at least like-in a hot tub, and be back at it in the fresh powder tomorrow. Me, I think I’ll just visit the courthouse and let them call me a rapist and murderer all day.
I drove aimlessly and found myself heading east out of town. I turned left and started up a gentle rise on the lower slopes of what was probably Smuggler Mountain. I was lost, but what did it matter? I had nowhere to go and lots of time to get there. Suddenly, from behind, a black Dodge Turbo Ram pickup with dual rear wheels pulled out and passed me, its oversize tires chomping through the fresh snow. Through its steamy rear window, I caught sight of a long spill of dark hair. I squinted at the personalized Colorado plate as the truck sped on. “Aurum.” I didn’t have to call Doc Riggs for the translation. I remembered it from high school chemistry, right along with dropping a dissected frog down Joan Wooldridge’s blouse.
Aurum is gold.
She was driving Cimarron’s truck. Hers now, I supposed. I gave the rental some gas and followed the taillights up the hill. She turned right, and so did I. She turned left, and I followed. Hey, this was fun. We went about a mile, made a couple more turns, and she slowed. I hung back, watching, waiting.
I tuned the radio to an oldies station and heard the Beatles longing for yesterday. Me, too. I listened to my wipers clackety-clacking and had a conversation with myself.
Just what the hell was I doing?
Following Jo Jo Baroso.
Why?
Because, like Everest, she’s there.
What does that mean?
It means I don’t know why. Maybe I want her to testify tomorrow that I’m still stalking her, turn up the heat some more. Maybe I’ll run her car into a ditch, grab her and make her eat a handful of snow. Or maybe I just want to know why she’s driving up Smuggler Mountain in the middle of a blizzard. Maybe I figure there’s an answer out here, because there sure as hell isn’t one anywhere else.
Through the gray haze and falling snow, I didn’t see the fork in the road. She turned left smartly. I hit the brakes and tried to follow but spun out. I whipped the wheel back, let up on the brakes, then kissed them gently. The car straightened and came to a stop. I had missed the turn. I started up again, threw it into reverse, tires spinning, got back to the fork, and took the turn ever so slowly. The taillights were gone. Half a mile up the road was another fork. I took the low road and never saw the pickup again.
I kept going because I had nothing better to do. I listened to the Rolling Stones complain about getting no satisfaction. I took another turn onto what seemed to be a gravel road, though under a cover of snow, you couldn’t tell. Then I figured out it wasn’t a road at all, but a private drive. I hit the brakes and slid to a stop in front of a black, wrought-iron fence. A cemetery. How appropriate.
I got out of the car, tromped through the snow, opened a gate and walked in. The headstones were topped with snow and weathered from the years, but the vertical ones could be read. Many dated from the mining days. Beneath a marble figure of a child asleep on a pedestal, the inscription: “Mabel Garnett Asbell, December 12, 1888, one year and four days.”
I thought about the winter of 1888 and the girl’s parents, burying their child, and it made me think of Kip and suddenly I was filled with sorrow. If I was sent away, what would become of him? What a strange thought. A year ago, I didn’t know of his existence. Now, my first thought about my future, or lack of it, was of him. So that’s what love is all about.
Other questions plagued me. How long will Granny be around? Who will take care of her?
A statue of a lamb guarded the grave of another child. “Our darling Mallory.” A white marble headstone, July 28, 1898, for “Little Dale, ten months and fifteen days.” Nearby, the headless statue of a woman in the Greek style stood guard over a grave surrounded by a rusty iron fence. The woman wore a flowing gown, and her right hand held a garland of granite flowers.
I stood there, bareheaded in the falling snow, overcome with a sadness such as I’ve never known. Tears flowed down my cheeks. I turned and started to run, slipping in the snow and falling, legs splayed. I got to my feet and hurried to the car in a crablike crouch, a foolish figure of a man frozen to the core, not with cold, but with fear.
The Jack Daniel’s warmed me, comforted me. The bottle sat between my legs under the steering wheel, and I’d already put a good dent in it. From the liquor store, I headed west out of town for the same reason I earlier had headed east: none.
When I got to the turnoff to Red Butte, I swung right, fishtailing in the snow. I missed the road to Woody Creek, did a U-turn, barely avoiding a ditch concealed by snowdrifts, and slowly began climbing the hill past fenced fields covered with virgin snow. I knew the way, though I had been here only once before.
The front gate was chained and padlocked, and the county sheriff had posted a no trespassing sign. Not enough to stop a man overcome with lust and greed, a man with a thirst for violence, or whatever McBain would say in closing argument.
I was wearing my trial suit and a wool overcoat and felt out of place in the broad expanse of the frozen ranch. I climbed over the gate, my wing tips crunching into the snow of the driveway. I sunk to my knees with each step. It was a laborious walk, and I began sweating. Cold on the outside, steaming inside. Halfway up the road, I turned back to look at my tracks. I thought of an animal, chased across the fields by hunters.
The house was quiet and dark, no cars outside. Wherever Josefina was staying, it wasn’t here. That was smart. She might have figured I’d come looking for her.
But that wasn’t why I had come to the Red Canyon Ranch.
I hadn’t known it while driving here, but I knew it now. I came because it was time to act more like a lawyer and less like a client. As a lawyer, I always visited the site, whether it was an auto accident or a murder scene. Sure, I used investigators, and in discovery, I’d get the state’s evidence. But there is no substitute for being there, even if you’ve been there before. After I hired H. T. Patterson, we came here under the watchful eyes of a police escort. I had walked him through it, but now, cold and alone, I would do it again. Instead of a briefcase, I carried a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
The barn door was unlocked. I flipped on the lights. The horses were still in their stalls, oats freshly poured. Muddy footprints led to the feed bags and back to the stalls. A neighboring rancher must have been helping out. I said hello to the horses, and one of them said something back, his breath visible in the cold.
I retraced my steps of that night. The night in question, as lawyers like to say.
Up the ladder to the loft. I remembered Jo Jo flicking on a lantern, the shadows creeping up the wall. What had she said?
Oh, Jake, you shouldn’t have come. How true. What else? Think now. How did she look? Remember that face. She had seemed surprised Kip was with me. And upset about it.
The boy shouldn’t be here.
Why not?
Because she didn’t want him, or anyone else to witness what would happen. Right, but how did she know what would happen? What was her plan? That I kill Cimarron? That he kill me? And why?
Motive, motive, motive.
I walked the circumference of the loft, making a trail in the straw. Snowflakes drifted through the wall where the plank had been removed. I looked around, but I didn’t know for what. I saw the railing, or what was left of it, where I had broken through before landing in a stall.
I went down to the first floor, but this time took the slow route of the ladder. Accurately re-creating the scene has its limits. I opened the Appaloosa’s stall, walked inside, and my shoes squished in a steaming pile of what had been oats only a day before. The horse seemed to smile at me.
I left the stall, straw sticking to my shoes. For a while, I fiddled around, tinkering with this and that, touching the rough wood planks, trying to divine some message that had to be there. I went into the corn crib, still overflowing with ears that had tumbled down the silo. I stepped out of the crib and wandered in a circle, first clockwise, then counterclockwise. I kicked at bales of hay and feed bags.
What was missing? A saddle with an embedded nail, a plank from the wall with Cimarron’s hair embedded in
