Mortal Fall (25 page)

She picked up the twenty, shoved it in her pocket, and said: “You’re the cop. You figure it out.”

I walked back over and handed the beer to Gretchen. The band was cranking up to a chaotic and messy finale of the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Tell Me Baby,” so I just toasted Gretchen’s bottle and waited for the
crescendo to fall. They were using too much bass and I could feel the beat pounding up my spine and through my sternum.

“I think they’re over there.” She pointed with the neck of her bottle after the Woodtics struck their final, battering chord.

I looked over and saw Dorian, his hair longer than in the picture and slicked back behind his ears. He had also grown a thin Fu Manchu that went low enough to trail down his budding double chin. He had his arm around a big-busted redhead with permed hair and tons of freckles, and his hand dangled over her shoulder and down low enough to cup her good-size right breast. Three other men sat with them. They were all smiling and laughing and numerous empty draft mugs crowded their table. “Yep,” I said. “That’s him. And guessing the others on are with him too.” I thought to myself: Joel Rieger, Pat Seamen, and Darryl DeWitt.

The band had now moved onto Pure Prairie League’s “Amie” and Gretchen and I watched until the tide of the crowd shifted slightly and a spot opened up at the bar. We squeezed in and Gretchen took the stool. I stood by her, leaning on the thick wooden slab with my eye on Dorian’s table. The discussion seemed to have changed to something more serious, the smiles and laughter transforming to severe expressions and angled gestures. Then one of the guys from across the table from Dorian pointed to the bar and Dorian shoved the guy next to him in the ribs until he scooted out and stomped up to Melissa. He pushed some other guys standing by the bar out of the way and yelled at her to come over. He was leaning over the counter, trying to point in her face and holding his hands open to the ceiling when he wasn’t pointing, as if he wanted an explanation but wasn’t going to settle down to listen to one anyway.

She said something back, her hands on her hips, her face angry. I wished I was closer and could hear what they were quarrelling about when suddenly—perhaps intentionally, perhaps not—Melissa’s eyes slid over to look at me, dark and angry. Dorian caught it and followed her gaze, but before his stare fell on us, she had looked away. He
scanned the crowd some more until his glare settled on us. His mouth slowly spread into a sly grin, his eyes flat. “You’ve got to be fuckin’ kidding me,” he said. Now I could hear him since he faced us, his voice booming our way. “
That’s
him?” he regarded Melissa, then turned back to us. “
That
guy? He’s the one sniffin’ around here?”

He snatched a mug of beer off the counter that belonged to some other person and came over, taking a gulp as he bashed through a group of people near us. I moved slightly away from Gretchen and stood still, watching him approach.

When he reached me, he looked me up and down. He was a good head taller than me. He was wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt that showed a wolf in a crosshairs.
Smoke A Pack A Day
, his chest said. He started chuckling again, then turned to Gretchen and took her in, his gaze grazing over every part of her.

“You got something to say to me?” I asked.

He turned back to me and pulled his chin in as if my words alone had struck some nerve of disgust. “You the one pokin’ around in our business, askin’ about that wolverine dude that had no business around these parts in the first place?”

“Yup.” I nodded, taking a sip of my beer. I wanted to seem casual and unfazed by him, but I have to admit I was a little worried. These men from the Line had their own code of ethics, sometimes including law and order, sometimes not, often depending on how much alcohol and drugs were in their system. And at times, no chemical mood-altering was necessary, and they would definitely consider my slightness as an invite to exert their power. “That’s me all right.”

He started laughing again, forced and false. “This pip-squeak?” he turned to Gretchen. “You with him? Belle of the ball like you—with him?”

Gretchen sat still, glaring at him, giving him nothing.

“I asked you a question. You deaf?” he said loud and sharp to her.

“Hey, if you’ve got a problem with me,” I said. “No need to yell at her.”

“Ooooh, okay. Yeah, right, right.” He held up one palm, reached over Gretchen with his other arm to set the mug of beer on the bar and purposely tilted it, sloshing it down her shoulder.

I grabbed his arm and pushed him away from her, deeply regretting that I’d asked her here. I said, “Let her be. You want to talk to me, we can talk.”

Suddenly, a rage flashed across his eyes and he shoved me with both hands into the wall we were near, taking two guys behind me out. I could feel a searing pain across the middle of my back. “Don’t you touch me. Who the fuck you think you are coming here? Just ’cause you have some piddly job in Glacier Park doesn’t give you the right to act like you got something over us.”

I stood up away from the wall he’d sent me into and stared at him, holding my hands up in a surrender position. “I didn’t come here to fight with you.”

“Obviously not. You’d sure as hell lose if you did.”

I shrugged and that seemed to piss him off all over again, the same rage flooding his eyes. He lifted his fist and threw a punch.

Let’s just say that being on the smaller side and growing up with an older brother capable of his own fits of rage has taught me how to dodge a few. I ducked to the side, darting out of his way, his punch flying to the wall and making him almost lose his balance. I could hear the crowd yelling and screaming. When he regained, he was twice as furious and came at me swinging again, only this time, when I went to dart out of the way, I couldn’t budge. Two of the guys Dorian had been sitting with had grabbed me, one on each side.

Melissa came around the bar screaming, the guy who looked like her brother following. Gretchen yelled something out of the corner of my eye as they locked me into place. The crowd had turned from the band to us and was yelling, or cheering. Then Dorian’s fist came crunching straight into my right eye socket. My head snapped back and hit the wall. I saw flecks of silver and fuzz. Then black.

When I came to a second later, I was still propped up against the
wall by Dorian’s sidekicks. I lifted my head, which felt wobbly on my neck, and tried to see straight and saw multiple Dorians lift their arms for another whack. I braced myself, turning my head to the side, but no hit came. When I looked forward, my vision adjusting, I focused on Dorian’s thin, long nose and pudgy chin. Time slowed, even the shouting seemed elongated and it seemed as if his chubby chin didn’t belong on him or didn’t match his thin nose. Or maybe it was the other way around . . . his shark eyes and thin, pointy nose didn’t match his pudgy chins. I almost had the urge to reach out and yank on his Fu Manchu to see if I could pick the correct one out of the three I was seeing until I remembered that he’d just punched me.

I tried to wedge myself loose from whoever was holding me, but I was dizzy and couldn’t budge. Gretchen said something, calling my name, and Melissa screamed at Dorian—something about “not on my watch.” Then it dawned on me that Dorian wasn’t looking at her, wasn’t listening to her at all. He had dropped his fist and was looking at someone else who was talking. I shook my head like a dog to shake it off, because I figured I was seeing things or had gone unconscious again and was dreaming.

The man arguing with Dorian was my brother, Adam, and as I mentioned, I hadn’t seen Adam in four years.

“Look, I could give a shit,” Adam was saying. “But, yeah, I know this guy from way back. He’s no threat. Just let him go.”

“Just like that? Just because you say so?”

“That’s right.” Adam nodded, his gaze as flat and hard as Dorian’s, if not more rigid.

Dorian looked back at him, then to me, and spit at my feet. “Let him go,” he said to the two on each side of me. “For now.” Dorian’s guys dropped their grips and I jerked away and looked at Adam. Something wet—either sweat or blood—trickled past my eye and down the side of my face. I resisted the temptation to reach for the wall to steady myself. I felt Gretchen take my arm.

Adam stood there looking at me, assessing me like a king of his
mountain or some clever chief holding all the secrets of his tribe. His hair was short and spiked, and he still towered above me at six foot three.

“Thanks, but I really don’t need your help,” I said.

“Apparently you do,” he said smugly.

“No,” I shook my head. “What’s a punch or two? A gang of guys against one. You know I can take that if it makes them feel like they’ve got some balls,” I said loud and clear for Dorian and his goons’ benefit. Then I looked at Dorian. “You may not like the law, but you may not want to forget it.”

Dorian started to come toward me again and Adam held up his hand. Dorian stopped.

I looked at Gretchen, her face flushed from the heat and perhaps anger, and tilted my head to the door. We started to walk and Adam grabbed my arm and leaned into my ear. “See you at the family reunion.”

I looked at him. He gave me a Cheshire cat grin and walked away. Gretchen followed me out and let me in the passenger side, where I sat back and rested the back of my head against the seat. When she got in, she said, “Who the hell was that?”

I looked down at my fingers with which I‘d touched my eyes. Two were smeared with blood. “I’m sorry about this.” I looked at her.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve forgotten how tough it can get up here. But who was—”

I held up my bloodied hand to stop her from repeating it. “Just some guy.”

Gretchen looked at me puzzled, then said, “Okay, who do we call then?”

My head was still spinning, but I tried to think it through: call for assistance and make the arrest for assaulting an officer now or let it go. Investigate Dorian some more and take my chances that if I came across more information implicating him, that we would be able to detain him and interrogate him later. “That asshole is never going to be helpful,” I said.

“So?” Gretchen said.

“So yeah, we call the county for backup, arrest him. Take him in, scare him, and maybe then, if I’m lucky, he talks. Maybe he tells me where he was on June twenty-second, and maybe in the long run, Shane Albertson gets another poacher.”

28

G
RETCHEN TURNED THE
car around to face the bar entrance and we sat and waited for backup, watching patrons enter and leave. Because the park shares part of its jurisdiction with Flathead County, we’ve always worked together on law enforcement matters. For example, Gretchen works for the county, but she is the examiner for the part of the park contained in Flathead County.

It’s the same for us when we need backup or a place to hold someone. We often use the county and local police facilities as well, including County Jail and Columbia Falls’ Police Department’s temporary lockups and interrogation rooms. I personally called Sheriff Walsh to see if, after the arrest for the assault, they’d allow me to question Dorian since he was still a person of interest in my investigation. Park Police was on good terms and had a solid relationship with the sheriff. I explained the case and told him that I was assaulted while on the quest for more information. He agreed to let me question him on matters that didn’t involve the assault if all went smoothly with the arrest.

It was still plenty light out, and I didn’t move a muscle when I saw Adam saunter out, look around, and spot us sitting across the parking lot in Gretchen’s Honda. He didn’t acknowledge us, just walked to his truck and left. I figured Dorian and his gang would follow soon, but they didn’t and when the county guys I’d called arrived, we filled them in and they went in after him. I had also called Ken to meet us at the county jail so that he could be in the room with me when I questioned Dorian.

There were four of them, and they went in with the whole nine
yards—Kevlar vests, weapons, including a pump-action riot gun in case the crowd got out of hand.

A deputy named Luke Brander was in charge and he informed me that two deputies covered the back entrance of the bar, letting the two others know when they were in position. They then went in the front, nice and calm, adrenaline pumping, but serious and trying not to scare the crowd.

It went better than I expected. Brander filled me in that the smug, cocky bastard wasn’t even watching the door. He had his broad back to them at the bar, and they simply walked right up, tapped him on the shoulder, and when he turned, he jumped off his stool and tried to go for his gun tucked into his pants, but they already had their two barrels pointing straight at his Fu Manchu. They turned him to face the bar, cuffed his wrists behind his back, and walked him out with the crowd completely silent.

He came out swearing the whole way, and when he spotted me over by the county vehicles, he began yelling louder, telling us all that we’d be sorry—that we’d regret this. When I said, “That another threat?” he yelled, “Fuck you, man.”

Melissa watched nervously with wide eyes from the entrance of the bar as they protected his head and put him in the car. The band had quit playing during the arrest, but I could hear them fire the bass back up as Luke got Dorian situated in the county vehicle. Even Dorian’s clan would most likely go back to drinking and having fun. Just another night
up the Line
and in the canyon.

Gretchen and I followed the county sheriff’s vehicle back to Kalispell where an interview room waited for us. Walsh had already let the night person on duty at the county jail know that we’d need one. We drove in silence, cutting through the canyon and not saying a word. I tried to wrap my head around what had just occurred and attempted to construct a game plan for the interrogation ahead as I stared out the window at the steep hills surrounding us and the darkening greenish-blue waters of the Flathead River snaking through them.

I wanted Ken’s assistance while questioning Dorian because he was big, intimidating if you didn’t know his true nature, and he knew the details of the case. We didn’t have a hope in hell of getting Dorian’s cooperation, but at least he was on law enforcement’s turf now. So far, Dorian had been a person of interest on the level of reasonable suspicion, but not a suspect. As much as I disliked Dorian, I forced myself to not get too excited and to stick to the standard rule: motive, method, opportunity. There was possibly a motive for Dorian to kill Sedgewick, but we needed to know if he had an alibi for June 22 and if he was near the Loop on that evening. All we could do was hope for some answers.