Dressed in blue pajamas, Holms wore a terrycloth bathrobe and sheepskin moccasins. He looked younger than Walt had imagined him. His name had been in the business pages for decades.
He focused intently on Walt and spoke in a croaking voice that needed more coffee.
“I apologize for the secrecy, Sheriff, but there’s no such thing as privacy, and I need to keep this private. I called you because this home is in the county, not the city, and I’ve had it on good authority that you’re a hell of a lot more trustworthy than the Ketchum police chief.”
“I don’t know about that. What’s the nature of your complaint?”
“Not exactly a complaint. More like a report. It’s Allie-Ailia-my wife. She failed to come home last night.” He looked to Walt for some kind of reaction. “This is entirely out of character, and I’m worried. If I raise the alarm it’ll be over the wire services before I’ve had my morning swim. With Patrick’s conference and all…No need to spoil his party.”
“A guy like you? You’ve got your own people,” Walt said.
“You want my people to handle it, they can, I suppose,” Holms said.
“Does she carry a cell phone?” Walt asked.
“Last I saw her, she’d gone for a run. This was a little after five, yesterday evening. She missed the luau.”
“You’ve tried her cell phone?”
“I called it, only to hear it ring down the hall. It’s on her dresser. Damn awful feeling, that is.”
“Five P.M. yesterday,” Walt stated. “How ’bout the staff?”
“Did she sleep somewhere else? That’s what you’re asking, isn’t it? With someone else? You think she’s going to slip back into her room and come out yawning as if she overslept? I don’t think so.”
The food arrived.
Walt took down the particulars as he ate. Stuart had expected to see her at the C3 luau. He’d left word with the staff that she was to call him the moment she returned home. Upset with her, he’d headed home, had taken a sleeping pill, and awakened at 5 A.M. to find her room still empty.
Walt polished off the omelet. He thought of his own wife-nearly mentioned it.
“Fabulous omelet,” Walt said.
“That’s Raphael, my chef.”
“An artist.”
“I’ll tell him. He’ll be pleased.”
“We usually give it some time before investigating reports of missing persons, but we can act on this if you like. My question is: What kind of press can you tolerate? If we take this, it’ll mean some phone calls, questions being asked. It’s going to be pretty clear, pretty quickly, what’s going on. I wish I could change that, but it’s going to get out.”
“I want her found.” He didn’t touch his own plate-an artful display of smoked salmon and a bagel.
Walt ran through what his deputies referred to as her 411. “She drives a pale green Volvo SC- 90,” Holms told him. Then he reached into his robe’s pocket and passed a five-by-four card across the table. It included the vehicle’s registration number, her age, weight, and the clothes she’d last been seen in-a gray, zippered shell, a white jogging top, and blue shorts. A recent photo had been digitally printed in the lower corner.
“I have very competent staff.”
“What about your own detail?” Walt asked again.
“We use a company for overseas travel. Yes. New York. Washington. L.A. But not up here. Raphael goes with us everywhere. A few assistants. That’s all.”
Walt studied the photo, remembering where he’d last seen this same woman: on the balcony with Danny Cutter at his brother’s cocktail party.
“Yes, there’s an age gap, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Holms said. “But I’m only sixty. And a young sixty at that. She’s beautiful, and outgoing, and a wonderful conversationalist who likes to talk. Find her, Sheriff.”
“Her favorite places to run?”
“The bike path. Adam’s Gulch. Hulen Meadows. Lake Creek. Over the saddle and into Elkhorn. She varies it.”
Walt wrote these down on the back of the same card.
“It’s a lot of ground,” Walt said.
“That’s why you’re involved.”
“We’ll get started,” Walt said. “And we’ll keep it under the radar as much as possible.”
“If you start asking around, Danny Cutter’s name is going to come up. That’s not news to me, and it’s behind us. Just so you know.”
“Okay,” Walt said, though his voice belied him.
“Ailia and Danny are to be partners in a company I’m helping him finance. Those fences are mended.”
Walt faintly nodded, wondering why, if they were mended, Holms felt obligated to mention them.
Nine
A n hour past a sunrise lost to an overcast sky, the rain began. The dirt road out Adam’s Gulch, where the pavement ended, had turned to pale brown slop. Low, swirling clouds concealed the tops of trees up on the crests of the surrounding mountains. The sky fluctuated between a light mist and a steady drizzle. Mountain weather.
Walt donned a tan, oilskin greatcoat bundled in the back of the Cherokee along with climbing gear, snowshoes, and two backpacks capable of keeping him in the woods overnight-one for summer, one for winter. He offered Brandon a poncho, but his deputy refused the offer, content to play the he-man, macho outdoorsy thing to the limit, even if it meant a head cold. The parking lot bustled with law enforcement and Search and Rescue personnel. Nothing like a missing rich woman to get the adrenaline running. A ribbon of Day-Glo tape was lifted, admitting two pickup trucks, both carrying dog kennels in their beds.
Alone, to the right of the Porta Potti and the trailhead sign, a pale green Volvo, its engine cold, was parked over dry dirt. It could have been there an hour or overnight. But it belonged to Ailia Holms and was empty.
Walt addressed the Search and Rescue team. “Listen up! She may be just injured. Could be out for a morning run and the husband has things confused. So let’s not scare her to death. It’s possible she’s been exposed to the elements overnight. Make sure you’re covered for that: space blankets, protein bars, and water. You’ve got your assignments. We’re using channel fifteen. Keep off the radios unless it means something. Okay. Go!”
The group dispersed. Walt turned to Brandon. “You and I will take the Hill Trail. I’ll take the first entrance; you’ll take the second.”
“I’m on it,” the man replied.
By the time Walt reached the Hill Trail, muddy clay was sticking to his boots like wet concrete, heavier with each step. Twice he stopped to scrape globs off the treads. He followed the narrow path up into the trees over rocky, rutted ground roped with exposed tree roots. With the low clouds and thick forest, an unsettling darkness overcame him.
Fiona’s arrival was announced over the radio. She was photographing the Volvo. In his mind’s eye Walt saw Search and Rescue spreading out over the trail and covering ground. He checked in with Brandon. The two were approaching each other from opposite directions.
Discovering a snapped branch-the ripped bark green-Walt knelt and studied the disturbance in the trail’s soil. Normally dry and powdery, the ocher-colored dust was skimmed with a layer of rain. If prodded, the crust of darkened soil gave way to the fine dirt beneath. He followed some impressions that told him two things: First, the leg that had snapped the branch had done so prior to the rain falling; second, it was a man’s flat-soled shoe, size nine or ten, walking slowly and deliberately, not the long strides associated with exercise, not an athletic shoe.
He kept off the path as best as possible and followed the shoe prints, calling ahead to Brandon to switch frequencies. When he met him again on the radio, Walt instructed his deputy to keep an eye out for the tracks, and not to disturb them.