Most mornings after Trainer had finished taking care of the dogs, he would make something for breakfast, usually scrambled eggs and bacon, or French toast—some sort of meal that required more effort than pouring cereal into a bowl. Trainer didn’t make breakfast right away that morning. Instead he pulled up a chair in the office and drank coffee with Marian and told her that the nights were getting colder and that there would be frost soon.
And Marian asked Trainer about a woman named Jamie Gabbey, and Trainer said that was one of Jenness’s friends. “She stayed on for a while, then ended up moving someplace in the Midwest.”
“Iowa,” Marian said.
“That sounds about right.”
Trainer asked Marian if she’d been following Jenness’s posts, and Marian said she had, and he said, “That’s some beautiful country.” And Marian agreed and said she’d like to visit Alaska sometime.
The conversation lulled, and because Marian was still thinking about Tate, she said, “He was a good guy, wasn’t he?”
And Trainer said he supposed he was, and that some men were hard to get to know, and that he was glad Tate and Marian had gotten to know each other.
Then he went into the kitchen and got the pot of coffee, and brought it into the office and poured them each another cup. “There was this one Christmas,” Trainer said. “Lyle was away on a study. It was just Tate and me holding down the fort, and he goes off in the woods, calls me from somewhere up in the forest. Tells me he’s cut some tree down the size of Mount Kinney. Wants me to come help him bring it back to The Den. So I go driving up this road to find him. I’ve never been to Mount Kinney, but I swear this tree was that big. So that’s what we called it. And every Christmas after I’d ask him if we were going to put up another Mount Kinney.”
And Marian imagined the whole thing and asked if Tate and Trainer had decorated the tree.
“Naw, Tate had to take off, was going back to visit his sister. But the two of us, we made our own stand. Cut up some two-by-fours. Sawed the trunk down until we could get the tree to stand up in the barn. Tate said it was really for the dogs anyway. Wanted them to have a nice Christmas.”
Trainer told Marian he’d make her some breakfast, but she said she needed to exercise the dogs and would eat later. And by the way, she said, because she’d been meaning to bring it up, had Trainer been up to the huts on the hill lately, because she’d noticed Jenness’s window was open and the screen was out. He said he’d look into it.
Marian tore out the piece of paper she’d been writing on, and flipped the other pages back over the pad, and that was when she saw the notes for the first time, in Trainer’s handwriting. There was an address for the cabin where Tate had been staying in Cusick, Washington, a small town at the foothills of the Selkirk Mountains, along with a contact name and telephone number. There was also the address for the lab back in Seattle.
Marian held up the legal pad. “Trainer, what’s this?”
He rubbed a hand over his fleshy face. “That’s just something Lyle asked me to do.”
“Asked you to do what?”
“Wants me to make a trip to Washington. Says we still got samples in a freezer over there. Needs me to ship them out to the lab. Needs me to clear out some of Tate’s things.”
“I thought Tammy did that.”
“We still got a crate up there and dog food. Things that belong to the program. Got a hunter who’s going to be wanting his cabin back soon.”
“I’m going,” Marian said. “I’m making the trip. I can do all of that.”
“Marian—”
“I’m going, Trainer. Besides, you need to stay here with the dogs.”
“Now, Marian, that’s just not happening.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause Lyle would have my ass over a pit of flaming coals, that’s why.”
“Lyle doesn’t have to know. I can be back by tomorrow. I need to do this, Trainer. You know I need to do this.”
And Trainer spent more time saying no and telling Marian that making that trip wasn’t emotionally good for her. And Marian asked Trainer if he’d ever lost someone he’d loved, and he said he’d lost a friend or two, lost a cousin also. And Marian said, “I have to do this.”
Trainer finally acquiesced and said, “Don’t go getting any crazy ideas. You’re just packing up some shit and shipping it out to the lab.”
“That’s right,” Marian said. “I’m just going over there to pack up some shit and send it to Seattle.” And then she tore off the piece of paper with the notes Trainer had scribbled down and put it in her back pocket with the other piece of paper.
Trainer told her there was an extra cooler and duct tape in the storage room in the barn. She’d need it for the samples. Then he shook his head and said he hoped he wasn’t making a mistake. He reached for some papers on the edge of Lyle’s desk and said, “You’re going to need these.” Marian tried to take the shipping form, along with the correct codes and packaging requirements from Trainer, and when she did, he held on to them a second longer. “Call me. I’ll be right here,” he said.
* * *
• • •
Marian knew it would take her almost five hours to get to the cabin in Cusick, which, if she hurried and got on the road, would put her there by early afternoon. It was crazy, when she thought about it, how many days she’d been in Tate’s old vehicle, taking the dogs on a swim, or out for an afternoon of training, or even heading into town to run errands, and she’d get the impulse to head west on Highway 2 and cross over the Idaho Panhandle into Washington. Or nights when she couldn’t sleep and she’d imagined leaving right then and arriving at first light. She’d known she’d eventually make the trip, hike to the place where Tate had last been.
Authorities had recovered Tate’s phone and turned it over to Lyle. Marian had given him the passcode so that he could download Tate’s final tracklog. Using the GIS, Lyle had created a map that showed Tate’s transect his last day. Marian had printed a copy of the map, had tried to imagine his course, imagine the things Tate had seen. She retrieved the map from her desk drawer and put it into the small hip pack she always wore into the field. She’d already made up her mind that she would hike to the location where Tate’s body had been found, and part of her wanted to camp there, unroll her sleeping bag, and lie beneath that same sky, as if in some way it would make her feel closer to Tate, and the night wind in those mountains would whisper in her ear and give her the answers to everything she wanted to know about Tate and that fateful day.
She would bring her camping supplies just in case and would make the decision once she got there. She brought her backcountry pack out of her closet and began loading it with gear: tent, headlamp, sleeping bag, hydration pack and water filter, stove, white fuel, first-aid kit, bear spray, and the only two dehydrated meals she had left: scrambled eggs and beef stroganoff. Last, she packed a few toiletries and an extra layer of clothing. She grabbed her wallet and keys and was preparing to leave when she thought of Jenness’s gun. Trainer would be checking the window and screen. Perhaps he had access to Jenness’s hut, as he’d had access to Marian’s, and she couldn’t remember if she had concealed the Glock in the heavy skeins of yarn, as it had been when she’d first found it. If Trainer saw the gun and reported it to Lyle, Jenness could at the very least be suspended from the program. The Den was university property. The same rules as those on any of the campuses applied.
Marian left her pack and climbed the hill to Jenness’s hut. Trainer was right. The mornings were turning cold, despite the hot afternoons, and would be colder in the Selkirks. She hoped she’d packed enough layers for the colder temperatures.
She raised the window on the west side of Jenness’s hut, and even before she was all the way inside, she glimpsed the black stock of the pistol in the basket. The yarn had gotten caught around the gun’s trigger and the trigger guard. Marian
untangled the yarn; she fitted the pistol in the pocket of her fleece jacket and zipped the pocket closed.
Knowing that the gun was in her pocket, in the process of climbing through the window opening, she rolled her body onto its other side and pulled herself forward, and when she did, her foot knocked against something on the table. Marian turned her head just in time to see the picture frame falling apart on the floor.
She slid into the hut once more and knelt on the floor to put everything back together, and after she’d reassembled the frame with the Alaskan image of Kesugi Ridge, she glanced up and her eyes caught something taped on the bottom of Jenness’s desk. Marian placed the picture frame on the nightstand. Then she crouched lower and looked underneath the desk. Jenness had created a pocket out of duct tape and thin cardboard, and tucked inside that pocket was a blue file folder.
Marian pulled out the folder. It was full of newspaper articles from the Stillwater murders, and pages and pages of tracklogs, and notes written on the back of an envelope that looked like some kind of cryptic shorthand, and several photographs. Marian felt an ugly hollow in the pit of her stomach, and so much silence, she could hear the air traveling in and out of her lungs. She sank against the floor, the folder open in front of her. She picked up one of the photos, a picture of Jenness with another woman. Marian recognized the woman. Melissa Marsh. Marian had memorized each of the Stillwater victims’ faces. She studied the photo: Jenness with her long braid along the side of her face, her threadbare jeans that cut below her hips, a snug tank top, her face tilted just enough that Marian could see in her eyes something tender and thoughtful and complicated and fragile. The two women were standing arm’s length apart. Jenness’s wrists hung loosely over Melissa’s shoulders, her hands in a relaxed clasp behind the nape of Melissa’s neck, her thumbs tucked into Melissa’s short, messy, straight hair, deep brown, almost black. Melissa’s hands held on to Jenness’s small hips, her thumbs lifting the hem of Jenness’s shirt enough for her fingers to spread over the dimpled curves at the base of Jenness’s back. Trainer had said that Jenness had known one of the victims, and Marian had understood that he’d been referring to Melissa Marsh, but he’d not said that the two women had been involved romantically.
In another photo, Melissa was facing forward, her chin tilted over her clavicle, her full lips pressed together, almost smiling, and those deep brown eyes looking back at the person behind the camera, with what—longing, hope.
The third photo—and this was the one that got to Marian, like a cold wind crawling over her skin and settling somewhere deep in her chest—was of Jenness and Melissa and Tate. Jenness and Melissa had their arms thrown over each other’s shoulders. Tate was sitting next to Jenness, looking somewhere off to the side. The three of them appeared to be at a restaurant, sitting together at a long table. Tate knew her, Marian thought. Tate knew Melissa Marsh. But then she reminded herself that Tate hadn’t been anywhere near the crime scenes when these women had disappeared. Still, she wondered why when she had told Tate about the pictures on Jenness’s camera, he hadn’t said anything about Jenness being a lesbian.
Marian set the photos aside and picked up one of the articles, published the year after Melissa had gone missing: Bones identified as Melissa Marsh, third unsolved murder victim. The article had been written by Ryan Schulman, the same reporter who’d been emailing Marian about the program. Marian had read all the articles on the Stillwater cases, but up until now she had not paid attention to any of the bylines. She picked up another article: Melissa’s obituary.
And then the quiet changed and Marian was aware of noises from outside the hut—birds, small animals, a squirrel jumping from one branch to another and snapping a limb, perhaps—sounds that could be Trainer on his way to check on the window. Marian quickly collected the items and closed the folder. She picked it up and carried it with her to the window. Jenness had hidden these materials for a reason, and Marian wanted to know why. As long as Trainer didn’t lock the window, Marian could return the folder before Jenness was back from Alaska. It all made sense to Marian in the moment. She climbed through the window, holding on to the folder in her right hand. And with the images from the photos fresh in her mind, she thought of Utah and Melissa’s sister, Emily, and the final conversation she’d had with Tate on the phone.
21
July 2017
MARIAN
Nokai Dome Wilderness Unit, Utah
When Marian drove out of Whitefish, Montana, in a white, full-size Ford pickup with a cap over the bed that the program had rented, Emily Marsh, a recent graduate from Montana State University, was riding with her. And in the back were two dog crates with Arkansas and Yeti, a month’s worth of dehydrated dog food, camping supplies and personal food and items, scat collection materials, and plenty of five-gallon containers of water. Not only had Lyle assigned Marian to the bighorn sheep study, he’d also wanted her to mentor Emily, who would be serving as Marian’s orienteer. Emily, who had grown up in Columbia Falls, had been assisting another conservation group out of Bozeman while finishing her degree in animal science. She’d come to Lyle looking for a summer internship.
Marian and Emily would be car camping throughout the Nokai Dome Bureau of Land Management area, over one hundred thousand acres of some of the most remote and primitive land in Utah. Except for a few short backpacking trips, they would hike into their study cells each day from the vehicle to collect scat samples from desert bighorn sheep. The contract was through Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources for the purpose of studying the population and health of the Nokai Dome herd.
The two women drove a thousand miles over two days, and during that time they talked about everything from their majors in college to the geocaching club Marian had belonged to in high school, to favorite movies and favorite foods, and pets they’d had growing up, and the summer Emily had worked at a gift shop in the Grand Canyon. And somewhere outside Pocatello, Idaho, Marian asked Emily if she had any siblings.
Emily asked Marian if she’d ever heard of the Stillwater murders. And Marian said she had.
“One of the victims was my sister,” Emily said. “She and Jenness were friends. That’s how I first learned about the program.”
Marian said how truly sorry she was, and she stared ahead at the blue car in front of them with the Ontario license plate, and at the irrigated field that ran along the right side of the interstate, transfixed and deeply sad by what Emily had told her.
When they stopped for a bite to eat, Emily showed Marian the picture of Melissa on her phone screen. “It’s the last picture that was taken of her.” Emily went on to tell Marian that she’d just gotten home from college for the summer. She’d spent the night at Melissa’s apartment. That next morning Emily took the picture while her sister was in the kitchen making coffee.
“I don’t know why I did that,” she said. “But that morning was the last time I saw her.”
“Your sister was really beautiful,” Marian said, and she told Emily how sorry she was for her loss.
* * *
• • •
The Nokai Dome was divided into three units. Marian’s team would be focusing on unit three, full of steep-walled canyons, mesas, and the Red House Cliffs escarpment.
But Marian wouldn’t see any of this when they arrived because it had long been dark when they set up camp at the base of the Red House Cliffs. They fed and watered the dogs, pitched their tents, and unrolled their camping mattresses and sleeping bags, the temperatures hovering around forty degrees, which was typical at this elevation in the desert, over six thousand feet, after the sun went down.
It was dark when they awoke, as it would be every morning; both women were slow to crawl out of their warm sleeping bags. Marian started a fire; they made coffee, ate oatmeal, and packed what they would need for their assignment. They would be working Arkansas that first day and would have to bring enough water for both them and the dog.
The handlers didn’t let the dogs carry their own food and water on a job; the work already demanded enough from the animals, and this rocky terrain with its steep pitches was no exception. Marian would also want to cover as much of the day’s transects as they could before the hottest part of the afternoon, when temperatures were expected to rise to the low eighties. Without shade, not only would Arkansas be fully exposed to the sun, but the ground could also scorch her pads.
Marian and Emily extended a tarp from the back of the truck to provide shade for Yeti and left her with plenty of water. And as they headed out of camp for their first study cell and the sun started to rise, Marian felt a fresh awareness of the light and the burnt orange and deep salmon landscape, and the shades of blue and garnet and lavender, and as much as Marian enjoyed being alone, as much as she enjoyed pure solitude, she was glad to have someone witness what she was seeing for the first time.
Their study area that day would be on the lowest shelf of the escarpment, which they would get to by scrambling up loose sandstone and rocky drainages. The shelf, or bench, was a perfect habitat for bighorn sheep, with its boulders and gnarly juniper and Mormon tea and sage. There was plenty of vegetation with the different grasses and sedges, and enough rocky interfaces to allow the sheep to remain hidden from predators, including cougar and coyotes and hunters. The width of this bench, which extended like a never-ending band, varied from about a hundred yards to a half mile or more, and in other places even up to a mile. It wasn’t until three hours into the morning that they began to see some fresh sign, and Arkansas, who had almost lost interest, became excited once more.
By the afternoon they’d only found four fresh samples. Marian and Emily each climbed onto separate boulders to take a break and eat a light lunch, and Arkansas, after lapping up her water from a collapsible bowl Marian had carried on her pack, stretched out beneath the branches of a juniper. And when Marian checked her phone to make sure it was still pairing with her GPS receiver, she switched it to cellular to see if she could get a signal and noticed she had a bar, and if she climbed higher, she thought, she might get a stronger reception. So she left Arkansas with Emily and climbed higher up the escarpment until two bars showed up on her phone, and then she sat amid the crumbling sandstone, and after sliding a foot or two and digging her heels in for leverage, she tried to reach Tate, who was on the study in the Selkirk Mountains of Washington, knowing she could at least leave a message.
The Last Woman in the Forest Page 21