The drive back to town was hard. My vision was swimming, and my brain was foggy.
Amy’s breathing was steady next to me.
I stayed mostly on the road all the way back. After what seemed forever, I pulled onto the walk in front of the station.
I carried Amy inside; my arms were leaden, and my legs were shaky, but she was as light as any snowflake. Once through the entry I took a couple more wavering paces before sinking to my knees. I tried to call out, but my voice was muted. There was a roaring in my ears like oceans, and I fought the blackness encroaching on the corners of my vision. I kept hold of Amy, swaying like a windsock in a storm.
The inner door opened, and I caught a glimpse of the doctor tending his patients.
Mary and Agnes came through the doorway together. They gave little cries of panicked relief, pain-filled sounds—the audible version of the feeling you get when you pull out a particularly bad splinter or fix a dislocated joint. Pain, pain, pain, followed by gasping, surprised relief.
The doctor came out and helped.
“Another patient for you,” I said.
“You or her?”
“I’m fine. Right as rain,” I said. Then I sank to the floor and was out like a light.
It didn’t last long though. Mary must have thought I had died, because she started shaking me and trying to roll me over onto my back. I waited for her to try mouth-to-mouth. Didn’t happen. So I got up, brushing myself off.
She was asking me what happened.
“Oh, nothing much,” I said, “but I’ll be all right.”
I staggered back out into the night. Walking to the front of the truck, I found my less-than-precious cargo. I had lashed Lang to the hood, just like he might have done to those deer he had hunted.
He was strapped down tightly. I hadn’t wanted him to fall off and get run over. He was hot under the collar and cold everywhere else. I dragged him inside and stuffed him into a cell.
* * *
The FBI showed up at first light. The bureau was in full force, with helicopters and sunglasses and blue jackets with yellow letters. They had lost two good men and were not taking it lightly. There were black cars with antennae swarming all over the place. There was no room at the inn. The owner might have started charging the summer fare. The Oak Table had a lot of new customers
as well.
The FBI took custody of Lang and raided his house, seizing his equipment. They taped it off like the crime scene it was. Rock and French and I had to explain our little tussle, which was deemed inconsequential by the investigators. They didn’t care about anything but nailing Lang to the wall. I didn’t envy him at all. He would not fare well in prison.
Eventually they revealed what the two murdered agents had intended on showing Amy. We got to look over the files as the assistant special agent in charge debriefed us.
The documents were in chronological order. The first chunk of pages were smudgy photocopies of the twenty-five-year-old originals. It was Arlene Kirk’s dossier. I skimmed over the initial reports. She had been found on the side of the road, like I had read online. All signs had indicated an attack. The papers outlined the rescue efforts, the delivery of the baby, and then Arlene’s expiration.
The case had gone cold and had been tucked away into the bottomless pit of unsolved murders.
Then came the new report. Several trail cameras had been recovered from the area. I hadn’t known that there were trail cameras that old. Evidently the guy who had placed the cameras to photograph deer and cougars and bears had passed away, and the cameras had waited silently until some enterprising hikers had gone off the trail and found the mossy machines. They had presented their findings to Park Services. The photographs were not pleasant. Arlene could be seen in several. In one she was walking with a stick, in another she was leaning over in an exaggerated stretch, and then she was on the ground, rolling, falling. The cameras had caught only fragments of the fall, shutters snapping only every half-second or so.
The photos matched the doctor’s assessment that it had not been a strong man who had attacked Arlene. There had not been a man at all. The fall over rocks and through brambles explained the inconsistent yet ultimately fatal injuries.
The reports were thorough, if a little long-winded. The slow-moving but unstoppable hybrid of bureaucracy and police work had fired up and begun chugging. There were jurisdictional issues. Back in the day it had all been handled by county police. With the latest news, the park rangers were involved, and the Seattle police came on board since she had been a resident at the time of her death. A couple of county guys were still around and chipped in what they could remember.
What had been thought to be a murder had been an accident. No details had been provided to the press, the report said, pending notification of next of kin. Eventually the FBI had tracked down the rest of the Kirk family in Cluff. They’d assigned the easy job to two seasoned agents who had just come off a big case. The agents had contacted local law enforcement; a Sergeant Lang was cited. Like he had told me, he had been the one to take the call, and as a sergeant, he took charge. It had all unraveled for Lang when the agent had noticed the hidden camera at Amy’s house. Lang had panicked and improvised. His own video convicted him.
So that was it, simple as that.
Lang had killed the men sent to bring closure to the victim’s daughter and sister. He had started the fight, and we had ended it.
* * *
The next few days were all about convalescence. The doctor had a nice setup in his home for Strawn, French, and Patton. It was not like in the movies. You don’t recover from a bad beating right away. I was still on the mend myself. Those same few days saw me going through an inventory every morning, like a pilot doing a preflight check, ascertaining the fullness and mobility of every limb and muscle. There were strained muscles for sure, and my ribs didn’t feel quite right. Breathing deeply was painful. I had plenty of ugly bruises and scrapes and some cuts on the inside of my mouth, and my knuckles were not pretty. No breaks though. No fractures or sprains. Nothing permanent. My cognitive functions seemed normal. The human body is a mostly self-healing machine. It just takes time.
On the third day, I brought food from the café to the doctor’s house. Strawn was watching sports by himself. He asked me to turn the TV off. Though he was diminished somewhat, he still had his command presence. He must have been relieved of a big, twenty-five-year-old, tragic weight. It must have torn him up to be so close to his daughter all those years and unable to bridge the gap because of fear of reprisal for a crime he hadn’t committed.
He’d been away working, and on that fateful day Arlene had gone for a hike, despite being so far along in her pregnancy. In hindsight Strawn said he might have had a solid alibi, but in the moment, he had panicked at the thought of investigations, trials, possible imprisonment, and not seeing his child. After his initial flight, it had been all the more difficult to come forward as the father.
“Sawyer,” he said.
“Yes?”
“I want to thank you. You went above and beyond the call
of duty.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
Most people say, It was nothing or, No problem, which aren’t good responses, because they’re untrue. This had been a big problem. It had been something.
So I just stuck with tried and true You’re welcome.
I moved to leave the room, but Strawn stopped me. “Sawyer?”
“Yes, sir?”
“How many chances do you get to raise a daughter?”
That was a heck of a question, one I had limited knowledge about. I had sisters, but that didn’t count. I didn’t have any kids, didn’t have a degree in children’s health and development.
Strawn’s eyes were deep, filled with worry that he was about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. He had been reunited with his girl, only to face the possible reality that she was too far gone, that they would never be father and daughter.
“Chief,” I said. “I believe families can be together forever. And forever is plenty of time to make up for lost time. In answer to your question, how many chances do you get, I guess as many as she’ll give you.”
He nodded, slowly.
I continued. “And she is as resilient as they come. She’s tough like you. I wouldn’t have made it if she hadn’t fought Lang herself. I told her to run, but she stayed.”
Strawn smiled.
I gave my regards to Patton, French, and the doctor, saw myself out, and went to enjoy the bright, clean mountain air.