“That’s okay.” Two spots of color flamed on Rorry’s cheeks; she was glaring at Boots. “You don’t have to try to send Goldy some kind of secret message, the way you used to do with Nate and your early morning calls. I know your code. One ring means, Call me back. Two rings mean, Meet me for lunch. He finally told me, you know.” Rorry’s tone was angrily triumphant. Boots looked flabbergasted. “He swore it was all innocent. That you were just afraid of my jealousy. If it was all innocent, how come I had the phone company trace your calls to a pay phone outside the Killdeer Art Gallery? Why didn’t you call from your house? Too afraid I had caller ID?” She whirled on Arthur. Startled, he cradled the wine to his shoulder. “Are you married, Arthur? That’s the kind of guy Boots goes for.”
Arthur’s voice squeaked, “Rorry, please! Boots Faraday is a customer!” Boots clamped her mouth into a forbidding line. Arthur gulped, set the wine flask down, and frowned. He repeated his question: “What exactly are you and Rorry doing up here, Goldy?”
Luckily, Rorry remembered my warning about not divulging the purpose of our trip. I told him I just wanted to make sure Jack and his staff were prepping the last show. Arthur nodded, and Rorry announced that we had to go. During the gondola trip down, I endured Rorry’s litany of complaints about Boots Faraday, who, Rorry insisted, had tried desperately to break up her marriage.
“Boots does have a really nice body, for an older woman,” Rorry conceded as the car door opened at the base. “I even thought Nate might have been doing a porno film of her, and she’d use photo clips from it in one of her stupid collages.”
“Well, we’ll find out, won’t we,” I commented as we headed for the building marked Base Security—Patrol Office and pushed through to the Lost and Found. Rorry, again distinctly uncomfortable, insisted she had to sit down.
“Are you all right?” I asked desperately.
“Yes, it’s just that damn woman,” Rorry replied as she lowered herself into a padded chair. “She gives me indigestion.”
“Item?” inquired the patrolman behind the desk. It was Hoskins! These people must run on a six-day rotation, I thought. My helper from the day of Doug Portman’s accident asked if I was doing all right, and if my son was okay. I told him we were both fine, but that my friend and I desperately needed help finding something. Hoskins said seriously, “And the item is …”
“A camera case.” Rorry reached up to slap her ID onto the counter. “Initials N.B. It’s in the safe, we called.”
Hoskins tapped keys on his computer, disappeared, then returned with a dirty, crumpled case made of heavy-duty gray fabric, frayed in places. When Rorry saw it, she cried out in surprise and alarm, and began to weep. Damn, had I done the wrong thing? She held out her hands and I gave the case to her. She hugged it to her huge belly, rocking back and forth and sobbing as if her heart were broken.
“Rorry,” I said softly as I knelt down beside her chair. “I’m sorry. What can I—”
“You want me to get a paramedic in here?” Hoskins asked me. “She doesn’t seem well.”
“She’s not going into labor. Could you please just get her a glass of water?”
“Take the camera,” Rorry moaned when Hoskins had left. “See if the cassette’s in there, watch it somewhere, and then let’s get out of here. I can’t take any more in one day. Please, Goldy.”
When Patrolman Hoskins returned with water for Rorry, I asked if there was a VCR in another office where I could watch something quickly. He shook his head, then asked dubiously, “Are you sure your friend is going to be all right?”
“Yes, I think so. This camera belonged to her dead husband, and … It’s a long story.”
“You need a VCR?”
“Yeah.”
Hoskins lifted his chin at the wide front window. “Cinda’s got a couple of VCRs at her place. Why don’t you try her?”
Of course. I thanked him and went back to Rorry. I unzipped the case and checked the camera, which was spotted with rust. The word Sony was still visible. I rezipped the bag, patted Rorry’s shoulder, and murmured that I would be right back.
The snow seemed to be letting up a bit as I made my way to the Cinnamon Stop. The café was still hopping with business, though, and a video showing a freestyle snowboarding competition was drawing oohs and aahs from the enthralled crowd. I shouted my request to Cinda, who was steaming milk for a latté. Did she have an extra machine in the back where I could watch a film?
She gave me a puzzled look, then cried “Sure!” and muttered something to the waiter I recognized as Ryan. He pointed to a door and I waded through the boisterous crowd to join him.
“You need help with a video?” Ryan asked.
“Yeah, my friend’s pregnant and about to pop. My Lamaze teacher gave me a childbirth video,” I improvised blithely, “and I need to see if it’s in good enough shape to show.”
Ryan shrugged, as if my lie were the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard, which it probably was. He turned on the VCR while I struggled to open the camera, first with my fingernails, then with a pair of scissors from Cinda’s desk. When the latch finally gave, the shears snapped. Ryan took the cassette and showed me how to operate Cinda’s VCR.
Fast-forwarded, Nate Bullock’s tape was spotty with visual static. When the film opened with the first shot, the snow-capped rustic sign for Elk Valley and Elk Ridge, I grabbed the remote control from Ryan and hit “Stop.”
Ryan turned to me. “Lamaze at a ski resort? What is this, ‘Cliffhanger Childbirth’?”
I opened the office door to usher him out. “It’s women’s stuff. Not a place you want to go, Ryan.”
He muttered something like You can say that again and zipped out. Worried about Rorry in the present, and what this video was going to show me about the past, I took a nervous breath. Then I hit the Play button.
Nate Bullock’s garbled-but-familiar PBS voice gave me a jolt. I couldn’t make out a word of what he was saying. From the tone of it, it sounded like an introduction. After the shot of the sign, his next shot was of the path beyond it. Next the camera panned to his companion, whom I couldn’t quite make out. Rorry was right about one thing: She was a female. The woman had a snowboard slung under her arm. Nate went from a long shot to a close-up.
I cried out: A conservative form-fitting navy-blue ski suit, no psychedelic outfits. A short cap of brown hair, no spill of pink curls. No jewelry. But her athleticism, her pretty face with its freckle-sprayed pixie nose, her bright, lopsided smile: All these were unmistakable.
Cinda Caldwell.
Barton Reed’s words in the hospital echoed in my brain: Said she was hurt, but that was crap. Just chickened out. Of course, Cinda was the most famous female snowboarder in Killdeer. Young, pretty, and as adept at snowboarding as anyone. She was the best. Got hurt. Wanted to be famous. Never happened.
No, it never happened, I thought as I watched. Nate expertly clicked off the camera and then resumed taping from the valley. Cinda was far above, on the right edge of Elk Ridge. Nate zoomed in on her doing a smooth right to left, then left to right maneuver on the steep white slope. Cinda’s flowing movements were as effortless and breathtaking as big-wave surfing.
Nate’s garbled voice came on again; the tape clicked off. The next time Cinda appeared she was up higher, near the top edge of the steep, forest-lined bowl that Arthur had pointed out to Marla and me the day before. Nate zoomed in. Poised unafraid at the edge of the bowl, Cinda’s face was happy but determined. Then her concentration broke. She stared, puzzled, into the distance. A look of horror spread over her face, and she gestured to the camera.