The Wild Inside (43 page)

I ignored the rude greeting and gave him my best smile and friendly tone. “Hi, I’m Ted Systead. If it’s all right with you, I’d like to ask you a few questions about a friend of yours, Victor Lance.”

“It’s not all right with me,” he said. “I’m busy.”

I swallowed my irritation. A wet chill hung in the air around me and bit my cheeks. “I appreciate your candidness, but”—I pulled out and showed him my badge, which I wasn’t wearing but had in a small leather case—“I’m afraid I misspoke. I
will
be asking you a few questions about Victor Lance.”

Hess stared at me for a second, one side of his upper lip raised in disgust. Then he dropped his hand from the knob, left the door ajar, and walked down the hall without saying anything more. I slowly followed him into the dark hallway, placing my hand on my gun, which I can honestly say I hadn’t felt the urge to do in nearly a year, not even with Stimpy.

At the end of the hallway, the house opened up into a small kitchen
with an old, round Formica-topped table. Two dirty kitchen windows showed a junky backyard filled with old engine parts and trash, and the windows to his right all had the shades drawn. I suspected he had shut them to hide his antelope from my view. Hess leaned his backside against a dirty counter next to his old stove and crossed his arms before him. “What do you want to know?”

I stood at the kitchen entry and noticed a door at its other end, which I assumed led to the backyard. I began by asking him some simple questions: how long he’d known Victor and whether he even knew what had happened. He said he’d known him about two years and yes, he knew he was dead.

“Do you know when he was killed?” I asked.

“Over a week ago, right?” His smile was too large and fake, a few of his teeth missing, as if he was pretending to be a proud student in a classroom answering a question correctly.

“That’s right. Between Thursday afternoon and Friday evening. That’s why I need to ask you where you were during those two days?”

“That’s easy.” He continued to smile a wicked grin. “Huntin’ antelope. Been on the east side for ten days now.”

I nodded, lifting my chin toward the pulled blinds. I was pretty sure that if I stepped out the back door and asked him for the tags, he wouldn’t have them. When I looked back, his top lip had resumed the curled-up-in-disgust position as he eyed me. His face appeared amorphous, constantly changing like it was made of clay or rubber.

“You stay at any motels over there?”

“Hell no.” He looked indignantly at me like I was a total pussy for even suggesting it. “We slept in our trucks.”

“I’ll need the names of the guys you were with.”

“Whatever.” He began to laugh, and I could feel my blood begin to boil.

I bit my lower lip and stared at him. “You find this funny?”

“Sort of,” he said. “You rookies obviously haven’t found much.”

“You’d be surprised.”

“Then why are you here?”

“To see if you have anything to add. Do you have anything that might help us out?”

“Hell no,” he repeated and started laughing again. Not a crazy maniacal laugh like Stimpy, just a smug, condescending chuckle. “Even if I did, why would I help you?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“’Cause I’ve never liked your kind, that’s why.” He rolled his fat lower lip around his tongue and pushed the skin below the lip out. I thought he looked grotesque, and I couldn’t tell if he intended that for my benefit or if that was something he did often, no matter whose company he kept.

“You wouldn’t want to help catch whoever did that to your buddy?” I know I sounded naïve, but I was still trying to keep it civil—to get answers.

“Shit.” He laughed. “I could care less. Victor’s too fuckin’ stupid to not get killed, that’s his problem.” He shrugged. “All I care about is getting my motorcycle back.”

“Motorcycle?”

“Yeah, the asshole had been using my ’82 Honda this fall ’cause he was too poor and stupid to have his own car.”

“You don’t speak very highly of him. And here, I’m thinking you two were close?” And then I couldn’t help but add: “Dog-beatin’ buddies and all.”

Hess’s grin got even wider. “Oh, the good little detective’s been doing his homework around town. Catchin’ all the gossip and everything.”

“Pretty certain it’s not gossip.”

“At this point, who gives a
fuck
?” He yelled the last word and I had to work not to flinch. The wispy hairs on the back of my neck prickled against a cold draft behind me. I widened my stance.

“A lot of people do.”

“I bet.” He laughed again, then licked his lower lip. “All them tree-
huggin’ assholes. Boo-hoo for them.” He puffed his purplish, pink lower lip out as fat and as far as he could into a ridiculous pout as if he were a mime.

“You and Victor have some falling-out over that dog ordeal?”

“Fuck no.” He pulled his lip back in. “Victor was a pussy. Besides, that’s old, old news.”

In spite of the cool air in the hallway behind me, my anger was heating me up and I broke a sweat. “Great, so you’re the one with all the experience, and you figured you’d teach your protégé?”

“Why not?”

“And I suppose Victor would’ve jumped off a bridge if you did that too?”

“No.” He gave me his shit-eating grin, his eyes empty and cold. “Beatin’ a dog’s a whole lot more fun than jumpin’ off a bridge.”

At that moment, Hess began laughing again. Only this time, his chuckle sounded farther away because the blood was surging into my head. My breathing quickened as everything seemed to slow down. In one sudden and deft move, I grabbed my gun and dove across the kitchen. I slammed into him and rammed my forearm under his chin, bashing the back of his head into one of the kitchen cabinets so hard that it took him a moment to recover. As he began to regain his senses, he lifted his arm and made a fist. I rammed the butt of my Glock .40 under his chin and snapped his head back. Then I grabbed his wrist and twisted it around his back until the elbow was locked and he was bent at the waist, his cheek smashed into the ugly yellow linoleum counter. “I guess you’re big on pain,” I said into the back of his head, my voice breathy, but on edge as I spoke through my clenched jaw. “Maybe this isn’t enough for you.” I tugged on his arm so tightly that I was sure he had to feel that it could shatter at the shoulder. He was breathing hard, and I heard him grunt, trying to hold back a yell. An image of this guy beating the dog so badly that the animal’s intestines exploded blazed in my mind.

“You fucking dickhead. You fucking asshole,” he said.

With my free hand, I put the gun against the back of his skull. He shut up and all went quiet except the hum of the refrigerator. I pushed the tip of the barrel even harder into the back of his head until I could see an indentation in his grayish-white scalp through his dark and greasy hair. The instant effect of having a gun in my hand—the power—washed over me, surged through my veins like a drug. For a long moment, I wanted it badly. I wanted to pull the trigger—for that defenseless Lab, for Tumble, for all the defenseless victims I’d seen over the years, for all the injustices that seemed to take shape in the guy’s ugly, amorphous face . . . but, in the back of my head, I thought I heard some small voice whispering something low and deep, or maybe it was just the blood swishing between my ears, but it was enough to make me take a breath.

I lowered my gun, tightened my grip on him in one more painful twist, and released him. “Better have tags on those.” I pointed the barrel of my gun to the closed blinds. I backed down the hallway so I didn’t turn away from him and left through the door that I never closed behind me in the first place.

• • •

When I got to my car, I was shaking. With trembling hands, I dialed Walsh’s office and told him to call FWP and have them come and check on Hess’s kills to see if they were legal. Then I called Monty and left him a message to see if he could find any information on a 1982 Honda motorcycle owned by Hess. I drove past headquarters and back to the cabin, forcing myself to take deep breaths. I sat staring at the cabin, unable to go in, so I pulled out and drove out to Highway 2 and turned east.

I kept driving, around dangerous curves with steep mountain banks plunging to the river below. At first I wasn’t sure where I was going, and a steely loneliness and unease settled upon me—frighten
ing and desolate. The feel of my gun against Hess’s scalp rushed over me again and stunned me. Somehow I realized that my most strongly held delusion—that I could always keep my cool as Agent Systead—was cracking through and through. That the shots of anger flooding through my veins could be like an addictive drug, robbing all control and good sense. As I surged forward through the mountain pass, it came to me full-on what the distant, low voice at Hess’s was murmuring. I could hear it clearly now. It was the voice of my Missoula therapist:
Your anger is the part of you that becomes the perpetrator, and that means the bear. As the bear, you’ll suffer no consequences for your actions
. Just as he didn’t, I thought.

Ford’s words from the day before in the office came to me also. I unsuccessfully tried to push them aside.
Could have had candy bars . . .
I knew it was bullshit and that I needed to get it out of my head and think about the case. Then it hit me where I was headed, where I
needed
to go, and because I knew, I felt a wild rush pushing me forward. I could feel it pulsing through my veins as the gas propelled the car, the SUV hugging the windy mountain road leading to Two Medicine Lake, the entrance to the Oldman Lake area, better than I expected.

The total drive took about two hours, but it felt much faster. When I think back on it, I can barely remember the scenery; can scarcely recall passing Essex, the Izaak Walton Inn area or Goat Lick, the natural salt lick where mountain goats gather on the side of a steep ridge to get their fill of the briny mineral. Can just recall making it over Marias Pass and stopping in East Glacier to fill my thermos with coffee, grab a sandwich, some snacks, and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. I headed that way, through the pale white sunlight folding in on the ominous mountains surrounding me. It was only four thirty, but the soft light held the sigh of winter.

Dusk was beginning to fall when I arrived at Two Medicine Campground, and a rosy radiance infused Two Medicine Valley and turned the ripples in the lake pinkish gold. Several hearty fall camping parties
took advantage of the more primitive camping conditions—no park bathrooms or running water available—and I saw two campfires already burning in different campsites not far from one another. I drove around the curving drive of the campground, checking out small vacant openings with fire grates and picnic tables nestled in among fir trees as if it was my job. I felt oddly comforted and less ridiculous that my park vehicle labeled me professional—as if I was only checking the campsites and making sure all was well when the deep prickling reality inside me was an entirely different matter.

I found a spot overlooking the lake, pulled in, and parked. The silence overtook me, and the presence of Sinopah and Rising Wolf Mountain bore down on me. I had no idea why I had come. I just knew—with the fierce energy needling my being—I needed to be at the spot my father and I camped before hiking to Oldman Lake the following day. I had no idea what I expected to accomplish, so I sat, silly in the paling light, taking in the view of some of the most sacred Native American territory sprawling before me. Rising Wolf towered above the lake and Sinopah’s massive, dark point pierced the indigo sky. I didn’t just see them there; I
felt
their presence before me like angry gods. I got out and softly shut the car door.

I walked to the pebbled beach and found a long, bleached piece of driftwood to sit on. A small breeze made me shiver and rippled the darkening water and somewhere in that breeze, chilling and filled with painful yearnings, I could sense the jagged-edged magic of Glacier Park. I could smell the campfire smoke in the distance and something dark and treacherous nibbled at the corner of my mind. I shook it off and looked around. A few trout rose in the lake, making soft rings that slowly blossomed farther and farther out. A group of geese honked in the distance and flew in a practiced, well-honed V-shape, with only two on one side flying a little too far behind. I stared at the water—took in every pinprick of its changing hue. I felt a brisk breeze switch direction and heard each small noise around me—a rustle of leaves,
a delicate break in the water from a rising fish, soft voices in the distance—as if my nerves and sensory channels were enhanced. I picked up a handful of pebbles off the beach and felt their cool texture in my palm. I dropped them to the ground, watching them cascade down my lax fingers.

We had fly-fished here, walked carefully into the icy water with our waders on. We had cast Royal Wulff and caddis flies, and I had gotten the line caught and tangled in a branch of a fir tree behind me. Dad had used my knife to cut the line, then helped me untangle it from the branch so we didn’t leave the monofilament in the forest. We had caught cutthroat for dinner and cooked them up at our site, savoring the fresh taste of firm-fleshed trout from icy mountain water.

When I stared at the shore, I could see us there, carefully tying on the Royal Wulff I’d made at home with the fly-tying kit I’d received the Christmas before. Dad had on his multipocketed fishing vest that held his angling paraphernalia and a green cap. We laughed at stupid comments as if we were invincible. As if we had eternity beyond that day. But now, in the chill, I felt the strong hands of time bearing down on my shoulders, felt its bony, fingers pressing into my flesh, each one a reminder of the eons occurring before: Precambrian, Cretaceous, Tertiary, Paleozoic, Quaternary . . .

I went back to the car, grabbed the silver space blanket out of the emergency kit, turned the engine on, and let it idle for some heat. I inclined the seat back and nestled in. Several bats had come out and zigzagged and dove erratically around for insects. I pulled out my cell phone and confirmed what I already knew: there was no cell service in this area. I almost left at that point. Being here was all so pointless and I shouldn’t have left the case behind without letting anyone know where I was. I knew how irresponsible it was and if something happened and I wasn’t around, I could be done, finished. Something about the reckless thought—the abandonment, throwing it all to the wind—tantalized me but scared me silly too. I’m not that big of an idiot; I
knew that on many levels, my job was my anchor. I even reached for the key and turned the engine on, and if it wouldn’t have been so dangerous to tackle Marias Pass again at night, I might have left. Instead, I sat and let the heater warm the car. I poured myself some hot coffee, spiked it with Jack, and drank it meditatively. Slowly I began to drift off, and just a modicum of sense prompted me to turn the ignition off before dozing off. I could hear soft voices from the other campsites, even a few crackles of their fires as I drifted in and out until reality mixed fluidly with dreams.