Tough Cookie

The third article screamed: SNOWBOARD TRACKS ON ELK RIDGE VANISHED INTO AVALANCHE ZONE. It was possible, the writer hypothesized, that Nate Bullock had hiked partway up the mountain with a snowboarder. The two had then parted ways, Nate tracking in the valley, the snowboarder ascending the ridge. Had the snowboarder triggered the avalanche that killed Nate?

WAKEFIELD WIDOWER QUESTIONED focused on Jack Gilkey’s account of the circumstances surrounding his wife Fiona’s tragic death. More details of Fiona’s last day had emerged: Fiona had had too much to drink at lunch, she’d boasted she could beat her husband to the Bighorn Overlook, a roped-off area just off one of Killdeer’s advanced slopes. The overlook faces the out-of-bounds area that includes Elk Ridge, the writer added parenthetically, and skiers occasionally ducked the boundary line to take in the view. Those pristine mountain forests of Elk Ridge, the article reported, were now earmarked for ski-area expansion. According to Jack Gilkey, Fiona had skied ahead of him and ducked the rope. Fiona and Jack arrived at the overlook, then were attacked by someone bursting from the trees. Jack tried to help his wife and was knocked out himself.

QUESTIONS PERSIST IN DEATH OF HEIRESS cited the postmortem drug screen, which showed a blood- alcohol level in Fiona’s body that made her legally drunk. GILKEY CONVICTED OF CRIMINALLY NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE added that a mitten belonging to Jack had been found clutched in Fiona’s hand. He had let her drink too much; he had let her go down a run she wasn’t qualified to ski. The nail in Jack’s coffin had been the fact that the ski patrol had apprehended him at the overlook the day before Fiona died. They’d yanked his ticket and warned him away from that spot. But the next day, he and Fiona had raced to the same out-of- bounds overlook.…

Since by law a person who in any way causes another person’s death cannot benefit from it, the article concluded, Jack Gilkey was not inheriting Fiona’s millions. Neither was her son Arthur, however. If Jack for any reason did not inherit, Fiona had specified that her money should go to charity: the Public Broadcasting System.

Finally, WAKEFIELD HEIR FILES COMPLAINT recapitulated Arthur’s furious claim that Jack Gilkey had exerted “undue influence” on Fiona Wakefield in the making of her will. Before Fiona’s remarriage, Arthur had been the sole beneficiary of a twenty-million-dollar estate. Suddenly, Arthur had become, instead of the heir to an immense fortune, the recipient of a paltry million-dollar trust fund. But nineteen million was not going to PBS if Arthur Wakefield had anything to say about it. The article added that ski patrol had verified that it had been Arthur Wakefield who had sent the patrol to the overlook, to try to find his missing mother. They’d found her all right, but she was already dead. Her neck had broken in her fall.

I stared at the silent television. Mile-High Stadium was a mute chaos of orange and blue. The Broncos scored a field goal; the crowd went wild; the station cut to commercial.

Who had left these articles for me? Why? What connection did Fiona have to Doug Portman? Could it have anything to do with my discovery of Doug’s body? But what? Portman had granted parole to Jack Gilkey; Portman had also been despised and vilified by Arthur Wakefield. What did that have to do with the avalanche that snuffed out Nate Bullock’s life?

I shuffled through the material again. The Stool Pigeon Murders had nothing to do with anyone or anything I knew about. Had someone been a stool pigeon? Who?

And then there was the avalanche book. I flipped through it: Always test the snow in a slide area before traversing it. If you are caught near an avalanche, grab a tree, rock, or anything solid. Carry an avalanche beacon in all wilderness areas. Great.

Three years ago, Nate Bullock and Fiona Wakefield had died on the same day, at the same ski area, albeit not on the same slope. Two days ago, Doug Portman, parole board member, had been murdered on a Killdeer ski run. An ex-con had been mouthing threats against the police. My van had been hit, perhaps deliberately. Could there be any connection between the deaths of Fiona Wakefield, Nate Bullock, and Doug Portman? Is that what someone was trying to tell me? If there was a connection, what was it, and how could I uncover it? Waiting for another anonymous library delivery was a slow way to solve a case.

Impulsively, I punched in the numbers for Arthur Wakefield’s Killdeer condo. I’d pretend to have questions about his wine-tasting menu, then I’d ask him point-blank if he’d taken my library card. Then I’d ream him out.

Unfortunately, his machine picked up. Arthur’s throaty-voiced recording featured Chopin piano music and a lofty greeting: He was off searching for the perfect pinot; when he found it, whoever was calling could come over for a glass. I left a brief message asking him if he wanted a salad with all these main dishes; please give me a buzz.

Through an entire series of downs in which Kansas City drove to the ten-yard line and then fumbled, I scanned the two books and reread the newspaper articles. My bafflement only grew. Arthur had connections to Nate through PBS, and to Doug Portman, whose work on the parole board he reviled. Jack Gilkey, of course, had been married to Fiona and been paroled by Doug Portman. Did Jack’s new lady love, my dear old friend Eileen Druckman, know all of this information? Was it my duty to make sure she did?

I frowned at my watch: Sunday afternoon, where would Eileen be? Probably on her way back to Aspen Meadow, so Todd could make it to Elk Park Prep in the morning. Would Jack be with her? With any luck, no.

I put in a call to the Druckmans’ country club residence and reached Eileen on the first ring. After we chatted about the ninth-grade Elizabethan poetry assignment and the quantum mechanics mess—Todd had dropped pebbles onto, and broken, a glass coffee table—I took a deep breath and asked if she’d tell me: How exactly did she meet swashbuckling Jack Gilkey?

Eileen chuckled. “Through John Richard.”

“My ex-husband?” I was stunned. “You met Jack through The Jerk?”

“Oh, come on, Goldy.” She was instantly defensive. “Am I a welfare lady who visits convicts because that’s the only way she can get a date?” I said nothing. “Don’t you remember,” she went on, “last summer? When Tom was trying to fix up your kitchen? You asked me to take Arch down to visit John Richard a couple of times, since you hate to do that.”

“Eileen. Sorry. Of course I remember. I just didn’t think you’d be getting involved with him. I mean, John Richard.”

Her tone softened. “Goldy, I know John Richard was terrible to you.” Terrible doesn’t begin to cover it, I thought. The man is in jail for assault. Eileen went on: “But I think he’s changed. Anyway, John Richard was awfully nice to me. When I said I was thinking of buying a new business in the ski area, maybe a restaurant, John Richard said I was in luck, there was a chef right there in jail with him. This chef had been messed up royally by his lawyers, John Richard said, and I should meet him. I did, and now Jack and I are together, and I can’t remember the last time I was this happy.”

“Did you check the facts of his case?”

There was a pause. “Gee, thanks, friend.” But Eileen’s voice had hardened again. “I’ve already told you: Jack didn’t kill Fiona. Somebody else did. I think that son of hers murdered her, hoping to get her money. Or maybe he hired someone to kill her. He just didn’t know she’d already rewritten her will so that either the money went to Jack, or it went to PBS. Now he’s asking the probate court to set aside the will. And Arthur wants to look like such a good little boy to the probate court. He loves PBS, that’s why he works for them for practically nothing. He wouldn’t mind if the money went to public broadcasting, but really, it’s his. Please, spare me!”

“Eileen—”

“For heaven’s sake, Goldy! Do you really believe I’d be living with a killer? Would I make my own son vulnerable?”

“If you’d just—”

“I believe Jack. He did not kill his first wife. He’s a good man trying hard to rebuild his life. I even offered him money for lawyers to appeal his conviction. He said no. He said, ‘That’s not the way to be healed.’”

I shook my head and turned my attention to the television, where I watched the Broncos execute a successful down-and-in pattern. I asked, “Are you planning on marrying him?” I wanted to add, Since he seems to prefer older, wealthy women, but thought better of it.

Eileen snorted. “Goldy! For heaven’s sake!” She raised her voice a notch. “Listen to me. Here’s how nice Jack is.” On the screen, the Broncos punted, and the illuminated billboard at Mile-High exploded with the words Defense! Defense! “Jack doesn’t have any money. He wants Fiona’s money to go to charity. Even Doug Portman was convinced of Jack’s goodness, that’s why he let him out of