wanted to believe the man, who seemed genuinely shaken, but it was too early in the case to make judgments of guilt or innocence. His job now was to gather as many facts as possible. He stood. “I may need to see your appointment book and talk to some of your clients to verify your whereabouts,” he said.
“This is appalling.” Sharon also rose, her cheeks flushed, hands clenched into fists. “How dare you accuse my husband this way.”
“I’m not accusing him of anything,” Ryder said. “It’s standard procedure to check everyone’s alibis.” He nodded to Nichols. “Someone from my office will be in touch.”
Ryder left the Nicholses’ and headed back toward Main. He passed a familiar red-and-white wrecker, and Christy O’Brien tooted her horn and waved. Weather like this always meant plenty of work for Christy and her dad, pulling people out of ditches and jump-starting cars whose batteries had died in the cold.
Ryder pulled into the grocery store lot and parked. He could see a few people moving around inside the lit store—employees who had to be there, he guessed. People who didn’t have to be out in this weather stayed home. The automatic doors at the store entrance opened and a trio of teenage boys emerged, bare-headed and laughing, their letter jackets identifying them as students at the local high school. Apparently, youth was immune to the weather. They sauntered across the lot to a dark gray SUV and piled in.
Ryder contacted his office in Grand Junction to update them on his progress with the case. Since state patrol personnel couldn’t reach him because of the closed road, he had called on the sheriff’s department to process the crime scene. After the medical examiner had arrived at the scene and the ambulance had transported the body to the funeral home that would serve as a temporary morgue, he had had Kelly’s car towed to the sheriff’s department impound lot. But none of the forensic evidence—blood and hair samples, fingerprints and DNA—could be processed until the roads opened again. Eagle Mountain didn’t have the facilities to handle such evidence.
“The highway department is saying the road won’t open until day after tomorrow at the earliest,” the duty officer told Ryder. “It could be longer, depending on the weather.”
“Meanwhile, the trail gets colder,” Ryder said. “And if the killer is on the other side of the pass, he has plenty of time to get away while I sit here waiting for the weather to clear.”
“Do what you can. We’ll run a background check on this Ed Nichols and let you know what we find. We’re also doing a search for similar crimes.”
“I’m going to talk to the sheriff, see if he has any suspects I haven’t uncovered.”
He ended the call and sat, staring out across the snowy lot and contemplating his next move. He could call it a night and go home, but he doubted he would get any rest. In a murder investigation it was important to move quickly, while the evidence was still fresh. But the weather had him stymied. Still, there must be more he could do.
A late-model Toyota 4Runner cruised slowly through the parking lot, a young man behind the wheel. He passed Ryder’s Tahoe, his face a blur behind snow-flecked glass, then turned back out of the lot. Was he a tourist, lost and using the lot to turn around? Or a bored local, out cruising the town? Ryder hadn’t recognized the vehicle, and after two years in Eagle Mountain, he knew most people. But new folks moved in all the time, many of them second homeowners who weren’t around enough to get to know. And even this time of year there were tourists, drawn to backcountry skiing and ice climbing.
Any one of them might be a murderer. Was Kelly Farrow the killer’s only victim, or merely the first? The thought would keep Ryder awake until he had answers.
* * *
DARCY PARKED IN front of Kelly’s half of the duplex off Fifth Street. Kelly had liked the place because it was within walking distance of the clinic, with easy access to the hiking trails along the river. Darcy let herself in with her key and when she flicked on the light, an orange tabby stared at her from the hall table, tail flicking. Meow!
“Hello, Pumpkin.” Darcy scratched behind the cat’s ears, and Pumpkin pressed his head into her palm.
Mroww! This more insistent cry came from a sleek, cream-colored feline, seal-point ears attesting to a Siamese heritage.
“Hello, Spice.” Darcy knelt, one hand extended. Spice deigned to let her pet her.
Darcy stood and looked around at the evidence that someone else—Ryder, she guessed—had been here. Mail was spread out in a messy array on the hall table, and powdery residue—fingerprint powder?—covered the door frame and other surfaces. Darcy moved farther into the house, noting the afghan crumpled at the bottom of the sofa, a paperback romance novel splayed, spine up, on the table beside it. A rectangle outlined by dust on the desk in the corner of the room indicated where Kelly’s laptop had sat. Ryder had probably taken it. From television crime dramas she had watched, she guessed he would look at her emails and other correspondence, searching for threats or any indication that someone had wanted to harm Kelly.
But Kelly would have said something to Darcy if anyone had threatened her. Unlike Darcy, Kelly never held back her feelings. Darcy blinked back stinging tears and hurried to the kitchen, to the cat carriers stacked in the corner. Both cats watched from the doorway, tails twitching, suspicious.
She set the open carriers in the middle of the kitchen floor, then filled two dishes with the gourmet salmon Pumpkin and Spice favored, and slid the dishes into the carrier. Pumpkin took the bait immediately, scarcely looking up from devouring the food when Darcy fastened the door of the carrier. Spice was more wary, tail twitching furiously as she prowled around the open carrier. But hunger won over caution and soon she, too, darted inside, and Darcy fastened the door.
She was loading the second crate into the back of her Subaru when the door to the other half of the duplex opened. A man’s figure filled the doorway. “Darcy, is that you?”
“Hello, Ken.” She tried to relax some of the stiffness from her face as she turned to greet Kelly’s neighbor. Ken Rutledge was a trim, athletic man who taught math and coached boys’ track and Junior Varsity basketball at Eagle Mountain High School.
He came toward her and she forced herself not to pull away when he took her arm. “What’s going on?” he asked. “When I got home from practice two cop cars were pulling away from Kelly’s half of the house.” He looked past her to the back of her Forester. “And you’re taking Kelly’s cats? Has something happened to her?”
“Kelly’s dead. Someone killed her.” Her voice broke, and she let him pull her into his arms.
“Kelly’s dead?” he asked, smoothing his hand down her back as she sobbed. “How? Who?”
She hated that she had to fight so hard to pull herself together. She tried to shove out of his arms, but he held her tight. She reminded herself that this was just Ken—Kelly’s neighbor, and a man Darcy herself had dated a few times. He thought he was being helpful, holding her this way. She forced herself to relax and wait for her tears to subside. When his hold on her loosened, she eased back. “I don’t know any details,” she said. “A state patrolman told me they found her up on Dixon Pass—murdered.”
“That’s horrible.” Ken’s eyes were bright with the shock of the news—and fascination. “Who would want to hurt Kelly?”
“The cops didn’t stop to talk to you?” she asked.
“When I saw the sheriff’s department vehicles I didn’t pull in,” he said. “I drove past and waited until they were gone before I came back.”
“Why would you do that?” She stared at him.
He shrugged. “I have a couple of traffic tickets I haven’t paid. I didn’t want any hassle if they looked me up and saw them.”
She took a step back. “Ken, they’re going to want to talk to you,” she said. “You may know something. You might have seen someone hanging around here,