“The lilies,” he said. “The pollen wasn’t from Vince Wynn’s.” Not fifteen feet in front of them, like a carpet beneath the tree house, was a flower bed of yellow lilies. “The body was dragged through a flower bed of lilies. Dragged up a hill-way up a hill-and dumped. Rolled off and down a scree slide into some avalanche slash at the side of the highway. The evidence we have supports that scenario. It just took us a while to piece it together. That’s what we call hard evidence.”
“Her taking off without a word. Not answering my calls. Taking the truck when that’s totally off-limits. I know her, Walt. It’s just not like her. But listen to me: she can’t take this. Do you understand? She won’t survive this. If she did this… if she’s put through something like this again… She is beyond fragile right now, has been for a long time. She’s young.”
Should he tell her again that he was no longer looking at Kira? He thought not. He sipped the lemonade to open his throat.
His ability to refrain from and resist corruption through several terms defined him. It was not only a matter of pride, but a matter of identity. So ingrained in him that to contemplate otherwise made him feel physically sick. He searched for a way to do this without doing it. To remain true to himself but to limit collateral damage. To protect and serve, he thought.
“The idea behind what I do,” he found himself saying in a whisper of a voice, “is to serve the public, to do so equally, uniformly, to treat people fairly and equally, the idea being that you make society safer. I accept that that’s a naïve attitude, but there you have it. Safe to live and work and to limit or eliminate fear. As much as it’s a cliché, fear is in fact the real enemy. Fear limits us all. The fear of illness is often much greater than the illness itself. The fear of crime is the same way. So I’m supposed to keep the crime down and to bring in those who commit crimes when they happen, and those two things are supposed to work in concert.”
“I realize how hard this must be. I’m so sorry, Walt.”
He drew in another lungful of air like it was his last. Exhaled. “Harder on you, I know. I can bend the laws, Fiona. I can’t break them.”
“Understood. And I don’t want you to have to do either.”
“It’s supposed to rain tonight,” he said.
“Walt…”
“Bear with me,” he pleaded. “A lightning strike can set an area on fire. Spark a little wildfire that burns an acre or two before help arrives. You’re pretty high here on this knoll. And you’re what, about a mile from the East Fork station house? They’d probably respond in under ten minutes. Five minutes, more like. Five minutes from the time of the call.”
“Walt?”
“The thing about a small fire like that… you’d have to have the right winds so it didn’t hit any buildings. Not much wind tonight, not at the moment, which is good. The thing about blood evidence in the wild? It stays there for a long, long time. It’s recoverable weeks, months, sometimes years later. Rain doesn’t do much to it. Snow. Ice. But wildfire… fire’s the one thing that destroys it.”
An owl screeched from deep in the woods. Bea lifted her head but thought better of it. He heard Fiona swallow and noted her lemonade was still in the drink holder.
“I see,” she said.
“It’s a two-edged sword,” he cautioned. “When a fire’s called in, of course they respond, but we do, too. We’re on the property. We have access at that point.”
“I can’t possibly do something like that.”
“Who said anything about you doing anything?” he said, as if it were the farthest thing from his mind. “It would be entirely improper for me to suggest such a thing. I was simply talking about lightning strikes in general. If a fire started out here, obviously you’d call it in. And they’d be up here quickly.” He dragged himself up out of the chair. Bea jumped to her feet.
Fiona remained seated. “I worked so hard to put all this behind me.” She spoke straight ahead as if the forest were listening.
“When the evidence firms up-and it will-we’re going to act on it. It’s what we do.”
“The thing is,” she said. “A guy like him. He ruins things forever. They talk about second chances, but there are none. People warned me, but I didn’t want to believe it.”
“Even after a fire, you put a little water on it and a forest grows back again. Sometimes prettier than it was. I imagine the same is true for flower beds.”
“Were you listening to me?” she asked caustically.
“What’s important here is whether or not you’re listening to me,” he said.
“Is that right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“What you’re asking-it’s impossible.”
“I’m not asking anything,” he said. “I thought I made that clear.”
“Telling me, asking me, whatever.”
“Shit happens,” he said.
“Do not go there. Do not even think that. That’s not you. You do something like that and it’ll be there between us forever. It won’t bind us. Don’t fool yourself. It’ll be there between us, something you’ll regret, something you’ll always hold against me. Promise me you won’t do this.”
“Focus on what we talked about.”
“I know what you’re asking. I just think-”
“Don’t think!” he said. “There’s a time for thinking and a time for doing.”
“Is that right? I don’t think so.”
“Don’t make this into something it isn’t,” he cautioned. “Remember what I said about investigations. About evidence. Striving to better, we often wreck what’s well.”
“Don’t lay that on me.”
“I didn’t lay anything on anyone. I’m paraphrasing Shakespeare: ‘oft we mar what’s well.’”
“You blame me already.”
“I don’t blame people, I arrest them, Fiona. I have no plan to make any arrests in the near future.”
“No plans right now,” she qualified.
“Right now,” he said, going along with her, “I’ve got nothing in terms of hard evidence.”
The owl called again and a coyote followed.
Chills ran up Walt’s spine.
“Feels like rain,” she said.
“I’ve got to go. I left Kevin at the house, and it’s late, even for him.”
“Too late?” she asked.
He came up behind her chair and lowered his head next to hers from behind. He kissed her on the left cheek, kept their cheeks touching until he felt the wetness of her tears. Wiped her right cheek with his thumb, pressed their heads together.
“You are not alone,” he said. “Trust that.”
She shook her head, their cheeks slapping.
“I mean it.”
She nodded, sniffling, fighting a losing battle.
“Go,” she whispered.
Walt clucked for Bea and the dog jumped up, holding obediently by his side until together they reached the Jeep.
40
Walt thanked Kevin for sitting his sleeping children, as he walked him to his car.
“How’d all that baseball bat stuff work out?” Kevin asked, as they stood outside on the front porch. The summer insects were in full throat, the smell of fresh-cut grass and burning charcoal lingering in the air. These were the nights Walt lived for, but this particular one he wished he’d never been through, his head reeling.
“Hmm?”
“El Kabob?” Kevin said, making a motion with both arms, bringing them down sharply from overhead.
Walt shuddered, wondering how he was going to handle this. Some cases go cold.
“That work is confidential, you know?” He delivered it as a rebuke, and regretted it immediately.
“Whatever. I was just asking.”
“It’s a work in progress. I appreciate your contribution.”
“This isn’t a press conference.”
“Sorry. I’m kind of preoccupied.”
“Would never have noticed,” Kevin said sarcastica
lly. He didn’t seem to want to go. It was nearing one a.m.
“Everything good?” Walt asked.
“Sure, I guess.”
“Your mother?”
“Same. A head case.”
“She means well.”
“Been thinking about asking Summer up.” There it was, the reason for his delay. Summer was a girl Walt knew well, a girl that had nearly gotten his nephew killed. And yet he liked her. They both did.
“For a visit? That’s a good idea.”
“Thing of it is, I can’t exactly ask her to stay with us. Mom has, like, totally taken over the other bedroom, and hell if I’m sleeping on the couch and parading around in my skivvies, and even if we got the other bedroom happening, there’s only the one bathroom for the two rooms, the one in the hall, and that would be, like, totally not cool.”
“She could stay here,” Walt said, knowing where this was heading.
“With the girls! Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Take care of the girls for you-we could do that together. You think? Seriously?”
“There are not a lot of high school kids who would want to stay at a sheriff’s house. You’ll want to clear it with her first. I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.”
“She doesn’t think like that with you.”
“I put her father in jail.”
“True.” It was as if he’d forgotten. “Yeah. Well. But I could ask, right? You’re offering.”
“I am.”
“It would only be a couple days. Three or four days.” He seemed to be talking himself into this, or needing encouragement.
“Long way to come for a long weekend. Ask her for the week. With your working and all, it’s not as if you’ll have a ton of time together.”
“I’m hoping I can juggle my schedule.”
“That might work.”
“Seriously, though: you don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind. Happy to do it.”
It was as if the sun had come out in the middle of the night. He smiled widely and stayed on his toes a beat longer than he had to, balancing up there, extending his arms as if he might take flight.
“Smells like rain.”
“It does.”
Walt remained on the porch and watched him drive off, waving once as a final thank-you.
As he was heading inside, his BlackBerry buzzed, announcing the arrival of a text message, a rare thing for him.
Call me when ur up-B
Walt called Brandon’s cell.
“Damn! Didn’t mean to wake you, Sheriff.”
“No, Tommy. I’m up.”
“What are you doing awake at this hour?” Brandon asked.
“I could ask the same thing.”
“You aren’t lying in a bed with a hose stuck in your chest.”
“No, but I feel like it. How you doing, other than the hose?” Walt asked.
“Appreciate your hanging around here. Gail told me.”
“Was worried about you, Tommy.”
“Doing fine. They’re going to fill up the flat tire, and I’m walking out of here. Like maybe tomorrow, if I’m lucky. Any sign of my shooter?”
“We’re on it.”
“So, nothing.”
“He took off. I’m optimistic. Forest Service is scouring the camps west of the highway below Cold Springs. Guys like this, they get in a rut. He won’t go far.”
“Smack him around for me when you catch him.”
“Yeah, that’s my style,” Walt quipped. “What’s up, Tommy?”
“Wanted you to check the property room.”
“For?”
“Not much to do here but watch the tube or stare out the window.”
“Yeah…?”
“So I was looking out the window and saw this hawk circling.”
“Tommy, I don’t mind the call, but it is late.”
“So you suppose there’s any chance that’s what the truck was about? Not a deer, but the hawk?”
Walt heard the sounds of the night like a hum in his head.
“Not sure where you’re going with this, Tommy.”
“Hawks feed on carrion. Like roadkill. Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen a wreck caused by mowing over a hawk or eagle.”
“Does that change anything?” Walt asked.
“Truck hits a hawk and skids off the road.”
“So what?” Walt asked. He checked his watch, suddenly feeling extremely tired.
“The driver knows what he hit,” Brandon said, speculating. “Maybe there’s some of it smeared on the windshield. He skids off the road, but gets out. Your witness gave us that.”
“I’m listening.” Indeed, Walt was perched forward on the edge of the bench.
“The truck, the tracks we found, had nothing to do with Gale,” Brandon proposed. “He never saw the body. His attention was on finding that bird.”
“The bird…”
“Flight feathers,” Brandon said.
“I’d like to say I’m following you, Tommy, but I’m afraid I’m not.”
“Who gives a shit about a dead bird?” Brandon asked. “Sure, maybe he wanted to go back and stomp the thing for sending him off the road like that. But I don’t think so. I think he wanted the flight feathers.”
Walt shifted the phone to his left ear. “Flight feathers,” he repeated.
“Light rack on the roof of the pickup. What kind of fool is that?”
“Search and Rescue, maybe.” Walt said, taking issue with his description. “A volunteer firefighter.”
“Or just your basic backwoods asshole.”
“Lovely.”
“A tricked-out pickup truck? A backwoods yahoo.”
“A hunter?”
“Now don’t go putting down hunters,” Brandon said.
“This is your theory, Tommy. Whatever it is.”
“Not your everyday hunter: a bow hunter.”
Walt heard himself breathing into the phone. “The feathers.”
“Dude!” Brandon said. “The hawk runs the guy off the road. Driver knows what he hit. Finds himself off-road, maybe sees the hawk flapping away in the mirror. Heads back to check out his victim-”
“Our witness confirmed that,” Walt said, recalling the woman at the nursery.
“Any bow hunter knows it’s a felony to collect feathers from a wild bird. But this one ran him off the road. This one asked for it. He isn’t about to risk the fine by taking the whole bird, but he lifts a couple feathers. Who’s going to notice?”
“You are,” Walt said.
“We can check it. Right? I collected that bird. It’s in the property room fridge.”
“So the BOLO should include an inspection of the front grille.”
“Could be easier than that. A pickup sucks a bird in the grille, it’s not going off the road. But if the bird hits the windshield, that’s another story.”
“A broken windshield.”
“A red-tailed hawk? Going fifty or sixty, it’s like hitting a freaking rock.”
“Window welders. Window repair shops.”
“A pickup with a light rack,” Brandon said. “That ought to narrow it down. We catch this guy, maybe he saw Gale, maybe not. But he’s someone we want to talk to.”
“It’ll be good to have you back,” Walt said. The first raindrops fell in huge splashes on his front walkway. Lightning flashed high in the sky to the north.
“Keep me posted, Sheriff. And just in case anyone asks: daytime TV sucks.”
“I’ll pass that along.”
Walt was at the foot of his bed. He had his shirt off and was stripping down to his shorts when he heard the distant grind of heavy machinery. Living just two blocks from the town’s firehouse, he knew exactly what it was. He crossed the room, grabbed his radio off the dresser, and called dispatch.
The fire was north. Mile 125. Cold Springs drainage. A BCS patrol had been dispatched. Walt had his pants buttoned and was reaching for his gun belt as he simultaneously called Kevin.
Fifteen minutes later, Kevin returned, wearing pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. He climbed from behind the wheel of his beat-up Subaru and passed Walt on the front porch without a word.
Walt hurried to the Jeep.
41
Pulses of blue and white lights flashed in the treetops as Walt merged the Jeep into the phalanx of fire trucks and emergency vehicles. Fiona, wearing a T-shirt and full-length pajama bottoms, stood at the door to her cottage, arms crossed against the chill. Her hair down and tousled, she looked both tired and frightened, her attention fixed up the hill where rising whiffs of smoke still faintly clouded the air. Four firemen, clad in turnouts and armed with pickaxes and shovels, were chasing down the last vestiges of fire, the buried, smoldering plant roots that could hold fire for days.
She didn’t see him arrive. But when he told Beatrice to stay, Fiona must have heard his voice and she turned toward him, her solemn expression like a veil. He took away only this: she’d heard him over the shouts and pumps and diesel engines; she’d recognized his voice with only the single word spoken. Somehow, this gave him hope.
The fire had consumed an acre of hill, singeing the bark of the fir and pine trees, destroying the flower bed where Walt had stood with her only hours earlier. It left behind a black carpet of charred pine straw and the gray ash of what had been lawn grass.
Another sheriff’s office cruiser rolled in, only seconds behind him. Two deputies: Blompier and Chalmers. They clambered out and looked to him for instruction.
“Search the main house. Confirm it’s vacant.”
He walked slowly to her, wondering what he was going to say.
“I swear,” she said, beating him to it. She hung her head, shaking it side to side. “I know how this looks, but it isn’t true.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
Lowering her voice to where he could barely hear, she said, “Tell me you’re not involved, Walt. If you did this for me-”
“Me? I’m not involved.”
“Seriously?”
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