Tough Cookie

A small noise made me jump. The office door had opened. Cinda, her flaming pink hair backlit by the café’s bright lamps, stood rigidly in the oblong of light. She stared at the initials on the camera case in my hands, then lifted her eyes to meet mine.

She said, “What are you going to do with that? Get me killed, too?”

CHAPTER 21

No,” I said immediately. “At least, I’m trying not to. Is this film why you quit snowboarding? You were afraid?”

“Yes. Still am. Not to mention feeling guilty about Nate.”

I took a deep breath. “And do you feel afraid because you saw who pushed Fiona Wakefield over the cliff?”

She sighed. “Yes. But all I saw was people struggling on Bighorn Overlook. Does the tape show what happened?”

“I haven’t gotten that far.”

Cinda closed the door, muffling the noise of the café behind her. “What are you planning on doing?”

I shrugged and glanced at my watch. Desperate as I was to see the rest of the tape, my fear of interruption and my desire to protect evidence, not to mention my need to do the last PBS program, dictated that I not view any more of the tape just then. I needed to find out what Cinda knew, and then I needed to split. Fast. “I haven’t got immediate plans,” I answered noncommitally.

“Goldy, please. Don’t turn in that tape. It’ll be the end of me. I was hoping you could figure out what happened, and leave me out of it—” She bit her lip.

“What are you talking about?” I stared at her. “Leave you out of it? You were so eager to get me to figure things out, you left the articles and ordered The Stool Pigeon Murders and the avalanche book, didn’t you?” She nodded bleakly. “For crying out loud, Cinda, you took my frigging library card?”

“It dropped out of your wallet here a few weeks ago. I’d been meaning to give it back to you. But then you got involved looking into Portman’s death. And I thought, well, Goldy’s the one who’s supposed to be so good at solving crimes, why not let her solve this one?”

“Did you call me pretending to be a journalist named Reggie Dawson?”

She grimaced. “Of course not.” She sighed. “Look, I know you’re angry, but please, think about what I’ve gone through since the avalanche. That day changed my life, for the worse. Who killed Fiona Wakefield? And did whoever do it see me up on the ridge? Did Nate tell anyone that I was the one he was filming? Does anyone know

I’m the one who started the avalanche that killed Nate Bullock?”

“What do you think?” I asked her. Again, I was aware of the tape in her VCR. I was also aware that I suddenly did not trust Cinda Caldwell.

“I followed Jack Gilkey’s criminal trial,” she was saying. “I don’t think Gilkey knew I was the one snowboarding in the out-of-bounds area on Elk Ridge. But Gilkey, or whoever pushed his wife off the overlook, knew some snowboarder was on Elk Ridge. It was in the papers when Nate died. In jail, Gilkey befriended my old buddy Barton Reed. Maybe it was just to be friendly, but Gilkey asked Barton a million questions about scofflaw snowboarders in Killdeer. Barton wrote me about his new friend; told me the two of them would be out soon; we could all go snowboarding. I wrote back that I hadn’t done any boarding since my knees gave out the year before.”

“Why didn’t you tell me all this last week, when you were so upset that Barton had made a threat against someone in law enforcement?”

The freckled skin around Cinda’s pale eyes crinkled in sudden fury. “Oh, sure. And then have the cops ask me, ‘How do you

happen to know so much about Fiona Wakefield’s death, Ms. Caldwell?’ And I say, ‘Well, Officer, I think I saw something just before I caused an avalanche in an out-of-bounds area, an avalanche that killed a PBS star!’ Do you think that kind of confession would keep me out of prison?”

How long had I been away from Rorry? How was I going to manage to be up at the bistro in less than an hour? “Look, Cinda, I have to go—”

“I had to tell you what Barton said!” she continued, impassioned. “Do you think I don’t have any conscience left? Barton had cancer, he was half crazed, he wanted to kill some guy in law enforcement. I couldn’t be responsible for two deaths! Why don’t you play the tape? Then we can see what’s what.”

“No,” I said firmly, as I ejected it from the VCR, slotted it back into Nate’s camera, and zipped up the case. “I need to leave. Meanwhile, Cinda, you have to come forward and talk to the authorities. This tape can help, and you must help, too. We have to find out who really killed Fiona—”

“If it was Jack, he can’t be tried for the same crime twice,” she countered stubbornly.

“I know, but listen. Eileen Druckman is one of my best friends. If it is true that Jack cold-bloodedly killed his wife, then Eileen has to know. She has to dump him, before it’s too late. If it was Arthur, he needs to be arrested and punished. If it was Barton Reed, then we can close the case. If it was Boots Faraday, then she can get ready to teach art classes in prison.”