Dry Ice Page 13

  I cupped my hands into a horn and made the low bass call that I’d demonstrated for Sam earlier in the day. Emily didn’t come at the sound. But she talked to me. The particular vocalization was half-bark, half Bouv-talk. The last time I’d heard that mix of sounds from her, Emily had been straddling the entrance to an earthen den convinced she had a prairie dog cornered. She had been wrong. The prairie dog had simply descended into that particular tunnel before he transferred to an alternate line in the great rodent subway system, amused that the big dog was sniffing for clues at the wrong station.

  I followed Emily’s sounds, stepping over to the longest of Peter’s workbenches. With the bat I lifted the hem of one of the shrouds covering the bench. Emily was sitting below the table, her nub of a tail in frantic motion. She looked at me for an instant, her ears straight up, before she returned her gaze to her discovery.

  What had she found? An air mattress and a sleeping bag. A cheap foam pillow without a pillowcase. The bag was laid out on the mattress, which was inflated. It appeared that someone had slept in the setup recently. My first thought was that the lair had been Kol’s, but I soon recalled the bandanna on the front doors of the barn and I thought, no. I felt a shiver shoot up my spine.

  Michael McClelland had been sleeping two dozen steps from my front door.

  From my sleeping wife. From my playing daughter.

  My left hand tightened on the handle of the bat. “Come on, girl,” I said to Emily. To my surprise, she stood up and heeled. I re-clipped the lead to her collar.

  It took us a few minutes to complete a slow search of the rest of the barn. I used the bat to lift the corners of the various shrouds that covered the planer and the jointer and the sanders and the saws, looking for further evidence that someone had been living in Peter’s studio.

  Emily and I didn’t find much more evidence. The veneer of dust was disturbed on some surfaces. The little refrigerator was plugged in. I used a shop rag to tug it open. Inside I found two sealed containers of yogurt, some cheese, some hard salami, and a half-eaten loaf of organic Rudi’s sourdough. All of it was fresh.

  The walled-off room that Peter once used to put finishes on his work was empty. After so many years it still stank of shellac and stain. Peter’s throne room showed no indication of recent use. The years of dust on the toilet and on the floor around it hadn’t been disturbed.

  Out loud I said, “You’re much too calm, Alan. You know that, don’t you?” The truth was that given the circumstances I was much too calm. Kol’s death was a complete shock to me. His suicide? Almost unfathomable. So unfathomable, in fact, that I was reluctant to believe it. My eyes kept returning involuntarily to his hanging body while my mind kept returning to the image of the bandanna that was tied on the barn door handles outside.

  I was convinced that whatever had happened in the barn wasn’t so much about Kol as it was about Michael McClelland. Somewhere in this building was evidence of that connection, but I didn’t know where. And I didn’t know what it would look like.

  Why? I was not even close to why.

  In a candid moment I might have admitted that I was also feeling some relief at Kol’s death. Cognitive dissonance being what it is, though, I was reluctant to acknowledge the relief, even to myself.

  “I mean it’s not like what happened with…your dad.”

  Kol wasn’t going to be sharing my secret with anyone.

  That was for sure.

  TWENTY-TWO

  EMILY HEARD the sounds of a car approaching on the lane before I did. Her excitement meant she had identified the vehicle as belonging to someone she was eager to greet. She yipped once, then a second time. I could tell she was preparing for a full-fledged chorus of happy welcoming barks.

  I said, “Quiet.” She quieted. I was amazed. I peeked out one of the barn windows that faced down the lane.

  Lauren was home with Grace. Fifty yards behind the car, a sheriff’s cruiser was rolling to a stop in position at the end of the lane. I realized that I hadn’t decided how to play any of this, and that with the arrival of law enforcement my options were about to be severely limited.

  I pulled out my cell and speed-dialed Sam. I had two motivations for making the first call to him. One, he knew the history with Michael McClelland, had a personal emotional investment in what happened to the guy, and because of that investment I wanted Sam to be part of whatever happened next inside Peter’s barn. Reason number two? Sam would have throttled me if I’d left him out of the loop on this.

  He wasn’t home so I tried his cell. It rolled instantly to voice-mail. “Sam? Alan. I’m in Peter’s barn.” Sam knew the building—he needed no further explanation. “McClelland’s been here, in the barn. There’s a dead body inside, a hanging victim. It’s not him, McClelland, but it’s—fresh—still swinging when I got here. I hope you pick this up soon or the sheriff is going to get here before you do.”

  I might have revealed to Sam my theory about the nature of the connection between McClelland and Kol Cruz, but I didn’t have a theory. Nothing made sense.

  Next I called Lauren. She was standing at the open door to the backseat of her car, where she had just started leaning over to unbuckle Grace from her booster seat. As the ringing started in my ear, I watched her through the barn window. She stopped what she was doing and grabbed her phone from her purse. A glance at the caller ID told her it was me. Her face grew perplexed as she looked over at my car a few feet away. She had just surmised that I was home, and she was wondering why I was calling.

  “Hey,” she said. “We just got home. I’m outside. Be there in a second.”

  “I know,” I said. “I see you through the window. Take a couple of steps to the east and then face the barn. Be inconspicuous if you can. You’ll see me standing inside Peter’s shop, at the window. Don’t react. Just look.” She followed my directions. I waved when she looked right at me. She didn’t wave back.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “I found something in here that I don’t want Grace to know anything about. Do you understand?”

  She hesitated before she said, “Does this have to do with—”

  “It might.”

  “Oh God,” she said.

  “Sam’s on his way. Can you take Gracie over to Teryl’s or—”

  “Are you okay?” Lauren asked in a hurried whisper.

  “Things are about to get complicated for me, but yes, I’m okay. You need to take Grace to a friend’s house, or somewhere, and then get back here as soon as you can.”

  She said, “What about the deputy?”

  “The deputy will follow you. If we tell him what I found he won’t leave, and Grace will be exposed to whatever happens next.”

  She didn’t say yes. She didn’t say no. She just stared at me through the dirty glass window of the barn. I was pretty sure she could see nothing but my silhouette. What did I see in her eyes? Concern, yes. But some suspicion, too.

  Finally she nodded and said, “I’ll drop Grace somewhere and be right back.”

  She said something to Grace, got back in the car, and drove off down the lane. The sheriff’s deputy did a U-turn and followed.

  Emily and I waited half a minute or so before using the back door of the barn to walk outside. I put Emily in the house with Anvil and sat on the cold concrete step of the front porch. I had the outline of a plan in my head. I reviewed it and couldn’t think of anything I should do differently. I pulled out my cell and called 911. In reply to the dispatcher’s bored “Nine-one-one. What is the nature of your emergency?” I tried to explain the situation dispassionately. Her reaction was a little incredulous—“There’s a body hanging from a rafter in your neighbor’s barn? Is that correct?”—but she soon confirmed the address and promised that assistance was on the way.

  I thought about the next call I would make for most of a minute. I pulled Kirsten’s card from my pocket and dialed her number. She wasn’t home. I tried her mobile
.

  “Kirsten?”

  “Alan,” she said. She’d recognized my voice. Maybe she’d seen my name on caller ID but I thought she’d recognized my voice.

  How to begin? “I need your help. I just discovered a patient, a dead patient, in my next-door neighbor’s barn and—”

  “One of your patients?”

  “Yes. As bad as that is, it’s far…more complicated than it sounds.”

  “You said dead?”

  “Hanging. Suicide.”

  “Who is with you? Right now?”

  “No one. I’m outside, sitting on the front porch—you know, where we found the note this morning.” Was that this morning?

  “The body?”

  “Still in the barn. I didn’t touch it. I’m sure it’s all connected somehow. The note, the suicide.”

  “Where’s your neighbor? You said it was in his barn.”

  “Her barn. She’s out of the country with her son.”

  “How do you…How did you—”

  “We’re friends. I watch her house when she’s away.”

  “So you have a key?”

  My attorney was worrying about breaking and entering. It felt quaint. I said, “Yes. Though I didn’t need it. The back door had been propped open.”

  “Have you called the police?”

  “I just called 911. Assistance,” I said, mimicking the operator, “is on the way. It was him, Kirsten—Michael McClelland.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “He left me another message. Something I wouldn’t misinterpret.”

  “Don’t say a word to the cops,” she said. “Nothing. I’m near Golden at a soccer tournament. I’ll get Amy a ride home with a teammate and I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She paused. “Did you hear me?”

  “You’ll be here soon.” Golden wasn’t a quick drive. “Maybe thirty minutes.”

  “Not that part. The not-saying-anything part? Tell them you found a body. Point out where. Nothing else. Okay?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  Five minutes later the dirt and gravel lane began to look like a freeway on-ramp during rush hour. Lauren and her sheriff’s deputy shadow returned first—she must have dropped Grace at Teryl’s house only a quarter of a mile away. The first two cars were followed in short order by Sam in his personal Jeep Cherokee, then two more marked units from the Boulder County Sheriff’s Department. One of the sheriff’s vehicles was a cruiser, one was an SUV. They were both running with lights, but no siren. The last spot in the caravan belonged to a rescue truck with a couple of paramedics in the cab. The blue-and-red beacons were lit on it, too. The shape of the boxy rescue van was almost swallowed in the dust already billowing above the lane.

  I was no physician but I knew that Kol didn’t require emergency medical assistance.

  The vehicles pulled to a stop in a haphazard pattern on the wide area between our house and Adrienne’s. I took a few steps away from the porch. I glanced at Sam stepping out of his Cherokee and then I looked at the barn. I blinked, and blinked again. My lower lip curled below my upper teeth in order to make an f sound. I looked at my feet, blinked a couple of more times, and returned my gaze to the barn.

  Damn. I felt the ground shift below me. Instinctively, I spread my feet to maintain my balance. All the confusion I’d been feeling about Kol’s death and McClelland’s involvement transformed instantly into despair. All my unnatural serenity evaporated. I am, I thought, such a frigging fool.

  The last thing I felt before I heard Lauren calling my name as she ran toward me was just the slightest hint of admiration for the guy. To no one I muttered, “Fuck me.”

  Lauren heard that. I think she had been about to hug me. Instead she stopped two steps away. “What’s wrong?” she said. “What’s going on?”

  You mean other than the dead guy in the barn? Other than the fact that someone that wants to kill both of us is close by, playing with us? Besides that?

  “It’s gone,” I mumbled. I had enough of my wits about me to know she wouldn’t have a clue what I was talking about.

  “What? What’s gone?”

  “He took it.” I swiveled my head to look around for McClelland. I scanned the barren hills, then over at Adrienne’s house, at her rooftop, and over toward the scenic overlook. I didn’t find him but I knew that somewhere close by he was watching my reaction to what he’d just done, and he was laughing.

  Lauren moved beside me and touched my face. She must have thought I was upset about what I’d told her I’d found in the barn. “He took what?” Lauren asked. “What’s gone?”

  I shook my head and said, “Nothing.” I gestured at the barn. “Thanks for taking care of Gracie. There’s been a…Someone’s body is…” I couldn’t find the right words. “A body is hanging inside Peter’s studio. It looks like a suicide.”

  She said, “Oh…my…God.”

  I was aware at some level that I had just misled my wife. I’d said “someone,” not “one of my patients.” I rationalized that I had no choice; I didn’t have permission to reveal my therapeutic relationship with Kol. I told myself that I would have admitted the truth to my wife, but I wouldn’t admit it to a deputy DA. Lauren happened to be both.

  I looked toward Peter’s shop one more time. Nothing had changed.

  Okay, one important thing had changed. The fuck-me part.

  The bandanna was gone from the front doors of the barn.

  TWENTY-THREE

  KOL’S SUICIDE was one of those emergencies that starts off hot. A cadre of well-intentioned public-safety professionals moved in with determination and alacrity. Every member of the team was primed to do his or her job, prepared to make a difference.

  The first thing I did after they’d begun to assemble on the lane was provide a brief explanation of what I’d discovered in the barn. I included the fact that Emily had sniffed out the sleeping bag and air mattress beneath Peter’s long workbench. Sam Purdy and one of the sheriff’s deputies were first into the building. They used the same door that Emily and I had used.

  They came back out after about a couple of minutes. The deputy asked the two paramedics to glove-up and follow him back inside. Sam handed the threesome shoe protectors from a stash he kept in his Cherokee. In explanation he said, “Humor me. Suspicious death.”

  The younger of the two EMTs, a woman, said, “Check.” His partner rolled his eyes. At his inexperienced partner, or at Sam, I couldn’t tell.

  Everyone but Kol was outside the barn again a few minutes later.

  The EMT who had earlier said “Check” said “Deceased” to her colleagues. She said it as though it was professional jargon or private code, as though it meant something more than simply dead.

  A different deputy added, “It’s secure in there.” Translation? The quick sweep of the barn had identified no one else inside, certainly no one who was a threat or in imminent danger. “Investigators are on the way.” At that moment he recognized Lauren. “You the RP, ma’am? You found the body?”

  “No,” she said. “The reporting party would be my husband. He found the body.” She introduced me to the deputy as though we’d all run into each other in the beer cooler at Liquor Mart during a marital dispute about whether to get a six of Bohemia or a six of Odell’s Levity to go with that night’s grilled chicken. I thought her voice had a chill to it.

  “You live here? The building is yours, ma’am?”

  “No,” I interjected. “The barn belongs to our neighbor.” I pointed at Adrienne’s house. “She’s in Israel.”

  After a couple of minutes of awkward silence the deputy who had pronounced the scene secure asked me if I knew the victim.

  I said I did. He then asked if I knew the victim’s name.

  I said I did.

  He waited a polite moment for me to reveal that name, pen poised over his notepad. Once he’d recognized my constipation, he said, “What is the victim’s name?”

  I�
��d said I was sorry but I couldn’t say.

  Lauren witnessed the odd little interview from a few steps away. She was apparently on hold with her call downtown; she lowered her phone from her ear and stepped forward to translate. She said, “He just told you in his own way that the victim is one of his patients. Because of doctor/patient privilege he won’t reveal the name.” She sighed. I thought her explanation sounded less than compassionate.

  I said, “There may be some ID on the body. I didn’t look.” I was trying to be helpful. The truth was that I hadn’t even tried to reach Kol’s pocket. It had been suspended far above my head.

  “Do we need a warrant to go in?” the deputy asked Lauren.

  “This won’t be my case,” she said. She looked at me. “It is, literally and figuratively, too close to home.” She looked back at the deputy. “I’ll make a call.”

  “We wait,” the deputy said.

  I wondered if they’d noticed the fresh food in the barn refrigerator. Or if Sam had spotted something my untrained eyes had missed. Probably.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  LAUREN CLOSED her phone. She said, “Elliot Bellhaven”—Elliot was the chief deputy to the DA—“says we wait for a warrant. Patience. By the book. I assume everyone’s been called.”

  Everyone meant investigators, forensics, the coroner, the DA’s office, and a judge to issue the warrant.

  The swell of adrenaline at the scene had drained away. The reservoir of testosterone, however, remained. It hung in the air the way the stench of a dead seal lingers at the beach.

  The deputies began to mark off a big perimeter with crime-scene tape. The rest of the gang, accustomed to being in situations that require them to kill long periods of time, began to kill some time. They all knew from experience that the process of gaining permission to enter a crime scene could be laborious, especially on a weekend. The EMTs opened the doors to their truck, tuned the radio to KBCO, and upped the volume to help fill the void.

  The first music we heard blaring from the speakers was the last few bars of “Mr. Tambourine Man” by the Byrds. After it concluded, a second or two of dead air transitioned into some of the same second Neko Case album that had recently caused Lauren such discomfort on her iPod.