Rocky Mountain Mystery

Behind the antique front desk sat Molly Griffith. If she’d been a dog, Blair guessed Molly would have the looks of an Afghan hound with her long neck and swoop of straight, blond hair, but her personality was pure terrier—quick, smart and tenacious.

After she greeted them, Molly held up her wristwatch and announced, “One minute until six o’clock. End of the day.”

Blair asked, “Do you have a quitting time or does Adam make you stay all night?”

“I’m flexible.” She bent down, opened her bottom desk drawer and removed a bottle of Jack Daniels. “Sometimes I don’t come in until noon. Sometimes I leave at two. Time is unimportant to me. Not like Adam. He’s predictable as a metronome.”

She poured three fingers of Jack Daniels into a plain glass tumbler. “In precisely ten seconds, he’ll open the door to his office and come out here for his evening drink.”

“Why?” Blair asked. “Something to do with the Marines?”

Molly shrugged. “It’s just Adam.”

The wooden door to an inner office opened, and Adam Briggs stepped through. His right hand was outstretched. He grasped the tumbler and took a sip.

“Told you,” Molly said. “This is the most predictable man on the planet.”

With a hint of a smile, he said, “Structure leads to productivity.”

“Or terminal boredom.”

As he swirled the amber liquid in his glass, Adam regarded her with an expression of fond indulgence. These two had worked together since the inception of Crime Consultants. He was the brains, and she was the heart. They made a good team.

Adam asked his office manager, “Do you have the information for Blair and David?”

“I picked up the last bit this afternoon,” Molly said. “From Gary O’Hara. For an FBI guy he’s kinda cute. Is he married?”

“Not your type,” Adam said.

“He’s got a pulse. That’s about all I require these days.” Molly nudged Blair. “I’m not getting any younger.”

“Gary O’Hara,” David repeated the name. “He was the FBI Special Agent assigned to the Fisherman investigation five years ago. I thought he’d left Denver.”

“He was reassigned to Langley,” Adam said. “He’s been back here since the first of the year.”

“What kind of information did you get from him?”

“Copies of his personal notes on the prior murders.” Adam took another taste of his drink. “We won’t get data on the current investigation, but the past is a closed case. Therefore, it’s relatively accessible.”

Molly stepped out from behind her desk and led the way toward another closed door at the rear of their office. “I put everything back here in the conference room. O’Hara’s notes. Partial transcript from the trial. Newspaper clippings. Interviews. Web site information.”

“Impressive,” David said. “You’re thorough.”

“I’m just the collection point,” she said. “We have a couple of researchers who work for us on a volunteer basis, including a former court reporter who knows how to navigate that system. Shh, don’t tell anybody about her.”

Blair and David stepped into a conference room. Above wainscoting, the walls were painted a deep red. Framed maps hung from the walls. At the end of the polished table sat a large cardboard box with a lid.

Molly stood at the doorway. “Would either of you like something to drink?”

“I’ll have what Adam’s having,” David said.

“Water for me,” Blair said.

“I’ll get it.” Molly turned toward the outer office and glanced impatiently toward her boss. “Come on, Adam. We’re waiting.”

He sauntered up beside her. “Don’t rush me.”

Molly planted her fists on her hips and tossed her head, flipping a wing of blond hair out of her eyes. “Any particular reason you’re dragging your feet?”

“As you know, Molly—” he tasted Jack again “—I only have one drink a day and…”

“You like to savor,” she finished his sentence. “It’s the slow burn and the aftertaste.”

“Exactly.” He drained the liquid from the tumbler and handed the glass to her. As he seated himself at the head of the table, he turned to Blair. “Tell me about the autopsy.”

“Manner of death—homicide,” she said. “Cause of death was drowning. No evidence of sexual assault. Contusions on wrists and ankles indicated that hands and feet had been bound.”

She explained the postmortem marking on the stomach and concluded, “We’ll know more after analysis on the water from the lungs and the stomach contents.”

“What do you expect?” Adam asked.

“If this is the Fisherman or a copycat who is conversant with the particulars of the prior murders, the drowning will have been in a bathtub. The stomach contents will reveal Godiva chocolate.”

“Is there a significance to the candy?”

“Me,” Blair said. “After I was assigned to the first murder, every victim was fed that particular brand of chocolate. It’s my favorite.”

“Mine, too,” Molly said. “Are you sure that’s significant?”

“My nickname at the Coroner’s Office was Lady Godiva,” she said. “And it wasn’t because of riding naked on horseback.”

“There’s a direct threat to you?” Adam exchanged a worried look with David. “I didn’t know.”

“Neither did I,” David said. “If I’d been aware that Blair might be a target, I never would have wanted her to be involved.”

Molly placed their beverages on the table and Blair drank deeply of the cold bottled water. Now might be the time to mention the threat from this afternoon—the gutted trout in her car. But she was reluctant to take that step. She didn’t want the investigation to be about her vulnerability.

“Are you in danger?” Adam asked.

“I’m not sure.” She turned to David. “You’ve reported on a lot of these cases. How do people know when they’re really and truly in danger?”

“Some don’t,” he said, “until the ax falls.”

“Why not?”

“Lack of imagination,” he said.

That certainly wasn’t her problem. It only took a lowering of his voice for her to leap into a full-blown fantasy of lovemaking. “I don’t suffer from that lack. Much of my work as an M.E. is based on an ability to imagine what might have happened.”