Cold Case Cowboy

Chapter Three

“So what’s the story, Nick? Gotta be something more than pictures of cold female bodies bouncing around in that head of yours. You gonna share, or just sit there staring at a corpse all night?”

Sheriff Will Pyle was growing impatient. Nick saw it on his face, heard it in his voice. Pyle got annoyed when people died in his town. So far in his four-year term of office, only twelve had. Two of them had been heli-ski accidents, eight had gone from old age or disease, one man had committed suicide. Kristiana Felgard was a blot on Pyle’s record and he didn’t like it, not one bit.

Surprisingly, though, he didn’t seem to resent Nick’s being there, or the fact that Dana had placed the call to Denver without consulting him.

Pyle was a big-boned, beefy man of sixty-two. He’d been a state cop in Illinois for over thirty years before coming to Painter’s Bluff in search of a quiet life. Until last night, he’d had it. Though he and Nick had crossed paths on several occasions during Pyle’s term, this was the first time in an official capacity.

Straddling an outdated swivel chair, Nick rearranged the photos on the sheriff’s desk. “You took a lot of shots, Will.”

The sheriff removed his gun and holster. “Old habits, Nicky. We cover our butts. Got a mix of digital, Polaroid and good old Kodak film. Even took videos under floodlights. We did our best to preserve the site, but January being what it is and us not really equipped for such an undertaking, there’s not a whole lot left up there.” He stretched his back, raising his arms overhead. “You want coffee?”

“Black, two sugars.”

“Two?” Pyle snorted. “You lose your toughness in the city?”

“I used to take four.”

“Sissified city cop.” Pyle hunted through a cupboard for the sugar. “Can you even ride a horse?”

“Bareback through the snow to school, just like my daddy and his daddy before him.”

Another snort, this time of laughter. But Pyle sobered as he poured the coffee. “What do you make of this unholy mess?”

Nick picked up a graphic shot. “Nothing good so far. I see blood on the snow here. Besides the strangulation bruising on the victim’s neck and the rope burns on her wrists and ankles, she was unmarked.”

“Noticed that.”

Nick counted the spots of blood. There were four in the snow and another on a jutting rock near the victim’s left shoulder. “Talk to me about the blood.”

“We collected samples and sent them to the county lab for analysis. Should have the report in a day or two. Be great if it matched up with the DNA samples you got from the guy who attacked that woman in Aspen.” Pyle searched for stir sticks in his desk drawer. “How long you been working this case, Nick?”

“Nine months.”

“On one cold case. Don’t you find that kind of police work frustrating?”

“Yeah, it’s frustrating, but someone has to make sure the victims and their families don’t slip through the cracks. They deserve justice, Will, to say nothing of the perps who deserve to be locked up.”

“Point taken, but a job like yours’d drive me to drink. Strand of hair here—no match. Drop of blood there—useless DNA. No witnesses, no way to place a suspect at the scene. You must have an endless supply of patience to go over a file from a thousand different angles.”

“Think of me as a dog looking for a bone to chew on. He’ll sink his teeth into the smallest one and stick until something juicer comes along.”

Pyle chuckled. “Dana says you could’ve been a cowboy. You have a ranch waiting for you when your daddy retires. Instead you’re riding herd on a bunch of dusty corpses. I’m sure the families are grateful, Nicky, but in your boots I’d have taken the cattle, hands down.”

“Give me ten more years and I might agree with you.”

Pyle handed him a chipped mug. “Here you go, sweetheart, two sugars. Now let’s take a break, and you can fill me in on this architect my deputy’s been babbling about all night. He spotted her checking into Skye’s hotel. She as DDG as he claims?”

“Drop-dead gorgeous?” Nick caught his bottom lip briefly between his teeth. He could still feel the way she’d nipped him earlier. “Yeah, you could say that. She’s definitely a beauty—long legs, long blond hair, blue eyes…”

“Blue like the lake up at Painter’s Lodge, swears my deputy. Or the ocean around a tropical island.”

“Your deputy watches too many travel shows.”

“Nah, his mom writes poetry. When he acted up as a kid, she’d sit him in a corner with a book and make him read.”

Nick used his laptop to enlarge a section of the imprint near the victim’s head. “He set something down here, Will. From the impression and the displaced snow around it, I’d say it was knocked over.”

“Snow globe, you figure?”

“That’d be my guess.” Nick glanced up. “Do the Sickerbie boys spend much time at Painter’s Rock?”

“No reason for them to in the winter. Besides, they’d have screamed like girls if they’d seen a dead body. They’ll swipe their mom’s bank card and do it up at McDonald’s, but they’d have reported this, Nick, not left her there for Hank Milligan to find. Poor old guy nearly had a coronary, and he doesn’t carry a cell phone. He had to hike all the way back to town to report it.”

Nick highlighted the patches of blood only a few inches from the imprint. He suspected the drop on the rock might be the key. “Did Milligan disturb the site?”

“Hank might be old but his eyesight’s better than mine. Knew what he was looking at twenty feet away. Didn’t have to get close to know she was dead.”

“What’s the ETD?”

“Anywhere from 11:00 to 3:00. Sorry, Nick, that’s as good as our doc could do. The country medical examiner might be able to shave a few hours off either way.” Slurping coffee, Will picked up a clipboard. “We’re running the out-of-towners now. So far, they’re clean.”

“He won’t be into other crimes. We’ll have to link him either to the victim or to the scene in another way. When did Kristiana Felgard arrive in the States?”

“Seven days ago. Her passport says she flew into JFK. We’ve asked the New York police to look for relatives, but that’ll take time.”

Nick brought up a map of Sweden. “She came from Hallstavik. That’s near Stockholm.” Where Sasha had lived for a year with her grandmother. “Where did she go after New York?”

“You’ll have to give us a bit of time. We’re checking out the airlines, railroads and bus companies.”

“How did she get to Painter’s Bluff?”

“Rental car from Denver.”

“Backtrack from Denver. Find out how long she was there. Contact her next of kin in Sweden.”

“Yes, sir,” Pyle mocked, and Nick’s lips moved into a smile. The sheriff slurped more coffee. “You staying with Dana?”

Nick switched to an old file. “I’ve been invited. I’ll see. Fawn’s parents are in town. They already have a full house.” Sitting back, he regarded the screen. “If this guy sees Sasha, we’re screwed.”

Pyle grunted. “Man, I gotta get a look at this woman. How old do you figure she is?”

Nick didn’t have to figure, he knew—her age and probably a number of other details she’d prefer to keep private. “Twenty-nine. She’s the youngest one-third of a partnership that got rolling just under three years ago. They’re building a clientele and a reputation, but architecture’s a tough business. This job for Skye Painter is important. I doubt if dynamite could blow Sasha off it.”

The outer door opened and closed while Nick contemplated Sasha Myer’s face.

Pyle’s all-pro deputy rushed in ruddy-cheeked. “We got it, sir.” He looked from the sheriff to Nick and back. “The snow globe. We found it smashed in a trash can behind Annie’s Barn.”

Someone was using a jackhammer in the hotel hallway. Sasha lifted her face from the pillow and tried to remember if April had mentioned any construction work in the hotel.

The hammering became a series of thumps, and she realized someone was banging on her door. That was never a good thing in the middle of the night.

“Okay, I’m coming.” She pushed herself upright. “Stop pounding holes in my door.” Her robe had slipped to the floor. She had to search for it in the dark because she couldn’t remember where the light switches were.

The pounding stopped when she twisted the knob and yanked. “What?” she demanded. Then groaned. “Oh, God, not you. No offense, Detective Law, but go away.”

He brushed past her and began to prowl the room. “Don’t you use your viewer?”

“My what?” She turned, noticed the small peephole in the door. “If I had, I’d have added the security chain, not opened up. Why are you here?” She hunted for a clock. “What time is it?”

“Six o’clock.”

Not as early as she’d thought. Combing her fingers through her hair, she forced her mind into function mode. “There’s no one under my bed or in the bathroom, as you can see. I had the dead bolt on all night, and I didn’t hear a thing.”

He paused by the window, surveyed the building across the street. “Do you always sleep with the curtains open?”

Not usually, but she’d been too exhausted to notice. She ignored his piercing gaze and tightened the belt of her white terry robe. She needed coffee badly. However, since there was only a mini fridge in the room, she settled for orange juice.

“Look, Nick, I know who you’re searching for, but why are you doing it in my room?”

He left the window. “The murder didn’t go according to plan, Sasha. We found the snow globe.”

So things were going from bad to worse. “Where?”

“Behind Annie’s Barn. It was broken.”

“And that means…?”

“Something screwed up.”

“Mostly for Kristiana Felgard, as far as I can see. Maybe she fought him and broke the globe.”

“I doubt it.” His gaze swept the room from corner to corner, halted on her leather backpack. “Is that all the luggage you brought?”

Even half-asleep and lacking caffeine, she could laugh. “No wonder you’re not married anymore. How many women do you know who travel with only a single backpack?”

He shot her a quick look, and she wished she’d at least had time to brush her hair.

“I’ve met a few.”

“Most of them were probably planting trees and couldn’t tell you what day of the week it was.” Sasha took a long drink of the juice. “Skye wants us to stay at the lodge while we’re here.”

He moved closer, and she fought an urge to sidestep. “We? As in you and who?”

“Me and Max, I imagine. Not me and a serial killer, I shouldn’t think.”

Nick took the bottle from her hand, set it down. Catching her arms, he brought her forward. “The problem is, Sasha, you need to think all the time. You’re not doing that.”

“I just woke up, Nick. I’m not used to being so defensive this early in the day.”

There were flecks of gold in his hazel eyes. And a night’s worth of stubble on his face. Marveling at the beauty of his features, she touched a finger to his chin. “You haven’t shaved. And you’re wearing the same clothes as yesterday. You haven’t been to bed, have you?”

“I grabbed an hour of downtime at the jail.”

She blinked in surprise. “You slept in a jail cell? That is devotion.”

“We discovered traces of blood on the globe.”

Because he was still gripping her arms, she refused to shiver. “Hers or his?”

“Not hers. We don’t know yet if it’s his. There was blood at the scene, as well.”

“Lovely.” A thought struck her. “Should you be telling me this?”

“Why, are you planning on running to the local newspaper with your scoop? You have a right to know certain aspects of the case.”

“And you think because the killer messed up, he’ll want to fix his mistake…Oh, hell.” She released a breath. “That’s exactly what you think, isn’t it, and what he might be thinking, too.”

With his thumbs, Nick stroked circles on her upper arms. “Tell me Denver’s starting to sound good to you.”

“It is.” She raised her head, firmly defiant. “But I’m not going back. Come on, Nick,” she said, at the flicker of vexation on his face. “Would it matter if I did? If he wants to kill me—” this time she did shiver “—he’ll simply follow me and do it wherever. In an alley, or a park, or someone’s front yard. Snow’s snow, and he’s murdered women in several different cities and towns.”

“You’re missing the point, Sasha.”

“No, I’m getting it loud and clear. Look, would you mind letting me go? Thanks,” she said, when he dropped his hands.

He didn’t move away, and Sasha was so intrigued by her response to him that she didn’t, either.

“Why did you come to my room, Nick, at six in the morning?”

“I thought about coming at two. Better?”

For some reason, the faint spark of humor in his eyes settled her.

“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “I’ll only go up to the building site during the day, and I’ll come back to the hotel before it gets dark. I’ll make sure Max is with me, and I won’t talk to strangers, either here or there. Does that work for you?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“You could arrest me.”

“Love to. Why don’t you assault me, and we’ll go from there?”

“Handcuffs and everything? You’re kinky as well as mysterious, Detective. I love it.”

“I had a feeling you would.”

“If that’s a comment on my character, I’ll caution you to reserve judgment. I’m not usually a flirt, but my mother preached what she practiced, and as much as I hate to admit it, one or two of her bad habits stuck.”

He placed his hands on Sasha’s arms again. This time, however, he simply slid them up and down to draw her in.

Captivated as much by his gaze as his touch, she offered no resistance. She let him ease her hips against his, and shifted her attention from his eyes to his mouth.

Although her immunity to most men’s charms was unparalleled, she suspected Nick would be a different story. As if to verify that fear, alarm bells began to clamor in her head. She planted her palms on his chest. “No, Nick, wait.”

He stopped with his mouth a tantalizing inch above hers. “What am I waiting for, Sasha?”

She realized the fist she had wrapped in his shirt was hauling him toward her rather than pushing him away. “I have no idea.” And, smiling, she yanked his mouth onto hers.

“A SERIAL KILLER? Here? In Painter’s Bluff?” An agitated Max raked his fingers through his hair. “I don’t believe it. People said a woman died up at Painter’s Rock. No one mentioned the word murder. Sasha, we need to—”

“Drive up to the site and do the job Skye hired us to do,” Sasha finished for him. She tossed her pack in the back of the Land Rover. “You can ride with me if you want to.”

“Not a chance. Two vehicles are better. I’ve heard Smoking Gun Pass is tricky.”

“And steep,” Sasha recalled. “Skye said to use chains.”

A man in a navy-blue parka began making his way across the street. Sasha spied the badge and wondered what obstacle he was going to place in her path.

“You Sasha Myer?”

She nodded, slammed the door. “You must be Sheriff Pyle. Dana mentioned you last night.”

“I’ll bet he did. You seen Nick today?”

Seen, argued with and kissed. “He checked my room for intruders at the crack of dawn. Didn’t find any.”

“Give us time.” The sheriff’s surprisingly astute gaze shifted to the man at her side. “You’d be Skye’s engineer, then.”

“Max Macallum.” He held the hair out of his eyes with a gloved hand. “Is it true you’re looking for a serial killer?”

“Just a murderer at this point. We’ll get to the serial part later.” The sheriff’s smile had a wolfish edge. “You sure are pretty, Ms. Myer.”

“Sasha, and thank you.” She glanced past his shoulder. “Where’s Nick?”

“Questioning out-of-towners. He wants one of my deputies to keep an eye on you.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“I decided to do it myself.”

She’d half expected this would happen, but it was still worth a protest. “I have a rifle, Sheriff. It’s licensed and in good working order. Nick doesn’t seem to grasp the fact that I don’t need anyone riding shotgun for me. I can take care of myself perfectly well.”

Pyle made a sign of negation. “Nick and I agreed. It was either me or Dana, and I won the toss.” He moved closer. “This is one mean dude we got here. It’s possible he’s killed eight women so far, and if he has, there’s no reason to think he’ll stop. You look a lot like the last victim. This is a small town. I’m willing to bet he’s taken notice.”

“I feel so reassured.” Sasha felt eyes boring into her head and, without turning, said, “Stop gaping, Max. It’s a long story that involves blond hair and Scandinavian ancestry. He won’t come after you.”

Max cleared his throat. “Should we maybe try to contact Skye and explain the situation?”

The wind kicked up, lifting Sasha’s hair beneath the ice-blue hat her grandmother had knitted for her last Christmas. “I’ve tried to call Skye four times this morning. Her service says she’s out of range. Let’s do our jobs and let Sheriff Pyle and Nick do theirs.”

Max opened his mouth, then closed it and slumped. “I’ll get my keys.”

He looked so miserable that Sasha gave his back an encouraging pat as he trudged past. “It’ll be fine.”

The sheriff emitted a grunt that might have been a chuckle. “You want reassurance, talk to our cold case investigator. The Snow Globe Killer only goes for women. Like the lady said, you’re safe enough.”

“Unless his aim’s off,” Nick remarked, coming up behind them.

“I’ll be back,” Max promised Sasha, edging away. “Phone Skye again while I’m gone, okay? She won’t expect you to risk your life for the sake of a resort.”

Sasha ignored him and turned her attention to Nick. His expression was impassive as usual, and showed no sign of the kiss she’d given him this morning. “I don’t need a babysitter, Detective.”

“You’re going to tell me you can shoot a gun, handle treacherous driving conditions and defend yourself against all comers, but so could Belinda Nordby. She was the fifth victim. And a cop,” he said before Sasha could ask. “She’d been one for seven years. This isn’t a game, Sasha.”

She didn’t flinch, but countered with an even, “I talked to my partner Regan Streete after you left this morning. She wants me to come back to Denver. She says Tommy can work with Skye.”

“But you said no.”

“Tommy designs inspired office buildings, but he’s a techno geek who doesn’t quite grasp the concept of fusion between structure and land, and I don’t think Skye wants the MGM Grand up here.”

“What about Regan?”

“She has a condo development and two restaurants on her plate. This is my project, Nick. I do hotels and houses.”

From the sidewalk, Sheriff Pyle grunted, “You’re not going to talk her out of it, Nicky. Best to let me go up there with her while you ask your questions down here.”

She sent him a quick smile. “You see? Even the sheriff understands me.”

Before she could move, Nick boxed her between himself and the Land Rover. It both amused and frustrated her to discover that she actually felt breathless.

With his eyes locked on hers, he lowered his head. “Don’t try losing him in Smoking Gun Pass, Sasha.”

“You can’t lose someone in a mountain pass, Nick….” She regarded him through her lashes. “Can you?”

“Stick to your route. And your promise. Back before dark, agreed?”

She considered teasing him, but then she pictured Kristiana Felgard in a cold room and nodded. “Don’t worry, Max won’t want to stay even that long.”

“And you know Max how well?”

“We had our company Christmas parties together.”

“That’s it?”

“He borrowed some liquor from our bar.”

“So he’s a close friend then.”

She offered Nick a sweet smile. “Let’s just say I know him better than I know you.”

Sliding his hand under her chin, he held her firmly in place. “Max Macallum was here in Painter’s Bluff when Kristiana Felgard died.”

Sasha didn’t move or pull away. “So was your sheriff. And Dana. And Gary Cooper down the hall from me.”

Nick’s gaze dropped to her mouth before returning to her eyes. “You can work with Max, Sasha. That doesn’t mean you should trust him.”

“What about you, Detective? You said a cop was killed. Maybe it took another cop to do it.”

“Maybe it did.”

He ran his thumb lightly over her lips. She’d rather he’d used his mouth, but even a misplaced wish wasn’t going to deter her.

“I don’t trust easily, Nick, and I always watch my back. It’s one of the few good lessons my mother taught me.” Partly because he continued to stare, but mostly because she wanted to, she bridged the small gap between them and gave him a kiss. “I promise, I won’t trust anyone.” She kissed him again, then stepped away. “Not even you.”

Chapter Four

“You kissed her?” Dana shook his head in amazement. “You’ve known her less than eighteen hours, and you kissed her? You don’t kiss women you’ve known for eighteen days, sometimes eighteen weeks, once even eighteen—”

“I get it, Dana.” In the sheriff’s private office, Nick searched for and located Will Pyle’s clipboard. “It’s out of character for me.”