THE FERAL STRUT

Chapter 26

"Gotta give Kitty-man his fix." He went through the routine with the syringe, while Ginger looked on with ill-concealed horror. "It's distilled water. To flush him out. His kidneys are shot."

"Right— I just hate needles and stuff." She turned her face away, gripped by an involuntary shudder.

The cat, post-hydration, purred and crept back under the couch.

"Okay. Now— let's draw a map of this thing." He put a legal pad on the table and drew a circle in the center. "This is Bullivant." He wrote DB in the circle. Then he wrote in smaller letters underneath: missing?

"Who's he hang with? Family? Friends? Business types?"

He drew another, smaller circle and wrote AAB: "Alicia Avery Bullivant." Then a jaggedy line to the center circle. "Filed for divorce— presumably she's not too fond of him."

"The Teton Glacier— that's what they call her," Ginger said.

He drew a few icicles.

"There's Whitney Avery. Alicia's daughter. Not the Don's."

He drew a third, smaller circle and initialled it WA. "What's her tie-in? Besides the obvious."

"I heard—" Ginger looked over her shoulder. "That the Don tried to get her in bed. With her mom."

"You never told me about that." Mary was shocked.

"I hate to, like, bruise your innocence."

"My innocence?" Now Mary was irked.

"Look— could we work out this drama stuff later?" Slim tapped his pencil on the pad. "I'm trying to solve a case. Show some respect."

"Yeah, right, Sherlock." Ginger snickered.

"Let's agree that the marriage was not made in heaven." He drew another scraggly line between WA and DB. "So how does she sit with Mommy Dearest?"

"Whitney? No idea. She didn't show up for ski season."

"Christy Thurless," he said, and drew a circle closer in. "Glamour puss. Errand girl slash entertainer. Knows her way around the Ski Village scene. Seen the backside of quite a few bedroom doors. Anything else?"

"I heard—" Ginger bit her lip "—she was getting money from people: the Don, probably, and some of the Fall Creek Road biggies. Regular payments—"

"Blackmail?"

Mary laid a hand on the table. "I wonder if those videotapes were hers? I was thinking they must be the Don's. Could they have been mixed up in something together? With Christy as bait? That'd explain a lot."

Ginger nodded, sharing a glance.

"I think she stole back the tapes with her on them," Slim said. "But there are others."

"Others?"

"Definitely others. I think that's what was in the vault. At Terpening's house. Private porn flicks, starring— how do they say it— longtime local residents. She used to throw some wild parties. And shoot movies on the sly, for her own amusement. Bullivant must have known— and carved her up to get his hands on them."

"Holy Shit!" Mary looked at Ginger.

Ginger looked like she was going to throw up.

"Gin— what's the matter?"

"Lottie's house? My parents used to go to parties there." She bolted out the door. Mary followed.

Ginger knelt on the edge of the porch, retching.