Mr. Murder

wardrobe of a military careerist.
        "You're not dressed properly for Mammoth," Spicer said sharply as they walked to the Explorer, his breath streaming from his mouth in white plumes.
        "I didn't realize it would be quite so cold here," Oslett said, shuddering uncontrollably.
        "Sierra Nevadas," Spicer said. "Almost eight thousand feet above sea level where we stand. December. Can't expect palm trees, hula skirts, and pin colds."
        "I knew it would be cold, just not this cold."
        "You'll freeze your ass off," Spicer said curtly.
        "This jacket's warm," Oslett said defensively. "It's cashmere."
        "Good for you," Spicer said.
        He raised the hatch on the back of the Explorer and stood aside to let them load their luggage into the cargo space.
        Spicer got behind the wheel. Oslett sat up front. In the back seat, Clocker resumed reading The Flatulent Ferocity from Ganymede.
        Driving away from the airfield into town, Spicer was silent for a while.
        Then, "Expecting our first snow of the season later today."
        "Winter's my favorite time of the year," Oslett said.
        "Might not like it so much with snow up to your ass and those nice oxfords turning hard as a Dutchman's wooden shoes."
        "Do you know who I am?" Oslett asked impatiently.
        "Yes, sir," Spicer said, clipping his words even more than usual but inclining his head slightly in a subtle acknowledgment of his inferior position.
        "Good," Oslett said.
        In places, tall evergreens crowded both sides of the roadway.
        Many of the motels, restaurants, and roadside bars boasted ersatz alpine architecture, and in some cases their names incorporated words that called to mind images from movies as diverse as The Sound of Music and Clint Eastwood vehicles, Bavarian this, Swiss that, Eiger, Matterhorn, Geneva, Hofbrau.
        Oslett said, "Where's the Stillwater house?"
        "We're going to your motel."
        "I understood there was a surveillance unit staking out the Still water house," Oslett persisted.
        "Yes, sir. Across the street in a van with tinted windows."
        "I want to join them."
        "Not a good idea. This is a small town. Not even five thousand people, when you don't count tourists. Lot of people going in and out of a parked van on a residential street-that's going to draw unwanted attention."
        "Then what do you suggest?"
        "Phone the surveillance team, let them know where to reach you. Then wait at the motel. The minute Martin Stillwater calls his folks or shows up at their door-you'll be notified."
        "He hasn't called them yet?"
        "Their phone's rung several times in the past few hours, but they aren't home to answer it, so we don't know if it's their son or not."
        Oslett was incredulous. "They don't have an answering machine?"
        "Pace of life up here doesn't exactly require one."
        "Amazing. Well, if they're not at home, where are they?"
        "They went shopping this morning, and not long ago they stopped for a late lunch at a restaurant out on Route 203. They should be home in another hour or so."
        "They're being followed?"
        "Of course."
        In anticipation of the predicted storm, skiers were already arriving in town with loaded ski racks on their cars. Oslett saw a bumper sticker that read MY LIFE IS ALL DOWNHILL-AND LOVE IT!
        As they stopped at a red traffic light behind a station wagon that seemed to be stuffed full of enough young blond women in ski sweaters to populate half a dozen beer or lip-balm commercials, Spicer said, "Hear about the hooker in Kansas City?"
        "Strangled," Oslett said. "But there's no proof our boy did it, even if someone resembling him did leave that lounge with her."
        "Then you don't know the latest. Sperm sample arrived in New York.
        Been studied. It's our boy."
        "They're sure?"
        "Positive."
        The tops of the mountains were disappearing into the lowering sky. The color of the clouds had deepened from the shade of abraded steel to a mottled ash-gray and cinder-black.
        Oslett's mood grew darker as well.
        The traffic signal changed to green.
        Following the car full of blondes through the intersection, Alec Spicer said, "So he's fully capable of having sex."
        "But he was engineered to be…" Oslett couldn't even finish the