A Sharp Solitude_A Novel of Suspense

by Christine Carbo

  She glares at me. “Is this for real? This is crazy. I have no idea what this is all about and here you are asking me to verify where I’ve been?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly right. Is that a problem?” I ask innocently.

  She pulls her head back slightly and shakes it. I’ve clearly frazzled her now, but I don’t care. I want to see if she has a solid alibi and get on my way back to the Flathead. “No, no, it’s not. I just don’t understand why you’re here. Why this has anything to do with me.”

  “We’re just dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s, Mrs. O’Brien. Like I said, because your husband knew the victim, we have to verify your whereabouts on the night of her murder. That’s all.”

  She studies me, her eyes still wide and her cheeks beginning to flush pink with anger.

  I remind her of the question. “So is there anyone in Helena who can vouch for your visit there?”

  “No,” she says, “I can’t think of anyone.”

  “Didn’t someone meet you in Helena for the tour?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t meet a friend?” Either her husband is lying to me or she’s lying to him. “What about the tour guide, then?”

  She looks down and rubs her palms on her jeans nervously. I can hear the smooth scuffing sound and wait patiently for her answer. “I . . .” she fumbles. “I didn’t actually go on the tour. I stayed in my room. I wasn’t feeling well.”

  “No?”

  “No, I had a bad headache.”

  I sense there’s more to the story, so I wait for a moment to see if she’ll get even more uneasy and add something. When people lie, they usually talk more than necessary in an effort to make the lie seem real.

  She looks around her kitchen agitatedly, then adds, “I just . . . I don’t know. I just needed to get away. I wasn’t all that interested in the tour anyway. I just wanted to get away from here.” She motions to the house.

  “And why is that?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’m just bored. Recently retired and all. I just needed to do something, and the tour seemed like an interesting thing, but when I got there, I didn’t feel up to it. Like I said, I had a bad headache.”

  “Were you supposed to meet a friend there?”

  “No,” she says. “I told my husband that I was meeting Lizzie, one of my friends who lives in Helena. But she’s out of town. I just wanted to get away anyway.”

  “Why did you lie to your husband?”

  “I didn’t want him to worry. I’ve struggled with anxiety in the past, and if I told him I just needed to get out and go by myself, he’d worry.”

  “I see.” I say this like it all makes perfect sense, but clearly her explanation sounds highly suspicious. Still, there’s a deep sadness in her eyes that rings true. She looks like someone who might have needed to check into a hotel for a day or two to get away, find her bearings. “Was there anyone at the hotel, at the front desk, who could vouch for you?”

  “Possibly. When I checked in, there was a young man working. He might remember me.”

  “Do you recall his name?”

  “No, no, I don’t. But I checked in on Wednesday afternoon. Around four p.m. Tall guy, maybe early twenties.”

  “Okay,” I say after writing it down. “It should be easy enough to determine who was on shift at that time. Are you sure there was no one else who might remember you in Helena?”

  She thinks about it for a moment, then shakes her head in resignation. “I kept to myself. I just left the keys in the room the next morning and went out the side exit. I wanted to get home after all. I—I just feel . . . I don’t know. Don’t you ever . . . don’t you ever just . . . ?” She trails off and looks at me longingly, like I might understand, and I feel sorry for her in that moment. I’m not sure if her sadness is that of a woman who knows her husband is cheating. Or maybe she doesn’t know. Could it be that since retirement she’s suddenly become aware of how fleeting life can be? Is it something more menacing—like she can’t figure out how to go on after ending the life of a young woman? Her story is certainly shaky. I wait silently.

  “I don’t know. Never mind. I’m not sure what I’m asking.”

  “Did you stop for gas somewhere?”

  “I filled up here in Missoula. At the gas station before the entrance ramp to the highway on Orange Street.”

  “So not in Helena? Or on the way back from Helena?”

  “No, a full tank got me there and back. I filled up in Missoula again after I returned, just yesterday.”

  “Do you or your husband own any guns or rifles?”

  “My husband owns a shotgun, but he never uses it. His brother gave it to him for bird-hunting years ago, but he only went two or three times. Said it wasn’t his thing.”

  “And you?”

  “No, no, I have no use for a gun.”

  “Okay, then, Jessie.” I give her that—the comfort of her first name because I’m still feeling a certain sadness for her, but that doesn’t mean I believe her. “Thank you for your time. As I said, all just standard procedure.” I stand up and head to her front door, and she follows me.

  “Am I in trouble for something?” she asks.

  I turn when I reach the door. “No,” I say, “I’m sure someone at the hotel will remember you checking in.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” I smile politely.

  She stares at me, still wide-eyed. I tell her good-bye and head for my car, the leaves brushing against my shoes.

  “Sorry about the leaves,” she calls out. “I’ve been meaning to rake, but just haven’t gotten to it.”

  “I know the feeling.” I give a little wave and head to my car, wondering if her alibi is going to check out, hoping for her sake it will.

  • • •

  Because we already have transcripts on Anne Marie, I conveniently have her address and other trivia like the fact that she rents from a landlord who lives on the same property. I find her place near the river, near the town newspaper, and I think that’s convenient for a journalist. Her place is more a cottage than a house and was probably a garage at one point that got remodeled into a rental, similar to the one I remodeled for Rose. It’s located behind the main tenant’s house and can be accessed by the alleyway behind it. I park in a small space in the alley.

  I poke around Anne Marie’s place first, but the blinds are closed, so I can’t peek inside. There’s only one front door and it’s locked, so I’m thinking the landlord locked it after Brander and Reynolds visited the place. There’s a gate blocking her cottage off from the alleyway and the house in front of her. A narrow, shabby lawn with weeds and broad patches of dirt spreads between her cottage and the owner’s house. Three dirt-stained chintzy lawn chairs that haven’t been stored away for winter sit in the center, and two old empty bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale lie in the grass next to one of the chair’s legs. Dead soldiers, my dad would have called them.

  Her cottage is quaint, painted in lilac with white trim, but I’m surprised at how much it looks like someplace a college student would live in, not an established professional woman. It has no gardens or other signs of permanence, like sturdy lawn chairs or a regularly watered and maintained lawn. I suppose if you have no kids and no husband and are frequently on the road, a place like this is perfect, but something about it—perhaps the little-girl paint job and the empty bottles strewn by the chairs—strikes me as immature. But I remind myself that I’m not being fair. I can’t exactly judge people by the color of their house or the shape of their yard.

  There are no trees, but a few lilac bushes that are losing their leaves huddle next to her fence, I presume planted to provide a modicum of privacy between her place and the one in front. I think of Rose and how she lives in my remodeled attachment, and try to imagine her still living there when she’s in her thirties, when she’s Anne Marie’s age. I have never considered it before, but the thought doesn’t seem foreig
n to me because I have grown quite accustomed to Rose’s being in our lives, and I don’t want to picture life without her. But she is young, and I’m fooling myself to think she won’t be moving on at some point. And because of my dad and the shadow effect he has had on me, on my sister too, I have the all-too-familiar sense that Shakespeare was right: life is simply a stage full of characters that spend their time in the spotlight, then exit.

  I walk through the gate leading to the main house, walk around front, and knock on the door. No one answers, which is no surprise, since it’s a workday. From my file, I see that the owner’s name is Mark Adrian, but there’s no information about where he works, which isn’t surprising, since there was no need for the Bozeman agents to look beyond Anne Marie and her work when they interviewed her about Smith. I don’t want to waste any more time in Missoula, but I consider whether to dig deeper so I can chat with Mark, see if he knows anything. I figure I can call him later, so I close the file and get up to go, taking one last look around her place on the way back to my car.

  Reeve

  * * *

  Present—Monday

  LAST NIGHT AFTER Wallace left, I made my way around the peak and down a ridge to a lake, where I set up camp after a long day of working McKay—so vigorously that now he’s exhausted and his hips look stiff to me. Suddenly I feel guilty, wondering if I’m working my dog into the ground because I can’t deal with my own life.

  I decide to stay by the lake for another night to give him some rest. It’s a high mountain lake caught between fall and winter, with fish rising occasionally, making rings in the steely water. Soon the lake will freeze, but for now it’s hanging on to its silky dark vitality. The sky has cleared of its overcast and looks brilliant. I am reminded of the day I spent with Anne Marie, her trekking behind me while I grinned like a teenage boy.

  I discard the thought quickly. I force myself to concentrate on the wild, on making good choices. I’m higher up and the stakes have risen. The heat from the sun has leaked away. Leaves have deserted the berry bushes and the alders, and the needles have dropped from the tamaracks. The slightest mishaps can make all the difference this far in the backcountry, especially this time of year: a misstep into the lake water could soak one of my boots, or I could run out of food or leave something essential behind, like my lighter or flashlight.

  By foot, I’m a long way from my cabin in the North Fork. It’s a considerable hike from where I’ve parked my car—more than a day’s worth—but it wouldn’t be that difficult to get to me if someone took the Trail Creek Road and spent some time searching around the Mount Hefty area near the Canadian border. I peer up at the sky and wonder if I’ll eventually see helicopters flying above.

  I’ve worked McKay for only an hour today, hiking up a game trail toward a bare ridge to the west of the lake and playing fetch with him in the opening we reached after he found some grizzly scat. I also came across several sets of fresh grizzly tracks, and I’m a little nervous about camping tonight, but I know McKay will pitch a fit if he hears anything come near us in the night, and I’m no novice camper. I’ve packaged my food up tightly and strung it up high in a tree away from the campsite, where a bear can’t get to it. But I’m not going to lie: staying through the night alone in grizzly country can do a number on your mind if you let it. I just don’t let it. I go about my day, working McKay, my bear spray dangling on my belt, being extra careful through the brushier areas, keeping an eye on the high ridges above the tree line where they sometimes like to traverse, and making a fire as soon as twilight strikes.

  I wonder about Wallace and hope he’s made it home safely; I have to admit that the old-timer has grown on me. I worry about his turning an ankle, falling, and breaking a hip or something, but then I think how, if I make it to his age, I will hate it if people worry about me that way. And he’s not even that old. Maybe mid-seventies, and damn fit, still traipsing through these rugged mountains, battling against the passage of time and its toll on the bones.

  I consider what it would be like growing old alone, imagine Emily going off to engage with the world, and I feel slightly uneasy, like I’m a parasite living off of her happiness and her vitality. I think of Ali and how it could have been with her. Just when I thought things might actually work with us, she seemed distant and argumentative, as if she was purposely pushing me away. After the first big argument we had—something silly and unmemorable—we both moved around each other differently, with trepidation, wounded animals afraid of being kicked. I tried to act like the fights weren’t happening, but it affected us and the way we interacted, both of us keeping to superficial topics in our conversations for fear we’d say something wrong that would lead to conflict. And this was without even living together, without worrying about toothpaste and unchanged toilet paper rolls. The forecast was not good.

  When she told me she was pregnant, I’ll admit I was terrified, but a part of me softened. In spite of my fears, I took the plunge and asked her to marry me. Granted, it was a timid proposal—yeah, probably weak and lackluster, and not exactly the stuff romantic dreams are made of—but I was unsure of myself and didn’t want to come across too strongly. It’s not like our relationship was rolling along on four wheels, more like we were stalled with a flat. But I thought maybe we could fix it, perhaps we could be a normal, happy couple. And still, under it all, I had always carried this feeling that Ali was like a best-kept secret—this brusque woman with a hidden heart of gold was sexier than hell once you got past her defenses. Ali clearly didn’t think we could be a healthy couple, so I went along with her plans, even if they sometimes made me angry—her insistence on “living quietly,” as she calls it, the extent to which she’ll go for privacy. She insists that we keep our family dynamics to ourselves and refrain from mentioning the fact that I’m Emily’s dad beyond the schoolyard. I’m a quiet person too, so I wouldn’t anyway, and I find it easy to go along with her requests for discretion, but at times she seems paranoid.

  She claims it’s for her job, but I sense there’s more to it. In the days when we were both open with each other, she told me about the social workers from her childhood. She said that the teachers treated her and her sister differently and that sometimes the other kids made fun of them at school. I can’t help but think her intense need for privacy stems from that more than anything.

  But I should talk. Here I am out in the wild, finding myself reluctant to go back to reenter society. I don’t plan to be gone for too long. My weekend with Emily starts on Thursday, and I fully intend to spend it with her, provided I’m not behind bars by then.

  I stand from the large boulder I’ve been sitting on by the small, placid lake and stretch. I can’t kick the sensation that I’m like a bear looking for shelter far and high against the north slopes. I want to see Emily, but I also feel an intense need to hole up, as if that will keep the past from drowning out the present. I’m about to start collecting more wood for a fire when I hear the staccato drone of a helicopter in the distance. I look up over the ridges, searching for the chopper, but don’t see it.

  It’s supposed to be a comforting sound, an indication that the search and rescue troops are on the way, a sign that even when the world is a cruel place and hope is scarce, you’re not alone, someone is coming to save you. This time, though, the patterned noise of the blades slicing through the sky, like the rapid spin cycle of a washing machine, makes my heart pound and panic rise. My scalp feels tingly. I have to remind myself to breathe.

  It’s the first sound of a motor I’ve heard in two days, and it’s an affront to my finely tuned senses, the ones that have begun to hear every sound no matter how small—the flutter of a wing, the hop of a squirrel off a branch, the swish of a leaf in the fall wind. I stand still, McKay by my side, both of us gazing into the pale blue sky, and tell myself that they’re not searching for me, but somehow I can’t convince myself of that and am glad I’ve set the small tent up under the cover of several full pine trees. I decide to hold off on making
the fire for a little while longer. The way my chest is pounding makes me realize that being in the woods has simply injected me with a false sense of security.

  Ultimately the cops are out to find me, no matter what I’ve done, because somehow, someway, I must pay for the life I took all those years ago. It’s an absurd thought, that the universe is out to get me—something a child hiding under a bed might conjure—yet I can’t shake it. It’s that alarm going off in my head, announcing to me over and over: you will get what you deserve.

  Ali

  * * *

  Present—Tuesday

  WILL JONES IS the one who ends up getting my Salt Lake City supervisors involved, tipping them off to my connection to the Johnson case.

  Tuesday morning, the day after I return from Missoula, I pick up the morning paper. Staring at me from the front page on the left sidebar is Reeve and Anne Marie. The headline reads: Be On the Lookout (BOLO) Issued on Local Man.

  Damn it. My stomach tightens. Now they’ve got skin in the game. They’ve announced to everyone that this is their man and now they’re going to do everything they can to get him convicted so they don’t have to admit to the public that they were barking up the wrong tree.

  I read on. The article, written by Jones, goes on to say that Reeve Landon, a person of interest in the homicide of Anne Marie Johnson—at least they’re not calling him a primary suspect—has been missing since his initial interview. Detective Reynolds from the county sheriff’s office says that although Reeve Landon is not under arrest yet, they are actively searching for him, and would appreciate any information citizens might have on his location. The piece goes on to explain that Anne Marie Johnson was shot, and that Reeve was the last person to be seen with her after they spent the day together in the woods.

  The county sheriff’s deputies have repeatedly searched Landon’s place near Polebridge, MT, over the last three days, but the suspect hasn’t returned since he went missing Friday morning.