The Wild Inside (48 page)

“The gun,” I said. “You mentioned a Kevin Fuller?”

“Yeah, that gun’s been traded more than . . . ” He paused and looked
down as if he realized it wasn’t worth it to try for a metaphor. “Kevin Fuller,” he began again, “traded the gun to a Troy Hamlin from Columbia Falls at the Fairgrounds one year ago for a riding lawn mower. At first he didn’t remember who he traded it to, but when I mentioned that a riding mover would be somewhat more than the cost of the Ruger, he remembered that Hamlin had to write a check for the difference. And it turns out that Fuller’s wife keeps check records for years. Mrs. Fuller had Troy Hamlin’s name dug out of a file cabinet within twenty minutes for me.”

“Good work,” I managed.

“Ted,” Monty said. “Joe isn’t handling this so well.”

I nodded.

“He’s in the waiting area.”

I walked out to it to see Joe sitting slumped in a chair, his head in his hands. When he heard me walk in, he looked up, his eyes bloodshot and his skin rough and red. “Joe,” I whispered. He stared at me for a split second, then his face contorted and utterly unexpectedly, he lunged for me, grabbing my collar and pushing me against the wall. I wasn’t expecting it and fell easily back with his strong shove, the back of my head slamming the cinder-brick wall.

“How could you?” His face was full of rage, his jaw set hard. “How could you do this to her?”

I didn’t put up a fight. I’m quite a bit taller, not to mention younger, so it wouldn’t have been hard to push him off, but I didn’t. I stayed put, just held my hands up like I was surrendering, my back against the wall. I felt Joe’s knuckles dig into the bottom of my neck. “I’m sorry,” is all I said.

The anger stayed in his face, but I could feel that he started to release his grip just as Sheriff Walsh came in and grabbed Joe by the arms and pulled him away from me. Joe’s shoulders stayed tense, and he ripped his arm away from Walsh, turned, and gave me a piercing look, then glared at Walsh as if to say,
Don’t mess with me now
.

Walsh ended up asking Joe to go home for the night. “Joe,” I heard him say after I’d gathered my things from one of the back offices and came back out to leave. He had put his hand on his shoulder. “There’s nothing you can do. Go home to Elena.”

“How am I going to tell Elena this?” he asked, his voice suddenly small.

That moment cut me to the bone. I knew I had to get out. I drove east of Kalispell to the Flathead River and parked in a lot on the west bank. I sat in my car and watched the ink-black water slide silently by. The cloud cover was dense, blocking any sign of the half-moon, and I was completely alone. No parked teens, no squatters camped in the trees by the shore as they sometimes did by this part of the river. Only two cars passed by on the road to my back as I sat and thought, their lights briefly skimming the water.

I thought about Shelly and how we came to this exact spot to make out a few times when we were dating. I thought of how she was still just a child, a girl really, when we got married, her full and rosy cheeks, her tea-length white dress, her hair up in a bun with baby’s breath. But then, my own mother had married my father at an even younger age.

I thought of what it would have done to Ma or even my dad if Natalie or Kathryn had taken Leslie’s messed-up road or done what Heather had done. It would have crushed them. But then again, although transformed forever, people move on. They strengthen their shells and forge ahead because there is no other good alternative. Just as the four of us did without my father.

• • •

The next morning I called my mom and told her that I needed to go to Missoula for the suspect’s initial appearance. I told her that when I returned, I’d take a few days to finish paperwork and would head back to Denver.

After providing my paperwork and testimony within forty-eight
hours of Heather’s arrest in Missoula at the courthouse, I saw Joe outside, sitting on a bench, his head bowed in his hands. I walked over and sat beside him, and he raised his head and looked at me with bloodshot eyes, then glanced away again. He looked exhausted, bone-tired, and I could tell it would be a long time before he would find rest.

“How are you holding up?” I asked.

His wiry frame looked even thinner. “Elena’s in shock. As you’d expect. I’m afraid she might go into depression by the way she’s acting already.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. It’s going to take time . . .” I almost said,
to understand
, then realized that comprehending would be impossible. “To figure out how to cope,” I finished. “The attorney you’ve got, Roy Venery—he’s excellent. And you know I will testify on her behalf. There are many mitigating circumstances when all facets are considered, especially the character of the victim and what he put her through. There’s definitely an element of self-defense.”

He didn’t answer, just placed his elbows on his knees, and fixated on the sidewalk. The blue sky stretched endlessly away from us, living up to the Big Sky name. But the biting north wind whipped through the now half-naked trees, brushed the dead leaves off the gutters, coiling them and letting them settle briefly before the next gust. It seemed to me that winter, which had been nipping at my heels the entire stay, had finally taken over and solidified the surroundings.

“Joe,” I said, “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, sir, but, I mean, you guys are close, did you have any sense that—”

“No,” he cut me off. “I had no idea. I was just plodding along in my own world. Thinking about Leslie and how everything she gets involved with turns bad in spite of her best intentions.”

“Do you blame Leslie?”

He didn’t answer for a long time. I thought he had decided not to respond, but then he sighed deeply. “For a lot of things,” he said. “That’s for certain. And she deserves the blame. But no, I can’t”—he looked
over his shoulder to the steps of the courthouse—“for this. But I do fault her for bringing that loser into Lewis’s and Heather’s lives. How he threatened Lewis.” He shook his head. “Shit, I’d have taken him out to the woods myself. I wish I had. I’d take her place in a heartbeat.”

“Are you going to talk to Leslie?”

“I can’t think that far ahead right now.”

“But Lewis, you need to be there for him.”

Joe stared at the ground and wrapped his arms around himself.

“Listen,” I said. “I know you’re angry at me, and I would be too, but if it’s any consolation, and I know it’s not, I did think about doing nothing. About just letting the whole thing go unsolved, but you know, she couldn’t have gone on that way. It was eatin’ her up. She would’ve gone crazy. I could tell by the way she confessed. It was an enormous relief for her. She was dying to tell the truth; she would have eventually gone in on her own because that’s the kind of person she is. And that confession will bode well for her in court.”

Joe gave a small nod that he’d heard me but didn’t respond.

I pulled the pearl-handled knife out of my pocket and held it in my palm. It actually looked shiny because I had bought some polish and worked on it. “This here . . .” I held my palm out.

Joe glanced at it.

“My father gave me this when I was about Lewis’s age. I want to give it to you to give to him.”

Joe turned and caught my eyes. His were watery, either from the cold or from tears, I couldn’t tell.

“Please, take it.” I lifted my hand a little higher.

“But your father gave that to you.”

“It’s time to pass it on. Please, I insist, give this to Lewis for me. But there’s one catch.”

Joe stared at me.

“You have to teach him how to use it safely and how to gut fish properly.”

Joe slowly took the knife. He gripped it tightly, and I could see the tendons like a track of a large bird, fanning out to each knuckle. A web of strong veins crossed each tendon.

He simply nodded, and although his eyes showed nothing but ache, I knew he would not give up. Even amid Joe’s family’s tragedy, he would reach out to Lewis, possibly even to Leslie. I could see it in the strength of his grip that Joe understood that being alone, staying an island unto one’s self, was not the answer.

• • •

When I returned to Glacier, Monty and I met at headquarters to clear out the office we had used. We gathered the files and put them in boxes, took down photos, erased drawings and lists we’d had on the whiteboard, and took down Monty’s alibi chart. It wasn’t as cluttered and messy as some cases, and I figured it was Monty’s meticulousness that I could thank for that. I still needed to clean out my cabin, but figured I could do that later.

At the initial appearance in Missoula, bail was set by the federal judge since Heather’s flight risk was low; her danger to the community practically nonexistent since she was a citizen and a productive member of the community; and she had no prior criminal record nor was she suspected of being involved in organized crime, a narcotics ring, or gang-related activity. Her probable-cause hearing wouldn’t be for several months and her arraignment after that.

It was getting darker earlier each day, and as we packed up the office, a dim hue already surrounded us by five thirty. A soft rain pattered the roof, the building quiet. The type of day it was, no wind, a light rain, and gray skies, reminded me of Thanksgiving, and I thought of flying back up from Denver to spend it with Ma and Natalie, Luke, and the kids.

I had placed Monty’s chart on the table for him, not knowing whether he’d want to keep it or not. It seemed odd to toss it, like I was
throwing out someone’s school project. I had my back to the table and was fitting a lid over a box of files, when I heard a rip. I turned around to see Monty tearing it down the center. “Won’t need this anymore,” he said.

“Guess not.”

He tore it one more time and fit the pieces into the trash bin. “Well.” He glanced around. “The place practically looks just like we found it.”

I nodded.

“What do you think will happen to Joe and Elena?”

“They’ll be okay,” I offered.

“Yeah?” Monty eyed me. “Why do you think that?”

“They’re strong, in spite of it all. I mean, obviously they’re no cozy little family with what went wrong with Leslie and with Elena and Lou, and now . . .” We both knew I was referring to Heather. “I know it’s tempting to ask where they went wrong. What monsters were swimming just below those surface waters all these years to create this.” I held open my palms. “But it’s just not that easy. Just not that black and white. Sometimes, there’s no direct cause of anything.”

Monty looked at me wide-eyed. After all that he knew about me and my history, I was surprised to see him look at me with an innocent anticipation, still waiting for me to lead the way. Still trusting me.

“I mean,” I continued, unsure of what I wanted to say, “there’s not always an answer, right? Sometimes trouble brews beneath no matter how hard you try, but it doesn’t mean you quit trying.”

Monty nodded, a rawness in his eyes shining through. I could see he was probably thinking of his wife and his situation, not just Joe’s family. “Tell me,” Monty said. “Did you think twice about it?”

“About what?”

“Arresting Heather?”

I looked at him for a long moment before answering. I could have said,
Hell no, of course not. The law’s the law and in this job, you can’t ever blur the line or you make a habit of it
. But I didn’t. I let out a long
breath. “Yeah, I did. But like I told Joe, she’d be in hell every day of her life if I hadn’t.”

“But she’ll still be in hell, even in prison.”

“I guess, but I’d like to think she’ll at least feel like she’s paying her debt.”

“What debt? To Victor Lance? Away from her nephew, where she could actually do some good?”

“No, not a debt to Victor. To herself. To her conscience. Plus you can’t ignore it, man. What she did . . .” I ran a hand though my hair and bit my lip. “What she did was, well, brutal—leaving someone in the park all night long? I know she was panicked and all, not thinking straight and stressed to the max. That she somehow just got pulled further and further into the craziness of the moment, but somehow, somewhere, something in her should have stopped her from tying him up out there.” I thought again of how she had a strong animal instinct in her—of how, in many ways, she was probably like me. I thought of how nature continued to be predictably implacable. People hurting each other, killing one another, stray, aberrant behavior erupting out of nowhere—that atypical grizzly who normally would avoid people, suddenly lashing out, attacking, snapping. Stray behavior was inherent to the human condition too, and ultimately, I would always be fighting nature because human crime was a function of the natural. That was the job I had chosen.

“But he was never going to leave her family alone.”

“I know, Monty, I know all the reasons. And truly, I feel like shit about it, but what can I say, we don’t get to call the shots here. That’s why we have laws. Kidnapping is kidnapping. We don’t get to play vigilante in our society. You know this. That’s a slippery slope we can’t afford to get on. ”

Monty looked to his feet, nodding that he did. “It’s just such a waste.”

I didn’t say anything. I thought of beautiful, haunting Heather. Of how she made me feel shy, alive. Monty pushed his glasses up and took a long breath, then grabbed his satchel and began looking through it.
“Joe’s getting her a great defense attorney.” I sighed. “He’s from Helena and I’ve heard he works wonders. It’s not like there’s no hope.”

He nodded and gave me a half smile. “There’s one more thing.” He looked over his shoulder to the door. He reached over and shut it, then pulled a file out, and handed it out to me.

“What’s this?”

“Just take it. It’s yours to do what you want with.”

“What is it?”

“He keeps everything. Records go back over twenty-five years.”

I opened the file, saw a bunch of old, worn paper with typed text, crossed-out paragraphs, and handwriting in the margins.

“They’re old press releases. I thought you might want to see them. If you look at the bottom, it has the name of the PR gal who submitted them to him.”