The Wild Inside (40 page)

Ma sat and stared at the fire, her jaw set. She didn’t shrug; she didn’t move. “I’m not sure why,” she finally spoke so quietly that I barely heard.

“Then maybe you should,” I said softly.

“I called the man, you know, and confronted him. I wanted to know what they’d found to suggest that your father had been careless.”

“And?”

“And nothing. He blew me off; said he didn’t have permission from the DOI to discuss detailed findings with me.”

I looked at the table. The dark headlines blurred and smeared together. My eyes hurt. I began to pick up the clippings, fold them neatly back up, and place them in the folder.

Ma leaned forward to help me, and I could hear her breathing. It was more labored now, and her face was very serious. I wanted to ask her if she was feeling all right, but suddenly I felt too exhausted to say anything more.

She stood and tucked the folder back under her arm. “You’re sleeping here tonight. There’s a spare toothbrush in the bathroom. I’ll make sure there are fresh sheets on the bed in the upstairs’ room.”

• • •

I woke to the creaking of the walls as the wind continued to gust, but could see a pale-blue sky through the small side window of the upstairs bedroom. Ma had given me some pills, some Sonata or something, before I went to bed. I told her I didn’t need them, that I was exhausted, but she said it would keep me from waking in an hour or two and that I needed that. And other than a groggy head, I’m guessing she was correct—I did need it. I felt human for the first time in days. But judging by the angle of the sun through the window, I figured I’d slept much later than I’d wanted to. I sat up, rubbed my face, my chin prickly with stubble.

I found my phone in my pants pocket and saw that I’d missed several calls from Sean and one from Monty. I took a big breath and blew it out loudly.
Here we go
, I thought. Sean was either returning my call about the bear or he was going to ream me out because Ford had called him. I put the phone away. I’d call him on the way back to the park.

After I showered and shaved, my hand only slightly shaky, I went downstairs and had a cup of coffee with Ma. I told her I was late and needed to get going and would have to skip breakfast, but she refused to let me leave without two scrambled eggs in my belly, telling me that I looked even thinner than when she saw me at Nat’s. I scarfed those down and thanked her, but before I left I asked if she still had some of the things I used to keep in my bedroom in my top drawer of my dresser.

“Of course I do,” she said. “Everything’s boxed up in the basement.”

“Do you remember the knife Dad gave me? The one with the pearl handle?”

A half smile came to her lips. “That’s not in storage. It’s in with the articles I showed you. You want me to get it?”

“Yes, please,” I said. “I do.”

I waited for her to return with it, and after she placed it in my hand, I stood quietly for a moment, feeling its weight through the smooth pearl and observing the rust on the edges. I didn’t open it in front of her, just kissed her good-bye. “I’ll visit again before I leave,” I said at the door.

“I’ll expect it.” She was dressed in a pair of burgundy cords and a striped sweater. Her hair was neat and her cheeks slightly rosy. I thought she looked good for her age, even pretty. Suddenly, a pity washed over me that she’d never remarried or found another partner.

“What?” she said curiously when she saw me pausing.

“Oh, nothing.” I turned and got in the car and started it while she stayed at the door. The blue sky had already turned a bruised gray in the short time it took for my breakfast and flurries of frigid wind tossed the dead leaves in the front yard. I started to back out, then stopped and rolled the window down. “Thanks again, Ma,” I said.

“Why are you thanking me for nothing?” she called through the gusts. “I’m just doing what any mom would do.”

“It wasn’t nothing,” I said. “I needed that.” I waved again and backed onto the avenue and headed north.

• • •

I called Monty first on my way to Glacier. “What’s up?” I asked him.

“Walsh’s boys finally searched the South Fork and guess what?”

“They found it?”

“Yup.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Nope. I’m not. A Ruger Blackhawk.”

“But it’s Sunday. How come I didn’t know they agreed to search?”

“Guess he had some guys willing to work an extra shift this weekend, and he knew you’d been wanting it done. Guess he rethought it. Deep down, Walsh is a softy.”

“Good to know.” I chuckled in spite of my irritation at Monty.

“He left a message here at headquarters last night.”

I was relieved by this surprise, but I still was feeling uneasy about telling Monty about my father. It had occurred to me that he had to be the one who filled Ford in. The timing seemed a little too coincidental, and I was kicking myself for confiding in a guy who I knew all along was Ford’s right-hand man. Even Monty had enough sense to not go on about whatever it was in his family that made him not want to bring children into the world. The thought of exposing the events of 1987 to anyone else ever again made a ball of acid expand in my stomach, so when I called Sean after telling Monty how to handle the evidence until I arrived, I was doubly relieved when Sean didn’t chew me out.

He said he was returning my call to talk about the bear. I let out a pent-up breath and felt my pulse slow back down. He said that after some consideration and a few chats with other officials in the department, he had decided that it was, indeed, important to get the slug regardless of what had come out in the paper and regardless of what the park’s bear committee had decided.

“Well, that’s good to hear because the county guys have found a gun in one of the rivers outside of the park.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Nope. Just got the call right now.”

Sean was pleased, and since his mood was calm, I knew that I should tell him about Ford and my history in Glacier because it was inevitable Ford would. Sean had said that he’d call him to make sure he didn’t release the bear, and I pretty much knew that when that happened, it would irritate Ford enough that he’d spill the beans. But I
stubbornly, and perhaps foolishly, held back. I was clinging to the idea that my past was nobody’s business but mine. Other than lose my cool a time or two, I had done nothing wrong or unprofessional. The worst I’d done was making a fool of myself by the bear’s cage in front of Joe Smith.

So when I entered the office and saw Monty, I had already conjured in my head full conversations between Ford and him about my past. I pictured Monty, his eyes full of pity for the poor fourteen-year-old boy, but with the same upward curled lip as Stimpy, slightly smiling as he enjoyed furtively dishing out the juicy details to Ford like a good little minion.

“Hey,” Monty said when I entered.

“Let’s see it.” I held out my hand, and Monty handed me the gun wrapped in thick plastic. I inspected it through the wrapping. Its barrel was narrow and about six inches long, the handle a rich brown. The serial number and other markings lay etched on the barrel and the frame under the cylinder. “Have you checked to see if it’s in the ATF database?”

“Not yet,” Monty said.

“We need to do that first.” I rotated it and checked out the barrel. “Fingerprints are probably unlikely after being in the water this long. Looks like it’s stainless, though, and not blued, and with the cold water, the barrel shouldn’t have rusted.”

“How quickly can that happen?” Monty asked.

I shrugged. “The inside of the barrel isn’t usually treated, so it can rust pretty quickly in warm water but less with stainless. After we check for registration, we need to get this to Missoula quickly and see what they come up with.” I sighed. “Obviously now, more than ever, we need the slug.” I set the gun on the table and eyed Monty suspiciously. “It’s Sunday,” I mumbled. “Why are you in here?”

“Don’t have anything better to do. Tried to get Lara to spend some time with me, but she’s not interested.” He gave a small shrug. “Besides,
I wanted to organize some of my notes.” He tilted his head toward my diagram. “I see you’ve been working on your own.”

I grunted.

“I was going over all interviews with the Shelton grandchildren when the call came in from Walsh.”

I swallowed my irritation at the fact that Walsh didn’t call my cell phone to let me know firsthand, and I wondered why Monty always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. I dialed Walsh and asked him how quickly Gretchen’s officer would transfer the gun to the ballistics lab in Missoula.

“How quickly?” Monty asked after I hung up.

“By early evening. Gretchen’s guy should be here any minute.”

“You need for me to record the info on the gun?”

“No, I got it.” I took out my notepad and wrote down the serial number and the other etchings.

“Figure anything out?” Monty asked, pointing to my diagram.

“No,” I said. “Been busy dealing with a few other issues.”

“Such as?”

“Such as making sure we get the slug from our bear before your boss lets him go.”

Monty leaned back in his chair and placed his hands behind his head. “I heard he wants to do that, like today.”

“Yeah, well, obviously now that we have the gun, he can’t. We need the slug.”

“But it’s over a week already.” Monty furrowed his brow. “What if he’d already threw it up or crapped it out in the woods before we got him?”

“The bear’s not crapped anything in over a week. That’s why I doubt he did it before we picked him up.”

“So you really believe it’s still in his digestive tract?”

“I do. It could very well stay in there all winter, but I’m hoping the heat lights will work.”

“And if they don’t?”

“We’ll have to cut him open.”

Monty pushed his glasses up. “From what I’ve heard, I don’t think the committee’s going to let you do that.”

“I’m sure you’ve heard all sorts of things,” I said resentfully. “But bottom line is that it depends on the chain of command in the DOI at this point.”

Monty lifted an eyebrow. “Everyone knows the parks make their own calls on their own bears, not the department.”

“But this is different. This involves a federal murder investigation, and like I said, now we have the weapon.”

“And you think that will trump the park’s decision?”

“Look,” I said. “As much as I know how much you like the guy to be happy, I’m afraid I
do
think it trumps his decision.”

“Happy?” Monty furrowed his brow.

“I know you like to please the guy.” I could hear the accusation in my voice. I tried to cover: “After all,” I added, “he’s as good as your boss.”

“Smith’s my boss.” He stood up to face me. “I’m just doing whatever job I’m assigned to because that’s who I am. It’s not like I’m trying to kiss anyone’s ass.” He spread his hands out to his sides as if to add,
Come on now
.

“Oh, please.” I knew I should back off, but I couldn’t just yet. “I know the only reason you’ve been assigned to this case is to keep tabs on things and report back to him.”

“Really? I thought the reason I was on this case was to help you out. I am a Park Police officer.”

“Hmm. Well, I’m not sure why they’d take a desk guy who’s practically Ford’s secretary to do real police work.”

“Maybe I’m good at both?” Monty’s mouth was half open.

“Well, if you’re good at both, maybe you ought to start acting like a real officer and start making it easy for us to solve this case rather than
harder.” I knew I was being completely irrational and unfair. Monty did, indeed, act like a good officer and was extremely helpful, but I couldn’t set my anger aside.

“How the hell am I making it harder?”

“By trying to undermine me.” I picked up my diagram, rolled it up, and placed it under my arm.

“Undermine you?” He furrowed his brow.

I gathered the files filled with photos of Victor and the crime scene and shoved them in my case. “It’s neither here nor there at this point. Let’s just keep plugging along and get this thing solved.” I let out a loud sigh and went to the door. “I’ll be back in a little while.”

“Wait. I want to know why you think I’ve undermined you.”

I turned to him from the doorway and saw that his brow was still deeply furrowed, his arms crossed before his chest. “Let’s just say that I really didn’t need you filling Ford in on what I’d told you about yesterday.” I turned and walked out the door without waiting for a reply.

22

A
S SOON AS
I got in my car, I called Monica and gave her the serial number and tracked the initial registration to a Robert Stein from Kalispell who often bought guns at one gun show, then bartered them for other things he needed at pawnshops or other gun shows. I visited Mr. Stein at a nice home in Whitefish near the ski resort. He claimed to have traded the Ruger for a piece from a local artist and showed me the painting above his rock fireplace, a rich landscape of an eastern Montana coulee cut into a buttery wheat field lit by a fiery sunset and adorned with handsome pheasants.

I then tracked the artist down to a residence in Bigfork at the south end of the Flathead Valley on the north end of Flathead Lake. His name was Davis Riggs, and I found his number in the phone book back in my cabin and asked his wife if he was there. She asked who was calling, and I told her the truth. He came right to the phone, no stalling, and I figured he had nothing to hide.

“How can I help you, sir?” his voice was pleasant and warm.

“Ah, Mr. Riggs, I wonder if you can help me. I’m wondering if you still own that Ruger Blackhawk .357 you traded one of your paintings for at the Fairgrounds Trade Show two years ago. I believe.” I looked down at my notepad. “It was in August?”

“The Ruger?”

“That’s right.”

“You know, I rarely keep those for more than a week. I take them to a pawnshop and get cash immediately.”

“Why’s that?”

Riggs laughed softly at the other end. “It’s the best way to make money during an economic downswing. It’s hard to sell a painting outright during tough times, but everyone wants a gun around these parts when things get pinched.”