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Chapter 8: Hanging Man

When we climbed into my car at the end of the day, after a beer or two,
Marco liked to drop his seatback flat, and he'd lie there free-associating
in response to whatever blather came over KSPN while I chauffeured. In the
early evening hours the station ran soft rock and Marco riffed on the cool
California FM sound of the Aspen announcers.

Tonight I headed for the hospital without stopping for a beer -- I had
reports to fill out, people to see -- and I drove into the six o'clock
news.

"Aspen Mountain ski patrolman Marco Plank died last night which skiing
out-of-bounds during a search and rescue operation," the airhead said.
"Plank, a native of Switzerland, apparently suffocated after an avalanche.
Another avalanche was reported early yesterday morning on Aspen Mountain, closing Copper Cut-off trail for most of the day. The avalanches did not interfere with preparations for Sunday's downhill race . . ." I turned it
off. Craven notwithstanding, Aspen has no work ethic. No one at the
station, anyway, could trouble to get the facts straight.

Maggy had Rusty's paperwork ready. "They're finishing up in surgery," she
told me in clipped, short tones. "They wanted him stable so they can fly
him to Denver for microsurgery. They'll try to get everything reconnected."

She handed over the stack of forms and I sat in the lobby, writing out what
I had seen, judged, and done. Rusty's was the kind of crash where really
fast competent work can save a limb, or a life. I was confident we had done
everything just right, and was careful to describe the case minutely. If
Rusty were ever going to walk again, let alone ski, it would be because I
had been there. It was the first time I could feel half decent about
anything all week.

I for half an hour, and then asked Maggy about Hildy.

"Room 114," Maggy said curtly. I could have sworn she was angry with me.
"She's sedated. Go see her, but even if she recognizes you, don't stay
along. The psychiatrist won't be in until morning and she's supposed to
sleep through the night. All that booze you poured into her last night sure
didn't help much. Her blood tests were a mess -- cocaine and alcohol and
grass. You guys must be crazy."

That was anger.

"I didn't see Hildy do any coke last night, and I sat up with her for most
of it," I said. "If she was tooting, it wasn't on my shift."

"Maybe not. But I'm sure you helped her get drunk."

I suddenly felt strangely detached, as though I could watch myself through
Maggy's eyes. Those gray eyes grew wide as she saw me blanch and blink, and she stepped toward me as I gripped the counter to steady myself.

"Sam?" Maggy said. Her face softened. She leaned across the counter and
touched my cheek. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"It's okay," I said. "I probably deserve it. I'm whipped Maggy. I'm beat."

"Let's talk. Go see Hildy first, and then I'll buy you dinner."

Hildy wasn't quite asleep, but she wasn't conscious, either. She had an IV
drip, and had been given a muscle relaxant. She lay loose and feckless,
arms and legs limp in the restraints. Her eyes were closed, the lids dark;
her mouth hung open, cheeks slack. She looked like hell, but she was
breathing regularly and through her nose and wasn't rolling or moaning. I
watched for a couple of minutes, and she opened her eyes a couple of times.
It didn't take long to decide she wasn't going to see me, so I left.

"Dinner?" I asked Maggy.

"I pulled a double shift," she said. "I'm on duty until 11:30. We'll have
to eat here."

In the hospital cafeteria we ate something that looked like veal parmesan.
"Of course, anything can pretend to be veal parmesan," said Maggy. "This
could be breaded newspaper."

"Too rubbery."

"Breaded galoshes, then. How's this going to go? Am I always going to have
to drag talk out of you?"

"Sorry. I'm not sure I can talk. I can't even think straight."

"You have a right to be depressed, but maybe we should talk about that. Do
you know the symptoms of depression?"

"Reduced mental and physical function. Insomnia. Ennui. No appetite." "Is
that how you feel like?"

"Yeah."

"Eat up. At least get some sugar into your blood. You've been going hard
since before dawn."

I ate a couple of bites. "Didn't get much sleep last night, either."

"You're on a strange railroad."

"What?"

"That's depression. An Erie Lackawanna."

"That's awful."

"Not as bad as your galoshes."

"Maybe." But I pushed some more of the stuff down and after a few minutes I
did feel better.

"There's something peculiar about Marco's death. Something I can't put my
finger on."

"Why he was where he was?"

"That, but also something about the way we found him, hanging upside down
like that. There's something wrong with it and I'm not thinking clearly
enough to see what it is."

"You've got a lot to think about."

"I need to get some sleep. Maybe I'll just go home."

"Sleep in the lounge. I'm here another five hours. If you want, we can get
some dessert later."

"You're going to have to wake me."

"I'm a pro."

"Wake up, Mr. Ruykuyser, it's time for your chloral hydrate."

"Something like that."

Clipper Cobb walked into the room, spotted us, and walked quickly to our
table. He squeezed my shoulder.

"I heard about Marco. You okay?"

"Yeah, Clipper, thanks. This is Maggy. Clipper is the Salomon tech rep."

"I came over to check on Rusty, but I wanted to talk to you, too. You saw
him crash?"

"Yeah."

"What happened?"

"His binding opened at the Aztec bump, so he landed on one ski."

"What made it open?"

Clipper had taken a lot of heat after one of his racers, Ken Read, had
skied out of a binding during the Lake Placid Olympic downhill back in
1980. Some people, possibly including Read, had blamed Clipper for the loss
of an Olympic medal.

"Wait a minute," I said. "Are you afraid this might be your fault?"

"Not really. I mounted and adjusted the bindings, and they were tight.
Bindings don't open for no reason."

"I saw a wobble before the lip. He was two seconds faster than anyone else.
He hit the takeoff harder, and his left leg was rolling in at the end of
the turn. He may have twisted out in a rut. Anything can happen in snow
that soft."

"Thanks, Rucksack. I'll leave you guys alone. Sorry to interrupt dinner."

"No problem. Hey, Clipper, if you'd found Marco upside down in a tree well,
what would bother you about that?"

"If he was unconscious, he could have suffocated. If he was conscious, he
should have been able to get out."

"Yeah, I figure. What if his skis were on?"

"His skis were on? How could Marco take any kind of fall and stay in his
skis? You know how he set his bindings."

I took a deep breath. The fog lifted. "That's it. That's what was bothering
me. Marco was hanging from his skis. His bindings were set too stiff."

"I'd like to look at those bindings," said Clipper. "The cops have them?"

"No. They're in my car."

"Wouldn't the cops take them for some kind of evidence?"

"I guess they should have. Tug collected the body and never asked for
them."

"Let's look at those skis," Clipper said.

"It's okay," said Maggy. "I'll guard your galoshes."

Clipper took a big screwdriver from his van and I pulled one of Marco's
skis out of the trunk. I held it flat on the roof of the car, under the
mercury vapor lamp that flooded the parking lot, while Clipper looked at
the heel piece.

"It's set at six," he said. "That's about half what it should have been for
his weight and strength. He would have fallen out if he was hanging upside
down from his skis."

Clipper began unscrewing the adjusting cap on the binding spring. It was
tight at first, then went easily. A moment later the cap came free, and a
greasy spring popped out into Clipper's gloved palm. He held it up to the
light, and whistled.

"Green?" I asked. He handed the spring to me. Green stripes were painted
longitudinally, across the coils. Green stripes identify the special
heavy-duty stiff springs for racers' bindings. A green race spring is about
three times stiffer than a standard spring.

"Your buddy was had," said Clipper. "Someone was trying to hurt him."

"Who?"

"I don't know."

"Who do you give green springs to?"

"Around here they're easy to get. I'll give them to any of the big guys on
the patrol. Bloom has a set, I think. The race coaches have pockets full. A
kid like Rusty might have a drawerful in his dad's garage."

"Isn't that dangerous? Aren't you afraid ordinary citizens will wind up
with them, without knowing it? That could break some legs."

"When we install these things we use a special cross-cut cap so we know
what's in the binding. See, the adjusting caps should have an X-shaped
screw slot instead of this straight slot. All the ski shops know what to
look for, and if a civilian brings in a binding with greenies they swap 'em
for standards, and call me."

"So where does this leave me?"

"You've got to figure out who could have gotten at his skis."

"Any of the characters who hang out around the patrol rooms, I guess."

"The last couple of days, that could include any of the course workers or
racers, or any of us chasers."

That was of no help at all. I nodded into the darkness, and handed the
spring back to Clipper. He screwed it into the binding.

Clipper sighed. "The story around town is that Marco had good dope coming
in," he said. "I don't know if you were involved in anything with him, but
if I were you I'd drop this. You could be tangling with something a lot
more hairy than green springs. If I were you, I'd just figure Marco got
stoned and killed himself goofing around in the woods."

"Yeah," I said. "Thanks."

"You gonna see Rusty tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"Me, too. See you around. Don't act stupid."

Clipper drove off and I went back to the cafeteria. The galoshes hadn't
walked off, nor had Maggy.

"I may be in trouble," I said, and told her about the springs. "I haven't
had a chance to figure this out, but someone whacked Marco. I wish I knew
what the hell he was doing."

Maggy dropped her fork and looked at me, horrified. "You mean Marco was
killed?"

"I think someone stuffed him down that hole, yes."

"Sam, who would do it? Why?"

"I don't know. Someone Marco was getting cocaine from? Someone he was
selling to? I don't know."

"You'd better go straight to Tug."

"Yeah. I'd like to look through Marco's room, first."

"Don't do that."

"But what if he left a lot of dope there? Marco was tooting all the time.
They're going to find that out in the autopsy and then . . . I don't really
want my house seized."

"There's nothing you can do about that, but just don't get yourself
implicated."

"I'm already implicated. No matter what Marco was doing, someone's going to figure I was involved."

I shivered as I realized what that meant.

"The guy who killed Marco might already have gone out to the house!"

"What do you mean?"

"If Marco was killed, it was because someone wanted something from him.
Coke or money. I haven't been home since I brought Hildy in. Someone could
already have gone through the house, or be waiting out there now."

"That settles it. You can't go home. Call Tug, then go to my place."