A Sharp Solitude_A Novel of Suspense

by Christine Carbo

  Reeve happened to be collecting samples for research on bobcats in the wilderness up in the same area and was inside having a bite to eat before heading back over the pass. He sat at the bar alone and gave me a small smile. I nodded my head in return, then went back over to the window where my partner was sitting. When we left after we ate, someone had slashed our tire, probably because some asshole didn’t like the fact that we’re FBI. While the other agent put the spare on, Reeve came out and politely asked if we needed any help. I told him no, that the only help we needed was finding the bastard who did the slashing. Reeve shrugged and said he couldn’t help us in that department, went to his truck, and left.

  Two weeks later, as fate would have it, I saw him in the Costco in Kalispell, where he was stocking up on supplies for his cabin. When I said I was relatively new to the area—had only been in the valley for less than a year—he said if I wanted, he’d show me the pristine North Fork area to the northwest of Glacier Park where he lived. After he explained his work to me, I understood where that mysterious look came from. I couldn’t resist.

  • • •

  When I reach Vivian Gould’s cabin, the day has turned even colder, and it feels like it might begin to snow. A bleak light diffuses across the northern mountains, and I wish I had a heavier coat with me instead of only a thin rain jacket. I tell McKay to stay, and I get out.

  The white CSI van sits in the side of the drive, and I figure Ray is still inside working, as Gretchen mentioned. The cabin is larger than I expect, the color of dark chocolate with white trim. It has a nice-sized deck big enough for two pairs of chairs on either side of a white front door. Three wooden steps lead up to it. Yellow crime scene tape drapes across the outside perimeter of the property, and the outline of where the body lay earlier is chalked onto the ground near the steps. A dried pool of blood lies in its center, but spreads outside the confines of the body outline as if it has refused to conform to a designated shape, even though the taping came later. A flowerpot sits on one side and an assortment of large rocks on the other.

  Gretchen said that she thought the victim hit her head on one of the rocks on her way down. Possibly the force of the blow sent her falling backward, her head crashing into the boulder. I walk over to the rocks and see one of the reasons she thinks that. A smear of blood slashes across the corner of a sharp point on one of the bigger rocks. On the pebbled ground leading to the front steps, a stain of dark, sticky blood spreads outward from where her head had been, according to the taped outline.

  I stand and take in the rustling of the wind. A bitter breeze hits me and rattles the canary-yellow leaves of the aspen trees beside the cabin, blowing a few of them off their spindly branches. I get a strange sense that the wind and quaking leaves are trying to warn me, to tell me that I should simply get in my car and leave all of this alone, but I realize I’m being foolish and superstitious, which is definitely not in my nature. When Ray comes to the door, though, I startle. “Oh, sorry.” He smiles at me. “Thought I heard someone drive up. You’re just in time. I’m close to finishing up.” He stands to the side to let me enter.

  “I’ll be in in a sec.” I lift my phone and pull up the camera. “Just want to snap a few first.”

  Ray goes back in and I begin taking photos. The area inside the tape, the entire yard, is raked clean—combed for shreds of evidence. When I’m done, I go up the steps and enter. I can hear Ray shuffling around in one of the back rooms. I look past the disarray the team has left—the printing dust, the square cutouts from the large area rug, and the emptied cabinets and shelves—and notice that, unlike Reeve’s place, this cabin exudes faux rustic, like some urbanite’s or artisan’s idea of what Wild West decor should be: an antler chandelier, plush throws, a cherry-red Aztec area rug across smooth wood-paneled flooring, a latte-colored leather couch. Even old snowshoes arranged like flowers in a large pottery vase adorn the stone hearth.

  I walk through the place, calling out to Ray, “Find anything of interest?”

  “Not really.” He comes out so I can see him. He’s holding a notepad. “I’m just finishing up with some of my labels.” I go and poke my head into the bedrooms. “Both bedrooms are well kept,” he says. “Suggesting that Vivian made her bed before traveling to Seattle, and the vic made her bed in what I assume is the guest room before taking off for the day.”

  In my mind, I say to myself, To meet Reeve for their romantic day in the mountains. From the looks of the bed—disturbed only by Ray or one of the other crime scene techs cutting several strips from the bedspread, sheets, and mattress—Anne Marie never made it back to hers, probably never made it back inside the cabin at all.

  “We didn’t bother to take samples from the master bedroom,” Ray adds. “Only from the guest because it’s clear the vic was staying in that room. That’s where her overnight bag is.”

  I nod. If this had been my case, I’d be asking them to do the same, thinking a jealous mystery man might have been sleeping with Anne Marie only to find her coming home much later than expected after losing her hair tie in another man’s bed. My curiosity over the cell phone records deepens, and I wonder if I can find a way to get a look at them.

  Ray goes back into the bathroom, and I follow him to the door. It’s heavily dusted too, and a toiletry bag filled with lotion, face wash, makeup, and deodorant sits beside the sink. I guess it belongs to Anne Marie. Voyeurism hooks into me like a barb. I’ve never felt it on a case before. After all, evidence is evidence. This sense of nosiness reminds me of two things: one, that the case is not actually mine, and two, that Anne Marie slept with the father of my daughter. I feel a combination of nausea and something akin to jealousy, which I’m well aware is twisted given the fact that this woman won’t ever put makeup or deodorant on again.

  “Not much of interest in here,” he says. “Not much of interest in this cabin at all. Unless the owner is the perp, I don’t think the killer stepped foot in this place, but as you can see, we’ve got it good and dusted and have collected as much trace as possible.”

  I thank him for his thoroughness and say good-bye, shutting the door behind me. When I get back in my car, I decide it’s time to talk to Vivian Gould.

  Reeve

  * * *

  Present—Thursday

  WHEN I THINK of Anne Marie, my mind doesn’t linger for long on the smooth, taut feel of her body, the way she softly giggled when we kissed and how I could feel the corners of her mouth turning upward in a smile when I placed my lips on hers. Nor does it stay on the image of her braid falling against my mouth as she lay on top of me, and how I desperately bit down on it.

  Instead, my mind wanders back to the hike earlier in the day. Out among the exquisite beauty of mid-fall, I think of how I felt oddly cheery and connected to everything for a change, almost if I were a young kid again and could be wholly present, caught up in the joy of any given moment.

  Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if I don’t appreciate my environment on a regular basis. Quite the opposite. I’m obviously very used to being in the woods because of my job, which demands I hike miles of wilderness nearly every day of the week, especially in the spring, summer, and fall months. In the winter, I still go, but not as far, because although I can snowshoe and ski, McKay can’t cover excessive mileage in the deep snow.

  The allure of its power is one of the reasons I came to Montana—me along with a whole host of people who sense that the great jutting presence of the landscape has the magnetic influence to pull your attention away from mind-numbing quotidian routines, that it can lead you back to what’s real. But, for me, it’s more than that. I figured the woods of the Northwest could connect me to whatever remained of my unencumbered self and would tether me securely to some hitching post of existence.

  But yesterday I could have sworn I was aware of it in a different way—life’s intricacies surrounding me in a more integrated manner: the high-soaring ravens, the leaves cushioning my steps, the whispy clouds in the pale blue sky, the
mosaic of dark jade and coppery colors on the slopes, the breezes making the aspen leaves quiver, the shape of Anne Marie’s lightly freckled cheekbones when she looked down to take her notes. All of it seemed to be part of a grand design that I was acutely conscious of and, more importantly, deeply a part of.

  Because even though I’m out in the wild daily, it’s rare for me to belong. Usually I am an observer, not a participant, as if I watch the wilderness and life happening around me from a faraway place, from another dimension. But, with Anne Marie, the details seemed to reveal all of the complexities and layers that I’d been missing out on.

  I was a fool. It was an age-old spell: attraction. It had absolutely nothing to do with nature and everything to do with a sexy woman. In fact, had I really belonged—had I really been aware and at one with nature—I might have sensed a forewarning instead of an invitation. Perhaps I would have noticed how the slanted sunlight and the shadows lengthening across the forest floor seemed secretive. Maybe I could have read the withered fallen birch leaves plastered to the game trails like tea leaves, their rotten, pocked, and distorted shapes sending me a message. I could have noticed the frantic scuttling of the chipmunks and the pungent smell of rotting wild grasses and understood that they signaled I should tread carefully and not let my guard down, that change was in the air, that much more than winter was on the way. And what I really should have known was that I had been waiting my entire life to be punished, and that if I’d paid proper attention, I could have detected, as a horse senses a storm coming, how the reckoning had finally begun to arrive, only this time in a gorgeous disguise. The thing is, even the most self-destructive among us never really want the punishment to come on anyone else’s terms. When it comes, it’s not necessarily a surprise, but it’s irritating and frightening as hell.

  Before I make my decision about whether to walk out on the detectives, Brander brushes off my no-comment response and says, “Look, obviously we’re trying to rule out people seen with Anne Marie as well as finding out as many details as we can about her day. And since you spent a large part of the day with her, we’d like to eliminate you as a suspect.”

  I lick my lips, nod, and wait for the rest because I sense there’s more coming.

  “So we’d like your permission to search your home.”

  I don’t reply.

  “We have reason to believe that she may have visited you there.”

  “The way I see it,” I finally say, “she probably has evidence on her—fibers or something—from spending the afternoon with me: my dog’s hairs and whatnot. I mean, she drove with me in my truck. And it’s possible those fibers got transferred from my truck to my house by me.”

  “We understand that. But we can’t just rule you out because you admit there might be evidence of her in your truck. We have to go down all avenues, and that includes all prospects.”

  “Wait a minute.” Reynolds holds up a hand. “You seem to have a grasp of police procedural processes. Have you been through this before?”

  I glare at him. “It’s just common sense these days.”

  “Oh, yeah, CSI and all that.”

  “Actually, kind of.” I’ve never watched the show in my life, but I know enough from Ali that no one leaves a room without leaving some tiny shred of evidence that they were there.

  “You’ve thought this through. So if I’m interpreting what you said correctly, you think there might be trace of Anne Marie in your home?”

  “Because she was in my truck,” I say.

  “I see.” Reynolds looks at me. “All the more reason we need to take a look at things.”

  I’ve backed myself into a very tight corner. I know I should tell them about her coming over, but it all feels wrong. A sense of foreboding washes over me and propels me to keep my mouth shut. I picture myself behind bars and take a deep breath to quell the panic. Images of juvie detention fill my mind: the tight spaces filled with other gangly teenagers, the sharp scent of disinfectant never fully masking the smells of body odor and teenage feet, the fighting, the yelling and crying. . . . If I tell the detectives and they go to my home and find evidence that she’s been there, it doesn’t solve anything. I have an overwhelming sudden urge to see my daughter and my dog, as if it’s my last chance to do so.

  I stand, the two of them staring at me with narrowed eyes, and say what I should have said hours ago, “I’m going to let my dog out,” and go to the door.

  Ali

  * * *

  Present—Thursday

  I FIND OUT FROM Rose that she’s picked up Emily from school, taken her to get a baked pretzel with cheese at the mall—Emily’s favorite after-school snack—and brought her home. She’s happily drawing in her room, and Rose says she plans on feeding her pasta with tomato sauce out of a jar and some steamed broccoli on the side.

  “Great,” I say, “because I might not be home until past dinnertime.”

  I feel a stab of guilt that I’m not there with her, but then I do a quick count—I’ve been home on time four nights in a row. I picture Emily in her pale-yellow-painted room trying to draw unicorns, her latest craze. Before that, it was mermaids, and she used to ask me endlessly to draw them for her. I’m not an artist, and sometimes I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when she asks me to draw something because Reeve is a good sketcher, and he used to draw whatever she wanted with ease. I would sketch something that could pass for a mermaid or a deformed squid, depending on how you looked at it, but Emily would cherish the drawing anyway, grinning and running back to her room with it, feet pitter-pattering down the carpeted hallway. I decide it’s okay for me to be late.

  Commander Vance mentioned that Vivian is staying in a lodge in Whitefish, which is directly to the north and nestled against the Whitefish Range.

  I head to the lodge without calling Vivian, hoping to find her there. When I arrive, McKay has had enough. He is panting and whining, so I let him do his business, then give him some food from his bag, but he refuses to eat. “What do you want?” I ask, and he looks up at me and tilts his head. “Okay, Mr. High Maintenance, not hungry? What are you, then? Bored?” I put him back on the leash and walk him down to the lake. He stares at me with round cinnamon-colored eyes, his whole body quivering.

  He runs over to the rocky beach, yanking me along, and picks up a stick and pushes it at me. I can practically hear Reeve’s voice. Don’t ever play fetch with him unless he’s worked first. Playing fetch is his reward and nothing else. “No fetch,” I say authoritatively. “I don’t carry bear shit around like he does.” I yank him toward me and take him back to the car and make him get in. I lock it up, head toward the lodge entrance, and ignore the whining as I stride away.

  A giant Kodiak bear stands to the side of the front desk, which strikes me as funny, since we don’t have Kodiaks in Montana. He’s been mounted so that’s he’s standing straight up, over eight feet tall, with claws the size of small bananas. I find out that Vivian is on the second floor. I take the stairs up and find room 243 and knock. It takes a moment and then a woman’s voice says, “Yes,” from behind the door.

  “Vivian?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she repeats.

  “Agent Paige with the FBI. Could I have a word with you?”

  There’s a short pause, and then the sound of her pulling off the safety lock and opening the door. “Come on in,” she says.

  She’s medium height and lithe, like a ballerina, and has long curly hair, like mine used to be before I became a mom and wearing hair down my back became a pain. At work, I could tie it back, but at home, I’d forget, and before I knew it, Emily would curl her sticky fingers in it and wind it into knots. Vivian has a thin, pale face that’s splotched red around puffy eyes, from crying. I have my ID out to show her, but she simply walks back into the room, leaving the door ajar for me to follow. I figure she’s already been through a lot of questioning, and I’m par for the course.

  The room has a tiny kitchenette and a small sitting room with a gas fi
replace in front of windows that look out over Whitefish Lake. “Nice view,” I say. The sun is already low and the sky is paling over the western mountains. The lake is the color of Teflon. It looks cold and uninviting. I consider her plush cabin and her choice of this resort hotel while her cabin is off-limits and assume she must have a bit of money.

  Vivian offers me a seat. I take one of the easy chairs before the fireplace while she sinks into the other. A half a cup of coffee sits on the coffee table before us, but no books or electronics are nearby, and the gas flame is not turned on. It appears as if she’s just been sitting alone, doing nothing, before I came. Shock can do that, strip us of our routines, render us unable to perform the meaningless simple tasks we usually fill our time with. I take my notebook out, and Vivian doesn’t look fazed—just compliant and ready for more inquiries as if she’s expecting it.

  I explain that I’m just going to ask her a few more questions—that I’m sure she’s already been through a lot today, but that’s it’s helpful to talk to different people to cover all angles. She nods, and I ask her to confirm her name, her age, and where she’s from. She tells me she’s thirty-one and that she’s from Seattle. I ask her about her job, and she says she works in the finance department of Timberhaus. When I ask if she’s from Seattle originally, she tells me that she isn’t, that she grew up in Kalispell, went to high school there and later to college in Spokane.