Diane Davidson - The Main Corpse

“Marla, I need to talk to you about something,” I said when we dug into the heaps of steaming Chinese food. “I’d like you to take a good look at that map. You know the partners and the investors better than any of us. There could be a bank, an airstrip, somebody these guys know in a nearby town… anything that looks reasonable as a possibility of where one or both of them could have gone. We could skip going back to where we were tracking Tony, and try to assess his direction, pick up a fresher scent.”

When we finished, Bo and Arch washed the dishes in water they’d brought in from the pump and heated on the cookstove. Marla and I spread out the map on Lady Maureen’s striped back. We studied it and tried to peer into the mind of Albert Lipscomb. Or were we trying to psych out Tony Royce? Or both? Or someone else?

The campsite was a stopping point amid a network of trails that ran through the Arapahoe National Forest: The trail we’d been on with Jake was clearly marked. It followed Grizzly Creek and then crossed it, then came down to a four-wheel-drive road that led to Interstate 70 and Georgetown to the west, Idaho Springs to the east.

I pointed to the map. “Whoever we’re tracking, whoever has Tony, has a two-day lead on us. So where would one or both of the Prospect partners, or one of their clients be going?”

Marla nestled her large body into the tiger skin and stared down at the map. A scarlet-painted nail pointed. “If one of the clients is behind all this, then I have no idea. They could be at Denver International Airport, they could be in the Nevada desert.” She paused. “But if it’s Tony and/or Albert, we could look in one of two places, I’d say. The two of them shared a house, sort of a mountain hideaway, in Estes Park. What’s that, seventy miles from here? But you’d have to go east and then north from here. That’s not the way Jake was leading us.”

“Seventy miles,” I repeated. I was suddenly so tired. My wet hair had dried, finally, but my muscles ached from the strain of the day. “What’s your second idea?”

Marla said, “If Albert has three and a half million in cash from the Prospect account, he wouldn’t want to carry it in this weather across a mountainous forest trail to find his partner, for whatever reason. So he’d have to stash it someplace.” She tapped the map. “This is the direction we were heading. Northwest. Straight in the direction of the Eurydice Gold Mine.” She looked at me. “Someone could have stashed the cash in one of those buildings by the mine. There’s nobody up there, since they haven’t hired a team to start exploration work. Plus, there’s that safe deep in the Eurydice Mine, about a half-mile in. You know, that’s where they keep those gold bars and samples.”

I said, “And guess what I’d be willing to bet? They weren’t samples from the Eurydice. But why wouldn’t somebody, Captain Shockley especially, have gone inside the mine in the last week to check whether the samples were still there? I know he went up there when Albert was first missing, but the place was all locked up.”

Marla shrugged. “Well, Albert knows the place well.

Stir-fry Chicken with Asparagus

4 chicken breast halves (approximately 1 ˝ pounds), cut into 1/2-inch-thick, bite-size pieces

1 egg white

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 tablespoon dry sherry

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 small (6-ounce) onion, halved and thinly sliced

1 garlic clove, pressed

2 tablespoons canola oil

1 ˝ cup water

1 pound fresh asparagus, trimmed of woody stems and cut diagonally into 2-inch slices

˝ cup canned water chestnuts, drained and sliced

˝ cup black bean sauce (available in the Oriental food section of the grocery store)

Freshly ground black pepper Approximately 4 cups of cooked, hot medium-grain rice In a glass pie pan, thoroughly mix the egg white, cornstarch, sherry, soy sauce, onion, and garlic. Marinate the chicken pieces in this mixture for 30 minutes to no more than an hour.

In a large frying pan or wok, heat the oil over moderately high heat. Stir-fry the marinated chicken for several minutes, until it is just done. Do not overcook the chicken. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Reheat the pan over high heat and add the water. Quickly stir up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan, then add the asparagus, water chestnuts, and black bean sauce. Cover the pan and cook over medium heat for 2 to 5 minutes, until the asparagus is bright green but still crunchy. Add the chicken. Stir over medium-high heat until the mixture is heated through. Season to taste with pepper. Serve immediately over hot rice.

Serves 4.

If you cannot find flack bean sauce in the Oriental section of your local grocery store, the grocery manager should be able to order it for you. The brand I use id Ka-Me. I ceased being frustrated by its frequent unavailability at my local store once I started ordering it by the case. Order forms are usually available at the customer service desk; the order generally takes about two weeks to a month to fill. Ordering by the case usually means you will receive a substantial discount.

I mean, he’s the owner, but they didn’t have him around to sign a consent-to-search. And what are the cops going to do, get a warrant to traipse through a mine? That string of lights doesn’t go back very far I can’t believe someone from law enforcement would go deep into the Eurydice Mine just to look around.” She paused. “On the other hand, Albert certainly wouldn’t make a getaway without all that gold. It’s worth a couple hundred thousand at least.”

I said, “But still… if Albert’s – or the disguised bald person’s – point was to steal Prospect’s assets, why wouldn’t he or she have gone into the mine to get the gold samples sometime in the last week?” Wait a minute. I remembered back to the party, when Albert and Tony had both entered the mine to get the samples. Why wouldn’t just one of them have gone, with a wheelbarrow? Why would they both go? “What do you know about the mine safe?” I quickly asked Marla. “How hard is it to get into?”

“Oh my gosh,” Marla said suddenly. “Oh, Lord. This isn’t generally known. I’ll bet even Captain Shockley doesn’t know. Opening that safe is like using nukes on a sub.”

“Wow,” Arch interrupted. “You mean when you have two guys with encoded messages? Then each guy uses his key to activate the weapons? It’s so cool. You can’t do it alone. That’s to keep some crazy guy from like, blowing up the world.” I gave Marla a hard look. She said, “It takes Albert and Tony both to open the mine safe.”

19

General Bo rubbed his hand over his mowed scalp. “So,” he observed, “if our villain is after money – and so far he’s proven that he is, if he’s the same guy who hit the bank-then he’s got to drag his partner up to that mine to get the gold out. Framing Marla was a brilliant way to get the authorities off his track, so he could have time to cash in and then get out.”

“But why ruin the company?” I asked. “And why wait a week to do all this? There has to be some other explanation. Maybe this evidence points to some other person. Some other motivation.”

Marla and I hashed it through. Eileen Tobey would know about theatrical disguises, the proximity of the cabin, the existence of the gold bars. Plus, she hated Tony and loved money. The clients closest to Tony and Albert were the Trotfields and the Hardcastles. They stood to lose a lot of money if the mine investment was a scam. Sam Perdue desperately needed capital for his soup restaurant chain. Victoria Lear, one of the primary rebuffers-of-Sam, had learned the lie of L-208.

Had anyone else? Who besides Marla and the two partners knew of the two-lock safe deep inside the Eurydice? Maybe Tony had another girlfriend. Maybe Albert had told someone else, like the police captain in charge of security.