In Harm's Way (34 page)

W
alt asked Fiona to step outside the cottage and led her up the hill to the edge of one of the dimly lit, yet oddly colorful flower beds where he’d dragged a pair of her lawn chairs. Beatrice patrolled the forest, snapping twigs and snorting when she caught something up her nose.

“Why the cloak and dagger?” she asked. The nearest floodlight was a good distance behind them at the corner of her cottage. Their long shadows stretched in front of them, following their motions, their faces dark.

“I can’t see you very well,” she said.

“That’s probably okay.”

“Walt?”

“This is tricky for me,” he said.

“
What
is tricky for you?”

“I’ve never done anything like this.”

“Like what?”

He let the hum of the crickets answer her. An old tree house hung between two firs on the far side of the flower bed filled with yellow lilies. Its presence suggested the children the Engletons never had, and for Walt it hung there like sadness.

“An investigation like this—probable homicide—is either straightforward or elliptical. When it’s your case, you hope it’ll be easy. Fast, and easy. When they drag out, they often go unsolved.”

“This is about your case.”

“And what happens is, some of the evidence is hard, some soft. Some you can take to court, some not. And then there’s this gray area where evidence is soft when it first comes in but then firms up as the lab gets it or the chain is laid out properly. It’s this no-man’s-land where as the investigator you know something but can’t legally prove it. At least not at the time. It’s a dangerous and difficult minefield to negotiate because if you misstep, maybe you alert your suspect or the suspect’s lawyer to what you have, and they’re in front of it before you actually have it.”

“Is your circumvention intentional?”

“Making matters more difficult,” he said, as if not having heard her, “is that any of us can be made to testify in court as to what was done or what was said in any given circumstance. Including this one. Including me. For once in my career, maybe I don’t want to get on the stand.

“There are databases—all sorts of databases out there now—for everything from fingerprints to DNA,” he continued. “Felons, sure—known criminals. But also government employees, federal and state. Teachers. Military. Idaho maintains a database of the fingerprints of victims of abuse. In case a body should ever be found, or a kidnapping or abduction takes place. It’s voluntary but, especially with minors, parents nearly always give their consent.” He paused, allowing that all to sink in. “Just now, on the way up here . . . it’s been one of those days where all the data comes in at once. I just picked up a voice mail from the lab. The way it works is the computers do the yeoman’s job of searching the database, and then people take over, carefully studying the promising matches.

“Minors, victims of abuse under eighteen,
are nearly always in the system
.” He made that as concrete as possible. “I need to ask you . . . on the record . . . so I need you to consider your answer carefully . . . Are you aware of the whereabouts of Kira Tulivich?”

“Do you mind if I get a glass of water or something?”

He told her he didn’t mind. She brought them both lemonades a few minutes later. She placed hers in a cup holder attached to the lawn furniture and drew patterns on the sweating glass.

“You’ve won my attention,” she said.

“I need you to answer the question.”

“No. I don’t know where she is. But I’m guessing you found her prints on something.” She made it a statement.

“I can’t confirm or deny that, though I’d like to,” he said. “What I
can
tell you, because it’s soft evidence, is that I received the list server database, the e-mail list for people at possible risk from Martel Gale.”

She drew a deep inhale through her nose, keeping her vision set straight ahead.

“If I’m going to help you,” he said, reaching over and touching her arm, “and I want to help you because I care about you, I need to know. I need to know it all.”

A minute or two passed. For him it felt much longer.

“Please. It’s not the sheriff asking.”

“I tried to stop my picture from running in the paper. I tried to get you to help me. I knew someone would see it. I knew he’d find out about it.” She said nothing for a long time. He thought back to how he’d interpreted her attempts to stop the photos of the rescue as false modesty. If only she’d explained back then . . .

“The emergency room,” she said. “I woke up with a lump on my head and not much memory of what happened. So as you’ve put this thing together, I’ve tried to figure it out from my side. I keep hoping something will help me remember. But so far, not so much.”

He felt awash with relief. She had decided to talk, not close him out. He’d feared the latter. “Probably better if we talk hypothetically whenever possible,” he said. “It won’t always be possible.”

“I’m not asking you to protect me.”

“I didn’t say you were. And you don’t have to ask. But hypothetical is still better.”

“But what I’m telling you is that I don’t know. I don’t think I can help you.”

“An e-mail address—an anagram of your name—is on the list server for those at risk from Martel Gale.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” Several more minutes passed. Beatrice came out of the dark and lay down next to Walt; he reached down and scratched her head. “I didn’t want you to know. Not you. Not anybody. Especially not you, not given . . . you know.
Us
. I was afraid what you’d think.”

“You and Gale.”

Her shadow faintly nodded on river rocks edging the garden. “It was supposed to be behind me.”

“It still can be.”

“No. Not now.” She waited for what seemed like minutes. “I came here to get away from all that. Him. To get away and stay away. Kira . . . she and I, we share that. It’s what allowed me to reach her in the first place, to help her find her way back. It could have been me giving that speech at the Advocates dinner, Walt. Marty—Martel—was . . . awful. People like that, they’re insidious. You’re afraid to leave. You know you can’t stay. Stuff like that, a situation like that, it’s a lot to go through. A lot more to get out of. But the worst of it is the labels people put on it, and how others see you once those labels are put on you, and I didn’t want that. I wanted a clean slate. With you, of all people. You’re in contact with that stuff. I didn’t want you knowing. I didn’t want you seeing me that way.”

“Wouldn’t happen. Won’t happen.”

“Easier said than done.”

“You think I haven’t seen this stuff? I’m telling you: it won’t happen. I’m not that guy.”

“The bottom line is, I was selfish. It was wrong of me.”

He worked to control his breathing. He was both angry and scared. Scared that he would succumb to seeing her as she feared.

“I have to protect her,” she said. “She doesn’t need this. This is my problem, not hers. If she had any part in it . . . well, listen, he deserved what he got. I’m not putting her through this again . . .”

“It’s not her I’m looking at,” he admitted. “That’s where the conflict comes in.”

She gasped and turned her head fully toward him. “Seriously? But I assumed . . . I thought . . . She took off right after it happened. I just assumed . . .”

“Some of the most important evidence is still soft, Fiona. That’s why we’re talking. Why I’m here.”

“Meaning? Help me through this, Walt. I don’t know where we are, much less where we’re going. Why
are
you here?”

“Because for the first time in a long time, I’m afraid to be right. I would do . . . I will do . . . nearly anything in my power to help you. Protect you. Keep this off you.”

She continued looking off into the dark.

“When you found him. In that pile of stuff, that debris . . . When I saw him . . .”

He recalled how wrecked she’d been, how he’d put that off to the horrific condition of the body, not its identity.

“That—out there by the road—was the first I’d seen of him in twenty-six months and nine days,” she said. “At least
I think
it was him. Let me ask you something: did his killing happen on the same night as my accident? Is that what you mean by you’re not looking at Kira? The timing makes sense?”

He said nothing, weighing how to answer her without damaging them both down the road. He’d never been in this position. New territory.

“The timing didn’t escape me,” she told him. “And I could already hear the questions: Why hadn’t I called in the breach of the restraining order? Why hadn’t I at least told you or someone else about my connection to him when I had the chance? I’ll tell you why: I panicked. My secret was still safe. My identity, my role in the trial, was sealed by the court; not even you could uncover I was the one who testified against him. I knew that much. No one could possibly connect the two of us. All I had to do was keep my mouth shut and let him be dead. But as it turns out, I underestimated the investigator. Should have known better.”

“Have you done anything to protect Kira?” A question that had to be asked, but as it came out of him, it sounded more like an accusation.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Forgive me for even asking, but you said you couldn’t let her become a suspect. What did you mean by that? Did you do something to protect her?”

“You think I messed with the investigation.”

“You control our record of evidence. I just need to know—”

“My pictures? Are you kidding me?” She turned back. “That’s unfair.”

He searched for the right words, wondering how the law defined conspiracy.

“Unfair . . . of me,” she said, correcting herself. “Did I consider it? Hell, yes. I printed the truck tires after it was returned to the garage.” She left that hanging there like a knot of bugs around his head. “They’re the right brand. The same tread. I couldn’t be sure if they matched or not. I didn’t see anything to say they did, but I have to admit I considered what I’d do if they did. I thought . . . I realized I could probably switch out the photos in your office. I mean, it’s all electronic. You probably would have given me access if I’d asked. Did I consider it? Yes. Did I do it?”

He breathed a little easier. The logical next question, he couldn’t ask:
Where were you that night?
A simple enough question.
Explain your head injury that’s on record at the hospital
. In fact, he nearly asked both of these. But he stopped himself, knowing the code that would bind him if either answer proved revelatory. He not only didn’t want the answers, he didn’t want to have to lie about having asked them, if it ever came to that.

“I’d seen her nearly come after you that night you were poking around the cottage. It’s not like there was blood or anything in my house. There was nothing in there, my place, to suggest . . . I thought maybe it had happened outside. And if so, I had a pretty good idea who’d done it.”

“The lilies,” he said. “The pollen wasn’t from Vince Wynn’s.” Not fifteen feet in front of them, like a carpet beneath the tree house, was a flower bed of yellow lilies. “The body was dragged through a flower bed of lilies. Dragged up a hill—way up a hill—and dumped. Rolled off and down a scree slide into some avalanche slash at the side of the highway. The evidence we have supports that scenario. It just took us a while to piece it together. That’s what we call hard evidence.”

“Her taking off without a word. Not answering my calls. Taking the truck when that’s totally off-limits. I know her, Walt. It’s just not like her. But listen to me: she can’t take this. Do you understand? She won’t survive this. If she did this . . . if she’s put through something like this again . . . She is beyond fragile right now, has been for a long time. She’s young.”

Should he tell her again that he was no longer looking at Kira? He thought not. He sipped the lemonade to open his throat.

His ability to refrain from and resist corruption through several terms defined him. It was not only a matter of pride, but a matter of identity. So ingrained in him that to contemplate otherwise made him feel physically sick. He searched for a way to do this without doing it. To remain true to himself but to limit collateral damage.
To protect and serve
, he thought.

“The idea behind what I do,” he found himself saying in a whisper of a voice, “is to serve the public, to do so equally, uniformly, to treat people fairly and equally, the idea being that you make society safer. I accept that that’s a naïve attitude, but there you have it. Safe to live and work and to limit or eliminate fear. As much as it’s a cliché, fear is in fact the real enemy. Fear limits us all. The fear of illness is often much greater than the illness itself. The fear of crime is the same way. So I’m supposed to keep the crime down and to bring in those who commit crimes when they happen, and those two things are supposed to work in concert.”

“I realize how hard this must be. I’m so sorry, Walt.”

He drew in another lungful of air like it was his last. Exhaled. “Harder on you, I know. I can bend the laws, Fiona. I can’t break them.”

“Understood. And I don’t want you to have to do either.”

“It’s supposed to rain tonight,” he said.

“Walt . . .”

“Bear with me,” he pleaded. “A lightning strike can set an area on fire. Spark a little wildfire that burns an acre or two before help arrives. You’re pretty high here on this knoll. And you’re what, about a mile from the East Fork station house? They’d probably respond in under ten minutes. Five minutes, more like. Five minutes
from the time of the call
.”

“Walt?”

“The thing about a small fire like that . . . you’d have to have the right winds so it didn’t hit any buildings. Not much wind tonight, not at the moment, which is good. The thing about blood evidence in the wild? It stays there for a long, long time. It’s recoverable weeks, months, sometimes years later. Rain doesn’t do much to it. Snow. Ice. But wildfire . . . fire’s the one thing that destroys it.”