A Sharp Solitude_A Novel of Suspense

by Christine Carbo

  “Okay, Professor, thank you for your time.”

  I hang up and tap my pen on my desk. Herman is looking at me and says, “So what’s that you’re working on?”

  “Not much.”

  “This have something to do with one of our cases?”

  I shrug. “Why don’t you mind your own business?”

  “I can’t. I’m inquisitive, and in here”—he sweeps a hand to the office—“your bizness is mine and mine is yours.” He flashes a smile.

  “Not when it’s got nothing to do with you or what we’re working on together,” I say.

  “So you’re working on something personal?”

  “I didn’t say that either. I just have something I needed to check on.” I motioned with my hand to shoo him away. “Don’t you have stuff to do?”

  He shrugs and goes back to the computer screen before him.

  I turn to mine and pull up all social media sites for Anne Marie Johnson. On Twitter, her profile reads:

  I don’t like labels, but if I must: journalist, photographer, reader, nature enthusiast. “The commons” is my thing and so is #common sense! Most of all, I’m a coffee drinker and #FreshAirBreather.

  I scroll through her tweets, looking at postings and repostings of political news and politically charged statements:

  Lawmakers vote to remove climate information from science curriculum in Idaho.

  Solar now provides twice as many jobs as the coal industry.

  By 2030, all Montana glaciers could vanish. @Joe ReadyMax moved to MT to see it happen.

  I scroll farther down.

  3,000 times more likely to be killed by an American with a gun than a refugee.

  We may live in a post-truth era, but nature does not.

  Pro-life, BUT anti-refugee, anti–helping the poor, anti–modest gun control measures, anti–universal health care, pro-war and pro-death penalty. #commonsense

  @POTUS If your administration really cares about protecting citizens, you should focus on gun control measures.

  Anne Marie Johnson—Deleting my Facebook account means I have more time to read thoughtful essays by @O’Brien.

  I go directly to Facebook and see that her page is still there, so apparently she hadn’t taken it down before she died. It’s the same on her Facebook page, mostly political articles on keeping public lands public, passing commonsense gun legislation, more articles on gun violence in general. When I click on the photos link, there are pictures of her hiking and biking with friends and possibly family. I recognize Vivian in one with Anne Marie and another woman who is not as pretty as either Vivian or Anne Marie but looks like she’s more fun. She’s taller and heftier than the other two and her head is slightly thrown back, laughing heartily at something. I move my cursor over the photo and see that her friends are tagged. The third woman is Rachel Clark, and I make a note to check her page out as well. For now, I want to focus on Anne Marie’s a little longer.

  I go back to her feed and load more of it. Several posts down, an entry comes up with a picture of her and a group of people outside what looks to me to be the clock tower in front of the oval-shaped lawn at the University of Montana. The caption reads: The Golden Eagle Research Group. Honored to write a piece on it. A link to the website WildernessForum.com is provided, and an article composed by Anne Marie on the golden eagle studies at the University of Montana is included. I scan it and see O’Brien’s name mentioned several times for heading up the research program. I click back to the group photo and study it, tapping my pen softly on some papers on my desk.

  I pull up the U of M website and find O’Brien’s profile picture and bio. He’s got a youthful head of longish dirty-blond hair and a coy smile. I switch back to the photo and find him. He’s standing in the center back row, a good two inches taller than everyone else. When I amplify it even more, I see that he has his hands on Anne Marie’s shoulders, one on either side. I take a look at O’Brien’s photo again, and I’m certain that it’s the same person. “And he said he’d never met her,” I whisper to myself.

  “What’s that?” Herman asks.

  “Nothing,” I say. “Sorry.”

  But then I think, Maybe he just doesn’t remember. His hands on her shoulders like that would take some familiarity, though. It wouldn’t be the kind of gesture you’d make with a complete stranger or even an acquaintance. It seems intimate.

  I go back to Twitter and click on the article Anne Marie mentioned when she tweeted: Deleting my Facebook account means I have more time to read thoughtful essays by @O’Brien.

  It’s an essay on the privatization of land—how such practices have hurt the lower and middle class in Russia while the Russian government has allied itself with the banks to usurp all the public lands, sell them to the rich, drill for oil, mine for minerals, and develop them in general to make more money for higher-ups. The essay discusses how such practices affect the air, the water, and the animals.

  I then search #common sense and #the commons. I read about the commons and see that it refers to cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, oceans, and a habitable earth—resources held in common, not owned privately. There are also many articles referring to “the Tragedy of the Commons,” and I read the Wikipedia description of that—an economic theory about the collapse of a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently and in their own best interests cause problems for the common good of the rest of society.

  I figure I’m going down a rabbit hole, and I can’t see how this has anything to do with Anne Marie’s death, so I move on to the phrase common sense, since she had a hashtag about it in her Twitter bio. I can’t find much, other than several articles on gun control popping up, linking to a website that gives information about the number of deaths in the United States caused by gun violence.

  #Commonsense on Twitter pulls up a bunch of tweets and links to articles discussing more gun-control issues. So the commons has nothing to do with the common sense crusade, and I’m not sure any of it matters. Clearly these are Anne Marie’s personal politics, but I am curious about the gun-control articles, given Reeve’s background. There are several about childhood gun accidents, including one written by Anne Marie, and when I click on it, I read that it’s about a mother who was shot in a grocery store by her three-year-old daughter, who pulled a pistol out of the mother’s purse while riding along in the grocery cart. I contemplate the likelihood that Anne Marie was spending time with Reeve only to interview him for the dog-handling program.

  All these things are running through my head when I realize that a large presence looms beside me. Herman is standing to my left, and I had been so lost in thought, I didn’t notice him walk up.

  “Sorry,” he says, “didn’t mean to break your daydream.”

  “Ha, no, I’m just getting lost online,” I say, exiting the screen.

  “Anything interesting in the Twitter-verse?”

  “Nah, it’s all just noise. What’s up?” I ask.

  “It’s about Smith. I’ve got some more transcripts on him from Rubatoy.” Agent Rubatoy is an undercover FBI agent outside of Bozeman who received information from a government informant about our subject, Leonard Smith. Smith, who has been hosting a webcast called Freedom Montana, raves about being a “patriot” who wants to protect the constitutional rights of all Montanans. We have reams of information to show he is anti-government and an anarchist, which in itself is not breaking the law and entirely free speech, but the problem is, we believe he’s been stockpiling weapons and buying materials for explosives, which does make him a danger to state and federal officers in general. In a conversation he had with the informant and again later with Rubatoy outside of Bozeman, Smith claimed that all he needed to do was purchase a more potent illegal firearm to help him target a few law enforcement officers.

  Five months ago, Smith moved to our area and began to try to—as he put it—organize, so he’s our proble
m now. So far he’s continuing his webcasts, making threatening comments that aren’t characteristic of your average community organizer’s behavior, like how he wants to take down all local law enforcement officers, claiming that “they should be looked upon as unwanted vermin running around town” and that they “need to be shot.” Later he defines vermin as all agents of the federal government, all judges who violate the Constitution by overturning gay marriage bans, and all police officers.

  “Sure,” I say, grabbing the file from him. I realize I need to put some time in working the Smith case or Herman will continue to wonder what the hell I’m up to. “Thanks.” I pat the folder and look at his large liquid eyes as he lingers by my desk. He looks like he wants me to say something more. I consider telling him everything. He’d probably help me if he knew the entire story, but before I open my mouth, something tells me to keep it private, and I swallow my words.

  Herman goes back to his desk and I make a note to speak to Vivian again about Anne Marie’s connection to Jeffrey O’Brien. I also need to check out Rachel Clark. My intuitions might have been correct. I’ll bet Anne Marie and Vivian have spoken more than once—“in passing”—about Jeffrey O’Brien, and that’s why Vivian recalled the name so easily.

  Reeve

  * * *

  Present—Friday

  I WAKE UP BEFORE sunrise after a restless night of sleep to the sound of elk bugling all around me. I usually enjoy lying in bed, listening to their reedy cries and hollow bellows like poignant good-morning wishes in the misty dawn, but today I’m agitated. I had tossed and turned all night, worrying that headlights might shine on my cabin in the middle of the night and a deputy would take me in for questioning again. Images of Anne Marie accosted me. Sometime after two a.m., when I had finally made the decision to just get up and start working, I finally drifted off. I wasn’t under arrest, I told myself again, and I had a job to do, even if that job meant I’d be difficult to find if they had more questions.

  After I let McKay out, make some coffee, and feed him when he comes back in, I eat some oatmeal, then pack my gear. I fill my CamelBak with water and throw in apples, trail mix, and beef jerky. I make sure I have everything for McKay: his doggie snacks, his leash, his ball, and his water bottle and nylon bowl. It’s just another day, I tell myself. No reason to behave otherwise.

  Before I leave, I see that Ali has called me twice already and has left messages for me to call her. When I do, she picks up right away. “Reeve,” she says, “where are you? I’ve called twice.”

  “I’m at home. Getting ready to work.”

  “Work? You mean you’re heading into the field?”

  “Yep.”

  “Uh, I don’t think that’s such a great idea.”

  “Why? I’m not under arrest. No one can stop me from working. Plus, McKay can’t go two days without it.”

  “I understand that, but under the circumstances . . . If they need to ask you more questions, you probably don’t want to be difficult to find. It will make things worse. Can’t you work McKay around the cabin?”

  “Ali”—I ignore her question about McKay—“you told me not to tell them the truth, so what else can I say to them?”

  “I didn’t say that. That’s not what I said at all. I meant, either way, you should get an attorney. Have you done that? Have you called the number I gave you?”

  “No, I haven’t. You know I can’t afford an expense like that.”

  Ali doesn’t say anything right away, which is unusual. She’s rarely at a loss for words. Finally she says. “Just do me a favor, Reeve, and don’t go far. For your sake, just be available and cooperative if they call you.”

  “I will.” I tell her good-bye, then look at McKay, who’s waiting on me patiently. “Time to go, buddy.” He follows me to the truck, wagging his tail with excitement as he hops in and we take off for the day.

  When we begin treading on one of the familiar trails, a purpose-filled anger fuels my body. Deep down, I know I’m being a little unreasonable. The detectives—they’re simply trying to solve a murder, and I am the last one to be seen with Anne Marie. It makes perfect sense that I’m under the microscope, and I’m the idiot who made matters worse by not telling them that she had come over after our day together. What did I expect?

  But I refuse to allow them the power to put my life on hold. I step eagerly over the uneven ground through these overgrown woods not far from a narrow creek. I’m ready to make up for the lost day in the woods, my way of giving the finger to the deputies. You can’t control me, I think. Not out here.

  “You’re ready to work, aren’t you, boy?” I ask McKay.

  He lifts his head and sniffs the air, sifting through all its layers for the scents he’s programmed to find. He looks at me expectantly, then runs off. I watch him bound over rocks and bushes, and feel pleased to provide what he needs most.

  It takes a full day to climb to the place I want to go: an escarpment surrounded by dense trees that skirts out to a broad scree slope. When I arrive, I lean back against the textured hard rock and pull out doggie treats for McKay and a baggie of trail mix for myself. McKay settles next to me. In the dull light, the river looks like a ribbon made of pewter instead of the bright turquoise color it takes in the late spring and summer. I sit listening to the forest, to the chipmunks scurrying around to collect food for the winter and the birds that haven’t flown south darting around at the tops of the pines. The layers of communication going on in the forest always amaze me; it’s much more complex than we give it credit for. I think of Anne Marie—of her own complexity, which confused, irritated, and intrigued me all at the same time. A picture of her sitting by my woodstove, her wineglass glistening with the firelight as she turns it in her hands, pops into my head. A great sadness falls upon me, and suddenly I don’t want to go back home at all.

  I consider camping under the outcropping of rocks that form an enclosure. I can make a fire, sleep under my emergency space blanket with McKay: we’d keep each other warm. I’ve packed enough dog food, trail mix, and jerky to get by. I always carry my water purifier with me, so hydration is not an issue, especially this time of the year when the rain and snow in the upper elevations has been plentiful and the streams are running again. A windswept pine stands off to my side. I could string my pack containing food up into it away from the bears.

  A night in the wilderness, out in the moonless dark in the frigid, skeletal depths of the austere autumn forest . . . McKay and I have done it plenty of times, but usually it’s during the summer or early fall, when the late bronze sunshine lingers, shimmering across the valleys well past nine. A part of me thinks I’d like to, even in the frigid cold, and another part of me knows it’s not wise. I can smell snow in the air, and sunset is only two hours away. If I’m going to beat the darkness, I need to start heading back down, but I don’t move.

  What I’m beginning to feel is the ugly seed of apathy, a tendency I had worked on with my counselor in Florida. Pinpointing its origins to the day I shot Sam wasn’t any Freudian feat, but understanding how the reverberations of its aftermath ran through my family was trickier.

  Sometimes I used to detest my counselor, Gary—the one who smelled of patchouli oil. He wore tortoiseshell glasses and constantly ran one hand through his hair to push it away from his temple even though it was tied back into a sun-streaked ponytail, which drove me kind of crazy.

  When he pushed me to recall the event, I thought he was just trying to make me cry. I refused to talk about the actual moment I shot Sam—how it was with him bleeding in my arms. It was an image that accosted me every day and night for many years to come, and at moments that I couldn’t predict or control. After it happened, I’d go to school and try to listen in class, or later try to play with friends, and that image would pop up out of the blue.

  One time another boy, Joey, and I were playing beside his house in the shade. Ferns and lily leaves hugged the cement foundation and the dirt smelled so loamy, I could feel it in my
throat. When we saw a lizard as green as the leaves dart up a long stalk, Joey quickly found a stick and tried to poke it. He got nowhere near it, only jabbing at its wake as it scurried away. In that moment, the quickness of the darting lizard and the prodding stick, all I could see was Sam, his blood everywhere, his body’s final, twitchy jerks.

  I never told Gary what it was like to try to give Sam CPR, his limp body in my arms, his eyes having already rolled back in his head while I gave the breaths and pumped his heart, counting to fifteen as I had been taught in school, with a maniacal, breathy voice that seemed to belong to someone else, not me.

  Gary did, however, get me to talk about things that surrounded the event—like the lizard incident. When he asked how it was walking out of the house with the paramedics and the police, watching Sam being put into the ambulance, I described the stunned expressions of my parents, who had rushed home because they were my next call after 911.

  I described how, within a day and a half of the incident, the press was parked on our street and on our lawn, and the phone kept ringing with calls from reporters and strangers. My mom’s sister, Diana, insisted we stay at her house. Reporters captured photos of us coming out of our house to leave for my aunt’s, my face blank and scared-looking, my mom’s pink and splotchy from crying, and my dad’s red and angry at the world, commanding me and nudging me behind him so the photographers couldn’t get a clear shot, and me, confused and panicked, failing at the simple act of hiding behind his rigid torso.

  My aunt lived only a subdivision or two from where we lived in Tallahassee. The grid of wide, numbered hilly streets—some with cul-de-sacs—seemed to sprawl endlessly and had provided ample space for Sam and me to ride our bikes. Aunt Diana lived not far from Sam’s and my elementary school. Not far, in fact, from the hospital they took his body to, and from the Lutheran church where they would have the funeral four days later.

  But everything passed by in a blur to me on the way to my aunt’s in my parents’ car. My mom sobbed in the front passenger seat, her head resting against the window as if her neck couldn’t hold it up. My dad kept looking straight ahead, his eyes on the road. When we got to Diana’s, I looked up at him, waiting for him to glance at me with his intense blue eyes or to say something, but he wouldn’t, and his face contained something so great and enormous that I couldn’t have begun to understand or describe it other than to say that it was scary and sad. Now, as an adult, I know his expression was anguish, but then I just knew it as the face that told me that things were never going to be the same again.