White Fire

fortune all the more surprising.

“What a place,” said Stacy, interrupting Corrie’s train of thought. “I had no idea Roaring Fork was such a hellhole. And now look at it: the richest town in America!”

Corrie shook her head. “Ironic, isn’t it?”

“So much violence and misery.”

“True,” said Corrie, adding in a low voice: “though I’m not finding anything that might point to a gang of cannibalistic serial killers.”

“Me neither.”

“But the clues are there, somewhere. They have to be. We just have to find them.”

Stacy shrugged. “You think it might be those Ute Indians up in the canyon? They had a good motive: their land was stolen by the miners.”

Corrie considered this. Around that time, she’d read, the White River and Uncompahgre Utes had been fighting back against the whites who were pushing them westward through the Rocky Mountains. The conflict culminated in the White River War of 1879, when the Utes were finally expelled from Colorado. It was possible that some Indians in the conflict had worked their way southward and taken revenge on the miners of Roaring Fork.

“I thought of that,” she said at length. “But the miners weren’t scalped — scalping leaves distinctive markings. And I learned that the Utes had a huge taboo against cannibalism.”

“So did whites. And maybe they didn’t scalp them so as to conceal their identity.”

“Possible. But the killings were high-quality. What I mean is,” Corrie hastily added, “they were not sloppy and disorganized. It can’t be easy to ambush a wily, hardened Colorado miner guarding his claim. I don’t think a sad camp of Utes could have perpetrated these killings.”

“What about the Chinese? I can’t believe how terribly they were treated — it was as if they were considered subhuman.”

“I thought about that, too. But if the motive was revenge, why eat them?”

“Maybe they just faked the eating thing, to make it look like a bear.”

Corrie shook her head. “My analysis shows they really did consume the flesh — raw. And another question: why did they suddenly stop? What goal had they accomplished, if any?”

“That’s a really good question. But it’s one o’clock, and I don’t know about you, but I’m so hungry I could eat a couple of miners myself.”

“Let’s get lunch.”

As they got up to leave, Ted came over. “Say, Corrie,” he began. “I meant to ask you. How about dinner tonight? Won’t be any problems getting a reservation.” He ran his fingers through his curly brown hair and looked at her, smiling.

“I’d love to,” she said, gratified that Ted, despite his attention to Stacy, still was interested. “But I’m supposed to have dinner with Pendergast.”

“Oh. Well. Some other time, then.” He smiled, but Corrie noticed he wasn’t quite able to fully conceal a look of hurt. It reminded her of a puppy dog, and she felt a stab of guilt. Nevertheless, he turned gamely toward Stacy and gave her a wink. “Good to meet you.”

As they bundled up in their coats and walked out into the winter air, Corrie wondered where another date with Ted might lead. The fact was, it seemed like a long time since she’d had a boyfriend, and her bed in the mansion up Ravens Ravine was so very, very cold.

32

It was like a persistent nightmare, which terrifies you one night, then returns the next in an even more malevolent form. At least, so it seemed to Chief Morris as he walked through what was left of the Dutoit house. The smoldering ruins stood on the shoulder of a hill, with sweeping views of the town below and the surrounding ring of snowy mountains. He could hardly bear it: walking along the same corridors of plastic tape; smelling the same stench of burnt wood, plastic, and rubber; seeing the charred walls and melted puddles of glass, the scorched beds and heat-shattered toilets and sinks. And then there were the little things that had weirdly survived: a drinking glass, a bottle of perfume, a sodden teddy bear, and a poster of the movie Marching Band, Dutoit’s most famous film, still pinned to a gutted wall.

It had taken most of the night to extinguish the fire and beat it down to this damp, steaming pile. The forensic specialists and the M.E. had gone in at dawn, and had identified the victims as best they could. They hadn’t been burned quite as badly as the Baker family — which only added to the horror. At least, the chief thought, he didn’t have to deal with Chivers this time, who had already been through the crime scene and was now off preparing his report — a report that Chief Morris was doubtful of. Chivers was clearly in over his head.

He was, however, grateful for Pendergast’s presence. The man was strangely reassuring to the chief, despite his eccentricities — and despite the fact that everyone else was put out by his presence. Pendergast wandered ahead of Morris, dressed in his inappropriate formal black coat and white silk scarf, with that same strange hat on his head, silent as the grave. The sun was obscured by heavy winter clouds, and the temperature outside the ruin was hovering in the low teens. Inside, though, the residual heat and plumes of steam created a humid, stinking microclimate.

They finally reached the first victim, which the M.E. had tentatively identified as Dutoit herself. The remains looked more or less like an oversize, blackened fetus nestled in a pile of springs, metal plates, screws, carpet tacks, and burnt layers of cotton batting, with bits of melted plastic and wire here and there. The skull was whole, the jaws gaping in a frozen scream, the arms burned to the bone, the finger bones clenched, the body curled in upon itself by the heat.

Pendergast halted and spent a long time just looking at the victim. He did not pull out test tubes and tweezers and take samples. All he did was look. Then, slowly, he circled the hideous thing. A hand lens came out, and he used it to peer at traces of melted plastic and other, obscure points of interest. While he was doing this, the wind shifted and the chief got a noseful of roasted meat, causing an instant gagging sensation. God, he wished Pendergast would hurry it up.

Finally the FBI agent rose and they continued their perambulation of the gigantic ruin, heading inexorably toward the second victim — the young girl. This was even worse. The chief had deliberately skipped breakfast in preparation, and there was nothing in his stomach to lose, but nevertheless he could feel the dry heaves coming on.

The victim, Dutoit’s daughter, Sallie, had been ten years old. She went to school with the chief’s own daughter. The two children had not been friends — Sallie had been a withdrawn child, and no wonder, with a mother like that. Now, as they approached the corpse, the chief ventured a glance. The girl’s body was in a sitting position, burned only on one side. She had been handcuffed to the pipes under a sink.

He felt the first dry heave, which came like a hiccup, then another, and quickly looked away.

Again, Pendergast spent what seemed a lifetime examining the remains. The chief didn’t even begin to understand how he could do it. Another heave came, and he tried to think of something else— anything else — to get himself under control.

“It’s so perplexing,” Morris said, more to distract himself than for any other reason. “I just don’t understand.”

“In what way?”

“How…well, how the perp selects his victims. I mean, what do the victims have in common? It all seems so random.”

Pendergast rose. “The crime scene is indeed challenging. You are correct that the victims are random. However, the attacks are not.”

“How so?”

“The killer did not choose victims. He — or she, as the etiology of the attacks does not yet indicate gender —