Free Trapline by Mark Stevens Page B

Spanish-language news stations, magazine writers. On the national news scale, the attempted assassination of a U.S. Senate candidate rated a nine or ten. The immigration theme would make Glenwood Springs a trough for media feeding for weeks and months to come. Editors were making notes to do anniversary stories. For Bloom, the teeming pack of reporters brought back the old days of Denver, the occasional flare-up of news that drew the outside buzzards.
    This first wave brought the high-powered reporters with access to private jets and staff to help with logistics. Waves of others were moving out, the army of grunts. Bloom wanted to work alone but also relished the challenge. This was his town, his story. It might not be a bad time to outwit his old Denver-based cohorts.
    The general working theory rested on the idea of shots coming from somewhere in the first few hundred yards of trail that led up Lookout Mountain.
    There was a trail to the top of a high knoll overlooking the confluence of rivers, but it was lightly travelled and mostly by locals.
    The possible escape routes numbered two.
    The first escape route would be the trail up and over the Lookout Mountain peak. Perhaps the shooter quickly transformed into a backpacker and walked innocently away. He might be still walking.
    The second escape route would be straight down through the scrub to the streets on the eastern edge of Glenwood Springs.
    If the up-and-over theory was correct, the shooter would have had a healthy head start and, obviously, he didn’t have to stay on the trail.
    The cops preferred the mingle-with-civilization theory and they indicated that somebody probably saw the shooter escape, but didn’t realize it. They were urging everyone who might have been hiking or driving in the area to recall everything they had seen.
    Bloom thought one other theory was being overlooked—a variation of the return-to-civilization theme. What if the shooter came down the hill but hopped over the train tracks and went down to the river to a waiting kayak or raft? Maybe there was too much exposure—the river would take the shooter right under the footbridge—but recreational kayaks and tourist rafts were common.
    Distance was the big problem with Lookout Mountain as the shooter’s perch. The reports so far had settled on 500 yards. The distance would depend on the height of the shooter’s precise location on the hill, which sloped up and away to the east. For every foot of elevation the shooter might have wanted, he had to add four or five yards more distance. The shot wasn’t impossible, but it would require skill, practice, and balls the size of grapefruits.
    The questions from the reporters made it clear that this was the over-arching consensus, that someone, probably a lone gunman, had known enough to plan the shot and was one helluva shooter with sophisticated military-esque or at least special hunting gear. And, most likely, a bug up his ass about immigration.
    Or, at least, hated Tom Lamott.
    With the media beast fed and as the questions grew lame and repetitive, Sheriff Marrs thanked everyone and walked away. Reporters tried to worm their way in for one-on-one time, but they were waved off. No individual spoon feeding allowed, only mass distribution of the dry breadcrumbs they’d been asked to swallow.
    â€œHey, stranger.”
    â€œThe one and only Kerry London,” said Bloom. “Don’t you have a flight to catch?”
    The man hug was quick. Kerry London looked like he wasn’t used to the Colorado altitude or the summer heat. He was short and a bit tubby. He had an unlikely television face—more nosy weasel than handsome fox.
    â€œLooks like I better rent an apartment,” said London. “Maybe a long-term lease. I didn’t hear anything that makes me think they have a hot lead. Do the local cops know their way around a case like this?”
    London was the ubiquitous newshound for NBC. He could