by Mike Markel
I like the message the computer and the rifle send: First, we’re going to find you, and then, if you try to run away, we’ll shoot you. In the nineteen years I’ve been with Rawlings Police Department, I can’t remember any of us grabbing the shotgun and spraying some shot, but I’m good with the bad guys knowing this isn’t a video game. When we tell you to get down on your knees and put your hands behind your head—which we have to do surprisingly often—we don’t want you to do anything else. We don’t even want you to consider it.
Ryan and I headed west out of town on State Road 16, past the RV and no-credit-no-problem used-car dealers, payday-loan joints, gun shops, and the neon-window restaurants. Because Rawlings is a pretty small place, in normal traffic it takes only about five minutes to get to 1956.
Thirty minutes later, we reached the intersection with Ten Mile Road, which is ten miles from the main street in town. In Montana, we don’t put a lot of effort into naming the streets.
We headed south on Ten Mile. Off to the right we passed Linder Lane, the rutted entrance to Lyric Mobile Estate. A little bit farther, we turned into Ten Mile Park and followed the two-lane toward the parking area, which was taped off. We parked along the shoulder of the entrance road, right behind the 1968 Beetle painted black and white. Not like a police car, like a cow.
Its owner, Robin, had already placed a bunch of numbered evidence markers on the dirt parking area. When she heard us approach, she looked up. “Hey, cops.” She offered us a wide, toothy smile. Except for the paper booties over her ski boots, she could have been heading off to the slopes: red wool beret, a powder-blue ski jacket, and black leggings. “Sorry about taping off the lot. There’re some new tire tracks from the rain last night I wanted to shoot.”
“Yeah?”
She pointed to some tracks ten feet away. “I think that one’s a dually pickup.”
“Did the driver get out of the truck?” I said.
“I don’t think so.” Robin pushed a strand of her blue-tipped blond hair behind her ear. I counted six or seven new holes running up the cartilage, each filled with a tiny colored glass chip. She saw me looking and struck a pose. “What do you think?”
“I think, if you’re happy, I’m happy.” I turned back toward the taped-off parking area. “You got the path taped off, too?”
“Yeah, sorry. There could be some interesting shoe prints.”
“How do we get to the camp?”
“Truman and I hacked a rough path off to the side there.” She pointed. Truman must have been the first officer on scene. “The camp’s less than a hundred yards.” She looked at Ryan, who was wearing his MBA outfit: navy blue suit and black wool overcoat. She gestured to his shiny black wingtips. “Those were nice shoes.”
Ryan smiled and reached into his pocket, pulled out a pair of booties, and slipped them on. We trudged along the path, pushing aside the branches and brambles as we walked, until we arrived at the encampment, our coats wet and our feet muddy.
This was one of those times I wish I had taken school more seriously.
Chapter 2
The camp was a big circle filled with busted bikes, shopping carts, old tires, and other assorted junk. Bags hung from tree limbs, presumably to make it a little harder for the critters to grab stuff. Rope clotheslines criss-crossed the trees that formed the perimeter of the clearing. I counted seven tents and other shelters of timber, corrugated metal, and blue plastic tarps.
We walked toward Officer Truman, who was standing next to a picnic table, talking with four guys ranging in age from around twenty to more than sixty. They slouched, hands in pockets, feet shuffling back and forth on the wet dirt.
When they heard us squishing our way toward them, they looked up. Their expressions were a mixture of sadness and resignation. I couldn’t tell if they knew the vic well or liked him, but this bunch of guys, who lived pretty close to the edge, seemed upset that someone had just fallen off.
Truman nodded and came over to meet us.
“What’ve you got?” I said.
“One of these guys, Walter Ramsey, called it in on his cell a little after seven this morning. Said he saw the vic, lying on his bed, pants down around his knees. Ramsey said he couldn’t see the vic breathing, so he went into the tent, saw he was dead, came back out, phoned 911.”
“So the crime scene’s been compromised?”
“Yeah,” Truman said. “If it’s a crime scene.”
“Did Ramsey say he thought it was an OD because he knew the vic was a junkie, or did he see something?”
“Not sure. But he told me he didn’t touch anything in the vic’s tent.”
“Has Robin gone over the tent yet?”
“No, she wanted to start out at the parking area before the tire tracks got messed up.”
“Have you seen Harold Breen yet?”
“No, not yet.”
“All right, Truman. Thanks. Which one’s Walter Ramsey?”
He gestured with his chin. “Tan slicker, blue baseball hat.”
Ryan and I walked over to him. “Mr. Ramsey, my name is Detective Seagate. This is my partner, Detective Miner.”
Ramsey nodded. He was about fifty, wearing a plastic rain parka over a couple of sweatshirts, muddy dark cotton pants, and sneakers, soaked through, no socks. He needed a shave, a haircut, and two or three teeth on the bottom, near the front. The other guys stood there, hands in pockets, with downcast expressions.
“Can you tell me when you found the body?”
“Around seven, seven-thirty this morning.”
“You went over to his tent?”
He nodded.
“Why was that?”
“Couple of us were gonna head into town, go to the Mission, get some breakfast. I went to see if he wanted to come with us.”
“What was his name?”
“Lake.”
“Lake? Is that a first name? Last name?”
Walter Ramsey shrugged.
“How long’s he been living here?”
He thought for a second. “Two months, maybe three.” He looked at the other three guys, who nodded.
“Was he a junkie?”
He was silent a moment. “We got a few rules here. Don’t steal; don’t cheat. That’s all. Lake kept to himself.”
“You know if he had a girlfriend? A boyfriend?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Is there a woman who sleeps with the guys, you know, for money?”
“Don’t know of anyone like that.”
“A guy?”
Walter Ramsey shook his head.
“You think of anyone he had a problem with? Anyone who’d want to hurt him?”
“He didn’t steal, didn’t cheat.”
“Right,” I said. “I got that.” I turned to the other guys. “Can any of you help us figure out what happened to Lake?”
One of the three looked up and shook his head. Another said no. The third one didn’t lift his gaze from the wet dirt.
Ryan said, “The people who live here—any of them women?”
Walter Ramsey said, “There’s one woman here. Named Kendra.”
I said to him, “You didn’t think to tell me that?”
Walter Ramsey shrugged. “You didn’t ask.”
“Got a last name?”
They all shook their heads.
“She here now, in the camp?”
“No,” Walter Ramsey said.
“You know where she is?”
He shook his head. “She comes and goes. She’s not here every night.”
“What do you know about her?”
“She don’t steal—”
“And she don’t cheat.” I nodded. “Which tent is hers?”
Ramsey pointed to a grey camping tent, sitting on wooden shipping pallets.
I took out four cards and handed them to the men. “Thanks, guys. You think of something, you let me know.” They nodded and drifted away.
I started walking over to Kendra’s tent. I steppe
d onto the wooden pallet and was about to open the flap when Ryan called my name. I turned and looked up.
“We can’t touch it,” he said.
“Come on. It’s a tent, on city land.”
“It’s private property,” Ryan said. “We need a warrant.”
I shook my head, but he was right. I walked around to the side, where there was a screened window under a flap. “Can I look through the screen?”
He smiled. “I think we can do that.”
I peered in. It was pitch black. “You got a flash?”
He handed me a small high-intensity flashlight, but I couldn’t make out anything other than a camping cot, some scattered clothing, cardboard boxes, and a plastic folding stool.
When I walked over to give Ryan his flashlight back, he raised his eyebrows to ask me what I’d seen. I just shook my head. “You think the dead guy’d be okay with us looking at his shit?”
Ryan smiled. “I think it’s more about the Constitution of the State of Montana.”
“We have one of them?”
We walked over to the vic’s tent. I unzipped the flap. “Since Walter’s been inside—and Pelton and Malone—the floor’s already been compromised.”
Ryan nodded. We snapped on our gloves, crouched down, and entered the tiny tent.
“Whoa,” I said. “It’s a little ripe in here. That’s not dead-guy smell, is it?”
“Little bit.” Ryan had a handkerchief over his nose. “Mostly, unwashed-guy.”
Ryan shined his flashlight on Lake’s face. He was a black man, black hair and beard, untrimmed. He was lying on a dirty foam-rubber pad maybe four inches thick and covered with several soiled blankets and quilts. He wore a T-shirt, which had been pulled halfway up his chest. His sweatpants were pulled down to the middle of his thighs. I didn’t see any underpants. By his side were a lighter, a small dope spoon, a syringe, an empty baggie, and a silver-foil cigarette wrapper used to package drugs.
Ryan poked around, looking for pockets that might contain a wallet or some ID. I started to feel around under the foam pad and in the clothing and other items on the tent floor.
I turned to Ryan. “Why are his pants down?”
He scratched at his chin. “Well, maybe he was preparing to have sex. Or he already had sex.”
“Maybe he was yanking it?”
“Or he was yanking it.” Ryan nodded. “Or he was looking for a new vein.”
“Good morning, detectives.” I turned. It was Harold Breen, our medical examiner, standing outside the tent, crouched over so he could look in.
Ryan and I greeted him. Harold was breathing heavily. At more than three-hundred pounds, he always breathed heavily. Usually, he was quite cheerful, but today, standing there in a wet parka with mud halfway up his brown polyester pants, he didn’t seem at all happy.
He gestured to the victim. “The nerve of some people,” he said. “Robin gone over this already?”
“No,” I said.
“But we’re pretty sure he’s dead, right?”
“Yes, we are.”
“Good, no way I could get in there and back out without knocking the thing over. As soon as Robin’s done here, I’ll bring him in and get him on the table. What do we think happened to him?”
“There’s a drug kit next to his left hand,” I said.
Harold nodded. “Seeing way too much of that these days.” He paused. “You need me for anything?”
“No,” I said. “You’ll coordinate with Robin?”
“You bet.”
Harold stepped back so Ryan and I could leave the smelly tent. We headed toward the path that Robin and Truman had made. Back at the parking area, we walked over to Robin, who was crouched down, shooting some photos with a serious-looking camera with a big lens.
“Harold’s at the vic’s tent,” I said. “He told us he’d wait until you went over it.”
“Anything in particular you want to know?”
“Everything. We couldn’t find any ID on him. Start with trying to figure out who the hell he was. His kit is right next to him. What was he using? Did he want to kill himself? Did he just do too much? Was there someone else shooting up with him? One other thing: His pants are down. Was he screwing someone? Flying solo? Looking for a vein?”
“In other words, you don’t know anything yet.” She sniffed, then wrinkled her nose. “You two don’t smell too good.”
“We’ll discuss that later, after you go over his tent.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh,” I said. “All we know is the guys called him Lake. The rest, you’re gonna tell us, sometime this afternoon.”
“The other guys at the camp didn’t give you anything but a name?”
I shook my head. “Not sure they know his name. Doubt they’d tell us if they did.”
Chapter 3
I came back to my desk with a coffee and swapped out my wet shoes for a dry pair that I keep in a desk drawer. Ryan was already on his computer. “Find him yet?”
Ryan shook his head. “Tried Lake as a first name and a last one. Is that short for something?”
“Not that I can think of,” I said. “Let me see if Robin found something in his tent.” I picked up my desk phone and hit the four numbers. “Hey, Robin, who’s our vic in the tent?”
“A guy who liked to stay off the grid.”
“No ID, no papers?”
“Nothing.”
“Well, shit,” I said.
“You’re very welcome,” Robin said.
I hung up. “Let me see if Harold’s got him up on the table yet.” I phoned him, and he invited us to come on down. “Terrific.” I thanked him.
Ryan and I went downstairs and walked past the shooting range and Robin’s office. Ryan opened the wide, heavy door to Harold Breen’s lab.
Before I could even see Lake on the steel table, I knew he was there. He had already funked up the whole lab, even with an HVAC system strong enough to reshuffle a deck of cards.
I turned to Ryan. “I’ll stay here. You go talk to Harold.” Lake wasn’t mangled or anything, and Harold hadn’t yet started to gut him or peel back his scalp; still, I wanted to let the dead rest in peace, preferably on the other side of the room.
As Ryan took up a position next to him, Harold turned and said to me, “Does Mr. Doe have a name yet?”
“We can’t find him in our system or the obvious databases, and Robin couldn’t find anything,” I said. “If we can’t identify him soon, we’ll get serious and track it down.”
Ryan and Harold were silent for a minute. Finally, Ryan said, “Did Robin figure out if he had sex?”
“She took some swabs. No semen or vaginal fluids on his penis.”
“Was he looking for a vein?”
“I don’t think so.” The medical examiner looked up and ran a forearm across his forehead and his bald head to squeegee off some of the perspiration, even though it couldn’t have been more than sixty-five degrees in the lab. “There’s a fresh-looking track down here.” Harold pointed to Lake’s left hand.
“Can’t imagine needing the drug so bad you’re willing to inject it between your fingers,” Ryan said.
Harold Breen sighed. “If this guy could reach a spot, he left tracks there. On his palms, behind his knees, on his feet and ankles, on his forehead.”
“So he’s been an addict a long while?”
“Years.”
“Other than that,” Ryan said, “anything jump out at you?”
“Nothing that explains how he died. He hadn’t been to a dentist in a long while. One rotten tooth and one broken one. They must have hurt.”
Ryan was frowning, looking at the vic’s right leg. “Let me get in closer to the knee.” Harold stepped aside as Ryan moved down a couple of feet. “Is that what I think it is?”
Harold leaned down. “Yeah, I think so. I’d have seen it on a scan, but good catch.”
“What is it?” I said.
Ryan turned to me and offered a teasing smile
. “Why don’t you come on over and I’ll show you?”
“Don’t be a dick. Just tell me.”
Ryan walked over to me, bent down, and pulled up his right pant leg. He pointed to a vertical scar, about four inches long, that started at the top of his kneecap and headed south. “You see these?” He pointed to two round scars flanking his kneecap, one to the left and one to the right of the long scar. “That’s where they insert the instruments.”
“The vic has the same scars?”
“That’s right. He tore a ligament in his knee—the ACL. He had reconstructive surgery. Ten to one, he was an athlete.”
“What sport?”
He gave me a sarcastic scowl. “A contact sport. Probably soccer, basketball, or football.”
“Does the university have a men’s soccer team?”
“No.”
I turned to Harold. “How tall is he?”
“Seventy-four inches.”
I looked at Ryan. “Tall enough for basketball?”
“Maybe.”
“Which is it: basketball or football?”
“I’ll guess football.”
“Which position?”
Ryan gave me another look. “What do you say, Harold?”
Harold fanned out the fingers of his right hand and held it over the victim’s hand. From across the room I could see the vic’s fingers extending at least an inch beyond Harold’s. “Wide receiver or tight end.”
“Give me ten minutes.” Ryan turned to leave. “I’ll give you his name.” He stopped and hurried back to the table, pulled his phone out of his inside jacket pocket, and took a picture of Lake’s face.
“Thanks, Harold,” I said. “I assume it’s an OD, but tell me when you enter your prelim on the system, would you?”
“Sure.”
I followed Ryan out of the lab and back up toward the detectives’ bullpen. Ryan was already at his computer—he takes steps two at a time, three when he’s excited.
“Who is he?”
He looked up at me and smiled. “Don’t you have to get some coffee?”