A Sharp Solitude_A Novel of Suspense

by Christine Carbo

  “The point is,” I say, still stretching the truth, “it would have been the kindest solution. There’s a responsibility that comes with living in a wild area, and sometimes that means you need a gun. So, yeah, in spite of what you might think, I would shoot a gun if I had one—under certain circumstances.” I’m embellishing the story to make my point. I don’t tell her how Ali woke when I stopped the car and watched me walk over in the shining lights. How when I came back and told her I thought it had been hit, she went over and took care of it with her own gun. I don’t tell her because I don’t want to turn Anne Marie off by bringing Ali’s name up or, worse, by seeming weak or emasculated because I didn’t shoot it.

  “Okay, yeah, but that’s different. That’s to put an animal out of its misery. Anyone would do that.”

  “Not anyone,” I mumble. “Not people who don’t own guns.”

  “Still, you wouldn’t shoot a gun otherwise, right?”

  I don’t answer her. Stubbornness overtakes me, and I have no desire to give her what she wants: proof that I’m some traumatized victim of a childhood gun incident, and that it’s had predictable and obvious effects on me. Even though deep down I know it has, and I can tell in her self-assured, direct eyes that she knows it too.

  Ali

  * * *

  Present—Friday

  I’M BACK AT my desk, alone. Herman is out somewhere, and I’m relieved to have the office to myself. I sit back in my chair for a moment, shut my eyes, and listen to the hum of the heater. I try to process all the information I have in my mind. I know I need to work on the Smith case, but I can’t let up on the Anne Marie situation.

  I pull up Anne Marie’s Facebook page again and find the photo of her, Vivian, and the other woman, Rachel. I scroll down. Halfway down, she’s posted a video of a friend playing a guitar and singing some ballad. I know he’s a friend because she’s written a caption that reads: My talented buddy, Philip Derringer, playing a song he’s composed called “Dusk.” I peruse the comments and see that Vivian has added one too: Way to go, Philip. Beautiful. So proud of you.

  When I find Philip’s page, I see that there are photos of him with all three women. I decide I need to speak to both Philip and Rachel. Clearly they all know each other. For someone to kill Anne Marie Johnson in the middle of the night like that, I can’t help but think she must have antagonized someone she either knew well or encountered while working as a journalist. The chances of a random act of violence out in the middle of nowhere seems highly unlikely.

  I google Philip’s address and telephone number and see that he’s unlisted, but his Facebook site says he lives in Seattle. I try Rachel Clark, and bingo. I find that she’s living right in Kalispell. She’s a physical therapist working for a group called Northwest Physical Therapy, also located in downtown Kalispell. I’m about to call her when my phone buzzes and I see that it’s Rose. She informs me that she’s not feeling well, that she’s got the chills and is achy. I tell her to go to bed and that I’ll get Emily. I look at the time on my phone. I’ve got one hour before school gets out.

  On my way out of the building, I run into Herman at the front door. “We’re like ships in the night.” He smiles, and holds the glass door for me.

  I grin back. “What, don’t tell me you miss me?”

  “But I do,” he says. “Where are you off to now?”

  “Rose is sick. Have to pick up Emily.”

  He checks his watch. “Already?”

  The guy’s too damn perceptive. I’ve already overused the errands excuse, so as I try to keep walking past him, I say, “Just want to check something out with the Smith case before I get her.”

  “What? Is there something new?”

  “Not really, not much. I’ll fill you in later.” I’m digging myself in deeper. I haven’t even opened the files, but at least I’ve shoved them in my carrier bag and can go over them at home. I figure I can come up with something productive to do on the case before returning to the office on Monday. “Gotta go.” I wave over my head with my keys in my hand. Herman stands in the doorway looking at me. I can feel him watching me scurry away, wanting to ask me more questions.

  • • •

  The therapy office is located in a professional area near the hospital, the valley’s largest employer. It’s quiet inside, and I expect it to smell like antiseptic, like a hospital or a clinic, or at least like a massage suite with therapeutic oil scents in the air, but it doesn’t. Chicken soup or some other microwaved dish that someone had for lunch permeates the room. It’s slightly stuffy and off-putting to smell the homey smell of soup in a clinical setting, but it’s also vaguely comforting. I think I should go pick up some soup for Rose. It would be a nice gesture—me doing something for her for a change.

  The woman at the reception desks tells me to wait while she goes back to ask Rachel if she can spare a few moments, and within about two minutes the tall, stalky woman I saw on Facebook comes through the door, introduces herself as Rachel Clark, and takes me back into one of the exam rooms. “Sorry,” she says, pointing to a chair in the corner. “The practice isn’t mine. I don’t have a private office—just one I share with two other therapists.”

  “This is perfectly fine.” I take a seat.

  “How can I help you?” Rachel leans against the upholstered exam table and crosses her arms in front of her. She’s wearing a white blouse rolled up at the sleeves, and her forearms look strong, the sleeves hugging them tightly. I think she’d be good at manual therapy. I’m instantly aware of a knot on the right side of my neck I’ve been carrying around since Wednesday when I got the call from Reeve.

  “I’m here about a friend of yours. Anne Marie Johnson. I’m sure you heard what happened?”

  “I did.” She looks down at the floor for a second. When she looks up, her face is solemn. “Vivian called me. I was supposed to meet the two of them for drinks over the weekend, while they were both in town.”

  “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

  “What a weird thing. I just, I . . . I don’t know. I’ve never known anyone who’s been, you know”—she holds out one palm—“killed before. Is that what really happened.”

  “I’m afraid it is.”

  “But by who? Why?”

  “We don’t know that yet, but all the information we can gather will help us find out.” Again, a pang of guilt shoots through me for saying we as if I’m part of the investigative team. But the bottom line is that if I discover anything worthy at all, I’ll certainly pass it along to Reynolds and Brander, so the way I look at it, I’m just another helping hand.

  “I’m just going to ask you a few questions, that’s all. Has anyone else spoken to you yet?”

  “No, no one has. I wasn’t sure if anyone would. I don’t know anything at all. Like I said, I hadn’t even seen her yet.”

  “How did you know Anne Marie?”

  “Vivian, Anne Marie, and I were all in the same dorm in college, at Gonzaga. Anne Marie and Vivian were roommates. I was on the same floor.”

  “And how involved have you been in their lives since then?”

  “After college, of course, we all went our own ways. Viv went to Seattle right away, and Anne Marie and I moved to Missoula. Both of us wanted to live in a mountain town, and Missoula was much cheaper than someplace like Boulder. We lived together for about half a year, but it wasn’t long after that I found an opening here in the Flathead for a good-paying therapist position and moved. After I left, we’d still get together on weekends once in a while to go mountain biking, on a hike, or for a concert or something, but that got to be less and less as the years went on.”

  “So when was the last time you saw Anne Marie?”

  She presses her lips together in concentration and looks at the ceiling. “It hasn’t been that long,” she says after a moment. “It was this summer. She was up this way for something . . .” She narrows her eyes, still thinking. “Yeah, that’s right. It was the Backpacker’s Ball for Glacier Park—
that big fundraiser. I can’t recall if she was reporting on it or if she just attended.”

  “So you got together then?”

  “Yeah, she wouldn’t come up this way and not drop a line. I’d do the same if I went to Missoula. It doesn’t always work out for us to get together, but we at least reach out.”

  “What did you do this summer?”

  “We met for drinks at a local pub.”

  “Did she stay with you?”

  “No, she had a room at the Hilton Garden. We’ve sort of passed that stage. I have a husband now, and she’d be welcome, but our place is a matchbox. She knows that it’s better to get a room somewhere.”

  “And Vivian’s cabin? How come she wouldn’t have just stayed there like she did this time?”

  “As far as I understand from Vivian, this time was different because she was actually interviewing someone who also lives up near Viv’s place. It was ideal—” She stops mid-sentence when she realizes how unideal it actually ended up being for Anne Marie to stay up in the North Fork.

  I don’t let her linger on that for fear she’ll start tearing up and not want to continue. “Do you recall when you saw her last if there was anything at all that she mentioned about her personal or professional life that seemed out of place or strange to you?”

  She shakes her head. “No, nothing that I can think of.”

  “Are you sure? Nothing at all? Anything at all could be helpful—the slightest little detail that seemed different than usual. Or off. Or even if she was excited about something.”

  Rachel gazes at the wall, where there are pictures of human anatomy, salmon- and red-colored, sinewy muscles numbered and labeled, but she’s not taking them in. “Well”—she looks back at me—“she did seem a little giddy—a little more than usual. Almost like . . . well, this sounds silly, but almost like she was crushin’ on someone, but when I asked, she said there was no one.”

  “So how come you thought that?”

  “I don’t know. She kind of had this smirk like there really was. I remember telling Hal, that’s my husband, that I could have sworn she was seeing someone by the way she acted, but that she wouldn’t tell me who.”

  “And that was odd?”

  “Kind of. I mean, usually we’re pretty open about stuff like that with each other. Hal said that maybe she was growing up, being more careful about her relationships, which might include keeping them to herself until they became more real.”

  “ ‘Growing up’?” I ask.

  “Yeah, Anne Marie, well, she’s always been a little, I don’t know, don’t get me wrong—I love her to death. Oh my gosh, I mean . . .” Her cheeks turn bright red when she realizes the phrase she’s just used. “I mean—I didn’t mean,” she goes on, flustered.

  “I know what you meant,” I say. “Please continue.”

  She puts her face in her hands and her rib cage shudders as she takes a deep breath. When she takes her hands away, her eyes are filled with tears. She wipes them with the sleeve of her blouse. “Where was I?”

  “Anne Marie. Growing up?” I remind her.

  “Yeah, she was always a little on the spontaneous side. Viv and I wondered if she’d ever settle down with anyone. She could never last more than a few months in a relationship—she’d get antsy, impatient. We called her a heartbreaker.”

  “Interesting. Do you think you could write down a list for me of all her past boyfriends?” I know Vivian has already done this for both me and the county, but I want to see if Rachel’s list is different from Vivian’s.

  “Yeah, I could do that. I might miss a few, but I can recall most of them. Some were delightful, and I honestly couldn’t believe she would treat them so poorly. I would have loved to date some of the guys she was with—you know, the really interesting, sexy, good-looking ones.”

  “Eh, we all know how those turn out.” I wink, ignoring the fact that I went for one of those types myself and am now a single mom. “I’m willing to guess that Hal is a lot better than all of them combined.”

  She laughs. “That’s actually true. I wouldn’t trade him for anything. One big sexy teddy bear,” she says, and I’m glad I’ve loosened her up, but the teddy bear thing is more personal than I want, so I shift back to serious again. “So it was your impression that she was dating someone this summer. During which month?”

  “August, I think. Early August. I can’t say for sure. Like I said, it was just an impression.”

  “Any ideas why she wouldn’t have told you, other than what your husband suggested?”

  “No, I don’t know, except, well . . .” She looks down and I think there’s something she doesn’t want to say.

  “Except what, Rachel?”

  “Well, I don’t know. I feel bad saying this, but . . .” She peters off, looks at her watch and then at the door, and I’m sure she’s going to say she’s got patients to see and has to go.

  “Rachel, anything at all could help us find who killed Anne Marie, and we certainly take speculation into account, so nothing you say here is going to cross any lines, especially if they’re just vague impressions. We’re simply trying to gather a picture.”

  “Okay.” She nods, wetting her lips. “Well, the thought crossed my mind that it could be a married man, and that’s why she didn’t say.”

  “I see. Any reason you thought that?”

  “She got involved with one once before—a few years ago—and Viv and I gave her such a hard time about it that I don’t think she’d ever say anything—at least to me—if she was doing that again. I probably was even harder on her about it than Vivian was.”

  I immediately conjure the image of O’Brien with his hands intimately grasping Anne Marie’s shoulders. I know from Reeve that O’Brien is married.

  “Do you remember the name of the married man from a few years ago?”

  “No, she never told us his name. She was smarter than that.”

  “Have you heard of a man named Jeffrey O’Brien?”

  “Jeffrey O’Brien? No, I can’t say that I have.”

  I ask a few more questions, about Anne Marie’s job and whether she knows what Anne Marie has been working on, but she doesn’t know much other than that she’s interested in land use and wildlife issues. I thank her and head to Emily’s school, but right before I step out, I say, “Oh, and the photo on Facebook of the bearded fellow with the nice voice, playing the guitar . . . that a friend of yours and Anne Marie’s too?”

  “Yes, that’s Philip Derringer. He’s awesome. Nicest guy ever. Another from Gonzaga. We were all buddies.” She rolls her eyes and sighs. “Another heart left in Anne Marie’s wake. For a while he wouldn’t hang out with any of us, but he got over it eventually, and we all became friends again. I haven’t seen him in at least two years.”

  “What about Anne Marie?”

  “Not sure, but I’m guessing not. You’d have to ask him. Viv would be more likely to know, since she’s in Seattle, where he is. She probably sees him the most. He hits the music scene in Seattle a lot, and I think Viv has gone to some of his performances.”

  I thank her again and set out to pick up Emily before I’m late. She hates to be one of the last to be picked up.

  • • •

  When I get to Emily’s school, I avoid the roundabout, which is full of chatty mothers wanting to talk to teachers, attendants, and other parents through their windows, rather than grabbing their kids and getting a move on. Plus, I want to park and go in so I can surprise Emily and say hello to Claire, who works at the front desk. Claire has red hair and so many freckles that they smear together around her cheekbones like her own brand of blush. She reminds me of a childhood friend of mine whose family lived in the apartment below us. I loved her because she took my mind off everything going on at home with my mom and dad, and we’d escape into imaginary worlds for hours. I just want to make a good impression whenever I pick Emily up at school, especially since most of the moms are more acquainted with Rose than with me.

 
; It’s not that I want to call attention to myself. I’m always a bit self-conscious walking into the school in the first place, as if the other mothers are judging me, secretly whispering things: Oh, she’s that FBI lady. She’s Emily’s mother. I forget. I always think Rose is Emily’s mother!

  Most of the other moms I meet at school often react with slightly odd expressions when they find out what I do for a living—an expression that says, How nice, but why in the world did you have a child then? As if female law enforcement officers are not afforded that privilege without quitting their jobs. Sometimes I get the confused, sad look that says, But what if something happened to you on the job? Your poor child wouldn’t have a mother. I always want to ask: Would you give the same look to a father who happened to be a cop?

  I don’t mean to be dismissive about it, though. Of course I worry about something happening to me, leaving Emily without a mother. I’m proud of the work I do because it’s important, because it’s vital, but yes, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that, now that I have Emily, it frightens me much more than it used to. I’ve thought long and hard about what I would do if something like that were to happen, and the answer lies with Reeve. I expect him to step up. It’s one more reason why I cannot lose Reeve to a false conviction.

  I head into the building, pushing my silly insecurities away. When it comes down to it, I don’t give a damn what the other mothers think of me. I just hope they stay out of my personal business.

  “What a day,” Claire declares in a breathy voice.

  It takes me a second to enter conversational mode, but I focus and respond. “Hectic?”

  “Had to send two kids home with lice this afternoon. Might want to check Emily. She should have a memo with her. We’ll also be sending out emails.”

  “Lovely,” I say.

  “Yeah, tell me about it.” Claire laughs. “I’ve been scratching my head all day, but don’t worry. I don’t have ’em. Mr. Josten has checked my scalp.” I imagine Mr. Josten parting Claire’s bright red hair to peer through his reading glasses at her pink scalp. “It’s all the hats this time of the year. The kids wear the same disgusting knitted hats every day, throw them all over the playground, and then they pick up the wrong ones on their way out to recess. That’s how they get transferred.”