Mortal Fall (49 page)

49

I
T WAS TIME
to see Adam again, which would make for a total of four times in about half a decade, all of them in the last two weeks. I had always been wary about talking to him over the phone. It helped if I could see his facial expressions. I always felt at a complete disadvantage if I couldn’t. I had no intention of being at a disadvantage with my brother ever again.

Nevertheless, I picked up my cell phone and I called him to find a voicemail that said,
You’ve reached Adam Harris with Harris Iron. Please leave your name and number and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Business hours are Monday through Friday from nine to five. Have a nice day.
It was odd to hear Adam’s voice in that singsong professional tone. I looked up Harris Iron and found the address.

His business was wedged between two other shops on Highway 2 leading into Columbia Falls. It was a white Quonset hut with a fat turquoise stripe across its center and a wood-paneled front—I presumed to make it look more inviting—where the entry stood. I had no idea how long he had been working in the fabrication and forging business, but his lethal iron fire tools with the curlicue designs popped into my mind.

I entered the shop noticing that only Adam’s Jeep was parked on the side of the shop. A bell on the door jangled when I opened it and an apropos, cacophonous heavy metal hit me. There was no way Adam could hear his door jingle with the music blaring. To my side was a counter with iron odds and ends scattered across it and behind the counter
stood a bookshelf lined with catalogues of various designs for patio and stair railings, fence postings, gates, and more. Along the side wall were all sorts of iron implements hanging from hooks and piled on shelves, and in the far back were large storage boxes stacked and lined up.

Adam appeared from behind one of the rows of boxes, his muscled self standing taller and lifting his chin to see who stood at the front of his shop. He strode toward me and I could see his expression change from a tilted-head curiosity to a straight dead-on stare when he realized it was me. “I didn’t hear you come in,” he said.

I wanted to say,
Yeah, because you’ve got your music too loud
, but I didn’t. I shrugged instead.

“What brings you here?” He walked to his counter and leaned against it, giving me a look that said I’d better make it quick so he could get back to work.

“This your business?”

“Yes.”

“How long you been in it?”

“One year. Been trying to buy the building from the guy.”

“That why you need money?”

“Maybe,” he said.

“Why didn’t you just say that was the reason?”

“I did say it was business. Why do I need to explain myself?”

“Why do you need to tell the bank why you need a loan?” I asked rhetorically. “Why does anyone need to explain themselves in the world in order to progress?”

“Maybe I don’t play it like everyone else plays it.” Adam gave me his signature stance, folding both arms across his chest, armoring himself up.

I wanted to say,
Obviously you don’t
, but again, kept it to myself. I wasn’t here to argue. “I came to tell you that we solved the case.”

His eyes widened, and he reached under his counter and instantly the music’s volume went soft. “That so?”

“Yeah, last night. It’ll be in the paper soon.”

Adam narrowed his eyes at me and nodded slowly, then gave me a cold grin, smug that it had been proven that it wasn’t him.

“I visited Dad,” I said.

“And?”

“And the same. Tracy and her family are still there. Seth still completely worthless except for some half-ass lawn work he’s been doing.”

“I know,” he said. “Dad’s back any better?”

“I guess. Yeah, but you know him, just as soon as it gets better, it’ll get worse again.”

“Eh, right about that,” he said with an expression of nonchalance and a personal knowledge of a been-there, done-that-myself addict, as if our father’s back pain was one and the same as his drinking problem, and Adam was at peace with it. I’d like to say the same for myself, but not sure I could.

A part of me figured I owed him an apology for interrogating him and another part of me didn’t. I was doing my job, and he tackled me. I looked around the shop, the ubiquitous pieces of iron looking suddenly menacing. “Last night,” I said. “You said something about a river.”

Again, he smiled coldly.

“I feel like I remember condensation from water, but I don’t remember the river. The cemetery was a good mile or two from the river.” I was referring to the Flathead River cutting through Columbia Falls.

“It was nothing.” He waved one hand in the air. “It was a long time ago. We were young. I’ve probably mentioned the river before, back then.” His stare was cold.

I took that in. “So did you go by the river that night?’

Adam shook his head and shrugged, saying nothing.

I decided whether to push it further. I chose my words carefully. “That night,” I continued. “Did you see Nathan again, after you left us?”

Adam held my gaze for another moment, then picked up a curled piece of iron that appeared to fit on the tip of an interior staircase railing and fiddled with it in one hand. “I was just messin’ with you last night. I was angry. Can you blame me?”

I lifted a shoulder. Had he controlled his anger, we could have avoided taking him to the station in cuffs.

“You should let bygones be bygones, Monty.”

“You’re not going to answer me?”

Adam set the piece back on the counter. “I really need to get back to work. Got about ten different builders needing jobs done. Like yesterday.”

I knew he’d give me nothing now. I nodded, then turned and headed for the door.

“Thanks,” Adam said as I put my hand on the handle. “For letting me know you got the guy.”

“You’re welcome.” I turned back.

“I appreciate it,” he added.

“Yeah, well, after last night, it’s the least I could do.”

“I really do appreciate it,” he repeated.

I looked at him, then beyond him to his shop. A bronze glint of early evening sun was shining through the back windows and shedding light on the sidewall of the shop, making the iron gleam yellow. I pictured my dad’s timber-framed house in the hills and Adam striving to build his business.
He had built it. He had skills.
I looked back at him. That sliver of fragility I was getting used to crossed his face like a flicker of light. Then he smiled, not in a smug way, but genuinely. It brought to mind a vision of Adam at the counter of the hardware store, holding up the new dog collar he’d just purchased, and a big grin spread across his face—real, and, actually, innocent.

“Guess I’ll go then,” I said tipping my head and opening the door. I stepped out into the warm evening and walked to my car.

• • •

By the time I finished the rest of my paperwork and drove across the river and swung left to head to the cemetery, the sun still hung high in the sky.

After a span of winding road, I slowed down and noticed a dark
green field of alfalfa adjacent to it that wasn’t previously there. If I remembered correctly, the field used to be wheat. The other side of the cemetery still butted up against the woods leading toward Teakettle Mountain. I parked and got out and began walking its edge toward the large maple tree and the darker forest behind. Even in the bright of day with the new addition of the alfalfa field and its expansive sprinkler system, the cemetery—with its dried and tangled weeds and lanky leftover wheat that had migrated into it—still had a forgotten and spooky feel, as if it was miles from anywhere and severed from the nearby town and busy highway of cars heading to and from the canyon that led to the park.

The place was deserted. I stopped and just stood and watched the breeze sweep graceful waves through the golden leftover wheat. It was quiet, except for the distant sound of a train and the hum of a tractor most likely working some field a good stretch away.

I looked back to my car parked on the gravel road. That had been the road we’d driven up, the five of us: Adam, Perry, Todd, Nathan, and me. As a sixteen year-old, Adam was already well muscled and towered above my small, twelve-year-old frame, and he and his buddies would laugh loud and raucously like they owned Montana, owned the world.

We were in an old red Pontiac, a gearshift between the two front seats. Perry was driving. Adam was on the passenger side and Todd was next to me. Nathan was on my right, leaving me squeezed in the middle. Nathan and I were quiet as we listened to my brother and his friends talk boisterously, swearing and laughing, amped up with all their newfound testosterone and manliness.

They were drinking beer and Adam turned around, and said, “You want some?”

Nathan’s eyes slid to me, and I looked at the floor and shook my head. We had been in this situation before, and it was always the same stupid joke—Adam or one of his buddies offering us a drink they knew we didn’t want. Nathan and I had talked about it—that neither one of us had any desire to join them, that we were smarter than that and
wouldn’t do the stupid things they did. When we said no, the three of them usually howled with laughter, thinking Adam was the funniest guy in the world for offering alcohol to us peons.

But this time was different. Adam’s voice was nice, and no one laughed.

“Aw, come on,” Perry said. “It’s not going to kill ya. Gotta grow up sometime.” Perry’s voice was on the pleasant side too.

I kept my eyes forward on the gravel road, bone-white in the headlights fanning across them. I felt something soften inside me. Things were never that simple. In spite of how much I knew my brother was capable of, I still had a strong urge ticking away inside of me, wanting to fit in, desperately wanting to feel like a part of something, like I belonged for a change. All it took for me to be drawn to the light like a moth was a little sweetness in their voices instead of the usual obnoxious teasing. “Okay, yeah,” I finally said. “I’ll try it.” I didn’t dare look at Nathan, but felt his hip next to me shift, maybe his body stiffening. I knew he’d be angry, that I was betraying us somehow—as if we’d made a pact—even though we hadn’t. We’d just talked about how stupid they were.

Adam handed his can of Coors back to me, and I hesitated for a second before grabbing it. A tear in the vinyl seat pinched the side of my hip. He continued to hold it out, canting it toward me to urge me to take it. Without looking at Nathan, I reached out quickly to grab it and put it to my lips, tilting it slowly up and letting the lukewarm liquid pour into my mouth. I swallowed and scrunched up my face in distaste. It was bitter and not good—like tasting dirty socks—like something was wrong with it, but I intuitively knew that nothing had gone wrong with it because it matched the smell of the beer my father drank every night and the way his breath smelled after a few. I also instinctively knew that even though I didn’t like the taste or the way it made my throat feel, if I kept drinking it, eventually I would get used to it, maybe even begin to like it. I was certain that that was what Adam, Perry, and Todd had done, and probably even my dad when he was my age.

“How is it?” Perry asked.

“Fine,” I said after swallowing loudly. I handed it back to Adam, and all of three of them laughed, then Todd belched obnoxiously and the three broke into an even louder howl.

“Damn straight.” Adam held his can up like he was toasting the windshield, then guzzled half of it down. “That’s my brother all right.”

A part of me swelled with pride. Adam had actually called me his brother. I had finally done something right. I looked at Nathan, and he looked angry, his eyes narrowed, a pink flush across his freckled cheeks. “Where are we going?” he asked flatly. “We’re supposed to go get Molly.”

“We told you,” Perry said as he slowed down and took a turn to the right. “We’re just having some Halloween fun before we pick up your sister.”

“Yeah, but it’s late. And we were supposed to be there by eight thirty. It’s already past that.”

The plan was for Nathan to come home with me after school, have something to eat, then—as far as Nathan and his parents understood—Nathan was to walk a few blocks over to meet Molly at her friend’s house. Only, once Nathan was at our place, Adam and his friends told him they’d give him a ride to Molly’s friend’s, where Perry would then offer to give them a lift home. Then, on the way, Perry would try to talk Molly into hanging out a little longer. That was the plan, Adam had told me, simple and harmless. If Molly said no, no harm done, they’d just give her and Nathan a ride home as planned.

But now we were taking a detour, and I could see Nathan was nervous. He brushed his straight hair away from his eyes and scowled as he looked out his window. It was starting to make me nervous too, but since my brother and his friends were actually being nice for a change, I was sort of enjoying myself. After all, it was Halloween night and I didn’t want to go home right away anyway.

“We’ll go get her in a sec,” Todd offered. “We just want to check this place out. See.” He pointed out in front of him. “It’s so cool. It’s that old
cemetery everyone talks about. You know, the one that has that big, creepy tree that everyone says they hung some lady ’cause she was a witch.”

“And what better place to be on Halloween,” Adam said, drawing out the
ween
in a spooky voice.

“But it’s late,” Nathan said. “My sister will be mad.”

Perry came to a stop in the middle of the gravel road and lifted his chin to outside where his headlights were fanning out. “There it is.”

We all sat silently looking at it. It was a large maple, sturdy and tall off to the right of a large field of grayish-white gravestones scattered in the tangled, slumped-over grass. “No one got hung on that,” Nathan protested.

“Yes,” Todd said. “Everyone knows about it. It’s in the library. A true-blue witch hunt. It was years ago, like in the late 1800s or something. Even Mr. Collier, my English teacher, said it was true when we were reading some book about it.”

I stared at the tree. It did look spooky in the dark, the silver moonlight casting pale light across its thick, layered branches. Its leaves were past their fall glow and were dull brown, falling to the ground and surrounding it like a shroud at its roots. Then, as if on cue, Adam and Perry both opened their car doors and stepped out. “Come on,” they said. To my left, Todd followed and hopped out, the cold air funneling in, surrounding us. “Come on,” Perry said again. “Let’s just check it out. It’ll be fun.”