White Fire p-13 Page 6

  She glanced at her watch: eleven minutes. She felt a sudden shiver of fear: time to get the hell out. Quickly she began packing up her stuff, preparing to exit the shed.

  Suddenly she thought she heard a noise. She flicked off the LED and listened. Silence. Then she heard it again: the faintest crunching sound of snow outside the door.

  Jesus, someone was coming. Paralyzed with fear, her heart pounding, she continued to listen. A definite crunch, crunch, crunch. And then — across the warehouse, in a window high up in the eaves — she saw a beam of light flash quickly across the glass. More silence. And then the muffled sound of talk and the hiss of a two-way radio.

  There were people outside. With a radio.

  Heights security? Cops?

  She zipped up her backpack with infinite care. The coffin lid was still off. Should she slide it back on? She began to move it back into place, but it made such a loud scraping noise that she stopped. She had to get it back on, though, so in one hasty movement she shoved it back in place.

  Outside she could hear more activity: crunching, whispers. There were several people outside and they were trying, not very successfully, to be quiet.

  She slid the knapsack over her shoulder and moved away from the coffins. Was there an exit door in the rear? She couldn’t tell now — it was too dark — but she didn’t recall seeing one. What she needed to do was find a secure hiding place and wait this out.

  Tiptoeing across the floor, she headed for the rear of the warehouse, where the giant pieces of an old ski lift had been stored — pylons, chairs, and wheels. Even as she moved across the floor she heard the door open, and she ran the last few yards. Now hushed voices could be heard in the shed. More radio noise.

  Reaching the stacks of old equipment, she burrowed her way in, getting down on her hands and knees and crawling as far back as she could, twisting and turning among the giant pieces of metal.

  A sudden snapping noise, and then the fluorescent tubes came popping and clinking on, bathing the warehouse in brilliant light. Corrie crawled faster, throwing herself behind a huge coil of steel cable and balling herself up, hugging her backpack to her chest, making herself as small as possible. She waited, hardly daring to breathe. Maybe they thought the padlock had been accidentally left open. Maybe they hadn’t noticed her car. Maybe they wouldn’t find her…

  Footsteps crossed the cement floor. And then Corrie heard a burst of whispering. Now she could distinguish individual voices and catch snatches of phrases. With a thrill of absolute horror she heard her own name spoken — in the Texas drawl of Kermode: querulous, inciting.

  She buried her head in her gloved hands, reeling from the nightmare. She could feel her heart almost bursting with anxiety and dismay. Why had she done this? Why?

  She heard a voice speak, loud and clear: the harsh twang of Kermode. “Corrie Swanson?”

  It echoed dreadfully in the cavernous room.

  “Corrie Swanson, we know you’re in here. We know it. You’re in a world of trouble. If you come out and show yourself now, that would be the smart thing to do. If you force these policemen to have to find you, that won’t be smart. Do you understand?”

  Corrie was choking with fear. More sounds: additional people were arriving. She couldn’t move.

  “All right,” she heard the chief’s unhappy voice say. “You, Joe, start in the back. Fred, stay by the door. Sterling, you poke around those cats and snowmobiles.”

  Still Corrie couldn’t move. The game was up. She should show herself. But some crazy, desperate hope kept her hidden.

  Burying her head deeper into her gloves, like a child hiding under the covers, she waited. She heard the tap of footsteps, the scrape and clank of equipment being moved, the hiss and crackle of radios. A few minutes passed. And then, almost directly above her, she heard, loudly: “Here she is!” And then, aimed at her: “This is the police. Stand up slowly and keep your hands in sight.”

  She simply could not move.

  “Stand up slowly, hands in sight. Now.”

  She managed to raise her head and saw a cop standing just a few feet away, service revolver drawn and pointed. Two other cops were just arriving.

  Corrie rose stiffly, her hands out. The cop came over, grasped her wrist, spun her around, pulled her arms behind her, and slapped on a pair of handcuffs.

  “You have the right to remain silent,” she heard him say, as if from a great distance. “Anything you say may be used against you in court…”

  Corrie couldn’t believe this was happening to her.

  “…You have the right to consult with an attorney, and to have that attorney present during questioning. If you are indigent, an attorney will be provided at no cost to you. Do you understand?”

  She couldn’t speak.

  “Do you understand? Please speak or nod your answer.”

  Corrie managed to nod.

  The cop said loudly: “I make note of the fact the prisoner has acknowledged understanding her rights.”

  Holding her by the arm, the cop led her out of the stacks of equipment and into the open. She blinked in the bright light. Another cop had unzipped her backpack and was looking through it. He soon extracted the two ziplock bags containing the bones.

  Chief Morris watched him, looking exceedingly unhappy. Standing beside him and surrounded by several security officers of The Heights was Mrs. Kermode, dressed in a slim, zebra-striped winter outfit trimmed in fur — with a look on her face of malice triumphant.

  “Well, well,” she said, breathing steam like a dragon. “The girl studying law enforcement is actually a criminal. I had you pegged the moment I saw you. I knew you’d try something like this — and here you are, predictable as clockwork. Trespassing, vandalism, larceny, resisting arrest.” She reached out and took a ziplock bag from the cop and waved it in Corrie’s face. “And grave robbing.”

  “That’s enough,” the chief said to Kermode. “Please give that evidence back to the officer and let’s go.” He took Corrie gently by the arm. “And you, young lady — I’m afraid you’re under arrest.”

  9

  Five long days later, Corrie remained locked up in the Roaring Fork County Jail. Bail had been set at fifty thousand dollars, which she didn’t have — not even the five-thousand-dollar surety — and the local bail bondsman declined to take her as a client because she was from out of state, with no assets to pledge and no relatives to vouch for her. She had been too ashamed to call her father, and anyway he sure didn’t have the money. There was no one else in her life — except Pendergast. And even if she could reach him, she’d die before she took any more money from him — especially bond money.

  Nevertheless, she’d had to write him a letter. She had no idea where he was or what he was doing. She hadn’t heard from him in nearly a year. But he, or someone acting for him, had continued paying her tuition. And the day after her arrest, with the story plastered all over the front page of the Roaring Fork Times, she realized she had to write. Because if she didn’t, and he heard about her arrest from someone else, saw those headlines…She owed it to him to tell him first.

  So she had written a letter to his Dakota address, care of Proctor. In it she told the whole story, unvarnished. The only thing she left out was the bail situation. Writing everything down had really impressed on her what a brainless, overconfident, and self-destructive thing she had done. She concluded by telling him his obligation to her was over and that no reply was expected or wanted. He was no longer to concern himself with her. She would take care of herself from now on. Except that someday, as soon as she was able, she would pay him back for all the tuition he had wasted sending her to John Jay.

  Writing that letter had been the hardest thing she had ever done. Pendergast had saved her life; plucked her out of Medicine Creek, Kansas; freed her from a drunken, abusive mother; paid for her to go to boarding school — and then financed her education at John Jay. And…for what?

  But that was all over now.

  The fact
that the jail was relatively posh only made her feel worse. The cells had big, sunny windows looking out over the mountains, carpeted floors, and nice furniture. She was allowed out of her cell from eight in the morning until lockdown at 10:30 PM. During free time, the prisoners were allowed to hang around the dayroom and read, watch TV, and chat with the other inmates. There was even an adjacent workout room with an elliptical trainer, weights, and treadmills.

  At that moment, Corrie was sitting in the dayroom, staring at the black-and-white checkered carpet. Doing nothing. For the past five days she had been so depressed that she couldn’t seem to do anything — read, eat, or even sleep. She just sat there, all day, every day, staring into space, and then spent each night in her cell, lying on her back in her cot, staring into darkness.

  “Corrine Swanson?”

  She roused herself and looked up. A detention guard was standing in the door of the room, holding a clipboard.

  “Here,” she said.

  “Your attorney has arrived for your appointment.”

  She’d forgotten. She hauled herself to her feet and followed the guard to a separate room. She felt as if the air around her were thick, granular. Her eyes wouldn’t stop leaking water. But she wasn’t crying, exactly; it seemed like a physiological reaction.

  She went into a small conference room to find the public defender waiting at the table, briefcase open, manila folders spread out in a neat fan. His name was George Smith and she had already met with him a few times. He was a middle-aged, slight, sandy-haired, balding man with a perpetually apologetic look on his face. He was nice enough, and he meant well, but he wasn’t exactly Perry Mason.

  “Hello, Corrie,” he said.

  She eased down in a chair, saying nothing.

  “I’ve had several meetings with the DA,” Smith began, “and, well, I’ve made some progress on the plea deal.”

  Corrie nodded apathetically.

  “Here’s where we stand. You plead to breaking and entering, trespassing, and desecration of a human corpse, and they’ll drop the petty larceny charge. You’ll be looking at ten years, max.”

  “Ten years?”

  “I know. It’s not what I’d hoped. There’s a lot of pressure being brought to bear to throw the book at you. I don’t quite understand it, but it may have something to do with all the publicity this case has generated and the ongoing controversy about the cemetery. They’re making an example of you.”

  “Ten years?” Corrie repeated.

  “With good behavior, you could be out in eight.”

  “And if we go to trial?”

  The lawyer’s face clouded. “Out of the question. The evidence against you is overwhelming. There’s a string of felonies here, starting with the B and E and going all the way to the desecration of a human corpse. That latter crime alone carries a sentence of up to thirty years in prison.”

  “You’re kidding — thirty years?”

  “It’s a particularly nasty statute here in Colorado because of a long history of grave robbing.” He paused. “Look, if you don’t plead, the DA will be pissed and he could very well ask for that maximum sentence. He’s threatened as much to me already.”

  Corrie stared at the scarred table.

  “You’ve got to plead out, Corrie. It’s your only choice.”

  “But…I can’t believe it. Ten years, just for what I did? That’s more than some murderers get.”

  A long silence. “I can always go back to the DA. The problem is, they’ve got you cold. You don’t have anything to trade.”

  “But I didn’t desecrate a human corpse.”

  “Well, according to the way those statutes are written, you did. You opened the coffin, you handled the bones, you photographed them, and you took two of them. That’s what they’ll argue, and I’d be hard-pressed to counter. It’s not worth the risk. The jury pool here is drawn from the entire county, not just Roaring Fork, and there are a lot of conservative ranchers and farmers out there, religious folk, who would not look kindly on what you did.”

  “But I was just trying to prove that the marks on the bones…” She couldn’t finish.

  The attorney spread his thin hands, a pained look pinching his narrow face. “It’s the best I can do.”

  “How long do I have to think about it?”

  “Not long. They can withdraw the offer at any moment. If you could decide right now, that would be best.”

  “I’ve got to think about it.”

  “You have my number.”

  Corrie rose and shook his limp, sweaty hand, walked out. The guard, who had been waiting outside the door, led her back to the dayroom. She sat down and stared at the black-and-white carpet and thought about what her life would look like in ten years, after she got back out. Her eyes began leaking again, and she wiped at them furiously, to no avail.

  10

  Jenny Baker arrived at the Roaring Fork City Hall lugging Chief Stanley Morris’s second briefcase in both hands. The chief carried two bulging briefcases to every meeting he attended, it seemed, so as to be prepared to answer any question that might come up. Jenny had tried to persuade him to get a tablet computer, but he was a confirmed Luddite and refused even to use the desktop computer in his office.

  Jenny rather liked that, despite the inconvenience of having to lug around two briefcases. So far, the chief had proven a pleasant man to work for, rarely made demands, and was always agreeable. In the two weeks she had interned in the police station, she’d seen him flustered and worried but never angry. Now he walked alongside her, chatting about town business, as they entered the meeting room. Big town meetings were sometimes held in the Opera House, but this one — on December thirteenth, less than two weeks from Christmas — was not expected to be well attended.

  She took a seat just behind the chief in the town-official seating area. They were early — the chief was always early — and she watched as the mayor came in, followed by the Planning Board, the town attorney, and other officials whose names she did not know. Hard on their heels came a contingent from The Heights, led by Mrs. Kermode, her coiffed, layered helmet of blond hair utterly perfect. She was followed by her brother-in-law, Henry Montebello, and several anonymous-looking men in suits.

  The main item of the meeting — the agenda was routinely published in the paper — involved a proposal from The Heights regarding where the Boot Hill remains were to be reinterred. As the meeting opened, with the usual pledge of allegiance and the reading of minutes, Jenny’s thoughts drifted to the woman she had met — Corrie — and what had happened to her. It sort of freaked her out. She had seemed so nice, so professional — and then to be caught breaking into a warehouse, desecrating a coffin, and stealing bones. You never could tell what some people were capable of doing. And a student at John Jay, too. Nothing like that had ever happened in The Heights, and the neighborhood was still up in arms about it. It was all her parents talked about at breakfast every morning, even now, ten days after the event.

  As the preliminaries went on, Jenny was surprised to see just how many people were filing into the public seating area. It was already packed, and now the standing-room area in the back was filling up. Maybe the cemetery thing was going to erupt into controversy again. She hoped this wasn’t going to make the meeting run late — she had a dinner date later that evening.

  The meeting moved to the first item on the agenda. The attorney for The Heights rose and gave his presentation in a nasal drone. The Heights, he said, proposed to rebury the disinterred remains in a field they had purchased for just such a purpose on a hillside about five miles down Route 82. This surprised Jenny; she had always assumed the remains would be reburied within the town limits. Now she understood why so many people were there.

  The attorney went through some legal gobbledygook about how this was all perfectly legal, reasonable, proper, preferable, and indeed, unavoidable for various reasons she didn’t understand. As he continued, Jenny heard a slow rising of disapproving sounds, murmurings — eve
n a few hisses — from the public area. She glanced in the direction of the noise. The proposal was, it seemed, not being greeted with favor.

  Just as she was about to turn her attention back to the stage, she noted a striking figure in a black suit appear in the very rear of the public area. There was something about the man that gave her pause. Was it his sculpted, alabaster face? Or his hair, so blond it was almost white? Or his eyes of such pale gray-blue that, even across the room, he looked almost like an alien. Was he a celebrity? If not, Jenny decided, he should be.

  Now a landscape designer was on his feet and giving his spiel, complete with slide show, images on the portable screen displaying a plat of the proposed burial area, followed by three-dimensional views of the future cemetery, with stone walls, a quaint wrought-iron archway leading in, cobbled paths among the graves. Next came slides of the actual site: a lovely green meadow partway up a mountain. It was pretty — but it wasn’t in Roaring Fork.

  As he spoke, the murmurings of disapproval, the restlessness, of the gathered public grew in suppressed intensity. Jenny recognized a reporter from the Roaring Fork Times sitting in the front row of the public area, and the look of anticipatory delight on his face signaled that he expected fireworks.

  And now, at last, Mrs. Betty Brown Kermode rose to speak. At this, a hush fell. She was a commanding presence in town — even Jenny’s father seemed intimidated by her — and those who had gathered to express their opinions were temporarily muted.

  She began by mentioning the exceedingly unfortunate break-in of ten days earlier, the shocking violation of a corpse, and how this demonstrated the need to get those human remains back in the ground as soon as possible. She mentioned in passing the seriousness of the crime — so serious that the perpetrator had accepted a plea bargain that would result in ten years’ incarceration.