In the Clearing (9 page)

CHAPTER 7

Wednesday, November 10, 1976

B
uzz Almond hugged and kissed his wife, Anne, at the front door. “Love you,” he said.

“Love you,” she said.

“Take care of my girls.”

“Take care of my Buzz.”

It was their routine, and Buzz knew it eased Anne’s concern to hear the words. She worried each day he left for work. And with two little girls at home and a third child on the way—maybe that boy Buzz silently hoped for—Anne had every right to worry. Her parents were well-off and would take care of her and the kids if anything ever happened to him, but they both knew money was a poor substitute for a husband and a father. He hated knowing she worried like she did, and he hated leaving his girls alone at night.

Anne slid her arms around his waist just above the cumbersome belt that held his revolver, nightstick, flashlight, radio, and handcuffs. “You haven’t been yourself the past few days. Is it that Indian girl?”

“Kimi Kanasket,” he said.

“Such a tragedy,” Anne said. “What’s bothering you?”

“I don’t know,” he said, though he did. “Just the thought of it, I guess. A girl that young, bright future ahead of her.”

“Do they know what happened yet?”

“They’re waiting on the autopsy.”

Anne snuggled as close as she could get with the belt between them. Her hair smelled of coconut—some new shampoo—and when he lowered his nose and nuzzled her neck, Buzz detected the familiar odor of caramel. Neither of them knew why. They’d done a smell test of Anne’s creams and perfumes, and none of those had been the source. It was her natural scent, they assumed, and it was a surefire way to get Buzz’s motor going. “You are as sweet as candy,” he told her.

“Well, maybe when I get home this afternoon and you get off-shift, we can find a way to take your mind off of work and onto something more pleasant.”

He smiled. “I’d like that. You have a magic spell to make Sophia and Maria sit still for half an hour, do you?”

“Not half an hour, but I might have a spell or two to last fifteen minutes.”

He pulled back and feigned indignation. “Has it come to that already? A quarter of an hour?”

“It’s not the number of minutes that counts, it’s the quality. And you, Buzz Almond, make every minute special.”

“Try explaining that to the guys at the station.”

“I hope you don’t,” she said. “I’d be too embarrassed to look them in the eye again.”

“You? I’d be the one they started calling Quick Draw.”

She laughed and slapped his chest. “You just come home to me, Buzz.”

“How could I not, with those thoughts on my mind?” He kissed her again and left her in the doorway looking prettier than the day he’d married her.

Later, on patrol, his thoughts vacillated between the anticipated rendezvous with Anne, and Earl Kanasket. He couldn’t imagine the man’s grief, couldn’t imagine losing one of his daughters. He’d heard people say that a parent never recovers from the loss of a child, but it had been one of those sayings that had little meaning without context. Buzz had seen enough young people die during two tours in Vietnam; it was something he’d never gotten used to, and he hoped he never did. But he hadn’t been a father then. He didn’t know what it was like to truly love a child of your own flesh and blood. He’d never seen a parent’s anguish, not until that horrible moment when he’d driven to Earl and Nettie Kanasket’s home and delivered the news that their daughter was dead. Earl had been stoic, like a boxer who’d taken a solid right to the head, still on his feet but uncertain of his surroundings or circumstances. Nettie had simply melted, her legs giving way, collapsing to the floor.

Buzz wished he hadn’t made that promise about finding Kimi and bringing her home. It haunted him.

His sergeant had told Buzz to give his reports to Jerry Ostertag, the detective assigned to the case, and put it behind him; his job was done. Buzz was to move on to the next call. But the more he told himself that’s what he’d do, the more uncertain he felt about the way he’d left things. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but something just wasn’t sitting right with him. The night he’d arrived at their home, Nettie Kanasket had said Kimi would never cause them any problems, and all indications were she hadn’t. Left unsaid was that it had been Élan who’d given them trouble, like setting their daughter up with Tommy Moore.

Kimi was a good student and a responsible daughter. According to the article in the
Sentinel
she’d earned a partial scholarship to UW, where she would run track. She was athletic, bright, beautiful, and, by all accounts, well-adjusted. Would she really throw herself in the river over a boy? Over Tommy Moore? Buzz supposed it possible, but he didn’t think so. For one, he wasn’t convinced the breakup had been mutual, as Moore insisted. People who said such things were usually protecting their egos. He thought it much more likely Moore had been the dumpee rather than the dumper.

And he couldn’t ignore the damage to Moore’s truck.

Buzz came out of his reverie when he drove past the Columbia Diner. He checked his rearview mirror, determined it was safe to make a U-turn, and drove back to the diner’s gravel parking lot. He sat a minute, debating with himself, then shut off the engine and got out. The temperature had warmed a few degrees, though it remained cold enough to see his breath.

Buzz walked up the wooden stairs and stepped inside to the smell of deep-fried food. The whole place couldn’t have been more than eight hundred square feet, with just five booths and half a dozen barstools at the Formica counter, where a lone man sat working at a piece of fried chicken with a fork and knife, and nursing a mug of coffee.

A waitress greeted Buzz from behind the counter. “Just seat yourself,” she said, despite the sign that instructed customers to wait to be seated. “Be with you in a minute.”

Buzz took a booth near the picture window with a view of the parking lot and the road. The waitress approached with a pot of coffee, turned over his mug, and filled it. “Get you a menu?”

“Just a cup of coffee,” he said.

“You’re new,” she said, looking at his uniform.

“I am. Just a few months.”

“Welcome.” She was an attractive middle-aged woman, tall and thin, with hair pure silver and cut short as a man’s, revealing hoop earrings. Blue shadow brought out the blue of her eyes. “Where’re you from?”

“Most recently? Vietnam.”

“Sorry to hear that. Army?”

“Marines, by way of Orange County in Southern California.”

“Orange County? Disneyland’s down there, isn’t it?”

“Not far. Anaheim.”

“Took the kids one summer. Hotter than blazes. And the smog? I don’t know how people can breathe that all day, especially kids.”

“Those are two of the reasons we didn’t go back.”

“How many you got?”

“Two girls. One on the way.”

“Good for you. Got some apple pie to go with that coffee.”

“Homemade?”

“Don’t insult me. I wouldn’t serve it if it wasn’t.” She stuck out a hand. “I’m Lorraine.” Her name was also on the copper name tag pinned to her uniform.

Buzz looked at the four pies in the glass case near the cash register. “I’d love a piece of apple pie, Lorraine.”

Lorraine departed and returned with a thick slice and a fork. She stood waiting for Buzz to take a bite. His taste buds exploded when the apples and cinnamon hit his tongue. “Wow,” he said. “I’ll deny ever saying it, but this is better than my mother’s.”

Lorraine gave him a smile, but it had a sad quality to it. The entire diner, nearly empty, had a sad quality to it. Buzz saw no reason to hide his intent for coming in. “I was the officer who responded to the call when Kimi Kanasket went missing.”

Lorraine grimaced as if stabbed in the chest, but what she said surprised Buzz. “Then you know it doesn’t make any sense.”

“What doesn’t make any sense?”

“That Kimi would do such a thing.”

“How’d she seem to you that night?”

Lorraine sat across from him, her knees angled so they were in the aisle. “She seemed fine. She seemed just fine.”

“I heard her boyfriend came in.”

“Tommy Moore,” she said, nearly spitting his name. “Jackass brought a girl in here with him.”

“What was Kimi’s reaction?”

“Honestly? She seemed fine with it. I asked her if she was okay, and she said she was. She said she’d ended it. She was going to UW next year anyway. Besides, her parents didn’t like Tommy.” It confirmed Buzz’s suspicion that Kimi had broken up with Moore.

“She ever say why not?”

“Dead-end kid going nowhere fast; they wanted better for Kimi.”

“Heard her brother introduced them.”

“Élan? I don’t know about that.”

“What’s his story?”

Lorraine rolled her eyes. “Another dead-end kid. Dropped out of high school. Lives at home. Not sure he does much of anything except cause his parents grief.”

“Kimi ever talk about her relationship with him?”

“Not really, but I didn’t get the impression they were close.”

“So Kimi didn’t seem sad or angry about Tommy coming in with another girl?”

“Nope. She waited on the table, cheerful as ever. Maybe a little more cheerful. She was no dummy. She knew what Tommy was doing, and that irritated him. He got up and left without even ordering.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Nope, just grabbed his date by the hand and bolted. Drove off in a huff. Back tires spitting up gravel.”

“Kimi finish her shift?”

“Yep.” Lorraine pointed to a phone mounted on the wall near the cash register. “She used that phone to call home and let them know she was on her way. Did it every night she worked.” Lorraine picked up the napkin from beneath the table setting and blotted the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes.

“So, no indication she was upset or depressed?”

“She hugged me and said she’d see me Saturday night.” She took a moment to compose herself before continuing. “I told her not to bother, not with the football game that night, not with the whole town clearing out. This place was going to be a graveyard anyway.”

“She wasn’t going to the big game?”

Lorraine shook her head. “No. Some of the Indians were planning a big protest about the ‘Red Raiders’ name.”

“I heard about that.”

“Kimi’s father is one of the tribal elders. He didn’t want Kimi too involved, since she goes to school there, which made it hard enough.”

“Kimi ever indicate she received any threats or harassment because of the protests?”

“Nothing serious. She said some of the students would make an occasional derogatory comment, but she just ignored them. She was more mature than most kids her age. Kimi had her own way of protesting. When she ran cross-country and track, she covered the word ‘Red’ on her tank top.”

“Hmm,” Buzz said, thinking that pretty smart. “Let me ask you straight up, Lorraine—”

“Do I believe Kimi jumped in the river because of Tommy Moore?” She shook her head and dabbed again at her tears. “I know that’s what they’re saying, but I’m having a hard time believing it. She was always so levelheaded, and like I said, Tommy coming in didn’t seem to bother her none. Maybe it did. Maybe she just hid it so I wouldn’t see it.”

“Tommy ever pick her up after a shift and drive her home?”

“Couple times, yeah.”

Buzz looked at his watch. “Thanks, Lorraine. I appreciate the conversation—and the pie. I better get going. Could I box up the rest of this so I can eat it later?”

“You’d have hurt my feelings if you hadn’t asked.” She stood and started for the counter, then turned back. “You don’t think Kimi did it, do you? You don’t think she jumped in the river?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Buzz said, not wanting word to get back to the detective, Jerry Ostertag, that he was conducting an investigation. “I just make the reports.”

“So is anyone going to pursue this?”

“I’ll let the detectives know,” he said.

“Seems like somebody should.”

Buzz Almond placed the Styrofoam pie box on the passenger seat. Lorraine had slid in a fresh slice of pie to go with the one he’d partially eaten. “For your wife and girls to share,” she’d said.

Buzz backed from the parking lot onto 141, drove around a bend in the road, and slowed when he saw a turnout he’d missed the night he and Earl Kanasket walked the road. He pulled in and got out, keeping to the shoulder. A few steps in, he noticed an undefined dirt path partially covered by foliage, ferns, and thimbleberry and blackberry vines. He pushed the brush aside and saw where tire tracks had left the road. Some of the foliage also looked to have been freshly broken, the stems still green. He started down the path, following the ruts in the road, the frozen ground crunching beneath the soles of his boots.

A few feet in, he stopped and crouched for a closer look. The tire tread looked to have been made by oversize truck tires, the kind he associated with off-road vehicles, the kind he’d noted on Tommy Moore’s truck. He also noticed something else: impressions where it looked like the heel of a shoe had struck the ground.

He stood and continued, walking along the side of the tire tracks so he didn’t step on them or the shoe impressions. The shrubs and branches clawed at him, snagging the fabric of his uniform as the path narrowed and wound its way east a couple hundred yards before widening again and angling up a rise. Buzz climbed the hill, feeling the exertion in his thighs and calves and hearing his labored breathing. He continued to notice broken tree limbs and branches scattered on the ground, and shrubbery that looked to have been trampled and crushed. By the time he crested the hill, each breath marked the air in white bursts, and he needed a moment to catch his wind. In the Marines he’d have charged up and down hills like this a hundred times and not broken a sweat. Now he was huffing and puffing . . . and lasting fifteen minutes in the bedroom.