The Ridge

by Michael Koryta

  “Mrs. Clark,” he said, “I intend to let my department handle this investigation in the standard fashion. It’s not my job to interview you, and I won’t, though I’m damned tempted. I’m here for two reasons. The most important is out of respect for my deputy, who’s being zipped into a body bag right now. The other? I want you to know that this property is going to be closed.”

  “What does that mean?” Audrey said. “Closed?”

  “It means I will see this place shut down and your cats gone.”

  She stared at him. In her hands was a cup of tea the other officer had insisted on making for her. He was looking at the floor now.

  “I’ve tolerated this circus when I shouldn’t have,” the sheriff said. “I’ll carry that guilt for a long time, believe me. But in the last two days, two men have died because of your damned cats. If you think I won’t respond to that—”

  “Someone shot Kino,” she said. “Your own officers found a bullet. They didn’t want to talk to me about it, but I know what it means. Someone came out here and shot one of my cats, and my best friend left in this world died trying to help. I know you just lost one of your own, and I’m sorry. But you need to remember that I’ve lost one of mine, too!”

  Her voice was shaking, and the sheriff looked at her without a trace of emotion. When he spoke again, his voice was flat.

  “It’s my understanding that the USDA handles your permitting.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “And the permits are in order. They approved the new facility before—”

  “They’ll be coming back out,” he said. “Along with some folks from the state wildlife agency. Along with whoever the hell else I need. I’ll find whoever it takes, and I’ll come with them.”

  The door opened again, and another cop stepped through. She recognized this one. Kimble. The sheriff glanced at him, then turned back to Audrey.

  “You can’t shut it down,” she said. “There are more than sixty cats who need—”

  “I have no interest in the needs of your cats. I have interest in the public safety of Sawyer County. You have every right to object, and I’m sure you will. I’m just telling you the score. Don’t say you were blindsided. I intend to get these cats out of my county.”

  She didn’t respond.

  “As for the missing cat,” he continued, “I intend to find it. I’m having poisoned bait traps placed along the riverbed right now.”

  “You can’t poison—”

  He held up a hand. “You lost him, Mrs. Clark. You couldn’t handle him. When he was on your property, he was yours to care for. When he’s loose? He’s mine. I’m not worried about the cat’s health. I’m worried about the public’s.”

  “Good luck getting him,” she said softly, and he flushed with rage, was halfway to a blustering response when she said, “No—I mean it. Good luck.”

  He stared at her, then turned away. Said something low to Kimble and banged open the door and went outside.

  “He’s hurting,” Kimble said, crossing the room to sit beside her. “We all are.”

  “I understand that.”

  “He’s also not wrong. Things are getting out of hand here. Do you have anyone you can contact, Mrs. Clark? Anyone who can come out here and lend some… some expertise? Experience?”

  “Joe Taft,” she said. Joe owned an enormous rescue center in Indiana, the model for her own facility. Joe was as good with cats as anyone other than Wesley Harrington.

  “How soon can he get here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, find out. And in the meantime, who can you have here that you trust? Really trust.”

  My husband, she thought. Wes, she thought. Gone, and gone. She blinked back tears and said, “Dustin Hall is the only person qualified. Dustin and I can keep things going alone. It won’t be easy, but we can do it. I have volunteers who usually help, but right now… right now it’s probably a bad idea to have too many people out here.”

  “I won’t disagree,” Kimble said, and then looked up at the older deputy and said, “Rick, can we have a minute?”

  The deputy nodded and left and then it was just the two of them. Kimble waited until the door was closed, then said, “I’d like to hear about the blue light.”

  She stared at him. When she’d told the story the first time, all she’d seen was loathing and pity from the listeners. Why tell it again, to another person who wouldn’t believe her?

  “I thought I saw one,” she muttered, and was ready to leave it at that until he spoke.

  “Was it a torch? A flame?”

  She set the tea down. “Yes. It was a flame. Not just a light, but a flame. How did you know?”

  He didn’t answer that, just asked another question.

  “You thought it led you to the body, is that correct?”

  “Not exactly. I saw it and was walking toward it. I wanted to see who it was. I hadn’t made it far before I heard Ira.”

  Kimble nodded. “You didn’t see the cat attack him, though. Or hear anything that sounded like that?”

  “No. I was asleep. I woke up because the cats got agitated. I came outside and they were all standing up against the fences. Watching something. Watching that light.”

  “When you saw the cougar, Pete was already dead.”

  “I think so. There was so much blood. And he didn’t move. Yes, he was dead.”

  “Was the cat showing interest in the body?”

  “Interest?”

  He nodded.

  “Ira was just… standing over it. On it. The way they do when they’re protecting a kill.”

  “All right.” Kimble reached out and touched her leg gently. “I’m sorry for your loss, too. It’s easy for us to forget about that, tonight. Please understand.”

  “I do.”

  He stood up. “I’ll be handling the investigation. Both of the investigations. If you need anything, ask for me directly, would you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think it’s very important that you get someone out here,” he said. “Right now there are police all over. But when they leave, you’re alone?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “When they leave, you’re alone?” he repeated. He looked extremely concerned at the idea.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And you can’t leave, yourself,” he said, almost as if he were thinking aloud. “You can’t leave the cats.”

  “Someone has to be with them. At this point, I’m it.”

  He nodded sadly. “All right. Who can you call to be with you? Someone you trust. A friend, family. I’m asking you, please, not to be here alone.”

  His voice was so grave that it frightened her. She said, “I’ll call Dustin in the morning. He can be here with me.”

  “Please do.”

  He went to the door, then stopped with his hand on the knob and stared out the window. He was looking, she realized, up at the hill across the road, where the lighthouse stood in darkness.

  “You had some altercations with Wyatt French, didn’t you?”

  “Altercations?”

  “Disputes. I know he was arrested for disrupting a meeting about this place.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did he ever make it clear why he didn’t want you here?”

  She frowned. Why in the world were they talking about Wyatt French?

  “He couldn’t make anything clear. When he wasn’t drunk, he was crazy.”

  “Sure. But what did he offer? What reasoning?”

  “He said it was a dangerous spot,” she said. “That was about it. When we complained about the light, he wasn’t very happy. Then David died, and he wrote me a letter proving his point.”

  Kimble turned. “A letter?”

  “It was a Hallmark sympathy card, came in with all the others. Just not so sympathetic. He said how sorry he was, but then said that we’d brought it on ourselves. How very kind, don’t you think?”

  Kimble looked thoughtful. He said, “W
hen you complained about the light, he had to change it, didn’t he? Reduce the brightness.”

  “Yes. It was terrible before that. These blinding flashes.”

  “When your husband died… where in the process was that?”

  “What do you mean, process? Why are we even talking about this?”

  “I’m just trying to understand which light was up then. The old or the new.”

  “Neither of them.”

  He looked at her in an odd way. “Neither?”

  She shook her head. “That was when he was changing to the dimmer lamp. I guess it required wiring changes, because he wanted us to pay for that. We declined. For a few days there, it was dark. He didn’t waste much time, though.”

  “No,” he said in a detached voice. “He went as fast as he could.”

  29

  THE SHERIFF WAS WAITING for Kimble outside. He’d taken the Stetson off and was rubbing his eyes. When Kimble came down the steps, he put the hat back on. Kimble could see that his hand was wet with tears.

  “Pete Wolverton,” Troy said, “was one of the best we had.”

  “None better.”

  “Long time with us, too. Lot of good years. Lot of good work.”

  Kimble nodded.

  “Nobody’s called Julie,” Troy said. Julie was Wolverton’s wife. They had two children, both teenagers, and Pete was one of those dads who liked to show you pictures of the kids.

  “I’ll go see her,” Kimble said.

  “No. That’s my job.” Troy took a deep breath, spat, and shook his head. “I was hard on that woman in there, and maybe I ought not to have been. I’m standing out here looking at these cats and thinking that she’s all alone with them.”

  “She is now,” Kimble said. “Lost her husband a few months back. Lost her friend, who was the man who kept this place going, yesterday. She’s hanging in there and taking punches the likes of which we never have. Or I never have, at least. Be a worthy thing to remember.”

  Troy nodded. “I know it. I came out here, I was just feeling sick, you know? Empty sick, the useless kind. And I got worked up telling myself that I wouldn’t be useless. I’d answer for him somehow. The only idea I had was to clear them out of here, every last one of them, and thought that would be worth something. I still think that it is.”

  “I don’t,” Kimble said.

  Troy looked at him with surprise.

  “They’ve had this preserve going for a long time,” Kimble said. “Never an incident. Not until they came here.”

  “Been a lot of incidents since.”

  “There have been. I intend to find a way to handle it, Troy. I do. But let’s not allow ourselves to blame the wrong party. I was with her most of the morning. That’s a brave woman.”

  “I don’t blame her, Kimble. It might have sounded as such, but I don’t blame her. I blame that damned cat. And while I don’t like any of them here, the one that’s free is the one we’re going to need to deal with first. Going to need to find that cat and kill it. That’s the only thing. I’m thinking poison bait traps. Spread ’em out all along the river down there.”

  “And what if somebody’s dog gets into them, or, hell, a kid?”

  “A kid’s going to eat a bloody piece of raw meat? Any kid that does that is one I’d put on the scorecard as points in our favor. Won’t have to arrest him for some fucked-up shit ten years from now.”

  Kimble couldn’t help but smile at that.

  “We’ll figure out a way to get him,” he said. “But even if the cat did kill Pete, you’ve got to remember that it was recently a wild animal and still has a hunter’s blood. Not much Audrey Clark, or anyone else, can do about that.”

  Troy tilted his head and stared at Kimble. “Did I hear you say if?”

  Kimble glanced to his left, where the crime-scene lights glared in the woods, and said, “Troy, I’ve seen the body. I’d wager my last dime that when the medical examiner is done, he’ll say Pete’s throat was cut.”

  Neither of them spoke for a long time. When Troy finally broke the silence, he said, “She saw the cat with him, Kimble. She saw it.”

  “After Pete was dead. She did not see it bring him down.”

  “You’re telling me you think someone came out here and cut his throat tonight. You’re serious.”

  “I am. We’ll see what the autopsy says. The tiger that was shot out here yesterday? That was not a case of the property manager trying to put down a wild cat. Someone else took that shot.”

  “I know that, Kimble. I read your report, and Mrs. Clark was in there carrying on about it just a minute ago. I understand it’s a crime. But there’s a damned big difference between someone taking a pot shot at a tiger and someone cutting a policeman’s throat.”

  Kimble took a breath, looked Troy in the eye, and said, “I’m going to ask you for some leeway on this.”

  “What do you mean, Kimble?”

  “Give me twenty-four hours on my own with it. No reports, nobody riding with me, no meetings. Just give me a day of space to work.”

  “If you’ve got notions on who did this,” Troy said, “I need to hear them.”

  “Twenty-four hours,” Kimble repeated. “You give me that, sir, and I’ll give you every notion I’ve got. If you don’t like them, and you probably won’t… well, we’ll deal with that then. But let me run with it, sir.”

  Troy looked at him for a long time, and then he said, “We’ve been working together for too damn long, Kimble, for you to call me sir.”

  “I know it. But this just feels a little different, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Troy said. “It sure as shit does.”

  They walked together back to Troy’s car, and Kimble put out his hand and squeezed the sheriff’s shoulder and wished him luck. There was nothing false in the gesture. They had their differences, in demeanor and approach, but Kimble did not envy the man the trip he was about to make to see Julie Wolverton, and he was proud of him for making it.

  When the sheriff was gone, Kimble waited until they removed Pete’s body. He stood with head bowed as they carried it past, and then, when the others were either gone down the road or back in the woods, he got into his own car and drove across the gravel and up the winding lane until he reached the top of the hill and the lighthouse rose like a menacing specter in the night, white paint and glass picking up the pale moon glow and holding the tower stark against the night sky. Kimble parked outside the fence and left the car running, the headlights aimed at the front of the building, then found the keys to the property. He stepped out of the car and unlocked the gate and went up the path to the lighthouse, opened the door, and stepped inside the cold room. The walls were bare wood now, unadorned by the maps and photographs. All that remained was the thumbtacks, which protruded in all directions, tilting like gravestones in a forgotten cemetery.

  “Okay,” Kimble said. “I’ve heard enough and seen enough to give it a shot, Wyatt. I’ll give it a shot.”

  He crossed to the bed, leaned over it, and opened the electrical panel. There was a series of metallic snaps as he flipped the breakers. No lights came on, but he heard a hum.

  He closed the panel door, looked at the words that covered it, those song lyrics:

  And the sky’s so cold and clear

  The stars might stick you where you stand

  And you’re only glad it’s dark

  ’Cause you might see the Master’s hand…

  He turned away, then used the flashlight to find his way up the stairs. There he dropped to one knee, reached out, and laid a palm over the lens of the infrared lamps. Warm. They were back on, casting their invisible beams into the woods.

  He straightened, turned off the flashlight, and looked at the fractured glass panel left from the killing bullet. He thought of a line he’d read long ago: It was no accident that most people who committed suicide with a gun chose to shoot themselves in the head and not the heart. It was there that they were plagued, haunted, tormented.

&nbs
p; He stared out at the dark hills through the wide glass panes, thinking of all the stories he’d heard today. Even in the night, you could see the outline of the railroad trestle, spindly silhouettes over a river that shimmered beneath the moon.

  Twenty-four hours, he’d told the sheriff, and then he’d share his thoughts. They were thoughts that might well cost him his badge. What he was coming to believe was likely impossible to prove.

  But he’d be damned if he wouldn’t try.

  30

  THE WHITMAN COLLEGE LIBRARY was open until Christmas Eve, but with classes already out of session for the semester there was hardly a student or faculty member to prowl the shelves. Roy met the librarian at the door as she unlocked the building, and his presence gave her a start. It was well past dawn but barely light, the sun hidden by layers of leaden clouds. They were predicting snow, the season’s first chance of accumulation.

  Roy was vaguely acquainted with the librarian who greeted him—her name was Robin and she’d helped him out with a few bits of research over the years—and that was both reassuring and a little troubling. She’d be good to him, he knew, but she might also have questions that he wasn’t prepared to answer.

  She led with a question, in fact. As Roy showed her the photographs and explained that he was hoping to find the source, she asked immediately what he was working on, now that the newspaper was closed.

  “Looking for that next step,” he said. “You know, maybe a book or something.”

  “I think that would be just great,” Robin said in the tone of voice you used when a toddler announced his intention to learn to fly a plane. Or, in Roy’s experience, when damn near anyone announced their intention to write a book. “We’d hate to lose you from town, you know.”

  “I don’t think it’s in me to leave, even if I wanted to. Still stories to tell, too. I suppose I’ll turn into an old man sitting on a liar’s bench, passing my news along that way.”

  “You could start a blog,” she said cheerfully and seriously, and the word stirred bile in Roy’s stomach.

  “I could,” he said. “Now, it looks to me like these are microfilm printouts. But they aren’t from my paper.” Even now, he couldn’t get that out of his system. My paper. “I was thinking that there was a predecessor to the Sentinel. Very old. Back when the town was still in mining-camp days.”