For the Trees

by Brett Baker

  “Don’t mistake that for weakness,” Davis said. “I’m enjoying watching you die. I don’t mind prolonging it for a few seconds longer. It’s more agony for you, and it gives you a chance to change your mind. But don’t misunderstand me and think that this is going to go on all morning. I’m going to give you one more quick breath of fresh air, and then that’s it. It’s all tail pipe bliss for you after that.”

  True to his word, Davis pulled the mask off of Mount’s face. “One more deep breath,” he said to his prisoner. Mount inhaled deeply, and Davis placed the mask back on his face. “This is it. The end. I’ll hold this mask here until you die. Between then and now, I suggest you make some peace. Think about your life. Think about what you’ve done. Think about that eight-year-old girl and the way you were going to end her life without a thought. Feel the ground against your ass, the tree against your back, the sharp plastic against your cheeks. How about the heat? Do you feel that? It’s hot, but it’ll get hotter later today. You won’t be around for it though. Feel everything now, before it’s too late.”

  Davis looked into Mount’s eyes and for the first time he thought he saw fear. He’d stopped straining against the tape, and his legs were limp against the ground. Davis didn’t know how much longer Mount would be conscious, but he began thinking about where to bury him. He had no intention of putting Mount back into his car, so he glanced around the rocky desert landscape and found a small clearing thirty yards away. “There,” he said to no one in particular.

  He looked back down to Mount just in time to see the man mouthing the word, “Talk.” The muffled sound made no sense to Davis, but he could read the man’s lips, so he took the mask off of his face.

  “What do you want to talk about?” Davis asked. “Something on your mind?”

  Mount gasped for air and started coughing. He lifted his legs off the ground again, but this time in an effort to exhale the poison from his lungs, rather than to break free from his restraints. Davis looked into his eyes and the fear that existed just a few seconds before had been replaced by defeat. During his training for The Summit, an experienced agent told him that every defeated person manifested that defeat in their eyes. Davis didn’t believe it, but near the end of his first mission he subdued a much bigger, stronger opponent, and saw the man’s eyes change as he looked at him. Ever since then he’d paid special attention to a person’s eyes, and he felt a sense of relief when he watched defeat take over.

  “What do you want to know?” Mount asked. He gasped for air and coughed between every word. “I’ll tell you everything.”

  “I don’t want to know everything,” Davis said. “Tell me about the Pigeon Forge job.”

  “His wife.”

  “Who’s wife?” Davis asked.

  “The victim. I forget his name. His wife hired me. Said she thought he had another life that he wasn’t telling her about. They’d been married thirty years and almost the whole time he’d disappear for hours, sometimes days at a time, spent evenings away from home, real fishy stuff. She confronted him about it many times and he always had some excuse. Claimed his job required long hours, but he owned his own construction business and had people who ran it for him. He always brushed off her concerns. Finally, she just had enough. Couldn’t live with the uncertainty another day. Heard about me through some shady business connection he had, and she contacted me. Gave me twenty thousand dollars of his money to take him out. She setup the hotel room, made sure I had a good line of sight, and played grieving widow perfectly. I didn’t even have to worry about escaping that time. She saw me climbing down from the tree and of course never said a word to anyone.”

  “The wife?” I asked in disbelief. “So just personal, not business?”

  “Just personal. She’s hoping that some mistress comes forward to claim some of his estate so at least she’ll know what he’s been up to. Never underestimate the desire for peace of mind. It’s a powerful thing.”

  In his discussions with Polestar about Mount and the agent’s murder in Pigeon Forge, Davis concluded that Mount had information about The Summit and was hunting agents. It seemed too coincidental that an agent ruined his easy money job on the eight-year-old girl and then he kills another agent shortly after. But Mount didn’t seem to be lying, and Davis accepted his story about the wife hiring him. He still wanted to dig deeper to see if Mount knew anything about The Summit.

  “What happened with the eight-year-old girl and the cartel?” Davis asked. “How’d that go down?”

  “I thought you knew all about that. Why are you asking me?”

  “I don’t know much. I know you were going to kill a kid because some drug lords wanted you to. But why didn’t you? What happened?”

  “One of your guys interfered,” Mount said. “Pulled the family before I could pull the trigger.”

  “One of my guys?” Davis asked. His stomach twisted in knots as Mount connected him with the agent on the cartel case. “How do you know he’s one of my guys?”

  “You’re all the same aren’t you? Who are you? CIA? FBI? Whatever. Doesn’t matter. You’re all law enforcement. He wants to bust the cartel, you want to bust me. Same shit, different name. So yeah, he’s one of your guys.”

  “Makes sense,” Davis said, a feeling of relief washing over him. Mount assumed Davis and the other agent worked for law enforcement, which meant he didn’t know about their ties to The Summit. So Davis was left with no reason to assume that Mount knew The Summit even existed. He had completed the primary purpose of his mission.

  “Where’s this family now?” Davis asked.

  “How the fuck do I know? You guys know how to hide people. If that family doesn’t want to be found they won’t be found. I don’t give a fuck about the family. I’m not taking out the little girl. That easy money’s gone. But if I ever see that agent again I’m killing him. I don’t care if it’s the middle of the day and we’re surrounded by people, he’s going down. Stealing easy fucking money from me. Fuck him.”

  Mount started coughing and Davis could see him straining against the tape that held him to the tree. He waited for Mount to stop coughing and then held the mask to his face again. Mount started screaming, and after a few seconds Davis pulled the mask away.

  “I’m talking, you fucking asshole,” Mount yelled. “You wanted me to talk, I’m talking. Get that the fuck away from me.”

  “Sometimes we just need a reminder of what’s on the line,” Davis said. “You better be giving me good information here. I’m going to check on this and if anything you say isn’t true I’m going to kill you with a pair of nail clippers. I’ll leave it up to you to figure out how I’m going to do that. Rest assured, it won’t be fucking pleasant.”

  Davis lifted the mask toward Mount’s face again, but when Mount started screaming Davis backed off.

  “What else? What else?” Mount asked.

  “Talk to me about Chamberlain.”

  “What about him?”

  “You tell me, asshole. You’re the one that killed him. What do I need to know?” Davis didn’t want to lead Mount on Chamberlain. He’d discovered when interrogating someone it’s sometimes best to provide as little information as possible. Let the person lead the conversation wherever it goes. I had so many questions about Chamberlain and the situation around his death that anything Mount said might be valuable. No sense in setting boundaries on what he might say.

  “Typical job. Someone hired me, paid me, and I did my job. Nothing more than that. Makes no difference to me if the guy’s famous or rich or whatever.”

  “So you knew who he was before you killed him?”

  “Yeah. A guy contacted me and said he wanted to talk about ways to intimidate someone. He hoped we could find a way to get him to stop doing what he was doing. Maybe leave the environmental movement forever. But there ended up being too much money involved, and their other plans fell through, so they didn’t want to take any chances. They called me and I took care of it.”

  “Who hir
ed you?”

  “Some guy out of Tucson. Logan is the last name. He’s real big into mining. Owns three or four different copper mines in Arizona. Flew me into Tucson, had a guy meet me at the airport, and he drove me out to his ranch. He called it a ranch, but it didn’t look much like a ranch to me. All desert except for where he irrigated. Then he had grass greener than you’ve ever seen. Anyway, he flew me out, we talked about Chamberlain, about his interference, and he wanted to shut him up. I suggested killing him right away, but he didn’t want to do that if we didn’t have to. Thought it would attract too much attention. I gave him a few suggestions, but then a couple weeks later he calls and says he wants me to kill Chamberlain. Gives me the location, sends me the money, and I do the job.”

  “What were these other plans they had? How’d they try to silence him?”

  “I don’t know. Not my concern.”

  “I thought you said you gave him a few ideas.”

  “I told him how to intimidate the guy. Stage a break-in at his cabin. Maybe burn a few trees. Kick his ass a few times and let him know the pain is courtesy of his enemies. Most people jump to murder right away, when really it should be a last resort. I don’t mind killing someone, but usually it’s a waste of money for the people paying me. They can usually achieve the same outcome by different means. I think that’s what this guy tried to do, but when it didn’t work he ended up calling me anyway.”

  “What’s Logan’s connection with Chamberlain?”

  “Beats the shit out of me,” Mount said. “Logan’s a miner and Chamberlain’s a tree hugger, so I guess they’re natural enemies. I’m sure he’s not the only one who wanted Chamberlain dead.”

  “Did Logan pay you?”

  “Fifty grand in cash.”

  “How did he get it to you?”

  “Left it in a box at the front desk of the hotel where I was staying.”

  “The guy left fifty thousand dollars in a box with a desk clerk?”

  “I got the feeling that fifty grand didn’t mean much to this guy,” Mount said. “A drop in the bucket.”

  “How much of this is true?” Davis asked.

  “It’s all true,” Mount said. “Every fucking word. Get me the fuck out of here. This trunk is digging into my scalp.”

  Davis had no plans to let Mount go. Between two mountains, a couple hundred yards off of a little-traveled road, ten miles from the nearest small town, there was little chance of anyone finding Mount. If anyone did find him, he had no information about Davis, other than the kind of car he drove. Mount couldn’t go to the police and take the chance of being connected with any of his assassinations, and he didn’t know that Davis didn’t work for law enforcement. The plastic zip ties, strips of bed sheet, and duct tape secured Mount to the tree, and as he weakened beneath the hot desert sun, he didn’t possess enough strength to work himself free.

  “Time for me to go,” Davis said. He coiled the tubing and threw it in his backseat, and then brought a bottle of water to Mount. He held it to Mount’s lips. “Have some water. You’ve earned it.” Mount took a drink, but began coughing as the angle of his head taped against the tree made it difficult to swallow. “Try again. You’ll be dead by the end of the day if you don’t drink this.” Mount forced down the water and consumed the entire bottle.

  “Let me go,” Mount yelled. “I gave you what you wanted.”

  “I don’t know that,” Davis said. “You talked, but how do I know you told me anything truthful? Why should I believe a man who kills people for a living? Doesn’t seem like a very good idea to me.”

  “Get me the fuck out of here you’re going to end up with a fucking hole in your head.” Mount tried to lunge toward Davis, but the duct tape on his head and his hands behind his back prevented him from moving. He could only struggle in vain.

  “I’ll be back for you,” Davis said. “Even if you don’t get any water you’ve got a few days before you die. As long as no rattlesnake comes to pay you a visit you’ll be fine. Enjoy the scenery.”

  “Don’t you fucking leave me,” Mount said. “Don’t leave.”

  Davis ignored Mount’s pleadings and walked away. He walked to the end of the mountain and peered around the side to look for traffic. He didn’t want any passersby to see him leaving the mountain. All appeared clear as no cars drove down the isolated road. Davis ran back to his car and pulled away while waving to Mount who continued screaming for Davis to return. He pulled onto route 59 and raced back to town to call me.

  34

  Chapter 34

  I left Congressman Green’s office in Chico for the drive back to Tulare County. His outright refusal to acknowledge that he gave my name to Cleo Flume raised all sorts of red flags for me, and the questions I had before meeting him still remained. Where did he get my name? What did I know that could derail his bill? Who stood to gain from the bill being passed? Finding the answers to those questions might help lead me to who ordered Chamberlain to be killed.

  When my phone rang just after I passed through Sacramento, I drove in bumper-to-bumper traffic and I answered it without looking to see who was on the other end. I expected to hear Davis’s voice. He promised to keep me updated on his progress with Mount, and I was slightly alarmed that I hadn’t already heard from him.

  So I was surprised to hear Johnny’s voice on the other end. “Mia, this is going nowhere. They don’t seem to know the first damn thing about police work down here.”

  Johnny made no attempt to hide the frustration in his voice.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. “Have you heard anything else or is it back to radio silence?”

  “They’re talking, but they’re not saying anything. I just got back from a meeting with the detective leading the case. He called me in and I assumed he had something to say, some kind of news to deliver. But I got there and the first thing he says to me is, ‘Sometimes there just aren’t any answers.’ I wanted to jump across the table and choke the guy. No shit! He’s proving that sometimes there aren’t any answers! He tells me that no one has seen anything, no one knows anything. The tests they were waiting for from the lab came back with nothing. Apparently our parents were murdered by ghosts. They come into the house, have violent struggles with two people, commit heinous crimes, and somehow they do so without leaving behind any damn evidence.”

  “So what are they going to do now?” I asked. “Do they think anything is going to turn up? Do they have other avenues?”

  “That’s why he called me in. He said they’ll continue working on it, but they’ve followed all the leads they have, and they’ve analyzed all the evidence they have, and there’s nothing there.”

  “They’re giving up?” I yelled. “Their bodies are barely even cold yet and the police are already throwing in the towel?”

  “It’s unbelievable. There could have been a police officer in the house, watching the murders unfold right in front of him and I still don’t think they’d be able to solve the case. I’m about to take matters into my own hands.”

  “How are you going to do that?” I asked.

  “Fuck, I don’t know. I can’t do any worse than they are. And the Greene County officers aren’t any better. They’re always around, but it appears as though they’re just standing there, waiting for the suspect to turn himself in.”

  “Why couldn’t they have been murdered in a big city?”

  “Or not at all,” Johnny added.

  “Of course,” I said. We both remained silent for nearly thirty seconds. My encounters of the previous couple days had helped me forget about my grief, but there were a few times when it struck out of the blue. Johnny had been living inside the situation since I’d left, which took an emotional toll. The stagnation of the investigation didn’t help matters either.

  He broke the silence between us with a statement so unexpected that I almost drove off the road when I heard him say it. “Are you doing anything that might have led to this?” I didn’t know how to respond. I thought he’d called
me to express his frustration with the investigation, and to let off a little bit of emotional steam, but he obviously had an ulterior motive.

  “Why would you ask me that?” I responded. “What are you implying?” I didn’t think that Johnny had any ill feelings toward me or about me, but it’s hard to hear such a question without becoming defensive.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just that you left so quickly, and you had that encounter on the lawn the other night, and there’s always a bit of a mysterious fog surrounding you. I just don’t know. Are you in some sort of trouble or something?”

  “A mysterious fog? What the hell does that mean?”

  “Come on, Mia. You’ve always been private. We never know if you’re involved with anyone, you never talk about your personal life, friends, hobbies, whatever. What I do get from you seems rehearsed. Not necessarily made up, but it just seems like maybe you’re not telling me everything that’s going on with you.”

  “And you think that something I’m not telling you might have led to our parents being murdered? What do you think I’m doing? You think I’m some sort of international drug lord or something?”

  “I don’t know, Mia! That’s why I’m asking. It’s just a question.”

  “It’s a ridiculous question. I can’t believe you’d even ask me such a thing. You know me better than anyone else in the world. If I can’t rely on you, who can I rely on?”

  “That’s my point, Mia. Why are you closer to me than anyone else in the world? I’m your brother, I live fifteen hundred miles away, and we see each other a couple times per year. Why do I know you better than anyone? What are you doing that’s keeping you from meeting someone else?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked. “This sounds like some sort of intervention.”

  “It’s not an intervention. It’s just a question. If this is what your life is, then it’s fine. I have no problem with it. But if there’s something going on with you that you need to talk about, or that might shed some light on what happened to mom and dad, then I wish you’d tell me about it.”