Badwater (8 page)

thirteen

H
aving met the brothers and their dad once already, I wasn’t looking forward to meeting them a second time.

The desk sergeant at the sheriff’s office who gave me directions seemed to share my concern. After he drew me a map on the back of a complaint form—diagramming several unsigned roads and turns off the main highway—he gave me a funny look.

“You going out there alone? About this river thing?”

“Yeah. Why do you ask?”

He shrugged.

“Just curious. There could be a lot of reasons for a DCI guy to head out that way.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“The family’s a little high-strung, you might say. Not a lot of respect for authority. The father used to be a regular customer in here when he was a young buck. The two older boys—a pair of twins—are doing their damnedest to follow in his footsteps. I’ve got a daughter their age, and she thinks that they’re getting into meth pretty heavy. It’s becoming a real problem around here. But being with DCI, I guess you already know that. Anyway, I suppose the younger boys are still nice kids.”

I thanked him for the information. And I decided it would be a good idea to call ahead instead of just dropping by.

On the phone I talked to a woman who identified herself as Elizabeth Mann, the boys’ mother. She sounded surprisingly friendly.

“Sure, come on out,” she said. “We’re all lying pretty low this morning, feeling blue about Cody. I’ll send Ed or one of the boys down to meet you at the gate.”

In the late-morning heat, Mungo and I headed out of town. The route took us west along the highway beside the river. There were several vehicles parked on top of the hill above the big boulder. I didn’t slow to gawk. Past the turnout, we forked right on a county road and rose up into the foothills. It was a pretty drive. The sagebrush was still a little green from the spring, and the peaks of the Wind River range gleamed with fresh white snow. I could make out some of the distant couloirs, ridges, and faces, and took note of the ones I had climbed, remembering good times in simpler days.

Ed Mann seemed even smaller in the daylight than he’d appeared last night in the darkness. Maybe it had something to do with having vented his anger on me already. He was leaning against the bumper of a ranch truck at the last turn that was marked on my hand-drawn map.

Seeing me, he nodded without smiling, tugged on the brim of his dirty baseball cap, and climbed into the cab of his truck. He stuck out an arm and waved for me to follow. I quickly saw why Mrs. Mann had thought it necessary to send out her husband as a guide. After passing the gate and entering the Manns’ property, there was a maze of double-tracks leading off in all directions.

I followed close to the ranch truck’s bumper, observing the gun rack and the sticker in the back window that read:

“Freedom at Any Cost”

—Randy Weaver

Ruby Ridge, Idaho

Nice. Really nice. Especially for a cop already apprehensive about making this trip. I was glad, at least, that I didn’t wear a uniform or drive a police cruiser. If Mungo could read, she wouldn’t have liked a sticker on the tailgate: “Shoot a Wolf, Save a Rancher.” And then there were the usual round decals proclaiming the driver’s affiliation with the National Rifle Association. I rolled up the back windows so Mungo couldn’t stick her big head out.

As expected, the house wasn’t much. Just a regular ranch house, unlike the Wallises’ fancier residence. A functional place that had been added to many times over the years with unprofessional labor, surrounded by dirt, sage, and weeds. But it was relatively neat—there was none of the usual ranch junk in the yard. An L of tall cottonwoods screened it from the west and north winds. The height of the big trees indicated the house had probably been here a very long time. Mann didn’t stop in front of the house, but more than fifty feet away, behind the line of trees. Here I found all their junk—old pickups, tractors, and appliances all in various stages of either deterioration or reconstruction. He parked and I did, too. I expected that someone, probably the missus, didn’t want all the crap in front of the house. There it would ruin what was an impressive view of high, rolling plains leading up to the peaks.

She met us on the porch. Tall and powerfully built, she resembled Cody’s father, and this, along with the different last names, led me to assume that the familial connection went through her. She wore a clean white uniform. It turned out that she was a nurse in Badwater’s emergency clinic.

“I was there when they brought him in,” she told me, shaking her head sadly. “He looked so tiny I almost didn’t recognize him. We worked on him for almost an hour and did everything we could think of. But he’d been under for too long.”

I bowed my head, feeling again that maybe I’d really screwed up by chickening out on that first dive. Maybe a single minute would have made a difference.

“Our boys told us what you did. I want to thank you for going into that river after my nephew. For trying to resuscitate him, too.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled. “I wish I’d gotten there sooner.”

She turned to her husband. “Make sure the boys don’t give this young man any guff.” Then she marched out to her car to start her shift.

I was sorry to see her go. Her forthright, appreciative manner contrasted with what I already knew of her husband and at least his younger sons.

Ed Mann silently escorted me upstairs. He hadn’t yet spoken but a few words to me. Randall and Trey were waiting in a shared bedroom. It was a disaster—what you’d expect of kids their age—but not particularly dirty. The only offensive things about the surroundings were the posters on the walls and the related music that was playing too loud.

I was familiar with it, although I’d rather not have been. The group was called the Insane Clown Posse. White guys dressed up in leather, spikes, and clown makeup like Kiss, but playing shock rap-metal, singing about graphic violence in terms full of expletives. Their music had been pulled from one Wyoming store, and a school district banned their apparel, after a few concerned parents connected it with an uptick in teen shootings and suicide. This, of course, only added to that band’s luster among the tasteless kids who were really only looking for a way to jerk around their parents.

“This is the fellow who wants to talk to you about what happened yesterday,” their dad said. He pointed to the larger boy—“That’s Randy”—then to the smaller one—“That’s Trey.”

I walked uncertainly into the room, feeling out of place in my suit and tie. And I suddenly felt old. I had nothing in common with these sullen kids and their shitty music. A trained and experienced undercover investigator, I’d always assumed I could get along with anyone, from any segment of society. I’d always been athletic, smart, and cool. But I could tell there was nothing I could do that would impress these two.

“I was at the river yesterday, too,” I said. “I need to hear from you two what happened before your cousin fell into the river.”

“He didn’t fall,” Trey said. “He was pushed.”

“You’re the guy who told the cops to shoot us,” Randy said.

I sighed and looked at Ed Mann before addressing his kids.

“I didn’t mean for him to really shoot you. All I wanted was for you guys to stop interfering with my attempts to do CPR on Cody. I’m sorry I phrased it that way—I didn’t mean it literally. And I’m really sorry about what happened to your cousin.”

Neither of them replied. Both boys were glaring at me with more than the usual teenage hostility. Randy, the big one, was older and fatter than his brother. In fact, he was probably heavier than his dad. I knew he was fourteen years old, but he looked even older than that. He had a spiky flattop hairdo but wore it long in back, a country style known as a mullet or the Missouri Compromise. He wore a T-shirt and a pair of saggies big enough for a cow. Trey was still skinny and two years younger, but he was groomed and dressed about the same. They were each seated on their own beds.

I spotted a rocking chair under a pile of clothes. After surreptitiously patting it for sharp objects, I sat down on top of the clothes and took out my pad.

“Okay. What were you guys doing by the river?”

They looked at their dad, who remained in the doorway with his arms folded, before deciding to answer me.

“Riding our bikes,” Randy said.

“We were grounded from riding our four-wheelers,” Trey added.

“You were riding along the highway?”

“Yeah.”

Their dad said menacingly, “You guys better have been staying on the shoulder.”

“We were, Dad,” Trey, the younger brother, whined. “We were just riding into town to hang out. We took a break on that big rock above the river. You can sometimes see the rafts coming through the rapids. We saw one coming down.”

“So you stayed and watched?”

Trey looked at big brother Randy, who, after a moment’s reflection, nodded permission for him to answer.

“Yeah. There was the long-hair from the outdoor store in it and a couple of tourons.”

“Did you yell anything at them?”

“No.”

“Did you throw anything at them?”

Trey gave Randy another glance. Randy didn’t nod this time. Instead he was staring back at his little bro.

“Did you throw anything, Trey?” I asked again.

He looked back at me.

“Nah. We were tossing some rocks in the water, but we didn’t throw anything near the raft.”

“How about you, Randy? Did you or Cody throw anything at the raft?”

Randy stared at me before answering.

“What are you accusing us for? It was that tourist fucker that killed Cody.”

“Randy!” his dad snapped.

I assumed that this was a house where corporal punishment wasn’t unknown. I wouldn’t have minded a demonstration, but I reminded myself that these boys had just lost their friend and cousin.

“Listen, you guys, I’m building a criminal case against that tourist, a guy named Jonah Strasburg. To do that, I need you and your brother to tell me everything that happened. If you did throw some rocks, I need to know. You won’t get in any trouble for it.”

Mr. Mann, though, disagreed. “You better not have been chucking rocks at people,” he said. Which didn’t help me get them to admit what I was pretty sure was the truth.

“We weren’t throwing rocks at nobody. We dropped some in the river, but nowhere near the tourons.”

I considered asking their dad if I could talk to them alone, but decided to drop it. Without Dad standing by they probably would just tell me to stuff it.

It took a while, but I finally got the rest of their sanitized version. For no reason at all, the “skinny tourist dude” had gotten out of the raft, charged up the slope to the top of the rock, and started yelling at them. They thought he was crazy, that he might attack them. Cody picked up a stick to defend himself. The tourist went crazy and shoved him off the cliff.

It was bullshit, and I tried one last time to get them to admit it.

“Do you know how he got a cut on his ear?” I’d seen the small wound, and Jonah had told me that it was Cody striking him with the stick.

But the kids just shrugged sullenly. Realizing I’d probably gotten all I could out of them—enough certainly to make Luke happy—I wanted out of there. The whole case, their attitudes, and the terrible music, were beyond grating.

I wondered if my brother and I had ever been this obnoxious. The answer was probably yes. I remembered the music that had influenced us, from our clothes to our attitudes—Led Zeppelin, the Clash, Suicidal Tendencies. We’d shaved our heads to create Mohawks and torn the sleeves from all our T-shirts. It was a wonder our folks hadn’t resorted to some serious corporal punishment themselves.

Who knows—things might have turned out better for Roberto and me if they had.

When I was done, or, more accurately, had given up, Ed Mann led me back downstairs. The bedroom door slammed behind me and the music cranked way up.

Out on the porch, I guiltily made the usual police suggestion to potential prosecution witnesses, intended to hinder any defense.

“There may be a defense lawyer or investigator who’ll want to talk to Randy and Trey, too. You can talk to him if you want, but it’s your choice. You don’t have to.”

Mann took my meaning. He nodded and scratched his chin.

“Nobody in my family’s going to be talking to anyone who’s trying to get that murderer off.”

“Like I said, it’s up to you. I’m only telling you that you have a choice because sometimes the defense guys try and make it sound like you
have
to talk to them.”

He gave me a bleak smile.

“Don’t worry, Agent Burns. No one can make me or my boys do anything we don’t want to.”

Thinking of his bumper stickers and guns, I believed him.

He added, “Now you tell Luke that I want this asshole from New York prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And beyond.”

Then he closed the door.

Relieved to be away from Ed Mann and his young sons and the sullen anger all three shared, I crunched across the gravel toward the informal parking lot/junkyard behind the brake of cottonwoods. It was getting hot. When I’d woken at dawn, it was close to freezing, and now, at only eleven-thirty, the temperature had increased by at least fifty degrees.

I stepped into the shade the large trees offered, passed between the solid gray trunks, and found two men standing beside the Pig. One of them was leaning against the driver’s door, peering in with hands cupped to the tinted windows. The other one was poking in the cracked rear window with a long stick. I froze for half a second then picked up my pace.

The one with the stick jerked it out suddenly.

“Look at that!” he said, holding up the jagged end for the other one to inspect. White wood showed bright where the bark had been stripped from the stick’s tip.

“Fucker tore it in half!”

Both of them turned as they heard me coming.

“Get away from my truck.”

They looked at each other and grinned.

“Who do you think you are, man? This piece of shit’s on our property and we’ll stand wherever we damned well please.”