Killer Mountain

back as he reached the end of the street. His questioner had disappeared. He remembered the fence in the back of the gray ranch and walked down the street parallel to Garrison to the house that backed up to it. There were no lights, and he made himself walk as casually as possible down its driveway. Some small apple trees hid his climb over the fence. Once over it he sat quietly on his haunches listening and watching. The driveway was on the right of the house from his position behind it. The fence he’d climbed continued all along the left side. It was fully six feet high, permitting a prowler to stay hidden from neighbors. He walked quietly to a left side window. Kitchen. Empty. But here he could wait, with bushes obscuring view of him from the street.

A half hour passed. He was thankful he wasn’t in snow country, but at that the temperature had dropped to a lower level than was comfortable in his city suit and topcoat. He was ready to risk the other side of the house - where he’d been seen once before - when the woman he’d been following entered the kitchen, putting on an apron. She turned to say something to the room she’d left, and Cilla appeared in the doorway.

Chapter 20

Cilla! Good Christ! How...? He raised his hand to bang on the window. Hold it. She was wearing lipstick, and, as he tried to see more closely through the dirt- speckled window, there appeared to be more color to her cheeks than nature had provided. Cilla didn’t use cosmetics. Wearing them made her feel like a prostitute. Stunned he backed to the fence staring at the window. He slid slowly to the ground, feeling as though someone had hit him in the stomach.

Cilla moved out of sight for a minute. When she reappeared she was holding a cigarette. A cigarette. He scrambled to his feet and moved closer to the window. Cilla detested cigarettes, wouldn’t stay in the same room with one. Why hadn’t he noticed her hair was cut shorter...and there was something about her mouth...damn, if he got nearer, he’d be seen, and with the lipstick it was hard to tell where her lips stopped. But they looked thinner. When he’d first kissed Cilla her lips had been hard. He’d thought them thin then, but it was only tension, and they’d gradually softened to cushions he could sink in. And as they parted he could see the mouth wasn’t really the same at all. For the first time in minutes he took a full breath. This girl wasn’t Cilla. But it would take a relative to tell them apart. A sharp-eyed relative. This was Loni. He instantly understood Andre’s focus on Cilla. It would be difficult to find more of a twin.

Identity confirmed. Now to get her alone. He had little hope the FBI woman would respond to his appearance by having him in for tea and a chat. He briefly considered a late night visit when they were both asleep, but discarded it. It will have to be tomorrow. And in the meantime? He’d like nothing better than a clean bed and a good night’s sleep in a local motel. Could he risk it? He’d just about convinced himself when the FBI woman exchanged the apron she’d just donned for her camel hair coat. Loni went out of the kitchen toward the bedrooms in back, returning with a belted wrap-around. He raced around the house and saw them getting into the blue Dodge. His car was too far away to follow.

He spent a few nervous hours until they returned at eleven. By then he had the Mercedes down the block from the house, facing it. He didn’t dare take more chances, so spent a long night in the car.

The front door opened just after six AM, and Loni came out carrying the well-traveled urn. He ran his hands over the stubble on his cheeks to get circulation moving. She got into the blue car and backed out of the yard, heading in the opposite direction from his Mercedes. She was alone! Hudson followed. Should he attempt to stop her? Not a good idea, see where she went. She took roads back to Route 5 north. Again he stayed two cars behind, shortening the distance only when he saw her turn signal. The road she chose soon left commercial strips and climbed into the hills. Route 410. They were headed for Mt. Rainier, or beyond, and at first there were just traces of snow, but soon it lay deep on the sides of the road, which had narrowed to two lanes.

Suddenly the Dodge slowed and pulled to the side of the road and she shut off the engine. Hudson stopped fifty yards behind and backed until a curve blocked view of his car. He parked and ran back up the road. Loni was out of her car and walking toward a small bridge. As Hudson approached, she stopped in the middle and opened the urn. She stood for a moment with her eyes closed, then scattered its contents into the stream that ran below. He pondered waiting behind a tree opposite her car until she came back to it. Then discarded the idea and walked up to the bridge where she was still standing, the urn upside down in her hand.

“A relative?”

Loni jumped and turned frightened eyes toward him. Hudson put both his hands on the bridge railing and gazed upstream. Looking at that oh-so-familiar but not quite right face made his heart pound. He held tight to the railing.

“That was what my uncle wanted. His ashes spread on a pure mountain stream to drift down to the ocean and become part of life again.” He glanced at the girl. She was a faun in headlights, not knowing which way to run. He wanted to put his arms around her. Keep talking. “That was just last year. I wasn’t a very good nephew; never could make it up to the mountains. Hoped he’d settle for the Charles. At any rate, that’s where he went, and I suppose it doesn’t make a lot of difference now. Did you get the same instructions?”

She’d decided on flight and went quickly around him, heading back to her car. He put an arm out to stop her.

“Loni. My name is Hudson Rogers. I’m a friend of John Krestinski of the FBI. Listen to me a minute.”

She twisted violently in an effort to get away, but he held her tightly.

“My family hid your father from the people after him and we were all nearly killed because of it. I need to ask you some questions so I can get them before they get us. And you.”

She froze, staring into his eyes but seeing something far different. He had the feeling she hadn’t really heard anything he’d said and would take flight at the first opportunity. He sighed. He wasn’t good at this kind of thing. And why expect to be? Only luck had kept him from flunking all the other detective tests.

“All right. Let’s go back to your car. I’ve got to find some other way to convince you.”

He led her to the Dodge. She was like a somnambulist; he had her body by the arm, but her mind was locked in a hidden room. He opened the driver’s side door for her. She got in and sat with head bowed as he went round and eased himself into the passenger side, regretting his pillow in the Mercedes.

“Loni, my car is just down the road. I’m going to talk for a while and then I’m going to get in my car and leave. If I were someone who planned to hurt you I could have done it on the bridge and thrown your body into the river. Or I could reach over and strangle you. There hasn’t been a car come by since we arrived. I could dump your body in the snow and be on my way. Or best of all, I could tickle you to death. The exercise would keep me warm as I did it.”

With a strangled cry, the dam broke. Her whole face clutched and wrinkled, and her body racked with sobs. Hudson let her cry, stifling an urge to put an arm out to comfort her.

“Oh God you scared me,” came out between sobs. She lifted her head. “You really won’t hurt me, will you?”

“No, I really won’t. I just want to talk with you, and then I’ll go.”

“Oh, don’t go!” She took his arm with both hands and put her face on his shoulder. “Come back to the house with me.”

Her touch sent a shiver through him. “I said I’m a friend of John Krestinski’s and I am, but this visit out to see you is strictly on my own. I don’t think the FBI would welcome my interference with a witness under protection.”

“I don’t think I like the FBI any more.”

“Why? Isn’t that woman...?”

“Her name’s Dora. I don’t know Mr. Krestinski. When I went to the FBI four months ago, they assigned Sammy Gardner to me. He’s real nice. And open-minded, he cares about people, not like most policemen. I took an apartment in the North End, and he stayed with me until last week.” She brushed a cheek with her knuckle. “Last Saturday he went out for groceries - I was told not to go out at all so he had to do all the shopping - and he never came back. Instead it was Dora. She told me Sammy had been taken off the case for fear they’d identified him. Her instructions were to hide me in a new location, and I was to go with her.”