The Rivers Run Dry (33 page)

“The Rim, where is that?”

He flipped the pages. “The top of Squak Mountain. The middle mountain, between Cougar and Tiger.”

“My map says something about ‘Sqwauk Hill.' Is that the same thing?”

“Let me see.”

I turned the binder, showing him the map from the Blue Blaze Coal Company. Hand-drawn lines showed an anvil-shaped mountain, the creeks carving into steep valleys.

“That's it, same one,” he said. “Squak gets spelled different ways. It's an Indian word, means ‘water.' See that plateau there, just down from the summit? That's where the Rim is. The houses back up to state land, couple thousand acres worth. The Bullitt family donated it.”

“Bullet—as in gun?”

He spelled the name. “Old Seattle family. They kept a cabin up there. But sometime around the 1970s they decided to give the land to the state, for a park. The old homestead is still up there. Or it was. Vandals tore it down.”

The state survey, done in the 1980s, showed some of the topographic details, such as rock outcroppings, names of creeks, the elevation changes on the mountain, all the hiking trails that coursed over the hills. And at the center, the cartographer drew an outline of the old Bullitt homestead.

I leaned into the map, reading the details.

“It must've been quite a place,” the detective said. “Too bad the only thing left is the fireplace. Just a big stone wall, out there with the trees. But I hear the fireplace still draws. Hey, why are you looking at me like that?”

We started hiking at the hairpin turn off Mountainside Drive: me, Detective Markel, and Issaquah's K-9 officer, whose trained German shepherd was named Rommel.

Rommel paid no attention to the squirrels and chickadees that skittered across our path. Periodically, the officer waved the scrap of fabric under the dog's nose, the fabric I'd found tied to the tree, the fabric I suspected came from a Pendleton shirt size XXL. At the three-quarter mark, where the trail split, we saw a man hiking down with ski poles.

“Is that dog gonna bite me?” He froze, eyeing Rommel. His voice was reedy and he wore a yellow windbreaker. “I don't care if you are cops. If that dog bites me, I'll sue you.”

“Get in line,” the detective mumbled.

“What?”

“Do you have the time?”

The man pushed up the cuff of his windbreaker, exposing his watch. The officer released several inches of Rommel's leash. The ski pole dangled from the strap around his wrist. “It's about two thirty. Get that dog away from me.”

The detective took down the man's name, address, and phone number, asked him several more questions, then told him he could leave. The man stabbed his ski poles into the soil, working his way past us. We continued up the trail.

Ferns blanketed the forest floor, shielded from sun by towering cedars with moss hanging from their limbs in long curtains like gray-green yarn, and it billowed in the uncertain breeze. Twice, Rommel pulled the officer into the woods. But the dog returned to the trail both times, whimpering with frustration.

We climbed until the moss disappeared, replaced by bare deciduous trees and birch bark that peeled in swaths.

Then I saw the fireplace.

The house was gone—no walls, no roof—but the rounded river rocks rose twenty feet to blue sky.

The officer dangled the fabric under the dog's nose again. Rommel circled the concrete pad, which must have been the house's foundation.

Then the dog sat beside the officer's left foot.

“Great,” the detective said. “Now what?”

I walked north, stepping off the concrete and into the woods. The fireplace was at my back, and the forest in front of me was so thick that it obscured the view of Issaquah below. I turned, staring at the long scar down the homestead's concrete foundation. The earth had settled beneath it, trying to fill in on itself.

I asked the officer to bring Rommel.

The dog walked fifty yards into the woods, then stopped.

I glanced at the officer.

“Give him a second.” He waved the fabric under the dog's nose again.

Rommel's ears pricked forward.

“Rommel, find!”

The dog leaped, snuffling the leaves and the fading ferns, pulling the officer into the forest. I jogged behind them, my memory stirred by the sounds. An image kicked up. I saw the perp's feet slicing through the underbrush. Rommel was barking up ahead, and I ran faster. When I caught up, the dog pulled against the leash as the officer tried to balance himself on the uneven ground. Moments later, Markel came up behind us, panting.

A mound of pine boughs were stacked against the mountain. Rommel pawed at the base, whimpering. The officer pulled him back as I came closer and lifted the branches. The green needles were already faded to brown, and the sawed-off limbs leaked sap from their wounds. With the detective beside me, we threw the branches behind us while Rommel barked—hoarse, frustrated—and the clean scent of pine sap mixed with another odor, leaking out from behind the boughs. The smell turned my stomach.

When all the branches were removed, I flicked on my flashlight, asking the detective to wait while I went inside. Rommel's bark clapped against the rock walls. The floor climbed at a ten-degree angle, following a coal seam that stretched back some forty feet. But the tunnel was empty. I traced my flashlight along the far wall and saw another coal bed, jumping at a fault line. The miners had dug out that seam, too, following the sudden steep turn, hoping to strike it rich carving a ledge about fifteen feet above the main floor. I found easy footholds below and pulled myself up to the rocky plateau, shining my flashlight into the dark crevice. The stench was worse, a pungent odor of dead blood and rotting meat, and when my flashlight found her, she was curled up with her back to the tunnel.

I called her name. She did not respond.

Her emaciated bare arms were wrapped over her head and handcuffs circled her wrists, chained to a steel rod that stood like a flag pole in a gray pool of freshly poured concrete.

“Courtney,” I whispered.

The smell rising from her body gagged me. I coughed. Her right hand was a green balloon, the final finger black, truncated at the last knuckle.

“Courtney.” The Pendleton shirt hung in filthy rags, and when I touched her arm her skin felt cold, clammy. At my touch, she turned her head, dirt ringing her neck. Her eyes were glassy, like a cheap doll.

“Courtney,” I said softly, “we've come to take you home.”

She didn't seem to understand the words. I repeated them, slowly.

And a moment later, she lifted her hands, automatically, like a small child who had grown accustomed to begging.

chapter twenty-seven

P
ersonal experience had shown me there's an inverse relationship between what people think I should feel and how I actually feel, particularly in the trenches.

After my father was murdered, I applied to Quantico and people extolled my courage. But deep inside I felt only a desperate need for action, nothing heroic about it. When my mother suffered a breakdown, I moved to Richmond in order to take care of her, and the praises I heard had the staggering weight of unearned compliments, as duty was mistaken for valor.

Those same feelings rushed into my empty heart the week after Courtney VanAlstyne was returned to her parents. I was standing at the cherrywood desk belonging to the SAC, the special agent in charge of the Seattle field office, a man whose seventh-floor windows looked out over Puget Sound. The SAC had the sinewy physique of a dedicated distance runner, graying hair, and a starched white shirt that glowed with purity. His face was by turns placid and honed so firmly it appeared to have been created by a blacksmith. As we spoke, unbidden expressions slipped through his Bureau mask.

I tried to smile.

“The Bureau is grateful for your tenacious work, Raleigh,” he was saying. “I've received a number of congratulatory phone calls, among them one from the director. He is extremely pleased with the results.” He waited for my thank you, which I gave.

“Senator Avery's office phoned as well,” he continued. “And, of course, the VanAlstynes, their appreciation goes beyond words.”

Behind him, white caps whipped across the surface of the sound. The wind seemed to be coming out of the south, colliding with the tide from the north, where Puget Sound opened to the Pacific Ocean.

“Thank you, sir.”

“The VanAlstynes want to give you a monetary reward.”

He waited.

“That's not necessary, sir. Or appropriate.”

“Correct,” he said. “But I'm placing a letter of commendation in your personnel file. The letter goes to you alone.”

“But there were other agents—”

He held up his hand, stopping me. “Yes, at one point, we had every agent in Violent Crimes working this case. But it was your tenacity that found Miss VanAlstyne. Alive, no less. That last detail can't be stressed enough. That's not the standard out-come on something like this. Your supervisor agrees, you deserve something beyond the usual atta-boy.”

An “atta-boy” was a letter of commendation for good work.

“You will receive a $3,000 monetary award from the Bureau,” he said. “It should appear in next month's paycheck.”

“Thank you, sir.”

I watched another curious expression sweep over his face. Leaning forward, he picked up a paperweight from his desk, a specimen of polished amethyst. It was the size of his fist.

“I understand you came to the Seattle office under less than ideal circumstances. Disciplinary transfer?”

I nodded.

“I have a letter on my desk from Agent Ngo, regarding the first surveillance operation. Can I presume you know about his complaint?”

“Yes, sir. Agent Ngo disagreed with my decision to collar the runner.”

“Correct. Do you know why?”

“I've learned not to explore motive among my colleagues.”

His lips twitched, almost a smile. “Ernest J. Suggs wasn't just any runner. He's our mole.”

“Mole?”

“Suggs works as an informant for our organized crime unit. When you submitted the request for surveillance on the poker game, Agent Ngo became concerned. We were already watching the game, using Suggs, to crush the Korean mafia. Ngo was worried your surveillance would blow our cover. And then SWAT goes in after Lucia Lutini, Suggs runs, and Ngo rushes in, trying to preserve his source. Suggs, you can imagine, was confused, thought we were double-crossing him. But Ngo explained it to him in the car. Since the Korean mafia already suspects we're watching, we had to preserve Suggs's cover. Ngo took out the stop on the handcuffs, nearly breaking Suggs's wrist. Our mole launches a lawsuit against the FBI. We look bad.” He shrugged. “But we keep our source.”

I couldn't meet his eyes. Glancing out the window, I watched the wind throwing white sheets across the gray water, changing direction as suddenly as a matador's cape.

“But, sir, the soil in Suggs's shoes links him to the area where the girl disappeared. And he knew her, from the casino and the card game. He's still a possible suspect.”

He put down the amethyst. “Ngo looked into the soil, after you had the house searched. Suggs admitted it, he went looking for the girl after her disappearance was reported in the paper, after the roommate told him where she went missing. He thought the rich parents would offer him a reward. The simple fact is, our mole is a greedy man. That's fortunate for us, since he'll sell out his friends at the right price. But Suggs is clear of any wrong-doing in the VanAlstyne case.”

“The kiddie porn on his computer?”

He sighed. “It's disgusting. We'll handle that another way. But his greed, it's caused you some confusion.”

He waited for me to respond. I felt a temptation to point out what really caused my confusion: Ngo's obfuscations, my colleagues not leveling with me. And if I pointed that out, I could kiss the commendation good-bye, along with the much-needed cash.

I nodded, as though this was all perfectly fine, as though this was excellent procedure.

“Some of our best agents push the limits,” he said, “It's not what we want, per se, but Quantico is not real life. Your career development, Raleigh, will depend on crucial judgment calls.” He paused. “How
did
you figure out she was in that cave?”

I watched the finely honed face, the intelligent eyes, and for one brief moment, I wondered what would happen if I mentioned the clairvoyant who spoke about a place of fire, and the river rock dreams where my late father appeared, speaking to me about what was inside the rocks.

My career came down to judgment calls.

“I took an educated guess based on my background in forensic geology,” I said.

He nodded, satisfied. “I read about your background in the lab. I'm glad you chose to become an agent. Have you enjoyed working in Violent Crimes?”

“Yes, sir.”