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  Cold Case

  Stephen White

  An elite club of quirky criminologists asks psychologist Alan Gregory and his pregnant wife, Assistant District Attorney Lauren Crowder, to help solve a ten-year-old case.

  Whites shrewd mystery, the eighth and best in the series since Remote Control (1997), doubles as an engrossing catalogue of lonely misfits and aging oddballs for whom the murder of two teenaged girls becomes a metaphor for their own inability to put their pasts behind them. The girls disappear one night in 1988 after visiting the ranch of Boulder, Colorado, psychotherapist and talk-radio host Raymond Welle.

  Several months later, their mutilated corpses are discovered many miles away in a melting snowdrift. Sheriff Phil Barrett attributes their death to an unknown psycho, and the bodies are buried. In the subsequent decade, Dr. Welle becomes a national celebrity when an apparently disgruntled former patient takes Welle's wife hostage, then kills her shortly before Sheriff Barrett's sharpshooters blow him away. Welle writes a best selling self-help book and gets elected to the US Congress, taking Barrett along as his chief of staff. The area near the ranch, targeted for development by a Japanese group, is now a tourist trap owned and funded by local businessmen who may have made suspicious contributions to Welle's campaign. Locard, a weird Washington, D.C., group that specializes in solving old crimes, draws in Gregory and Crowder (whose first husband was the brother of Welle's deceased wife) but insists that they remain discrete.

  In a matter of days, brassy Washington Post reporter Dorothy Levin begins investigating Welle's finances, the congressman ducks an assassination attempt, and Gregory finds the list of patients who may have slept with the charismatic therapist getting longer and longer. Superbly insightful, with delightful minor characters (including a feisty one-eyed forensic investigator with designer eye- patches) and a plot that races along, falling flat only at the end when far too many gun-toting villains talk… and talk… and talk

  Stephen White

  Cold Case

  The eighth book in the Dr. Alan Gregory series

  To Rose and Xan, the loves of my life Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird. Harper Lee

  PROLOGUE.

  No one had anticipated the need for security, so there wasn't any. Briefly, back in 1988, things had been different. After what happened to the two local girls that year, some of the ranchers began carrying loaded rifles and shotguns in their pickup trucks. A few went so far as to strap handguns to their hips while they did their chores. But that geyser of paranoia didn't endure, and four years later, in the spring of 1992, Colorado 's Elk River Valley just didn't feel like a dangerous place.

  The Silky Road Ranch filled a horseshoe canyon on the west side of the valley.

  The ranch was rimmed on three sides by the gentle slopes of the Routt National Forest and shadowed by the high wilds of the Mount Zirkel Wilderness. The northern edge of the Silky Road abutted the banks of Mad Creek while the open end of the horseshoe lined the county road that ran along the swell of the Elk River.

  The new ranch house-of logs and stone imported from southern France-was situated to the south and west of a thick stand of aspen trees, the dwelling meandering over 5,306 square feet on one level. The two housekeepers who managed the estate were a lesbian couple in their forties who lived a quarter mile away in the original frame house that had been built on the ranch when it was christened the Crooked Diamond spread in 1908. Care of the ranch's 316 acres of land and its twenty-seven horses required two full-time hands who bunked in better-than-average quarters adjacent to the modern stable.

  Gloria Welle loved her ranch and treasured the house that she had designed, as she told the second of her three architects the day before she fired him, "to appear to have been built by someone who had moved gleefully from Providence to the Colorado Rockies." Her stable-she would never refer to the building as a barn-was designed to the same exacting specifications as her home. Gloria adored every one of her horses, confided intimacies to her two cowboys, and tolerated her rather apathetic gay housekeepers because she didn't want it to appear to anyone in the valley that she might be letting them go solely because of their sexual orientation. Sometimes she prayed at night that the girls, as she called them, would just see fit to resign. But Gloria prayed as she did most things not involving money, which is to say haphazardly, and the girls stayed on.

  The day that Brian Sample knocked on the front door of the sprawling pseudo French country house the housekeepers were in town running errands and the cowboys were in Gallup picking up the two new horses that Gloria had purchased on a recent trip to New Mexico. Gloria's husband. Dr. Raymond Welle, was at his clinical psychology office on the second floor of a nicely renovated old mercantile building on Lincoln Avenue in nearby downtown Steamboat Springs.

  When Gloria threw open her front door she probably didn't know her visitor's name, though he might have seemed vaguely familiar to her. No doubt she had seen him once or twice around town. The person she greeted was a middle-aged man wearing freshly laundered Levis corduroys, a neatly pressed blue chambray shirt, and good cowboy boots. For many of Steamboat's residents this outfit constituted their Sunday's best, and Brian Sample's presence at her door likely caused no alarm to cross Gloria's face.

  People who knew him well say that Brian Sample probably smiled in his own shy way-his eyes deflected off" to one side-before he introduced himself and asked if he could come in. Given the events in his life over the previous year, though, he may have forgone the smile. If the worn black cowboy hat that he called his "day-off" hat was still on his head when Gloria answered the door, Brian would have removed it or at the very least tipped it as he greeted her.

  People who knew her insist that Gloria wouldn't have considered her alternatives for long. She would have quickly invited the stranger into her living room, which was a cavernous post-and-beam enclosure that was large enough to entertain most of a traveling circus. Gloria was especially proud of the room and loved to show it to strangers.

  It appears likely that Brian Sample didn't display his true intentions to Gloria Welle for, say, twenty minutes or so. During that time, Gloria fixed them both some Celestial Seasonings tea-Sleepytime for herself, Red Zinger for him. Given that Ranelle and Jane, the housekeepers, were gone for the morning, Gloria went to some special trouble preparing the refreshments, cutting a slice of lemon for her guest to squeeze into his Red Zinger. Gloria didn't take lemon in her tea.

  She also set out some Girl Scout Cookies on a ceramic plate, one she had thrown and fired herself during one of her periodic self-improvement phases. The selection of cookies included both Trefoils and Thin Mints. Girl Scout Cookie deliveries had taken place a few months before, but Gloria always bought in quantity. The only surprise was that she was willing to share her Thin Mints with a relative stranger. Gloria's friends often joked about her addiction to Thin Mints.

  Most locals assumed that if Gloria and Brian talked casually, they probably talked about horses. Perhaps they even discovered that they both used the same large-animal veterinarian, Lurinda Gimble. Horses was definitely Glorias favorite conversational topic. And it hovered somewhere in Brian's top three or four, though it certainly came in after his two boys-and after fly-fishing.

  If Gloria was in one of her infrequent moods when she allowed herself to pay attention to her guest, as opposed to paying attention only to her own graciousness as a hostess, she would have found Brian to be a tired, sad man who had recently picked at his cuticles until they were cracked and bloody. She might have heard him talk about the family and emotional problems that had forced him to lose not only his business, but also, imminently he feared, his home. Although it wouldn't have been like him to go into it, he might also ha
ve mentioned his recent failed suicide attempt, a clumsy overdose of Valium and penicillin that had caused him more humiliation than medical risk. Virtually everyone with an opinion believes Gloria must have heard Brian Sample vent about his rage at his psychologist, who happened to be Gloria's husband. Dr. Raymond Welle.

  Folks think that it was sometime after the tea was poured and before the cookies were gone that Gloria learned that she was being taken hostage. People in the Elk River Valley still argue about whether or not Brian initially had anything else on his mind that day or whether what happened later was just a sign that something went terribly wrong inside Gloria's home on the Silky Road Ranch.

  At some point after the tea and cookies were served Brian revealed his weapon and stood by in some reluctant but menacing fashion as Gloria called her husband at his office. She explained that one of his patients was visiting and that she would like him to come home and deal with this situation right away.

  Her voice was tight and pressured as she spoke. Raymond Welle had listened carefully for nuance and warning in his wife's words during that phone call. He was, after all, a psychologist. He'd even taken some notes. Twice Gloria implored her husband to hurry and twice she insisted that he must not call the police.

  He wrote down her directives each time.

  Raymond Welle got the message loud and clear. The first thing he did when he hung up was call the Routt County sheriff, a man named Phil Barrett, whom Ray Welle considered a friend.

  There is not much to suggest what happened inside the stone-and-log house in the next half hour or so. At some point, Gloria was directed by Brian to move from the sofa in the living room into a closet in the guest suite that was down the hall from the great room. Gloria typically used the guest-room closet to store wine for her frequent parties. Brian graciously moved a chair into the closet for Gloria to sit on. He didn't bind her hands or gag her. But he did lock the door from the outside.

  Ranelle-one of the housekeepers-was the one who mentioned later that Gloria usually just left the key in the lock.

  The sheriff and his deputies arrived at the Silky Road Ranch a moment ahead of Raymond Welle, whose drive from Steamboat Springs to the ranch gate took a little less than fifteen minutes. The three sheriff's vehicles that bounced up the dirt road transported a total of five officers. The Routt County sheriff had already determined that he was going to treat the situation as a possible hostage crisis.

  Before the authorities had time to accomplish much planning at the scene, and long before any detailed discussions took place about how best to handle this particular hostage negotiation, should those circumstances arise, the assembled officers heard three gunshots emanate from the house. The blasts were only seconds apart. The cops all instinctively dove for cover behind their cars.

  Raymond Welle reacted considerably more slowly.

  Maybe thirty seconds later, while the group was still arguing about whether there had been three shots or four, they were startled again, this time by the sounds of breaking glass. Raymond sneaked a glance at the house and told the sheriff that someone had broken the small window that was above the utility sink in the laundry room.

  No more than a minute after the glass broke, the windshield of one of the police department vehicles-the only one that no one was hiding behind-fractured into a starburst as another gunshot exploded. The roar of this shot echoed and bounced around off the faces of the nearby mountains like a steel ball in a pinball machine.

  One of the deputies said, "My dear God, is he firing a cannon at us?"

  Another one replied, "Nope. I would say that boy's firing a.45." The sheriff said, "How the hell did he get out here? Walk? Anybody see any cars or trucks that don't belong? Raymond?"

  Raymond looked around.

  "Nope. But there's a dirt road that goes into those woods from Copper Ridge.

  His car could be in there."

  "Or it could be in the garage, right?" the sheriff wondered aloud. He would later tell one of his deputies that when he first got the call from Raymond about the problem at his house he suspected that Gloria might have been having an affair and that either she or her lover had suffered a change of heart that had resulted in some impulsive actions that would surely be regretted later.

  The sheriff called those situations "domestics-once removed." For the participants he usually considered them more humiliating than dangerous.

  Gossip around town was that Gloria's attentions did wander occasionally, especially on those horse-buying trips she took out of town.

  Raymond reached up and opened the door to his Chevy Blazer and pressed the remote switch that operated his garage doors. Immediately, the three doors swung up on the face of the garage, revealing one empty bay, one jam-packed full of junk, and one full of the rear end of Gloria's forest green Land Rover.

  Ray said, "That car there? The Rover? That's Gloria's. Whoever's doing this to her, his vehicle must be in the woods."

  The sheriff said, "Say you're right, Ray. Is there a side exit to the house, I mean close to the aspens over there? Some way for him to make a run for it up to a car on Copper Ridge?"

  The garage doors came back down.

  The chief asked, "Did you do that?"

  Raymond said, "No. He must have done it. There's a switch inside the house. By the mudroom door."

  "Well then. We'll have to keep an eye on the Range Rover, too. He may try to make a run for it in Gloria's car. But we'll have to be careful-if he does that he'll probably be using her as a shield. Now what about doors from the house that lead over to those woods?"

  "That's the master bedroom on that end. There're big sliding doors that go out onto a deck on the side of the house just out of our sight. Your men should cover that and the garage."

  On his radio the chief ordered that the dirt road from Copper Ridge to Mad Creek be blocked off. He ordered that the main gate of the Silky Road be covered. He also sent two of his deputies to set up cover on the deck by the master bedroom and the other two to drive around back to a safe location where they could watch the deck and the sliding glass doors.

  "Stay out of range as you're making your way. I'll get us some assistance from town."

  Before the cops were even in position around back, Raymond Welle screamed, "There he goes. Look! He's running. There! See him?" He pointed in the direction of the master bedroom. Brian Sample was loping across the wide deck.

  With more deliberation in his movements than one might expect. Sample hopped the railing that led down to a neatly trimmed lawn of buffalo grass. He paused there, turned and faced the police vehicles, leveled his.45 in the general direction of the sheriff's car, and fired. The shot went high. To his men, the chief barked, "Open fire," and instantly his two remaining deputies returned fire with their scoped rifles.

  Brian's left shoulder snapped back. One step later he stumbled. Two halting steps after that he fell and released his weapon. The heavy gun in his hand seemed to float in the air for a second or two before acceding to the laws of gravity and plummeting to the ground.

  The sheriff's radio came alive. One of the deputies who had headed around back wanted to know what the hell was going on.

  Raymond Welle was already running toward his house. * * * Gloria wasn't hard to locate. The pungent stink of spilled wine provided a great olfactory trail that led straight to the guest-room suite.

  When he'd murdered Gloria Welle, Brian Sample hadn't even bothered to open the closet. He'd shot his hostage right through the door. The.45 slugs had shattered one raised panel of the pine door and two of the three bullets had shattered Gloria Welle, one in the upper abdomen and one in the neck. She was already dead when her husband, Raymond, found her slumped over the back of her chair, which had tumbled onto its side. Her clothing was stained red with her own blood and was washed burgundy with Robert Mondavi's wine. It was party wine-not Mondavi's finest.

  The deputy who was right behind him said that Raymond didn't touch his wife's body, didn't even leave a footprint
in the blood and wine that were consecrating together on the hardwood floor.

  Brian Sample died that night in the hospital in Steamboat Springs. He had not regained consciousness.

  PART ONE. The Dead French Detectives.

  The phone call that summoned us to D.C. came on a Friday evening in April. I was busy playing Frisbee with some pizza dough and Lauren was slicing garlic so thin it was translucent. Her hands were less sticky than mine were so she answered the phone.

  A moment later, with real surprise in her tone, she said, "Hi, A. J. No, no, no.

  You're not interrupting anything. Really. We're just throwing some dinner together… Yes, in our new kitchen, it's wonderful. It's good to hear from you… We're doing fine, thanks. You?"

  I smiled. The only A. J. I knew was A. J. Simes, a retired FBI psychologist.

  The previous year she had been instrumental in helping me identify and track down someone who was eager to kill me. Before the adventure was over she had saved my life. Lauren and I had only heard from her once since she had left Colorado and returned to her home in Virginia.

  "You still in touch with Milt Custer, A. J.?" Lauren asked. Milt was also retired FBI, and had been A. J.'s colleague the previous fall.

  A. J.'s response to the Milt Custer inquiry took a while. Milt, a Chicago widower, had been sweet on A. J. during their sojourn together in Colorado. I fondly recalled his awkward flirting. But Lauren's next words yanked me back to the present.

  "You want our help with something?… Both of us?… Of course I'll listen.

  Should Alan get on an extension? Good, yes… Hold on." Lauren covered the mouthpiece and said, "It's A. J. Simes. She wants our help with something. Why don't you get on the cordless and listen in to what she has to say?"