“She’s been a big help to me, checking employee records,” Spinney volunteered, which earned him a silent, dark look from Willy.
“How’s that going, by the way?” I asked. “I’ve been loitering around that phone during shift break, but so far it’s been a dead end. Either Marty and his contact are spooked and laying low, or they’ve got another way of keeping in touch.”
Lester didn’t look happy. “I hate to admit it, but the best thing might be if they hit another condo while we’re here. There’re up to twelve hundred employees on this mountain during the peak season, Joe, running the gamut from dropout lawyers to trailer trash that had criminal records in the womb. They come from just down the road and from overseas, and some of them lie about their names. Bettina hasn’t held anything back, but their records’re almost useless. She says that for the money they pay the lower ranks especially, they don’t make much effort checking under the hood.” He smiled and added ruefully, “I mean, you two got jobs there, right? How careful can they be?”
“Doesn’t that bite them in the butt sometimes?” Sammie asked.
“More now than in the old days,” Spinney admitted. “But they’re between a rock and a hard place. Recently, they’ve been putting up with whatever screwy behavior they’re handed just to keep the place going. And they don’t make a big deal about it when they do get bit, since it might give the resort a bad name. Pretty ironic that you get a bunch of pampered rich folks being catered to by potential crooks, all because you’re paying so poorly you don’t want to ask questions you don’t want answered.”
“Sounds like poetic justice to me,” Willy said.
I returned to the original inquiry. “It still doesn’t hurt to assume for now that Marty’s contact is someone local, or at least someone he knows from the past. Did you compare all the names we’ve collected from Marty’s background to the employee records here?”
Lester nodded. “Yup. And got nothin’ yet. Still, Marty Gagnon’s no Einstein, and I’ll bet money his contact’s not, either. They probably started ripping off condos ’cause it seemed like a good idea at the time. We just need to connect the right two dots and hope one or the other sticks his head out of the bushes.”
Spinney paused, as if reflecting on his own words, and then asked, “What about the protesters? They something to factor in?”
“I don’t think so,” I answered him. “At least not yet. So far, all they’ve done is sit in the road, surround the ticket booth, and hang a banner from the ski lift towline in the middle of the night, which I thought was pretty creative.”
“No one’s been busted yet?” Spinney asked.
“One or two who went too far, but the resort’s still playing nice. From what we heard, McNally, the CEO, is trying to work out a compromise. That’s good for us, though. Snuffy’s deputies are out in force every day, straining at the leash-you and Willy asking questions and checking backgrounds are fitting right in.”
“I don’t see why McNally’s dicking around with those people,” Willy said. “They’re a pain in the ass.”
“He probably thinks they’d be a bigger pain if he let Snuffy have his way,” I suggested. “It would just make for bigger headlines.”
There was a slight lull in the conversation, which I ended by grabbing my coat and awkwardly putting it back on in the van’s tight confines. “Okay, I guess that’s it. Lester, how soon before you think you’ll have some names Sammie and I can zero in on?”
“Maybe a couple of days.”
“Then we’ll do this again in forty-eight hours, unless something breaks before then.” I looked over at Sammie. “You drive down here?”
She nodded.
“I'll walk you to your car.”
My tone of voice made it clear that this wasn't merely a suggestion-and that nobody else was invited.
Outside, back in the cold and the darkness, we both watched the departing van lumber up the gloomy alley toward the road. Its brake lights flared briefly at the road’s edge, and then it vanished with a sudden burst of acceleration, leaving behind a plume of exhaust that lingered like a ghost in the soft glow from the gas station sign down the street.
“You fitting in all right?” I asked Sammie in the sudden silence.
“Yeah. It was easier than I thought. I figured they’d all be Olympic dropouts: super hotshots that would pick me out in a New York minute. Turns out they’re too busy trying to get laid to care if I know a ski from a pole. A third of them are amazingly shitty instructors-hate the people they’re supposed to be teaching. So I’m looking pretty good, and the instructing’s kind of fun.” She smiled at me suddenly. “If the money were better, I’d think about doing it full time.”
“Right. I believe that. You pick up anything interesting yet?”
“Not really. I meant what I said in the van. There is one guy, though-Richie Lane-a real predator. Put the moves on me right off, took the hint, and moved on, like a shark checking out bait. I watched him with a class yesterday. He had his hands all over the women but talked up the guys, too. Has a fancy watch, expensive clothes, drives a ’Vette, although an old one. Could be he’s just a gigolo-he basically lives in the nightclub-but he might be up to something more. Wouldn’t be the first time a thief got inside information through a little pillow talk.”
“We can tell Lester to put him under the microscope.”
We were walking down the same path the van had taken earlier, and now paused in the last of the alleyway’s deep shadow.
“It’s none of my business except for how it affects the job,” I said finally, “but how’re things between you and Willy?”
She stayed staring out at the empty road, looking suddenly small, thin, and vulnerable. It wasn’t the first time she and I had discussed such a personal subject. There was a father/daughter element to our friendship that encouraged it, and which I used occasionally to check on her well-being. Having been abandoned by her real father at an early age hadn’t done her later dealings with men much good.
“They’re okay.”
“He’s not easy to get along with,” I prompted.
“No,” she admitted.
“Meaning you’re having some problems?”
She looked at me then. “Not really, which I guess is good news. I don’t know why, but when it’s just the two of us, it’s incredibly easy. He’s peaceful and quiet and supportive-and funny, if you can believe it. But outside of that, he’s like Jekyll… or Hyde… whoever the monster was, and that’s when all of a sudden I get the shit end of the stick. Makes it kind of tough to adjust, you know?”
“So there was nothing to the sun-tanning crack?”
Her expression showed her doubt. “Ever since I went undercover, dyed my hair, he’s been a little weird.”
“Jealous?”
She nodded. “Probably. Fits some of the other comments he’s made.”
“You’re an attractive woman, Sam, and you’re strutting your stuff right now: tight jeans, nice tan, ski instructor reputation. All of a sudden, you’re not one of the guys toting a gun and busting bad guys. It’s the first time he’s seen you out of context-probably makes him feel vulnerable. I doubt he considers himself a chick magnet, so he’s totally amazed that you two have become so close-”
She stuck her lower lip out thoughtfully. “It’s too bad.”
“You going to do something about it?”
She suddenly smiled and spoke more confidently. “Nope. He’ll just have to get with the program. I put up with his crap. He can put up with some of mine.”
I patted her shoulder, satisfied for now that her emotions weren’t threatening her job. At the moment, hers was hardly the most dangerous of undercover assignments, but as a friend and a boss, I’d have been remiss not to inquire. “Good. Keep me up to date. You better go first.” I nodded toward her Jeep, parked in the gas station lot.
She hesitated briefly. “You don’t need to worry. You know that, right?”
Got it,” I told her, primarily to keep her happy.
She checked up and down the road and then jogged into the light toward her vehicle, her blonde hair suddenly glowing in the night. Willy Kunkle was a lucky man, I thought-which only made me more confident that I was right about what was bugging him.