The Weight of Night

by Christine Carbo

  * * *

  Monty

  THE COUNTY HEADQUARTERS was quieter than I expected. It would normally be buzzing with the news at a time like this, but the station was fairly empty, with most hands still on deck for the fire. Ali was chomping at the bit for the doctors to make progress with Combs, not only because she wanted the asshole to pay, but also because she wanted to see if he’d identify and claim responsibility for the other children on Gretchen’s list. I’d told her about the belt buckle, about my history with the victim. She looked at me sadly for a moment, then got back to work.

  She instructed Ken and me to go to Wendy’s house because she wanted us to determine if she really didn’t know or have anything to do with Combs’s plans. She also wanted us to make sure Wendy didn’t go to the hospital on her own. We were to escort her there to avoid any kind of a scene in case she ran into the Coreys.

  When we arrived at Wendy’s, the cop already stationed outside asked if he could leave. We told him yes and walked to the front door as he drove off.

  Wendy invited us in and we all sat in the living room. Wendy looked as though she might crawl into a hole and die. She was pale, and she held her stomach and rocked back and forth in the typical way that grief makes one do. She offered us nothing, not because she was impolite, she just was in no shape to entertain guests. I went into her kitchen to grab her a glass of water. When I brought it to her, she just stared at it as if she’d never seen water before.

  “I just don’t understand,” she whispered. “I just don’t understand how any of this can be true. He’s always been a good, good man.”

  “I’m sure he’s been a good father to you,” I said. “I’m sure he’s been a good pastor, but apparently he’s ill. Very, very ill.”

  She turned to me and with a creased brow asked, “How could I not know this about my own father?”

  “I don’t know. Did you have any indication at all that something was off ?”

  She shook her head slowly, carefully, thinking. Her eyes welled with tears. “I’ve been racking my brain. The only thing I can think of is that he became very quiet for long periods of time, and was sometimes difficult to talk to or get ahold of. I assumed it was just the way he was, you know, moody. I mean . . .” She motioned upstairs, where Kyle was sleeping, “I have a son who is temperamental as well. I figured it ran in the family. I never, in my worst moments, could have dreamt that he was capable of . . .” She contorted her face in pain and put her hand to her mouth. “Excuse me,” she said, and got up and ran to the bathroom down the hall. We could hear her dry heaves and figured this was not the first time she’d been driven to the toilet since she’d been informed.

  We waited patiently until she came back out, her face ghostly white and thin. I could tell that this was ripping her apart in every way imaginable.

  “It’s not your fault,” I said to her as she sat back down. “But can I ask you, do you have any idea at all why your father would have snapped this way?”

  Wendy shook her head blankly.

  “Wendy,” I said. “when I searched your father’s home, there was a photo of you, your mom, and your dad and another dark-haired boy who looked a little older than you. Do you know who that boy might have been?”

  She cocked her head and thought for a moment. “My cousin?”

  I continued to stare at her.

  “Of course,” she said, as if something was dawning on her. “My cousin. From my mom’s side. He used to come and spend summers with us, and one summer, well, it was tragic, but he died under our care.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “We were all at the river and he and my dad went out fishing in a canoe.” She shook her head. “It’s one of those awful memories, one of those blink-of-an-eye things, but Lance didn’t want to wear a life vest, said he was too old for one. My parents argued about it, but my dad said he’d be okay, that they were just going a short stretch and that he’d bring it along in the boat for him anyway.”

  I thought of Ron and Linda, Ron feeling responsible for thinking Jeremy was old enough to spend some alone time at the camp.

  “But once they were out there, Lance had gotten too excited when he caught a fish on the line and fell out. Dad tried to throw him the life vest, but the river was carrying him away too fast. Dad tried to row to him, but a rapid carried him in a different direction. Lance got pulled under by some deadfall, and by the time Dad and some other rafters reached him, it was too late.”

  Working in Glacier and living around mountain lakes and rushing rivers my whole life, I had heard this story before. “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

  “It tore my mom and dad up. My mom’s sister never forgave her and . . . well, a few years later, my mom got breast cancer and died. It was all such a wave of disasters for me, for us. I was so full of grief over losing my mother that I never thought of how it might have affected him, but I know he took it really hard. He felt responsible, that he’d let my mother and her family down, that he’d even let God down somehow. I remember he’d go into his office for hours and pray and pray after that. But . . .” Tears flooded her eyes. “He’s been a good father to me. A little weird at times, a little strict about the religion stuff, but he’s always wanted to protect me, take care of me.”

  I wrote it all down as she spoke. The drowning incident seemed significant, potentially the tipping point for Combs. “Weird how?” I asked.

  “Just, you know, withdrawn. Silent. He left me alone for large periods of time. I figured it was normal. You don’t really question how your parents act when that’s all you’ve ever known, do you?”

  “No, I guess you don’t,” I said.

  “Do you think Kyle has any idea about all of this?” Ken asked.

  “I don’t know,” Wendy said. “I just don’t know, but if he does, it might explain why he’s changed so much. Oh, God”—she clutched her stomach tighter—“I hope he didn’t help my dad abduct that poor boy.”

  “I don’t think we should assume that,” I said. “We’ll speak to him.” I didn’t say it to Wendy, but I knew we would also want to get confirmation from the officers who’d been asked to check with Kyle’s friends that he was where he said he was the day Jeremy went missing. “From what we can tell, your father hid this well. We’ll find out more from Gretchen and the boy, and from your father, if he comes out of this coma.”

  Wendy stared at me as if she didn’t know what to do or say. Her grief was palpable, and in my gut, I felt she was innocent.

  • • •

  We escorted Wendy and Kyle to the hospital and showed her a private room where she could wait to speak to doctors about her father’s condition. I left her and Kyle alone there. We’d woken him at the house and questioned him as well. He seemed better, helpful even. As if the whole event had finally frightened him—at least temporarily—out of his own selfish rebellion.

  It didn’t seem like he knew about his grandfather’s wacked-out plans, but he admitted to thinking his grandfather was often weird and eccentric, praying all the time and losing his temper very easily at Kyle, sometimes saying things that Kyle admitted seemed overdramatic. Kyle said he’d sometimes preach things to him through tears, and he’d wondered about his psychological stability a few times. He’d told us that he remembered his grandfather telling him that he’d caused his wife’s cancer—that if he hadn’t upset God, He wouldn’t have taken her from him in the first place. That if it weren’t for his sins, Kyle would have then had a chance to meet his grandmother.

  After I left the private waiting room, I went to find Jeremy’s room, which was on another floor of the hospital.

  When I arrived, a nurse informed me that Jeremy was sedated and sleeping. Another nurse had the younger children in another room where they could also sleep. Ron and Linda sat beside Jeremy’s bed, their chairs scooted up close, Linda holding his hand, Ron resting a palm on Jeremy
’s blanketed leg. I gave them both a closed-lip smile and went over and peered at Jeremy. Before I pulled the parents aside, I wanted to see him. I wanted to look into his eyes and see that he knew he was safe now, but I’d accept peaceful sleeping for now. He appeared angelic.

  Ron and Linda looked tired but relieved beyond measure to have their child back. I took them in—their disheveled selves—and tried to imagine what it must be like to be these parents and to hear some of the things I was about to tell them. I realized I couldn’t fathom the level of fear they’d experienced over the past days and the overwhelming relief to have Jeremy return, to be watching their sleeping child, holding his hand.

  Linda reached out and pushed a strand of his hair off his forehead, then gently passed the back of her hand over his face. I whispered softly, “Would you like to go in the hall to talk?”

  Linda nodded, and they stood up, glancing back at Jeremy again before following me out. We took seats in a conference room not far down the hall and I could see the familiar fear flood back into their eyes. They were afraid to hear what I had to say—that even though they had Jeremy back, I might still be able to somehow shatter the reality that he was safe down the hall, resting. That I might have the power to send them hurtling back through time to their miserable motel room filled with nightmares and unfathomable grief. “I’m so glad to see Jeremy resting,” I said.

  Linda nodded, a bit of the fear leaking away to hear me speak about her son’s state, the reality of his safety.

  “We’d really like to get back in there, in case he wakes,” Ron said. “Can we make this quick?”

  “Certainly,” I said and filled them in about Combs, explaining that we had him in our custody. I told them about his condition and that we wanted to keep him alive to put him through a trial, to get more answers, but for now we didn’t know the prognosis. I told them everything that I knew that had happened in the plant with Gretchen, about how Jeremy ran into the woods, and about blanks we’d filled in ourselves. “We think he’s done this before, but we’re not positive, and we’d prefer you remain discreet until we know for certain.”

  Ron swallowed hard. “We will.”

  “I know the doctors have already shared with you the results of Jeremy’s examination—that there’s no sign of sexual abuse that we can detect. Of course, depending on the type of abuse, we can’t always determine if it’s occurred unless the child tells us. But there’s nothing to suggest that Combs was driven by that. What we do understand, although our information is incomplete as of now, is that he’s been psychologically unwell and hiding it successfully for some time, even from his own daughter. As I just said, it’s possible Jeremy isn’t the first, that he’s done this before. Not necessarily in the plant, because it would have been in operation during the other time periods we’re investigating. We think all the firemen and law enforcement in the area may have pushed him to find someplace different, and the abandoned plant was convenient, right outside the canyon.”

  “It’s so crazy. All of it. We just don’t understand. Why Jeremy?”

  “I don’t expect you to. None of us can fully understand why someone does something like this. But to try to answer your question: because Jeremy happened to be there,” I said. “It’s difficult to know when you’re dealing with this level of psychological imbalance, but we’re guessing that it was a combination of things—because Jeremy ­happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, because he resembles the nephew Combs feels responsible for killing years before. Jeremy is similar in size and his hair color is the same. What we ­believe—and again, these are conjectures at this point—is that perhaps after years of keeping it together after the losses, he began to buckle under the stress. To feel that God had been punishing him and was speaking to him, telling him to make a sacrifice to prove his love and put things right again.”

  I let that sink in and gave them a moment to respond, but they didn’t. They stared at me with wide eyes, not saying a word. Linda held her hand over her chest, opened her mouth to say something, then closed it.

  “We know,” I continued, “with Jeremy anyway, he borrowed a truck that no one would realize he’d taken because it was an old farm truck, out of sight. He knew about the truck because he used to work the farm when he wasn’t at church.” I thought of his talk in Great Falls on bi-­vocational work. “He was smart enough to know that he could get caught if he used his own vehicle. After borrowing the truck, we suspect he went trolling, for lack of a better word. We don’t think he stalked Jeremy. We think he just came across him in the park that day—very unfortunate timing—and Combs considered it a sign from God that he came across a boy who fit the profile.”

  Linda’s face began to contort in agony and she whispered, “We should have never left him alone like that.”

  “Please,” I said. “This is neither of your faults. These things are totally unlikely, like an asteroid hitting the earth. I know you know this, but every parent has to begin trusting their child to become independent at some point. You should not blame yourselves.”

  “Honey, I know it’s tough.” Ron didn’t bother to reach out to her as he did when I first met them, and I sensed that even though they’d gotten their son back, there were now ghosts between them, things they’d said under the strain that damaged their relationship. Either that, or they simply were saving every ounce of their affection for Jeremy and the other kids until they regained their reserves. “Let’s just be glad he’s back,” Ron said.

  “Yes,” I seconded. “And unless you have any further questions, I don’t want to keep you from him any longer.”

  I told them they could call me if they did. Then we all stood and I watched them quietly go back into their son’s room.

  37

  * * *

  Gretchen

  I WOKE IN THE morning to sunlight leveling in through the ­hospital window blinds. I’d been woken up every hour during the night to make sure I was neurologically healthy and hadn’t slipped into a coma from some undetected problem. They’d already been in before sunrise to take my blood.

  I waited for a nurse for little while, staring at the walls around me, at the TV hanging in the corner. I considered turning it on to see what was being said about the whole ordeal—I was sure it had made national news and I hoped that a picture of me was not being used. I didn’t think it would go international, but you never knew. The thought of people in Sandefjord potentially seeing me and recognizing me on the news all these years later made me queasy. Or perhaps it was the lack of food and the smoke I’d inhaled still churning my stomach.

  I knew it was early and that the nurse would be coming in soon with breakfast, but I couldn’t wait. I got up, my muscles much stiffer than I expected, and put on my filthy clothes. I realized that after I’d been knocked out, I must have been operating on sheer adrenaline the rest of the day.

  The nurse, a middle-aged woman with reddish hair, came in as I zipped my pants.

  “Oh, you’re up,” she said.

  “Yes, I thought I’d get dressed.”

  “But your, you know, your people”—I assumed she was referring to Ali and Monty, perhaps Ridgeway—“they said they’d bring you some clean clothes. Those are filthy, and you need breakfast and to be checked out again by a physician before you leave.”

  Fatigue spread through my body at just the effort of standing and talking to her. Again, I felt surprised at what a tussle, a few knocks on the head, and an evening running around in smoke could do to a human body. I sat back down.

  “Really.” The nurse came to me. “You should lie back down. Have something to eat.”

  “Okay.” I agreed. “But can I just sit here for now?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Rest, and I’ll get your breakfast, but first, I want to take your blood pressure, your temperature, get a read on your oxygen levels. I’ll be right back.”

  She left the room for
a moment, then came back in, clamped a temperature gauge on my forefinger, and got out a blood pressure cuff. “The doctor will want to see you to decide if you need additional tests run.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  “Yes, you probably are, but it’s standard procedure.” She smiled politely at me.

  “Can you tell me how the boy, Jeremy, is?”

  “Yes, he’s doing well. We checked his vitals all night, and everything looks good. He’s sleeping now. His family has been with him all night.”

  “Do you know which room he’s in?”

  “He’s just two doors down from you.” She pointed to our left.

  • • •

  After I ate some breakfast and was instructed to hang tight until the doctor came for her rounds, I left my room and walked down the hall. I found Jeremy’s room easily. The door was open and I peeked in. A medium-size dark-haired woman sat slumped in a chair sleeping, and when she sensed me there, she opened her eyes, then smiled, and got up and stepped out into the corridor.

  “You must be Gretchen?”

  I nodded. “How is he?”

  “He’s good. Exhausted, fatigued, you know, it’s been—” Her voice broke. “My husband and I”—she put both hands on my arm—“we can’t thank you enough. We owe you . . . we owe you everything for bringing our baby to back to us.” She stared at me with deep admiration, and I felt overwhelmed. I hadn’t been looked at that way in so long, maybe ever. I could see in her eyes the full and complete love of a mother whose child had come so close to being ripped from her and saw that the force of that love was being shared with me right there in that hallway. It was a haunting and magnificent moment for me.

  She reached out and embraced me, holding me tight, and I could feel her hand patting my back. It took my breath away, feeling a mother’s hug again, feeling her overwhelming gratitude wash over me, momentarily replacing all those years of blank stares and flinches from my own mother.