by M. K. Coker
While Larson drove off toward the park, she circled back around the courthouse to the Sub, wishing she hadn’t yielded to the impulse to spend a few minutes alone with Larson. Hardly alone. Never alone. Why had she agreed to having her home overrun? She yanked open the door to the Sub. “Don’t poke into my personal life, Nails.”
“Ha, finally got you to call me Nails.”
She bared her teeth, thankful he couldn’t see that. “I thought we came to an understanding this morning that some things remain under wraps.” She’d accused him of leaking the dental implant, and he’d told her it had already made the rounds from several sources in the park.
“Don’t worry, I won’t broadcast it. Don’t have to. I wasn’t the only one who got treated to that fine dip and kiss.”
Unfortunately, that might well be true—and Larson had apparently cast to the wind any of his concerns over airing their relationship. If it could be called that. “I’m not ashamed of it.”
“Good. About time you moved on. Speaking of which... you’d better move on. Wish I could join you on the search. I’m looking forward to an update on Mountain Man.”
Tit for tat. “So am I.”
CHAPTER 33
Marek drove through a gauntlet of pickups to get up to the Grove Park campground, which was deserted, except for one lone solar-powered RV parked next to the comfort station.
Pat Donahue emerged wearing camos as Marek pulled up into the next spot. “Hey, there. You might not realize it, but there’s a—oh, it’s you. Hello, Detective. Just wanted to warn off any clueless campers who wandered in. But if you’re here to warn me off, you’re wasting breath—and with this wind, it’s better not to, as it might get snatched.” He patted the gun at his belt. “I’m legal to carry. And I’m ready to help.”
Killers often liked to “help” the police in their inquiries. Marek made sure his own gun was out—and out of sight below the open window of his Silverado. “How did you hear?”
The call that went out on low-power FM had included instructions to park on the road and gather at the park manager’s residence, under tree cover on the side of the hill away from where they believed Mountain Man was hiding out.
Donahue shrugged. “Biester told me. He tried to get me to go. Everyone else did. But I want to see it through.”
“You like to finish things?” Marek asked conversationally, as if he had all the time in the world.
Donahue glanced at his watch. “Always have, always will.”
“Like finishing Bunting’s last job?”
That brought his head up. “Pardon?”
“You filed a complaint in the Hills last year with the highway patrol.”
“Yes, I did. What does that have to do with... wait.” Donahue looked thunderstruck. “Are you telling me that asshole in the Black Hills who tried to bum a bribe off me for pulling a speeding ticket—which I wasn’t guilty of in the first place—was Bunting? The same man you pulled out of the john? Wow. I had no idea.”
Marek did the silent treatment well. He used it on Donahue.
“I didn’t know him from Joe Blow,” the ex-firefighter insisted. “I had my dash cam going. Taped the entire thing, along with the plate of his squad, and emailed the video from my rig that same night. No way would I have recognized him. Just a bloated idiot with a badge.” Donahue finally seemed to get that he was a suspect. “You’re looking at me? Seriously? Why would I kill a man who’d been fired from his job? I got a personal reply from the regional commander, who said the situation had been dealt with, that I could shred the ticket with their compliments, and that I’d helped get a bad cop off the road.”
All of that, Marek knew. He’d talked to the commander and gotten an earful. “Maybe Bunting remembered you. Maybe he confronted you.”
“I take things head on, Detective.” His helpful, open face closed with a snap. “I don’t stab people in the back.”
Marek took one last stab at a dying lead. “We were able to recover cells from the feces we found. DNA is scheduled. Care to give us a sample to compare with?”
Now that hit the mark. “I... okay.” The man blew out a breath. “Damn. You’ve got me there. And I apologize for not being up-front. I don’t know if my... contribution... hit the jackpot, but yes, I did use the facilities when I got up. Just before Lori arrived.”
“Why lie to us?”
“I try not to load up my composting toilet too much with a... well, a big load. So... yeah. I was going to complain to the park manager about the state of that john. I got in, got out, as fast as humanly possible. My next rig will have a black tank. And I’m real sorry about what happened, with Lori finding the body, when I should’ve been the one. It’s embarrassing to admit I missed seeing it. I did what I could after, to make up for it. And I’ll do what I can to find this Mountain Man. Are you going to stop me?”
Marek saw a man who had exacting requirements of himself, and of others. “No.”
“Good. Thanks. Detective? If he’s any kind of actual mountain man, he’ll know we’re coming. Those survivalists have an uncanny animal sense.”
Nodding, Marek shifted his Silverado into reverse. “But will he flee or fight?”
“Don’t know. But I’m keeping a good grip on my gun.” His eyes dipped to the invisible gun behind the door. “You do the same.” He smiled faintly as Marek sighed and holstered it. “You telegraph with your shoulder—slightly away from your body. When I noticed that, I knew you were serious.”
“Hop in. I’ll take you down.”
By the time they made it back to Biester’s residence, Marek found Karen in the middle of a swirling pack—a female alpha in all her glory. Standing beside her was a shell-shocked Larson, looking like a lost accountant in his button-down shirt and khakis amongst all the camos offset by bright-orange vests. That sort of summed up the schizoid priorities that Karen was underlining: be stealthy to avoid alerting the prey, but be highly visible so you don’t get yourself shot by your trigger-happy neighbor.
Walrus was there, and to Marek’s surprise, so was Adam Van Eck.
“We don’t know if Mountain Man is armed, but he’s never used a gun for his poaching, only a snare and a knife,” Karen went on. “But if you catch sight of him, stop immediately and call us in. Or should I say text. Please turn your phones on silent or vibrate.” She gave out her cell number and those of the group leaders. Phones, from flips to the latest smartphones, were pulled out of cargo pockets. A few old-timers frowned at such newfangled nonsense, but their younger counterparts paired off with them, so all was settled, without a word.
“Remember that Mountain Man may not, in fact, be a killer or a rapist. He may be with a young boy, about ten or eleven, possibly his son. Keep within eyesight of each other and be aware. Unfortunately, we won’t have helicopter support—the weather is too iffy. Ready?”
A sea of nods greeted her, along with a few squats and shoulder rolls.
“Let’s go, then.”
An ominous roll of thunder greeted them as they spread out to their assigned locations. Walrus and Biester headed one group toward the creek, Karen went toward the south side, and Adam took the far side. Marek followed him, and Donahue followed Marek. “Should’ve just stayed up there,” the retired firefighter grumbled and hunched as a brutal wind pregnant with rain hit his face.
Adam cinched up his deputy’s jacket and gripped his shotgun. “‘Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are, that bide the pelting of this pitiless storm. How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend you from seasons such as these?’”
Most ignored him, a few snorted, and a few shook their heads. But all of them followed the man who would be king as he headed out.
Beside Marek, Donahue whispered, “Is he... not quite there?”
Eyes on the path so he didn’t trip and become a liability, Marek said in a low voice, “He’s King Lear.”
Donahue stopped. “He’s mad?”
“S
ome think so. He’s an actor. He moonlights as a reserve deputy. Right now, he’s King Lear.”
Relief crossed the man’s face. “Oh. Okay.”
As a Californian, Donahue apparently thought that entirely reasonable. The rest of the way, they kept their heads down and their ears to the ground, until Adam had them where he wanted them. Then he got them spread out and made a release-the-cavalry gesture.
Still shaking their heads, they went. Marek found himself picking his way through a tangle of low-lying bur oaks, with Donahue on one side and Adam on the other. The good thing was, the tree cover helped cut down on the rain—and the thunder covered the noise of their search. The bad thing was, the temperature continued to drop. Not cold enough to snow, but Marek much preferred a dry cold to wet.
Grove Park might not be very big, but Marek still felt like he’d entered a foreign land, which wasn’t laid out for his big feet, his height, or anything else. He wondered how Karen was faring. Being far more athletic, she was probably just fine. He stumbled over a leaf-covered rock, grabbed a tree limb, then heard a crashing noise and saw a flash of movement.
He and Donahue raised their guns in unison.
Their quarry flushed, white flag up. Not in surrender. A white-tailed deer bounded away.
“City boys,” Adam mouthed, bumping out a hip like a waitress at a 50s diner, batting her—his—eyes at them. Donahue gave him the finger, but with a smile.
After his heart stopped pounding, Marek continued on his trek. Watching his feet as much as the terrain, he almost missed the ping in the back of his brain—the primal part that said: you have company. Tracks. Army boots, he thought. Could be a hunter’s, as it was hunting season, but as he slowly raised his eyes, he saw that the tracks led into a thicket against the hill.
Only when he heard the faintest snap of a branch underfoot did he realize that his companions were converging on the same spot with guns drawn, both looking intently at something just beyond his vision. Moving as silently as he could, Marek rounded the natural windbreak and saw a lean-to, a fire ring, and several rabbit carcasses strung up nearby. He could hear, in the break between thunder claps, the sound of running water.
Pulling out his phone, Marek texted Karen. Found bolt-hole. No MM. Far side of hill down from campground near creek.
At least that was what he thought he’d texted. With his dyslexia, he wasn’t always sure. Lots of times he got ??? back or a head-scratching emoticon. After a delay, he got a text.
Stay put. Very near you. Walrus with me. Best tracker.
Walrus must’ve already cleared his section. Figured. Marek showed the others her instructions. Donahue looked disappointed but resigned to the wait. He settled on a tree stump. Adam, on the other hand, struck a mad king pose and began mouthing lines that Marek couldn’t hope to follow, even when they were spoken.
Marek looked around. The Spartan campsite held no bedroll, no duffel, nothing that could ID the man. He looked down at the ground, finding a few more tracks. One in particular held his interest. A sneaker. Woman or boy.
Maybe fifteen minutes later, Karen, Larson, and Walrus emerged into Mountain Man’s little home away from home. Or maybe a home without a home.
“Walrus tracked him to the creek,” Karen announced, nearly breaking Marek’s eardrums, poised for any little sound—yet somehow canceling out the thunderclaps. “Tracks on the other side go to the road. He’s gone. I’ll put out the APB for a hitchhiker, but... we still have no idea who he is.”
The air went out of them all.
“I’ll bet young Bobby knows, assuming he’s the boy who was seen with Mountain Man.” Marek pointed at the sneaker impression. The others converged on the imprint, as if it held the answers to all their questions. Maybe it did.
“Well, I have to make a stop to talk to Principal Hageman,” Karen said. “Maybe she’ll ID him for us. I’d rather not put the thumbscrews to Zoe. Bobby seems to be her only friend.”
Larson squatted near a fallen log on the far perimeter. “May not need him at all.”
“Why? What did you find?” Karen got to him first. Marek could, thankfully, see over her head. Mountain Man must have been sitting on the log, in the midst of making or repairing a snare, when he’d been spooked. A partially whittled branch and a wire lay on the ground.
And a KA-BAR pocketknife, bloodied, was sticking out of the log.
CHAPTER 34
Principal Blanche Hageman peered at Karen over her half-moon reading glasses.
“I was not aware of your young cousin’s difficulties. She should have come to me or another teacher.”
Once happily running herd on the munchkin crowd at the elementary school, the overworked educator now had all of kindergarten through twelfth grade to worry about and a budget that, like Karen’s own, never stretched far enough. Through hook or crook, the principal managed to claw back some of the programs she’d been forced to cut, like art and music, but only by paying peanuts and leaning heavily on volunteers. Karen herself was on call to help out with the basketball program, though she’d found little time for it of late.
Karen’s own volunteers at Grove Park had done admirably—and she’d thanked them all—but they’d all left with that gnawing hunger of failure. Larson had left with his precious cargo and said he would call ASAP if he was able to lift a fingerprint from the pocketknife.
She’d sent Walrus and Adam to the trailer park to warn residents and to keep an eye out for anyone hiding Mountain Man. At least Not-Johnson—she couldn’t think of him as Albert Cram Bayton—and his followers still at Lions Park weren’t likely to have picked up Mountain Man.
Forcing her mind back to her young cousin, Karen said, “Mary Hannah won’t come to you. Ever. Her beliefs are to take whatever is dished out. She’ll tell me, or she’ll tell Eyre, but she won’t tell anyone who has the power to make it stop. This kid. Sean. He’s taunting her.”
“Off school grounds.” When Karen opened her mouth to reply, the principal lifted a hand. “I am not ignoring the seriousness of what she’s endured. It needs to stop. But Sean...” She rubbed at her temples. “He’s been in and out of our school system, in and out of trouble, not serious but troubling. As the saying goes, he’s acting out, turning the taunts he’s endured over the years, about bad grooming, ill-fitting clothes, things he has no control over given his home situation, against a target who won’t fight back.”
Karen resisted the urge to tell Principal Hageman to hand Sean over to her to straighten out. “I told Mary Hannah that I would report it to you, and you would do whatever you could. If it continues, her parents may pull her out of school, which would break her heart, but there are other ways to get her GED.”
The principal pursed her lips. “Mary Hannah is an impressive student, from what I’ve heard. She wants to learn and seems to be earning some respect from her classmates for standing up for what she believes in. I will talk to Sean, but I can make no guarantees that it will stop him when we aren’t around. Can someone perhaps give her a ride?”
“That might work,” Karen conceded. She’d been so determined that the school would take care of it that she hadn’t considered that simple solution. “They’ve got Henry Hahn on call. He’d have come from Fink, but he could probably pick her up.”
“Or other parents could.”
Thinking about parents, Karen asked, “What about Sean’s parents?”
“Deadbeat dad. Mother works sporadically but has some mental health issues so keeps losing jobs. The Dakotas are actually pretty good about launching kids like Sean into a better life, similar to some Scandinavian countries for social mobility. But more and more, we’re being asked to be parents when parents aren’t doing the job. Either they won’t or can’t, having to work long hours, just trying to keep a roof over their heads.”
Karen tried to think back to her own school experiences. “I just don’t remember that kind of thing growing up, other than maybe a handful of kids. You knew that they had it rough and felt kind of
sorry for them. Parents were parents. Kids were kids.”
“A lot has changed. Good and bad. But what I’m seeing now, I haven’t seen in all my years in teaching. We supply breakfast and lunch for over half our students. And I’m talking about kids with stable, working parents who just can’t keep up with the bills. We’ve talked about getting donations to send food home over the weekends. Can you believe the Forsgrens shot that down, saying it was good for a kid to go hungry? That it’d make them work harder to claw their way out. Just the opposite, in my experience. They can’t concentrate, then they get in trouble. Punishing the kids, even the cases of parental screw-ups, that’s a complete lack of empathy. Throwing a kid away just so you can say, ‘I told you so,’ isn’t a civilized strategy.”
Karen grimaced. “No one has ever accused a Forsgren of empathy. Not even for their own.”
Blanche Hageman was no dummy. She knew who Karen was referring to, as she’d fought to hire Nikki Forsgren Solberg over the Forsgrens’ protests—or at least that of the patriarch. “Nikki has plenty for all of them. She’s a wonderful teacher, and I know how lucky we are to have her. I hope she sticks around.”
That sounded like a question. “Marek goes where Becca leads him. Becca wants to stay here. And if I am reading things rightly, that means Nikki stays. At least for the next four years. Unless revenues plummet.”
The principal let out a breath and nodded. “The new recycling center has brought back some of that. Or should I say, their workers have, and people have been trying to shop more in town. Whether we can maintain that level, who knows?”
Karen thought of Valeska. “We’re in better shape than a lot of towns in Eda County.”
“Consolidation. It hurts to shutter a school. But it’s what we have to do to survive.”
The school bell jangled, making Karen start and the principal laugh. “Awful sound, isn’t it?”
“Hasn’t changed. It makes me want to rush out. Which I do have to do.” She had an appointment with Marsha Schaeffer at the end of the social worker’s workday.