Found Money - James Grippando [41]
Amy was aware of that. At better than four thousand meters above sea level, they were pulling images from Mt. Evans that rivaled Hubble Space Telescope quality. “What do we have to do to get me in?”
“The site is operated by the University of Denver under a U.S. Forest Service special use permit, so the department will have to work out some kind of collaborative research arrangement with DU. That needs to be done well in advance. It’s not just a question of access to the telescope. It’s also a matter of getting to and from the observatory. Living accommodations are limited on the mountain, especially if you’re going to take your daughter and grandmother with you. You can’t be driving back and forth from Boulder every day. It’s not only time-consuming, but come November, the roads could be impassable.”
Amy sipped her wine, thinking. “I promise to let you know by next Friday.”
“I can’t guarantee anything.”
“Come on. Cut me a little slack, okay? What’s the absolute deadline?”
“Yesterday. Or to be even more precise, last month. If I’m going to bust my political hump to work you back into the fall program, I need a commitment from you. And I need it right away. I’m being straight with you, Amy. As a friend.”
She snagged her lip with her tooth. She had agreed to give Ryan Duffy a week to pull together the records, but that wasn’t written in stone. “Okay,” she said with a quick nod. “I’ll let you know by Monday.”
19
By midafternoon, Ryan could see the Denver skyline from the interstate. A hint of the infamous brown cloud hovered over the city. Despite serious clean-up efforts, Denver hadn’t completely shaken the ghost of air pollution. The worst Ryan had seen it was a year ago last winter. That was the last time he’d come to visit his old friend Norman Klusmire.
The once inseparable twosome had met as freshmen at the University of Colorado—roommates, in fact, though it was just the luck of the on-campus housing lottery that had thrown them together. They didn’t exactly seem destined to become lifelong friends. Ryan was the more serious student, with an eye on med school from the first day of orientation. Norm had chosen UC because it was close to the ski slopes, a curious move for a native of southern Mississippi who had absolutely no use for ice, save for mint juleps. His grades were lousy in one sense; astounding if you considered he never went to class. On a dare he took the Law School Admissions Test and scored in the top one-half of one percent. The sea change was complete when he met another transplanted southerner, the radiant Rebecca—though he nearly blew it with her right on their wedding day. In probably his only lapse of judgment since his twenty-first birthday, Norm put his hell-raising older brother in charge of his bachelor party. Norm awoke an hour before the ceremony with a permanent nipple ring big enough to set off a metal detector and absolutely no memory of how it got there. Ryan did the emergency removal in the basement of the church. The stitches blended nicely with the chest hair. Rebecca never knew. They’d been married ever since.
Norm had always said that if Ryan were ever in a crack, he could count on Norm to return the favor. It was intended as a joke. Norm’s specialty was criminal defense.
Ryan called from the truck stop just outside Denver to say he needed to cash in on that old offer. Norm laughed, recalling the old joke. Ryan didn’t laugh with him. Norm immediately dropped everything and invited his old buddy over to the house.
Norm lived on Monroe Street in the Cherry Creek North subdivision. A million dollars didn’t buy what it used to in Denver, but Ryan still thought