The Wild Inside (8 page)

“Winters.”

There was a pause. Monty looked at me.

“Did Victor have any other friends who might know his whereabouts over the past few days?” I asked.

Penny shrugged. “Nobody worth mentioning. Always different stragglers here and there. I don’t even know the names of half of them. I would just beg him to not hang out with such people.”

“Such people?”

“You know, druggies. You could tell because they looked skinny and unkempt, just like Victor was starting to look all over again. You might talk to Daniel. Daniel Nelson’s been a buddy of his for some time.”

“Can you think of anyone in particular that would want to harm Victor? Did any of his friends catch your attention for any reason at all?”

A look I couldn’t quite pinpoint, something even sadder than her present grief, swam across Penny’s eyes like a dark shadow of a fish. She looked down. “No.” She shook her head, then put her tissue to her eyes again. “No, nobody in particular, but there have been a lot of bad people in my son’s life because of all the drugs.”

“I understand, but, Ms. Lance, it’s important that you tell us everything and anything that might be pertinent.”

“I will,” she said robotically, her eyes vague and her attention slipping away into deeper grief. “I think, I think I really need to go to my room now.” Her entire body sagged, her frame like a small wounded animal lost in the big recliner as she hunched forward. She folded her arms between her chest and her knees as if she had a stomachache. Her small feet lay pale on the floor with her toes curled under. I thought of a bird perching on a wire.

• • •

“Wow,” Monty said when we got back in his SUV. “Intense.”

“Yeah. Usually is. She took it better than most, though. She’s a tough one.”

“I guess so.” Monty shook his head and made the same low whistle he had made at the crime scene. “Dealing with a druggie son like that, I guess it would thicken your skin.”

“Yeah, but she thought of something near the end there. Not sure if it was important, but something crossed her mind that she either didn’t want to share or simply saddened her even more. Made her fade.”

“I was writing and didn’t see her expression.”

“I could be wrong, but we’ll be talking to her again.”

“I noticed you didn’t ask about the father.” Monty kept his eyes on the highway.

“Next time,” I said. “We got more than usual under the circumstances. Often they’re too distraught to even undergo questioning.”

Monty nodded.

I thought about our victim, Victor Lance, as I looked to the Whitefish Range, the bare runs of the ski resort cutting down Big Mountain like prominent veins on the underside of a wrist.

5

T
HE ILLEGAL CAMPING
couple seemed like they were out of a sitcom. They were young and constantly bickering. Kaylynn Lowden had crazy, curly, haywire reddish-brown hair, a big smile, and an unrelenting giggle, and Jarred Mercord had a dark, brooding, sulky look that neutralized his girl’s enormous energy and filled up the makeshift interrogation room at park headquarters, making it seem too small for the three of us. All her remarks teetered on the naïve, and it didn’t take long to realize she knew very little.

When we brought Jarred in, it also didn’t take long to realize he didn’t know much either, although it seemed like some kind of a game to him. His comments desperately worked toward sophistication and headiness but fell short primarily because of his youth. When we asked him to try to recall anything strange occurring during the time they were camping at Fish Creek, he said in a deeper voice that “
all credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come from the senses
.” Then he added: “That was Nietzsche,” as he flipped his head to get his long hair out of his face.

I rolled my eyes.

I have to give it to Monty. He was learning quickly, and he had more patience than I did with this kid. Just when I started to feel like I was going to shove him against the wall and tell him to stuff the sophistication bit, he gave a scrap of information that was at least a tad bit useful when Monty asked if he’d seen any cars driving by.

“I saw several out all day. It was so nice, so people were coming
and going, mostly driving up the Camas Creek area,” Jarred said. “But I did see one vehicle more than once, and it was later in the evening than the others.”

“What kind of vehicle?” I asked.

“A dark truck. Black or dark green maybe.”

“The make?

“I don’t know, maybe a Chevy or a Ford.”

“Size? Small pickup or standard?”

“Standard.”

“Why did it catch your attention?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Guess ’cause I saw it twice. And it was close to dark and I was out walking.”

Jarred had first seen the truck sometime around five p.m. It went past him when he drove out of Apgar Village and was turning north on Camas Creek Road to head back to the campsite. Then while walking on Fish Creek Road to take some pictures of McDonald Lake with the sun going down at around quarter to seven, the truck had been heading away from Fish Creek Campground and away from the Old North Fork Road. He didn’t recall who was driving or if there were passengers, and he certainly didn’t notice a license plate.

We got Jarred’s address and phone number. I gave him my card and told him to call if anything else came to mind.

“Right on,” he mumbled, then added, “you know, as Tolstoy said,
All violence consists in some people forcing others, under threat of suffering or death, to do what they do not want to do
.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said and sent him back out to Kaylynn.

• • •

Twilight fell upon us, and a bitter breeze soughed outside. The leaves of a maple tree rattled against one of our office windows. Late October and early November comprise the edgy heart of the Montana fall, pregnant with constant weather variations: sunny calm days, endless
changes in wind, heavy black clouds refusing to rain for days, then finally releasing angry downpours for weeks. Then, just as easily—unexpected sleet, fog, snow. The entire atmosphere echoed my own restlessness. There was an anticipatory feeling I was carrying, but unidentifiable and out of reach like a word on the tip of my tongue. A sense that things were on the brink of change, perhaps only because Glacier Park carried this constant crepuscular quality that came with the long, overly enormous mountain shadows, the changing light, the cold ground, and a restless urge to keep moving while the varying shades of yellow-and-red leaves quivered and the squirrels and chipmunks busily gathered food at a frantic pace.

“Sharp kid,” Monty announced.

“Yeah,” I said dryly. “If I ever need to solve a case involving clues with quotes from German philosophers or Russian authors, I’ll give him a jingle.”

Monty chuckled.

I had to admit that Monty had been more helpful than I’d initially expected. He knew several of the rangers, and although he didn’t seem as friendly with them as one would think he’d be for working in the same park, nobody appeared bothered by the fact that he was around.

“Hungry?” Monty arched his brow.

“Not really. You?”

“Getting there.”

We both sat silently. It was that moment where I knew I was at the muddy trailhead of the case, barely taking the first steps. We had people to talk to, and I was hopeful answers would come quickly based on the fact that the victim was mixed up in drugs and was in the system.

“What are you thinking?”

“’Bout dinner or the case?” I asked, knowing very well he meant the case.

“The case?” he said.

I sighed. “I think”—I stood and leaned against the counter—“that
Walsh could be right and that we can pretty much assume that the guy was alive when the bear got him. There would be no reason to bind an already dead body to a tree. What would be the point?”

“There would be no point. If he were already dead, you would just toss him out there if you wanted the corpse eaten.”

“Or bury him. You wouldn’t bind him, unless you tortured him first and then killed him.”

“So whoever taped him,” Monty said, “must have wanted to torture him either way, whether they wanted him alive or dead. Then the bear came along.”

I nodded. “Torture him, hold him, make an example of him. But what a risk to leave someone alive out in the woods. If someone discovered the victim before he was attacked, the guy would be completely exposed.”

“So whoever did this,
if
they left Victor Lance out there alive, took a huge risk—actually went out of his way—to leave his victim alive like that.”

“If that’s the way it went,” I said. “It could be to torture or to stage. It could also be a lesson or display of some sort. Maybe to make a point to other druggies who don’t pay up?”

Monty shrugged.

“At any rate, either way, our guy got lucky. The bear did get Victor Lance.”

“Yeah, and that makes me wonder . . .” Monty drifted off.

“Wonder what?” I asked.

“The burn area. It’s my understanding that not many bears or other predators go through that area much, so if the killer knows anything about animal behavior, he must have known he was taking an even bigger risk that the guy would not be attacked by an animal. Maybe he didn’t want him attacked and just wanted to hold him there, like you said.”

“But that’s not true about burn areas. Fresh vegetation and new
roots popping up attract all sorts of animals. I’ll double-check with Bowman, but I’m pretty sure about it.”

“Then again”—Monty raised a shoulder—“we’re probably giving the killer way too much credit. He probably doesn’t know a damn thing about animal behavior or burn areas.”

“That’s right.”

“He could just be some psychopath,” Monty said.

“If that’s the case, once we start digging in, he shouldn’t be too difficult to track.” I looked at Monty, his short dark hair, pale skin, and wire-rimmed glasses perched on his pointy nose, and wondered what would make a guy like him become Park Police, then end up tagging along behind the super, probably picking up the guy’s dry cleaning, and sitting on his ass before a computer all day writing reports.

Most Park Police and rangers I know take the jobs because they want to be outdoors. Joe Smith was the perfect example. Some are jacks-of-all-trades and can still pack a horse and handle a chain saw and some are educators, historians, and naturalists. But most of them understand that without warning, their job can turn from the leisure pace of helping a tourist who’s lost their keys, warning people that their dogs aren’t allowed on the trail, and clearing out bear traffic jams to the high stress of dangling thousands of feet in the air to rescue overzealous hikers or sightseers who find themselves in dangerous crevasses.

Most want the job because they know that on a clear summer day, it can be the kind of job where they almost feel guilty for getting paid for it. And on a bad day, they find a frozen body in one of the fast-running streams: an old grandpa who slipped backward off a rock while taking pictures of his wife and was washed downstream.

Monty didn’t look like any of the above. He had an obsessive-compulsive-accountant look with what appeared to be premature gray hairs beginning in his sideburns and begging the question of his age. “So, Monty.” I cocked my head. “How come you wanted to work for the Park Service?”

“What?” He seemed surprised I asked.

“Why did you become a park officer?”

“Uh, the usual reasons.”

“Which are?”

He pushed his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. “Which are none of your business.” He stood up and grabbed his coat.

I smiled and slowly my grin turned to a laugh. “Right answer, Officer Harris.” I grabbed my coat as well. “Right answer.”

• • •

The cabin assigned to me by either Joe or Ford had two bedrooms, a bathroom, a small kitchen, and a main room with a river-rock fireplace, deeply scarred wide-planked wooden floors, and several west-facing windows darned with old red-and-blue-plaid curtains.

The wind had picked up from bubbling, playful tousles to forceful shoves, and the cabin creaked with each gust. I was tired but wired. I felt small in a cabin in a place like Glacier, cold and deserted this time of year with the gusty weather, the mountains, and the icy waters a reminder of my insignificance—my thread-thin presence in the great fabric of nature around me.

I knew I wouldn’t sleep well. I never did on the first night of a case. There were too many images, details, and questions darting through my mind. And, of course, there was the lingering rawness that at first drapes over you after breaking bad news to a victim’s family, but by bedtime, presses into you, squeezes into you like shrink-wrap. I kept picturing Penny Lance’s frail frame curled up as she hugged her stomach.

Monty and I had gotten some dinner at the Glacier Café, the same place we had lunch because of the lack of dining options in West Glacier. I knew I’d have to hit Hungry Horse, the closest town with a decent grocery store, and stock up on some things as soon as I had a moment. In the meantime, I went next door to the café and grabbed a six-pack, some beef jerky, and some OJ for the morning.

After dinner Monty drove me back to headquarters to meet Joe, who had a park vehicle gassed up and ready for me. He had finished the paperwork, making it legit for me to use it while I was on the case. We said good night to Monty, and I followed Joe down the road to my new home away from home, which really wasn’t so bad. Aside from the damp cold and the musty smell, the cabin was homey enough.

One good fire would push out the chill. I made one with some leftover logs and some paper I had ripped out of an old
Trout
Magazine
, grabbed a beer, and sat in an old-oak Adirondack-style chair to go over my notes. I took out a quarter and was surprised to see that it was still the Vermont. I’d used change at the convenience store but apparently managed to hang on to it. I began rubbing the quarter between my thumb and forefinger, its surface quickly made smooth by the natural oils from my fingers.