The Devil's Peak by Michael Wallace

Author:Michael Wallace
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Balsalom Publishing
Published: 2011-07-29T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen:

“What would it be worth to get rid of Jeffrey?” Dr. Eidle asked.

“I’m not going to kill my brother,” Walter said.

“Who said anything about killing him? But it wouldn’t hurt to have him out of the way for a few months.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Arrest. One to two years in prison.”

“Prison,” Walter said. “That’s pretty harsh.”

“Come on,” Eidle said, climbing onto his bike. “Let’s ride to the top. Give it some thought and we’ll talk up there.”

Walter had been biking on the ski trails overlooking the construction site when the man found him. He’d been surprised to see another biker so early in the morning, even more surprised when the man pulled off his helmet and it turned out to be Dr. Eidle.

Upon reflection, he realized it wouldn’t have been difficult to track him down. The only viable biking trail to the top was Sloopy, the first trail at Devil’s Peak. It had predated the ski mountain, actually. Logging companies clear-cut this part of the Adirondacks in the 1800s, and they’d graded roads through the high peaks so they could bring in mule teams to get at the lumber.

Eidle was close to Walter’s age, maybe mid-thirties, but he was in excellent shape and Walter struggled to keep up. It was a chill morning, but by the time they reached the top, he was drenched with sweat, wheezing. It was hard to catch his breath, and as he looked over the trees to the sprawl of Vanderzee, he thought about his father. Tomorrow evening Walter and Jeffrey would meet in Father’s room. They’d hook up an IV with morphine and give Father the controls.

How many more breaths did he have? A few thousand, maybe?

Eidle pulled off his gloves and tucked them into his hip pack, then propped his bike against a tree and hiked the last few hundred feet toward the summit. Walter followed him. Minutes later, they stood on the top, gazing east, toward the Green Mountains on the far side of Lake Champlain.

“How much are you worth, Mr. Fitzroy?” Eidle asked.

“Excuse me?”

“What is your net worth?”

“Are you serious?” Walter blinked. He’d never been asked that question before. “Besides, I don’t exactly know. It’s tied up in trusts, a zillion different bond funds, hundreds of different stocks. Foreign currency, commodities.”

“More than a hundred million dollars?”

“What are you playing at, Dr. Eidle?”

“I currently have a negative net worth,” Eidle said. “I still owe ninety-seven thousand dollars in student loans, am underwater on both my house and car, and have less than ten thousand dollars in my 401K plan.”

“Is that my fault?”

“My father was a ski instructor at Devil’s Peak in the ’60s and ’70s. He cut lawns at the golf course in the off-season. My mother came from an old Gaylord family. Millworkers, back in the day. After the mill shut down, my grandmother got a job at Vanderzee. This was back when the staff lived on site. I grew up surrounded by wealthy people. Fitzroys, Holts, Dukes, Trosts, Steinbergs. Met plenty of the same sort of people in medical school.

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