Diane Davidson - Tough Cookie

“Yeah,” she said, “Rorry’s getting close, now. With that baby about to pop, I’m surprised she came up to the bistro yesterday.”

“But she did,” I said. “Unfortunately, I was so busy yesterday that I didn’t get a chance to talk with her very much. I know she’s an employee of Killdeer Corp and lives in a trailer, but I don’t know where she works or have her exact address or phone number any more. Any ideas?”

The patrolwoman harnessed the sled to her shoulders. “Last I heard, Rorry was working the night shift at the container warehouse. I’m pretty sure her number is listed. Oh, and she has the only green-and-white mobile home in Killdeer.” She expertly stamped snow off her boots, signaling that she was ready to go.

“Ah,” I said hesitantly. “Do you think it’s okay to talk to Rorry about the avalanche? I kind of got weird vibes from her yesterday.”

The patrolwoman shrugged inside her harness, then pointed to two patrol members working the bottom of the slope. “Ask Gail. The tall one. She knows Rorry pretty well. She was also on the search team that found Nate.”

I thanked her and galumphed between skiers and boarders to Gail, whose windburned, leathery face was framed with long, shiny black hair pulled off her forehead with a thick red band. I scanned the slope—still no Arch. As I introduced myself to Gail, I recognized her: she was the woman who’d pulled me up from the snow yesterday morning, when I’d fallen after disembarking from the gondola. She recognized me, too, and said I’d done a great job on the Bullock fund-raiser. How about that , I thought. A compliment, for a change!

I told her I was looking for my son and his friend, both snowboarders, both late. Gail asked for their description and said she hadn’t seen them, but she’d keep an eye out.

“The patrolwoman over there by the map?” I asked. “The one with the sled? I told her I was a friend of the Bullocks. She mentioned you were on one of the search teams that went out for Nate.”

Gail nodded sadly. “Yeah, I was.”

“Uh, Rorry and I were real close before she moved to Killdeer. I’d like to hook up with her again, bring her some casseroles for when the baby arrives. But she seemed to be in an awfully bad mood when I saw her yesterday …”

“That figures. The memorial is hard on her, I think. And of course, losing Nate, and then their baby, that was horrible, too.”

I’m not sad, Goldy. Just puzzled .

“Uh,” I ventured, “the patrolwoman over there said an avalanche hadn’t come down Elk Ridge for thirty years.”

Gail shrugged. “You get the right snow conditions, a slope steeper than thirty degrees, a trigger, it could happen anywhere. That’s why we set explosives on some peaks. We want to anticipate slides.”

“But there wasn’t an explosive trigger for the avalanche that killed Nate. Or was there?” Before she could answer, I heard a familiar yell: Mom! followed by Goldy Schulz! just in case there was any doubt what Mom was being summoned.

From the other end of the run, Arch waved at me with both hands. “Hey, Mom! ” He and Todd, their snowboards leashed to their ankles, scooted toward me. Snow clung to Todd’s hat, jacket, pants, and mittens. His lowered chin indicated discouragement, pain, and embarrassment. He must have taken an awfully bad fall. At least he hadn’t had to be carried off the slope. Speaking of which.

“The other patroller said you were on the team that actually brought out Nate’s body,” I said to Gail.

Gail flipped her glossy hair back and scowled at the mountain. “There was a report, all public record, if you want to look it up. I read about you in the paper, wanting to do your own investigations.”

I shook my head. “I want to know what’s bothering Rorry. I just don’t want to say something to her that would hurt her feelings—”

Gail’s voice softened. “We believe there was a human trigger for the avalanche. So you might not even want to mention the slide to Rorry.”

“What?”

She looked away. “It’s all public record,” she repeated. “There were three sets of tracks at the Elk Ridge trailhead that day. It’s a well-marked hiking area in the summertime, but this was winter, with seven inches of new snow. We saw two sets of boot prints going up, one Nate’s, one somebody else’s. Snow-depth was almost identical, so there’s reason to believe Nate went up with somebody. Still, it’s not impossible that the other person came up later. It’s just unlikely—”

I stopped her. “Why is it unlikely?”

“If you follow someone else, you usually step in their tracks. It makes it easier to walk. Nate’s and this other person’s tracks were side by side.”

“Somebody else was hit by the avalanche that day, but didn’t get killed? Or was killed and never found?”

“No,” Gail corrected patiently, holding me with her dark eyes. Arch and Todd were twenty feet away. “Somebody went partway up the path with Nate. Then his companion or whoever split off and went up the ridge. Nate descended to the valley. We don’t know why he went there. His footprints led into the slide. We didn’t find him for five hours. By then, he’d suffocated.”

“And the third set of tracks?”

Again I got the dark eyes. “Nate’s companion came back down. Running, from the look of the tracks. We never found out who he was. Or she. I don’t know if anyone ever told Rorry about the second person on the slope that day. Probably she knows anyway. So as I say, you might not want to talk to her about it.” She strode away to admonish a skier who’d slammed into an entire family.

Openmouthed, I struggled to process what I’d just been told. Two sets of tracks up? One down? Did Rorry indeed know about Nate’s companion? And who could it have been? Why hadn’t that person ever shown up?

“Mom!” Arch was panting. His flushed cheeks were wet with melted snow. “Todd got hit by a lady skier. She bounced off him and crashed into me. Major yard sale and I’m not kidding. Then she yelled at us for getting in her way. I told her, ‘Y’ever heard of Yield to the downhill skier?’ and she shouted, ‘You’re not a skier!’”

I consoled him while he brushed clumps of snow from his shoulders and complained of prejudice against snowboarders. Poor Todd shuffled up and I asked if he was all right. His ambiguous I guess was followed by a request to take him back to his condo, which I did.

Arch fell asleep in the Range Rover within five minutes of our leaving Killdeer. By the time I pulled into High Country Towing in Dillon, he was snoring. A man in oil-splashed coveralls unlocked the gates to a lot crammed with vehicles, all of which had seen better days. When I caught sight of my ruined van, an unexpected lump rose in my throat. My trustworthy vehicle, its Goldilocks’ Catering, Where Everything Is Just Right! now crumpled and illegible, had been my companion through years of catering. The van’s sorry state seemed an omen of the loss of my business. I patted the bumper and bid it a silent farewell. Then, before the overall-guy could call the local mental health center, I scooped up Tom’s skis—miraculously unharmed—as well as my own ski gear and my backpack, and roared toward home.

Arch woke up as we pulled into our driveway. I needed to talk to Tom about all I’d learned, about Barton Reed, the cancer-suffering convict; Jack Gilkey, the paroled chef; Arthur Wakefield, the wine-loving antiparole activist; and Boots Faraday, the savagely unfriendly artist who’d hated the town’s art critic. But visiting time at the jail was almost over, and Tom had promised Arch he’d take him down to see his father. Before they left, Tom added that he wanted to help me make dinner, so I should wait until he returned to start.