Mountain Rampage (16 page)

Chuck slid behind the table. “Arrested anybody yet?”

Hemphill opened a narrow notebook on the otherwise empty table and pulled a pen from his front pocket. He laid the pen on the notebook.

“I take it that's a no,” Chuck said.

“Correct.” Hemphill pointed out the window at the students, who worked with Kirina and Clarence, unloading the gear boxes and tools from the roof of the van and carrying them into Raven House. “Your crew, how well do you know them?”

“They're good kids, if that's what you're asking,” Chuck said. “Friendly, outgoing. Nothing about them suggests any involvement in what happened last night.”

Hemphill put his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Nothing?”

The hair on the back of Chuck's neck stood up.

The officer cleared his throat, still sitting forward. “Parker tells me this is the first time he's ever had a college group like
yours stay here for the summer. Said he didn't think much about it to begin with. It was extra income for the resort, making use of the old dorm. He says he's had the international college student worker program for several years now, so he figured American students would be fine.” Hemphill paused. “But he says your kids have been pretty active—at night.”

“Active how?”

“He used the term ‘cross-pollination.' Said that, from what he'd heard—” and from what he'd
seen
, Chuck thought, remembering the binocular case on Parker's windowsill “—there was lots of movement back and forth between the two dorms, between your students and the international workers.”

“Huh,” Chuck said. He'd caught enough snippets of conversation between the students over the summer to know Parker's report had an element of truth to it. The students and the international workers ate together in the dining hall behind the dormitories, and they socialized together in the evenings outside the dorms as well, tossing horseshoes and sharing music playlists. It made sense that the commingling between the Raven House and Falcon House residents extended beyond Clarence's start-of-summer hook-ups with Nicoleta.

Hemphill continued. “Parker says he thinks the most active one of all was your brother-in-law.”

“You've been after Clarence from the start, because of his knife. But he's got nothing to do with this.”

Hemphill lifted a hand. “You have to understand. If we—”

“You're supposed to be working on finding the
real
killer,” Chuck broke in. “Clarence isn't him.”

Hemphill spread his hands. “I'm just giving it to you straight. Do you really think I'd be telling you this if I believed Clarence was the perpetrator? You know good and well if I thought he was the guy, I'd take him in without telling you a thing.”

“Okay,” Chuck said grudgingly. “Fine. Am I to understand
that, based on what Parker told you, you're going to focus on my entire group, not just Clarence?”

“Yes.”

“Have at them, then.”

Hemphill's brows came together in question.

“I want this thing settled as much as you do,” Chuck told him. “I was there. I held her in my arms. I saw what happened to her.” He worked his jaw. “I want to see whoever did that to her brought to justice.”

“Fair enough,” Hemphill said. “How about we start with you?”

T
WENTY
-F
IVE

Chuck gripped the edge of the table as Hemphill said to Harley, “Come on over, would you?”

The older officer cradled one of the laptops and the microphone in the crook of his arm and rolled his chair down the narrow aisle. He slid the microphone to the center of the table and set the computer on the end of the tabletop in front of him. A wire ran from the mic to the laptop.

“You've already interviewed the workers from Falcon House?” Chuck asked.

Hemphill nodded.

“Learn anything useful?”

“You know I can't comment on that.”

“But you told me what Parker had to say.”

“Maybe I shouldn't have, but it involved your students.”

“And me, by association.”

“And you.”

Fifteen minutes later, Chuck descended the metal steps from the command vehicle. The officers outside had dispersed. He stood for a moment, gathering himself.

He'd offered as much additional detail as he could to the brief description he'd provided at the scene of the killing, taking as his own Clarence's initial sighting of Nicoleta with the presumed killer behind the dorms, and describing to Hemphill, with Harley tapping away on the laptop, what had sounded like a quarrel between the two before they left the walkway and headed up the slope into the forest.

He headed across the parking lot to Raven House to summon Clarence for his interview, per Hemphill's request. Kirina was to follow Clarence, then each of the students.

“When do we tell them I texted you?” Clarence asked from where he sat on his bed when Chuck stepped into his room.

“And that it was me who first saw her, or, them?”

Chuck closed the door behind him before he spoke. “They're still working the scene. It'd be better if they come up with a suspect first. A
lot
better.”

“All hell's gonna break loose when we tell them.”

“If they figure out who did it soon enough, we won't have to.”

Clarence twisted his hands in his lap. “I dunno.”

“I told them everything you told me, so they know everything you know. All we're doing is protecting you from their preconceived notions.”

“I guess so.”

“You have to remember what Hemphill said to you at the mine site, the way he's been gunning for you.”

Clarence pushed himself from his bed. “My story is that I didn't see anything.
Nada
. Right?”

“You can do this, Clarence.”

“I hope.”

“Just get through the interview and we'll move on from there.”

Chuck laid out his plan to Clarence before following him downstairs to the lofted common room where Kirina was sorting cardboard boxes of finds from the mine. Heavy wooden tables, lined with folding chairs, took up half the room. A sagging couch and worn easy chairs surrounded a mismatched pair of battered coffee tables in the other half. Tools and plastic storage bins were stacked in a corner.

Chuck waited until Clarence was out the front door before turning to Kirina. “The officer who came to the mine, Hemphill, is conducting the interviews. He wants to talk to you after Clarence.”

Kirina stood at one of the tables, her hands resting on an unopened box. “How'd yours go?”

“I told them you were the only one from Raven House who came up the hill to see what was going on.”

“Everyone was milling around in the halls. I ordered them to
stay put.” She looked straight at Chuck. “I saw Clarence when I went outside, before I went up the hill into the forest.”

Chuck sucked in his cheeks. He glanced over his shoulder, making sure they were alone. “You saw what?”

“He was coming back down out of the woods, from farther over.”

Chuck closed his eyes. He couldn't remember ever being more tired. “Clarence was at the scene,” he admitted to Kirina, opening his eyes, his voice low. “I told him to get out of there because of how the cops had been after him, with his knife and all.”

“You're
lying
to the police?”

“I'm protecting Clarence. People say everybody's treated the same these days. But guys like Clarence, with his earrings, his accent, the color of his skin…” Chuck let the end of his sentence dangle.

“There's been a
murder
, Chuck. The killer is still out there somewhere.”

“I told the police everything Clarence saw, everything he heard. We're not withholding anything from them.”

“Except who actually saw it.”

“The truth is, he didn't see that much.”

“I take it you don't want me to tell them I saw him sneaking back into the dorm.”

“I'm not asking you to lie. I'm just saying, if you don't tell them that one part, he'll appreciate it, and so will I.”

She took a deep breath and held it. “I like Clarence. I like him a lot. Still, I'm not saying I'll tell them, and I'm not saying I won't.”

T
WENTY
-S
IX

Chuck left Kirina and walked down the first-floor hallway past the students' rooms and out the back door. Up the slope behind Raven House, just visible through the trees, a pair of police officers knelt within the circle of crime-scene tape, sifting the forest floor with their fingers. Another officer stood back, tablet computer in hand, jotting notes. Nicoleta's body had been removed from the scene. The officers' meticulous work wasn't so different from his own as an archaeologist, as if both the past of an ancient society and the modern-day death of a young woman could somehow be reduced to dry, recorded notations and a collection of evidence bags.

He swallowed hard. Nicoleta murdered, no one yet arrested for her brutal killing, and here he was, withholding information from the police. But he was doing it for Clarence, he reminded himself. He would come clean the instant the situation warranted it.

He followed the paved path past the shuttered dining hall and the back of Falcon House, using the building as a screen to remain out of sight of Parker's office. He would talk with the resort manager soon enough, and with Professor Sartore as well, but he wanted, needed, to see Janelle and the girls first.

Janelle had texted during his interview that she and the girls had returned to the cabin without him after all—a good sign. He angled into the forest to the driveway and followed it up through the trees to the cabin, where Janelle met him at the front door. Behind her, the girls sat facing one another on the living-room floor, game computers in their laps, engaged in an interactive contest.

Rosie glanced up long enough to tell Chuck, “I'm beating her! I'm beating her!” before returning her focus to her tablet, her fingers flying.

“Not for long,” Carmelita responded, her own fingers tapping frantically at her computer.

Janelle stepped onto the deck, closed the door behind her, and leaned against it. “How'd it go?” she asked.

“About what I expected. I told them all I could.”

“What about Clarence?”

“They didn't get that specific.”

“They will, though.”

“Kirina may be telling them about him right this minute.”

A quiver entered Janelle's voice. “Kirina?”

“She saw Clarence coming back to Raven House after I sent him away.”

“And if she tells?”

“They're going to find out at some point. It'd just be better if it was after they catch somebody, or after we're out of here on Friday.”

“They're still focused on Clarence?”

“Hemphill tried to make it sound like they aren't, but I'm not sure he was telling the truth. Can't really blame them, you know.”

“I can blame them all I want.”

“You said earlier it made sense for them to be focused on him, what with his knife and all.”

“That was about the blood, not the murder—which happened
after
they found his knife.”

“It's all still supposition, though. Nothing's really changed.”

“
Nothing's changed?
We're talking about life in prison. The death penalty.” Her upper lip trembled. “You have no idea, walking around in your white-man bubble.
Mami
and
Papi
thought they were doing us a favor, giving Clarence and me our
Americano
names, like that would make it all fine.”

“
Janelle
.”

“Durango's okay. Lots of Latinos around. But Estes Park's
white as the moon.”

“They're good people here, seems to me.” Except for the poacher, Chuck realized with a fiery jolt.

“I'm not saying they're not. But when something goes wrong, it's only logical for them to start looking around at outsiders, at people who look different than they do.” Tears rose in Janelle's eyes. “
Mi hermano
.” She stepped into Chuck's arms.

As he held her, Clarence appeared, walking up the drive through the trees.

He smiled up at them. “Hey, guys,” he called with a relaxed wave.

Janelle ran down the steps to him. They embraced at the side of the truck. Clarence held her until she shoved him away and shook a finger in his face. “What's that on your breath?”

He raised his hands in self-defense. “A little nip, that's all.”

“
A little nip?
”

“It's okay, sis. I waited until after the interview.”