In the Clearing (14 page)

“I think we’ve worn the park out, don’t you?” he’d said. “But you’ll come back someday. You’ll come back with your sister and your own kids, and you’ll make memories for them.”

That had never happened.

A psychopath had stolen that dream from all of them.

A chill ran up and down Tracy’s spine, and she quickly retreated inside, where she put on a hooded sweatshirt. She brought the newspapers to the dining room table, sitting beneath a retro oil-lamp chandelier. In addition to the articles on the reunion, the newspapers were filled with small-town news—a report on a swimming pool feasibility study, the gardening tip of the week, and an article encouraging citizens to serve on committees to plan Stoneridge’s future. The centerpiece of the front page, however, was the reunion and stadium dedication. In the photograph accompanying the article, a man in khaki pants and a polo shirt stood outside the entrance to the athletic complex Tracy and Dan had seen under construction. The caption identified him as Eric Reynolds, the quarterback of the 1976 championship team and president of Reynolds Construction, which was donating the manpower, equipment, and concrete to renovate the stadium. The unspoken quid pro quo was apparently the naming rights.

The article continued to an inside page with a collage comparing past and current photographs. In one, a fifty-seven-year-old Eric Reynolds, balding in a horseshoe pattern, stood behind a large man bent over as if to hike him a football. Reynolds looked still capable of stepping onto the field and playing. The photo was juxtaposed next to another taken forty years earlier of the same two men in the same positions but in their high school football uniforms. In that black-and-white photo, Reynolds had long hair and a bright smile. The caption identified the center hiking the football as Hastey Devoe. Time had not been nearly as kind to him as it had been to Reynolds. As a young man, Devoe had been big, but he’d carried his weight well, and his boyish features and wide-eyed stare made him look precocious. In the more recent photo, Devoe’s bulk had become slovenly, and his face had the fleshy, sagging features of a man who liked his food and probably his alcohol.

The photographs made Tracy nostalgic. Forty years had passed. Half a lifetime.

Not for Sarah. And not for Kimi Kanasket.

CHAPTER 12

T
racy awoke to the persistent crowing of a distant rooster. Unable to get back to sleep, she slid on her winter running clothes and headed out along the ridgeline. The initial cold hit her like an ice bath, chilling her to the bone, but she started slow, allowing her muscles and joints to loosen up until her core warmed and she could kick up her pace. About forty-five minutes later, after a quick shower and breakfast, she jumped in her truck and set out to find Earl Kanasket and either get his blessing or a kick in the pants—if he was still alive and still living at his last known address.

After a little over an hour and a half driving along US 97, Tracy approached the small city of Toppenish on the two-thousand-square-mile Yakama Reservation. She pulled off the exit and drove through a main street of one- and two-story stone and brick buildings that had the feel of an Old West farming community. Large murals adorned the sides of many of the buildings, the elaborate drawings depicting late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century living—Native Americans riding bareback on painted horses, farmers plowing fields behind the reins of plow horses, a steam engine billowing smoke into a pale-blue sky.

Tracy’s GPS directed her along streets with modest but well-maintained homes to a T intersection and an expansive field of dark green that stretched seemingly to the horizon. Kale had become the new food fad. The address for Earl Kanasket was the last house on the left, a one-story blue-gray structure with an older-model Chevy truck and a Toyota sedan parked in a carport—a good sign, at least, that
someone
was home. The house listed slightly to the left, as if the attached carport weighed it down.

Tracy parked at the curb and stepped out, approaching a waist-high chain-link fence. She reached for the latch to the gate but hesitated when she noticed two signs, the first warning of a “Guard Dog on Duty” with a picture of a German shepherd. The second sign depicted a hand holding a large-caliber revolver and the words “We Don’t Call 911.” Tracy took a moment to consider the patch of crabgrass on the opposite side of the fence, but she didn’t see any signs of a vicious beast. That didn’t stop her from keeping a close watch on the corner of the house as she pushed through the gate and made her way up the concrete walk. She treated strange dogs the way she treated the ocean. She gave each a healthy dose of respect and never turned her back on either. The porch had been modified to accommodate a wheelchair. She took that as another good sign that Earl Kanasket was living there.

The screen door had been propped against the side of the house, the hinges rusted and broken. Not that it would have done much good—the mesh was shredded. Tracy thought again of the guard dog. She knocked and took one step back and to the side, her hand on the butt of her Glock, not interested in being in the line of fire in case either posted sign was accurate. Inside the house a dog barked, but far from ferocious, it sounded tired and hoarse. The door handle jiggled, and an instant later the door popped open with a shudder. An old man sat in a wheelchair, his weathered face a road map of years. Next to him stood a shaggy-haired dog, its face white, its eyes watery and unfocused. The animal’s tongue hung out the side of its mouth, as if the effort to reach the door had exhausted him.

“Good afternoon,” Tracy said, employing her most disarming smile. One advantage she had over her male colleagues was that people were less intimidated by a strange woman knocking on their door. “I’m hoping you’re Earl Kanasket.”

“I am.” Earl’s voice sounded as hoarse as the dog’s bark, but his eyes were clear, and so dark they made Tracy think of a crow’s eyes. “And who are you?”

“My name is Tracy Crosswhite. I’m a detective from Seattle.”

“Detective?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What would a detective from Seattle want down here on the rez?” It was a legitimate question, and Tracy didn’t detect any hostility or concern in Earl Kanasket’s tone. She figured at eighty-plus years of age, you didn’t get worked up about too many things.

“A chance to talk,” Tracy said. “About your daughter, Kimi.”

“Kimi?” Earl leaned back in his chair as if pushed by a gust of strong wind. “Kimi’s been gone forty years.”

“I know,” Tracy said. “And I know this is probably a shock coming out of the blue like this.” She paused. This was where Earl Kanasket would get angry and tell her to leave, or get curious.

“Yeah, you could say it is.” His thinning white hair was pulled back in a ponytail that hung down his back. “So what’s this about?”

“Well, it’s a bit of a story, Mr. Kanasket. I wonder if I could come in and sit down and tell it to you?”

Earl studied her a moment. Then he nodded, just a small dip of his chin. “I think you’d better,” he said, tugging on the wheels so his chair rolled backward. The dog also retreated with effort. Tracy shut the door and followed Earl into a tired but clean room just to the right of the entry. The air was stale and held the odor of a recent fire in the hearth. The furnishings were functional—a couch and two chairs for sitting, an oval-shaped throw rug over a hardwood floor for warmth, a flat-screen television for entertainment, and a lamp for light.

As Earl positioned his chair so that his back was to the window facing the field of kale, Tracy stepped to a chair near the fireplace. Rust-colored dog hair on the arms and seat indicated that this was the dog’s preferred spot, but for now he remained content to be at his master’s side. Tracy sat. She’d given some thought on the drive about how to begin. “I graduated from the police academy with a woman named Jenny Almond. Her father was Buzz Almond, the sheriff of Klickitat County.”

“I know that name,” Earl said. “But he wasn’t sheriff. Not yet, anyway. He was a deputy. He came when Kimi went missing.”

According to the Accurint records, the Kanaskets moved to the Yakama Reservation not long after the recovery of Kimi’s body from the White Salmon River.

“That’s right,” she said.

“He said he’d find Kimi. I think he meant it.”

“Did he tell you what happened to Kimi?”

Kanasket took his time, seeming to ponder each question, as if age and wisdom had taught him patience before opening his mouth to speak. “They said she threw herself into the river.”

“Is that what Buzz Almond told you?”

“I don’t remember who said it, just that it was said. Didn’t believe it then. Don’t believe it now.”

“Well,” Tracy said. “I’m not certain Buzz Almond believed it either. He kept a file, Mr. Kanasket.” She reached into her briefcase and pulled out the file, then stood and handed it to Earl Kanasket. He took it tentatively, as if uncertain he wanted to hold it, and Tracy didn’t blame him for that. The file documented the worst memories of his life, memories she was certain he’d take to his grave.

“It appears Buzz Almond continued to investigate what happened to your daughter, which wouldn’t have been the usual way things were done in the sheriff’s office. The usual way would have been for him to turn his file over to a detective. So the fact that he kept the file indicates, perhaps, that he didn’t agree with the conclusion reached by others.”

“What does he have to say about it?”

“He’s dead. He died of cancer a few weeks ago. His daughter found the file in his desk at home and asked me to take a look. I came here to let you know, and hopefully to get your approval.”

Earl’s eyes narrowed, and his gaze bore into Tracy with such intensity she was certain this time that he would ask her to leave. “My approval?”

“Yes, to look further into Buzz Almond’s investigation.”

Earl turned his head and looked at the only framed photograph in the room, a picture of Kimi with a woman Tracy assumed to be his wife. After a moment he redirected his attention to Tracy. “Tell me what’s in the file.”

Tracy retook her seat and explained the contents. She said she was having the coroner’s report reviewed in Seattle and had also sent several dozen photographs to be studied by an expert. While she spoke, Earl Kanasket sat motionless, hands resting on the file in his lap. His bony fingers never moved to open it.

“Photographs of what?”

“A path in the woods leading to a clearing.”

“I know it.”

“You do?”

Earl nodded, though again it was a barely perceptible tilt. “It holds bad spirits.”

“Bad spirits?”

“Dead who are not at rest.”

When Sarah died and her father took his own life, Tracy lost what remained of her faith, never having been much of a believer in things like heaven or life after death. But she couldn’t reconcile the moment in the mine above Cedar Grove when she’d felt Sarah’s presence as strongly as if Sarah had been physically present. After that, Tracy didn’t dismiss talk of spirits. “Why there?” she asked.

“What do you know of it?”

“Nothing.”

Earl shut his eyes and took a deep breath before opening them. “Many years ago they hung an innocent man in the clearing. They said he committed murder, and they brought him to an old oak tree so everyone in the town could witness the hanging. When they asked him for his final words, he said he was innocent, and if they hung him he would rise from his grave and burn the town to the ground. A month after the hanging, a fire burned most of the buildings in downtown Stoneridge, but the cause of the fire was never determined. When they finally opened the man’s grave, they found it empty. Shortly after those events, the oak tree died. Since then, nothing grows in the clearing.”

The dog sat up and barked, causing Tracy to flinch. Earl Kanasket never moved, never shifted his gaze from her face. Seconds later she heard the sound of heavy boots climbing the front porch and felt the house shudder as the front door popped inward.

“Dad? Whose truck is in the—?”

A man carrying a brown grocery bag stepped into the room. His eyes shifted between Tracy and his father before settling on her. “Who are you?”

Élan bore a passing resemblance to his father. His hair, more gray than black, extended past his shoulders, and he had the same dark eyes, though where his father’s eyes engaged, Élan’s repelled, in an intense, challenging gaze.

Tracy stood. “My name is Tracy Crosswhite. I’m a detective from Seattle.”

“What do you want? Why are you talking to my father?”

“She’s here about Kimi,” Earl said.

“Kimi?” Élan scoffed. He set the groceries on an end table and walked farther into the room. “Is this some sort of a joke?”

“No,” Tracy said. “It’s not.”

“What could you possibly want to know about Kimi?”

“She doesn’t believe Kimi killed herself,” Earl said.

Élan glanced at his father, then back to Tracy. “The former sheriff kept a file on your sister’s death,” she said.

But the more she tried to explain, the more agitated Élan looked, like a man with bugs crawling up his back. He cut her off. “What possible good do you think will come of this, huh? Are you going to bring Kimi back?”

“No,” Tracy said. “But if your sister didn’t kill herself—”

“What? What are you going to do? Arrest someone? They didn’t arrest anyone then, and they haven’t arrested anyone in forty years. They . . . didn’t . . . care. Kimi was just another dead Indian.”

“We have technology now that wasn’t available back in 1976—technology that might reveal evidence that your sister’s death wasn’t a suicide.”

“Might?” Élan stepped closer, not enough that Tracy felt threatened, but it was clear he intended to intimidate. “Might? You came out here to tell us you
might
find out something? You mean you don’t even know anything yet?”

“I came to get your father’s approval and to let him know the sheriff has reopened the file.”

“You want his approval? My mother went to her grave grieving Kimi’s death. My father has been without his daughter for forty years. And you come here and tell us you might have . . . what? What could you possibly have?”