by Mike Markel
Chapter 21
I wanted to die brave. I didn’t live all that brave, but if I could hang on for just a little while longer, I could go out with a little pride and dignity. One thing I was certain of: I wouldn’t ever say anything to Leonard or Ricky about them raping me. That was the only way I could communicate to them—and myself, I guess—that it didn’t happen. Or, to be more exact, that it happened but it didn’t mean anything. I didn’t make it happen. I couldn’t have prevented it or stopped it. It was on them. All on them.
It was too bad that nobody would ever see me die brave. Leonard and Ricky would, but they didn’t count. And neither of them would be able to understand it. Ricky wasn’t smart enough, and Leonard was living on his own planet, one where bravery is defined as raping a woman and bashing her skull in because you didn’t like her politics. No, nobody would know I died brave. But I would, and that would have to be enough.
We walked out of the gate. I was glad I would die outside the compound. Not that I had any positive associations with this particular parcel of the great outdoors, but I’d officially survived my imprisonment in the compound and I was headed back home.
As our six feet crunched through the pine needles, the twigs, the fragments of leaves, and all the assorted crud on the forest floor, I felt some satisfaction that I was still able to lift my legs and stagger forward. I would soon become ashes and dust, but I was going to get there under my own steam and on my own terms. I knew what the shovels were for, and I was prepared to lie down and rest.
Off to the east I spotted my big rock, the one where I’d spent part of last night. I saw the blue of my Mylar blanket and my camo backpack. I didn’t know if Leonard and Ricky had grabbed my cell phone out of it before they attacked me and brought me inside. It didn’t matter. My rapists would have to be hit by two extremely well-placed lightning bolts before I could get over to my rock and call for help. That is, if the phone was there.
I didn’t know how long we walked, Leonard in front of me, Ricky behind. It could have been five minutes or an hour. I was beyond pain, by which I mean that the pain was there, dialing in from all sectors, but I didn’t notice it. I was thinking of other things. Mostly of my sister Kathy, who I hadn’t seen in thirty years, since she ran away. She might still be alive, although chances were bad. And of Mamma, who deserved to find peace. And of my son. I wouldn’t get to see him get through the Shitty Years, maybe turn into a man, maybe learn how to be happy. I thought, too, of my partner, Ryan, who I’d never get to work with. I was crying, but I wasn’t really unhappy. I’d have to say the word was melancholy. A lot of stories I wouldn’t see finished, but it was all right. I didn’t need to see them finished, and it certainly wasn’t necessary for me to be around for any of them to finish. The river would carry me—and everyone else—wherever it would.
Leonard had stopped, but I wasn’t paying attention and walked right into him. I fell down, landing on my hip and rolling onto my stomach.
He turned around and gave me a nasty look, like I was the daughter in the back seat who wouldn’t quit being a real pain in the ass.
I was still crying, the snot flowing out of my nose pretty good. I breathed in the rich earthy smell. The earth was damp, and I turned my face back and forth to smear it with mud and the sweet-smelling little green shoots sticking out of the rotting leaves. It was cold, and I started laughing.
“How about that one?” Leonard said to Ricky. I looked up and saw Leonard pointing to a pine tree about twenty yards ahead. It looked a hundred years old, the trunk a good three feet across, and a couple of limbs more than strong enough to handle my weight.
I was still laughing and crying at the same time. “Oh, that’s a nice one, Daddy. Can you hang me on that one, Daddy? I’ll be such a pretty ornament!”
Leonard looked down at me, my face covered with dirt and leaves sticking to the snot and my scraped cheeks. He just shook his head in disappointment. I looked back at Ricky, who had put down the shovels and was tying a noose in the rope. His work was impressive. His fat fingers moved fast, like this wasn’t his first noose. He finished the knot, then tugged on it to test it.
“Right over there.” Leonard pointed to the limb.
As Ricky walked over to the tree and tossed the noose over the limb, Leonard came around behind me and lifted me by my elbows. I weigh one-twenty but I rose into the air like a toddler. He put his arm under my armpit and led me over to the limb. He held me steady while Ricky put the noose around my neck and tightened it.
“Now?” Ricky said.
“Yeah,” Leonard said, and I felt the coarse rope bite into my neck. My heels rose off the earth, then my toes. The air stopped, and I shut my eyes.
I was in the hospital, and the nurse was smiling as she put Tommy in my arms. They’d cleaned him up and he smelled like powder, but his face was red and he was screaming like he was the only one whose routine was being disturbed. I felt his arms struggling against the towels, but when I held him he began to relax, turning the screeching down a notch. I looked up at Bruce, who was smiling and crying a little. I rocked Tommy in my arms and he finally calmed all the way down. His eyes started to get heavy and he fell asleep. Bruce reached over and hugged the two of us, and I drifted off to sleep.
A growling mechanical sound came in on me from the direction of the compound. I opened my eyes as the sound separated into two. There was a low-pitched engine sound in stereo coming in from the southeast and the southwest, and a higher-pitched sound from the south. I was still suspended by the rope, my feet off the ground, and I couldn’t see too good. But I thought I saw a dog, its nose to the ground, running toward me. Right behind it, a small ATV.
“Keep going, Ricky,” Leonard said, and I felt myself rising higher into the air. As I began to pass out, I heard the voice say “Don’t stop.”
I heard the crack of rifle fire, two shots. I fell to the ground, my windpipe suddenly open as I gasped for air. I lay on my side, breathing in big gulps. I smelled a wet dog. I opened my eyes. The Reverend Barry’s hound, Jasper, was all over my face, sniffing me up and down, dropping drool on me, his tail swooshing back and forth.
The mechanical sounds had stopped. Through Jasper’s legs I could see the Reverend Barry lumbering over toward me, then veer off. I turned my head and saw him sink to the ground next to me. He was cradling Ricky in his arms. He started weeping, wailing in despair as he brushed Ricky’s hair back off his face.
I tried to sit up but fell over on my side. A few yards away, Leonard was lying face down on the ground. The frame of his silver glasses had cracked, one lens pointing up, the other out to the side.
I saw two big tan ATVs, identical, with big automatic weapons mounted on the tail. Next to the ATV to the southeast stood a man dressed completely in black from his boots to the balaclava that covered his face. An automatic rifle was slung over his shoulder. He was talking into a cell phone. From the other ATV another man came walking over to me. He was dressed in the same black uniform but his face was uncovered. I recognized the thick black beard with the red highlights.
He walked around behind me and cut the rope around my wrists. “Can you stand up, Karen?”
I don’t know if I answered him, but he lifted me up to my feet. I swayed a little, but my knees didn’t buckle. He loosened the noose and removed it from my neck. He helped support me as we walked over to his ATV.
A couple more tan ATVS came in from the east, each carrying an agent in black, pulling up next to the bodies of Leonard and Fat Ricky. Collapsing next to Nick Corelli in the seat of his ATV, I saw the other agents lifting the two bodies and placing them on the metal shelves jutting out over the engines.
As Nick started the engine, I saw Reverend Barry on his knees, his hands over his face, his body convulsing in grief.
* * * *
“How’re you feeling?”
Groggy would be the answer. I was in a hospital bed. There was an IV coming out of the back of my hand. I was on some kind of pain killers and
I don’t know what else. “Where am I?”
“You’re in the hospital in Rawlings,” Nick Corelli said. “I want to fill you in and debrief you. You up for it or you want me to come back later?”
“No, let’s do it now,” I said slowly. My mouth felt like it was full of cotton, but my head was beginning to clear a little. To my left and right, up near the head of the bed, were all sorts of machines putting out beeping sounds, the green and orange lights on the black screens confirming that in fact I was alive. I looked out through the glass wall, the blinds mostly shut, and saw an officer on duty, his back to me. Couldn’t tell who he was. Didn’t care.
“Okay,” Nick said. “You were out at Lake Hollow, at the Montana Patriot Front compound. You remember that?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Two guys were stringing you up. We took them out. Administered first aid to you at the scene, sedated you, and brought you back to Rawlings.” He was sitting in a chair, speaking kind of slowly, so I could follow it. “Took you in to the hospital, administered a rape kit, filled you with antibiotics and other good stuff, and patched you up. That’s where we are now.” I looked down at my hand with the IV. He was touching my fingers.
“You killed the two guys?”
“Yes. We announced ourselves, told them to stop. They didn’t. Standard rules of engagement.”
I didn’t remember hearing them announce themselves, but maybe I wasn’t paying full attention. “How did you know to come look for me?”
“Reverend Barry—you know who I’m talking about?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Reverend Barry was concerned that he couldn’t find Ricky. So he went over to the church building, saw that there was a door open to one of the back rooms. He called me, then communicated with his guys in the guard towers. They told him Ricky and another guy had taken you outside the compound. Reverend Barry got his dog, the bloodhound, and went over the room where they’d held you. The dog read Ricky’s scent. Reverend Barry got on his ATV and followed the dog out to where you were. I called in my squad and came in.”
“Who are you?” I said.
“Let me get one thing from you first.” I looked at him, but his face was blank. “The guy Leonard Woolsey, did he confess to the Dolores Weston murder?”
I nodded. “She was violating God’s will. And he threatened others.”
“Give you any names?”
“No,” I said. “But I’d look at a biology professor, name of Kumaraswamy. She’s sort of an employee of Henley Pharmaceuticals. And check the members of the board at the company. I’d talk to the legislators, too. If any of them were helping Weston, they might be in danger, too.”
“Okay, that’s good.”
“Now, you gonna tell me who the hell you are?”
“Pretty much who you thought I was. FBI. My name is Allan Friedman. I’m a special agent with the Domestic Terrorism Task Force. Last ten years, I’ve been tracking what we call lone offenders.”
“That’s what Leonard was?”
“That’s right. That’s what we think, anyway. Typically, these guys are associated with a militia group or a patriot group, then they break away and start working solo or with a small group of guys. The most famous one was Timothy McVeigh. You know, Oklahoma City.”
“Because the patriot group isn’t macho enough?”
“That’s usually it. The group is going too slow, or isn’t violent enough, or something like that. Sometimes it’s just a power struggle with the group leader.”
“And the Reverend Barry, he was too peace loving?”
“We’re not exactly sure. We pay particular attention to the groups with older leaders. They’re most vulnerable to either a takeover from more violent younger guys or to a lone offender who breaks away. We’ll have to talk more with Reverend Barry.”
“So the patriot leaders have your cell number?”
“We stay in touch.”
“You don’t mind that?”
He smiled, and then the smile disappeared. “The way we look at it, these groups are very adaptable. They always find a source of food and shelter. We’re not going to be able to eradicate them. So we try to work with them. It’s a symbiotic relationship. They tell us if they know about a lone offender who’s gone off the reservation. We tell them if we know about someone who’s targeting them. Guys like Reverend Barry, they understand how this works. There’s a line they can’t cross. If they want to put racist flyers under windshield wipers every few years, we explain to them why we don’t like that. If they want to kill people, we try to prevent that kind of thing.”
“Why didn’t you tell me and Ryan you were going offline?”
“Your mission and ours are a little different. Not as different as you might think. But we’re a little more big-picture than you are. The chief knew what I was doing, but everyone else was need-to-know.”
“And I wasn’t need-to-know?”
“No, you weren’t.”
“So why are you talking to me now?”
“I really shouldn’t be, but you enabled us to tamp this thing down.” He paused. “And you … you paid a price.”
“You’re not afraid I’m gonna go to the newspapers or anything?”
“When you have a chance to process everything that’s happened, I think you’ll understand why that wouldn’t be helpful. You might not agree with our methods, but I owed you an explanation,” he said. “I’m willing to take a chance.”
“How are you gonna deal with Ricky and Leonard?”
“Haven’t decided yet on Ricky. Reverend Barry is real upset that we killed him. The Reverend and his wife had taken the kid in when he was real young. He had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and nobody would touch him. But Barry and his wife did what they could with him. So we’re going to have to think about that one.”
“And Leonard?”
“Leonard Woolsey died in a traffic accident. Alcohol related.”
“So, him raping Dolores Weston, then me. That just didn’t happen? You don’t think maybe the public ought to hear what a stand-up guy he was?”
He looked at me and nodded, like he understood. “Tagging him for the Weston murder could cause some problems. Like Ruby Ridge, which had a lot to do with Waco. If it gets out that there was federal involvement, it turns these guys into martyrs. It’s better if they just die quietly.”
So I guess I didn’t get raped after all. Neither did Dolores Weston. I could feel myself getting woozy, but I needed to know one more thing. “Willson Fredericks. He was just someone for me and Ryan to go after while you worked Reverend Barry?”
“No, not at all. We thought Fredericks might open up the Dolores Weston investigation. We were thinking it might be that guy BC from the emails.”
“But it wasn’t him.”
“Apparently not.”
“How did Fredericks die?”
“That’s a matter for local law enforcement.”
“Am I still local law enforcement?”
“That’s between you and Chief Murtaugh.”
“I missed a few AA meetings.”
“The chief might know a little more about AA meetings than you give him credit for. He’ll probably stop by a little later to talk to you.”
“You gonna be leaving Rawlings now?”
“Good luck, Detective.” He squeezed my hand. “And thank you.”
* * * *
Gun Mishap Claims Life
Lake Hollow, Montana, May 14—Richard Sidoway, 19, died Thursday of a wound he received when his rifle accidentally discharged while he was cleaning it.
At the time of his death, Sidoway was employed by the Montana Patriot Front, where he served as a general maintenance worker. Sidoway had lived with the Reverend Christopher Barry, the president of the Montana Patriot Front, and his wife, Alice. The couple had been Sidoway’s foster parents since he was three years old.
The Reverend Barry issued a brief statement honoring his foster son as a young man who had overcome tremen
dous odds to become a productive and useful member of society. The statement included the comment that “Ricky is now at peace, sitting in the lap of his Heavenly Father, the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Tim Fleming, Sidoway’s former football coach at Powell Regional High School, spoke fondly of the young man.
“Ricky faced some challenges in the classroom, but he was always at ease on the football field,” Fleming commented. Sidoway won regional honors in his sophomore and junior years as the left tackle on the high school football team.
“Our opponents knew that they were never going to get at our quarterback from the left side, not with Ricky there,” said Fleming. Sidoway left high school during his senior year to work full time for Reverend Barry.
Sidoway was cremated Wednesday and his ashes scattered in the woods near the Montana Patriot Front headquarters, where he loved to hunt. The Reverend Barry will soon announce plans for a memorial service to celebrate Sidoway’s life, as well as creation of the Ricky Sidoway Fund to honor his foster son and promote the causes to which Sidoway devoted his energies.
Chapter 22
“Procedures call for a mandatory fourteen-day leave, as well as psychiatric consultation. I’ve already filed the paperwork and set up your first appointment with Dr. Palchik at one o’clock today. Can you make that?” The Chief was sitting at his desk.
“Yes, Chief,” I said. I’d checked myself out of the hospital after they’d kept me there overnight. They’d wanted to run a bunch of tests on my brain to see if I had anything other than a garden-variety concussion. The chief never did visit me in the hospital, like the FBI guy, Friedman, told me he might. But it was appropriate that Friedman debriefed me, since it was him, not the chief, running the Weston case. And feeling pretty crappy all over, I didn’t need the chief stopping by to ask me insincere questions about how I was doing. It was better for us to meet here in his office—just so that everyone knew our relationship was official, didn’t have any personal component.