by JoAnn Chaney
“It usually is faster to hike downhill, but there’s no defined trail that comes down here, so we’re forced to break our own path. Plus, the way the mountain is formed forces us to take a more extended route. There’s really only one way to come down off a cliff faster,” the ranger said. She paused, looking embarrassed. “Sorry. Talk about putting my foot in my mouth.”
At first he was confused by her apology, then he understood. Because it had been much faster the way Marie had come down, straight down, she’d hit the bottom in a matter of seconds.
They hiked on. The river encroached upon the trail in the last thirty minutes, not so much becoming a part of the landscape but taking it over completely, as if the water were a living thing. And it was—it chuckled and burbled in some parts, roared furiously in others, but even in the calmest spots none of them approached the shore to cup water in their hands to splash on their foreheads, or to soak a bandanna in to press against the backs of their necks. Matt knew why. Because Marie was in the water. A dead woman was floating in there.
“Here we are,” the ranger said, unloading his pack from his shoulders and dropping it on the rocks with a sigh, and it took Matt a moment to process, to take his brain off autopilot and blink the sunshine out of his eyes. Barely midmorning, but it felt like a week had passed since he’d climbed out of bed. He was stuck in a daze brought on by the sun and the heat and his aching muscles, but mostly it was the fear. He could understand how deer froze in the sight of oncoming headlights, because that’s how he felt now. Like an animal waiting to be run down in the road. “What a hike. I guess I can skip the gym today.”
Matt looked up, shading his eyes with the flat of his hand, and there was the cliff far above their heads, the spot where Marie had stood less than twenty-four hours before. The edge where he’d crawled and peered over. It looked so much different from down here—the cliff seemed almost close, as if it wasn’t that high at all, but when he’d hunched over the edge the night before it’d seemed like he was looking down into a dizzying eternity. They were standing in the shadow of the cliff now, the rock on their right and the river on their left, the cliff forming a ceiling above their heads as it sloped out, and it felt more like a shelter than a terrifying drop-off. Comforting instead of scary, but it was all perspective.
“Spread out along the shore,” the cop said. “From any point off that cliff she would’ve fallen directly into the river, so we’re going to start our search in this area. Everyone will take ten-yard segments along the shore and look. Water level’s running higher than usual and visibility is low, but there’ll be some boats heading down this way soon to help, and they’ll be able to get out toward the middle where it’s deep. Bodies sink like rocks, so chances are that she’s somewhere in this immediate area and hasn’t moved far. You got that, Mr. Evans? Evans, you got me?”
The cop came over and clapped a hand on Matt’s shoulder, making him jump.
“Yeah, I got it,” Matt said. The cop nodded and walked the few yards back to the river’s shore, but Matt didn’t move from his spot beside the sheer wall of rock. He was still looking straight up, at the spot from which Marie would’ve fallen. Tried to picture her tumbling from that faraway edge, nothing but a shadow hurtling through the dusky sky. He almost laughed then, but turned it into a cough, smothered into his hand.
“Evans?” the cop said. He sounded impatient. “You okay to join us?”
Matt nodded slowly. There was the river behind him, churning furiously, and the cliff over his head.
“Do you think it’s possible my wife might have survived?” he asked, looking from the cliff to the water and then back again. He’d heard someone call it a precipice. Marie would’ve liked the word, he thought. “Maybe she managed to get to the shore and wandered off into the woods?”
The cop stared.
“It’s a possibility,” he said. “But highly unlikely based on how fast the water’s moving. If she survived the fall it would’ve swept her along pretty quick, and most likely drowned her. I’m sorry, but even the strongest swimmer would have a tough time making it out of there.”
Matt slowly went to the river’s edge and pretended to peer into the water, but he really wasn’t seeing anything. He couldn’t see anything, not with the silvery glint off the ripples blinding him.
Marie had always been strong, he thought, but he would never have called her a strong swimmer. She never would’ve made it out of the frothing, hungry pull of the river. The cop was right. He had to be. Marie was dead. His wife was dead.
But if that were the case, why did Matt taste blood in his mouth, metallic and strong, the same taste he remembered having when Janice died, and all those days Detective Reid had come to the hospital and questioned him for hours? He hadn’t had that bitterness on his tongue once in the years since then, until now, but he found it was like riding a bicycle—you never forget what fear tastes like.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
1995
Every time Detective Reid showed up at the hospital—and he’d come by every day for a week, stopping in for hours at a time to ask questions—the nurses brought him three containers of apple juice, the kind that come in the clear plastic cups with the peel-off foil lids. Matt wondered how anyone could stand to drink yellow liquid from a plastic cup in the hospital—it looked so much like a urine sample that his throat seized up tight every time he saw one—but Reid liked it. He worried off the foil lid with bent, arthritic fingers and then slurped noisily at the opening, his purple, livery lips flapping.
My throat’s so dry it’s burning, he said as he finished each juice, then burped wetly into the back of his hand. Not used to all this yapping anymore.
It had been a week since Matt was checked into the hospital, had the gunshot wound in his shoulder stitched up, and was treated for the minor burns and smoke inhalation he’d suffered from the fire. Anyone else would’ve already been released and sent home, but they thought Matt was a killer, that he’d put a bullet in his wife’s head and burned her body to nothing, and they were going to keep him in here until they proved it. Better to be shut up in a hospital than in jail, Matt thought. Better appreciate it while it lasted, because one day Reid would come in and read him his rights, officially place him under arrest.
“Don’t waste any of that juice on me today,” Reid said to the nurse as he dropped down into his chair with a sigh and pulled off his hat. “I won’t be here long enough to get thirsty.”
“You’ve got somewhere more important to be?” Matt asked jokingly. The old man was a cop and Matt was a suspected killer, but that hadn’t kept a sort of friendship from springing up between the two of them.
“Actually, I do,” Reid said. “And so do you.”
So it was happening, Matt thought. Reid had finally found something that tied Matt to the murder, or Matt had slipped up somewhere during the hours of questions and now it was over. Any minute now the cop who’d been stationed outside his door day and night would come in and slap handcuffs on his wrists, and Matt would spend the rest of his life in prison. A wife killer, that’s what he’d be called. He’d never survive. He wasn’t strong or tough enough. He’d be dead in a week.
“Where am I going?” Matt asked, his voice catching. Reid heard it and his head ticked slightly to one side. He was still watching, Matt realized. Waiting for something, like a cat sitting outside a mouse hole. You might think the cat was sleeping, but all you had to do was take a look at that tail, twitching and alive, and you’d know different. A cat was alert and patient. So was Reid. One of Matt’s hands was tucked under the blankets and he dug his nails into his thigh, trying to keep himself calm. Reid’s gaze flickered down—he’d caught the movement under the bedding—and then back up to Matt’s face.
“You’re going home,” Reid said. “Well, not home, since there’s nothing left of it. But to a motel nearby, at least until you find a more permanent situation.”
“I’m not under arrest?” Matt said before he could control himself.
Reid was amused.
“No, not today,” he said. “An arrest was made last night. Looks like we found the man who killed your wife.”
“A man?” Matt said blankly.
“Yes,” Reid said. “You said a man broke into your home and attacked the two of you, shot you as you escaped. Or is that not the way you remember it now?”
“Yeah, that’s what happened,” Matt said quickly. Too quickly, maybe—he saw a frown flicker across Reid’s face and then disappear. “Do you know who he is?”
Reid reached into his jacket and pulled out a notepad without looking away from Matt.
“Jesse O’Neil,” he said.
“Janice’s boss? Is that who you mean?”
“Yeah, that’s him,” Reid said. “He’s been in this same hospital for the last week—east wing, though, other side of the place—recovering from what seems to be a self-inflicted bullet wound.”
“What?”
“Mr. O’Neil was found on the side of the road a mile north of your place, about six-thirty on the same morning you were attacked,” Reid said. “He would’ve died, but the woman who found him had medical training in the military and managed to help him. And he’s made it through, even though he’d shot himself in the head. The gun was found nearby. Our ballistics department took a look for me, said the bullet that went through your shoulder almost definitely came from that same gun.”
Matt’s fingers sunk deeper into his thigh. He’d never broken a bone as a kid, never fell out of tree or even had the wind knocked out of him, so when that bullet tore into his flesh it was like nothing he’d ever felt before. His shoulder burned now with the memory.
“O’Neil made it through surgery and is awake,” Reid said. He dug around in his pocket and brought out a cough drop. “Confused and groggy, but awake. And as soon as he was conscious he was placed under arrest for murder. But I’d like to hear it from you. Was it Mr. O’Neil who attacked you that night?”
“I—” Matt paused. His heart was pounding so fast and hard, it was all he could seem to hear, roaring through his head like a storm, and he was sure Reid must hear it, too, because the old man was staring at him strangely. “I don’t know. I never saw his face. It’s a blur.”
Reid nodded and sighed, bit down hard enough on the cough drop so it shattered in his mouth. A shard of it went flying from between his lips and skittered across the floor, landing somewhere beneath the bed.
“O’Neil was found covered in blood—his own, and what we’re assuming is your wife’s. And some of their coworkers have come forward and said O’Neil had a crush on Janice. You might even call it obsession. Nothing good ever comes from obsession. Look what came out of it this time.”
“Obsession,” Matt muttered.
“The evidence against O’Neil is damning,” Reid said, standing. His knees popped as he rose. “So you’re free to go, Mr. Evans. I’m very sorry about what you’ve been through, and the loss of your wife.”
“Thank you.”
Reid made it to the door before he hesitated and turned back.
“So by all accounts, Jesse O’Neil is obsessed with your wife,” he said. “And he gets it into his head that he has to have her. I’ve seen it plenty of times before. So O’Neil breaks in and attacks the two of you, and kills Janice. But you get away, so he sets the house on fire and runs. Finds himself alone in a field and puts the murder weapon up to his head and pulls the trigger. It’s a story we’ve all seen on the news before. Easy to follow, easy to swallow, like I say. Like something straight out of a storybook. Like it’d been written and then performed perfectly.”
“Performed,” Matt repeated softly.
“You’ve been to some shows, right? Your wife did some work with the university’s theater, didn’t she?” Reid asked.
“Yes.”
“I thought I saw that in the file.”
Reid went to the door, wrapped his fingers around the handle but didn’t turn it. Instead, he looked back at Matt.
“If someone wants to kill themselves with a gun, do you know how they typically do it?”
“No.”
“They’ll put it here,” Reid stuck out his pointer finger, miming a gun, and pushed it against his chest, right where his heart would be. “I’ve seen that. Or they’ll put the barrel against their temple, or stick the damn thing in their mouth. But O’Neil didn’t shoot himself in any of those places. He stuck the gun here.”
Reid pushed his finger against a spot just behind his left ear, pointing up toward the ceiling.
“It’s an awkward spot to shoot yourself,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s even more awkward because O’Neil is right-handed, so he most likely would shoot with that hand. But he was shot behind his left ear. It’s almost like someone came up behind him and was trying to catch him off guard, ended up getting in a sloppy shot but still tried to make it look like a suicide.”
“Oh.”
“My boss is up to his usual shit and wants this case closed,” Reid said. “Easy to follow, easy to swallow, that’s practically that fool’s motto. He’s convinced O’Neil did it, tried to kill himself, and botched it. But do you know what I think?”
“What’s that?” Matt asked weakly.
Reid sighed and pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, mopped his nose with it, then tucked it away. Brought out another cough drop and took his sweet time unwrapping it. Maybe Reid didn’t know what to say and he needed the time to think. Or maybe he just wanted to let the sweat build up under Matt’s balls.
“I think you’re a goddamn liar,” Reid said.
Then he pulled open the door and left.
LIKE A RECORD BABY
CHAPTER NINETEEN
August 30, 2018
The men stood on either side of the river, gazing into the water. Some of them had long sticks and poked them down into the rocks and sand, prodding at the bottom. They’d tried to use a boat, but the water was running too high and strong to make it worthwhile. There’d been enough rainfall over the state in the last three weeks, there wasn’t a single body of water not over capacity, and the risk of losing a member of the team was too great.
“No one seems in much of a hurry,” Detective Marion Spengler commented. She’d forgotten her sunglasses, and the light glinting off the surface of the water was playing hell on her eyes. “Does everyone usually move this slow?”
Jackson, the man in charge of the search team, looked at her in surprise.
“I didn’t think we had a deadline,” he said. “She’s not gonna get any more dead, you know.”
Spengler sighed. It was true, the dead stay dead, but she still didn’t understand the leisurely way the men moved as they searched for the body of Marie Evans. She had several photos of Marie saved on her phone, mostly scrounged off her online social media accounts. She was a striking woman, but you wouldn’t call her beautiful. Brown hair cut to frame her heart-shaped face, perfect smile. Bright, intelligent eyes. She wouldn’t look so nice once they hooked her out of the river.
The search team was laughing and joking with each other, taking frequent breaks to grab sweating bottles of water from the cooler that’d been dragged down to the shore. The whole thing seemed more like a summer party than a search for a dead woman. If there were a few inner tubes floating in the water and a barbecue grill going, that’s exactly what it’d be. But maybe this was how things always were and she just didn’t know it. She’d worked so long in Sex Crimes that she might’ve become insulated from the process in every other department.
“Can I ask you a question?” Jackson said. He was wearing a fluorescent orange vest and a baseball cap. He took off his sunglasses as they spoke and perched them on the cap’s bill, and she saw his eyes dart up and down her body. She was wearing nice linen slacks and a blouse that’d already been splattered with mud, but in her defense she hadn’t planned on driving up to Rocky Mountain National Park when she got dressed that morning. And she certainly hadn’t thought she’d be for
ced to walk down the side of a mountain, following the orange ribbons someone had tied intermittently around tree trunks so no one would get lost on their way down to the river. It was the only way to reach the cliff base unless you hopped in a canoe and floated down the river or piloted a helicopter. Oh, there was one more way to reach the spot, and that would be headfirst from the top. You’d ride the wings of gravity all the way to the bottom, 120 or so feet to the roiling waters of the Three Forks River. That’s how Marie Evans had come down. Headfirst. The short, fast way.
“Go for it.”
“Why’d you wear those shoes? Didn’t anyone warn you about the terrain out here?”
It’d taken Spengler about two hours from the parking lot to get down to this spot, and she had marched every step of it in her brown leather ballet flats, despite the dubious looks the park rangers had given her feet when she first climbed out of her car. There was hardly any traction on the soles and she’d slipped more times than she could count. And she’d fallen, mostly backward, onto her ass, but once she’d actually gone forward and had caught herself on her hands, then sat for five minutes to pick the gravel out of her palms.
Still, she had every intention of hiking all the way back up without complaint. It wouldn’t matter if her shoes were filled with blood by the time she got to her car, she’d grit her teeth and wouldn’t say a word.
“No one mentioned I’d be hiking this far.”
“You think they forgot?”
“I’m sure that’s exactly what happened.” She smiled thinly. “They forgot.”
She imagined someone could forget to mention she’d be hiking to get to the crime scene, but she was pretty sure Detective Loren hadn’t forgotten, and he’d been the one to hand out assignments that morning. He hadn’t told her to go change shoes because that was the kind of man he was. Mean as a snake, crooked as a picture hanging on a slanted wall. She had the distinct feeling he wanted to see her fail, although she couldn’t figure out why. He didn’t know her, they’d never even met before she’d joined the department. Unless Loren was one of those men who hated women solely because they were women, and it wasn’t as if she hadn’t run across plenty of those before. Law enforcement was rife with them.