Mortal Fall (31 page)

“Monty, it’s not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal. You have no idea how toxic he can be; how he gets off on stirring the pot.”

“He’s not that bad. He’s grown up. You can’t hold someone’s teenage mistakes against them forever.”

“Obviously, he still seems to be making them, so I guess they’re not just teenage mistakes, and you never answered my question: How did he know?”

She stared at me, a deer in headlights.

I shook my head and turned to my car, but Lara grabbed my arm again. “Wait. Wait. I was out with Jana. That’s all. We were out for some drinks in town and he was there. He bought me a beer—to be polite. That’s all, and I had too much to drink and we got to talking. He
is
your brother.”

Lightning flashed again and a bruised and dark layer of clouds pressed over our field. The Columbia Range to the east glowed purple, and I could feel the electricity in the air as the wind rippled the thick fabric on the sides of the tents. Lara’s hair whipped out to all sides, her eyes pleading and wild. She looked outlandish and otherworldly. “Better get your guests inside where it’s safe.” I motioned to the party. “Looks like there’s a big one coming.”

“But, Monty . . .”

I peeled her fingers off my arm, hopped in my car, and drove away.

33

I
WENT OVER MY
limit at the The Stray Bullet Bar just off the highway a few miles from Lara’s house.

Let me explain. I’d set a drinking limit for myself in college one night when I got so drunk, I couldn’t remember the events of the night before and woke up in a strange house full of sticky liquid, vomit and other groggy students. I hated that feeling of not being in control, of blacking out, and I took an oath to myself that I would not become my father. From then on, two drinks was my limit.

Randal Harris was a
functioning
alcoholic—a daily, in-control drinker for the most part, but was also capable of drunken sprees—coming home knocking into the hallway walls and lurching across the kitchen into the table that splintered beneath his weight, the sugar cup and glasses flying across the room, crashing, breaking. Fine white granules sprayed across the floor. My heroes were Spiderman, Superman, and, of course, my dad, until he threw up across the hallway carpet; and with Mom already asleep, Adam made me clean it as he helped Dad to the couch where he’d stay until morning. The smell of alcohol and bile rose into my young nostrils, made me gag, and forever altered my view of my dad. And when you lose faith in your dad—your hero—you lose faith in all heroes. I picked up the shards of glass and ceramic from the sugar bowl and swept up the sugar. I think I cut my finger. Nothing novel, really, except perhaps that was the moment I realized I needed to be brave, that I needed to toe the line for myself in this world.

I’ve only gone over my two-drink limit four times since my oath to myself: one evening with Ted Systead out of excitement to be on a murder case and some immature need to show him I could “hang” with the best of ’em; the night after my mom’s funeral after Adam pummeled me; the day I moved out of Lara’s and my house; and the day it hit the news that some kids had stumbled across a skull in the woods north of Columbia Heights that authorities had identified as belonging to an unidentified human child.

My eye was throbbing now. I was still angry at Lara, and I was completely on edge from seeing Adam at the reunion. And now I could add guilt to the mix for leaving Lara with a nasty thunderstorm to deal with and a mom who was going to keep asking her why I had said I was going home when in her mind, I already
was
home. I could practically hear a roar between my ears as if I had a bad case of tinnitus.

The bar was big, the walls painted brown with a couple of posters of skiers and snowboarders doing flips from rock outcroppings hanging on the walls. In one corner a large big-screen television hung with ESPN on, the sound muted, men’s tennis—Wimbledon. Old songs from the eighties and nineties played in the background. I had planned on only the one, but when the bartender, a friendly guy with pale-blue eyes, big round ears that stuck out, a graying beard, and a hearty laugh asked me if I wanted another, I found myself saying yes, that I might as well because I sure as hell didn’t want to go out into the storm I could hear pushing against the walls of the bar. The thunder and lightning raged furiously around us, mimicking my own emotions. We even lost electricity for about a half hour. Then I took another drink, and when the whiskey slid down my throat like a comforting friend, I took another after that, only giving my limit the briefest consideration.

“I knew”—I pointed at the bartender—“that when she said she ran into him at Costco it was bullshit.”

“Ran into who?” he had asked me, rhythmically rubbing the spots from the dishwasher off his mugs, as if he did it all day long to calm himself whether the glasses needed it or not.

“My brother,” I said. “As if
he’d
have a membership to Costco, for Christ’s sake.”

Hours later, when I stumbled slightly on my way to the men’s room while I sang along to “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction,” I knew I was tipsy. When I got back to my barstool, the bartender, who I’d learned was named Doug, said, “You ain’t driving this way,” and pushed a glass of water in front of me. “Cops are out in force for the Fourth.”

“I won’t drive.” I shook my head. “I’ll get a ride.” I pulled out my cell phone and called Ken.

“What are you saying? That you’re drunk?” Ken asked after I’d mentioned I needed a favor.

“Not drunk, just, well”—I considered—“careful. One too many, you know. So can you give me a lift?”

“I’m sorry, I’m home with Chase while Val is out with some friends. He’s asleep. I guess I could wake him, but—” he sounded nervous. “She’d kill me if she knew I drug him out.”

“No, no, no,” I slurred into the phone, and in some parallel consciousness, in some overseeing mind, I saw my dad and my brother in me and hated myself even more for drinking as much as I had that I had to call someone for a ride. “Don’t get her angry.”

“Look,” Ken said. “Why don’t I call Bridwell. I’ll bet he can come and get you.”

“No,” I said again. Somehow through the blur, I knew that the last thing I wanted was for all the other officers to know that Mr. Control, Mr. Thorough,
Mr. Detective,
as Ken had mocked me earlier, had gone and gotten too drunk to drive. “Bartender’s already got a taxi for me. Yeah. On the way. Just forget it, Ken.” I waved my hand in front of myself. “Just forget it, ’kay?”

“Okay, you sure? It’s going to cost a pretty penny to get a ride from there to Glacier.”

“M’sure,” I said and hung up.

“Want some more water?” the bartender asked me.

I nodded.

“You know, don’t you? There aren’t any taxis around. The last company that serviced the airport just went under ’bout two months ago.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.” I looked at my cell phone. There was a text from Lara and through double vision, I could see it asked where I was. I deleted it. Then I thought of Gretchen. I felt I could trust her. I scrolled through my contacts and found her name and hit Call before I even fully thought it through. When she answered, I asked her to come get me.

• • •

In twenty minutes, Gretchen was there, looking at me with big, blue eyes and a confused and worried frown. “At your service,” she said sarcastically, then added sincerely, “You okay?”

“I’m fine. Just had one too many and I’m smart enough not to get in the car and drive.”

“Okay then. I’ll chalk that up as a wise move. Come on, let’s get you home.”

“Thank you,” I said, and when she grabbed my arm, I gladly leaned into her and smelled the flowery shampoo scent of her hair. When we stepped out, I could see most of the evening had passed, the sun beginning to shoulder the horizon. “Damn.” I waved to the evening. “How’d it get so late?”

“Apparently drinking the hours away,” she said. “That’s how.”

I got into her silver Honda, and set my head back. “I really, really appreciate this,” I said when she slid in and closed her door.

“Yeah, well, as far as I’m concerned, this means you owe me again. What brought you”—she motioned to the bar—“here in the first place?”

“A ‘reunion gone bad.’ I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Okay then.” She pulled onto the highway and I looked out the window, at the passing stores, signs, and fields. I rolled mine down to get some fresh air. The storm had passed through, leaving the ozone smell of fresh rain and earth. A buttery light skimmed the mountains and
a herd of deer fed in the field we passed, their bodies tan blobs in the distant green fields. A little farther on, a black dog loped up the side of the highway, his tongue hanging out the side. “Hope he knows where home is,” I said.

“I hope so too,” Gretchen replied. “The thunder always freaks a few of ’em out, sends them running like they’re being hunted.”

“I can’t say I blame ’m.” I thought of how I’d run—how I deserted Lara at the party. With my anger dulled by the whiskey, a twinge of guilt struck somewhere behind my heart, panging through my chest. I’d always had Lara’s back and would never leave her in the lurch like that before. “We should stop,” I said. “Check his collar.”

“I think he’s heading in the right direction.” She looked in her rearview mirror. “He’s turning down Walsh Road now like he knows his way home, which is where you need to be heading too.” Gretchen glanced at me then set her eyes back to the road.

“You’ve really gone beyond to help me twice now. How come?”

“I don’t know.” She didn’t say anything for a moment, just kept her eyes on the road. “Maybe because I’m bored.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Or maybe I feel like you’re just trying to do the right thing. I mean,
really
trying to do what’s right, not just because it’s your job. I guess I don’t come across that level of passion and commitment in all that many people.”

I stared at her for a moment. I wasn’t quite sure what to say, so I simply thanked her.

We drove the rest of the way in silence, through Columbia Falls and into the mouth of the canyon, where the setting sun spread a fiery glow over the deep-green water of the Flathead River moving in languid ripples. Several people fished from the banks, casting their lines from drifting rowboats as dusk swelled around them. We pushed through Hungry Horse, Coram, and into West Glacier, where odd-shaped masses of clouds left over from the storm gathered around the dark silhouette of Apgar Mountain standing like a sentry before the
entrance to the park. I childishly imagined clouds forming sinister shapes like daggers, hooks, chains, teeth, claws, dismantled corpses, bloodstains. . . . I thought of the jackals outside all the houses that frigid Halloween night I walked home without Nathan.

Suddenly, something low to the ground darted across the road in front of us, Gretchen’s headlights illuminating its bushy tail. She pushed on the brake, and by the time we slowed, it was gone.

“Fox,” I said. A flash in the night, I thought.

“Yeah, definitely a fox. Cute little thing.” She glanced at me. “You’re more alert than I thought you’d be.

“I guess.” I looked back out my window. The domain of wild animals wove all around the park, around the Flathead Valley and I thought of the wolverine, ominous and defiant against the world, and Wolfie, one of their strongest defenders against the humans who loved to subdue and conquer that which they couldn’t understand.

I thought of Adam and how a twisted soul like his would always want to insert havoc into others’ lives like a coiled and quivering rattlesnake waiting to strike, if for no other reason than to make his own chaos seem normal. Something one of my professors uttered in one of my psychology classes popped into my mind—that children from troubled homes learn to read people’s emotions with acuity because they’re always trying to determine when things might go sideways. I know I was always overanalyzing, but I considered Adam. I never figured him for the type to bother reading anyone, but now I wondered if he had more figured out about Lara and me than I ever imagined.

We drove under the trestle, through the gates of the park, over the bridge crossing the Middle Fork River, and to my dorm—back to my little haven in Glacier, as if the park itself was a type of medieval fortress that carried special powers and spells that could inoculate me from my past, from Adam, and from my childhood memories.

All the way home, I had watched the landscape blur outside my window. Trees, fields and buildings mixing into a pale swirl of motion that made me dizzy. I was feeling guilty and incompetent, the two
emotions I hated the most. Now that I was sobering up, I could add embarrassment to that list.

When Gretchen pulled up and stopped in front of my dorm, I thanked her.

“It’s not a problem,” she said. “You did the right thing by calling.”

I leaned over, placed a hand on her shoulder, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

She smiled.

“Want to come in?” I asked, my fingers—thick and heavy feeling—still lingering and woven in the ends of her hair.

She shook her head. “You go in, get some sleep, and take a few Tylenol in the morning.”

I nodded, gently removed my hand. “Will do.”

“And if you need a ride to your car, it’s got to be early because I work tomorrow at nine.”

“Thanks, Gretchen. I owe you. Again.”

34

I
WOKE UP IN
the clothes I had worn to the reunion, stood in the shower until the hot water began to turn lukewarm, and despite my usual routine, made myself some scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast because I knew I should get something substantial in my system. I had a headache and felt a little fuzzy, but I wanted to get back to work even though it was the Fourth of July. I thought of Gretchen as I brushed my teeth and rinsed with mouthwash. The night wasn’t as big a blur as I thought it might be, and I clearly remembered how she had said to call in the morning for a ride to my car.

There was a message on my phone from Lara, from around nine p.m., asking where I was. I deleted it and called Gretchen around quarter to seven. She picked me up by seven thirty and drove me to my car and headed off for her day. I considered asking her what she had planned for the holiday, but I decided not to. It seemed to me that I had gone too far already and had no right to know how she planned to spend her time. I thanked her profusely and said that I owed her. “Damn right, you do,” she said right back.