The Wild Inside

by Christine Carbo

  “Don’t be silly.” Elena threw a dish towel over her small shoulder. “Please, stay and join us. It’s too cold out for ice cream. Plus it looks like rain.”

  “Can’t. We’re on a mission.” She poked Lewis. “A chocolate-chip-mint mission.”

  “Well, at least have a drink with us before you leave,” Joe offered, and Heather agreed, so we moved to the dining area and sat, while Elena continued to fiddle around with dinner preparations in the kitchen. I began to figure out how to gracefully ask Lewis about his relationship with Victor without upsetting any of the other family members.

  “So, Lewis,” I said, “what grade are you in now?”

  “Fifth.”

  “That makes you”—I squinted—“eleven?”

  He nodded.

  “You must like martial arts?” I asked. “Judging by that mean roundhouse you gave your grandpa outside.”

  Lewis smiled; his bottom tooth in the center was angled crookedly against the one next to it. “I take Tae Kwan Do.”

  “That’s awesome,” Monty said. “Where do you do that?”

  “In town, that gym up by the post office.”

  “That’s so cool,” Monty said, genuinely excited, and I could see a brightness, a twinkle, in his eyes when he looked at Heather. Suddenly, I wondered if the separation might be a sure thing after all. I decided to hold off on asking Lewis about Victor and made a mental note that I would circle back to visiting him at his mother’s in the afternoon after he finished school.

  • • •

  When it was time for Heather and Lewis to leave and they said their good-byes, I made a quick decision to follow them out. I wanted a moment to ask Heather about visiting Lewis at her sister’s.

  When Heather heard my hurried, scuffed walk to catch them on the driveway, she turned, her eyes electric and filled with a startle.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to spook you.”

  “Oh no, it’s fine. You didn’t really.”

  Suddenly I felt shy and sheepish. “I, I was just going to ask you about your sister.”

  Heather glanced at Lewis. “Go ahead and hop in, honey. I’ll be right there.”

  Lewis did as she said and I added, “I mean, nothing much.” I lowered my voice so Lewis couldn’t hear me. “Just thought it would be good to talk to Lewis actually.” I twitched my head toward the car. “Possibly sometime tomorrow. I wanted to get your input before I surprised them.”

  Heather frowned and shrugged. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say. I mean, you need to do what you need to do.”

  “What I meant—do you think Lewis is mature enough to chat about Victor a bit without upsetting him? Nothing major, just a few questions.”

  “I guess. I suppose it would be fine. You’re not going to get too detailed about—” She looked down. “About things?”

  “No, just some general impressions. That’s all. It’s just general procedure.”

  “My sister might be a little tough to convince.”

  I nodded. “Well, we’ll give it a shot. I’m sure she won’t mind that much.”

  Heather shrugged again and looked down at the keys in her hand.

  “Better get that boy some ice cream.” I smiled, holding my hand out toward the car door to signal that I didn’t have much else to say. I felt silly for following her out. I had the gentlemanly urge to open her car door for her but realized that would be totally ridiculous.

  “Yeah, you’re right. I better.” She smiled back at Lewis, then looked at the ground as she shuffled by me. I was probably just imagining it, but I felt a frisson of excitement as she passed.

  “Drive safely, then.”

  “Thanks, I will.”

  Just as she opened her car door, Monty stepped out onto the landing and waved. A big grin spread across his face. Heather waved back, and I saw Lewis waving through the passenger window as well. As she slid into the driver’s seat, her blond hair a pale flashing flag in the dim light, a pang of something I hadn’t felt in a long time shot through me. It occurred to me that maybe the world was full of women whom things could actually work with; that maybe my experience with Shelly was not a blueprint for how each and every one of my potential relationships would turn out.

  I watched Heather and Lewis back out and drive away, then turned to go back to the door, where Monty stood with one eyebrow raised in question.

  “Just checkin’ to see if she thought Lewis was stable enough to chat with tomorrow.”

  Monty smirked. “And?”

  I nodded. “No problem.”

  “That’s good.” Monty was still smiling, peering down the drive where Heather had departed.

  • • •

  Elena refused to let us help her clean up in the kitchen, so after we had the chowder and grilled steaks that Joe claimed were the half head of cattle he’d gotten from the neighboring farm, and at least cleared the table, we moved into the living room to sit by the fire Joe had made. Joe offered me some brandy, and the three of us sat staring into the fire. “I’ve spoken to Walsh about getting the divers back out to search the South Fork Bridge.”

  “And?”

  “Not happy about it. Says they’ve already done the two most probable bridges in the park and see no reason to spend the resources on the third bridge all the way in Hungry Horse.”

  I sighed. “But even though it’s on the highway, it’s actually the most concealed by trees and the deepest. It would be my first choice if I were going to toss it.”

  “Yeah, I have to admit, mine too,” Monty added.

  Joe nodded that he understood.

  “I’ll call him tomorrow,” I said. “See if I can talk him into one more dive.”

  “Suit yourself. In the meantime, I’ve also spoken to Ford about the bear, as you asked me to,” Joe said as soon as he handed me the glass of brandy. Monty turned it down, saying he needed to head home soon because he was short on sleep.

  I thanked Joe. “And?”

  “I’ve bought you guys some more time.” Joe sat in an armchair beside the couch I was seated in. “I told him we’d set up some heat lamps to change the temperature in his cage for a few days to try to fool his system.”

  “You think that’ll work?” Monty asked.

  “We’ll find out,” Joe said.

  “And if it doesn’t,” I said. “You know I may need to take more drastic action? You know that, right?”

  Joe turned as if he were peering past the reflection into the darkness outside. He sat thinking.

  “I just can’t let this bear go without the slug,” I reiterated.

  “I know that.” His eyes were intense, but calm, his mouth slightly open. Suddenly I couldn’t help but think that there was something in them that reminded me of my father’s, but I couldn’t tell if I was recalling his expressions correctly or simply conjuring false memories.

  “What did Ford say?”

  “He’s fine. He’s not particularly happy. He wants this bear released as soon as possible. And so does the committee. He says he’s simply following the committee’s recommendation.”

  “But you understand law enforcement. You know I can’t have this bear set free without that slug.”

  “I know.”

  “Even if it means I go higher up, which I don’t want to do. I don’t want an all-out fight with Ford over this.”

  Joe nodded. “I know,” he repeated. “Hopefully, it won’t be necessary. The heat lamps should trick his system into a little more regularity.”

  “And what’s the committee saying about that?”

  “They’re not thrilled with that either, because it screws with his system right before hibernation. They believe he could have already evacuated and is in need of forming his intestinal plug for hibernation as we speak. But if it’s a matter of cutting him open or doing t
he lamps, they’ll take the lamps.”

  “Has Ford always been such a stickler about this stuff?”

  Joe shrugged. “He made the call to put that old sow down last summer that was getting too friendly with the tourists and teaching her cubs the same behavior. He got a ton of flack about it. I don’t think he wants any more bad press over putting another one down, especially one that’s done nothing wrong.”

  “And that’s all to it?”

  “Yeah, why? What else would there be? You think there’s something else?”

  I wanted to tell Joe that I thought Ford had something against me, that he simply didn’t like me, but I knew I’d sound petty and childish—perhaps paranoid. “No,” I said. “Nothing else. Just curious. You know how it gets when there are too many cooks in the kitchen.”

  “Yes, yes I do.” Joe smiled and took a sip of the rich amber liquid. “Why do you think I’m out here and Elena’s in there?”

  17

  IT HAD BEEN exactly six days since Victor Lance was found tied to a tree in the middle of the woods near McGee Meadow. And even though it had felt like weeks to me, I knew those six days were too long to be mucking around with the case. I should have solved the damn thing within the first two days.

  I had turned down an extra glass of brandy at Joe and Elena’s, got home at a decent hour, and woke early to drizzle the following morning. I had called Walsh first thing and gotten a big, fat no on getting another dive going in the South Fork River. Then I made sure I was on Lou’s doorstep by seven a.m. “I need to speak to you again.”

  Lou sighed. “Let’s take a walk.” He grabbed his coat off the hook and glanced back over his shoulder into the house. “Becky just got up. She’ll be getting in the shower in a minute.”

  “Fine with me.” I lifted my head to the drizzle I’d woken to. “I’ve got a hat.”

  Lou put on a baseball cap as well as a jacket. We walked out into the light rain, down the driveway, and took a left toward Lake McDonald. I could feel raindrops splat on my nose. I zipped my coat up further because the temperature had dropped at least fifteen degrees from the day before. Lou shoved his hands into his pockets.

  “What do you need to know now?” Lou asked, resigned.

  “I need to know why you placed bets for Victor. I’m not buying it that you’d just do that for him, knowing full well what a wild card he was and that you’d end up having to cover for him.”

  Lou stopped and squinted at the sky, letting the drizzle cover his face. “Looks like it could turn to snow by this evening. Definitely getting cold enough.” He began walking again. “It’s a long story.”

  “I’m up for it,” I said.

  He sighed. “I probably should be in a confessional for this.”

  “Well”—I gestured to the mountains—“it’s as good as any church around here. I’m not as good as a priest, but I’ll have to do.”

  “Age-old story, I guess.” Lou rubbed his temple. “About two years ago, I had a fling with another woman. Becky still doesn’t know. It was brief, and, like all affairs, a mistake, but it happened. I’m not proud of it, but it is what it is.”

  I shrugged. “And?”

  “Victor found out about it, and when he came to me wanting to bet and I said no, he confronted me with it. Said he’d tell Becky if I didn’t let him in on the action. He’d heard from Megan that I’d won about eight grand the season before.”

  “So you took him seriously?”

  “Absolutely. He was so obnoxious and a total wild card. There’s no question that he’d tell her if I didn’t do what he wanted me to. And the same with the eighteen hundred—he insisted I pay his debt or he’d tell. And”—he shook his head—“I couldn’t have that. I love Becky, and I know this would have been the last straw. We’d been through a lot with me gambling, and I planned on stopping, but to find out about this affair, I know she’d leave me. I was drinking a lot too when it occurred. I was a mess, but I got that under control, and I quit the gambling as well. I don’t know why I started again, other than we needed some money. We were always fighting over finances, and I figured if I could just have another good run, it would be the last time I would do it, and it could really help us out if I got ahead.”

  “How did Victor know about your fling?”

  “I think he found out from Leslie, his girlfriend.”

  “Leslie? How did she know?”

  Lou paused and stared at the lake. The clouds had crept in low and the rain fell quietly on the still water. Two mallards floated, dunking their heads and flapping their wings near the dark shoreline. I heard geese calls from high above somewhere to the north. “I don’t know for sure.”

  “Then why do you suspect her?”

  “Because the woman I briefly got involved with was her mother.”

  And there I had it. Lou had just spilled his guts to me and in the process provided himself with a major motive for getting his pesky nephew out of the picture. Still, now more than ever, I didn’t think Lou had committed the crime. Perhaps I was being a sucker, drawn in by the very fact that he was confiding in me, telling me his darkest secrets, so I was being overly generous. Shelly used to say that I was a sucker for other people’s problems. Still, I did not believe the person who tied Victor Lance to a tree for an entire night was Lou Shelton.

  I tried to picture Lou with Elena. Elena. Graceful and poised, cheating on Joe with Lou. It made my stomach turn. I overwhelmingly wanted to protect Joe from any of this nonsense, and suddenly I could feel my generosity fade and my anger begin to rise at the thought of him sleeping with Joe’s wife.

  We walked on to McDonald Creek, which drew from the lake and fed the Middle Fork River. We paused by the creek. “So you think Leslie found out about you guys from her mother?” The sharpness in my voice betrayed me.

  “I’m not positive.” Lou hung his head. “I know that Leslie’s not welcome at the house. Mainly because of Joe, and it’s a sore point in their marriage. Leslie’s been a handful for them her entire life, but it hurts Elena to write her off like that. I think that once in a while Elena visits Leslie without mentioning it to Joe.”

  Elena, I thought again. What would drive her to someone like Lou Shelton? How many years younger than Joe was she? Was Joe working too much? Getting too old? Not paying enough attention to her? Lou looked together, the mountain man type with a bit of mystery, a bad boy, replete with gambling and drinking. I could see how he might be a draw to a bored housewife with some midlife issues. Suddenly, an image of Elena looking down at her plate during dinner the previous evening when Lou’s name came up in relation to Victor made perfect sense. “You know Lou?” I had asked Elena. She had glanced at Joe, then sliced her steak with her knife. “Just from around the park. It’s a very small world around here, Agent Systead.” I had laughed because I’d heard the cliché so many times by now, that the song “It’s a Small World (After All)” was starting to play a running track in my head.

  “You think Elena would have actually told Leslie something as personal as that, though?” I asked Lou.

  “I really can’t imagine it, but maybe. It’s the only thing I could think of. Unless someone saw us together and told Victor. But like I said, the whole thing lasted no more than two weeks before we figured out what selfish, unrealistic assholes we were being and called everything off, including our friendship. During those two weeks, we were extremely careful. We probably only got together a few times.”

  “And this was two years ago?”

  “Yeah, just about.” Lou kicked some mud with his boot.

  I heard the flock of Canada geese getting closer, who were honking louder, now to the west, but couldn’t see them. The drizzle was getting lighter, and a milky-white mist that had lain over the lake had lifted and collected at the base of the mountains. I felt like we were in some dream world.

  “As far as Victor, though,” Lou said
. “The betting’s not all he was blackmailing me for.”

  “Oh?” I turned to him.

  “He also knew that Ford has been offering me a willing sale.”

  “You told him about it?”

  “No, are you kidding? I wouldn’t tell him anything if I could help it. I think he found out from his mom because, besides Becky, my sister was the only one I spoke to about the sale. I mean, I thought she ought to know, being my sister and all.”

  “Not your brother, Mark?”

  “I didn’t say anything to him. He’d find out soon enough, but I didn’t want to involve him. He can be overbearing.”

  “Would the place be split between the three of you?”

  “My dad left it to me, not to be unfair, just because he knew I loved it, worked it—always took care of it for him. He left other things for Penny and Mark, but it’s kind of a sore spot with Mark.”

  “So you decide who it goes to?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you have a will with the decision already made?”

  “I should, but I don’t. Just procrastination, I guess. Becky and I have been talking about it for some time.”

  “And?”

  “And we’ve been talking about the sale because we know that very few in the family appreciate this place the way we do. It might just be better off with the park. But we haven’t decided that yet.”

  “And?” I repeated.

  “Victor knew that the place is worth a lot and that if I go through with the sale, that when I go, the place goes to the park, not to Penny, Mark, or the grandchildren. And if I don’t do the sale, it would go to Penny if I go before her, then the grandchildren even though the will wasn’t specific beyond me. Victor knew that was a losing proposition for him because not only did that mean years of waiting, but if the place was eventually handed down to the grandchildren, including my own, they’d just fight over it, and if they sold it, the profit would be split many different ways. Victor wanted me to accept the willing sale—to take the money up front and split it with him. And, of course, if I didn’t, he said he’d tell Becky about Elena and Joe about me.”