The Weight of Night

by Christine Carbo

  I knocked, but he didn’t answer. I was almost about to turn and leave when I heard the latch and Monty opened the door. He was still wearing his uniform from the morning—a pair of dark pants and a short-sleeved navy button-up that was untucked and wrinkled. He looked disheveled, like he’d been sleeping, not getting ready to go back to the office as Karen had mentioned.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have woken you. Karen told me you were getting a bite and—”

  “It’s okay. What time is it?” He ran his hand through his close-cropped hair.

  “Around ten thirty.”

  “Damn,” he said. “I didn’t mean to sleep that long. Come in.”

  “Monty, you’ve hardly slept at all.”

  He didn’t answer, just swung the door open farther so I could enter. Inside, the small apartment was cool. One window was cracked about an inch and the wind moaned through it. He went over and closed it, then gestured to his tiny living room and I took a seat on the couch. I felt that the cushion was warm and figured he’d fallen asleep on it.

  “I just sat down for a minute . . . ,” he said incredulously, motioning to the sofa and shaking his head to drive the sleep away. He grabbed his phone to check it. “Three hours.” He seemed surprised. “Have you heard anything new?”

  “No, not really. I’ve filled Ali in with the early results of the truck. So far, the prints on one of the seat-belt clasps match the boy’s prints. As far as I know, there are no new developments, but I can wait while you call in to check.”

  He thanked me, excused himself, and went into a bedroom off to the side, shutting the door behind him. I could hear him talking for a bit followed by water running and figured he had a bathroom attached to the bedroom. When he came out, he was in jeans and a T-shirt. The light in the room was pale—still twilight—and I figured Monty had forgotten to turn the lights on, like when you’re driving at dusk and your eyes adjust accordingly so you forget your headlights. His hair was wet on the sides from washing his face. A bead of water slowly slid down his temple toward his cheekbone, and I felt a strong desire to reach over and gently wipe it away. I looked away from his intense eyes, over to the window, where tall pines were visible swaying against the fading deep indigo.

  “Sorry to make you wait. I had to get out of that uniform before my skin started to become one with it.”

  “I know the feeling.” I smiled. “Only, if my skin becomes one with a hazmat, I’ll look like a ghost for the rest of my life.”

  “You’d still look good.” Monty said, then set his gaze on me. He ran a hand down one side of his face, wiping the drop away. I could hear the scratch of stubble under his palm.

  “Doubtful.” I smiled and set my gaze at the green trim of the neckline of his T-shirt, hoping my face wasn’t turning pink even though I felt it heating up. I was thankful for the dim light, but suddenly I realized I shouldn’t have come to his home. It felt too intimate, seeing Monty in jeans and a soft, weathered T-shirt. “These have been such long days. You haven’t slept since the dig?”

  He shrugged like it wasn’t important. “I did just now. Can I get you something?”

  “No.” I held up my hand. “I’m fine. I came, like I said, because I wanted to talk about some old cases. I know it might sound silly, but I just think it’s worth a shot going over this stuff. There are a few things that I found interesting.”

  “Sure,” Monty turned on a small table lamp and sunk down next to me. He had a rip in his jeans right above his left knee, and when he sat, it parted so I could see his skin, the dark hairs on his thigh.

  “So shoot,” he said. “What do you have here?”

  I spread the files across the coffee table in front of us. “Well, don’t get your hopes up. I don’t have anything definitive, just ideas. But look at this list. I’ve written down all the kids who’ve gone missing during the time frame Lucy gave me for the bones. It starts with your friend Nathan Faraway. There have been some kids that have returned, some still missing, but suspected runaways, and some missing who were not suspected runaways. Additionally, I’ve looked for all unidentified remains that have been found, and there are none besides the ones we dug out.”

  “Hmm. I’ve been studying the missing myself, as you know. Asking their families to give saliva samples for the center.”

  “Yeah, I knew that, but I figured you weren’t looking into the remains that were discovered and identified. It’s only happened once. In 2007. You might recall the case. I flagged it here. I also flagged your friend Nathan and a teen who went missing in 1999 at Lake Five Campground. Shane Wallace.”

  “Huh. I actually just visited his parents today. His father has already submitted a sample, so if the bones we found are his, they should get a hit. I haven’t been able to get the Faraways to submit yet.” Something unsettled swam across Monty’s eyes and he looked down at my list to check the names and dates of the teens I’d starred. “And you flagged all these boys because they’re male and close in age?”

  “Yes, and I put a star by the Lake Five boy because he went missing nearby.” Lake Five was a recreational lake with a popular campground just down the highway from West Glacier. “All that was left was his bike on the side of the road. Police figured he didn’t run away or he’d wouldn’t have left his bike.” I let that sink in, then I said, “Notice anything else?”

  Monty studied my list for a bit longer. “No, not really, just what you mentioned: gender and age, and that the Lake Five incident occurred from a campground, just like Jeremy’s case. But Nathan and the Lake Five boy disappeared years apart. I don’t see how they could be connected. And the Erickson boy was also some time ago, in 2007.”

  “I thought the same thing at first, but look.” I grabbed a pen from my bag and a notepad and rewrote the names:

  1991—Nathan Faraway, Columbia Falls

  1999—Shane Wallace, Lake Five Campground, West Glacier

  2007—Samuel Erickson, Columbia Falls, body found six days later (he had been dead for twenty to twenty-four hours)

  2016—Jeremy Corey, Fish Creek Campground, GNP

  “Now do you see it?”

  Monty looked at the list, then up at me. “A lapse of about eight to nine years between each boy.”

  “Exactly. I think that’s strange, don’t you?”

  “Sure, it seems like a pattern, but it’s too long in between for it to be the same person. Plus, if we have a serial abductor on our hands, they’d be doing it much more frequently than every eight or nine years. Like Ali said, pedophiles and serial killers intensify their killing over time; they can’t resist.”

  “What if this one can? What if he’s different? What if this one is trying to stay controlled, to keep it under wraps for a period of time, then can’t stand it any longer and snaps?”

  Monty thought about it. “I suppose it’s a possibility, but there’s zero evidence. It’s still an enormously huge assumption to make. A boy could go missing every single year, and we wouldn’t necessarily link them all together. The mind loves to look for patterns, connections, Gretchen. That doesn’t mean there are any.”

  “I know it’s a leap, but there’s more.” I pointed to the boy found in 2007 by the hunter and his dogs. “Samuel Erickson. Severe head trauma on the left side of his skull—lower on the mandible, under the ear—but cleaved, just like on the boy we found and on the same side. When I studied the pathologist’s notes, he said it could only have been done by a very sharp and hard object, like an axe or hatchet. Lucy said the same thing about the skull we found. You saw it, the whole frontal and temporal lobes were cracked in.”

  “That’s interesting,” Monty agreed. I shuffled through my files and handed him the pictures of Erickson’s gruesome remains. Monty studied them one at a time.

  “And here’s the thing. If it’s the same guy and he sticks to the same pattern at all, we know how many days h
e kept Erickson alive. If he does it the same way, or even close, then we can guess that, if he has Jeremy, that Jeremy is still alive. That we have approximately two days left to find this boy before he kills him by hitting him in the head with some kind of hard object.” I turned to face Monty.

  “Gretchen, you know that it’s a myth that serial killers have some precise schedule that they stick to. Like I said, if anything, their killings become more random and accelerated. It’s an issue of convenience for them.”

  “I realize that, and I’m not necessarily saying that this guy is acting according to a schedule. It could be a year off, or there could be ones we don’t know about interspersed all along. I’m just saying that for these particular cases”—I pointed to the sheet—“there seems to be some common threads: the head injuries, the locations of the abductions, all on the north end of the valley or in Badrock Canyon.”

  “Okay,” Monty said, still looking at the images he’d pulled out of the file. “Tell me more about Erickson.”

  I told him everything I’d learned from Detective Belson, about the pouring rain and how it destroyed much of the evidence. About the entomology report. “Should we take this to Ali?” I asked.

  “No, it’s too circumstantial. I know it makes sense to you, and I think there’s a very small possibility that you might be onto something, but it’s just a theory—a theory that won’t change things either way. Ali, Herman, and Park Police are going to continue pouring every effort into looking for Jeremy regardless of this information and any possible timeline. I suggest you keep it to yourself for now.”

  I looked at the files as Monty replaced the gruesome images of Erickson. I was still lost in thought about the missing boys, about Jeremy possibly still being alive, when a clap of thunder sounded nearby, breaking my ruminations, breaching the silence. “I should go now,” I announced. “It’s getting late and I should get home before this gets worse.” I waved to the outside. “I’ve got to be at the lab early again.”

  Monty looked to the front window. “It’s getting nasty out there,” he said. “Are you sure you want to drive in it?”

  I didn’t say anything. I felt torn. A part of me wanted him to encourage me to stay and wait and another part of me wanted to get out as soon as I could. I began to shuffle the files together, and Monty didn’t say anything, just watched my hands as I gathered the information.

  “I actually don’t think you should drive in it just yet,” he said. “You know, I could make us something to eat—some sandwiches or something.”

  I shook my head. “No, thank you, I’m fine.” Then, as if on cue, lightning flashed and turned the room silver blue, followed by an enormous clap of thunder. I could feel my shoulders go straight to my ears.

  “Too close,” he said.

  “Yeah, makes me jumpy.” I told myself to relax, stood up, and peeked out the window to the bruised blackness outside. I could see my reflection with the help of the yellow lamplight—my hair framing my face. I stood for a moment until another violent crack split the darkened sky into luminescent veins above the massive black peaks. I quickly backed away. “Why doesn’t it rain?”

  “It feels like it will. This isn’t just from the heat. The air feels even heavier now.” Monty sat still on the sofa, leaning forward and looking at me, his tanned arms propped on his knees.

  “Do you think he’s out there in this?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I wish I did.” A branch flew and hit the window and I flinched.

  “Come back here.” He twitched his head to motion for me to sit. “Just wait it out. If you don’t want anything to eat, you at least need to hang until it passes. If you want, you could crash here tonight. I don’t mind the couch.”

  “No, once it passes, I’ll be fine.” I went over and sat back down, this time in a chair and not right next to him. He caught it and a smile played across his lips. I could tell he wanted to say something like I’m not going to bite, but was too much of a gentleman. I narrowed my eyes at him, studying him. It felt like he could read me and was just toying with me, and I couldn’t tell if that made me angry or happy.

  He studied me back. “What happened to your face?” he asked again.

  “I already told you.”

  “That the truth?” His head cocked, his brown eyes clearer now that he’d logged a little sleep. He was handsome, all right, but I pushed the thought away and looked at my fingernails.

  “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Just sometimes it feels like you’re hiding.”

  “Hiding? I’m not hiding anything.”

  “That’s not what I said. Not that you’re hiding something, just that you yourself are hiding.”

  I shrugged. Now I was positive it was anger rising in me. How dare he sit there and assess me that way. “Monty, come on, why are you analyzing me?”

  “Because . . . ,” he said, but his voice faded, and he didn’t offer anymore.

  “Look, I’m short. I got up to go to the bathroom and it was dark and I ran into the corner of my dresser. You think I’d make something like that up?”

  “I don’t,” Monty said, sighing. “I don’t know. I just worry about you sometimes, that’s all.”

  “Worry? Why?”

  “I’m not really sure why.” He smiled.

  “Well, you don’t need to and you really don’t even have a right to worry about me.”

  “I don’t?”

  “No.” I know I sounded mean and childish, but I needed boundaries to form quickly in this small space with the storm thrashing around us, and Monty studying me more closely than ever before.

  “Why not? Aren’t we friends? You’ve worried about me in the past. . . .”

  I knew he was referring to the last case we worked and how I’d come running whenever he needed help. “Yeah, well, yeah, we’re friends,” I said. “And friends let friends be.”

  Monty closed his lips into a straight line and nodded like he understood. “Okay, fair enough. I’ll let you be.” He stood and went to the kitchen. “I’m making some tea for you. Herbal or caffeine?”

  “Herbal,” I said. “Please.”

  While Monty clanked around in the kitchen, drops the size of marbles began to pelt the roof and the window. I went over and opened the door to see the falling rain. I caught the unmistakable scent of dampening pavement from the drive and the earthy aroma of wet soil, which I hadn’t smelled all summer. It was long overdue and the relief I felt surprised me. The intense, palpable aromas seemed profound.

  “You were right,” I called out as I shut the door. “It’s finally raining.” I sank back in the chair and let my limbs relax. I had made myself clear with Monty and now, rain. Sweet rain. The rush of it got louder and pounded the roof, buckets of it. I thought of it coming down hard on the fires. A sigh escaped my lips. That’s one break we’d gotten and I was glad we got the truck and the shed processed before it happened.

  “Finally, she relaxes,” I heard Monty say softly. I opened my eyes and saw him standing above me with some tea. He placed it on the coffee table before me. “Let it sit,” he said. “It’s really hot. Just stay where you are and relax. I don’t think I’m the only one here who hasn’t gotten much sleep lately.”

  16

  * * *

  Monty

  AS THE STORM passed, I watched Gretchen for a moment. She had fallen asleep with her tea cooling in front of her on the coffee table. She was wearing cropped, fitted jeans, a sand-colored sweater, and white Converse sneakers. She was beautiful with her glistening, dewy skin, her honey blond hair fanning out on the back of the easy chair. A certain sweetness under all her self-protections shone through in spite of her intentions and her matter-of-fact ways. Asleep, without her defenses, she looked like an angel with rose petal lips, childlike.

  I rose, went into my bedroom, shut
the door so I wouldn’t wake her, and called headquarters to see if any new information had turned up. There was nothing new, which meant there was nothing for me to do, and with the weather the way it was, I told Karen I wasn’t coming in after all and to call me if anything came up. I went back out and looked through the files Gretchen had brought over, then when I realized she wasn’t stirring from the noise, I decided to take a shower.

  I left her sleeping, but after I got dressed and came back out, she wasn’t there. I figured she woke, heard me in the shower, and left. Disappointment darted through me. A part of me kicked myself for leaving her alone like that. I would have liked to see her before she left. I went to the window. The rain had completely ceased, stopped as quickly as it began. I could see my own reflection. Then beyond it I noticed a tan car still in my drive out in the dark. I switched on the porch light to make sure and saw that it was definitely Gretchen’s Honda.

  I turned around. Her files still lay scattered on the table and her bag sat by the couch on the floor. I went into the bedroom, thinking she took me up on my offer and claimed my bed, but the room was empty and I would have noticed her when I came out of the shower. I called to her as I went into the kitchen. “Gretchen, you still here?”

  She didn’t answer. I called her cell phone and heard it buzzing in her bag beside the couch. Confused, I went and opened the front door. The car was empty and she wasn’t sitting in it. Even though the rain had stopped, rainwater still streamed out from the gutters onto the lawn.

  I grabbed my flashlight and my raincoat and went outside, shining the light down the street and into the woods. It didn’t make sense. She’d never be out here like this. I considered that someone came by and picked her up, that maybe her car wasn’t starting and she’d called someone for a ride. But still, that didn’t make sense either. She would have just asked me for a ride. And why hadn’t she taken her purse, her phone, or her files? I continued to search, shining my light down the road and into the dark woods.