Bear Bait (9781101611548) (33 page)

Choi started up the inkjet and printed off a couple of e-mail messages.

“You found something to show Jack’s guilty?” Ernest asked. He wanted to make sure that bastard paid for getting his girl killed.

“Not directly, no.” Choi picked up the printouts. “There’s a message to this Frieda Frazier five months ago about getting supplies—that’s probably the C-4. And then one on July twenty-second, about going out for a practice run.”

“July twenty-second?”

Choi nodded. “Eleven thirty-two
P.M.
”

“Oh, sweet Jesus.” Ernest felt like his head was going to explode. He put his left hand up over his eyes.

“Are you all right, Mr. Craig?”

“Ernest,” he croaked. “It’s just…” He wiped the tears from his eyes. “She did come home that night; that proves it. I was probably passed out on the couch in front of the TV. Oh God, she was here and then she went out again and I never said good-bye.”

As the printer screeched away, Choi wandered around the bedroom studying Allie’s photographs, taped to the wall with cellophane.

They were beautiful pictures. He should have bought frames for them, Ernest thought, to let Allie know how proud he was of her photography. On her shelves were trophies from junior high and high school track meets. In between two brass statues was a little glow-in-the-dark angel from that church his sister and brother-in-law had introduced Allie to before they’d moved away.

He looked at Allie’s high school graduation photo again. She was so beautiful, her blond hair streaming over her shoulders, her blue eyes shining and so full of hope. She’d grown up listening to everyone bad-mouth the government—especially him. He thought about all the times he’d gone along with the talk just to be sociable, all the times he’d agreed that anyone associated with the government had to be a crook. And his girl had taken it all in, and that was why she was too ashamed to tell him about
her new job, the best-paying one she could find. “Oh, Allie, I didn’t really mean it. I was
always
so proud of you.”

He must have said it aloud, because Choi turned and glanced at him, then shifted his eyes to the printer, embarrassed. Allie’s face in the photo blurred as Ernest’s vision filmed with tears. He’d always thought of Rushing Springs as nowhere. The end of the world. Such a depressingly hopeless place, where everyone blamed their troubles on someone else. But now he realized that, for Allie, it had been home. It was the only world she’d ever known.

ON
her last day with the park service, Sam got up early to share breakfast and good-byes with the trail crew. She and Maya exchanged phone numbers and addresses. Then she strolled around Marmot Lake, hoping to catch a glimpse of Raider. Aside from the myriad little brown birds that always flitted through the trees, she saw only a rabbit hightailing it for the brush, and a pair of wood ducks cruising majestically across the placid water. She visited each of the defaced alders and ran her fingers over the numbers carved into their bark. She hated having to leave that mystery unsolved. Next, she cruised Garrett Ford’s house and caught him carrying a garbage can to the curb. He saw her and raised his middle finger in her direction, which was exactly what she’d expected from him. Then, after a quick glance around to make sure he wasn’t observed, he narrowed his eyes and drew his hand across his throat in a theatrical slashing motion, ending with his index finger pointed at her. Now
there
was an unmistakable message; maybe it
was
a good thing that this was her last day. All his imprisoned animals had been released back into the wild, and she hoped they’d stay within the safe park boundaries. She put her foot on the gas and drove out to Rialto Beach to soothe her jangled nerves.

After an hour of walking close to the crashing surf, she felt calm enough to say her good-byes to the staff of the
western division headquarters. Arnie, naturally, took advantage of his bon voyage hug to give her a resounding kiss on the lips. She grabbed his earlobe and twisted until he howled, much to everyone else’s amusement.

From there, she drove up to Hurricane Ridge to admire the panorama of the highest Olympic peaks. The afternoon was clear enough that she could see Vancouver Island to the north. And to the south, endless mountains and tree-lined valleys. Damn, she wanted to stay and belong in this spectacular place.

Finally, she couldn’t delay it any longer. She drove down the mountain to complete her exit interview with Peter Hoyle.

“You did a good job on the management plan,” Hoyle told her. Sam thought he sounded a bit grudging about it. “And thanks for finding a replacement for Blackstock on the trail crew.”

Sam thanked him for his suggestions for the upcoming speech. She waited for some hint of future work. No such luck. Hoyle relieved her of her NPS identification card and the keys to the truck, shook her hand, and ushered her out the door.

“Always a bridesmaid,” she muttered to herself as she tramped across the parking lot to her ancient Civic. She seemed destined to get only tantalizing tastes of interesting jobs before being dumped back out on the street.

At least she’d caught the bear poachers. Garrett Ford might be out on bail, but he’d racked up thousands of dollars in fines. His court appearance in three weeks was circled in red on her pocket calendar. Mike Martinson was also in big trouble, but he was still a juvenile. If he got a lenient judge, he might be working off his penalty on the trail crew next year.

She hated to leave with so much unresolved: Lisa’s death, the missing C-4, and Lili still enmeshed in some hate group. Chase assured her that the law enforcement authorities were working on all these issues. She suspected he and Joe knew a lot of things they weren’t telling her. But
it was no longer her business; she’d already been shoved to the outside of the circle. Her only business right now was to work on her speech and get through her father’s wedding next week.

ERNEST
found it hard to believe that Tom Blackstock had been called to active duty. The guy had gray hair, for God’s sake, just like him. Blackstock was fifty-one. But here he was, in uniform no less. He said his Army Reserve unit was shipping out for Afghanistan tomorrow.

“One of the summer rangers will oversee your trail work every day, but Ernest here is your new
queso grande
,” Blackstock told the assembled group of teens. He punched Ernest in the arm to show they were both he-men.

Ernest punched him back, hard enough to make Tom stagger sideways, and the kids laughed. They seemed like good kids—a little tough, but basically good. He liked Maya’s quiet strength and Ben’s jokes. Tony acted like a hard case, but Ernest guessed he was hiding some sort of pain. Someone had to have done something awful to the kid to make him stab an old lady at age fifteen.

Tonight, after the kids got back from their work, they’d make Allie’s Cheeseburger Macaroni casserole together. And a salad. And bread; those boys would probably eat half a loaf apiece. Then they’d go out back and have a campfire and roast marshmallows or, if it was raining, make brownies in the kitchen. Outdoors or in, they’d talk. He was going to pick a different subject every night. They would all say what they thought about it, and he’d set them straight when they didn’t understand the truth. He’d tell them how it really was, the good and the bad. Everyone had a right to his or her opinion, but there’d be no bullshit in this cabin. Not on his watch.

“
THE
dog wouldn’t stop barking, and I went out to see why. That’s when I found this possum in the corner of the yard,” Stephanie Faber said, carefully positioning a silver knife and spoon on a folded blue cloth napkin.

Sam set a dinner plate on the floral tablecloth. A bead of perspiration rolled from the back of her neck down between her shoulder blades, where it joined a hundred others in the swamp of her bra strap.

Her father and Zola had chosen an informal potluck for their prewedding dinner. This was déjà vu, setting tables on a sweltering summer evening with the church ladies and their kids. Except that then, she’d been one of the kids, and now, the church ladies were the girls she’d gone to high school with. She envied the easy camaraderie of the women. They all knew each other so well that they didn’t need to clarify what they were talking about. They included her because she was one of them by birth, but she could no longer share in their stories. So far there’d been a discussion of how expensive school supplies were now and whether or not an elderly woman who was ill would appreciate them cleaning her house or be insulted by the gesture.

“When I looked close, I could see that the possum was giving birth,” Stephanie continued.

Sam was jealous. She’d like to be off somewhere watching an opossum in labor. Opossums gave birth to half-formed babies that crawled into their mothers’ abdominal pockets to complete their development. Or did the mama
opossums somehow move them there? However it happened,
that
would be something to see.

“Madison,” Stephanie directed her preteen daughter by her side, “the napkin?” She nodded at the proper place beside the next plate.

“Was John home?” asked Zola’s daughter Julie, simultaneously with Cathy Wakebutter’s prompt of “So what did you do, Steph?”

Stephanie continued, “The dog wouldn’t be quiet, and John wasn’t home, so I got a shovel from the garage and started beating on the possum.”

“What?”
Sam stopped in mid-table setting, half a stack of plates cradled in her arms.

The three women and the little girl all stared at her, surprised by her outburst.

“Is
that
what you’re teaching your children? To beat innocent creatures to death with shovels?” Sam glared at Stephanie.

Madison glanced from her mother to Sam, back to her mother, and then back to Sam again, as if she were following volleys in a tennis match.

“Summer.” Her father materialized out of the sweltering background to take the plates from her. “Zola needs you inside.”

Sam stalked toward the house, fuming, trying not to clomp in her new sandals. She was wearing the coolest of her three dresses, a flowered sundress that she’d bought in her college days. She’d worn it on previous visits, but hoped that her high school chums wouldn’t remember.

A drip of sweat slithered down in front of her left ear. She hadn’t been this hot since the forest fire, or this uncomfortable since she’d sat in the hospital with Lisa Glass. She’d arrived the day before yesterday, and already her head throbbed as if a migraine were settling in for the next decade.

Last night one of her father’s friends had commented on how remarkable it was for Sam to work as a ranger at her age. This morning her father and Zola took her to breakfast at the Red Roof Café, where, naturally, everyone stopped
by their table to share news and say hello. One farmer commented on the numbers of Toyota Priuses passing through town, laughing about an invasion of Californians. But then, thankfully, Zola’s nephew said, “Maybe a hybrid’s a good deal now that gas prices are skyrocketing. The cost of filling a pickup’s almost enough to give a man a stroke.”

They all commiserated on that. They also remarked on the tragic death of the local boy whose Army portrait hung in the front window, but agreed that it was a good thing to fight the terrorists in the Middle East instead of here. Sam had kept her jaws firmly clamped together, determined not to advertise her alien mind-set. But now she’d gone and blown it with her opossum comment.

Letting herself into the kitchen through the screen door, she leaned against the food-laden counter for a minute, taking a deep breath.

Zola entered, her newly silvered curls gleaming softly under the kitchen lights. “Enjoying yourself, dear?”

Was her father’s fiancée being sarcastic? Sam couldn’t tell. “The table is just about ready. Dad said you needed me?”

“I want to show you something before we sit down to eat, Summer.” Taking her by the hand, Zola pulled her toward her father’s study.

The air held the welcome chill of the air conditioner, which had been on until half an hour ago, when the locals decided it had cooled off enough to be pleasant. Her father’s oak desk still faced the window that overlooked the river, although the desk now sported a computer. The bookcases to the side seemed unchanged, still full of philosophy texts, various versions of the Bible, history books, and classical literature.

The unexpected addition was a man in a lightweight sport coat and khaki trousers. He stood with his back to her, staring at a photo on the wall.

“These are incredible.” Turning toward her, Chase Perez held out a hand as if they were in mid-conversation.

Behind her, Zola murmured, “Surprise!”

Sam closed her mouth and swiveled to smile at the older
woman, then turned back to Chase and took his outstretched hand in hers. He reeled her into his arms and planted a breath-stopping kiss on her lips.

While she was getting used to his abrupt appearances in Washington State, she was positively shocked to find him here on her native rural soil. But she couldn’t have been more delighted. She hungrily kissed him back. “What are you doing here?”

“I was invited.” He nodded toward Zola, who still stood behind her. “Thank you.”

“Our pleasure.” Zola beamed.

“But how did you know?” Sam asked her.

“Blake told us,” she responded. “We invited him, too.”

“He sends his regrets,” Chase said.

Sam was pretty sure that her housemate had few regrets about turning down the invitation to face a conservative church crowd. Her father’s church was hardly fundamentalist, but there would still be plenty of disapproving frowns and behind-the-hands whispers if an openly gay man attended. Blake had shared several phone conversations with her father, and later reported that Reverend Westin had hope that Blake would eventually understand God’s love. Which Blake chose to interpret as meaning that he was not worthy of God’s love in his current form, and which Sam chose to ignore completely.

“Well, I’ll leave you two for a bit,” Zola said. “Dinner in ten minutes.” She vanished through the doorway.