Chapter 5 Looking for reasons
That night at about nine-thirty Janine Anderson’s parents
flew into Denver International Airport. They were returning
early from their holiday in Italy. A police car drove them to
Pine Crest Hospital. They had to see their daughter’s body, to
see that it really was Janine.
The Andersons were staying at the Pine Lodge too, and
late in the evening, at about eleven o’clock, Bill Gershon
brought them to the hotel. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said to them. ‘I’ll
try to make this quick.’
Gene and Loretta Anderson were both forty to forty-five,
well-dressed, rich Texans. Janine’s mother soon went to her
room and I talked to the father. Gene Anderson was a Texas
oil man, a man who was now very rich, but who started life
on a farm, a ranch, near Houston.
‘I just can’t believe it,’ he said again and again. ‘She was so
young, so intelligent. Who did this, Detective Laine? Who
killed my baby?’
‘I don’t know, Mr. Anderson,’ I said, ‘but I am going to
find out.’
‘I hope so, Detective Laine. I really hope so.’
‘But I need your help, Mr. Anderson,’ I said.
‘Anything I can do,’ he said.
‘Well, there is one thing,’ I said. ‘She was studying to
become a journalist, right?’
‘That’s right,’ he said, ‘and she was an “A” student.’ He
smiled for the first time. ‘She was a really good writer,’ he
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said. ‘All her teachers said she could be a really good
journalist one day.’
Gene Anderson tried to stop himself from crying. I waited
for a few minutes.
‘Mr. Anderson, Janine’s friend Jeff told me that she was
writing something for a university competition,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said the dead girl’s father, ‘and she really wanted to
win. She wanted to be a journalist more than anything in the
world. And she knew that it was a good start. She told me
something about it at Christmas.’
‘Did she tell you what she was writing about?’ I asked.
‘No, not really, ma’am,’ said Gene Anderson, ‘but I think
it was something big.’
I looked at Gene Anderson.
He went on: ‘“Daddy,” she told me, “this story’s so big it’s
going to get me the journalism prize and maybe somebody
will go to prison for a very long time.”’
‘But she didn’t tell you who the “somebody” was?’ I asked
him.
‘No,’ he said, ‘she didn’t. She was working on it, you know,
getting it right. Hey, you’re not saying …?’
‘I’m not saying anything, Mr. Anderson,’ I replied.
‘Nothing at all.’
* * *
The next morning I got up early and went out. It was very
cold in the early morning. The snow was hard and it was
difficult to stay on your feet.
I thought again about what Gene Anderson told me.
‘Somebody will go to prison for a very long time,’ his
daughter said to him. Who was it? What was Janine writing
about?
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I looked for Pine Crest Town Library, the library where
Janine Anderson went to study for her story. Then I saw a
building with a big sign outside. It said: ‘Books can change
your life.’
I went into the library. The young woman at the desk had
big hair and a big smile. ‘Good morning, can I help you?’
she said.
‘Yes,’ I said, and showed her my police badge. ‘Detective
Flick Laine, Denver Police Department. It’s about the death
of Janine Anderson.’
She stopped smiling. ‘Oh yes, poor girl … it’s terrible.’
‘Did she ever come here?’ I asked.
‘Yes, she did,’ said the young woman. ‘She mostly wanted
to look at pages from old newspapers.’
‘She could take books and newspapers away?’ I asked.
‘She had a letter from her university,’ said the young
woman, ‘so she could take newspapers and books out. She
was a student, you know.’
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‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Do you have a list of the newspapers and
books she took?’
‘Oh yes,’ said the librarian. ‘Would you like to see it?’
‘Yes, please,’ I said.
The young woman turned to the computer in front of her.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘Have a look.’
First, there was the dead girl’s name and home address in
Texas. Then there was a list of books; all of them were about
Colorado and land development. Then there was a list of
about ten newspapers that Janine took from the library in the
last two years. I asked to see them all. In every newspaper
there was a story about ski resorts and hotels. One of them
talked about a famous movie star.
The movie star, Susan Hunter, who lives in Pine Crest, said:
‘People have always come to Colorado, to get rich fast. In the past
it was gold and silver. Today, most of the gold and silver has gone.
The new gold is land that can be used for ski resorts and hotels.
Land developers make millions of dollars from this land. Today
in Colorado, there’s a fight between big business and nature
lovers who want to stop this. I am fighting for Colorado!’
I closed the newspaper. Big business, I thought. Big
money. Every year in Colorado there were more houses, more
stores, and more ski resorts. More and more people trying to
make money. I knew that people who lived here in the Rocky
Mountains often got angry. ‘This is nature,’ they said. ‘We
don’t need more buildings. We don’t need more ski resorts.’
But it was like standing on the beach and trying to make the
sea go back.
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