The Marble Mask Read online

  I saw his point. “I’m guessing you didn’t find any spare body parts on the mountain.”

  Frank Auerbach shook his head. “No, but we also haven’t done a total site search. It was getting late when he was found, and I wanted to know what Hillstrom would say first. The area’s been cordoned off—not that it matters way up there—but it needs a better look. Come to think of it, it’s our busy season and I’m pretty shorthanded, so that might be where you and your guys could really be a help. Are they in good enough shape to hit the mountain? It’s not much—a gondola ride most of the way up and the Hazardous Terrain Evacuation Team will be running the show—it would free me up something wicked.”

  “I’ll ask them,” I said slowly. “I can probably guarantee at least three of us. How much is ‘not much’?”

  “You’ll have snowshoes and crampons. It’s not like a stroll in the park, but it’s not too bad, and it’s a hell of a view. Basically, if you’re even near fit—like you—it’s no sweat, and the hazardous terrain folks really know their stuff.”

  “Yeah,” I said, wondering if he wasn’t overselling this a bit. “I’ve heard about them.”

  “Great.” He rose to his feet like a happy used-car dealer. “By the way, what do I tell BCI when they come knocking?”

  “Indirectly, they already have,” I answered, thinking Stanton might’ve known what he was doing after all. “One of my team is a BCI liaison—Tom Shanklin.”

  Auerbach glanced at his watch. “I know him, too. Sounds like you got good people.”

  My mind flashed to Willy Kunkle and I kept my mouth shut. The chief gathered together the fanned-out contents of a folder from his desk. “It’s too late to go up Mansfield today, but we could make it tomorrow morning, if that’s not moving too fast.”

  We returned to the reception/dispatch area. “No. Everyone’ll be based at the Commodore Inn, just down the street, ’cept maybe Shanklin and Spraiger, who live close enough to commute. I thought that’d be best till we figured out what’s ahead. What time you want to meet?”

  “Let’s say oh-seven-hundred hours at the fire and rescue building next door. Give us time to run through a few things before heading out.” He handed me the folder. “That’s what we got so far, by the way—scene photos, initial findings, and Hillstrom’s report. A little bedside reading.”

  We shook hands, and I headed back into the cold.

  · · ·

  From the outside, the Commodore Inn’s most striking aspect is an enormous sloping roof—vast, broad, and gently angled—projecting far out in front of the building’s entrance to form a deep carport. In the winter, it is all the more impressive for the thick mantle of snow coating it like icing, making the hotel vaguely resemble a long, low cave sliced into an otherwise frozen landscape. The inn gets its name from a three-acre pond out back, which in the summer plays host to weekly model-boat regattas, a selling point played up by an assortment of life rings, buoys, netting, and other sailing paraphernalia that hangs from the walls and ceiling of the bar and dining room out back.

  I didn’t head that way, however, choosing instead a long hallway to the left off the lobby and a room about halfway down its length. As arranged earlier, waiting for me there were the first vital signs of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation—Sammie Martens, Willy Kunkle, Paul Spraiger, and Tom Shanklin—gathered around the room like card players expecting the banker.

  I removed my coat and draped it over a chair, crossing the room to shake hands with both Shanklin and Spraiger. “I just left the Stowe PD,” I explained to all of them. “Chief Auerbach was very receptive and spoke well of Tom and Paul, which I hope is a good sign. I take it you’ve all introduced yourselves to each other?”

  Everyone either nodded or didn’t disagree. It was my experience from working with other special units that conviviality comes slowly, delayed by a professional caution that sometimes borders on suspicion. Cops are a clannish bunch, dependent on one another for understanding, support, and sometimes their lives. It is a strong, long-lasting bond, of necessity forgiving of quirky personalities, but it takes time to form, since its foundation is trust, rather than simple compatibility. I noticed that Willy had parked himself in a far corner behind a small round table, removed and unapproachable. Sammie, despite her professional and personal ties to him, was perched on the low dresser across the room, next to the silent TV set. She knew the unspoken rules, knew Willy’s prickly ways, and knew to protect herself from them in a meeting with new acquaintances.

  Shanklin and Spraiger were the unknowns. The first—short-haired, square-jawed, and military in bearing—seemed the most uncomfortable, as if fearing we’d be asking him to pass some rite of initiation. Spraiger was more unusual. Sitting comfortably in a chair with his legs crossed, he exuded an aura of utter stillness, bringing to mind either a shrink or a sage.

  “This is obviously not how VBI was designed to come out of the gates,” I continued, “with Willy and Tom serving under their own colors. But starting as a mixed bag is kind of fitting. For the most part, we exist to integrate with other departments, so now we’re a polyglot ourselves.”

  “And with zero credibility,” Willy added in a low growl from his core.

  Every head in the room turned toward him.

  “No problem there,” I answered, pretending he’d voiced a pertinent comment. “We have to start somewhere and our role is real enough. Auerbach’s so hard up for manpower, he’d like our help in a detailed search of the mountain site at oh-seven-hundred hours tomorrow morning, along with their hazardous terrain team. It’ll be a good way to get to know these folks and might get us some more information. I take it everyone’s read the report Sammie prepared on the case so far?”

  “What’s the theory on the missing feet and arm?” Paul Spraiger asked quietly.

  “Right now, we’re thinking they broke off, maybe when the body was dropped from an aircraft.”

  “Implying a possible Canadian departure point that might be a red herring,” Tom Shanklin suggested, touching on what Auerbach and I had discussed.

  “Possibly,” I agreed.

  “Is there anything so far linking Jean Deschamps to Stowe, or even the U.S.?” he asked.

  “His dead body,” Willy said glumly.

  Again, there was a slight lull in the conversation, which I quickly filled, wishing Willy would stop acting like Oscar the Grouch. “Sad but true. Possession in this case is ten-tenths of the law—unless we can prove Deschamps was killed in Canada, he’s ours.”

  “So, we’re going to have to work both sides of the border,” Spraiger suggested.

  “That’s how it looks now,” I said. “The Sherbrooke police, the Mounties, and the Sûreté du Québec have been contacted for any information, but if Hillstrom’s right about the time of death, I don’t see them breaking into a big sweat over this.”

  “Depending on who Deschamps was,” Sammie corrected.

  “Right—which I hope we’ll learn tomorrow.”

  “So what’s the plan?” Shanklin asked.

  “That’s up to Auerbach,” I answered. “My guess is we’ll be looking into Deschamps’s history, trying to find out if and when he last entered the U.S. legally, interviewing old-timers here and in Canada to see if we can pick up a trail, checking airfields and all air traffic control radars for any mysterious, late-night flights, talking to the Stowe mountain folks to try to pin down when the body might’ve been put in place, and anything else you can think of. Unless we get some eighty-year-old pilot who shows up at the door and says, ‘Book me, Danno,’ I think we’ll be here for a while. This trail may be about as cold as it can get.”

  “Great,” Willy muttered. “And while we run around looking like nobody can live without us, whoever planted this stiff will make it crystal clear why he did it. Seems to me it’d be smarter to just sit tight and see what happens.”

  Spraiger, the French-speaker with the thoughtful air, considered Willy’s point carefully. “Unless the body wasn’
t put there for us. Someone else could hear a message through the media coverage that we wouldn’t recognize, such as, ‘I did this once. I can do it again’ or, ‘I’m on your tail.’”

  To his credit, Willy recognized the potential wisdom of this and so lapsed into silence.

  I stood up from the edge of the bed and checked my watch. “Okay, let’s leave it there for now. It’s still early—use the evening to explore the town, get something to eat, maybe get better acquainted. Tom and Paul, I know you both have families and’ll be commuting, but if you want to hang out a couple of hours, feel free. It might be our last downtime for a while. I’ll be here reading the case file in case anyone wants to talk.

  “Willy?” I asked as the rest of them headed for the door.

  He’d stayed put, still wedged in his corner, looking at me with a sardonic smile. “Yeah, I know—gotta stay after class.”

  I waited until the others had left before taking Sammie’s place on the low dresser, facing him across the room.

  “What’s the lecture gonna be?” he asked. “Good attitude making for good teamwork?”

  I was so used to him after all these years, I actually laughed. “The day you give anyone a good attitude, I’ll start watching my back. I figure this bunch’ll get used to you just like the old one did.”

  “I may not be rid of the old one,” he reminded me.

  I pursed my lips for a moment before telling him, “I wouldn’t be so sure. You flunk out here, you might not have anything to fall back on. I don’t think Brandt’ll take your shit for long—not without a buffer.”

  He didn’t look impressed. “Right—Joe the buffer. Why do you keep doing that? Saving my ass… What d’you get out of it, beside a holiness medal from people like Sam?”

  I paused before answering, hoping I understood myself enough to be truthful. “That may be part of it, although everyone else thinks I’m an idiot. I’m not sure—I was thinking just recently it maybe had to do with my not having kids, and your being a good example of why that had been a really smart move.”

  He laughed and scratched his ear with his good hand. “With that fatherly approach, you may be right.”

  “You’re a bright guy, Willy,” I continued more seriously. “And a better man than you admit, especially to yourself. I don’t want to see that wasted just because you’re a social misfit. Maybe I believe it would make me less of a human being if I let you slide, or maybe it’s because I want to be around when you finally wake up and realize what you’ve got to offer. That would be the ultimate last laugh.”

  “One you’ll never live to enjoy,” he said, his grimness turned inward.

  “Who knows?” I countered. “You don’t drink anymore, I haven’t heard of you beating on anyone lately, you work hard and get results, and you didn’t turn me down when I suggested joining this crew. Why is that, if you’re so convinced you’re worthless?”

  He scowled at me, unhappy at having the tables turned. “Somebody had to cramp your style.”

  I ignored the diversion. “Sam seems to think you’ve got something to offer.”

  He could have come back with another one-liner—and would have in the old days. But I was right. He was in slow evolution, growing like a thwarted, water-starved plant toward whatever light he could see—including this job.

  And he knew it.

  He got up abruptly, graceful despite the useless, limp arm, which he kept from flopping around by leaving his left hand shoved into his pants pocket. “We done here?”

  I looked at him for a moment.

  “We may be just beginning.”

  Chapter 5

  MOUNT MANSFIELD ISN’T MUCH BY GLOBAL STANDARDS. While it’s the best Vermont has to offer, it still measures only 4,393 feet—a relative shrimp compared to its brethren in New Hampshire and New York, and less than a sixth of Everest. But it has great presence, especially since its western slope sweeps straight out across the Champlain Valley, ending at the lake a mere thirty miles off. And it can be brutal because of that bearing. Over the years, several claims have been made clocking the wind on Mansfield’s summit in excess of one hundred miles per hour.

  That summit is actually a row of blended peaks, running along a north/south axis, the tops of which in profile, specifically from the east, look vaguely like a mile-long human face staring straight up at the sky—a supplicant giant—silent, determined, without hope of response. The Anglo name “Mansfield” has a murky genesis, but the ancient Abnakis showed how appearance can deceive: They called it “Mountain-with-a-Head-like-a-Moose.”

  The most obvious of its summits is the Nose, but the tallest is the Chin, at the north end, and it was at the bottom of the cliff between the Chin and the Adam’s Apple where the frozen body of Jean Deschamps had been discovered by a daredevil skier looking for virgin snow far off the beaten path.

  According to Ray Woodman, the head of Stowe’s Hazardous Terrain Evacuation Team—locally known as Stowe Mountain Rescue—such off-trail forays are not uncommon once the snow becomes firmly seated on the higher, sometimes cliff-steep slopes. Hunched over a topographical map at the fire department the following morning, he traced with his finger a reverse-curving, horizontal S, up and over the Chin’s left side, down around to the throat between the Chin’s base and the Adam’s Apple, and across the throat to the edge of a deep, steep ravine above Smuggler’s Notch, two thousand feet farther down, and the hot dog skier’s planned destination.

  “We’ll be following roughly this path,” Woodman explained. “A diagonal climb from the gondola to just under the summit, along this swale here. Then down Profanity Trail above Taft Lodge. Another traverse to catch the top of the saddle between the base of the Chin and the Adam’s Apple, and then an easy climb down the saddle’s western slope to where the body was. We won’t be on skis. I never thought that was particularly sane. We’ll have snowshoes or crampons, depending on the surface. And ice axes.”

  Willy leaned forward and planted his own finger next to Woodman’s. “If the skiers are trying to end up at Smuggler’s Notch, what was this guy doing on the western side of the saddle? The Notch is to the north.”

  “He got disoriented,” Woodman explained simply. “Happens all the time. The saddle is almost flat along its crest. You hit a whiteout like he did, you think you’re sliding north beside the Apple, heading toward Hell’s Brook, but in fact you’re just slipping off the saddle’s side. It’s not particularly dangerous. It just ruins your day ’cause you end up miles from where you want to be. But he didn’t get that far. Way I heard it, he actually fell into the hole with the body.”

  Frank Auerbach, towering above most of us, nodded in confirmation. “Talk about ruining a day. He was a basket case when I talked to him. What’s the weather report, Ray?”

  Woodman straightened from the broad table we’d been leaning over to see the map. “A little iffy. There’s some activity in the area, but no rhyme nor reason to it. I wouldn’t mind waiting for a better day.”

  Auerbach shook his head. “I’m already getting enough heat as it is. You saying we can’t go?”

  Woodman looked unhappy. “I don’t know enough to say for sure. That’s why I’m suggesting caution.”

  That seemed to settle it for Auerbach. “Duly noted. We go.”

  I glanced around the room. Most of the ten people there bore Woodman’s stamp of experienced casualness. Wind-tanned, lean, and sporting their outdoor gear with the ease that older cops wear their guns, they all but radiated self-assurance. My crew and I looked like neophyte hikers in borrowed clothes.

  Which was in fact the case. Even Sammie, who’d come with her own equipment, had been further complemented with a few extra items. The rest of us had been outfitted virtually from head to toe. We’d also been given a crash course in climbing protocol, rope use, and how to use carabiners and ice axes, some of which harked back to familiar special weapons training, others of which felt foreign and awkward.

  “Jesus,” Willy muttered as we all prepa
red to leave, “it’s not like we’re assaulting K-2 or anything.”

  “Maybe not,” Woodman told him. “But it’s what you don’t plan for that’ll kill you.”

  · · ·

  An hour later, I was staring out the gondola window as we were pulled up the mountain’s face, wondering if this was what a spider felt climbing a silken filament up the side of a dormant human, knowing that if the host took notice, the end would be fast and brutal.

  The bottom hadn’t been bad, surrounded by base buildings and a swarm of colorfully clad tourists. It had been entertaining looking down on the broad trail below us, watching skiers trying to strike a balance between self-control and speed. Farther up, though, I’d become aware of the mountain’s sheer mass overhead, and of my own comparative insignificance. To challenge such a huge, powerful, prehistoric chunk of the earth’s crust felt like tempting fate. I watched the approaching ridgeline, stretching across my entire horizon, with growing dread.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” Ray Woodman said beside me. “Most people turn their backs to the mountain and look at the valley to admire the view. I like this better—it’s the mountain I have to deal with, whether the view’s there or not.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. What view there was seemed imperiled by a series of ever shifting clouds. But what I could see was spectacular. “You can’t blame them, though,” I commented.

  “Oh, no. I wouldn’t do that. Once I’m on top, I always look around. Be crazy not to. Besides, by then I’ve earned the right. It’s just that for me, the view’s like the cherry on top, and I always eat the cherry last.”

  I resisted mentioning that I found it unsettling putting ice cream sundaes and life-threatening excursions into the same sentence, especially when the speaker was the climbing team leader. “I think I’ll just be happy when the whole meal’s over,” I said softly. “This is not my element.”

  Woodman was sympathetic. “You’re in good company. It’s just what I like to do. I wouldn’t be a cop for all the tea in China. Up here, I only get in trouble if I make a mistake. You guys never know what’s going to hit you, no matter how careful you are. I couldn’t live like that.” He swept his hand across the approaching ridge. “You have to admit it does grab the attention, though. Even if all you want to do is slide down it.”