Lost in the Wild

by Leigh Mayberry

  “What time do you get out of work?”

  “Depends on if I need to fill the eggs and milk before I go. I usually punch out around nine-thirty or ten. It takes about ten minutes to leave the store and walk up to my apartment.”

  “You see Christine alone in the stairwell drawing at ten at night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How often?”

  “Not too much, I think. Sometimes a week or two goes by before I’d see her again.”

  “What does she draw with?” Meghan asked.

  “You mean like crayons or pencils.”

  “Does she use a drawing pad? Something that keeps her work together, or is it a notebook or loose paper?”

  “It’s a drawing pad. It has a black cover. Chrissy has stickers all over the cover.”

  “Okay, good. You saw that she draws in a single drawing pad. When was the last time you think you saw her sitting in the stairwell?”

  “I don’t know I think like Saturday night.”

  “Last night?” Meghan asked quickly.

  Vincent shook his head. “Last weekend,” he said. “I went to the Memorial dance last night.”

  “Did you see Christine at the dance?”

  Vincent waited to answer. Meghan saw him look up and to the right. He recalled the events yesterday. He shook his head.

  “I didn’t see Chrissy. But I saw Cecil. I remember he was asking around for Chrissy. He didn’t talk to me. He talked to a few other people. But I overheard him.”

  “What time do you think you saw Cecil last night?”

  “I don’t know around eight or nine. Can I go now?”

  Meghan sat back and drummed her fingers on the tabletop.

  “Vincent, they are going to secure a warrant to search your apartment.” She shook her head. “Right now, with what’s happened, and what they found in your apartment, there’s enough probable cause for the warrant search.”

  “Why? I ain’t done nothing wrong.” It came out with a pout. Meghan saw his eyes glass over with tears again. Vincent sniffled.

  “This is a good time to tell me if they will find anything in your apartment. Do you have anything more than the undergarments?”

  “I got stuff, you know.”

  “What stuff?”

  “Like, you know, sex stuff.”

  “Vincent, no one cares about your stuff as long as you’re not breaking the law. What can happen if they find something you’re not supposed to have, aside from the ladies’ things, they can charge you with a crime. We’ve got a missing girl. You understand how important that is to all of us. You know Christine from the apartment complex. You talked to her before. If one of those pairs of underwear you took from the laundry has Christine Tuktu’s DNA on it, you will be a prime suspect in her disappearance.”

  “Do you need to explain that to him?” the cadet asked. He stood closer to Meghan’s chair than she realized.

  Meghan stood up and turned around. “You’d rather keep a suspect in the dark? What good does that do, other than satisfy your little ego? You have a man here who indulges in something that others don’t understand. He has every right to protect his privacy and dignity. You have no right to broadcast any details of this interview to anyone, anywhere. That includes your mouth-breathing friends back at the academy. You don’t like what you hear right now. I suggest you find another job. You want to stay in law enforcement but can’t handle a little self-discipline when it comes to the inalienable rights of civilians. You should become a corrections officer. They’re hiring people like you who want to keep the public safe but can’t keep your mouth shut and grow up.”

  “You act like you like his little panty fetish,” the cadet said.

  He had close-set eyes and a beaky nose that ran almost flush with his forehead. The thing about the bureau, they needed pretty people and not-so-pretty people. Since the cadet had an obvious self-image issue, he overcompensated with muscle tone and bullying. It didn’t help with his looks, but it built up the confidence to overflowing arrogance.

  Meghan ignored the two troopers peeking around the archway at the comment. The other cadets in the situation room stood back, monitoring the challenge. Meghan saw a young man who had more to learn about suspects, civilians, and authority figures.

  “I am woman enough to know you feel threatened by things that you are unable to process mentally. It has nothing to do with what Vincent likes or doesn’t. You need to learn manners and how to conduct yourself as an FBI agent. In my opinion, you have a long way to go. If I were your instructor, you’d have a lot more to learn before you’re worthy of taking that oath.”

  He squinted and towered over Meghan. It was something she dealt with her whole life. Men used height and strength to intimidate. Whatever he had to prove, the cadet needed an audience. Meghan had interactions with both state troopers who stood back, watching the young man. Vincent remained welded to the chair out of fear and fascination. Meghan smelled his lunch wash over her as he breathed something from the Chinese restaurant, something with ginger and onions.

  “Step back, cadet. This isn’t the time or place for you to show dominance.”

  He smirked, filling out the comment and adding his interpretation. “You want to find out about my dominance? Is that your thing too? Panty fetishes and dominant men, are you submissive too?” The words came out of his mouth around gritted teeth.

  Any other time, any other moment, Meghan knew she’d respond in a manner that fit his demeanor. She had a case, and his attitude needed a lot more adjusting than she wanted to spend time doing. They had an interagency investigation to deal with a missing—possibly drowned child in Kinguyakkii Sound when she went ice panning at night while the rest of the town, including the police, went to a holiday dance. It was a scenario that Meghan found incredibly hard to swallow.

  “I don’t have time for this,” she said.

  Meghan turned away from the cadet and his sour breath. She moved to address Vincent again. The look on his face suggested whatever he saw and heard meant to stay with him for a long time. Meghan intended to have it end right there. Then she felt it. The intentional unprovoked touch on her denim was something that took a millisecond to process. Her brain switched to primal protective mode. When it was over, between the witnesses, including Vincent, it was Meghan’s word against the cadet’s statement. The camera, still recording Vincent at the time of the incident, didn’t capture the moment.

  He touched her left rear cheek with his right hand. It happened quickly, as if premeditated. But it was unmistakable. It was the kind of thing women understood because it wasn’t the first time it happened to Meghan. Because she was a little less than average height, men thought she had a little less than the average combat training.

  The moment she felt his brazen fingers graze the crease of her jeans, Meghan snapped to respond. She turned right, swiping her hand down to deflect his fingers. It was instinct and muscle memory.

  Meghan grabbed the first digit she contacted and heaved with all her weight, pulling and twisting. She felt the cadet’s thumb turn in a direction beyond human mobility. She felt the tension and then the thick ‘pop’ as if separating two sections of a turkey joint during the holidays.

  When it was over, the cadet wailed in agony, cupping his arm, backpedaling away from Meghan the second she released the grip on the digit. His fellow cadets and the two troopers rushed to his aid. He stumbled away from Meghan, still standing with her back to the table, the camera set up, and Vincent.

  The cadet slid along the file wall until he reached the archway. She didn’t get a good look at the hand, but from what she felt and the amount of pressure Meghan used to bend back the thumb, she knew something tore loose in his hand.

  “You guys know where the clinic is?” she asked. Meghan walked toward the cadet. He scrambled to back up more, sliding along the wall, and passing through the archway into the lobby. He almost fell over the knee-high wall and swinging door to the side of the tall counter. “Get him
to the clinic. Tell Dr. Tate to bill the city for a visit.”

  Meghan approached the table again. She turned off the digital camera and closed the program on the laptop. Vincent sat very still as if considering the proximity of a predator.

  “Help yourself to a soda in the fridge, Vincent. If you can hang out here for a while, I’d appreciate it. Someone else will come to talk to you.”

  “Am I under arrest?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, Vincent. Right now, all I care about is Christine Tuktu. If you’re being honest with me, I am not going to arrest you. But you need to know if those female items come up with her DNA, we are all done. You and I being polite to one another, it all ends. You got that?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She looked at the trooper, watching them. “Get Vincent back to his apartment. Sit with him while they secure that warrant. I don’t want anyone thinking he’s under arrest for the disappearance. Vincent doesn’t need the added drama.”

  “I need to relay that to Sergeant Reeve, ma’am,” the trooper said.

  “I don’t care, as long as you return Vincent to his house. Take my four-wheeler.” She tossed him the keys. “He’s not under arrest until you find something. Vincent is free to go. If Reeve has a problem with that, tell him to take it up with Special Agent in Charge, Wilcox. You’ll see I’m right.”

  Vincent stood up from the conference table and zipped up his coat. He lingered by the chair, not sure if it was safe to leave. The trooper phoned Reeve, and she shook her head.

  Meghan collected her laptop, left the camera on the tripod, and marched into her office. She had an incident report to draft. After all, she dealt with in the day; the last thing she wanted was a personal matter with a cadet showing signs of his future in law enforcement. Conduct unbecoming of an agent was a good lead on the report. It wasn’t up to Meghan how the bureau handled it. All she had was her word against him. If it wasn’t enough, it didn’t matter. Meghan had had enough of playing nice while the state and federal agencies walked all over her town. She had a job to do. Up to that point, using the unwanted physical contact as a jolt, Meghan decided to do her job. She wasn’t taking orders from Dana, Reeve, or Wilcox.

  Chapter Thirteen

  No school on Monday meant most of the kids in town were still up, wandering the streets, and interested in the additional law enforcement officers roaming Kinguyakkii. Meghan spent a few hours following the incident with the cadet writing the report on the matter. The young man she later found out named Aston Holmes returned to the Chena, where they had secured sleeping arrangements with the hotel manager. Meghan hoped after Memorial Day weekend, she’d never think about the misogynist again. It was after eleven that Sunday night before Meghan rode back out to the search site. It was a forty-minute ride on the four-wheeler.

  The crew from the shoreline continued to work in shifts. Unfortunately, it was the beginning of another long night with no sleep. Oliver looked grim. Lester looked like a man about to fly apart in all directions. Whatever happened with the search and retrieval of the youth jacket, Lester had his fill of the others. Meghan understood the man had more experience than anyone else waiting and watching the joint operations. He didn’t criticize the search pattern, but Lester didn’t take orders from anyone when it was his time to search for the body. It was a hopeless endeavor. They knew collectively that a child of ten, approximately 70lbs and fifty-four inches in height wasn’t enough weight or mass to quickly locate. The water temperature in the Sound was 13°F. Salt made it harder for water molecules to bond, forming water crystals. Salt molecules repel ice naturally. The debris in the water allowed ice to collect on objects, but the ocean didn’t freeze solid in May. Anything below 32°F, the average adult had less than fifteen minutes before hyperthermia. A child without protection on grinding and random sheets and chunks of ice as big as cars had little to no chance for survival. It made searching incredibly tricky. The military used infrared scopes to scan the shoreline. The high-tech equipment reminded Meghan why they searched desperately, though fruitlessly.

  Meghan ordered a stack of pizzas for the law enforcement agents and a case of water. They dealt with the situation in a remote area of the peninsula. The community had to wait for the interagency results. Everyone, Meghan soon learned, remained tight-lipped about the search. One thing she knew for sure and confirmed by the look on Lester’s face, they would not recover Christine Tuktu’s body. Nonetheless, the possibility of her young soul added to the depth of the cold black sea was a distinct and very real possibility. Meghan stayed out of the search and hovered along the shore with the rest of the observers.

  Wilcox looked like a man who carried his burdens in a travel case. He knew how to compartmentalize the various situations he faced. He had a lot on his plate. He looked cold and tired. Meghan added to his overflowing all-you-can-eat plate by assaulting one of the young men who Wilcox brought with him from Anchorage. They shared a look on the shore in the dark but did not talk about the incident. The military had several large canopy tents with portable generators and propane heaters. While the shifts on the ice got frosty, those waiting behind, got warm again.

  Then there was Dana. The overzealous turncoat who had undermined all of Meghan’s authority and personally disrupted the status quo for the rest of the community remained diligent and active. It was as if finding Christine was the purpose of her visit to Alaska. She had something to prove, and Meghan knew it wasn’t Dana’s bitterness toward her. It had something to do with a harbored professional guilt or secret or something she carried with her everywhere. Her presence, Meghan saw, was distant, as if Wilcox isolated her from the rest of the search teams. It was as if Dana was a virus personified; anyone who came in contact with her left feeling beaten up and worn out.

  ***

  It was never a good time to deal with the death of a child. The following hours, after retrieving the jacket from the floe, the military personnel, the state troopers, and the FBI field agents eventually came to a joint decision to wrap up operations after sunrise. Word didn’t leave the teams and seep into the general public, which surprised Meghan. She saw Calvin in his lime-green Ford Focus, waiting at the edge of the Air Force property for the rest of the crews to file through the gates and return to the police department.

  When Meghan rode by him, Lester cold and exhausted riding on the back of the four-wheeler, he knew by her look that the next piece of news wasn’t hopeful. Meghan branched off from the other procession while Oliver drove a group in the Suburban back to the department. Meghan drove Lester home. She parked in front of his house.

  Silvia heard the four-wheeler and stepped outside in her heavy robe and thermal pajamas. She stood at the top of the stairs leading into the arctic entry, watching her husband and Meghan.

  “I need to finish my reports,” he said. It was a halfhearted attempt to stay with the rest of the group.

  “I need you to go inside, get warm, and get some sleep. You’ve done more than enough. Thank you, Lester.”

  He didn’t want kudos for not finding a lost child. Lester wasn’t a man who needed thanks for doing what was right. Meghan shook her head, looking up at Silvia. It was nonverbal communication that women shared and said more than words. Lester climbed off the four-wheeler like a drunkard. He’d spent hours and used up his energy stores for the sake of finding a child. Meghan, the pragmatic person, not one to shed tears or show emotion in public, had other ways of dealing with the haunting reality. Lester, a reformed alcoholic, needed a stoic support system that Silvia supplied him. After a hot shower and sleep, Lester could find a way to keep going without the need for another drink.

  When Meghan returned to the police department, she saw Calvin standing beside his car. They shared a look, but he was patient enough to wait for the authorities to finish their work before he did his job. He wasn’t alone. Several people congregated outside the department, milling around in the muddy gravel.

  Meghan saw Duane’s pick-up parked at City Hall
in the ‘reserved’ spot. The only place in the entire city with designated parking, a mounted sign between the police contractor trailers and City Hall, Duane wanted to make a statement. It made sense, having the community come together for the terrible business, but it didn’t make it easier.

  One thing that Meghan appreciated, in the darkest of times in the area, petty crimes dropped to nothing. The phone lines paused in reports from mischief and complaints. People banded together. It was a matter of drafting the report and communicating to everyone what took place. First, they had to deal with explaining the series of circumstances to the grieving mother and her boyfriend.

  Meghan saw Joane and Earl waiting outside, among the others. Meghan saw Cecil standing beside his mother but looking around and a little detached. Bringing in the family allowed them separation from the others. Meghan motioned for the small family as Earl crushed a cigarette under his boot tip in the mud. Closure was a long process, and Meghan hated the grieving process.

  Chapter Fourteen

  A respectable wave of melancholy filled the space inside the police department. Six Alaska State Troopers, eight FBI personnel, took their time around the family. Reeve, Chandler, and Wilcox remained at the station but ordered their teams to dismantle operations and prepare for departure from Kinguyakkii. Dana occupied the other end of the conference table. She worked with her tablet and smartphone, working on reports. Meghan knew while Wilcox took point and was officially in charge in Alaska, Dana reported to her section chief in New York, Garret McKee. It was a move that Wilcox didn’t care about, and Meghan saw Dana’s tension spread to the operations leader.

  While the timid and personal information came from Wilcox and Reeve, Meghan and the others stayed out of the way. Oliver, looking disheveled and worse for wear, found Meghan in her office as she stayed out the way.

  Joane sat in the chair Vincent occupied hours before. Earl stood behind her. Meghan knew the rest of the scene. She knew how it went through the whole series of grieving and eventually would make its way through the rest of the town.