“I’ve got a feeling it will help prove my story.”
“You’re telling me the truth?”
“Damn it, Sheriff, I don’t know another way to say it.”
Blankenship shook his head. “You weren’t kidding when you said you didn’t care, were you? You came back here for your own skin. You got no interest in Sarah.”
“I wasn’t kidding when I said it, but I’m starting to care.” You see, I saw her down there, Mark thought. And she’s waiting, Sheriff. She’s waiting, and she doesn’t understand why it’s taking so long. But what he said was “What’s so important about the trailer?”
“It’s where Evan Borders lived as a child. This collapsing shit pile was home when his daddy wasn’t in prison. Family land, going back more than a century. Carson—that’s his father—ended up selling it off to pay for his lawyers and his habits. Didn’t get much for his money. Tried to bargain his way out of prison in a different fashion and got a hit put on his head for that effort. All that remains of Carson’s legacy in Garrison County is his son. And, I suppose, his teeth. The boys in Detroit were kind enough to mail those back.”
“Would Evan have owned the cave?” Mark said. “If his father hadn’t gotten into the legal troubles, would the cave have been theirs?”
“Yes. If it had opened up a little earlier, a little later, however you care to look at it. Family land, like I said. But instead, it was going to be Sarah’s family land. I always wondered about that. Seems irrelevant to some, I suppose, but I wondered.”
“You were right to,” Mark said. He remembered a rancher outside Billings who sold a few hundred acres of generations-old family cattle land that turned out to have vast oil deposits. He’d put the barrel of a twelve-gauge in his mouth six months after news of the discovery broke. He hadn’t ever disputed that the transaction was fair and honest. The point was only that it had been made.
“I can tell you some things about Ridley,” Mark said. “They’ve got nothing to do with what happened to me here, but I think you should hear them.”
“We’ll talk in my office,” the sheriff said, and then he walked away from Mark and back up to the road. He had his radio to his lips by the time he reached his car.
48
The sapphire sky was cleansed of color by storm clouds just before dusk and then the sun went down somewhere behind them and full dark settled and Ridley knew that it was time.
He had two caving packs prepared, perfect twins, every tool in his own pack mirrored by one in the other. Julianne was not capable of using all the equipment, but still he’d outfitted her with the proper gear. Ropes, carabiners, and ascenders. Gloves, knee pads, elbow pads. A first-aid kit. Protein bars and glucose tablets and water bottles and an emergency blanket. Headlamps with fresh batteries.
He looked over all the gear, satisfied except for the missing tool, the one he never went into a cave—or anywhere, even aboveground—without: a Benchmade knife with black grips and a folding steel blade that was just a fraction under four inches in length. It was as close as he’d ever been able to come to the discontinued model that he’d carried for years and lost somewhere in Trapdoor in a transaction that was forever hazy—a knife in hand one moment, Sarah Martin’s sapphire necklace in hand the next. When he thought of being back there in the dark with Julianne Grossman at his side, he wondered if maybe he should leave the knife behind.
He thumbed it open, the blade extending with a soft snick, the grip perfectly balanced in his hand. His mouth was dry. When it came to this tool, Julianne would not need a matching version.
He put the knife in his pocket, clipped helmets to the packs, slung one pack over each shoulder, and turned and looked around the house. The rooms were hard to make out in the shadows but he knew them well and he thought that his time here had been mostly good. Of the homes he had known on the surface of the earth, this was probably the best of them. He stepped outside and walked to the truck and put the packs in the bed and was in the driver’s seat with the key in his hand when he stopped. He did not believe he would be returning to this place, and while he wasn’t one for sentimental gestures, he felt that he hadn’t left it quite right for the visitors who would soon descend on it. He left the truck and walked into the house and went upstairs. He pushed on the knee wall and watched it pivot open soundlessly. The seams were still flawless and there was not so much as a creak to the dowels. It was fine work and he wondered if anyone would appreciate that. He turned it until it was half open, and then he left the room and went back down the stairs and exited again. This time he remembered to leave the front door unlocked. If it was not unlocked, they’d kick it down, and Ridley had built the door and the frame himself and hated the idea of that beautiful wood splintering needlessly.
The roads had been plowed and salted and there was no fresh snow coming down but somehow his thin tires felt less secure on the road than they had only a day before. Only this morning, even. You could wear the rubber down for just so long before the wires started to show and then the withheld pressure you counted on to carry you along went from helpful to dangerous. He’d understood this since he was a boy and he was vaguely disappointed in himself for having allowed the tires to reach such a point, and in the winter, no less, when traction was critical and steady pressure was harder to hold. He’d gotten distracted somewhere along the line.
When he took the sapphire necklace out of his pocket, the stone was cold, and though he held it in his hand for most of the drive, it never warmed. Just before he reached Julianne’s house he reached up and looped the chain around the rearview mirror so that it dangled in the center of the cab. For a short stretch, it caught the reflected light off the snow and glistened beautifully, but then he had to turn the lights off and the color went with them.
He drove the last half mile in the dark and parked on the shoulder of the road where he was screened from her house by the trees. In all of his visits he had never seen her dog indoors, and that was a problem because she appeared to be a vigilant animal. Ridley had always appreciated the vigilance and the fact that she was clearly a den dog, always burrowing, digging deeper, a creature who wanted to crawl beneath. Those were fine things and he would hate to see any harm come to the dog, but all the same he slipped his knife free from his pocket as he approached.
He was twenty feet from the house when the dog began to bark, and Ridley gritted his teeth and snapped the blade open and then closed it again when the animal retreated. In his past visits, she would cautiously advance toward him and the fact that she would not tonight made him curious as to what she smelled on him. How did she know? It was fascinating to consider. If dogs could talk, people would say, but they were always referring to the idea that the dogs would reveal something stupid or humorous; they failed to grasp just how much their worlds would change if dogs could talk. You were exposed in front of a dog in ways you never considered. The moment you hit the door, your dog knew whether you felt anger or fear, whether you’d wept recently, fought recently, had sex recently—and whether that sex had been with your spouse. If dogs could talk. Yes, wouldn’t that be something? Ridley wondered how many people would have pet dogs in that world.
He went up the steps as the dog circled the porch and he knocked on the door with his left hand and opened the knife again with his right and held it so that the edge of the blade was facing forward. When Julianne opened the door he showed her the knife and said, “Please do not make me kill the dog.”
She had the security chain fastened but they both understood that would not hold as long as she would need it to.
“Don’t do this,” she said. Her voice so soft, so familiar. “Please do not do this.”
“Open the door.”
She opened the door. She was an intelligent woman and he was grateful for that.
As she stepped away from the door, words poured from her.
“Please sit so that we may talk about the things that you are feeling. There is a chance of more snow again tonight, did y
ou hear? I have not seen so much snow in a winter in a long time, and if you would like to sit on the couch, obviously there is negative emotion with you tonight, the emotion that you have, feeling very negative, and those feelings are very valid, so if you would like to sit, you may. If you would like to sit and leave the cold outside and we could—”
Ridley grabbed her hair with his right hand, the knife tangling in the strands, and put his left hand over her mouth. Her words had been streaming at him in those unusual rhythms and with unusual thoughts, thoughts that did not match the situation. Ridley had studied enough to understand that this was one area where Julianne Grossman excelled. While she had weaknesses as a hypnotist, her ability with what was called neurolinguistic programming was remarkable. She jarred your expectations with thoughts and cadences and word choices, and eventually her suggestions ceased to feel suggestive and became more directive and then your mind belonged to her.
Ridley no longer wanted it to.
“You will have an opportunity to talk,” he said. She was not struggling. She was aware of the knife just behind her brain stem. “But I can’t allow you to have that now, because you are so good with words. You are so good at what you do. I respect that. You know that I have always respected that, don’t you?”
Her eyes were locked on his and there was fear in them but there was something else also and he said, “Do not let the dog inside.”
He had not turned to see the dog and he had not heard the dog but he knew that it was there and when she lifted her hand, he allowed the motion because the hand was for the dog and not for Ridley. There was an anxious whine from behind him and Ridley realized how close things had come to going very bad.
“Thank you,” he said. “Use the same hand to close the door.”
He maneuvered her toward the door in an awkward waltz and she pushed it shut. The dog barked twice when the barrier was closed.
“Out of respect for your talents,” Ridley said, “I am going to need to tape your mouth shut.”
He removed a thin roll of duct tape from his jacket pocket, and though it required taking his hand from her mouth, she didn’t try to speak. He worked fast but he made certain to lift her hair high with his right hand so that it was not caught in the mess. He did not want her to be uncomfortable.
A phone began to ring in the house, but neither of them looked in the direction of the sound. He stepped back and removed his hooded jacket and held it out to her. She lifted her arms and allowed him to slip the jacket on her, as if it were a gallant gesture.
“Put the hood up so it covers your face, and we will walk to my truck. Please be mindful of your dog’s life when we step outside.”
He opened the door and nodded that she should go first. The dog was crouched with every muscle bunched, hackles lining her spine. She whined when she saw Julianne, a pleading sound, desperate for instruction. Or permission.
Julianne lowered herself to her knees and took the dog’s face in her hands and then stroked along the hackles, trying to soothe her. Some of the tension loosened, but only some. The dog’s eyes were on Ridley.
“Let’s go,” Ridley said.
Julianne pressed her tape-covered face to the dog’s, and the dog lapped at her eyelids. Julianne had begun to cry.
“Let’s go,” he repeated, but he was careful not to pull her up because he didn’t think the dog would allow that. He waited until Julianne rose and walked down the steps and then he followed. The dog walked close to her side all the way to the truck, and Ridley held the knife in a hand that was as tensed as the dog’s muscles. He opened the passenger door of the truck and Julianne climbed inside. Ridley had to walk back around the front of the truck to get in, and for a few steps the dog was alone with him, but she was still watching Julianne. Ridley got in the truck and closed the door and then closed the knife.
“Very noble choice,” he said. “The dog would have been willing to die for you, and you knew that and could have demanded it. But instead you chose to take your chances even if it means you die for the dog. That is a rare choice.”
She was no longer crying, and she didn’t look at him. He sighed, remembering all of the comfort he had taken in her once, and then he started the truck and turned on the lights and pulled away. The dog stood in the middle of the road behind them. When it became evident that they were leaving, the dog began to howl. Ridley winced at the mournful sound. He felt as if the dog knew that she had made a choice and that she now regretted the one she had made.
He hoped that the dog’s memory was not long.
49
Mark was told to wait in the sheriff’s office, and when Blankenship finally entered he was carrying two cups of coffee. He handed one to Mark without a word. The dynamic between them had shifted dramatically but Mark couldn’t say why. The discoveries in the trailer meant plenty to Mark, but he had expected an uphill battle to convince Blankenship of that.
“When we have anything from that scene, I’ll let you know,” Blankenship said. He drank his coffee for a few seconds. The door was closed and it was quiet in his office.
“Before you talk,” he said, “I probably should. I was pulled from Sarah’s case once, and if we went by the book, you shouldn’t be talking to me.”
“My time in Garrison hasn’t been very by-the-book so far.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” Blankenship took his hat off and tossed it onto an empty chair beside the desk. His gray hair was thin. “Here’s what you should know, at least in my judgment, before you talk to me about anything related to Sarah Martin. That girl haunts my dreams, Novak. She and her mother both.”
He’d been staring at his hat, but now he moved his eyes back to Mark.
“I knew Diane and Sarah and Richard—that was Sarah’s father—through church. Richard died in a car wreck when I was still working road duty. One of the worst I’ve ever seen. I drew the job of notifying the family.” His voice thickened and he cleared his throat. “I stayed in touch a little. But with distance, you know. There’s a job involved, and there’s a respect involved. Both of them mattered to me. Both still do.”
He seemed to be waiting on a challenge over that. Mark didn’t offer one.
“You mentioned Julianne Grossman,” Blankenship said. “I’ve never laid eyes on her. I know that Diane went to see her for help with insomnia after Richard was killed. I didn’t really like that, to tell you the truth. Whole thing just seemed strange to me. Maybe I’m not much of a modern thinker, I don’t know. But back then I didn’t have as close of a relationship with Diane, and so I didn’t say anything. Later…later I told her not to go back. I told her to go to a real doctor and get herself some pills. Same kind that eventually killed her.”
He made himself look Mark in the eye when he said that. All Mark could do was nod. Blankenship returned the gesture. “So you understand that part. Okay. Time went on; I started to see Diane a little more. I was always real conscious of Sarah because I’d known her daddy and I knew what she’d gone through and I didn’t want…” He hesitated. “I didn’t want to infringe on that, you understand? I felt like her father, dead or alive, still had some jurisdiction.”
He ran his big hand over his eyes. A quick pass.
“That cave opened up for business sort of in the middle of all this. People thought it was a big deal, there was some excitement around here about it. I’ve never liked tight places. But Sarah? She was fifteen at the time, and she was real interested. When they opened up the tours, we all went down and took one together. I wish you’d seen her that day.” He shook his head at the memory. “The way a place can affect two people so differently, it’s really something. I couldn’t get out of that cave fast enough. You’d have thought she wanted to move in.
“The next summer, she wanted a job but didn’t want to work at a restaurant or behind a cash register. I’d just heard this when I went out to talk to Pershing MacAlister about some issues at that cave. He had complaints about the locals, people vandalizing the cave, sneaking i
nto it; he wanted me to cooperate with the newspaper and say we were watching the place. Spread the word. What I did then, well, I good-old-boy’d it, plain and simple. Asked whether there might be a summer job available. Man needed my help, and I asked him for a favor. You might not believe it, but I didn’t often do those things.”
Mark believed it.
“So Sarah got the job, and it was all my doing, ain’t that something to consider? She never applied for it, never knew it existed. Never would have been down there again, probably. People would say it was such a small thing, getting a teenager a job, but I knew what I was doing. Using my position to get Sarah what she wanted, because Diane was what I wanted. I wasn’t doing police work. Maybe you pay for choices like that. I just never could have imagined the ways.”
His phone rang and he silenced it with one touch and without a glance. He drank some coffee and cleared his throat again. He had stopped looking at Mark.
“Things went fast between Diane and Pershing. That’s all that need be said about that. It isn’t my business, what happened between them. I told Diane that then, and I’m telling you now. The engagement happened, and I…I had to get used to another change in jurisdiction then. Diane and Sarah, they weren’t…” He had to work to get the next words out: “They weren’t in mine anymore. And that…that was a hard summer for me. Then came September, and the call came in, and that was the worst day of my life. Because I knew. Even while I was arranging the searches and telling Diane not to worry, I knew we weren’t going to be finding Sarah alive. Don’t ask me how. Sometimes you know.”
He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them and spoke again.
“I sent Ridley Barnes in. You already asked me about it, and I walked out of here after you asked and drank whiskey for the first time in probably fifteen years. I sent Ridley in. Pershing tried to warn me that Ridley was not right, that he had mental issues, but I also had the caving people telling me they needed someone who knew the cave, and so I made the call. I believed it was the right thing, then. I’ve thought a lot about it, and I truly don’t think I was trying to overrule Pershing. I hope to God that I wasn’t. I couldn’t live with myself if I believed that. Hell, I don’t know, you can judge me how you want, and one day God will judge me in the way that counts, and I’ll know then, won’t I?”
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