The Edge of Justice

by Clinton McKinzie

  “Want some herbal tea?” she asks, picking up a steaming clay mug from the table. “I just brewed it. We can share.”

  “Thanks, I'm all right. I want to talk to you about Kate. How well did you know her?”

  “I thought you'd want to talk to me about Lynn,” she says, laughing. “Kate's dead, you know.”

  This isn't the reaction I expected. I explain that I've been assigned to look into Kate Danning's death and that there are some things about it that don't look like an accident. Cindy doesn't seem to care one way or another. She seems utterly detached from it, as if her friend has merely taken a vacation.

  “I met her when I took an Outward Bound course up in Lander before starting school, like two years ago. She was an assistant instructor or something. We became friends there.”

  “Was she a good climber?”

  “She was great. Maybe not as good as Lynn on cracks, but next to her she was the best around. I just do sport climbs. Cracks hurt too much.” She shakes her hands and pretends to wince.

  “Tell me about Kate. What was she like?”

  “She was, like, a pretty free spirit, you know? You could tell she had a good soul. Real positive energy. And she was real together when I knew her back in Lander. Then she came out here with Brad and she got a little weird.”

  “What happened?”

  “Look, I can only tell you some stuff if you promise not to tell anyone.”

  “I promise,” I say, knowing that it's probably a lie.

  “Kate met Brad up in Lander too, where she'd started hanging with him and Billy. That was kind of strange, 'cause most people are immediately attracted to Billy more than Brad. The dude's like a magnet. But I think she was scared of him. Billy's a real primitive-type man, like a great big grizzly bear or something. You've heard of Billy Heller, right? He's Lynn's ex, so watch out. But anyway, Kate took a test and found out she was pregnant. That really freaked her out at first. She cut out the dope and all that, you know, really cleaned up her act, and she and Brad talked about it all the time. Like how they would name it Vedauwoo or Laramie. Then Kate miscarried after a big fall two or three months later and it freaked her out even more. In a real negative way. Like it was her fault, and the bad karma was going to stick with her.”

  From the rest of the story she tells me, I learn that after the miscarriage, Kate became severely depressed and was again using a lot of drugs right up until the time of her death. I try to get her to tell me if Kate was mad at Brad or was about to leave him, but all Cindy will say is that she doesn't know about any of that. I have a feeling that she does, though. And that's what I need most—a motive. Each time she tells me she doesn't know something, she looks right into my eyes and grins a little, like she's enjoying keeping a secret. As we talk the robe slips on her legs where they're still folded against her, bare heels against her butt, so that the only part of her lower body the robe covers is a portion of her crotch. Something about her makes me think she knows about that too, and is enjoying it.

  “Tell me about that night when Kate fell.”

  She looks me right in the eyes again and the corners of her mouth rise in a tiny grin. But then she wraps her arms around her slim legs as if distressed at the recollection. “I don't remember a whole lot about that night. Don't bust me, but I was drinking and smoking some too that night.”

  “What time did you get up there?”

  “I went with Sierra, the others were already up there—”

  “Sierra Calloway?” I interrupt, remembering the name from Bradley Karge's witness statement.

  “Yeah, right. She's sort of a friend of mine, dates Chris sometimes. Anyway, we'd go up that pillar to party a lot with those guys. There was this real wild energy up there at night.”

  She explains that they went up there a little past dark. A rope had been left hanging for them, along with a pair of etriers and mechanical aids for ascending the rope rather than the rock. Sierra jugged up the rope first, and then the rope and etriers were lowered back down for Cindy. The group on top poured beer on her as she ascended the line, laughing and sputtering. At the top were Sierra, Lynn, Kate, Chris, Brad, and Billy.

  Lynn? I ask myself. Her name hadn't been in the report. I push the thought away.

  “Were you Billy's date for the party?”

  She laughs again, releases her knees, and sips at her mug of tea. “Everybody's Billy's date, man. We're all real healthy and open up there. See, sometimes I'm his date, but not that night, he was playing it cool with me.” I think she looks a little annoyed. “So I left after a while. With Sierra. Chris was kind of being a dick too. And he's usually such a nice guy.”

  “Did Lynn leave with you?”

  Her face flushes a little. “I don't remember when Lynn left.”

  “What was everyone doing before you and Sierra left?”

  “You know, just shit. Drinking and smoking. Partying.”

  “How were Chris and Billy being dicks?”

  “Messing with . . .” I have a feeling she's about to say Kate, but she stops herself and looks me straight in the eyes again, turning up the corners of her mouth. She shrugs and the robe rises a little but I keep my eyes on hers, willing myself not to look. That's what she wants; it will give her some sort of power over me. And I find it isn't that difficult to keep my eyes on her face now. Down below the surface she is harder than she first appeared. I'm beginning to see that. After another sip of tea, she continues. “They were just like being macho jerks, screwing around. It was a bummer. So Sierra and I split. It was early still. We'd only been there an hour or so.” Then she adds, “I think Lynn left before us.”

  I want to believe that. “What did you do after that?”

  That smiling look again. “I don't remember. Went home I guess. We didn't hear about Kate until the next day.”

  I'm about out of questions. At least until I learn something that will give me the leverage to pry at what's been behind her direct looks and smiles. I ask if she knows how I can get ahold of Sierra so I can see if she remembers anything else.

  “She lives north of town, in a trailer with a bunch of dogs in the middle of nowhere. No phone or anything, like total isolation. When she needs one she uses mine.”

  “Can you tell me how to get to her place?”

  “Ha! I've been there maybe a hundred times and I probably still couldn't find it. Every time I've been I've followed her truck. It's just some random dirt road just east of Buford. But I haven't seen her at all since Kate's funeral. She works at some motel, cleaning rooms.” Cindy smirks unpleasantly as she says that.

  “If you do see her, please tell her I'd like to talk to her.” I put my card with the phone number in Cody on the coffee table. “Thanks for talking to me.” She rises too as I get up, exposing more of herself, but I turn away toward the door.

  “Hey, you want to climb with me sometime? Lynn knows how to share.” I wonder what she means by that but a part of me doesn't want to know.

  “I won't be climbing much for a few days,” I say, but also tell her that maybe I'll give her a call sometime after I sort all this out. We both know I won't.

  At the door she smiles up into my eyes and bends a little to shake my hand. Her other hand holds the folds of her robe together down near her waist. The top of it falls open, revealing one perfect white breast with a rose tattoo around the nipple. I don't hear her close the door right away as I walk back down the stairs to my truck at the curb.

  I find the old ranch house far out on the west side of town across the railroad tracks that divide Laramie. The division is economic and aesthetic as well as geographic. On the east side is the small downtown area of rustic brick buildings and the tree-lined streets and nicer homes around the university. But here to the west there are fields with horses and cows that separate the homes. The streets are unpaved and without traffic signs, and the homes are made of cinderblocks and worn wood with blue tarps that sag out over patios. There is a strong odor of manure in the air. Oso intentl
y watches the cows from the backseat, swishing his tail at my head.

  In the police reports, Brad had listed this house as his address. It's also the business address of Heller Carpentry. There is a yard at the end of a dirt driveway with three cars in it. One is an abandoned-looking pickup without wheels and resting on its axles, another is an aging Jeep with stickers from climbing companies covering the back windows, and the third is a nearly new Ford van with oversize wheels. I get out behind the van and feel the strong west wind blow up and through my untucked flannel shirt. I have to hold the tail with one hand to keep my gun concealed.

  The two-story house is almost as dilapidated as the wheel-less pickup in the yard. The paint has long since worn off the wooden siding, and the porch seems to dip and roll as if it's being lifted by waves. A green glass bong stands in plain sight by a camp chair. Not seeing a doorbell, I bang on the door with my fist. I can hear a phone's insistent ringing beyond it.

  A few moments later the door is opened by Bradley Karge. He looks both sleepy and stoned. His blond dreadlocks are in disarray, snaking out in all directions. He stares at me without recognition. “What's up?”

  “I met you the other night. At the bar, with Lynn. My name's Anton Burns.”

  “Oh yeah, man, I remember. Guy who'd put up some routes in Alaska or something. Billy'd heard about you.” His eyes are glazed and shot with red. “You goin' climbing, or what?”

  “I just want to talk to you for a minute. Actually, I'm a cop and want to ask you some stuff about Kate.” As I speak I give him a flash of my badge.

  Brad's mouth drops open for an instant, then he whips his head toward the house's interior. He starts to close the door. “Shit, I can't talk about that right now. You better get the fuck out of here, man.” The way he says it makes me think he's more afraid than threatening.

  “I'm not here to hassle you about dope or anything,” I say quickly, “I just want to talk about her and what happened that night.”

  I can hear a phone slam down and heavier steps fast approaching the door, booming on the worn pine floors. Had Cindy called to warn them that I'm a police officer and asking questions? The door is jerked back open and Billy Heller pushes past Brad. He towers shirtless in the doorway, his blunt jaw pushing toward my face. I take an involuntary step back. His shoulders are the size of bowling balls and beneath them his lats stand out like the edges of some meaty fan. The skin on his chest and face is entirely hairless. Looking into the bigger man's eyes, I see the pupils are tiny dark holes. He's tweaking on something. Hard.

  “Get the fuck off my property, cop. Get the fuck off now.”

  “I want to talk—”

  “You don't start running, I'm going to throw your ass off.”

  He comes through the doorway until his chin is almost jutting against my forehead and I step back again. I feel the boil of blood start in my chest, a familiar roaring in my ears. Time slows as my concentration focuses on only the man, with the rest of the world beginning to disappear. Something about this guy really pisses me off. And despite his immense size, I have no fear. I was only scared for a brief moment. Then the thrill, the risk, it pushes through the fear. It's the same wild rush and concentration that soloing gives me, that drugs give my brother. La llamada del salvaje, as my mother would say. Or a call to the grave with someone as strong and crazy as Heller.

  “You touch me and I'm going to throw you down for obstruction,” I tell him, my voice distant and low to even my own ears as I stare up into the red eyes above the sweating face. I can see that his synapses are firing contradictory instructions. I watch a decision being weighed in a mind that is artificially scrambled. I wait for his conclusion to attack, ready to cut him to the floor with a turning kick at his knees. Thinking ahead, I see myself pulling my Glock out from the small of my back and ramming it into his nostrils. Then a small gleam of reality penetrates the roaring in my head. Amped from the drugs, it will take a bullet in the brain to stop him once it begins. And my gun isn't loaded—it hasn't been for eighteen months. Not since Cheyenne. So I step back again, hating it, and begin moving almost sideways down the steps and toward my truck, keeping watch on the big man in case he decides to make a move.

  “We'll be talking,” I say to Brad, “and you and I too,” I say to Billy. “Whether you want to or not.”

  “I'll jack you up if you come back on my land, cop,” Heller yells with triumph in his voice at my retreat. “I'll shoot you like a trespasser, motherfucker. You stay the fuck away from me and Brad. And you stay the fuck away from Lynn.”

  I keep my eyes locked on Heller's as I get in my truck and slam the door. Oso is rumbling like a train from where he squats on the passenger seat with his snout pressed hard against the glass. I only break my gaze from Billy to back down the drive, but Oso's fierce amber eyes never waver. Billy stays on the porch, grinning now as he watches me pull away.

  THIRTEEN

  FIRST OF ALL, I want to know why you're willing to talk to me. I asked around and heard you've always refused to give interviews,” Rebecca Hersh says. I can tell that she's trying to lock me into talking about the shooting with her, as if I'd made a promise. But all I agreed to was coffee.

  I first came across her on my way back to the room at the Holiday Inn. She was sitting by the pool with some other reporters in the shade of an umbrella that the wind was threatening to launch into the air. Her pale skin glistened from exercise, and her cheeks were tinged pink just below her eyes. She was dressed in a pair of Lycra shorts and a tank top. A pair of running shoes was at her side and her feet looked cool where she dipped them in the chlorinated water. I waved to her as I went by. She surprised me by walking over and asking if I would get cookies and caffeine with her at a shop by the railroad tracks called Coal Creek Coffee. She was waiting for me there, showered and dressed, when I walked into the café a little later.

  She's changed into brown silk slacks and a black shirt with a Chinese collar. Her leather jacket is hung over the back of her chair. As I order a cup of pesticide-free Chilean roast and an oatmeal muffin, she studies me with mahogany eyes framed by dark hair. Once again, she takes my breath away.

  Sitting across the table from her, I try to quit staring and focus on her question. Am I willing to talk with her just because she attracts me so much? That's really pathetic, I think, but it may be true. Among the other psychological injuries it inflicted, the shooting robbed me of my confidence, and I realize I'm desperate for positive attention. And lately I seem to be letting pretty girls manipulate me. But just as my spirits have been rejuvenating since my return to this part of the state, I hope to rediscover the confidence that was taken from me. For too long I've been replacing it with a bitter depression. I want to talk to her and let out the poison that still flares within me.

  But I don't tell her that. Instead I just say, “I'm tired of toeing the office line, saying ‘No comment.' That just gives you reporters the chance to take the other side all the way—there's nothing to balance it with.”

  She thinks about that for a minute and nods, understanding.

  “So, I hear you used to live in Laramie,” she begins.

  I can't help laughing. “Interrogation 101,” I say, replying to her quizzical look. “They must teach you the same things at journalism school that they do at the police academy. You know, first lock the subject into talking with you, then make him comfortable by starting with comfortable subjects. Their background and all that . . . I'm surprised you didn't bring along a partner to play the bad cop.”

  She blushes a little, then laughs too. I'm pleased to see her professional journalist's mask slip a little. So I go ahead and talk to her about growing up at all the far-flung military bases my father was stationed at. About my maternal grandfather's ranch in Argentina, which from rare visits there was the only permanent home I had ever known. About my mother, who is Spanish and Pampas Indio, and my father, whose parents came to the States from Scotland. About college at Berkeley and my master's degree in crimi
nal justice from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her technique is flawless; she reels it all out of me as easily as coiling a rope. Every now and then she fits in details about her own past as we talk. Her father became a professor of economics after he served with Ross McGee in Korea. She went to college at Smith and then journalism school at Columbia. She tells me she is an avid distance runner and asks about the risks of alpine climbing.

  I explain to her that climbing isn't as deadly a sport as people think. In all of North America, only about fifty climbers died in the last year. Over the two decades of my own climbing career, I know just a half-score of friends and acquaintances who've cratered. But just because death by climbing is somewhat rare doesn't mean it's unknown or even unfamiliar. Cheating Death is the very essence of the sport; Death is always watching you when you're on the rock.

  “I don't get it,” she says, repeating Jones's question from the morning. “Why risk anything at all? Why not accept the slow, easy pleasure of a long run or something like fishing?”

  A hundred books and articles have been written on the subject, like Mallory's famous quote: If you have to ask the question, you won't understand the answer. The best I can do is to tell her, “Because you have to. Once you do it, once you experience the thrill of putting it all on the line with all that air beneath your heels, you can't stop. It's an addiction, really. It becomes like a hunger in your stomach.” I tell her about my mother's theory, la llamada del salvaje.

  “I think I'll stick to running. Did you become a cop for the excitement too?”

  “That, and the usual cop's need for justice and order. A therapist I was made to see after the thing in Cheyenne said there's been so much disruption in my life that I have an urge to control those around me. And there's the competitiveness—I can't stand the thought of someone getting away with something, you know, hurting someone and then just walking away. I have a hard time letting it go, but that's something I'm working on.” I have never come to terms with a system based on the principle that it is better to let a hundred guilty people go free rather than wrongfully convict one innocent person. It's okay for people to be victimized again and again as long as no one is mistakenly locked up.