In the Clearing (25 page)

As for Élan, he was out that night and already had a group of young men with him, but those young men had arrived to
help
Earl Kanasket, and it was difficult to consider a scenario where they suddenly turned and went after Kimi, though it could have been an accident.

What had first come to mind when Wright said at least four young men had been present were the newspaper articles on the high school football championship, and that made Tracy think that maybe Buzz Almond hadn’t included them in the file just to help witnesses recall that weekend.

Tracy had punched in the number on her cell phone before she finished crossing the parking lot back to her truck. Sam Goldman’s home phone rang six times, and Tracy thought it would go to voice mail, but he answered in the middle of the seventh ring. “Sam, it’s Detective Crosswhite from Seattle.”

“How are the bad guys, hero?”

Tracy climbed into the truck cab and shut the door. “Still bad. Sam, I’m sorry, but I have a few more questions for you.”

“Fire away. If I can answer them, I’m happy to help.”

Tracy heard Adele in the background. “Who is it, Sam?”

“It’s the detective from Seattle,” he said before quickly reengaging Tracy. “What can I help you with?”

“The Four Ironmen,” she said, fumbling in her briefcase to grab her notepad and flipping back through her notes. “Reynolds, Devoe, Coe, and . . .”

“Gallentine.”

“Right. What can you tell me about them, Sam?”

“What is it you want to know?”

“What kind of kids were they off the field?”

Goldman paused, and Tracy heard Adele say, “They were full of themselves,” indicating that she was listening in on the conversation.

“How so?” Tracy asked.

“They weren’t bad kids,” Goldman said. “You know how it is. None of them came from much, and suddenly they were getting a lot of attention and seeing their names in the paper every week. Adults would stop them in the street to congratulate them and want to talk all about the upcoming game. It went to their heads a bit.”

“They ever get in any trouble?”

“If they did, friend, I never heard about it.”

“You sound uncertain.”

“Rumors. Nothing I could ever print.”

Tracy watched Kaylee Wright leave the coffee shop and head to her SUV. Tracy gave her a wave. “Sometimes there’s truth in a rumor,” she said.

“And lawsuits,” Goldman said with a burst of a laugh. “I’m like Joe Friday. I print just the facts.”

Tracy decided to push it. “Who might have sued?”

“Like I said, kids start reading their names in the paper, getting slaps on the back—sometimes they think they can do no wrong. High school stuff, you know?”

“Drinking? Smoking pot?”

“Here’s the thing. Little Timmy gets caught with a beer, the police drive him home, and nobody cares. One of the Ironmen gets caught, and the police still drive him home, but everyone in town knows, and now they’re worried he’s going to get kicked off the team and their undefeated season is going to go up in smoke.”

“Right, but you had your finger on the pulse. Any truth to those rumors?”

Goldman sighed. Then he said, “Not a lot to do in a small town.”

“Any of them have any romantic involvement with Kimi Kanasket that you’re aware of?”

Goldman paused, and Tracy knew he was connecting the dots between her questions. “If there was, I wouldn’t have known about it.”

“You never heard anything like that?”

“Nothing of the sort.”

“Any connection at all you can think of?”

Again there was a lengthy pause. “Coe and Gallentine ran track. That’s the only thing I can think of.”

“What can you tell me about Arthur Coe?”

“Archie Coe,” Goldman corrected. “Nice kid. He was probably the least heralded of the four. He joined the Army after high school, but he washed out, came home with a medical discharge.”

“Do you know what for?”

“Officially, he hurt his back.”

“Unofficially?”

“Unofficially, he had some type of nervous breakdown. He lives in Central Point now. Works in the nursery—at least he did fifteen years ago when I last tried to speak to him.”

Tracy thought of the man she’d seen in the clearing and of the freshly planted shrub. “Was he married? Did he have any kids?”

“Divorced. His wife and kids moved to somewhere in California. Palm Springs maybe.”

“Why’d you try to speak to him fifteen years ago?”

“I was writing an article on the twenty-five-year anniversary of the championship. It turned out to not be the celebratory piece everyone was expecting.”

“Why not?”

“Eric Reynolds is the only one of the four who made anything of himself. He played four years at UW, but he blew his knee out during practice sophomore year. If he did it now, it’d be no big deal, but back then it was the kiss of death. He never reached the kind of stardom he did in high school. Still, after he graduated, he moved home and started his construction and cement business. Any public-works job this side of Seattle, you’re likely to see a Reynolds Construction banner.”

Tracy again considered her notes. “What about Darren Gallentine?”

“He shot himself. He was living in Seattle.”

“When?”

“Sometime in the late eighties, I believe.”

“Do you know why?”

“Not a clue, friend,” he said. “The last of the four was young Hastey, who is universally considered the town drunk. Like I said, not exactly a feel-good story. We shelved it.”

“What does Hastey do for Reynolds?”

“He
drove
a cement truck until he got his third DUI. Now I think he shines a seat in the office.”

“Sounds like Reynolds is pretty loyal to him.”

“Old ties run deep in a small town.”

“Yeah,” Tracy said, thinking of Cedar Grove. “I’m going to need to come down and take another look at your newspapers, Sam. Would that be all right?”

“Anytime, friend. We’re not going anywhere.”

CHAPTER 21

M
onday morning Tracy drove to the squat cement building on Airport Way that was home to the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab. She’d left the coffeehouse Friday feeling both energized and sick. She had definitive forensic proof that Kimi Kanasket had not thrown herself into the White Salmon River. Far from it. She’d been run down and run over, her body unceremoniously dumped like a piece of garbage.

And Tracy’s focus had now shifted squarely to the Four Ironmen.

She refrained from calling Jenny. She’d learned not to prematurely express her conclusions every time she thought she had a significant break in a case. Too often that break turned out to be a false lead, and she had to go back and explain why she’d been wrong.

Michael Melton’s office was located on the first floor. A level five forensic scientist, Melton was at the top of the pay chain, which was a testament not only to his longevity, but also to his skill and dedication to his job. Melvin could have earned three times his salary working for a private forensic company—which many chose to do after getting the training and resume boost of working for the crime lab. Melton, however, remained—year after year, even when he was in the midst of paying college tuition or funding weddings for his six daughters. The detectives knew Melton stayed out of a sense of obligation to the victims and their families. He sat on the board of directors of the Seattle chapter of Victim Support Services, and he and three other crime-lab scientists played in a country-western band called the Fourensics to raise money for that organization. A bear of a man with a full head of graying brown hair and a matching beard, Melton had nimble enough fingers to strum a guitar and a surprisingly soothing voice.

Tracy met Melton in his office, which contained an eclectic mix of family photographs, ball-peen hammers, combat knives, and a cast-iron skillet—evidence from cases Melton had helped to solve.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of seeing my favorite detective?” Melton said. “Let me guess—the Tim Collins case.”

“Actually, different case,” Tracy said.

“As long as you don’t need it tonight. Got a gig at Kells.”

Kells was a popular Irish bar in the Pike Place Market that Tracy occasionally frequented. “And you didn’t tell me?”

“Just found out. We’re subbing for an Irish folk band.”

“No, nothing I need by tonight,” Tracy said. She set down her briefcase and pulled out the photographs, thumbing through the packets until she found the shots of the tire-tread impressions in the ground. “I’m hoping you can tell me the make and model of the tire that made this impression. You’ll need to go back a ways. These were taken in 1976.”

Like shoes, tires made unique impressions. Even tires of the same make and model could be differentiated by tread wear and the differing amounts of damage in the form of tiny cuts and nicks in the rubber. The latter could be accomplished only if the tread in the photograph could be compared to the actual tire, which was beyond unlikely. However, knowing the manufacturer and model of the tire would be extremely helpful if, for instance, it matched the tires on Tommy Moore’s truck, or another vehicle Tracy might come across upon her revisit to Sam Goldman’s personal library.

“Computer doesn’t go back that far,” Melton said.

His response caught her off guard. “Is there any other way to do it?” she said.

“I got a buddy who’s a genius at this stuff. Let me ask him.”

“This might help.” She handed Melton the three photographs of the white truck. Buzz Almond had focused on the body damage to the truck, but in two of the pictures he’d managed to capture a portion of the front tire. “Hoping you can work your magic and blow these up enough to make out the make and model of the tire.”

“You want to know if it matches the make and model that left these impressions.”

“Or if it doesn’t,” she said.

“Then these will help.” Melton lowered his glasses to the tip of his nose and held up the photographs of Tommy Moore’s truck, considering them. “You have the negatives?”

“They’re in the packet.”

Melton removed the strip of negatives from the front pouch of one of the Kodak packages and also held it up to the light. Then he reached into his drawer and pulled out a magnifying glass, running it first over the photograph, then over the negatives. He lowered the glass without comment. “I take it this isn’t an ongoing investigation?”

“It’s a cold case from 1976, and it’s a bad one, Mike.”

“Aren’t they all?”

“Seventeen-year-old girl went missing on her way home from work. They found her body in the river the next afternoon and concluded suicide. Evidence indicates that wasn’t the case. Someone ran her down.”

That gave Melton pause, as Tracy thought it might. He shook his head. “How do people live with themselves?”

Tracy thought of Sam Goldman telling her he’d scrapped the article on the twenty-five-year anniversary of the state championship when he realized it wouldn’t be the celebratory piece he’d anticipated. “Maybe not very well,” she said.

When she got to her cubicle at the Justice Center, Tracy e-mailed the Department of Licensing in Olympia for a vehicle check on Tommy Moore’s truck. Buzz Almond’s photographs had captured the license plate. She also ran the names Eric Reynolds, Hastey Devoe, Lionel Devoe, Darren Gallentine, and Archibald Coe through Accurint, as well as the National Crime Information Center. And she sent a second e-mail to DOL, seeking the make and model of every vehicle registered to those men or, since they were in high school in 1976, their fathers.

She received return e-mails that afternoon. DOL had been able to use the vehicle identification number from Tommy Moore’s truck to determine that the truck was sold in January 1977 to a buyer in Oregon and had since been scrapped. The fact that Moore had sold the truck just two months after Kimi’s death made Tracy question his statement that he’d had the windshield and body damage fixed. Why bother if he was going to sell it? On the other hand, maybe that was the reason for the cash invoices—Lionel Devoe, who was running his father’s business at that time, could have cut Moore a deal for paying cash, which Devoe didn’t have to show on his books or otherwise pay a business tax.

The second report revealed that Hastey Devoe Senior’s businesses owned several trucks, including tow trucks that likely would have been fitted with all-terrain tires. Earl Kanasket owned a 1968 Ford truck. A 1973 Ford Bronco was registered to Ron Reynolds. Bernard Coe, who Tracy assumed to be Archibald Coe’s father, owned a 1974 Chevy truck. Any of them could have also had all-terrain tires. In fact, Tracy suspected they did. She also suspected that the chances any of those vehicles remained in circulation were slim to none. The chances they’d have the same tires as in 1976 was ludicrous to even consider.

The Accurint report confirmed that Hastey Devoe lived in Stoneridge, and an electricity bill indicated that Archibald Coe lived close by, in Central Point, as Sam Goldman had said. The address looked like it would be for an apartment. Eric Reynolds’s address was also Stoneridge, though a Google map and satellite search revealed the property was far out of town and surrounded by orchards. Tracy didn’t find a utility record for Darren Gallentine, but she wasn’t expecting one, since Sam Goldman had said Gallentine had killed himself.