with you a moment.”
Toenails clicking on the hardwood floors announced the arrival of not one dog, but two—a small white poodle and a large, curly-haired mutt. The mutt stared at Ryder, then let out a loud woof.
“Hush, Murphy,” Dr. Nichols said. He caught the dog by the collar and held him back, the poodle cowering behind, and pushed open the storm door. “You’d better come in.”
A woman emerged from the back of the house—a trim brunette in black yoga pants and a purple sweater. She paled when she saw Ryder. “Is something wrong? Our son?”
“I’m not here about your son,” Ryder said quickly. He turned to Nichols. “I wanted to ask you some questions about Kelly Farrow.”
“Kelly?” Surprise, then suspicion, clouded Nichols’s expression. He lowered himself into the recliner and began stroking the big dog’s head while the little one settled in his lap. “What about her?”
“You might as well sit down,” Mrs. Nichols said. She perched on the edge of an adjacent love seat while Ryder took a seat on the sofa. “When was the last time you saw Kelly Farrow?” he asked.
Nichols frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe—last week? I think I passed her on the street. Why? What is this about? Is she saying I’ve done something?”
“What would she say you’ve done?”
“Nothing! I don’t have anything to do with those two.”
“Those two?”
“Kelly and that other girl, Darcy.”
“I understand you weren’t too happy about them opening a new practice in Eagle Mountain.”
“Who told you that?”
“Is it true?”
Nichols focused on the big dog, running his palm from the top of its head to the tip of its tail, over and over. “A town this small only needs one vet. But they’re free to do as they please.”
“Has your own business suffered since they opened their practice?” Ryder asked.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Mrs. Nichols spoke, leaning toward Ryder. “Are you accusing my husband of something?”
“You can’t come into my home and start asking all these questions without telling us why,” Nichols said.
“Kelly Farrow is dead. I’m trying to find out who killed her.”
Nichols stared, his mouth slightly open. “Dead?”
“Ed certainly didn’t kill her,” Mrs. Nichols protested. “Just because he might have criticized the woman doesn’t mean he’s a murderer.”
“Sharon, you’re not helping,” Nichols said.
“Where were you between nine and one today?” Ryder asked.
“I was at my office.” He nodded to his wife. “Sharon can confirm that. She’s my office manager.”
“He saw patients all morning and attended the Rotary Club meeting at lunch,” Sharon said.
“Listen, Kelly wasn’t my favorite person in the world, but I wouldn’t do something like that,” Nichols said. “I couldn’t.”
Ryder wanted to believe the man, who seemed genuinely shaken, but it was too early in the case to make judgments of guilt or innocence. His job now was to gather as many facts as possible. He stood. “I may need to see your appointment book and talk to some of your clients to verify your whereabouts,” he said.
“This is appalling.” Sharon also rose, her cheeks flushed, hands clenched into fists. “How dare you accuse my husband this way.”
“I’m not accusing him of anything,” Ryder said. “It’s standard procedure to check everyone’s alibis.” He nodded to Nichols. “Someone from my office will be in touch.”
Ryder left the Nicholses’ and headed back toward Main. He passed a familiar red-and-white wrecker, and Christy O’Brien tooted her horn and waved. Weather like this always meant plenty of work for Christy and her dad, pulling people out of ditches and jump-starting cars whose batteries had died in the cold.
Ryder pulled into the grocery store lot and parked. He could see a few people moving around inside the lit store—employees who had to be there, he guessed. People who didn’t have to be out in this weather stayed home. The automatic doors at the store entrance opened and a trio of teenage boys emerged, bare-headed and laughing, their letter jackets identifying them as students at the local high school. Apparently, youth was immune to the weather. They sauntered across the lot to a dark gray SUV and piled in.
Ryder contacted his office in Grand Junction to update them on his progress with the case. Since state patrol personnel couldn’t reach him because of the closed road, he had called on the sheriff’s department to process the crime scene. After the medical examiner had arrived at the scene and the ambulance had transported the body to the funeral home that would serve as a temporary morgue, he had had Kelly’s car towed to the sheriff’s department impound lot. But none of the forensic evidence—blood and hair samples, fingerprints and DNA—could be processed until the roads opened again. Eagle Mountain didn’t have the facilities to handle such evidence.
“The highway department is saying the road won’t open until day after tomorrow at the earliest,” the duty officer told Ryder. “It could be longer, depending on the weather.”
“Meanwhile, the trail gets colder,” Ryder said. “And if the killer is on the other side of the pass, he has plenty of time to get away while I sit here waiting for the weather to clear.”
“Do what you can. We’ll run a background check on this Ed Nichols and let you know what we find. We’re also doing a search for similar crimes.”
“I’m going to talk to the sheriff, see if he has any suspects I haven’t uncovered.”
He ended the call and sat, staring out across the snowy lot and contemplating his next move. He could call it a night and go home, but he doubted he would get any rest. In a murder investigation it was important to move quickly, while the evidence was still fresh. But the weather had him stymied. Still, there must be more he could do.
A late-model Toyota 4Runner cruised slowly through the parking lot, a young man behind the wheel. He passed Ryder’s Tahoe, his face a blur behind snow-flecked glass, then turned back out of the lot. Was he a tourist, lost and using the lot to turn around? Or a bored local, out cruising the town? Ryder hadn’t recognized the vehicle, and after two years in Eagle Mountain, he knew most people. But new folks moved in all the time, many of them second homeowners who weren’t around enough to get to know. And even this time of year there were tourists, drawn to backcountry skiing and ice climbing.
Any one of them might be a murderer. Was Kelly Farrow the killer’s only victim, or merely the first? The thought would keep Ryder awake until he had answers.
* * *
DARCY PARKED IN front of Kelly’s half of the duplex off Fifth Street. Kelly had liked the place because
