by Blake Crouch
At dusk I pulled over at an abandoned gas station in Farson where 28 crosses 191 and runs northeast around the southern terminus of the Wind River Mountains for seventy miles to the city of Lander, my destination. Stepping out of the car, I walked across broken faded pavement into the middle of 191 and gazed north and west into the evening redness.
I wondered if my brother’s cabin still stood in this wasted country. Just thirty miles north I imagined I could feel it, a dark presence on the horizon exhuming memories I would not acknowledge. The wind was calm, the highway empty. The silence and loneliness of the desert bore down on me, matching my spirit.
At an elevation of 7,550 feet I crested South Pass. Through the driver side window I could see the lavender foothills of the Winds. When I swallowed my ears popped.
The highway descended at a gentle grade. A brown sign informed me that I was now in grizzly bear country.
The moon came up, lit the hills.
I drove through downtown Lander, a small town that in the summer months served as a port of entry to the eastside of the Winds. But now that the range was snowmantled and inaccessible most businesses had closed for the winter leaving the streets of Lander forlorn and listless.
Brawley’s Self-Storage Co. was located off 287, two miles north of town. I pulled up to the gate several minutes past eight o’clock and punched in the access code. The facility was dark and deserted. As I entered and the gate rolled shut behind me, I recalled the last time I’d come here, after fleeing the cabin seven years back, in that state of shock and dread. At the time I didn’t think I’d last through Christmas. My life was over in every way imaginable and the first enticing whispers of self-destruction had begun to germinate in the weakened tissue of my psyche.
I drove through the empty rows of storage buildings for five minutes until I located mine.
It was colder when I stepped outside, the moon still rising, the snowfields glowing high on the distant peaks. I unlocked the door and stepped into the hallway of small storage lockers. Mine was a 3’ by 4’ on the bottom row. I’d rented the space for nine years at a cost of $1,200.
Kneeling down, I removed the padlock and pulled open the door.
Dust plumed.
I coughed.
The overhead light had burned out in the corridor and the moonlight that streamed in through the doorway did not provide adequate illumination. So I dragged the filthy suitcase out of the locker. I walked back outside, set it down on the hood of the Buick.
I unzipped the suitcase.
They moved me in a terrible way, these artifacts of Orson. Sitting down on the hood, I lifted a manila folder and a notebook from the stash. Despite what I would have to pay for looking at his photographs and reading his words, I intended to examine everything, to immerse myself once more in my brother’s depraved world, to learn what I could of his accomplice, Luther Kite, and where he might possibly be.
27
THE starting gun for the girls’ race fired as Vi opened the back hatch of the Cherokee and grabbed the folded blanket she always brought to Max’s cross-country meets.
She followed the trail to the start/finish line, staring through the tall limbless loblollies of MacAnderson Park at the field of runners dashing up the first hill of the 3.1 mile course. The cheers of the spectators faded as the runners moved out of sight.
It was the first Monday of November, a mild one, the sky unblemished and sapphire, the leaves a week beyond peak—red into crimson, gold into russet. The air stank of pine needles and exhaust from the tailpipes of the yellow buses that had carried the six cross-country teams of the Foothills Athletic Conference to this championship meet.
Vi walked over a footbridge and made her way toward the circle of blue and white uniforms near the start line. Max stood in running shorts and a tank top amid eight lanky boys, charging them for this last race of the season. He’d woken her this morning practicing his pep talk as he shaved in the bathroom.
Stepping out of her heels and spreading the blanket across the grass, she listened to Max, tickled at his excitement.
"This is a special day, gentlemen. You each have the opportunity to make history for your school. Now I know we aren’t favored. I know ya’ll think the Raiders over there are an awesome squad—and they are—but anything can happen at a conference championship. What’s the most important thing? Somebody tell me."
"Having fun?" offered the smallest boy on the team.
"Well, yeah. But after having fun."
"Breathing," said Patrick Mullins, truest athlete of the bunch and oldest son of Barry Mullins, Vi’s sergeant in Criminal Investigations Division. Patrick would be attending Davidson next year on a track scholarship.
"That’s it," Max said. "Breathe, gentlemen. That’s all I want you to think about out there. Filling your lungs with sweet oxygen. Now it’s thirty minutes till the gun. Go warm up." As the boys took off from the start line Max jogged over to Vi’s blanket.
"You came," he said.
"Wouldn’t have missed it."
That wasn’t entirely true. She would’ve missed it had Sgt. Mullins not left a message on her cell phone saying he needed to see her at the cross-country meet to "discuss things."
"You look cute, honey," she said. "Just don’t let your package hang out of those itsy bitsy shorts."
Max grinned, said, "Violet King, you better watch that mouth." He leaned down, kissed her, and ran off toward the footbridge to rejoin the team. As Vi watched him go, someone called her name.
"Violet! Hey, sweetie, how are you?"
She saw Judy Hardin walking toward her from the scoring station. Judy was a magpie, the loquacious mother of Josh Hardin, a junior, and the second fastest runner on the team behind Patrick. As Vi rose and met Judy in the grass, the tall redhead bent down and hugged her crushingly around the neck.
She wore a sweatshirt with "MOORESVILLE MAMA" in block letters across the front. "Go Blue Devils!" was stenciled on each cheek with glittery blue face paint.
"So you finally came to a meet," Judy said. "Big day for the Blue Devils, huh?"
"Sure is. You know Max is—"
"Josh could hardly sleep last night. You know he’s got a pretty good shot at making all-conference today. That’s what everyone keeps telling me. Yeah, I’m so nervous for him. I feel like I’m running, you know? Isn’t that crazy?"
"It is nerve-racking being a—"
"Well, don’t you look darling in your suit?" Judy took the cuff of Vi’s black blazer and rubbed the wool between her fingers. "Is this like official detective ware?"
"Oh, no, it’s just—"
"So tell me, does it just totally blow your mind that you’re chasing Andrew Thomas? I mean, whoever thought that you, little Violet King, would be mixed up with that monster? I taught you in Sunday school for heaven’s sake, and you could be famous when this is all said and done! You better not forget me when you write your book and movie and do the whole—"
"I don’t really think of it like that, Judy."
"And I see you on the news every night. I mean, you never talk or anything, but they always show you at that poor family’s house." Judy winked and nudged Vi with her elbow. "So can you give me some inside scoop? Oh, you know I’m only kidding! You thought I was serious! Ha-ha! I know you can’t talk about the details of the case! I’m not naïve!"
Vi saw Barry Mullins coming toward them. She wished he would walk faster.
"Judy, I’m sorry, I have to—"
"And Max is so good with the boys. Josh was telling me the other day that he liked "Coach King" so much better than that weirdo who coached last year. I mean—"
"Hello, ladies," Sgt. Mullins rumbled. It was the first time Vi had felt relieved to see her boss. "Sorry to bust up your conversation, but Judy I need to speak with Violet privately."
"Uh-oh. Gotta have a powwow about the big case?"
Sgt. Mullins only smiled and Vi smiled and Judy’s smile mutated into chagrin.
She slunk back toward
the scoring station.
"Walk with me, Viking."
The sergeant and his investigator strolled through the grass beyond the start line. The leaders in the girls’ championship were coming down off the first mile of the course and Vi listened as someone called out the mile-split for each runner.
In a fatherly fashion, Sgt. Mullins took hold of her arm above the elbow.
"I just talked to Bradley," Sgt. Mullins said. "We got an AFIS hit off that partial."
"You’re kidding."
"Came back with a Luther Kite. White male. Thirty-two years old. Last known address is his parents’ house, Thirteen Kill Devil Road, Ocracoke, North Carolina. Ever been to Ocracoke?"
"No, sir."
"Well, we’re going tomorrow."
"We?"
"Yes ma’am."
"I’ll go beat out a search warrant. I mean we’ve got probable cause just with the partial. Then we show Jenna and John David Lancing the AFIS photograph, maybe get an ID. That right there’s the foundation of our case."
"Ease down, Viking. We just want to talk to the parents. For all we know, they haven’t seen their son in years. Last thing we need to do is bust in there with a SWAT team and tear the place apart. You could forget any help from them after that."
They walked again. Vi smiled at the flushed face of each high school girl who ran by.
"Great job," she said to a Mooresville runner named Holly.
"So how you holding up, Vi?" Sgt. Mullins asked. It took her aback. She’d never discerned anything approaching concern from her sergeant. For the two and a half years she’d worked in CID he’d maintained a hard unreadable veneer. This shred of kindness moved her and she stopped and looked up at him.
"I’m all right, sir. Thank you for asking." Sgt. Mullins stared down at her, stroking his thick dark mustache. She saw the doubt resurfacing in his eyes.
"You want to take it away from me, don’t you?" she said. "You don’t think I can—"
"Viking, I wouldn’t take you off this case if you begged me. Now don’t make me regret letting a woman handle this."
Sgt. Mullins walked away and Vi stood watching the race.
Across the creek, Max led the team in jumping jacks.
A runner limped by, stricken with cramps, red-faced and crying.
Vi wished Sgt. Mullins had taken her off the case and she burned with self-hate and shame.
28
IN a manila folder entitled "THE MINUTES" I came at last to the following string of journal entries.
It was 1:30 a.m. and my eyes burned with strain.
With the moon directly overhead I lay back against the cold windshield and read Orson’s scrawl in the minor light.
Woodside, Vermont: November 1, 1992
Sat in my booth at the pub all afternoon, read the most atrocious collection of papers I’ve ever had the misfortune to grade (coffee better today). Highlight was the piece on gladiators. Curious amount of detail on the lunch interlude executions. Well researched. Author thoroughly interested in his subject matter. Hmm. Awarded him a C+, because, let’s face it, it was still a real piece of shit.
Woodside, Vermont: November 6, 1992
Called on our execution expert in class today. Never do that again. He turned red, wouldn’t answer me, look at me. Stopped him on the way out of class and apologized for embarrassing him. What a peculiar kid. Asked him if he liked beer. He said no. Coffee? No. Finally, just asked what the fuck he did like, and he smiled sheepishly, said pancakes. We’re having pancakes tomorrow.
Woodside, Vermont: November 7, 1992
Met this Luther kid at the Champlain Diner. Had breakfast for dinner. Think he was suspicious of why I wanted to see him outside of class. For the first twenty minutes I bored him to tears with a slew of questions, like where he was from, where he lived in Woodside, if he liked school…he was having a terrible time, so I mentioned how much I’d enjoyed reading his term paper. That brightened him up, started asking all sorts of things about the gladiator fights, Caligula. Told him about my thesis, shared some of my theories. He was very impressed. We were waiting for the waitress to bring the check when this woman passed by our table. Real pretty thing. Watched Luther watch her, and I saw it. Hard to put into words. Let’s just say I sensed something in him, in those three seconds his eyes followed the movements of this Woodside knockout. When he looked back at me, I couldn’t help but smile. His black eyes had become…reptilian. I thought Luther was going to say something, but he just blushed.
He’ll do.
Woodside, Vermont: December 9, 1992
Last day of classes. Haven’t spoken to Mr. Kite in a month. On the way out of class, told him I looked forward to seeing him next semester. Said he wasn’t coming back. Flunked out. That shy, ashamed, little boy again. Made sure to get his home address. Maybe I’ll take him to the desert next summer.
Ocracoke Island, North Carolina: June 11, 1993
Been following LK around this island for two days. What fun! Lives with his parents in an old, stone house on the sound. Last night at 10:30, he went for a walk by himself. If he goes again tonight, I’ll take him.
29
IN Swan Quarter Vi boarded the last ferry of the day. Once the vessel had cleared the pilings, she grabbed the loaf of moldy bread Max had suggested she take and stepped out of the Cherokee.
She strolled back to the stern where a flock of chatty gulls tailed the boat. As the wharf and timber pylons diminished in the wake, Vi untwined the twist tie and pinched off a chunk of bread. The moment she extended her arm a fat gull swooped down and grabbed her offering in its beak.
As she fed the birds and watched the coastal plain of North Carolina shrink into a fiber of green, she thanked God for the people she loved. She prayed for Max, for her parents, for strength, and lastly for her sergeant’s recovery.
Barry Mullins had taken his son, Patrick, out for barbecue after winning the cross-country championship last night. They were both in the hospital this morning with food poisoning so Vi would be interviewing the Kites on her own.
A little boy came and stood beside her. She noticed him watching and asked if he’d like to feed the seagulls. When he nodded she handed him a piece of bread.
"Just lift it up like this. They’ll come right down and steal it."
The boy lifted the fuzzy-blue bread and gasped when a gull snatched it. He looked up at Vi and grinned. She gave him the rest of the loaf and walked to the bow.
It was near dusk now and when she looked west she could no longer see the mainland. Eastward, the Pamlico Sound stretched on into a horizon of gray chop with no indication of the barrier islands that lay ahead.
Again she thought of the woman who’d been hanged at the Bodie Island Lighthouse. The image had been with her all day thanks to a tasteless photograph she’d seen on the front page of a tabloid. She wondered if praying for the dead made any difference.
Clutching the railing, she stared down at the water racing beneath the boat.
The engine clatter, the cry of the gulls, the briny stench of the sound engulfed her. On the assumption that prayer was retroactive, she closed her eyes and prayed for the fifth time that day that the woman hadn’t suffered.
The sun sank into the sound.
Vi checked her watch, saw that she’d been on the water now for more than two hours. The village couldn’t be far. As the sky and sound turned the same sunless shade of slate, she imagined Max or even Sgt. Mullins standing here beside her in the mild headwind. She wouldn’t mind her sergeant’s patronization right now and she thought, I was doing fine until the sun went down. Just like staying with Mamaw and Papaw when I was ten and the homesickness that set in after dark and the crying on the phone begging Daddy to come get me and him saying no baby you’ll feel better in the morning.
A light winked on in the east—the Ocracoke Light.
Vi turned away and walked back to the Jeep.
In her briefcase in the backseat there were photographs to memorize—bearded,
bald, fat, skinny, mustached, and cleanshaven—the mugs of Luther Kite and Andrew Thomas.
30
ONE of the stewardesses on my flight into Charlotte was a North Carolina native and her southern accent moved me to tears. I hadn’t heard a true southern drawl in years. It isn’t the backwoods sheep-fucking twang Hollywood makes it out to be. A real North Carolina accent is sweet and subtle and when you haven’t heard one in seven years, it sounds like coming home.
