Madison shoved her cell into her bag and almost bumped into a woman who was leaving the pharmacy. She apologized and kept going. They had worked out the radio appeal in the diner and it was written on a napkin crumpled in Madison’s pocket.
The radio station turned out to be the size of a small store with a glass front from which the DJ could wave to the passersby. Ben Taylor had long hair in a ponytail and a fake diamond stud in his left ear—at least, Madison assumed that it was fake.
They did three takes because he was trying to “get to the truth of the words.” After the third take Madison told him without uncertainty that she was happy with what they had.
Madison’s voice, Taylor explained, was very appealing and, when he listened back to the recording on headphones, he found there was an earnest quality to it that the listeners would find extremely attractive. He would run the appeal every couple of hours and after each news bulletin.
Madison thanked him and left, grateful that Brown and Sorensen hadn’t been there to witness the earnest quality of her speech, and even more so that Spencer and Dunne, her colleagues in Seattle—who would have never let her forget about it—would never know.
Betty Dennen sat on an upturned basket in her laundry room and wept. She had been weeping, on and off, since Chief Sangster had knocked on her back door early in the morning a couple of days before. She was crying again now in her utility room with the smell of soap and fabric conditioner, crying because she was going to the vigil for her husband and she didn’t know what to wear.
Everything was surreal: from the constant flood of people streaming through her home to the conversations with funeral directors. And then there were her babies, her little children who had been told but couldn’t quite grasp the finality of it. And they too would have to be dressed for the vigil.
It was too much. Everything was too much.
Betty Dennen wiped her face with her hand and loaded a wash into the machine. She was mixing whites and colors and jeans, and she just didn’t care. At the last minute, mustering more energy than she thought she possessed, she emptied the washer, sorted the laundry, and put on a white wash. As it began to tumble and the suds started to foam, she paused and gazed at it, at the rhythm and the movement inside the drum. It was a soothing, empty nothing.
She slumped back on the upturned basket and remained there until her sister’s voice found her a few minutes later.
The roster had been drawn up two weeks earlier. Deputy Hockley knew in advance that he would be on duty on Saturday, while Deputy Kupitz’s day off had been hurriedly canceled only on Thursday. It meant that Hockley would be driving the second cruiser and Kupitz would be riding shotgun with the chief. It was a trivial thing, sure, but that’s what life was made of, and even though he was going to a ceremony in memory of a man he had known and who had died in horrendous circumstances, a part of Hockley was excited by the day’s events and his own part in them. He had never been to a vigil—he had only seen them on TV—and the town, as he drove in, had felt restless, not just deflated but a little on edge.
It was more than he remembered ever happening, and he was going to enjoy every little bit of it. He caught that thought as it popped into his mind and he flashed back to helping the chief with the body in the car.
As penance he offered to make coffee for Kupitz, and even laughed at his silly joke.
“Are you all right, Chief?” Polly asked Will Sangster as she stood by the door of his office.
“As all right as I can be,” he replied to his secretary.
In truth, he felt brittle—as if his mind hurt, whatever thought passed through it. He would have to speak in front of the town; he would speak, and yet he could offer neither facts nor comfort.
He hoped that it would rain; no, that it would snow. That the wind would rise and bring black clouds heavy with all kinds of weather and the ceremony would have to be canceled. It was his fault: he had managed to keep the town safe for a number of years, and yet in the end he had failed. Robert Dennen had left a message on his private cell the morning of the day he had died. It might have been something, it might have been nothing: Please call me, Chief, there’s something we need to talk about.
He had never gotten around to returning the call and had felt too ashamed to mention it to Detective Brown.
Outside his window the sky was a delicate blue, cloudless and pure.
Chapter 16
Samuel’s day had started in full darkness and it seemed that, one way or the other, it would continue in the same manner. A heavy hand had shaken the boy awake and the game had started. Except that it wasn’t a game—and he had, yet again, drawn the short straw.
Samuel had stumbled out of the cabin and started running because there was no time to lose, there never was. If he made a mistake, if he was caught, there would be painful, drawn-out consequences. There would be dreadful hours in the lonely place and no food for one whole day. He was already slighter and smaller than the others, and he could not afford to be weak.
Weakness on the mountain was the harbinger of death, and he had to survive long enough to leave and find Cal. Three more years. During the hardest days and the coldest nights Samuel knew he wouldn’t survive that long, and the thought of not ever seeing his brother again, of leaving the little ones alone to fend for themselves, made him howl with grief.
So Samuel ran.
And even with his advantage, he could hear three sets of rushing steps tracking him through the forest.
He ran and remembered the first time: he had been twelve and his father had woken him up before dawn, his hand gripping his shoulder in a way that would become terrifyingly familiar.
“If your brothers catch you, you know where you’ll end up. But if you manage to escape, they will get punished.”
Samuel had six older brothers—taller, heavier, stronger, and swift with their hands and their temper.
“But . . . why?” he said.
“Because we are alone in the world, son, and I want to make sure that my boys grow up to be able to take care of themselves. Out there, beyond the boundaries of our land, there’s nothing but beggars, killers, and thieves. You cannot trust anybody, you cannot rely on anybody. One day they’ll come for us and, when they do, we’ll be ready and they’d better bring body bags. Do you understand?”
Samuel understood. He was twelve and had never left the farm, never seen a school or spoken to another child who was not a sibling. He could read short words and had been shooting squirrels since he was eleven, but he had never seen a television set or listened to a pop song.
The boy took his father’s truth, put it in his heart, and when the man opened the door that first time, Samuel ran as fast as he could. Cal caught him in the first ten minutes, put his hand on his younger brother’s mouth so that he wouldn’t make a sound and dragged him off, deep into the forest, farther and farther away from the others.
The cave’s entrance was hidden by heavy shrubbery, and in the summer it was completely invisible. Cal pushed through the foliage and Samuel found himself in a low, narrow tunnel that disappeared into the gloom. Cal sniffed the air and, apparently satisfied, took his brother’s hand and led him forward.
“Bears and wolves stink—you’d better remember that,” he said. “If you smell bear when you put your head in the cave, you might want to think twice about going in. The worst hiding would be better than getting whupped by a mama bear.”
Samuel had nodded. Cal was a few years older and mostly he was busy with the farm’s daily chores. He didn’t remember ever being alone with his brother like this: the older kids had their routines and seemed to work like a tight, efficient army unit, and Samuel—ten years younger than the oldest boy, Luke—was still collecting eggs from the coop while they went hunting.
The tunnel opened into a larger space. Eight feet or so above them a slim fissure allowed enough light for the boys to see each other and the stone walls around them. It was an ugly, misshapen room dug by time and pressure int
o the mountain and, as he looked around, Samuel saw a threadbare blanket thrown in a corner and a small pile of dry kindling. They sat with their backs against the cool stone. It smelled of damp earth.
“I’ll teach you how to light a fire without smoke,” Cal said quietly.
“Okay,” Samuel replied, still unsure about what had happened and why his brother was helping him. Didn’t it mean that Cal would be punished?
It had been a shock that day to realize that his brother was kind. Cal had found the cave when his father had started to wake him up at dawn for the others to chase. Sometimes you were the hunter, sometimes you were the prey.
“The trick,” Cal said, passing Samuel a hunk of bread he had hidden in his coat pocket, “is to let yourself be caught every four or five times. Otherwise they’ll know something’s up.”
Samuel nodded.
“You’ll have to get yourself caught today,” Cal said.
“But—”
“It’s your first run, it would be strange if you weren’t caught, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes,” Samuel said, after he’d thought about it for a while.
“Don’t worry. I’ll teach you.”
“What?”
“Everything,” Cal said. “Here, for luck.”
The long raven feather was glossy-black and shone in the light.
At fifteen, Samuel—who everybody, including his younger siblings, called “Mouse”—knew more about the mountain, about tracking and stalking and trapping, than any of his older brothers. He could shoot too, though he did not much care for it.
Now Samuel ran. And he was convinced that his father wanted to punish him for something—he knew not what—because it was the second time in a handful of days that he was the prey, and that just wasn’t fair.
Samuel knew a lot about discipline and little about fairness. I’m not getting caught today, he said to himself. The mountain was his home, after all, and it was on his side. Cal had always said so.
Chapter 17
Detective Sergeant Kevin Brown sat back in his chair at his desk in the senior center as the door closed behind Mr. and Mrs. Jacobsen. They had come into town to see him and had left their baby, Bella—named after a character in a book her mother loved—with her aunt.
They had arrived at the appointed time, given their statements, and signed on the dotted line, but—in essence—they had not told Brown anything he didn’t already know, and it vexed him.
Somehow, he had hoped that the mere fact of his presence would release previously forgotten details and they would remember something that would help him understand why, if Robert Dennen had left A to go back to B, he was in fact found near X. He knew it had been a crazy hope; nevertheless, he couldn’t help his disappointment.
The Jacobsens had been very clear: the night, and the nightmare it had been, was seared into their memory. Dennen had arrived as quickly as he could and had stayed with them for a while, even after Bella had begun to breathe normally, to make sure that her recovery would continue.
When a young child has an attack there is always the question of what to do, how to proceed. As their doctor, Dennen had written an “asthma attack plan” for them to follow to the letter whenever it seemed that Bella was in trouble. The nearest hospital was almost an hour away, and it was crucial to give her prompt medical care—if they had taken her to the hospital, her condition might have worsened during the drive, and the unthinkable might have happened.
Brown had noticed the couple pale as they recounted the events of that night and how fiercely Dennen had fought to get the baby to breathe. And he had succeeded.
“He saved her life,” Mr. Jacobsen had said. “And not for the first time.”
“He was constantly looking for better ways to do things, for better meds,” his wife said. “He mentioned he’d heard that day that there had been an article in a journal about a new trial, and he would look it up for us. That’s the kind of guy he was.”
“Will you be seeing Dr. Lynch now?” Brown said, feeling tasteless for mentioning it.
“Yes, we will,” the woman replied. “He can use Robert’s notes for Bella. He’s been taking notes since she was born. It won’t be the same, but at least he’ll be able to follow Robert’s work.”
Brown sipped the coffee—now cold—that he had brought over from the diner. One of the questions that bothered him was whether the killer had crossed Dennen’s path by accident or whether he had been lying in wait for him. And if—for whatever reason—the killer had meant to harm the doctor specifically, weren’t there easier ways to accomplish that task than to brave the midnight freeze on the off chance the doctor might be called out?
Brown stood up and grabbed his coat. He had all this to think about, mull over, and analyze. And somewhere in the back of his mind the ember of the diner woman’s smile still glowed.
Madison was just coming through the door as he was leaving. “How did the appeal go?” he said.
“It went,” she replied. “They’ll broadcast it often enough that people will start to hate it, but that’s the way it goes.”
“Look . . .” Brown pointed.
An outside broadcast van had parked on the corner where Main Street opened into the town square; the back doors were open and an operator with a camera on his shoulder was filming a reporter. They couldn’t hear the words, but the young woman was wearing black and speaking into the lens with what Madison called practiced television sorrow.
“Took them long enough,” Madison said.
In Seattle they were used to the press arriving at a murder crime scene at the same time as the medical examiner, sometimes at the same time as the detectives.
Dr. Eric Lynch was in his late thirties, fair, and clean shaven to the point of pinkness. He regarded Brown and Madison from behind his desk with owlish eyes. His office was a large, comfortable room with a degree-and-diplomas wall and some colorful children’s health posters.
“Yes,” he said, “Robert and I talked about patients all the time.”
“What in particular about the patients?” Madison said.
“We’re the only doctors in the practice. We talked about issues with medication, insurance, everything. Any problem either one of us was having. He was very supportive when I moved to Ludlow. It wasn’t easy for the patients, because most of them had known the previous doctor since they were kids.”
“What did you talk about in the last few weeks?”
“I’m sure you understand about patient confidentiality.”
“I’m not asking about the specifics, Doctor. I’m asking you if there were any particular issues, serious issues, that concerned Dr. Dennen.”
“How serious?”
“Serious enough that someone might want to hurt him.”
“One of the patients?”
“We’re looking into every possibility.”
Eric Lynch looked at the wall cabinet of drawers and files for a long, quiet minute. His thoughts seemed to have snagged on something. Brown and Madison’s job was not to distract him while he worked out what it was that had caught his attention.
At length he turned to them. “I can’t believe what I’m about to tell you has any relevance to Robert’s murder.” He leaned forward in his chair. “The only person Robert has ever argued with is Jeb Tanner—if you can call it arguing, and everybody in town has had words with Jeb Tanner at some point. It started even before I moved here. Tanner’s a farmer. Robert wanted to make sure Tanner’s kids were all right. He’s got a bunch of them—he’s one of those eccentric types you find away from the big cities. Eccentric, sure, but harmless. The kids’ mother left him some time ago. His children are homeschooled and don’t mix with other farming families—or with anybody else, for that matter. We never see them. I’m not even sure we know exactly how many he has. Robert wanted to make sure they were okay. He went to visit them a few weeks ago, but Tanner didn’t let him see them. We talked about him calling Children’s Services, getting an inspector up to
Tanner’s place.”
“Did he call Children’s Services?” Madison said.
“I don’t know. We had disagreed about it. I told him we should give Tanner another chance. Once Social Services gets involved, any kind of relationship you have with the patients is shot to heck.”
“We need to find out if he did.”
“There’ll be no one there. It’s Saturday.”
“For some people maybe. What number would you have called?”
Once Madison had the number, it took her fifteen minutes to find out who would have received Dennen’s call and another five to get the social worker’s home number.
“Who did you say you are?” The woman’s voice crackled down the phone line.
There were children’s voices in the background and a television blaring. Madison paced the empty medical center waiting room and repeated her name, title, and her badge number too—in case the civil servant wanted to check her credentials.
“Can’t this wait until Monday?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but it can’t.”
“Look, for emergencies—”
“It’s not that kind of emergency. We’re investigating a homicide and your help would be appreciated.”
Madison’s voice was as polite as she could make it while being clear that a negative reply was not acceptable.
“How can I help you?” The woman’s tone was far from cooperative, but at least she had moved to a quieter spot in her home.
Madison explained that a doctor who might have contacted her office had been murdered, and she needed to know whether he had been in touch. Hopefully, the social worker would tell her, even though—like everything else in Dr. Dennen’s life, it seemed—there was the issue of privacy and confidentiality.
“Dr. Robert Dennen?” the woman said.
“Yes.”
“From Colville County?”
How many Robert Dennens does the woman know?
“Yes, ma’am, the very same.”
Sweet After Death Page 10
