Possession (29 page)

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DeHaviland dropped gracefully from the leaden sky and touched down. The deputies were young, kids in their twenties. He had grown impatient with young men. They either knew nothing and pretended to know something, or they knew unnecessary things and flaunted their superfluous knowledge. They moved too slowly now and pointlessly, tying their cruiser up with agonizing care. They listened to the ranger explain something out of Sam's hearing, nodded, looked back at him, nodded again. He watched them from the dock as they shrugged on coveralls. The tall kid walked toward him first, empty handed, and Sam frowned.

"Where's your gear?"

"Sir?"

"Not sir—Sam Clinton, deputy from Natchitat. You'll need your death kit."

"Ranger said it was a bear attack."

"That's hearsay, /said it. You assume that everything you hear is true?

How many deaths have you investigated? You always just write down what somebody tells you?"

The kid turned on his heel and walked back to his boat. Sam could see him whisper to the other deputy, a stocky man not more than a year or two older. They rolled their eyes and laughed, quickly turning away from him. The stocky man reached into the launch and brought out a small attache case. Sam relaxed for the moment, still doubting that they had any idea at all what they were doing. When they walked back toward him, their faces were bland and watchful.

The older man stuck out his hand. "Dean McKay. Sergeant out of Chelan. Pleased to meet you, sir."

Sergeant? He wasn't thirty yet. Sam shook his hand and felt no confidence.

"Clinton."

"This is Rusty Blais. You goin' up with us?"

"Let's go."

Yesterday's empty trail was crowded now, full of men and dogs, all of them more fleet of foot and gifted with stamina that left Sam and the ranger far behind. The older men

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climbed with stoicism, stopping by tacit agreement where their lungs were pumped out. They could hear shouts and bursts of laughter far ahead of them, but they seldom caught a glimpse of the young, disappearing backs.

At the last meadow, the ranger stopped and sat down panting. "Wait up, Clinton. We made it. Sit for a minute."

Begrudging the delay, Sam rested.

"Don't mind when they laugh. They mean no disrespect."

"Hell, I know that. I've done it. The M.E.'s deputie dropped a corpse once—over in Seattle. Didn't belt it tight enough and it kind of bounced down the steps. Thank God the widow was over at the neighbors and didn't see it because it struck us funny—weird funny. My partner started to laugh, and then I did, and then the M.E.'s guj caught it and there we were, four grown men, giggling like maniacs while the deceased sits on the bottom step looking confused. You can't cry over every stranger's tragedy or you crack up—but—"

"I know. When it's one of your own people—you gonna be O.K.?"

"Hell. I don't know. Maybe not. I loved that man."

"He was a nice guy. Her too. She was—she seemed like a nice person."

"She is a nice person. Scared of the dark though." He stood up. "I've got to go. We have to find her before the sun goes down again."

"They're looking now. It's a good crew. They grid search, using the dogs. Ernie's up there flying over. If she's in there, we'll find her. What color were their backpacks? I can't remember."

"Khaki, damn it. 'Chubby and Tubby'—surplus specials. His is still up by the lake. I guess I told you that. Of course, she's in there. Where else could she be?"

The ranger shook his head and then drew his breath in sharply as he caught a whiff of death. The two men were silent as they left the trail and slid down to where Blais and McKay stood, nostrils pinched, lips tight together.

"What do you think?" Sam asked, not caring what they thought.

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"Seems like a bear."

"Seems like? He's a brother. You owe him the full treatment." They weren't going to like him. He didn't care about that either. "Give me some of your baggies. You have baggies, haven't you?"

"Yessir." They handed him several and stood back, watching him suspiciously.

He worked alone, dismissing them, barely aware of their presence. He filled the plastic envelopes with bloodstained leaves, dirt, a broken button, and labeled each with a grease pencil, marking his initials and the date. He had trouble for a moment remembering the date. September 11. Friday. One week since he had seen Danny and Joanne alive and smiling and happy and—

He thought he smelled cigar smoke, and turned his head, half-expecting to see Danny sitting up, alive, the joke on Sam. McKay, the sergeant, sat on a log twenty feet away, puffing on the brown stub. Blais teetered back and forth on his heels, hands in his back pocket. Even as he hated them, he was aware that they had done nothing really to pull his rage; they were guilty only of easy assumption. If they weren't cops, it could be forgiven.

He could not forgive them. Respect must be paid.

He lifted one of Danny's softened hands and slipped a baggie over it, held his own hand out like a surgeon's and was only slightly gratified to feel McKay slip a wide rubber band into it. He secured the plastic covering and repeated the process with Danny's other hand.

McKay hunkered next to him. "Fingernail scrapings? You think there might be any?"

"I don't know. I want to know why he didn't fire his gun. I want to know why he didn't fight back."

"He didn't fire?" McKay whistled in amazement. "Shit, I would have emptied it into that mother."

"The gun's there. Don't touch it!Cylinder's full, chamber too."

"Maybe she jumped him from behind?"

"Not him."

He finished his work. He longed to be done with this

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ruined Danny who was no part of the real Danny. He would not be until after the post mortem was accomplished. And he could not now conceive how he would manage that process. He turned to McKay. "Who'll be doing the post?"

McKay looked surprised again. "The post?"

Sam spoke evenly. "The autopsy. You do autopsies up here in the toolies, don't you?"

"Hey, man . . ." McKay reddened with irritation, but checked himself.

"Who'll be doing it?"

"If they have one, it will probably be Doc Hastings. Albro's on vacation."

"You have a suspicious death here, deputy. You don't really know what happened, and neither do I. You have sucking chest wounds; you have deep facial lacerations; you have an unfired weapon, and you fucking well better be scheduling an autopsy."

"It's not up to me."

"That's a relief."

Blais muttered something, and Sam heard a faint "asshole."

"You got something to say, kid?"

"No sir."

"Then shut your fucking mouth." He turned away, and crawled up the bank, carrying his baggies full of evidence with him. He had no time for inept idiots.

Sam clung to his anger, warming himself with it; it was vital that he keep it aglow. Without it, the icy core inside him would expand and immobilize him. It was no longer necessary that anybody like him or find him a good old boy.

The helicopter settled over the meadow, its backwash flooding the long grass with air. Blais and McKay emerged from the brush with the same apparently deliberate languor and strolled toward the craft. Sam watched them silently and wondered why the whole world seemed to move in slow motion, heedless of the lowering sun and the terrible necessity for action. By conscious force of will he kept himself from directing the removal of Danny's body. He

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had worked Danny's death scene and worked it as meticulously as any he had encountered. They wouldn't be able to goof it up now—unless they dumped the bird in Lake Chelan.

Blais and McKay disappeared into the woods with the rubberized body bag and struggled up finally, carrying Danny's shrouded body. He watched them strap the bag onto the helicopter and wave it away as the plane rose up and disappeared into the clouds. He felt his throat close up on him and walked quickly away toward the deserted camp. When they followed him, they saw him scrape the vomit beneath the tree into a baggie and nodded at each other.

The old cop was crazy and best left alone.

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Sam did not pretend to be a woodsman; all his searching skill had been honed in cities. Spin him around three times in Seattle and send him into an alley full of human rejects, and he could find his man nine times out of ten. He knew the wilderness of the city, all the dark, inaccessible places that gave shelter to derelicts and innocents and predators. But he was no use at all up on this mountain and he knew it. If he plunged into the brush beyond the green lake to call Joanne out, he too would be lost.

He waited alone near the fire, ignored by the occasional pair of searchers who broke off from the pack to warm themselves by the flames he kept replenished. He caught something in their manner, something he recognized. Like the deputies, none of them moved with the purpose or energy that suggested urgency. They did not expect to find her—or, they assumed, if they found her, she would be dead too. He moved into the brush to take a leak, and heard voices carrying clearly through the chill air.

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"Whatta you think?"

He stood and slowly buttoned his fly, listening.

"Negative."

"How long did they say the man's been dead?"

"Five ... six days."

"Then I don't know what the hell we're breaking our butts for; them dogs are just circling around like turkeys. Can't find their own assholes."

"You think the bear got her too?"

"No. I think a bunny rabbit ate her. The guy was armed and look what happened to him. Shit."

"I never heard of a bear actually attacking anyone up here."

"Happens every twenty years or so, and then people forget about it. They get to thinking they're just big teddy bears and they go and try to feed them. Tourists. You can have 'em."

Sam froze, breathing shallowly, feeling rage fill his chest again. The older man was enjoying himself, playing big-shot for the young guy.

"They messed with a she-bear. Grizzly maybe. The only choice you got when you meet you a grizzly is to lie down and play dead. If you're lucky, they'll only chaw on you a little. We ain't never gonna find nothing of that woman but some left-over pieces. That sow's probably dragged her off somewheres to eat off her slow .. ."

Sam's figure rose out of the brush and loomed over them, his face a contorted mask in the firelight. The bloodhounds leapt at him, snarling, and then reached the end of their leashes and gagged.

The dog men stared at him open-mouthed. The dogs howled, their hoarse baying bringing more men into the firelight, all of them watching Sam cautiously.

"If that was your wife out there, you wouldn't be so quick to find her a pile of bloody lumps," his voice shook.

The dog man studied him, realized who he was, and sat back, stroking his hound self-consciously. "Didn't see you out there."

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"I guess not."

"Hey—I'm sorry. We get to talking rough sometimes. Don't mean nothing." Sam's shoulders sagged and he felt weak as the adrenalin dissipated. He moved to his watching place by the fire, chilled from even the short foray into the brush. "Nothing?" he asked.

"She might be up a tree out there," the younger man said quickly, glancing back at his partner. "It's easier for our dogs at night. Be better now. The skin 'rafts'—sweat and bacteria—come up with night moisture. Bloodhounds' old ears just sweep smells up like brooms—right into their snouts. Dogs are amazing. We'll find her."

The old guy held out a flask. "Have a hummer?" The liquor went down with a jolt and sang in him. He took a second hit and then a third before he handed it back. He wanted to believe the young man, but the conversation overheard smacked more of truth.

"What's the longest you ever looked for somebody up here—and found them—O.K.?"

Lies came, and he swallowed them whole because he needed them.

"Oh, lessee. Three weeks, probably. Two—three weeks. People can be resourceful when they get pushed to it." He turned to the young man.

"Remember that guy from Wenatchee back in '72—'73? Must have been missing that long. Right?"

"Right. Yeah, at least that. Kind of skinny when we come on him—but O.K." He lied glibly. Not mean men, either of them. Sam slept again, his second night huddled against the logs that defined Danny's and Joanne's last camp. He heard only faintly the shouts in the woods and the heavy feet of men who filled the circle of bodies around the fire. The dogs snuffled and groaned in the night, twisting and turning on their leashes, and the searchers talked in voices so deep that their words were only rumbles. He dreamed of her, that she had come back through the trees alone and stood outside 219

the cluster of sleeping men crying to be let in to the warmth. When he held out his hand and reached for her, she disappeared.

It snowed in the night, dainty flakes at first, and then fat snow that dropped on his cheek and melted there. His hip pressed against the ground and ached, but he slept on, unaware of the white mantle that covered all of them. When he woke finally, he found them up before him and he felt guilty that he could have given in to the warmth of the sleeping bag so easily, when she still waited somewhere alone for help to come for her.

It was barely seven and daylight only beginning to wash over the shallow snow pack. He felt stronger, less likely to go off half-cocked at the men around him. They were doing their jobs, unfettered by personal involvement—just as he always had.

He forced himself to make small talk with the searchers as they sipped coffee. He could not hurry them.

"Don't let the snow scare you." The ranger was talking to him.

"It looks bad to me. Will it just keep on piling on now until spring?"

"Naw. It's only fake winter. We always have snow above 4,000 feet the first week or so of September. I guess the mountain wants to warn us of what's coming. It'll melt off in a day or two and then we'll get three, maybe four weeks of Indian Summer. The snow might make it easier—give us tracks to follow."

But what if the tracks were only their own? Sam didn't press him.