In Harm's Way Part 16

Boldt lowered the window and put his hand outside, his fingers outstretched in the wind.

Beatrice sat up and nosed the back window, and Walt put his window down as well.

Boldt raised his voice over the wind. "I subpoena someone like that and it'll be a lot of court time before it's finally ruled upon and I'll only be refused. Everyone's a football fan, including judges."

"But we both want, both need, the same thing: his personal calendar. So if I could find a way to get a look at his book, you'd benefit too. I'd make sure of that."

"Have you got an angle?"

"No. Not yet. But maybe Wynn will give me one-give you you one. If he can connect Gale to Boatwright . . . Well, one of the judges here, he's the home plate umpire for our softball league." one. If he can connect Gale to Boatwright . . . Well, one of the judges here, he's the home plate umpire for our softball league."

"What's that got to do with the price of oil?" Boldt asked.

"Hates football," Walt said.

Beatrice barked into the wind.

For a moment, Walt thought it might have been Boldt.

18.

Despite the three full face-lifts, Marty Boatwright's neck flesh flapped like a luffing sail as he dialed out on his mobile phone. A tall man with flinty eyes and a cleft chin, he'd been mistaken for a Douglas most of his adult life, first Kirk and then Michael. It had been explained to him by one of his lawyers that mobile phones were digitally encrypted and therefore impossible to casually eavesdrop upon, and though the government could monitor any conversation on any phone, stiff warrant requirements meant mobile phones were the safest from unwanted ears. So this call was made mobile to mobile.

"It's me," he said, as Vince Wynn answered.

"Hey, Marty."

"That cop was just here."

"Coming here next."

"I didn't tell him s.h.i.+t. Let my boys do the talking."

"Okay."

"They don't know s.h.i.+t about her. Nothing but a fis.h.i.+ng trip as far as I can tell. Seems like they think it was all s.e.x and power whoring and how maybe there were fees involved. Means she must have deposited the money. Can you believe that? What kind of dumb s.h.i.+t would bank the money?"

"Caroline-"

"No names, you a.s.shole!"

"-may have been a lot of things, but she was not dumb."

"You'll be scratching that on a cell wall you don't get your act together."

"I'm fine, Marty."

"We both know what this is about."

"Yeah."

"And whatever happened to her . . . She . . . We talked about this."

"Yeah."

"But it doesn't have to involve us. Doesn't involve us."

"No. That's right."

"So keep it that way."

"Of course."

"He's clever, this cop. Looks big and thick but he's anything but. He's more Howie Long than Lyle Alzado."

"Got it."

"Consider your answers carefully, that's all I'm saying."

"I'm good, Marty."

"If you're so good, what the h.e.l.l were you doing shooting your gun off the other night?"

Silence.

"You thought I wouldn't hear about that? The whole town's heard about that. What kind of a dumba.s.s thing-"

"It was a personal security matter, Marty. A disgruntled former player. They were warning shots is all."

"Who?"

"Never mind."

"Keep the d.a.m.n gun in the closet, a.s.shole. We don't need any more attention than we've already got. This thing . . . her her . . . People are going to jail for this s.h.i.+t. Jail, I'm talking about." . . . People are going to jail for this s.h.i.+t. Jail, I'm talking about."

"I'm aware of that."

"Not me. You hear me? Not me!"

"So noted."

"Stick to one-word answers. Don't get creative. That mouth of yours. And you're under no obligation to-"

"Stu's here," Wynn said. "He'll do all the talking."

"Stu? Well, tell him h.e.l.lo for me."

"I'll do that."

"He's a wolf in sheep's clothing. Be careful with this guy, for your own sake."

"I will be. I negotiate for a living, Marty. No one ever knows what the h.e.l.l I'm thinking."

Marty Boatwright coughed out a laugh. Half his lung came up. Once it started he couldn't stop it. He shut down the call without signing off and sank into his desk chair and weathered the storm of old age, his eyes and nose running, the Depends warming at his crotch.

Prison. No way.

19.

"This isn't charity," Boldt stated as Walt pulled the Jeep up to the wrought iron gate blocking Vince Wynn's driveway. Walt rolled down his window and announced himself to a speaker key code box.

"Far from it," he said.

"You'd like in on this interview. That's why the escort."

"Not entirely true," Walt said. "I'm interested in Wynn for Gale. Absolutely. He threatened the man to my face. And I'm curious as to how he reacts to your questioning about Vetta. Absolutely."

"I don't see a guy like Vince Wynn dumping a body alongside a highway, especially not the busiest road you've got. The bottom of a construction site maybe, but more likely he'd drive him, or more likely pay someone to drive him, a long way into the wilderness and leave him for the scavengers."

"Agreed. But I can see him clubbing him from behind. Wynn's too smart to take on a guy like Gale face-to-face. You hit him when his back's turned. You make sure he's not getting backup."

"He could have been jacked, Sheriff. We talked about this. Lured out of the vehicle maybe. Struck from behind. It's more and more difficult to see it otherwise. We've got to find that SUV."

Gale's missing SUV, a rental from Avis, had been the topic of much discussion. City and sheriff patrols were searching parking lots, motels, and campgrounds. State police had been notified and a BOLO-a Be On Lookout-had been issued in the six-state region surrounding Idaho. Walt had hoped for results by now and, along with Boldt, secretly feared they'd lost the vehicle for good.

"You think it was staged to look look like a carjacking," Boldt said. like a carjacking," Boldt said.

"I think guys like Wynn know what guys like us expect to see. An agent at his level, he's all about selling an impression of something that maybe isn't true, maybe isn't all it's made out to be."

"So he gives us what we want. I'd buy that."

"Plays into our comfort zone."

"A carjacking gone wrong," Boldt said, nodding.

"It's all after the fact," Walt said. "He's all boozed up and he does the guy and then has to backfill. But a guy like that reads the paper up here. He knows what kind of crime we see and how often we see it. We had a carjacking not six months ago where a man was struck with a tire iron while changing a tire. Wasn't exactly like Gale, but close enough. The doer finished changing the tire and drove off in the car, having no idea the driver had already alerted OnStar. We were given GPS coordinates and had the guy in custody within the hour."

"And the body?"

"Stuffed into a culvert twenty feet from the car. Wynn could easily have read about it and pulled a copycat."

Boldt said, "If he's the killing type."

The gate opened electronically and Walt drove through, parking by a basketball backboard.

"Which is what we've come here to find out."

"Indeed it is."

"If Caroline Vetta got him started, broke his cherry, then doing Gale wouldn't have mattered much to him."

A wry smile overcame Boldt. "You and Matthews would like each other," he said. He took a long look at the house and Walt thought he was using it as his introduction to Wynn. "You're welcome to join me if you'd like."

"I'd just confuse things," Walt said. "Only two can dance at a time. I'll leave the advance work up to you. Maybe we'll pull a Columbo on him and double-team him after you're done, hit him with Gale five minutes after he's done fending off Vetta."

"Sounds like a plan." Boldt climbed out. "You want to take off, I could call you. I hate to take up your time."

"No worries. I'm going to put it to good use."

The closest neighbors had a sport court behind the house that integrated tennis, basketball, volleyball, and a backboard onto a single slab of asphalt. Walt crossed it and an ap.r.o.n of green gra.s.s to reach a single-story adobe house with four wings running in an X from a central living area, the back of which was a twenty-foot-high wall of tinted gla.s.s that faced the ski mountain. He found the front door at the apex of a horseshoe driveway that housed what appeared to be a centuries-old paG.o.da through which the same stream that pa.s.sed through Wynn's estate gurgled in and among an Asian rock garden.

The woman who answered the door could have been going on sixty but looked more like forty, and showed no signs of work having been done. She was all yoga and juice drinks and acupuncture, wearing stonewashed blue jeans and a tight-fitting T-s.h.i.+rt. There was no hiding her surprise at discovering a uniformed sheriff at her front door.

"h.e.l.lo?"

Walt introduced himself by rank.

"Gwen Walters. I know your face from the papers," she said. "I voted for you!"

Walt thanked her. He got that a lot, but wondered how often it was true.

"I wanted to ask you a few questions, if you have a minute?"

"Of course." She motioned him inside. "Tea? Juice?"

"I'm fine."

Sunlight flooded the living room. The outside patio was about the size of Walt's city lot. They took seats at a teak table in padded chairs covered in Sunbrella fabric.

"Vince Wynn," Walt said.

"Yes," she said. "I thought as much." She squinted, and squirmed uncomfortably in the chair. "The shooting?"

"Yes. Among other things."

"I'm not a gossip, Sheriff. And I respect my neighbors' privacy. It's important to all of us."