For the Trees

by Brett Baker

  “So the agent is still alive?”

  “As far as I know. It could be that Mount found him and eliminated him and that’s why The Summit is so hell-bent on getting him, but I don’t think so. In my conversations with Polestar and directors, it’s implied that this is all preventive, not reactive. I take them at their word.”

  The waitress came to the table and delivered our food. I mindlessly began eating the eggs, despite not being hungry.

  “Anyway, back to Mount. He blames this agent for him getting screwed out of payment for this job, so he wants to find him. But, as you know, we’re not easy people to find.”

  “It wasn’t too hard for me,” I interrupted. “All I had to do was get off the elevator for breakfast.”

  Davis chuckled and said, “Yeah, but most of the time it’s more difficult than that, to which Mount can attest. He’s got a long track record of jobs, and he starts working backward and talking to the people who hired him to see if any of them know anything about this agent, which naturally creeps out most people he talks to. First of all, these people hired him with the understanding that he’d do the job and then be on his way. They don’t want him coming back and asking questions. It’s a good way for the person ordering the hit to get caught. And on top of that, Mount comes back and tells his story and starts talking about a Cuban drug cartel and an unknown law enforcement infiltrator, and people start freaking out. No one likes to think about law enforcement monitoring them without their knowledge, and they sure as hell don’t want anything to do with drug cartels.”

  “So he doesn’t get anywhere,” I guessed.

  “Well, not so fast. That’s what we’re trying to ascertain now. We have no confirmed information that Mount tracked down the agent or learned anything about The Summit. However, three weeks ago, a decommissioned agent decides to take a vacation to the Smoky Mountains. He’s staying in a cabin in Pigeon Forge, and late one night is out on the deck with his wife.”

  “An agent has a wife?” I interrupted. “How the hell did he manage that? Are we talking about Superman here?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine on that one. Every time I’ve tried to have a relationship with this job it turns into a giant clusterfuck. Anyway, this agent is on the balcony, enjoying the scenery, maybe making a little romance…”

  “Making a little romance?” I asked. “I think the language you use might be the cause of your relationship failure more than the job. ‘Making a little romance.’ You sound like the impotent husband from some 1985 TV movie.”

  “What would you like me to say?” Davis asked.

  “I don’t know. Anything is better than making a little romance. Golly fuck.”

  “Okay, he was getting ready to have sex with his wife. Better?”

  “Marginally,” I said.

  Davis rolled his eyes and waved his hand toward me as if to brush away my concerns. “His wife and what he was about to do with her isn’t the important part of the story. The important part of the story is while he was on that deck, in the middle of a sentence, he stops speaking, makes a horrendous noise that his wife described as half roar, half moan, and she looks up and sees a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. A river of blood is flowing down his face, but his entire head is intact, except for the hole. A nice clean shot. He never saw it coming. She freaked out, of course. Ran inside, called 911. Never looked out at the mountainside beyond the deck, which probably didn’t matter. She wouldn’t have seen anything anyway.”

  “Mount?” I asked.

  Davis nodded. “We think so. We don’t have confirmation. And as you can attest there’s any number of reasons why our agents might be attacked, so it’s not like we can look at what he was working on that day, or even his last five cases or whatever. It could have been anyone. But in asking around it sounds exactly how Mount works. A single shot, delivered with almost scientific precision, from a distance, without warning. Victim never sees it coming, and witnesses never see Mount.”

  “Not a bad way to go, really,” I said. “He’s dead as soon as the bullet hits his forehead, or a second or two later at most, doesn’t have to endure any pain, no suffering, no anticipation. Just here one minute, gone the next.”

  “Yeah, not bad for him. His wife’s ruined though”

  My shoulder shrug indicated I had no remedy for that.

  Davis continued. “So if we assume that this is Mount, which is somewhat of an assumption, but not too great of a leap to make, then the question becomes was he hired to take out this agent by someone else, or did someone tip him off to The Summit and this agent is just the first in what might become a series of victims?”

  “And that’s how he became your guy.”

  “That’s how he became my guy. I’ve been trying to track down anything I can about him, which is no easy task. I’ve been going back to cases with victims that suffered a fate consistent with Mount’s handiwork. Single shot from a distance, no suspect. I’ve found a few, but inevitably hit a dead end when I go back to try to find out who might have hired the hit. And then I read about this environmentalist, Abner Chamberlain, in the paper and it sounded exactly like Mount, despite the sheriff’s claims that he happened upon a burglary.”

  “That’s actually why I’m here,” I said. “Chamberlain.”

  Davis looked intrigued, but confused. “What about him?”

  “First, tell me why you were in Chicago. You’ve conveniently left that part out.”

  “Oh, I thought you killed Mount.”

  “What?” I asked. “You thought I killed Mount. I don’t even know the guy!”

  “You know everyone you kill?” Davis asked. The waitress arrived just as he said the word kill and topped off our water. If she had any concerns about us, she didn’t show them.

  “Of course not, but I think if I killed an assassin wanted by The Summit someone would have told me.”

  “The other day on the lakefront. Some guy was shooting at you. Dark beard, aviator glasses.”

  “Right. He came up out of nowhere on my run. Starts shooting in the middle of the path. Hundreds of people around. Seemed not to give two shits about innocent victims or witnesses or anything. Bizarre. You think that might have been Mount?”

  “I wanted to talk to you about it, at least. Fits the vague description we have of him.”

  “It goes against Mount’s usual practice though, no? You think he just abandon his whole way of doing things, and now instead of a single shot from a distance with no witnesses he’s decided to just start pumping his victims full of lead in the middle of the day while an entire city watches?”

  “Well, when you put it like that it sounds rather preposterous, but he fit the description, you had no idea why he was shooting at you, and you’re an agent. I thought maybe you were just the next victim in The Summit that he’d take out.”

  “So was it him or not?”

  “Probably not,” Davis said. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you about it, but then there’s this Chamberlain killing, and that’s almost certainly a Mount job, so it’s unlikely he’s dead.”

  “Yeah, probably not. Guys like him are professionals. They’re not going to change the way they do things if it increases the risk of them getting caught. And there are few bigger risks of getting caught than trying to kill someone in a crowded park. So what have you found out about Chamberlain?”

  “Not so fast. Now it’s your turn. I told you why I was looking for you. Now you tell me why you’re interested in Chamberlain. You’re supposed to be decommissioned, so I know you haven’t been assigned to him. So what’s up?”

  “When the police checked out his cabin after they found his body, they found a folder labeled H.R. 3650. House Resolution. It’s a bill before congress. There were a couple newspaper articles, a deposit receipt, and a slip of paper with my name on it.”

  “Your name? Mia Mathis?”

  “The one and only. And not only my name, but my address and phone number. And as if that’s not creepy e
nough, under that was one word: restrain.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “Don’t know. That’s why I’m out here though. I’d never even heard the name Abner Chamberlain before. As a side note, that’s a horrible fucking name. I don’t know how rich people get these screwed up names, but golly fuck that’s atrocious.”

  Davis nodded. “Hey, cut the guy some slack. In case you haven’t noticed I don’t have the best name in the world, so I feel for him. Besides, he’s dead. A lot of good that fancy name did him. So what do you know about him?”

  “Nothing! He’s an environmentalist, he shunned his rich family, he’s dead. That’s about the extent of it. You?”

  “I don’t know much more than that. What’s H.R. 3650?”

  “It’s a forestry bill. Reads like a giveaway to the logging industry. It permits states to give away part of the national forests within their boundaries to private companies.”

  “Well no wonder Chamberlain would be interested in that. What do you know about it? Are you some forestry expert or something?”

  “I don’t know anything about it. That’s what perplexes me. I have no idea why he would associate my name with that.”

  Davis nodded. “How’d you find out about this piece of paper anyway?”

  “A detective from Tulare County came to see me.”

  “He came to see you? In Chicago? He couldn’t just call?”

  I’d forgotten about my parents’ death until that moment. I’d become so wrapped up in Mount and Chamberlain that the incessant, dull pain I’d felt at their loss had ceased to register. But when Davis asked if Hertz had come to Chicago to see me, it came back, sharp and painful. I had to take a deep breath before responding so I wouldn’t break down.

  “Actually, he came to Alabama. My parents died, and I was down there for the funeral. He came to the funeral home to talk to me.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Are you okay to be working on this?”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “This helps keep my mind off of it. Talking to you actually made me forget about it for a little while. Anyway, this guy, Detective Hertz, came to talk to me, asked me what I knew about Chamberlain, and told me about the paper. He thought I was hiding something at first, but I think I convinced him. I don’t know, I haven’t heard from him since.”

  “Are you going to pay him a visit while you’re out here?”

  “That’s a bad idea. If I show up he’s going to want to know why I’m here, and I can’t exactly tell him I work for The Summit. And most civilians don’t just travel two thousand miles to investigate a murder. So I think it’s best if I avoid him.”

  “Then what’s your plan?” Davis asked.

  “My plan was to come out here and find Davis Arlen and steal his information and put the pieces together. But if you’re telling me that you don’t know anything then I guess I’m screwed.”

  “I guess so. I didn’t even know about the slip of paper with your name, so you’re ahead of the game on that.”

  “Great. What’s your plan?”

  “Good old-fashioned police work. I’ve been digging around for a few days, talking to people, asking questions, following leads. Nothing yet. And of course I’ve got the usual problem of having to try to do police work without admitting that I’m not the police, but insinuating that I am the police.”

  “Ask too many questions and the real police will want to talk to you.”

  “Exactly. It’s the basic problem of The Summit.”

  “No such thing as a basic problem when The Summit is involved,” I said.

  We finished our breakfast, and talked a little bit more about Chamberlain. The only additional information Davis had came from public sources, and seemed entirely irrelevant to the matter at hand. We agreed to share information, if not to work together. I wanted to check in with Johnny, and then I planned to visit Chamberlain’s cabin for no particular reason other than that my experience at The Summit had shown me that places are more than just places. I’ve often unraveled mysteries or found answers to impossible questions simply by being present in a particular location. I hoped that Chamberlain’s cabin contained the same sort of undefinable power.

  I’d begun to realize that I’d need all the help I could get.

  23

  Chapter 23

  Before Davis interrupted my breakfast, I’d planned to finish eating and then call Johnny to check on things in Eutaw. We hadn’t talked since he dropped me at the airport the previous day. I often wished that I could tell Johnny about my work for The Summit. We’d been close all of our lives, and he shared news of his life with me all the time. I would have liked to tell him about my battle with Toilet Brush. He would have been impressed by my resourcefulness. He’d also be intrigued by the situation with Chamberlain, and since he possessed once of the sharpest minds I’d ever encountered, I wondered if he might actually have some advice to give about how to put it all together.

  When we both lived in Chicago, we were out to dinner one night and ran into a client of his. The client gushed praise on Johnny like I’d never seen before. He maintained that no one in the entire city could possibly have been as wise as my brother, and he insisted on buying our dinner. The man hadn’t told me anything I didn’t already know though. I’d admired Johnny my entire life, but I enjoyed seeing how much a stranger admired him as well.

  I’d considered telling Johnny about The Summit on more than one occasion. As a trained attorney he understood the need for confidentiality and secrecy, and I knew that if I told him my entire story and made him promise not to repeat any of it, that he’d keep his mouth shut for the rest of his life. Even Justine wouldn’t know anything about it, and I’d have a secret weapon on my side that no one else in The Summit could match.

  However, if I told Johnny about The Summit, I know it’d become all encompassing to him. He’d insist on knowing everything about every single one of my missions, and he’d probably end up working harder than me. The man had a work ethic like no one I’d ever seen, but he also had an uncanny ability to turn it off. When he walked away from the legal profession he did so because it had begun to control his life and he decided that he’d been too busy lawyering and not busy enough living. So he stopped lawyering, and started living.

  Heaping my news about The Summit upon him would push him further away from living. And the life he had built with Justine made him much happier than the life he’d lived when he was married to his profession, so I wanted no part in altering that, so I planned to forever keep my involvement in The Summit from Johnny.

  I returned to my hotel room and dialed Johnny’s number. He answered after the third ring, and sounded somewhat winded.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Mia! I’m fine. Just coming in from a run. I literally just walked in the door when my phone rang. If you called thirty seconds before I wouldn’t have answered. I don’t interrupt my run for anyone.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I said. “That makes me feel important.”

  “Sorry. I’ve learned that ain’t nothing more important that doing whatever we need to do to make us feel better about ourselves.” Despite his education and his wisdom, Johnny frequently resorted to intentionally incorrect speech. It took me quite a while to discover that those were often the moments when he had the wisest things to say.

  “All right, I won’t take it personally, I guess. But don’t start making it a habit. How are things?”

  “Not much different since you left,” Johnny said. “I got a call on the way back from the airport that a detective from Greene County wanted to talk to us. I explained that you were headed back to Chicago and they were none too happy. I don’t know if they thought you were taking off with evidence, or you held the key to the entire investigation, or what, but they considered stopping your plane and not letting you go. Luckily, you’ve got a brother that knows the law and explained to them that they had no grounds to keep you from traveling, and since they hadn’t
advised you that you couldn’t travel you had every right to go wherever you wanted. I don’t think the detective has to deal with attorneys very often, because he backed down right away.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it. I needed to get back. Although I would have liked to talk to the police about this. What did they have to say?”

  “Nothing. They asked me some questions, but it’s pretty clear they don’t have anything to go on. There appears to be no focus to the investigation. They asked me about their financial situation, and marital history, and the rumors about mom and Whit, and whether they might have some racist background that no one knew about. Seemed like they were asking all textbook questions and just hoping that something clicked with me. When we were done I asked them what they were going to do next, and one of the guys actually said, ‘I have no idea.’ Can you believe that? They don’t know what the fuck’s going on.”

  I’d hoped that Johnny would have better news, but I wasn’t at all surprised. “At least they’re talking to you now. That’s progress from before.”

  “I guess so,” Johnny said. “But when we hadn’t heard from them for a few days I hoped that maybe they’d figured the whole thing out and they didn’t need any input from us. I thought they’d come knocking on the door and tell us they made an arrest and it’s an open-and-shut case. Instead, I think it took them so long to talk to us because they were trying to come up with questions. I remember at one point wondering whether they’d ever interviewed anyone involved with a crime. It seemed like a high school criminal justice class.”

  “That’s reassuring,” I said. “So I guess we shouldn’t hold our breath for any progress, then.”

  “No, I don’t think so. Whit still thinks that they’ll solve it, that they’re just trying to be thorough and that they know things they’re not telling us, but I’m not so sure. I don’t think they’re holding back from putting all their cards on the table, I think they don’t have any damn cards.”

  “Did they let you in the house yet?”