Matching silver cruiser bicycles waited in a decorative rack, unlocked. On top of the cottage, solar panels sucked power from the sky. With the current temperatures, they must be drunk all the time.

  He was a full five minutes early for his 1 p.m. rendezvous or appointment or tour or whatever this was. Andrea Ingalls had given him the address and time in one of the shortest telephone calls ever.

  She pedaled up on a red fat tire bicycle. A powder blue bike helmet kept her curly hair in check. She wore a white T-shirt—another V-neck—and light green shorts. The sandals from the fireside at Dante Soto’s yurt had been swapped for orange neon running shoes. Sweat beaded on her upper lip, but she wasn’t breathing hard.

  “Thirty minutes inside, no more,” said Ingalls. “And the couple that lives here—the address—don’t exist.”

  “Got it,” said Bloom. “Are they home?”

  “Yes,” said Ingalls. “But no questions.”

  “Agreed,” said Bloom. “Any word?”

  Ingalls knew what he meant. She tightened her lips, looked down. “You know as much as I do,” she said.

  “You heard about—”

  “Everyone knows,” said Ingalls. “Everyone knows about what they found up there. And everyone is hoping, you know? Just hoping.”

  Ingalls took a breath that started in her knees. She daubed at a tear with the back of her hand. She needed a thorough cry. What human wouldn’t?

  The house had been fitted to capture rainwater. Composting was treated like an art. Recycling was a science. The house sold solar power back to the grid “for air conditioning in L.A.” Its insulation was upgraded. Structural leaks found and closed. Foam pipe insulation, water heater blankets, door sweeps and even simple things like clothes lines were installed. The couple, sitting on a back deck under a cool awning, had been shown how to grow enough food on their small lot so half of what they ate was generated in their garden. Trudy would have flipped. Jarring, canning, freezing, storing, labeling—planning. From tomatoes to pickles, they had it all. A new skylight brightened the living room and a new non-polluting wood stove helped with winter heat. They chopped their own fuel in the forest with a permit.

  The Soto Experience was part process, part attitude adjustment and part toxic cleanse for your house and lifestyle. It was also part baptism.

  “It’s not about greening your kitchen or watching your thermostat,” said Ingalls. They were standing in the spotless, cool kitchen. Bloom smelled lemon. And smoke. The tightest house in the world wouldn’t keep out smoke. “It’s like therapy—it’s all about your relationship with the ways you move, work, eat, shop, clean. If you sign up, you are committed for a process that can last weeks or months. You almost feel as if you’re got a new member of the family and you better be prepared to think through everything you do—and to be more present and purposeful about your relationship with energy.”

  “Who pays?” said Bloom.

  “It’s a partnership,” said Ingalls. “We want the family to have some skin in the game—it’s a needs-based scale. The main thing is changing their habits—much less driving, that kind of thing. It’s being more conscious about your needs. And choices.”

  Several newspaper stories, including his own, referred to the fact that the entire effect was funded by a private foundation—somebody’s gamble to see if there was a way to save the planet, one lifestyle and one human being at a time. If he was going to write any more about this, he would need to find out more. Go to the source, Bloom told himself.

  “How many others like this?” said Bloom.

  “Why is that important?” said Ingalls.

  “Trying to get an idea of the scale,” said Bloom.

  “We’ve passed ninety homes or properties in Meeker,” she said.

  “And how many of you?”

  “A dozen team members.”

  “And how many houses do you work with at a time?”

  “Depends.” She had poured two glasses of cold water. The house felt warm—but not uncomfortable. “Depends on how much work needs to be done. It’s like therapy.”

  “And do you know where he had been working lately?” said Bloom. “Not his people, but Soto himself? Think he might have been working somewhere that some people got pissed off?”

  “You’re jumping to conclusions,” said Ingalls.

  “I’m doing what you’re doing—trying to stay a step ahead,” said Bloom. He didn’t want to mention the body. He had images rolling in his head, and she must have her own imagination flying.

  “The detectives will ask the same questions,” said Bloom.

  “Police?” said Ingalls.

  “They will want to know where Soto had been lately—all his last interactions. They’ll recreate his movements the day he—disappeared.” He almost said was killed. “They will want to know if he felt threatened.”

  “The farm,” said Ingalls. “He had shifted his attention to a farm he bought south of town, other side of the river. He was into the whole D.I.Y. thing—building machines yourself, building your own greenhouses, barns and even tractors from parts. He thought farmers should be able to work the land and not be running to the bank for a loan for a new piece of machinery. He had quietly bought a farm, and he was starting to get rolling.”

  “When?” said Bloom. An outsider who wanted to break up the relationship between banker and farmer? An outsider who might make pointed suggestions to the neighbors? Bloom could feel trouble from miles away.

  “About three months ago,” said Ingalls. “April, I think.”

  Plenty of time to ruffle feathers—or worse.

  “Our time is up,” said Ingalls.

  Outside, Bloom’s phone chimed. He gave Ingalls a sign to wait.

  “When are you leaving? When are you filing? Paonia is blowing up—I mean, coming down Main Street.”

  “Call you back,” said Bloom. “Two minutes.”

  Coogan was saying something when Bloom punched off.

  “The old ball and chain,” said Bloom. “In this case, my editor.”

  “How sweet.” Ingalls shook her head. “Sounds old school.”

  “I might go back but Trudy is heading over here. I’m wondering if you might be willing to take her to the places that I was asking about—Soto’s experimental farm, for one.”

  “Not experimental—” said Ingalls.

  “Okay, new farm,” said Bloom. “And it’s possible my friend Allison will be over here, too.”

  “Trudy and Allison,” said Ingalls. “Who is Allison, a deputy reporter?”

  “Two people who care,” said Bloom. “Two people who don’t like it when shit goes unchecked.”

  “I suppose,” she said. “A bit odd, but they’re not official anything, and I’m not officially helping in any capacity, either.”

  “A friend of the cause,” said Bloom.

  “If you have to give it a label,” she said.

  Bloom ignored the dig. It seemed directed at men, not reporters.

  “It seems like you’re not telling me something,” said Bloom. “There has to be a reason you met me here, showed me this.”

  Soto had injected all his troops with a shot of Anti-Media Bias. Maybe an overdose.

  “Were there any problems right before this?” said Bloom. In other words, why was she doing this?

  “Problems?” Her question was half scoff.

  “Issues,” said Bloom. “Situations that might have been festering or new pressure coming from one place or another.”

  As with Trudy, Ingalls’ clear eyes and skin made Bloom ponder the benefits of a diet based on eggplant and couscous. In Trudy’s case, it meant a trim body, a clean soul and deep, natural empathy for all creatures large and small. Bloom picked up the same vibe from Ingalls, though the outer shell was turtle tough.

  “We’ve had some moments,” said Ingalls.

  “Was there a specific situation—recently?” said Bloom.

  Bloom took it as a personal challenge to make her smile or laugh, although maybe not today.

  “Sure,” she said. “We aren’t welcomed everywhere. That was one of the things he was trying to overcome, the notion that being green and smart about energy was somehow associated with the left, with liberals. Why wouldn’t a smart businesswoman or a thrifty homeowner want to reduce energy use, and what makes them think that learning how to make your own environmentally-friendly laundry soap turns you into a socialist?”

  He let her question linger.

  “We get looks,” she said. “We get comments. People know who we are. They point. We go where we’re invited, sure, but we mingle in town—shop at the grocery store, check out books at the library.”

  “Where are you from?” said Bloom. Making conversation.

  “Steamboat,” said Ingalls. “Born and raised.”

  “Did you stay down here? Live down here?”

  “We all had rooms—motels, hotels, some apartments,” said Ingalls. “Soto had quietly bought five small houses. We would share quarters. At first, we spent a couple or three weeks in a motel, getting to know the team, and then we’d find the right fit and move to one of the houses.”

  “Neighbors were okay?” said Bloom. “Seems like the kind of town where it’s supposed to be one family per house, right down the street.”

  “Nobody has said much,” said Ingalls. “At least, to me. Don’t forget, the houses and families where we work loved us. We work hard to be as low-key and non-judgmental as possible. Soto always said the norm would shift—that one day it would be more normal than not to have a much more conscientious relationship with the energy being consumed. Then the tide would pull in all the lost boats. In the meantime, we weren’t to tangle with anyone.”

  Bloom gave her space if she wanted to add a more precise answer without being prodded. He pictured the quiet invasion of door-knocking do-gooders and couldn’t help imagine the grumbling. Or the pissed-off people. Status quo meant healthy profit for some. Alter the balance? Someone moves into the loss column.

  “But you want names,” said Ingalls. “That’s what the media exploits. He said black, and she said white. Let the readers make up their minds. The media takes no responsibility to own the facts.”

  “Not all media, not all reporters,” said Bloom. “Generalities don’t help. If you think the sheriff and the others will pull out all the stops to figure out what happened to Soto, be my guest. Sometimes things move differently. There’s more intensity to the effort, when there’s information out there in public that keeps the process moving forward.”

  Ingalls’ steel casing melted. “It wouldn’t take any of us long to come up with a few situations—angry people.”

  One man had met one of the team at the door with a shotgun raised and ready, screaming nonsense about Soto’s effort as a secret government plot to invade people’s privacy.

  Another team member witnessed a “pretty good fight” between Soto and a key individual from the non-profit organization behind the scenes, based in Chicago. The funder was displeased with the pace of the effort. The team should push harder. The team could entice or incentivize families that had been through the program to bring in new recruits. Soto was having none of it. Participation based on financial rewards, Soto argued, wasn’t commitment at all. The exchange got personal, and Soto spent a week in Chicago being contrite. “He came back more low-key, more inscrutable,” said Ingalls. “But we kept going.”

  “Okay, enough.” The calmly certain male voice came from behind.

  “What?” said Ingalls.

  Bloom berated himself for not watching out.

  “Charley, I—” Ingalls tucked her lower lip under her upper teeth. “It’s not like before.”

  “Nothing has changed,” said Charley. Six-four. He kept his beard trimmed for the city. He wore sandals, a lime green T-shirt, gray cargo shorts and one of those goofy white-brimmed hard-shell safari caps like he was on safari.

  Bloom introduced himself. “I know,” said Charley. His hand was damp from sweat. The shake was two-strokes quick.

  Perhaps he had been under watch since the yurt.

  “How is that?” said Bloom.

  “Come on.” Charley tapped Ingalls on the shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  “All off the record,” said Bloom.

  “Until it’s not,” said Charley. “And then it’s all over the papers.”

  “Someone killed Soto,” said Ingalls. She dropped it like a fact, as if she had received a message in a hidden earpiece.

  Charley waved a hand like a dad to child. Ingalls didn’t miss the assumed authority. She stood her ground. “He’s trying to help.”

  “And you signed an agreement,” said Charley to Ingalls. They were now five paces off.

  Whatever reminder was jogged by that statement, it seemed to work. As she headed off, she noticed Charley had turned his back to them, and she gave her first faint smile, revealing a reserve of natural beauty. The smile told Bloom she was sorry. She flashed the thumb of her right hand to her ear and the pinky to her mouth. She shrugged. She danced both thumbs in the air like a speed texter.

  Bloom’s phone rang again.

  It was Coogan. Had it been more than two minutes? Maybe.

  Chapter 22

  Saturday Morning

  Waiting sucked.

  The whole plan sucked.

  Depending on Devo—and Cinnamon—sucked.

  The best thing about the night by herself in the Flat Tops was a night by herself in the Flat Tops, though she was also eager to know about the fire or anything new about the body.

  She could climb to a ridge and hope for a cell, but the round trip could take hours, and she might miss Devo.

  By the sun, it was noon. She plucked another trout from the lake, pan-fried it over her pint-size fire, and she ate the fish with a splash of hot sauce dripped from a bottle she kept in Sunny Boy’s saddlebags. The hot sauce was stored with the tequila, which had sustained a major attack the previous evening. An inch of her precious liquid remained. Didn’t matter. One way or another, she’d be back at Trapper’s Lodge tonight, with or without Devo in tow. Maybe she could use the lodge again as her base camp crossroads, reconnect with Colin and head back tomorrow on horseback to Sweetwater, where she belonged.

  Allison spotted a Blue Grouse by the edge of the forest, made a game out of stalking her way up close and watched the chicken-like bird forage in the tall grass. She groomed Sunny Boy like he was getting prepped for a show, let him have his way with the oats for a spell, and then led him out of the shade to the pond where he washed down his feed with enthusiasm. She stripped to her underwear, took one quick roll-around in the shallow end of her pool to cool off, and laid back on the grassy shore, her feet and ankles dipped in the water, to dry off. Even all her years outside didn’t mean her skin stood any chance against a Colorado sun at elevation, so she was soon back in the shade, digging out her last pair of clean underwear and a fresh shirt, blue-and-pink plaid. Changing shirts felt refreshing but she knew it would soon be grimy with horse and smoke and sweat. Maybe getting clean was a minor statement on behalf of evolution, but one thing that would never change was her beyond-broke Lee jeans. A little yin, a little yang.

  By the sun, she knew she had given Devo an extra hour to appear, twenty-five in all.

  She was up on Sunny Boy when she spotted Devo coming down around the pond, head down.

  Allison climbed down and led Sunny Boy by rope out into the hot sun. Devo came around the pond and offered a slight bob of the head to acknowledge her presence. His gait was odd, tentative. A camerawoman trailed thirty yards behind Devo, but Allison waved her off. She stopped where she stood and set her gear on the ground.

  “You okay?” she asked when Devo was within earshot.

  All the birds had been chased to the shadows and the shade. She could hear Devo’s labored breathing—a first.

  “You’ve got big-time problems,” said Devo.

  “Me?”

  “All of you,” said Devo. He took ten more steps, came up beside her. He looked sweaty but clean. She didn’t recoil on first inhale.

  “I was watching you and the cops, to make sure the body was getting out of there,” said Devo. “And it turned out someone was watching me. On my way back—”

  Now Allison realized Devo wore a new or newer shirt, a brown pullover. It was the same kiltish, skirtish thing going on around his waist.

  Devo tugged at the opening of the shirt around his neck and revealed a wound, rimmed in dried blood.

  “The fucker shot me,” said Devo. “Winged me bad. An inch lower, man, who knows?”

  Allison tried to comprehend the lightning speed at which the word had made it around that Devo was involved in finding the body.

  “He must have been following me,” said Devo. “Or got lucky and thought I might come back around.”

  “He shot you and then what?” said Allison.

  “It stung like hell—worse. But it was a lucky shot so I kept running. He tried to keep up, got off two more shots that scared the be-fucking-jesus out of me, but that was the last I saw or heard of him. I’ve never run so fast.”

  Devo winced, tightened his lips. He gave Allison the rundown of his feeble attempts to wash the wound and stop the bleeding. Back with his tribe, they had made a plantain poultice, but Devo didn’t think it was doing much good.

  “Carrying an axe, too,” said Devo. “Big long handle, shiny. Had one of those pick heads, like the firefighters use. And, yeah, I got a good look at him. Guarantee he’s a cigar smoker. Whoever finds him, he’s tugging on a stogie.”

  “Age?”

  “Face in camo, but he looked young. Blonde hair. At least six foot. Thin but strong looking, you know? He was wearing this gray mesh thing. Hard to see much other than the axe, but that’s what I remember.”

 

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