The Bear Mountain Secret

by Gayle Siebert

With luck, the man who dumped his briefcase is gone so she can park in front where there’s traffic going by and people watching out the window; otherwise she’ll have to drive around once more, and she’d rather not see that Clint guy again.

  As it turns out, she doesn’t have to go all the way to the end of the row; a pickup is just backing out of a space and when it drives off, she pulls in, right in front of the windows. It isn’t until she’s parked she wonders if Clint would remember her number. She won’t go back to make sure.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  CLINT SCOWLS AND stands arms akimbo. What was that number she rattled off? Now he has to wait until she comes back outside, and since she hasn’t come around back again, she must be parked in front where everyone will see the goings on. He’ll have to convince her to willingly either follow or come with him. What are chances of that? She didn’t open her window far enough for him to reach in to stick her, and when he went to open the door, she locked him out. He carefully reaches into his right front pants pocket to get the syringe out before he can accidentally stick himself, and puts the needle guard back on.

  It’s puzzling. Females younger than this one are usually easy conquests. If they’re hesitant, the sight of the expensive car seals the deal. In case she had no clue, he mentioned the car’s value, even inflating it. So what spooked her? Whatever it was, if she finds him waiting for her when she comes out, would she believe him if he said he’d had time for coffee after all, and come along voluntarily? Would another try at sweet-talking her do the trick? It might make matters worse. Then he realizes his son, Trent, is at the motel. A better idea would be to have him grab her along with her things.

  Clint heads for his car. As he passes the dumpster, he beckons to the bald man, briefcase at his feet, standing half hidden between it and the propane tanks. He picks up the briefcase and comes to walk beside him.

  “What happened? You don’t have the girl?”

  “Nothing gets past you, Des.” Clint scowls and looks around to see if there’s anyone near enough to have overheard. The two stride across the lot to the Porsche. Clint slides behind the wheel and picks his phone out of the console. There’s voicemail, so he touches the numbers and listens to it. It’s Trent. He scowls. Contingency? What’s that supposed to mean? No matter. He says he’s heading out. Should he call and tell him to go back and wait for Kathy? No. He’ll take her himself.

  Des is on the passenger side, putting the briefcase in the back. Clint tells him, “Don’t bother getting in. You ain’t stayin’.”

  “What? Why not?”

  He pulls a roll of bills out of his pocket, peels off a couple, and hands them to the young man. “Change of plans. You won’t be driving the Porsche today.”

  “Now how’m I supposed to get home?”

  “Call a buddy. Or, there’s a bus stop right across the street.” Clint starts the engine, barely waiting for Des to close the door before driving off.

  Des is a good looking kid despite being almost completely bald at twenty-seven. It makes sense for him to shave his head, but why Trent keeps his perfectly good head of hair shaved off is a mystery. Must be just because he wants to be like his big brother, as if he has no identity of his own. At least Des has a few smarts.

  His ex did a shit job of parenting. Hard to believe he was ever attracted to her. Trent takes after her, dumb, and not quite right in the head besides. It’s like he never matured past the age of eight and impulse control? Forget it. He’s not ready to write him off just yet, though.

  He turns onto the road that runs along the vacant section of forest behind the motel and pulls his Porsche to the curb where he told Trent to park. Don’t want the activity, and especially not an identifiable car like the Porsche, showing up in motel surveillance. He’ll hike through the bushes. She’s small. He’ll be able to carry her back the same way even if she’s unconscious. Convenient her room is at the end and the trail through the bushes comes out right beside it.

  She’ll be shocked when she discovers her things are gone and he’s waiting inside. She’s likely to put up a fight. A wrestling match with the little vixen will be fun. He feels a stirring and realizes he’s tumescent.

  He’s humming to himself as he gets out of the car and trots along the short path through the trees.

  Thirteen

  Meet The Danielsons

  KATHY PUSHES THROUGH the door and stands next to the cashier desk. Franny is at the far end of the lunch counter; she looks up, smiles, and beckons. When Kathy reaches her, Franny says, “they’re already here. I’ve put you in the meeting room next to the office. Right through here.”

  She follows Franny through the double swinging doors and past a large stainless steel island where prep cooks are at work, into the back room. There’s a round table with a couple close to her age seated on the far side. The man stands as she comes in.

  “Hello,” the striking blonde woman says as she half rises to extend her hand across the table, “I’m Astrid.”

  “Hi. I’m Kathy.”

  “And I’m Denver.” The man removes his cowboy hat and offers his hand for a quick shake before settling the hat back on his head and sitting again. He’s fair haired and blue-eyed, same as Rick, and easily as tall, too.

  “Have a seat,” Franny says. “I thought I’d have time to have coffee with you but we’ve just gotten super busy. Maybe when you’re done? But you guys go ahead and talk as long as you want. Can I bring anyone anything? Pie? Donut? Hot chocolate? Tea?”

  “Just coffee would be great,” Kathy says, noting Astrid and Denver already have mugs and there’s a thermos carafe on the table.

  “I’d love a slice of cherry pie,” Denver says.

  “Oh, I knew it. Warmed up, with a scoop of ice cream, I imagine?” Franny asks.

  “Yes, please!”

  “Pie and ice cream at ten in the morning, after the big breakfast he had,” Astrid says. As Franny scoots off, she looks at Kathy and tells her, “that’s what he ordered the day we met.”

  “Still order it pretty well every time I come in here,” Denver says with a grin. “When you find something good, I say stay with it.” He gives Astrid’s shoulder a rub. Kathy doesn’t miss the look of affection that passes between them.

  She hangs her purse on the back of the nearest chair before sliding onto it and pulling up to the table. She asks, “was that a long time ago? I mean, have you been together for a long time?”

  “No,” Denver answers, “only about five years. I lived in Merritt and Astrid’s from Vancouver Island. We had to come all the way up here to meet. What about you? Where are you from?”

  “Well, Reader’s Digest version? I grew up in Saskatchewan, a little town called Pillerton. Moved away right out of school, moved back about five years ago.”

  “Pillerton? I’ve never heard of it.”

  “It’s pretty small. Barely half as big as Dark River. Less than an hour south of Regina.”

  “So, you’re looking for your birth father,” Astrid says, “but all you’ve got to go on is a first name. What makes you think he could be here, or that it could be Hank Hazen?”

  “Believe me, I know finding him is a long shot,” Kathy agrees with a sigh. “I found letters, old letters, from more than forty years ago. Turns out my father wasn’t who I thought he was and I might have a sibling and even a living father…” She draws a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “If you have family, you might not understand. But all my life I envied people who have sisters and brothers. Aunts. Cousins. You know, big family gatherings at Thanksgiving and so on. After my father — the man I thought was my father — er, disappeared, all I had was my mother. And she’s gone. So if I have a father that’s still alive, or a brother or sister, I’d really like to connect.”

  “I think I understand,” Astrid says. “I’ve got no family to speak of either. Or didn’t, until Denver, so I know what you mean. But I really hope you aren’t related to Hazens. What do you know about them?”

  “Just wha
t people have been telling me, and what I found on the internet. I hope I’m not related to them, that’s for sure, so I guess now my quest is to prove I’m not. I thought I’d show you the letters and you can tell me if anything jumps out at you.”

  She pulls her purse into her lap and digs through, shuffling things around. “Damn! Meant to put them in here but I must’ve left them on the desk back at the motel.” She pulls out her wallet, chequebook, a few rumpled till receipts, then stuffs everything back in and looks across at Denver and Astrid. “Yup. Left them behind. I’m such an idiot! Sorry. I really meant to bring them. But anyway, I can probably give you the gist. I’ve read them often enough I’ve almost got them memorized.”

  “Okay, shoot,” Denver says.

  Kathy smiles at Denver saying something so similar to the archaic phrase Rick uses to answer his phone. “So,” she says, “Hank talks about working out in a camp. I guess that would be a logging camp, but I’m not a hundred percent sure, because he mentions being blown out. Maybe a mining camp? What else would blow up?”

  “You said blown out? Not blown up? Blown out just means it was too windy to work in the bush. Ever heard the expression ‘stay out of tall trees’?”

  “No.”

  “Not many tall trees around Pillerton, I don’t imagine,” Denver says. “We don’t have guys out in the bush when it’s too windy. Too dangerous. So, what camp?”

  “That’s part of the problem, he doesn’t name the camp or say where it is, but the letters are all postmarked Dark River, and he says he wants to find a rental here. Oh, and he mentions another guy in Dark River who was also from Pillerton. Umm. Gave his last name, too but damn! Right now I can’t remember it.”

  “What about a return address on the envelopes?” Astrid asks.

  “There aren’t any. One looks like he started it but didn’t finish, just a post office box number.”

  “Might be able to find records for that,” Denver suggests.

  “Worth a try,” Astrid agrees. “We have a room full of old records at the mill. We took over about the time we got together, but I haven’t done much more than look in there and back away, it’s such a mess. We talked about getting that room cleaned out and all those old files burned, but haven’t got to it yet. Maybe that’s a good thing, for you, anyway. They go back decades, so there might be employee records for when he was here. If he or the other guy he mentioned worked in logging around here, they very likely worked at our company sometime and there’ll be a record of it. We could start there, although I have to warn you, the records are pretty disorganized. But go on.”

  “Okay!” Kathy says. She squirms in her seat, then looks across the table, making eye contact with both Astrid and Denver before continuing. “So. He says he married the boss’s daughter, but that she’s ugly and a lot older. As for when, this was about the time my father, or the man I thought was my father, disappeared. I was five or six. He mentions ‘our little girl’ and that the man I thought was my father married my mother even though she was pregnant. Says she should leave me with him. He flipped out when he found out my mother killed him but said he wouldn’t tell anyone. Besides that, my mother was pregnant again and Hank was the father of that one, too, so that’s why I think I have a sibling. No one ever knew about it. Well, obviously, someone did. Hank said he would send someone to get the baby and that my mother better not tell his wife or anyone or he would tell the cops what she had in her furnace.”

  “Wow!” Astrid exclaims, “she killed her husband and put him in a furnace?”

  “In pieces, I guess. Although now that I think about it, it was a big old coal furnace. The door was big enough to fit a body, but she would’ve had to have help to put him in, er, all in one piece. I never wanted to hear the details. That’s where they found his remains. But not until after my mother was dead.”

  Denver utters a low whistle. “All those years, his body was right there in the house?”

  “Yeah. Along with the blood-stained mattress she butchered him on. She never even got rid of that. Why keep such an incriminating piece of evidence? They say murderers sometimes like to keep souvenirs or visit the dump sites. She may have kept the mattress for that. Although why, when she could’ve looked in the furnace anytime, is anyone’s guess. And everything he owned was in boxes in the attic.

  “I wasn’t allowed in either the attic or the basement. I didn’t want to go in the basement anyway because she said there was a dirty man under the stairs waiting to grab my feet and pull me through, you know, the space between the steps, and then do horrible things to me. The only time I went down there was when she put me there as punishment, and believe me, I was terrified. Even after I was old enough to know there was no bogeyman, I never quite got over it! Until, umm, everything happened, I never understood why she spent so much time down there. Now I realize how insane she was.”

  Franny comes in with a third mug, another thermal carafe of coffee, and Denver’s pie à la Mode. “How’s it going, folks?” she asks. She places everything on the table and fills a mug for Kathy.

  “Good,” Astrid says.

  “Anything else?” Franny asks.

  “No thanks Franny,” Astrid replies.

  Franny nods and says, “Let me know if you need anything,” then turns and leaves, closing the door behind her.

  “Maybe Kathy wanted something, babe.”

  “Sorry,” Astrid says. “I guess I got too involved in your story. It’s like an episode of Psycho, but without the shower scene. Would you like something? I can go and let her know, if there is.”

  “It’s okay. Not really the time of the day for pie but if he’s okay with it, I admit I thought about it. It looks good, but probably not until dinner.” Kathy shunts her purse off her lap and nibbles on her thumbnail; then realizing what she’s doing, she leans forward and tucks her hands between her thighs and the chair seat.

  “They have muffins and donuts, too,” Denver says.

  “I had a coffee and a muffin at the hotel. Continental breakfast they call it. I thought that was supposed to be toast and coffee but it’s way more than that.”

  “I’ve heard it’s a good place to stay even if just for the breakfast spread.”

  Astrid leans her elbows on the table and holds her mug in both hands, her forehead creased in thought. She says, “Hank Hazen could be the one who wrote the letters. He would be okay with what your mother did and he’d keep it a secret. It wouldn’t bother him at all. You said he was pissed about it, though.”

  “Well, he wasn’t pissed because she killed someone,” Kathy says. She takes a careful sip of the hot coffee before continuing. “He was planning on her getting the house so they could sell it, and that ended it. Not just the house, there’s a whole city block, all vacant lots except for the house. She was supposed to have the baby, divorce my father, and get the property in the settlement. Killing him when she did put a kibosh in that, and he didn’t want her without the property. Dunno how he planned to marry her since he was already married. Maybe he really would’ve made good on his promise to get a divorce or maybe he’d just marry her without getting one. I didn’t have the sense from his letters that he was a big believer in doing the right thing! Would you believe, they’d been having sex since my mother was thirteen?”

  “I not only believe it, but I’d say that would be Hazen, all right.” Astrid puts the mug down and sits back. “I think we should swing by the mill, grab some boxes of old records, and spend the afternoon at our place. We have plenty to talk about. We can yak while we dig through the paperwork.”

  “That would be great, but I really need to keep looking. I hear there’s a guy at the Mister Lube named Hank, and he might be old enough. He wasn’t at work when I phoned today and of course they wouldn’t’ give out his phone number. Also someone a ways out of town I don’t have a last name or number for. I need to talk to them.”

  “When are you going home?”

  “Not until Saturday.”

  “You c
ould check those other two guys out tomorrow, then,” Astrid says. “I have a feeling you’re not going to have to, though, and you won’t like what I have to tell you. Right off the top, the boss’s daughter wasn’t ugly and she wasn’t older than Hank Senior. She was a cute little thing, and he seemed devoted to her. She looked a lot like you, actually. What did your mother look like?”

  “Short. Dark hair and brown eyes. About like me, I guess.”

  “So, he liked small brunettes. So I wonder … well. We’ll talk some more but I believe he’s the one you’re looking for.”

  “And Hank Junior would be the baby, my sibling?”

  “He may be your sibling, but he was too old to be that baby, if the timeline is correct. He was older than me, so he’d be forty-three, forty-four, now. How old are you?”

  “Forty-three.”

  “Well, you look younger than that, but it still makes him too old to be the baby you’re looking for. Do you mind if we go? We have a lot to talk about.”

  Denver looks up from his pie, studies Astrid, then says to Kathy, “You don’t want to argue with her when she’s got that look.”

  “We can swing by your room and get those letters on our way.” Astrid lifts her mug and drains it, then gets to her feet.

  “Okay!” Kathy drinks half her coffee at a go, then slides her chair back, preparing to stand.

  “Think you gals could wait for me to finish my pie?”

  “I’ll go with Kathy. You can come home when you’re done here. Why don’t you go visit with Harvey and those guys out front?”

  “Okay, I will.” Denver shrugs. He gives them a warm smile and Kathy is again struck by his resemblance to Rick. “I won’t be home right away, though. I got a few things to do out at the sort yard.”

  “We’ll see you later, then.”

  Denver takes his wife’s hand and gives it a squeeze. “Works for me,” he says. “I’ll take care of the bill.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “YOU MUST THINK I’m crazy,” Kathy says as she steers the Sorrento out onto the main drag. “You know, having a crazy mother. Maybe some of it rubbed off. Like mother like daughter.”