McKean S03 The Ghost Trees (4 page)

I shut off the Mustang’s engine and rushed to the barrier in time to see the pickup land upside down on the muddy surface of the Duwamish River, throwing out a wide circle of white spray on all sides.

“Hello, 9-1-1,” McKean said as I watched the truck go down slowly at the front with its four monster wheels up like the legs of a giant stunned animal. “I’d like to report a vehicle off the West Seattle Bridge.” The Ram slipped silently beneath the water with the tailgate going down last while McKean gave details to the operator. I spent several minutes watching bubbles and a gasoline slick rise on the muddy eddies of the Duwamish. Jay Sturgis didn’t resurface.

After a police team including Officer Stanwood took a report and helped me unbend my left front fender, I drove Peyton McKean back to his labs. He gave the wood samples to Janet and by midnight she had enough DNA mapping information to implicate Jay Sturgis, if he had somehow survived.

“Excellent work, as usual, Janet,” McKean crooned. “Three clear DNA patterns, the cedar bolts and the poached stump matching, and Sturgis’ backyard stump the odd one out.”

McKean’s cell phone rang. It was Stanwood, calling with news from the river. After a brief conversation, McKean clicked off his phone. “They’ve got a dive team down there already.”

“That’s quick work,” I said.

“Yes, and they’ve located Sturgis’ body still in the driver’s seat. So, he who would have killed us has killed himself.”

“There’s justice in the world,” I said.

* * * * *

The next day McKean and I went to the cedar grove to meet Henry George and Franky Squalco. The morning drizzle let up while the three of us stood by watching Peyton McKean lean his gangly body to minutely examine one particularly large fallen branch. Lichen covered, it was as thick as a man’s arm and perhaps fifteen feet from its broken end to its farthest festoons of green foliage.

“The widowmaker?” I asked.

“Exactly,” McKean replied. “I was overstating that the rains wash away evidence. This snag branch was right under my nose.”

“Police forensics missed it too,” Franky pointed out.

“Not through incompetence,” McKean responded. “They were looking for murder clues, as befits their job. But no murder was committed, so they missed the evidence of what really happened. I, on the other hand, should have seen it. Here, lying among many other branches is one that’s clearly different. The others all have cut ends but this one has a torn-off snag end.” He tugged at the middle of the branch but it was too heavy to lift.

“And that’s why neither the police nor I suspected it as an agent of death. Look how long it is. See how densely covered in smaller sub-branches, each one heavy with green cedar foliage. It’s far too ponderous for even a strong man like Jay Sturgis to lift. No human swung this branch at Olafsen’s head. So clearly there was no murder.”

“There’s where it fell from,” I said, pointing out a fresh snag end among the branches high on one of the standing cedars.

“A drop of at least sixty feet,” McKean said. “A lethal drop. A widowmaker indeed, if Olafsen had a wife.”

“You’ve still got it wrong,” George muttered. “A murder was too committed. They killed a tree and another tree took revenge.”

“I suppose you could say that,” McKean allowed somewhat sarcastically. “And this branch was vengeance dispatched from above to kill the killer.”

“It was Grandmother Tree’s spirit,” George said. “She got good and angry and she made the wind blow till that branch fell and killed Olafsen.”

“Believe what you like,” McKean said. “I’ll stick with the evidence. The first tree falling brushed the second tree and loosened the branch, which later fell on Olafsen. Then Sturgis, who faced prison time if he reported the death, simply loaded up the wood and left the dead man where he lay.”

After a thoughtful pause McKean went on, “Perhaps some good will come of this case. Maybe we’ve started something that will satisfy Grandmother Tree just a little. If poachers are killing cedar trees all over this land then the new tests Janet and I are devising will someday help convict them by tying the DNA of individual trees to the wood sold to the shingle mills.”

“One good thing,” George muttered. “Those pahstuds who killed Grandmother Tree’s child are dead and gone.”

“Nobody’s death is a good thing,” I said. “But what exactly is the meaning of the term, ‘pahstud’? When I first heard you say it, I thought you were calling us bastards.”

“That’s about right.” George gave a gap-toothed grin.

“It’s the Duwamish pronunciation of the word, ‘Boston,’” Franky explained. “The first Americans to visit us here were whalers out of Boston, so we called you Bostons, but the Lushootseed language doesn’t make much use of the letter ‘B’ or the letter ‘N’, so pahstud is the closest we could come.”

“Bastards would be just as good,” George mocked. “None of you had any family history here like we did, or any love of this land.”

“But it’s our homeland now, too,” I resisted.

“See it how you like,” George retorted. “I know how Chief Seattle saw it. You remember his famous quote? He said, ‘You will never be alone in our land. Our ghosts will be watching you, no matter what you do.’ ‘

“Including, it would seem, the ghosts of trees,” McKean reflected.

George smiled and for once that smile seemed friendly. “Look around. Where so many trees died in the old times, a whole new grove is growing.”

McKean patted the stump. “Time will heal even this wound.”

“Listen!” George said. “The crows’s done chatting. Hear who’s talking now?” From high in the trees came an unfamiliar birdcall that spiraled upward through a series of flute-like notes.

“Ah, the inspiring sound of Swainson’s thrush,” McKean murmured.

“My grandmothers taught me it was called pareeji,” George said.

“Pareeji.” McKean savored the word. “Named in onomatopoetic consonance with its call.”

“Ono-what?”

“Never mind. I only meant that your name matches its fabulous sound better than our dry term, Swainson’s thrush.”

“Hear him?” the old man said, his eyes alight with joy. “He sings, pah-pareeji-reeji-reeji-ree!”

“Beautiful!” McKean agreed. “Furthermore his presence affirms the high quality of the environment in these woods. Swainson’s thrushes - pareejis - are fastidious birds. They only nest where there is clean running water, a healthy high canopy of trees and dense undergrowth - all of which is true in this canyon. Hear how the call echoes off the ceiling of big maple leaves and returns from a hundred directions at once? That’s a sound one can only hear in a healthy Pacific Northwest forest environment.”

“It’s like a whole chorus of flutes,” I remarked.

George led us up his little path to the center of the cedar grove. The spicy aroma of live cedar foliage scented the air. Standing before Grandmother Tree, George held out his staff to the giant stump. “Grandmother,” he said, “the last of those tree poachers is gone, thanks to these guys. No more killing your children for money. I hope your spirit rests easier, knowing those bad men will never come around here again.”

High above us the loftiest boughs swayed. A light breeze soughed through them like a gentle sigh.