The Wild Inside (37 page)

“Yeah, the eighties. Oldman Lake. We were camping. Just the two of us.”

Monty stared at me.

“Go ahead,” I said.

“Go ahead?” He lifted his brow.

“Go ahead and whistle.”

“What?”

“Whistle. You always whistle over stuff. Doesn’t that warrant one?”

Monty didn’t whistle. “Jesus,” he said instead. “That’s, that’s—I don’t know—horrific.”

I stared straight ahead. My whole body felt itchy and my heart pounded in my ribs. My face felt hot and flushed. I could easily have dropped the whole thing now that I’d put it out there.

“What happened?”

I lowered my head, tried to hide my flushed face. I realized I’d have to continue, and I didn’t particularly want to.

Monty cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. I fidgeted. The vinyl felt like tack paper, as if it was keeping me captive. I needed to either open the door and get out or begin talking, the air turning so thick I could slice it. Something needed to give before I’d lose it laughing or crying again. “We’d gone in the day,” I said, my throat dry. I swallowed hard, found very little saliva. “Fished the lake—just catch and release. Then made a fire when it was close to getting dark. We’d made some dinner, some of those premixed camping packets where all you do is add boiling water for stew. It’s not like we were careless; we weren’t cooking steaks or brats or anything out in the middle of bear country.”

“Had the area been having problems?”

“No, not like the Many Glacier area. There’d been no trouble sightings in the Two Med area that fall.”

“It was fall?”

I nodded. “Not late fall. It was September.”

“That’s spooky,” Monty said.

I didn’t respond, just scratched the back of my hot neck.

“You were a kid?” He had that sympathy look on his face that I’d come to hate when I was a teen—that droopy look that always made me feel like I was on the brink of falling off the edge of some great precipice into a pit of complete human rawness and emotion.

“Yeah. Fourteen. We sat by the fire for a while after dinner.” I shut my eyes. “Just chatted before going to bed.” I could remember the smell of the smoke, having to squeeze my eyes tightly shut when the breeze blew it straight in my face, then the wind changing directions and
blowing it away from both of us. I pictured my dad putting his forearm before his eyes until it blew the other way.

“We slept in a three-man tent that my dad had packed in. I remember thinking how heavy it looked.” I swallowed hard again, considering what to say next. I drew a blank. I ran my hands through my hair while Monty sat patiently. “After, after the attack,” I said. “After it dragged my dad into the bushes, I don’t know how far, off to the side of the campsite, I was completely frozen with fear, didn’t know what to do.”

“Jesus,” Monty said again. “Were there other campers out there?” Monty wrapped an arm around his gut as if the thought of it was making him ill.

I shook my head. “Just us.”

“Your dad, he didn’t make it?”

I shook my head again. “Just me.”

“How the hell did you get out of there?”

“It’s a blur, really. But I have memories of frantically searching for a flashlight, finding the lighter in dad’s pack, and remaking the fire, getting it going again. I sat in front of the fire with one thought and one thought only, that I needed to keep it going, to not let it die. That if the fire died, I would die.”

Now I thought I could hear Monty’s breathing, loud and adenoidal like a child focused on building something. His lips were pursed, and he was still wrapping an arm around his waist.

“At the first light, everything was quiet. I tried to find my dad, at least, I think I did. The mind’s funny that way. You know how unreliable witness accounts are? Anyway, I’d like to believe I searched, but I guess I was in shock.”

“You’d have to be,” Monty said.

“I ran the trail with only a flashlight. I remember stumbling, over and over, on autopilot, I guess, until I fell. I must have run and walked close to six miles, because they said they found me only a mile in from
the Two Medicine Lake. I’d stumbled and fallen, crunched my skull on a rock so hard that I was knocked unconscious. Some hikers found me, got me emergency help. I was in the hospital, actually in a coma for a short time. Subdural hematoma. Never even came to in order to fill anybody in on the attack, but I guess they thought it through, sent out a party to hike up the trail, and found our site.”

I looked at Monty, his eyes like quarters and his face sheet white. I cleared my throat.

Monty began to slowly nod. “You spent hours by the fire by yourself after the bear took your dad?”

I bit my lower lip, looked into Monty’s intense eyes and gave a nod, then turned back and fixed my gaze on the floor of the car. The itching had ceased. I just felt hollowed out and exhausted.

“This case,” he said. “These circumstances with the bear . . . tough duty to—”

“It’s not that big of a deal.” I cut him off, holding up my hand. “I’m fine. Really, what happened all those years ago has no bearing on this case, and I’m fine. I’ve just not gotten much sleep lately and I guess I just needed that”—I lifted my chin to the woods, to the direction of the murder site—“that laugh or whatever the hell you want to call it.”

“I guess you did.”

I shrugged; then wrapped my hand around the car keys hanging in the ignition to start the car.

Finally, Monty whistled.

• • •

The next hour with him—driving back to West Glacier in the silence, grabbing another cup of coffee to go and a couple of pastries in the café, getting back to headquarters so that Monty could begin his family tree on the Shelton’s children—felt like half a day. It was the aftermath of confiding in someone—the total discomfort. What I thought might be a relief at filling him in was quickly beginning to look like an ever-
growing colossal mistake on my part. With each glance from Monty, like a concerned parent with a closed-lip smile full of pity, I felt weakened, melted like the Wicked Witch to a puddle of water. First, exposing my personal life with Shelly to him, and now this. I felt pathetic. If it wouldn’t have rattled my nerves to hear my own laughter again, I’d have almost cracked up at the irony: Monty like my student in the beginning of the case and now a concerned partner handling me with kid gloves and a mouthpiece to Ford to boot.

I recalled the service for my father, which had been delayed for a month until I recovered fully and was discharged from the hospital. I remember the picture board with images of him hiking, biking, holding up a large bass he’d caught in one of the warm Florida lakes. There were refreshments afterward—trays of cold cuts and cheeses, platters of cakes and doughnuts that made me queasy just to look at. There’d been a quiet and pleasant air of both sorrow and warmth, but what I remember most were the people’s uncomfortable glances at me and the comments about how lucky I was to have made it, then the awkward pause from the person who’d said it as they realized how cold that must sound to a fourteen-year-old boy who’d just lost his father. I felt weak and exposed when other parents and my father’s friends forced fake smiles full of sympathy. I had to leave the funeral home, walk outside just to escape the pity because it made me feel too fragile to even breathe, as if I was suffocating.

I threw the files I was going over down on the table because I couldn’t think straight. I left Monty in the stuffy office working meticulously on his diagram to go to the bathroom and maybe step outside for a breath of fresh air. I’d only made it a little ways down the hallway when I ran into Ford.

Great. What now?
I hadn’t said anything out loud, but he spoke as if he had read my mind.

“This business with that reporter . . . what’s his name?”

“Jones.”

“No one under my or Smith’s watch is admitting giving the guy information, although both Nicholas Moran and Karen Fortenson said he’d tried to get details out of them. That he’d swung by to find you, but since you weren’t around, started questioning whoever he found.”

“Makes sense,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I’ve spoken to him.”

“I’m sure you have,” I said.

Ford caught the smugness in my voice, and I could tell was about to say something, as his mouth opened briefly, then shut, his lips twisted in disgust. It was an understatement to say that this man and I made no music together and never would.

“The bear,” Ford said. “I’ve made a decision. He goes back to the wild tomorrow.”

“We can’t do that,” I said.

“Oh, yes we can, and will. It’s been long enough, and we are not putting him down. Besides, with the public now knowing we’re looking for evidence, we can be pretty sure that whoever had the gun to begin with has gotten rid of it by now.”

“You can’t make that assumption.”

“You said it yourself; no perpetrator is going to hang on to it at this point after that article.”

“The article wasn’t that clear. You said
that
yourself—keys, wallet?”

Ford looked up at the ceiling, then back at me. “Tomorrow, Systead, he’s being released.” He continued down the hall.

I forgot about the bathroom, just turned and walked to the exit and went outside into the cold and damp air that hung heavy. Heavy like my head, as if was full of wet sand. Yet somehow it also felt clear, as if my anger was burning through my fatigue like sunlight through fog. I shook it like a dog trying to throw water off his snout, to snap myself out of the funk. Big fucking deal. I’d told Monty about my past. It wasn’t the end of the world. Aside from the bear dilemma, the investigation was proceeding, and a small part of my brain or something in
my intuition, like the very beginning of a pearl formation inside the soft body of the oyster, was starting to shape. You never know why or what makes it come on in the absence of any strong clues, but it still can come, and I recognized the sensation, one all homicide investigators know. I didn’t have the answers, but I sensed they were close.

I would have to get support from Sean on preventing the bear’s release because I still needed the damn slug. I whipped out my phone, dialed his number, and left him a message that I needed to speak to him as soon as possible.

• • •

On my way back in to use the restroom, I got a call from a female officer at the Columbia Falls Police Department who said they knew we’d put out the word requesting to be apprised of anything suspicious involving Andrew Stimpson and that they had him and Daniel Nelson in their custody. Apparently, the two had been brought in by Officer Pontiff for fighting in front of one of the bars on the main drag in Columbia Falls.

Monty and I found Officer Pontiff in a small office on the other side of a recently added two-way mirror looking into the only interview room the station has. Apparently, Pontiff was very proud of the new addition because he stood, leaning against one wall with a smile, sipping a cup of coffee. He said, “I love these two-ways, don’t you?”

“They’re nifty all right,” I replied. “What happened?”

“According to the other guy, Nelson, he—” Pontiff lifted his chin to point at Stimpy, who was glaring directly back at Pontiff as if he could see him. Stimpy had a cocky look on his face and his arms folded before his chest. One knee bounced ferociously, and his eyes had that crazed I’m-larger-than-life-’cause-I-don’t-care-about-shit look that comes from popping a few pills, snorting a line, or shooting up a vein. “Stimpson instigated the whole thing. Started teasing him about the fact that his longtime buddy Victor was no longer with us. Nelson said
he tried to leave the bar without any trouble, but that Stimpy followed him out, started pushing on him, and asking him why his mama didn’t teach him enough manners to not walk away from someone when they was talking to ya. He was pretty ramped up when we got him. Pretty sure he’s on something.”

“Anything on him? Drugs? Weapon?”

“No.”

“Where’s Nelson?”

“He’s in one of the cells. Figured you’d want a shot at this moron first, so I brought him to the interview room.”

“I’ll let him simmer and speak to Nelson if you don’t mind. He sober?”

“Yeah, seems perfectly fine. That’s why I relayed his story to you.”

“And Stimpy’s story?”

Pontiff broke into a huge grin. “That Nelson was making eyes at his girlfriend.”

“Melissa?”

“Yeah, that’s her. I guess she was taking a break from the Outlaw’s Nest and was hanging with Stimpy at the Bandit.”

“Is she here too?”

“No, but I’m sure she’ll be by soon to post bail for her oh-so-stellar boyfriend.”

• • •

After I talked to Daniel and found nothing all that interesting other than to confirm that what Officer Pontiff had parlayed was accurate, I went in to Stimpy. By the time I got to him, he’d started scratching. He was no longer the poised and cocky master of his universe as he was earlier—sitting fairly composed (other than the shaking leg) and glaring through the two-way mirror. Now he paced and scratched behind his neck, the side of his chin, where he’d broken a scab and smeared
the blood. He was wearing a leather vest with a faux-fur collar with no shirt underneath, so I could see his bare arms with all his tattoos: a buffalo head, a rainbow, and an eagle on one arm, and on the other, a crucifix with the words
Jesus Listens
underneath.

Monty and I walked in and took a seat each. I began: “So,” I said, “if Jesus listens, I guess there’re no secrets.”

Stimpy stopped pacing and looked at me, then shook his head as I’d done earlier after talking to Ford, as if he could shake things into a different order, clear the Etch A Sketch, and start with a new design.

“I ain’t got secrets from no one.”

“That’s good, then. So let’s start with where you’re getting the nice little concoction that’s so healthy for your skin.”

“Fuck off.”

I clucked my tongue. “Remember, Jesus is listening.”

“I don’t give a fuck. Maybe he needs a little educating on what it’s like in a Columbia Falls jail.”

“Where’s Melissa?”

“She’ll be here.”