Possession (39 page)

She would not move from that spot. She would not respond to his warnings that she would fall. She gave no sign that she heard his voice at all. He let her be.

Max died so quietly that Sam did not hear him slip away; his breathing had only slowed and gentled until there was no breath at all. Sam heard a heartbeat when he pressed his ear to Max's chest, but it was only his own drumming in his ear. He could not bring himself to pound the little Indian's chest or to force breath into the slack mouth. Ling had spoken of essence, of soul and spirit, and he knew that Max had gone away, so much more swiftly than Jake or Danny had. There was no use to try. And still, Sam held the shell that had been Max, his hand tight over the bloodless wound.

When the helicopter found them, he carried Ling to it, so used to his burden that he felt strangely light when he let go of it. The pilot looked at Max, shook his head at Sam futilely, but strapped the little Indian into the seat when Sam insisted.

When the pilot held his hand out to Joanne, all of her languor and madness seemed to vanish. She turned toward Sam, and when she spoke her voice was cold and rational and utterly calm.

"Killer. You killed for no reason. I saw it all, and I will see that you pay. I hate you and I will always hate you-' Murderer. . . ."

Parts

September 17, 1981

290

30

FORM 927 INCIDENT

81-1157 CSS 2187 REV 5 78

DATE 9-80-81

TIME 0930 Hrs

PLACE Deaconess Hospital

STATEMENT OF: Joanne C. Undatrom

My name Is Joanne Crowder Undatrom. I live at 15103 Old Orchard Road. Natchitat, Washington. My data of birth Is January 29,1949.

On Friday, September 4.1981, my husband, Daniel, and I arrived In Stehekin, Washington to begin a four day hiking vacation. On Saturday evening, September 8 we were camped at Rainbow Lake. We were Joined by David Duane Demioh who was also hiking. He Informed us of the presence of a grisly bear In the area, and we made camp together that night. Mr Demich hiked out the nan morning, but returned to tall us that the animal had. threatened him. My husband and Mr. Demich helped me climb a tree, and they went to see about the bear. Within a short period—about ten minutes—I heard sounds of a struggle and a shot. I think several shots. I looked toward the area when they had gone and saw a very large animal In the brush. I heard a scream. I think It was my husband. Mr. Demioh was wrestling with the bear. Mr. Demioh returned to where I was and told me that my husband was dead. He told me that he would take care of me and see that I got off the mountain safely. We waited In the tree for several hours, and then Mr. Demich led me over a mountain pass. Because he had been Injured in his arm, we had to stay in a meadow for several days. After we left the meadow, we became lost. Mr. Demich was quite in. We were planning to try to find our way out. On the last morning. I'm sorry—I cannot tell you the date—a man I know as Sam Clinton burst Into our camp. I told him that Mr. Demich had saved me and I screamed at him not to shoot, but he shot Mr. Demich. At no time did Mr. Demich threaten Sam Clinton or me with a weapon. Mr. Demich was unconscious for a while, and, during that Urns, Sam Clinton attempted to rape me. I would like to say that Sam Clinton has made suggestive remarks to me In the past and that, on two occasions has attempted to put his hands on my body. (I had told my husband about this and he said he would speak to Mr. Clinton.) I attempted to aid Mr. Demioh, and he did regain consciousness. When Seal saw that *r. Demich was alive, he struggled with him and threw him off a cliff. There was a man with Sam Clinton, a man I do not know. He was Injured but I don't know how. • • Clinton continued to make suggestive remarks to me until the helicopter came to us I fear for my safety If Sam Clinton should be released on bail. 1 wffi ;•*"» to the above in a court of law. The above to true to the beet of my recollection.

STATEMENT TAKEN BY:

*.7l, \ SIGNED^ "

WITNESS:

PAGE 1 OF 1

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Sam read the Xeroxed sheets for the third time and then turned them face down and stared at the tan wall of the interview room. The public defender shuffled papers and sighed. He was a kid, a kid dressed in what had to be his daddy's Sunday suit.

"They autopsied him, I suppose?" Sam spoke without looking at the young lawyer. He came free; that was about all you could say for him—provided by the public's taxes for indigent defendants.

The lawyer pawed through his papers and drew forth a sheaf of yellow sheets stapled together. He seemed not to be familiar with the contents.

"Yeah. It took them three days to bring him out of the canyon. Let's see—'Bullet entered just above the right ear, traveled beneath the skin transversely along the skull without penetration and exited above the occiput two centimeters right of midline. Bullet not retrieved. Nonfatal wound.'"

"Lucky bastard. It should have blown his brain apart."

"Mr. Clinton—I hope you won't make a comment like that to anyone other than me?"

"I wasn't thinking of calling the papers. What killed him?"

"Broken neck—at the—ah—C-3 and C-4."

"They think I did that too?"

"No. Dr. Albro attributed that to the fall."

"Albro? Where was he when I needed him? A guy falls sixty feet on his head, and even Hastings could have figured it out."

The public defender cleared his throat. "It's Mrs. Lind-strom's statement that disturbs me the most. . ."

"Disturbs you?" Sam stood and paced the six feet to the other wall, back and forth, back and forth, and fought the impulse to put his fist through the wall. "It bothers me just a jot too. That woman is nuts, and she's a liar. She was up there playing kissy-face—and worse—with Demich. They were getting ready to screw when we walked in on them- Sam did not want to ask about Ling's postmortem, but he had to know.

"What was the scoop on Max?"

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The shuffling of paper again. The lack of emotion. "Hemopneumothorax. Both lungs. The bullet tore out—"

"O.K. That's enough. I know what it means." The wall in front of him blurred. "What's your name again?"

"Mark Nelson. You ask me every time I come in here."

"I think somebody better get another statement from Joanne—because you could walk out of here, find your nearest asylum, go up to the first patient you ran into, ask him—or her—to give you a statement, and you'd have something just as relevant as hers is. He pulled the rifle on me. He was ready to fire. I shot in self-defense. I shot in her defense. Check the bullet that came out of—out of Max, and you'll see what Demich was up to—"

Nelson squirmed in his chair. "The bullet that killed Ling was a .38—it shattered on impact and the fragments indicate jacketed, probably hollow point—110 grains."

"That's what I use."

". . . yeah." Nelson brightened slightly. "But the .38 you said she had—they found that down in the canyon. Same kind of ammo." Sam shook his head, disturbed. "No .22 bullet at all?"

"They didn't find it. But they found the rifle down on a ledge. It had been fired recently."

"That's no help. I fired. He fired. She fi—. Naw, I can't remember if she fired. I can't imagine that she would."

"The thing is," Nelson said quietly, "it's your word against hers. There's no way to show that the debris in their guns didn't come from a couple of days earlier. Without a •22 bullet at the scene, there's no way to prove he fired at you. And everybody's believing her statement."

"I suppose they think I deliberately shot Ling too?"

"Moutscher's willing to stipulate that Ling got caught in the crossfire. Your gun had three empty cylinders; hers had only one."

"I don't know how many times I fired. Somebody's got all the marbles, and it sure ain't me. Have you followed up on checking for a rap sheet on Demich?"

"I'll get right on that—"

"I told you to do it yesterday."

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"Sam—even if he's got a rap sheet as thick as a brick, it won't change the charge against you. There are plenty of guys in Walla Walla who went up for shooting one of their felon buddies."

"I still want to know who he was."

"I've got a case load that simply isn't workable, and . . ."

"If I'm keeping you, I apologize. You probably have other clients who are more grateful. Kindly shoplifters and maybe a rapist or two who needs a little understanding?"

Sam watched the pink flush turn red and creep up Nelson's neck and over his ears; he knew he'd better shut up. He didn't dislike Nelson. Hell, maybe he did—but not Nelson himself. He was only one of the junior boy scouts who seemed to have taken over law enforcement and the legal process, all of them inexperienced and inept, posturing little devils, and Nelson the worst because he was dealing with a charity case.

"This statement. Where she says you made advances to her. Made obscene suggestions?"

"Where does it say obscene?"

"Well, suggestive remarks. Did you ever—ever—kind of kid her, or anything? Did you ever touch her?"

"Sure. Of course I did. Just like you're always messing with your partner's wife—or do you have a partner? Every chance I got, I whispered filth at her while my partner wasn't listening. Damn it, Nelson. Use your head. I've got almost twenty years on the woman. I liked her; I respected her, but I was never so hard up that I'd go sniffing around my own partner's wife. She said she'd see that I paid because Demich died. She's crazy like a fox. 7 don't know what happened. I have lain here night after night trying to figure out why she went off with that man, whether she had it all planned out before, why she was running around bare-assed with him like they were Adam and Eve—and I can't come up with any explanation at all. I've been a cop for over twenty-five years, and I have never, never, never come across anything that left me pole-axed like this. If I didn't know better, I'd begin to think I was crazy . . ."

"That's one way," Nelson cut in quickly.

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"What's one way?"

"You could plead diminished capacity—only temporary insanity .. . shock over your partner's de—" The moment the words were out, Nelson saw his mistake. "It would be difficult—under M'Naughton. It's just one way ... to consider..."

"Get the fuck out of here!" Sam's right hand smacked the wall. Nelson picked up the brown accordion file and clutched it to his chest, expecting that he was about to be hit. Backing toward the door, he forced confidence into his voice. "We're looking at second degree murder. We're looking at twenty years. We've got an appealing prosecution witness who says you're guilty as hell, and the state will make the physical evidence substantiate what she says. I'm just trying to find a way—"

"Just get out of here, Nelson. If I weren't so angry, I'd laugh. Even a raving loonie can't beat M'Naughton. You know that, and I know that. Don't come back unless you can generate the tiniest spark of belief in your client's integrity and defend me on the facts." Nelson looked longingly at the closed door, but stood resolute. "Mr. Clinton, I cannot help you if you refuse to cooperate with me. I am not an errand boy. I am a member of the bar of this state. I'll come back when you send for me, and you're not so combative. In the meantime, I will do whatever I can on your behalf."

"Go away, kid. Just go away."

"If that's what you want."

"What I want seems to have ceased to matter. Go get your shoplifters off. Give 'em hell."

Sam found his box of a cell vaguely comforting. He was alone of course; put an ex-cop in the general jail population and you have a dead ex-cop. His likeness had graced the Pages of the Wenatchee Daily World and the Natchitat Eagle-Observer, even the Seattle Times and Post-ntelligencer, and the Spokane Spokesman-Review every day for a week. The most illiterate felon who shared space in the

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Chelan County Jail knew who he was. They called to him in the night, hooting and laughing until the jailers came to shut them up. If he went to prison—and he could not conceive of it despite Mark Nelson's dire warnings—they would have to give him a new name and send him to a federal joint. He'd known of rogue cops who'd been convicted and vanished into anonymity in prisons in Indiana or Illinois, and who'd been scared shitless that one day somebody would blow their cover.

He had felt such desperation for haste while he searched for Joanne, and he had found her, only to realize in one blinding instant that she needed no saving. With that shock he had been rendered powerless. He was glad Demich was dead. Whatever came next, Danny at least was avenged and had been spared the awful vision he himself had witnessed. What Joanne had come to was his own burden.

He tried not to think of Max or of the way Marcella had stared at him when he took her husband away. Cossetted in the hot, airless cell, he slept or read the dog-eared western adventure paperbacks the jailers brought him. Sometimes he thought about Pistol and longed for the heaviness of fur purring against his chest, the only creature who might now miss him.

In the time after lights-out, a woman in the female section sang jail songs—"Detour" and "500 Miles From My Home"—in a rough, sad-sweet voice, and then it was quiet except for coughing and the occasional muffled sound of crying that was neither male nor female.

And then he slept again.

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They told her she had been in the hospital for nine days, but she was not convinced it had been that long a time, or that short a time. They told her there was nothing really wrong with her—only shock and exhaustion and a too rapid

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weight loss—and that she would be fine. She did not believe them because their smiles were painted on and they whispered to one another outside her room, but she ate because they insisted and because they called her "a good girl" and stopped nagging at her. When she tried to sit up or walk to the bathroom, the room spun, probably from all the little blue and yellow pills they made her take.

They told her he was dead. She could not bear to remember that. It made her cry and turn her face into the pillow so that she couldn't hear them. They would not let her read the newspapers; they would only bring her vases and vases of mums and carnations that suffocated her with their fragrance. But she smiled and said thank you. And that made them smile their false smiles again.