He nodded at what looked to be a snow-filled pit. Part of the snow had been brushed away, revealing black ashes and garbage beneath. Twisted and crumpled aluminum cans, the labels burned away, lay amid melted plastic and the unburned corner of an Old Milwaukee twelve-pack carton. Looking closer, Kyle noticed what looked like several charred sticks and twigs among the garbage.
The deputy reached out, pointing. “Look right—”
“Don’t touch anything,” Lewis snapped.
“I’ll get the camera,” Davidson said, turning to leave.
It was then that Kyle realized that what he thought were sticks were, in fact, charred and blackened bones.
CHAPTER 18
Montana
Because it appeared that they were going to be in town for a while, Lewis arranged a rental car for them the next morning. After they picked it up, they stopped for breakfast at a place called Sarah’s Kitchen on their way back in. Sarah’s was a small diner that Deputy Johnson had recommended for its home-style cooking and friendly atmosphere. It should have been a pleasant way to start the day. It turned out to be anything but.
Because they had been unable to determine if the bone fragments in the fire pit were of human or animal origin, the bones had been FedExed to the head of forensic anthropology at the Smithsonian in Washington. In the meantime, Tucker had been transported to the Flathead County Justice Center, where he was being held pending the results of the analysis.
They had spent the remainder of the evening and long into the night interrogating Tucker, Kyle and Agent Marasco each using their own methods in an attempt to catch him in a lie, but it was essentially a game of good-cop-bad-cop, Kyle playing the good and Marasco the bad. But no matter what they tried, Tucker remained steadfast in his denial that he had anything to do with the murders. Even though he had no way of proving it, he swore he had weathered the storm alone in his cabin. He claimed to be a simple tracker and a loner who knew nothing about the Sons of Montana or any other militant organizations in the area. Even Marasco had to admit that they didn’t have anything on file linking him to any such groups.
Kyle was skeptical of the restaurant as they pulled into the parking lot. The place looked like nothing more than a portable building with light blue siding and a wooden ramp leading to the glass door. “I hope Deputy Johnson knows what he’s talking about.”
“Don’t worry,” Lewis said. “Cops know all the best places.”
Walking in, they were greeted by the rabble of conversation and the sizzling pop of bacon and frying eggs, while warm air redolent of sausage and fresh coffee washed over them. On top of the counter was a glass display case full of home-baked apple and cherry pies and a chocolate cake. It was Lewis’s kind of place.
The lady behind the register smiled in greeting. “Morning! Just the two of ya?”
“Yeah,” nodded Lewis.
“Okay, right this way,” she said as she grabbed a couple of large menus and led them to a booth along the front windows. The smoky dining room was full of customers, the majority of whom looked like construction workers or loggers in their thick sweaters and flannel shirts and jackets. Kyle noticed that many of them fell silent, watching while he and Lewis passed before returning to their conversations.
As soon as they were seated, another lady appeared with two coffee cups and an aluminum coffeepot. She filled Lewis’s cup and started to fill the one in front of Kyle before he stopped her. “I’m just having water.”
The waitress just shrugged and moved to the next table to refill those customer’s cups.
After she had given them a few minutes, she returned to take their order. Kyle asked if they could make an egg-white omelet, and after she checked with the kitchen to make sure, he ordered one with ham and cheddar cheese. Lewis made it easier on her, ordering the Mountaineer Special with scrambled eggs, hash browns, sausage, and pancakes.
While they waited for their food, Lewis went to get a paper from the machine in the entry foyer.
While he was gone, Kyle checked his cell phone for any new messages. He hadn’t had any time alone to do it earlier, and he didn’t want Lewis to see him constantly checking his messages. He felt foolish enough about it. There was one message, and what small hopes he had that it might be Angela were dashed when he heard Janet’s voice.
“Kyle, it’s your mother.” He shook his head slowly as he listened. She had always made him call her Janet instead of Mother, constantly correcting him when he slipped, as if she had been ashamed for people to know she was his mother. She had tried to minimize it by saying she wanted to be his best friend, not just his mother, but as he had gotten older, Kyle had figured out the real reason.
Kyle’s father had been a partner in a large civil engineering firm and was constantly out of town, visiting the various construction projects their company oversaw around the world. He had been significantly older than his young wife, who spent most of her days at the Dallas Country Club, flirting with the other rich old men, looking to climb even higher up the social ladder, and if any of her prospects knew she was a mother, it might detract from her desirability. On more than one occasion, unbeknownst to her, because she had been drunk, Kyle had caught her telling the lecherous old men that he was not her son but merely her nephew.
Kyle felt certain that she would have left his father for another man had he not died of a heart attack in Bolivia when Kyle was ten. Once she inherited everything, including his father’s portion of the company—which she immediately sold—she no longer had any need for the older men and their money.
But now that she wanted something from him, she was suddenly “Mother” again.
“I don’t know why you haven’t called me back yet,” came her gravelly voice over the phone. “I need you to get back with me and let me know what color you want the walls painted in your room. The decorator can’t start with her design until you decide on the color scheme. If you don’t hurry up, I’m just going to give her carte blanche to do what she wants, and you’ll just have to live with it.” She coughed then, phlegm rattling in her lungs, which then triggered a massive attack of hacking and wheezing. When the fit subsided, she sighed dramatically. “Oh, I am so tired all of the time. I just can’t do this alone. You need to hurry up and get back here and help me.”
Kyle deleted the message. He hadn’t even told her if he was going to move back yet, and already she was trying to run his life. He didn’t want to go back, at least not yet. Janet had undergone a lumpectomy recently and had just finished going through radiation treatments. Kyle had been there for the surgery, and from everything the doctors had told him, she should be fine. Kyle felt certain that she was more upset with her appearance than anything and that she just wanted him there to pay attention to her and to tell her that everything was going to be all right.
Even so, he had still been considering moving back. Just because she was a shallow, self-absorbed person didn’t mean that he was. But his situation with Angela had changed things. He didn’t know what he was going to do now.
Lewis stepped back into the dining room, and as soon as he did, Kyle knew something was wrong. He was looking at something above the fold on the front page, the paper clutched so tightly in his hands that they shook. His forehead was furrowed with deep creases, the veins on each side of his head bulging outward from his teeth being clenched in anger.
“What’s wrong?” Kyle asked as he slid back into the booth.
Lewis plopped the copy of the Kalispell Mountain Herald down on the table. Printed across the top in big, bold letters the headline read, “Suspect Arrested in Hungry Horse Murders.”
“But how?” Kyle asked.
“Someone leaked it,” Lewis growled.
“But that’s not even right,” said Kyle.
“I know.”
“Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”
Kyle knew Lewis loved to eat in places like Sarah’s, where the coffee was only fifty cent
s and the buttermilk pancakes were drowning in real maple syrup, but this morning, Lewis was silent as he devoured his meal, his jaws clenching and unclenching with each bite. He didn’t chew his food so much as he ground it into oblivion. Kyle knew better than to say anything further, and he choked down his meal as fast as he could. He had barely finished putting the last bite of food in his mouth before Lewis threw down his money and started marching toward the door.
CHAPTER 19
“What the fuck is this?” Lewis asked as he slapped the paper down. The sheriff and Marasco sat across from each other in the conference room, which had been turned into a war room, where they now held the morning briefings. Lewis stood over them at the head of the table, waiting for a response.
The sheriff didn’t bother to look up from the file in front of him. “I saw it,” he acknowledged.
“Yeah, what’s up with that?” said Marasco.
“I don’t know. I thought maybe one of you could tell me,” said Lewis.
“What? You don’t think either one of us had anything to do with this, do you?”
“Who else could it have been?”
“Hell if I know. It wasn’t fucking me,” said Marasco.
Lewis leaned over the table. “Who did you talk to about the case yesterday?”
“Aay, just because they put you in charge of this case doesn’t mean I have to take this shit.” Marasco jumped up and shoved his chair back from the table with an angry screech. He glared at Lewis and then pushed past him and headed toward the door.
“So how much did they pay you, Marasco?” Lewis said to his back.
Marasco spun around, his face turning bright red. “What the fuck did you say?” He started back toward Lewis. Kyle stepped in front of Marasco and grabbed him by the shoulders and held him back while Marasco pushed against him and raised his arm to point at Lewis. “I’m no narc. You hear me? So fuck you. Fuck you!”
Marasco turned and stormed from the room. Kyle followed him into the hall. A couple of the deputies who had stopped in the corridor suddenly turned and walked off. Deputy Johnson stuck his head out into the hall. Kyle motioned to him that things were under control. The deputy nodded and ducked back into his office.
Marasco stopped. “What the fuck do you want?”
“Nothing,” Kyle said. “I … he doesn’t mean anything personal by it. He just hates being blindsided.”
“No shit,” said Marasco. “None of us like it. That’s still no excuse for what he did. That’s bullshit.”
“So you didn’t talk to the paper?”
“Look, just so you can hear it from my lips, no, I didn’t talk to the paper, okay? You satisfied?”
“Yeah, sure,” Kyle said.
“Good. Now go back in there and tell that to your boss. And tell him that even if I had, I’m too fucking smart to fall for some bullshit scheme like the one you two just tried to pull. Next time he wants an answer from me,” he said, poking Kyle in the chest, “you tell him to come ask me face-to-face like a man—you got that?”
Kyle thought about denying that they had tried to play him. It had been Lewis’s idea, and Kyle had reluctantly gone along with it. It had probably been a mistake. He now realized that in some ways, Marasco was a lot like Tucker—someone who placed a high value on a person’s honor and loyalty. But unlike Tucker, Marasco’s probably came from the fact that his father had been a cop. His predisposition toward such traits would have served him well during his time undercover in the mob—and were, in fact, probably part of the reason he had been chosen for the job—where such traits were the cornerstone of the family. Kyle sensed that if he lied to him now, he would never be able to regain Marasco’s confidence. Instead, he simply nodded and said, “Right.”
Marasco seemed surprised by the answer. Then a hint of a smile crossed his face. “Huh, maybe there’s hope for you yet. Now leave me the fuck alone. I’m going to have a smoke. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Kyle walked back in the room. Lewis and the sheriff were both silent, staring at each other as if it were a contest to see who would blink first. Apparently, Lewis had confronted the sheriff about the leak as well.
Lewis blinked first. Looking toward Kyle, he said, “What’d he say?”
“Said he didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“You believe him?”
“Yeah, I do. He seemed genuinely offended.” Kyle thought he was beginning to get a pretty good read on Marasco. His loud, brash nature, the bravado, and the black harness boots were all just attempts at compensating for his height.
Lewis huffed and said, “Most perps are offended when they’re accused, too, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t do it.”
Kyle just shrugged.
“So where did he go?”
“Said he was going to take a smoke break and then he’d be back.” Marasco was easily antagonized, but it didn’t seem to last. “He’ll calm down quick enough.”
Lewis nodded. “I was explaining to the sheriff that we can’t afford to have anyone compromising our investigation by leaking information to the press.”
“No one in my department would do that,” the sheriff said. “I have a good group of men here. They know to watch what they say around reporters, especially Wallace Hipple.” He picked up the phone and hit the intercom button. “Clayton, would you come to the conference room.”
When the deputy arrived, the sheriff asked him, “Do you know of anyone who might have spoken to Wallace Hipple at the newspaper about Tucker?”
“No, sir,” Clayton replied. “I can’t imagine any of our fellows doing anything like that.”
“That’s what I told Agent Edwards here,” the sheriff said. “But I want you to follow up with all the men just to make sure.”
“Sure thing, sheriff,” Clayton replied.
The sheriff looked at Lewis.
“That’s fine,” Lewis said. “But I still want to see if we can get a copy of the phone records for the Herald and this Wallace Hipple’s home and cell phone numbers. I thought it might be easier if one of your men requested them instead of us.”
“Can you take care of that?” the sheriff asked the deputy.
“Uh, yes, sir,” Clayton replied. “I’ll handle it myself.”
CHAPTER 20
Kyle opened the door to the interview room and stepped inside, followed by Marasco. The mountain man was asleep, his head on the small table. Phlegm-rattling snores reverberated off the hard surfaces within the room, which stank of rotten meat and sour body odor.
“Mr. Tucker,” Kyle said.
“Hey!” Marasco yelled as he kicked the table. Tucker woke with a start.
Marasco chuckled. Kyle glared at him as he moved to face Tucker. “Mr. Tucker—”
“I told you I didn’t kill no one,” Tucker snapped. “You ain’t gonna get me to confess to nothin’. Charlie couldn’t break me, and neither can you.”
“Mr. Tucker,” Kyle said sternly. The man’s eyes shifted from Marasco back to him. “We are not here to question you anymore. We’re here to tell you that we got the results back from the forensic anthropologist and you’re free to go.”
“The what?”
“The bone expert, you moron,” said Marasco.
“The bones in your fire pit were not human … just like you said,” Kyle said.
“I told you they was from a mountain goat.”
“Yes, we know. You were right. I apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused you. You’re free to go.” Kyle motioned toward the open door.
“Unless you’d like for us to transfer you to one of the nice little cells in back,” Marasco quipped.
Tucker wrinkled his nose in a sneer as he brushed past Marasco. “I told you I didn’t do it,” he repeated. “And I’m gonna go catch the thing what did too. Just you watch.”
“Yeah, right,” Marasco smirked as he leaned away from Tucker’s foul breath. “You and O.J. Now get the fuck outta here.”
CHAPTER 21
&n
bsp; By the end of March, things were pretty much back to normal for Bill and Audrey Jones. The concern and anxiety they had felt as a result of the men being murdered in one of their cabins still lurked in the back of their minds, but since there had been no other occurrences of a similar nature in the following weeks, the event had been put behind them for the most part, written off as an unexplained act of vengeance against one or all of the men by someone with reason enough to kill.
While the winter had been one of the harshest ones in recent memory, the weather seemed to be returning to normal and other, more pressing matters filled their days now. Along with the repairs to the cabin that Bill had been working on, both he and Audrey were beginning to make preparations for the upcoming tourist season. Audrey had already booked the first fly-fishing expedition of the season for the last week in May.
After dinner that evening, Bill sat at the kitchen table, which was littered with spools of fishing line, rolls of brightly colored thread, and a craft box with little plastic drawers full of hooks, silks, furs, feathers, tinsels, wools, and hairs. Whistling, he bent over his fly-tying vise, a pair of hackle pliers in his hand, as he peered through the magnifying light at the tiny damsel fly he was working on. A fly-fishing enthusiast in the truest sense of the word, he refused to purchase store-bought flies.
Bill’s blissful reverie was interrupted by a heavy thump from somewhere else in the house. He looked up over the top of his reading glasses, his forehead wrinkled in consternation. Fearful that Audrey might have fallen, he called out to her. “Audrey, you all right?”
“Yes, dear, why?”
“I thought I heard something. Did you drop something?”
“No, dear, I didn’t.”
Bill took off his glasses and laid them on the table as he stood up. He cocked his head to one side, listening for anything out of the norm. Overhead, there was the faint hiss of the heater blowing warm air through the vents and the hum of the refrigerator behind him. A wall clock over the oven ticked off the seconds.
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