The Wild Inside (30 page)

Ian sat across from me and asked me what was white and black and red all over. When I said a newspaper, he told me to try again. “A toad in a blender,” I said.

“Yuck,” he screeched. “No,
an embarrassed zebra
.” His smile was huge like Natalie’s.

I laughed.

He and Ryan continued to tell me silly jokes, and I laughed on cue until they finished their pie and Natalie shoved them off to bed. I gave each of them a good-night hug and as I smelled their soft, silky hair, an overpowering urge, sharp as a blade, to be sweet, trusting, hungry for life and giggling uncontrollably at silly jokes just once again, cut through me. The yearning caught in my throat and I had to cough to dislodge it. I pushed my hand in my pocket and felt for a quarter
but came up short, so I wrapped my fingers around my thumb and squeezed tightly until Ma said, “They’re sweet boys, heh?”

“I take it you haven’t wagered any money yet on one of those Wii games.”

Natalie insisted I stay the night on their couch, but I told her absolutely not, that I needed to get back to the cabin so I could get on the job early. A part of me wanted to stay, curl up in their family room with the rest of them soundly sleeping upstairs, their rhythmic breathing providing some invisible shield from the outside world. How I admired Natalie for the simple, but hard-won irreplaceable things she’d created and fostered by having a little trust and an ounce of faith in the world. The willingness to take leaps in spite of knowing how fragile it all is, how easily everything can break—how it can fall and shatter like broken glass in an instant.

Yes, a part of me wanted to stay in the warm cocoon of their family life and not go back to Glacier, but I had the feeling that if I stayed one night, I’d want to stay two, then three, and not sleep in Glacier again as the case progressed. And for reasons not completely understood by me, that would be unacceptable.

16

V
ICTOR ENDED UP
with a small family gathering at a depressing funeral home in Evergreen not too far from his mother’s place. I stopped in on the off chance that some strange person or weird characters whom I hadn’t considered would pop up out of the blue.

The ceiling was low, the lighting dim, and the carpet a rusty burgundy color trying to look royal but failing miserably. I had been in the same funeral home about fifteen years earlier for a friend who’d lost his life in a heavy-equipment accident while paving a highway east of Kalispell. Victor’s father wasn’t there, and according to our records, now lived somewhere in New Mexico. Megan had informed us that they’d tried to contact him all week but had been unsuccessful. They left messages on the only cell phone number of his they had, but no longer had his voice recording on it, so were unsure if it was even his any longer. I made a note to make sure Monica checked his current number so he could be notified.

I stood at the back, trying to fade into the wall and stay unobtrusive. There was no coffin, only flowers next to a tripod stand with a photo board filled with pictures of Victor, mostly when he was a boy and still had some fat and color on his cheeks. I recognized one of the pictures—the one of Megan and Victor swimming—and figured Penny must have taken it from its frame from her side table.

Penny looked glassy-eyed and numb, going through the motions and being pleasant to everyone who came. She wore a dark-green dress and Megan, in black trousers and a sweater, stood next to her with her
arm woven under her mother’s. With her jaw set hard, Megan appeared stoic, as if she had her guard up and was there to offer protection for her mother, not to grieve her dead brother. When she noticed me, she gave me a stiff, curt nod, her dark eyes darting around, ravenlike. Eventually, she and Penny sat with the other family members: Lou and Becky, another uncle on Penny’s side whom I hadn’t met named Mark and his wife, Angela, and a few of their kids who all looked older than twenty and had a few toddlers and various-aged children of their own.

Candles glowed steady and created oblong shadows beside the altar. I felt a little shaky again, which I chalked up to another sleepless night and the fact that I drank too much coffee before coming. Lou glanced at me when he took a seat behind Megan, then looked away. Daniel, a few rows back, noticed me as well and gave me a small wave.

The service was short with a few hymns and one or two sentimental eighties songs, including “Wind Beneath My Wings,” which seemed grotesquely out of place, given that Victor didn’t seem to provide wind for anyone’s wings other than his own attempt to fly high in some altered state.

When everyone rose from their seats and filed outside, I followed. The sky had turned bruised, the temperature dropped, and the wind picked up and stirred some fallen leaves. I found Penny first and offered my condolences. She thanked me for coming, then stood on her toes and whispered to me, “Have you caught who did this yet?”

“Not yet,” I said, stooping down to her level. “We’re working hard on it.”

Sadness broke through the dull glassiness of her gaze. She pursed her lips, nodded, and opened her mouth to speak, but one of her friends came up and grabbed her around the shoulder before a word escaped. I smiled politely and turned to see Megan.

“Surprised to see you here, Detective Systead.”

“Have you been able to contact your father yet?” I asked.

“Yeah, we finally got ahold of him this morning through a former landlady of his who had a current number.”

“Had he known?”

She shook her head.

“How are you holding up?”

“I’m fine. Any closer to finding who did this?”

“It’s progressing,” I offered. “Anyone here that you weren’t expecting or that seems out of place?”

“Besides you?”

I smiled. “Besides me.”

“No, whoever you’re lookin’ for wouldn’t be
here
.” It was almost a question; her brow furrowed.

I nodded as I scanned the crowd. “No, most likely not.”

• • •

It was late afternoon, and the wind had picked up even more. When I returned to headquarters, I sat outside in the car for a moment with my eyes closed and listened to gusts of wind cut through the mountains, stir the leaves, and rattle the outer branches of the trees by the building.

I thought of how it must have been for Victor Lance out alone in the woods for an entire night, strapped to a tree, scared shitless: wildly looking around, the wind in the creaking trees, shaded objects that you can’t tell are real or your imagination, not knowing if a wild animal might wander upon you. Just the act of breathing must have been a challenge—trying to calm it down, but trying not to focus on it. It’s the first time I’d let myself go there and immediately felt the familiar clench below my breastbone. I opened my eyes and shook the images away.

I went inside, where I talked to Monty more about Lou and Victor gambling—that it just didn’t sit right with me. “Why in the hell would
Lou place bets for a guy who he knew would be an albatross around his neck, who he’d tried so hard to get rid of in the first place?”

“Maybe he didn’t try as hard as he claims.”

“No, he did. His wife confirmed that, in general, that was the way it was, and I can tell she’s not lying.”

Monty looked at me thoughtfully, his head cocked to the side.

“I’m going to go talk to him again,” I said.

“Now?”

“Nah, it can wait till morning. Havin’ another home-cooked meal now.”

“That so? Lucky you—your sister or your mother?”

“Neither, Joe and his wife.”

“Nice.” Monty smiled.

• • •

Joe and his wife, Elena, lived in a two-story farmhouse on ten acres by the Flathead River outside Columbia Falls. They still had several horses, but according to Joe, he decided he was getting too old to have so many responsibilities, so they sold the four head of cattle they’d owned.

Elena was a petite woman, and I could easily see that Leslie got her mother’s frame, large eyes, and pale porcelain skin, while Heather got her father’s larger, Scandinavian build with fairer, ruddier skin and blond hair. Elena looked quite a bit younger than Joe, and I wondered what the age difference was. I knew Joe had to be in his midsixties, while Elena looked to be in her early fifties.

“Nice place you have here,” I told Elena as I handed her the bottle of wine I’d picked up in Columbia Falls on the way over.

She thanked me, took my jacket, and brought me into the living room, which was painted in a tasteful, deep silvery-blue with white trim. White bookshelves framed the fireplace, and I could see family pictures lining the mantel, many with the two girls when they were younger, a dark-haired beauty next to a light-haired one. Pictures of
them riding horses, sitting on wooden field fences, bundled up and standing beside a Christmas tree they had picked out in the woods, and school pictures with perfectly combed hair and gap-toothed smiles. In the pictures, in spite of the light and dark, tall and little contrasts, it was obvious they had similar features in the shape of their jaws, their cheeks, and their smiles. Joe came in and greeted me, and we hadn’t chatted for more than five minutes when the doorbell rang. “Oh, that’s Monty.” Joe smiled. “Ran into him on the way out and thought he could use a good meal as well.”

Monty came in clean-cut, smelling of cologne, and smiling. He gave Elena a big hug and handed her the bottle of wine he’d brought. I could see that this wasn’t the first time he’d been over for dinner. Monty turned to me. “Guess I’m having a home-cooked meal as well.”

“I guess you are,” I said. “Glad you could make it.”

“Ran into Joe after you left. I suppose he felt sorry for me.”

“Speak for yourself.” I smiled. I couldn’t tell if I was pleased or pissed off that he was coming to dinner too. I had decided earlier that I was looking forward to spending an evening with Joe and meeting his wife after all this time.

“Not that anyone should feel sorry for either one of us,” Monty added.

I held up my hand to signal for him to say no more. The two of us followed Joe into the kitchen to chat with Elena and to see if we could help her with anything while she finished last-minute preparations. Elena shooed us away and said that we absolutely could not help her. She told Monty and me to sit, and put Joe to work opening both bottles of wine. Monty and I took seats at a small counter dividing the kitchen from the dining area.

“I’m making corn chowder for us tonight for starters,” she said, her eyes large and brown. She had that sophisticated, Audrey Hepburn look with her dark hair pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck. She moved gracefully around the kitchen, but I could sense that there
was an energy to her small frame that bristled and revved, waited to escape as soon as she felt more at ease with her guests.

Joe gave us each a glass of wine and we sat at the counter and chatted. Joe was talking about his acreage and how it was to raise cattle when out the kitchen window, an older, white Toyota truck rusting near the front bumper drove up, and Elena said, “Oh, hon, did you invite Heather?”

“Nope.” Joe stood to go greet her. In the fading light, I watched as Heather got out of the car. Then I saw the passenger side open and a young boy hopped out. A minute later, they all came into the small kitchen, and Joe introduced Monty and me to Heather again and to Lewis for the first time.

“I’m so sorry,” Heather said to her mother and she bent, because she was much taller, to kiss her. “I didn’t know you had company tonight. We just stopped by to say hi before heading to get some ice cream for a certain person with a big sweet tooth.” She smiled at Lewis.

“Don’t be silly.” Elena threw a dish towel over her small shoulder. “Please, stay and join us. It’s too cold out for ice cream. Plus it looks like rain.”

“Can’t. We’re on a mission.” She poked Lewis. “A chocolate-chip-mint mission.”

“Well, at least have a drink with us before you leave,” Joe offered, and Heather agreed, so we moved to the dining area and sat, while Elena continued to fiddle around with dinner preparations in the kitchen. I began to figure out how to gracefully ask Lewis about his relationship with Victor without upsetting any of the other family members.

“So, Lewis,” I said, “what grade are you in now?”

“Fifth.”

“That makes you”—I squinted—“eleven?”

He nodded.

“You must like martial arts?” I asked. “Judging by that mean roundhouse you gave your grandpa outside.”

Lewis smiled; his bottom tooth in the center was angled crookedly against the one next to it. “I take Tae Kwan Do.”

“That’s awesome,” Monty said. “Where do you do that?”

“In town, that gym up by the post office.”

“That’s so cool,” Monty said, genuinely excited, and I could see a brightness, a twinkle, in his eyes when he looked at Heather. Suddenly, I wondered if the separation might be a sure thing after all. I decided to hold off on asking Lewis about Victor and made a mental note that I would circle back to visiting him at his mother’s in the afternoon after he finished school.

• • •

When it was time for Heather and Lewis to leave and they said their good-byes, I made a quick decision to follow them out. I wanted a moment to ask Heather about visiting Lewis at her sister’s.

When Heather heard my hurried, scuffed walk to catch them on the driveway, she turned, her eyes electric and filled with a startle.

“Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to spook you.”

“Oh no, it’s fine. You didn’t really.”

Suddenly I felt shy and sheepish. “I, I was just going to ask you about your sister.”

Heather glanced at Lewis. “Go ahead and hop in, honey. I’ll be right there.”

Lewis did as she said and I added, “I mean, nothing much.” I lowered my voice so Lewis couldn’t hear me. “Just thought it would be good to talk to Lewis actually.” I twitched my head toward the car. “Possibly sometime tomorrow. I wanted to get your input before I surprised them.”

Heather frowned and shrugged. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say. I mean, you need to do what you need to do.”

“What I meant—do you think Lewis is mature enough to chat about Victor a bit without upsetting him? Nothing major, just a few questions.”