Chapter 2
Right from the start Morgan didn’t feel right about her. It shouldn’t have mattered: He owned his side, she owned hers.
But she was unsettling. Not the dog. Risa. And not because she was smashingly beautiful: tall, slim, long blondish-brown hair, freckled surfer-girl smile. A Christie Brinkley look-alike. (Morgan fancied himself as looking a bit like Matthew McConaughey.) No, she was a knockout, but you got used to that in Aspen. And she wasn’t particularly stuck-up. (You got used to that, too.)
It took him a while, but Morgan finally figured out what it was: Risa just didn’t care about him. She just didn’t care. He was a good-looking guy, and he’d been around forever, which meant that he could’ve helped her settle in, get to know town, but she just wasn’t interested in him. And you’re supposed to have a sort-of special realtionship with the person you inhabit a duplex with, if they’re at all presentable.
You’re supposed to borrow sleeping bags, burn steaks together, rag about the neighbors, but she wouldn’t do any of that stuff. He could’ve stood on the tramp in the middle of the backyard, poured gas on his head and lit himself on fire, and she would’ve just smiled– waved maybe, one of those vapid homecoming-queen waves– and gone on brushing the dog.
There. Admit it. That was the problem: the dog. All Risa Wentworth cared about was the stupid little dog. A dirty-white, ten-pound bichon frisé. Risa looked like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, and the only person she spent any time with– at all– was that stupid mutt. Who crapped all over the yard, chased away the delivery guys, and kept Morgan awake half the night with its incessant yapping. And not even barking. Barking– at bears, at rabbits, even– he could’ve understood. But Tyson yapped. At nothing.
So it was really the dog. It wasn’t like there was some other guy. Well, there were other guys, of course. For example: every time something broke on her side of the house. Then some guy would magically appear. Stuff Morgan could’ve fixed in his sleep– or at 4 am, when he wasn’t asleep anyway, because of the stupid dog– but she never asked. No, some other guy would show up– someone Morgan knew, most likely– and Risa would smile and hop in her mini-Cooper convertible with dear little Tyson by her side and zip off down the street, while the poor schlub changed out a light bulb, or re-tiled the bath, or whatever.
What these guys got out of it, Morgan never knew. Because the guy’d be long gone– job done– by the time Risa and the dog returned. (Not that Morgan was spying on her, or anything.) And there were never any thank-you dinners for Mister Fix-It, as far as Morgan could tell. He never saw anybody’s car out front, late at night. Anybody’s.
Which was, quite frankly, pretty damned odd. Think about it: Here’s this healthy young woman, unbelievable looks, with brains to match (from what he could gather), and in the two years since she’d moved in, she hadn’t had a single overnight guest. In Aspen. Amazing.
But she must’ve gone out on dates. Even Morgan went on a date with her once.
Once. The first summer.
One night– it was his idea– one night they did Mozart and Brahms at the Tent, then dinner at a new restaurant in town. Turned out, she’d gone to Julliard, herself, and wasn’t impressed with the conductor, and she knew the owner of the restaurant across the street, and she’d rather have gone there. And then she had to get to bed early. For what, she didn’t say. (Morgan didn’t even know if she worked.)
A week later Morgan tried again: How about driving up to the Grottoes? Lunch, and maybe a swim?
But no, that wouldn’t work. People were always giving her a hard time about bringing Tyson up there. (Who’d said anything about Tyson?)
Then how about the rodeo, Wednesday at Snowmass? Butch’s Lobster Bar afterwards?
Well, no. She was opposed to roping animals.
Also (of course) to boiling them.
After that, Morgan gave up.
*
So it came as a surprise, one night in late January, when she burst through his door without even knocking. That was a first.
“Morgan, thank god!” she panted. “I need you so bad.”
Which sounded even better. But it turned out to just be the damned dog again. Tyson had disappeared, three days before.
“I called the police,” she explained, standing there in an oversized Gentlemen of Aspen rugby top and knee socks, like a cover for Maxim, “animal control, the radio stations.” She dropped down, exhausted, onto Morgan’s lumpy couch. “He’s vanished.”
Morgan himself had just gotten off a plane from Phoenix, so she couldn’t blame him, but he glanced around the room anyway. Sort of instinctively. Risa shook her head.
“I already looked,” she said. Then she bit her lip and added, real quick, “I mean, I have a key, so I thought you wouldn’t mind…”
So she’d already been in the house. To– so to speak– snoop. Like maybe he’d killed the dog, himself. Maybe he’d faked going to Phoenix, hid out, and snuffed the little darling himself. That made sense, right? Tyson couldn’t possibly have gotten caught by a coyote, or run over by a snowplow. No, Morgan must’ve killed him. Who wouldn’t, after all the sleepless nights?
And even if he could prove he’d really been in Phoenix the whole time, he’d still be the prime suspect, right? Maybe he’d hired a hit man. Had him do the job while he was out of town. The perfect alibi.
Morgan had just been unpacking when she’d come barging in, and he’d just popped open a much-needed Margaux, so he magnanimously decided to not feel insulted. He offered her a glass, suggested a soak in the hot tub, but she wasn’t in the mood. (Face it: She was never gonna be in the mood.) And she kept glancing around the room, like she’d forgotten to look somewhere. (Maybe the laundry hamper. No: Morgan didn’t have one.)
And then all of a sudden she gasped, opened the sliding-glass door out onto the deck, rushed out, and started prying the cover off of the hot tub.
But alas (thank god!): no dog. That would’ve been a bummer. Not something to come home to, no matter how much you hated the thing. (Think of all the scrubbing you’d have to do.)
So: no dog, so she left. Just like that. Leaving Morgan holding two brimming glasses of wine. She just turned on her heel and walked out. Traipsing snow across his living room. Not that he cared.
Twenty minutes later, after Morgan’d phoned her, told her how honestly sad he was about Tyson’s disappearance, and promised to call if he should think of anywhere else to look, he slid into the hot tub with the blushing Margaux and a slender Monte Christo, and pondered on the question: If you were a dog, and you lived with the mysterious-and-stunningly-beautiful Risa Wentworth, where would you run off to?
And the only answer he could come up with was: You wouldn’t. You just wouldn’t. She was the most captivating, cultivated, and yeah, most frustrating woman he’d met in years. A friend once described her, approvingly, as “a Vogue model you could take rafting.” No way you walk out on that.
So Tyson must’ve been kidnapped.
Or smooshed by a snowplow.
Or eaten by a coyote.
And it was just as Morgan got comfortable with that notion, unwinding in his hot tub, that his attention was drawn to the absence of a large terra-cotta pot that should’ve been perched on the railing just a few feet away from him.
Strange: Morgan could’ve sworn that it’d been there when he’d left town the week before. The pot had held a single oversized marijuana plant that he’d nurtured, trimmed, and tweaked for about three years, and then he’d somehow forgotten to bring it inside last fall and it had frozen. Had Tyson’s kidnapper taken the pot, as well? Not unless he had a forklift.
Well, life was full of mysteries, and this one would just have to wait. He leaned back in the water, opened his mouth, and swallowed a few more snow flakes.
Aside from the dog, all was well with the world. He’d just returned from ten days in the desert, where he’d helped yet another eager disciple “hurdle another hurdle,” “take his game to the next level.” (Hopefully: for good. Back-sliding, recidivism, recurring self-doubt was always an issue.) And he had the next two weeks completely free. If he’d had a girlfriend at the moment, they could’ve driven over to Cordillera for the weekend. He had an unused comp there, and the food was great. With the snow coming down like it was, the back bowls at Vail would’ve been awesome.
*
Turned out, it snowed for two days straight, and Morgan, not having a girlfriend at the moment, stayed home and concentrated on the skiing right here. Highland Bowl, Temerity on Wednesday. Aspen Mountain, McFarlane’s on Thursday.
He happened upon his ex-sorta-girlfriend Mandie at Eric’s, après-ski on Thursday. Mandie Granderson, aka The Fair Amanda, was the prettiest red-headed physical therapist in Aspen Club history, and she also taught part-time. She was in her ski-school uni, and she didn’t bother to introduce the two women she was sitting with, so they were probably a semi-private.
Which was sort-of what their relationship had been: semi-private. It’d never been exclusive, Morgan’d never committed enough, and in the end, Mandie decided that maybe she preferred women, anyway. Whatever.
“Sorry about the pot,” were the first words out of her mouth.
What?
The pot. The pot pot. Turned out, she’d brought a few friends over to Morgan’s house the previous Saturday night– Wintersköl Saturday– to watch the torchlight and the fireworks from the hot tub. Which was totally okay. (She still had a key. Like Risa.)
“We were kinda wrecked,” Mandie explained. “And that little dog of her’s… What’s her name?”
“Risa,” Morgan supplied.
“Right,” Mandie sniffed. “Très chic. She speaking to you yet?”
“We speak,” Morgan frowned.
“Anyway, it was an accident. The fireworks started, and the little mongrel went crazy. And of course, Little Miss Perfect wasn’t around, so we just leaned over the railing and yelled at it to shut up. Like that woulda worked. But it was too dark, anyway. And I guess one of us must’ve nudged the pot…”
She made a swan-dive motion with her hand.
“It was dead anyway, right? The plant? You shoulda brought it in last fall.” Mandie stood there in her ski-school uni and shrugged. “Shut the dog up, anyway.”
“Shut the dog up?”
“Yeah,” she smiled. “Not a peep out of him, after that. Between the fireworks and the falling plant, we must’ve scared the shit outta him.” She laughed the throaty laugh that, up til that moment, he’d always loved. “You think?”
No, Morgan didn’t think. Morgan didn’t want to think. Morgan didn’t even want to consider.
“Anyway,” Mandie went on, oblivious, “the pot’s prob’ly okay. Just buried a little. So don’t trip over it, is the only reason I mentioned it.”
But that’s not what Morgan was worried about. The more he thought about it…
But what were the odds?
Obviously, he’d never liked the dog… And he wouldn’t have been real upset if Risa eventually found it in a ditch somewhere.
But it was a whole different ballgame if Tyson had gotten himself squashed by his pot. His pot pot. Then he’d get the blame. Definitely. Whether he’d been there or not.
*
He didn’t exactly rush home, but when he did get back home, an hour or so later, he poked his head out the back door– cautiously– and craned his neck up, to see if Risa’s lights were on. Which they weren’t.
It was cloudy, with no moon, so it was plenty dark outside. The coast, as they say, was clear. So in his darkened side of the house, he changed into his cold-weather work clothes, opened the back door again– quietly– and grabbed a shovel.
Now, in the wintertime, the back yard just sat there collecting snow. Maybe the occasional discarded mattress. Neither he nor Risa had any reason to go out there, except to fill the bird feeders. Tyson the dog would bulldoze a few trails when he went out to poop, and the neighborhood kids might build a snow fort or a ski jump out behind the trampoline frame, and there were always a few deer tracks back by the chokecherries, but the rest of the huge yard was just a fairly-flat blanket of untouched snow, 3 or 4 feet deep.
Except for the noticeable lump right in front of him, underneath the deck, which he assumed was the pot. His pot pot.
It had snowed a ton since Saturday night, so first he had to shovel off all the new snow around the large terra-cotta pot. And damn, it was quiet. You could hear the snowcats working up on Strawpile, and not much else. Just pushing the shovel through the soft, unpacked snow sounded loud. If Risa ever got home and looked out the window…
He didn’t want to think about that. He shoveled a good two feet of new snow, then got down on his knees and started digging with his ski-gloved hands. Sort of like avalanche training.
Eventually he’d scraped away enough so he could try manhandling the thing. The pot had landed perfectly upside-down, so getting a grip on the rim wasn’t real easy. (And the dirt inside was frozen solid, so the thing was pretty damned heavy.)
He tugged and he twisted, slammed his shoulder into it…
All the while trying not to make a sound…
Til all of a sudden it popped free, and the damned thing flipped over and sent him sprawling out across the snow.
In the very next instant, the backyard lights snapped on– one of those Stalag 17 sorta moments– and he saw, lying at his feet, the broken, dried-up stalk and frazzled roots of his 3-foot-tall pot plant, 10 inches of rock-hard potting soil, and a very pale, totally pancaked…
… little dog.
Even in the cold, and the glare of the klieg lights, it was hard to mistake the wrenching scream coming from Risa Wentworth’s upstairs window.
…
Aspen, CO