. He asked me if I wanted to invite Percy Smith. I voted no again. This was going to be a very private party.

The aromas of nourishment greeted me-I thought I smelted abundant garlic and a blast of curry-as I toweled off from my shower and began to shave away the whiskers of the last thirty-six hours. I scraped my face in short strokes in an effort to keep my hand from shaking. The reality of what had transpired since the previous sundown was descending upon me with a gravity that left me fighting back tears. I felt a sense of guilt about what had happened to Kimber but found most of my compassion directed to Dell Franklin, who seemed the most complete victim in the whole tragedy.

Lauren could tell that I was taking too long in the bathroom. She finally entered without knocking and embraced me from behind.

"We're all okay," she whispered.

"All three of us." I stopped fighting back my tears, and together we slunk down to the damp floor. We huddled together on the tiny octagonal tiles until most of our fears were soothed away.

The night started in the kitchen of the B and B and ended where everything having to do with me and Locard and the two dead girls had begun-on Joey Franklin's time-share jet. The party that occurred in between wasn't a festive affair. It was more like a hybrid between sitting shivah and attending an Irish wake. There was no shortage of lives to celebrate and unfortunately no shortage of lives to mourn.

There were a lot of stories to tell.

The first thing I did after I finished dressing was search out Satoshi. I found her where she had been waiting for me in the parlor. I took her by the hand and led her into the deserted kitchen of the B and B so we could be alone.

She hopped up to sit on the Up of the granite-topped island. She said, "I have a feeling I shouldn't be standing."

I sat on a stool.

"I probably shouldn't be standing either." I caressed my tired eyes with my knuckles.

"Are you ready, whatever that means?"

Satoshi nodded.

"I've been waiting a long time."

"Okay." I started with

"I know how your sister died," and told the story of Mariko's senseless murder deliberately so that Satoshi could chew each detail separately and digest it slowly, the way she had nibbled away her carton of yogurt the day we'd first met at Stanford.

She wept almost nonstop while I spoke, but she refused my offers of comfort.

"They were both heroes," she said when she was certain I was done.

"Mariko and Tami."

"Yes," I agreed.

Her next question surprised me in the way that people often do. She asked, "What's going to happen to Mr. Franklin? Do you think there's a possibility that I can talk to him?" I said I didn't know. I said it twice. Then I added, "He knows what Joey did to you, Satoshi. He just found out."

She raised her chin, stretching her smooth neck. She lowered it, and turned her head once left, then right, before she said, "Your voice? I'm beginning to know its melodies. You're wondering if I've changed my mind, if I'm going to press charges against Joey, aren't you?"

"Yes. I am."

"I can't prove what happened back then. And if I accuse Joey, you know that he'll deny it." She examined the flesh on the palm of her left hand as though God's own advice was inscribed there.

"What I'm thinking right now is this: My parents managed to survive this tragedy with one child remaining. Perhaps so should Dell Franklin."

She smiled at me with warmth, but no mirth, and asked to be left alone for a while.

When I rejoined the group, Sam and Lauren were listening to Flynn and Russ describe how they had been lured to the blow down to help with the recovery of Dorothy Levins body. Flynn excused herself at the conclusion of that part of the story so that she could keep a promise to visit Kimber at the hospital.

Everyone but Sam was done eating before it was my turn to describe how Kimber and I had been lured to the blow down and what had happened afterward in the Routt Divide with Phil Barrett and with Dell and Cathy Franklin.

It was near midnight before Russ answered the last question about what had transpired after dawn with Raymond Welle at the Silky Road Ranch.

Lauren said, "I'm ready for bed, I think. If I'm this tired, the rest of you must be exhausted."

"I sure am," said Satoshi, who had finally rejoined the group.

Just then Russ's cell phone chirped in his pocket. He stood and carried it to the bay window before he began speaking. I couldn't hear many words of his conversation.

When he walked back to the table he held the phone out in front of him and said, "Apparently Flynn and I are going back to the District tonight. Kimber wants to be in his own fortified castle-which isn't surprising-before the press discovers everything that happened here. He apparently talked the anesthesiologist into giving him a scale the block-it's a nerve block of his arm and shoulder-so he's not going to be in any pain for the next ten hours or so.

The surgeon isn't thrilled about his leaving, but…" Russ shrugged his shoulders.

"Kimbers hired a nurse to accompany him home. Dell Franklin arranged to have Joey's jet waiting at the airport. I'm supposed to go upstairs and pack up Flynn's things and meet them at the plane."

"Is Dell out of jail?" I asked.

"Apparently on personal recognizance."

"Thank God."

Lauren turned to me and said, "We need to say good-bye to Kimber, Alan. It's important."

"And I'd really like to meet him before he goes," said Satoshi.

"I want to thank him."

We made it to the Yampa Valley Regional Airport about forty-five minutes later.

Satoshi, Lauren, and I spent the drive crammed together in the backseat of Sam's old Cherokee.

The jet was ready when we arrived. So was Hans. He stood tall at the top of the short stairs with his hands behind his back.

Flynn greeted us on the tarmac. Her eye patch was plastered with tiny iridescent stars. It looked just like the night sky above the Routt Divide. She said, "Kimbers already on board. He'd like to meet with Satoshi alone before we take off. Because of his… uh, condition… he's never had the chance to meet any family members after Locard has finished one of the investigations.

It's important to him that he talk with her."

Satoshi hesitated. She gestured toward the jet with her chin and said, "It's not really Joey's plane, right?" Russ said, "Nah, it's a rental."

She mouthed something to herself and climbed the stairs to the cabin. Hans escorted her inside.