In the Clearing

by Robert Dugoni

  Tracy thought of the man she’d seen in the clearing and of the freshly planted shrub. “Was he married? Did he have any kids?”

  “Divorced. His wife and kids moved to somewhere in California. Palm Springs maybe.”

  “Why’d you try to speak to him fifteen years ago?”

  “I was writing an article on the twenty-five-year anniversary of the championship. It turned out to not be the celebratory piece everyone was expecting.”

  “Why not?”

  “Eric Reynolds is the only one of the four who made anything of himself. He played four years at UW, but he blew his knee out during practice sophomore year. If he did it now, it’d be no big deal, but back then it was the kiss of death. He never reached the kind of stardom he did in high school. Still, after he graduated, he moved home and started his construction and cement business. Any public-works job this side of Seattle, you’re likely to see a Reynolds Construction banner.”

  Tracy again considered her notes. “What about Darren Gallentine?”

  “He shot himself. He was living in Seattle.”

  “When?”

  “Sometime in the late eighties, I believe.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “Not a clue, friend,” he said. “The last of the four was young Hastey, who is universally considered the town drunk. Like I said, not exactly a feel-good story. We shelved it.”

  “What does Hastey do for Reynolds?”

  “He drove a cement truck until he got his third DUI. Now I think he shines a seat in the office.”

  “Sounds like Reynolds is pretty loyal to him.”

  “Old ties run deep in a small town.”

  “Yeah,” Tracy said, thinking of Cedar Grove. “I’m going to need to come down and take another look at your newspapers, Sam. Would that be all right?”

  “Anytime, friend. We’re not going anywhere.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Monday morning Tracy drove to the squat cement building on Airport Way that was home to the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab. She’d left the coffeehouse Friday feeling both energized and sick. She had definitive forensic proof that Kimi Kanasket had not thrown herself into the White Salmon River. Far from it. She’d been run down and run over, her body unceremoniously dumped like a piece of garbage.

  And Tracy’s focus had now shifted squarely to the Four Ironmen.

  She refrained from calling Jenny. She’d learned not to prematurely express her conclusions every time she thought she had a significant break in a case. Too often that break turned out to be a false lead, and she had to go back and explain why she’d been wrong.

  Michael Melton’s office was located on the first floor. A level five forensic scientist, Melton was at the top of the pay chain, which was a testament not only to his longevity, but also to his skill and dedication to his job. Melvin could have earned three times his salary working for a private forensic company—which many chose to do after getting the training and resume boost of working for the crime lab. Melton, however, remained—year after year, even when he was in the midst of paying college tuition or funding weddings for his six daughters. The detectives knew Melton stayed out of a sense of obligation to the victims and their families. He sat on the board of directors of the Seattle chapter of Victim Support Services, and he and three other crime-lab scientists played in a country-western band called the Fourensics to raise money for that organization. A bear of a man with a full head of graying brown hair and a matching beard, Melton had nimble enough fingers to strum a guitar and a surprisingly soothing voice.

  Tracy met Melton in his office, which contained an eclectic mix of family photographs, ball-peen hammers, combat knives, and a cast-iron skillet—evidence from cases Melton had helped to solve.

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of seeing my favorite detective?” Melton said. “Let me guess—the Tim Collins case.”

  “Actually, different case,” Tracy said.

  “As long as you don’t need it tonight. Got a gig at Kells.”

  Kells was a popular Irish bar in the Pike Place Market that Tracy occasionally frequented. “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “Just found out. We’re subbing for an Irish folk band.”

  “No, nothing I need by tonight,” Tracy said. She set down her briefcase and pulled out the photographs, thumbing through the packets until she found the shots of the tire-tread impressions in the ground. “I’m hoping you can tell me the make and model of the tire that made this impression. You’ll need to go back a ways. These were taken in 1976.”

  Like shoes, tires made unique impressions. Even tires of the same make and model could be differentiated by tread wear and the differing amounts of damage in the form of tiny cuts and nicks in the rubber. The latter could be accomplished only if the tread in the photograph could be compared to the actual tire, which was beyond unlikely. However, knowing the manufacturer and model of the tire would be extremely helpful if, for instance, it matched the tires on Tommy Moore’s truck, or another vehicle Tracy might come across upon her revisit to Sam Goldman’s personal library.

  “Computer doesn’t go back that far,” Melton said.

  His response caught her off guard. “Is there any other way to do it?” she said.

  “I got a buddy who’s a genius at this stuff. Let me ask him.”

  “This might help.” She handed Melton the three photographs of the white truck. Buzz Almond had focused on the body damage to the truck, but in two of the pictures he’d managed to capture a portion of the front tire. “Hoping you can work your magic and blow these up enough to make out the make and model of the tire.”

  “You want to know if it matches the make and model that left these impressions.”

  “Or if it doesn’t,” she said.

  “Then these will help.” Melton lowered his glasses to the tip of his nose and held up the photographs of Tommy Moore’s truck, considering them. “You have the negatives?”

  “They’re in the packet.”

  Melton removed the strip of negatives from the front pouch of one of the Kodak packages and also held it up to the light. Then he reached into his drawer and pulled out a magnifying glass, running it first over the photograph, then over the negatives. He lowered the glass without comment. “I take it this isn’t an ongoing investigation?”

  “It’s a cold case from 1976, and it’s a bad one, Mike.”

  “Aren’t they all?”

  “Seventeen-year-old girl went missing on her way home from work. They found her body in the river the next afternoon and concluded suicide. Evidence indicates that wasn’t the case. Someone ran her down.”

  That gave Melton pause, as Tracy thought it might. He shook his head. “How do people live with themselves?”

  Tracy thought of Sam Goldman telling her he’d scrapped the article on the twenty-five-year anniversary of the state championship when he realized it wouldn’t be the celebratory piece he’d anticipated. “Maybe not very well,” she said.

  When she got to her cubicle at the Justice Center, Tracy e-mailed the Department of Licensing in Olympia for a vehicle check on Tommy Moore’s truck. Buzz Almond’s photographs had captured the license plate. She also ran the names Eric Reynolds, Hastey Devoe, Lionel Devoe, Darren Gallentine, and Archibald Coe through Accurint, as well as the National Crime Information Center. And she sent a second e-mail to DOL, seeking the make and model of every vehicle registered to those men or, since they were in high school in 1976, their fathers.

  She received return e-mails that afternoon. DOL had been able to use the vehicle identification number from Tommy Moore’s truck to determine that the truck was sold in January 1977 to a buyer in Oregon and had since been scrapped. The fact that Moore had sold the truck just two months after Kimi’s death made Tracy question his statement that he’d had the windshield and body damage fixed. Why bother if he was going to sell it? On the other hand, maybe that was the reason for the cash invoices—Lionel Devoe, who was running his father’s business at that
time, could have cut Moore a deal for paying cash, which Devoe didn’t have to show on his books or otherwise pay a business tax.

  The second report revealed that Hastey Devoe Senior’s businesses owned several trucks, including tow trucks that likely would have been fitted with all-terrain tires. Earl Kanasket owned a 1968 Ford truck. A 1973 Ford Bronco was registered to Ron Reynolds. Bernard Coe, who Tracy assumed to be Archibald Coe’s father, owned a 1974 Chevy truck. Any of them could have also had all-terrain tires. In fact, Tracy suspected they did. She also suspected that the chances any of those vehicles remained in circulation were slim to none. The chances they’d have the same tires as in 1976 was ludicrous to even consider.

  The Accurint report confirmed that Hastey Devoe lived in Stoneridge, and an electricity bill indicated that Archibald Coe lived close by, in Central Point, as Sam Goldman had said. The address looked like it would be for an apartment. Eric Reynolds’s address was also Stoneridge, though a Google map and satellite search revealed the property was far out of town and surrounded by orchards. Tracy didn’t find a utility record for Darren Gallentine, but she wasn’t expecting one, since Sam Goldman had said Gallentine had killed himself.

  Other than Tommy Moore, only Hastey Devoe had a criminal record. He’d been arrested three times for driving under the influence—the first arrest in 1982, the second in 1996, and the most recent in 2013. Tracy could only imagine how many times a career drunk had driven impaired and not been caught, or had been caught but received the benefit of having a brother serving as the chief of police.

  Tracy ran Gallentine’s name through the Washington State Digital Archives and got a match. Darren John Gallentine died October 12, 1999, at age forty-one. The death certificate from the Washington State Department of Health listed the cause of death as a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. She located a short obituary in the Seattle Times archives. Gallentine had worked for nearly two decades as an engineer for Boeing after graduating from UW in 1981. He was survived by his wife, Tiffany, and his two daughters, seventeen-year-old Rebecca and fourteen-year-old Rachel. In lieu of flowers, the family had asked for donations to an organization called Evergreen Health Clinic Northwest. Tracy Googled the name and found that the clinic still existed and had been serving the Puget Sound region since 1973. Searches using the name Tiffany Gallentine produced no results. Gallentine’s wife could have died, remarried, changed her name, or simply not done anything to warrant a Google hit. The names Rebecca and Rachel Gallentine produced multiple possibilities on Facebook of women who would have been about the right ages. However, given that the sisters would be in their early thirties, they also could have married and legally changed their last names, making the hits for “Gallentine” even more suspect.

  Deciding to go after the lowest-hanging fruit, Tracy called the clinic referenced in Darren Gallentine’s obituary and asked to speak to the director. She knew she was treading on thin ice. Under federal HIPAA laws, the confidentiality of a patient’s health information continued even after the patient’s death, and the law was particularly touchy about psychotherapy notes. She was connected to an Alfred Womak, who confirmed that the clinic had treated Darren Gallentine but wouldn’t reveal for what. Tracy said she was in the area and would appreciate a few minutes of the director’s time. Womak agreed to see her for twenty minutes starting at two.

  Evergreen Health Clinic Northwest was located in a chic shopping complex off Northwest Gilman Boulevard called The Village at Issaquah, a thirty- to forty-five-minute drive east of Seattle. Once nothing but hills of virgin forest, the plateau was now looked upon by many in Seattle as an illustration of urban desecration of the environment. In the past decade, developers had clear-cut and bulldozed large swaths of forest for tracts of homes, shopping centers, schools, and sports facilities. The population had quickly tripled—predominantly white middle-class families with young children, who’d rushed to buy large homes at affordable prices.

  The buildings at The Village at Issaquah, interconnected by wooden and brick walkways, included restaurants, a hair “studio,” an upscale kitchenette store, art galleries, and a yoga studio, in addition to the clinic. It gave Tracy a better sense of Evergreen’s likely typical clientele—overextended husbands, stay-at-home moms feeling unfulfilled and underappreciated, and the children of those parents sent to counseling for ADD, anxiety, and stress-related disorders.

  Tibetan bells announced Tracy’s entrance as she stepped into a reception area of soft colors and soothing music. Womak met Tracy in the lobby and escorted her to his office, which resembled the inside of a yurt but with plate-glass windows for walls that provided an eastern view of the hills. She estimated Womak to be in his early sixties, with the mandatory mental health professional’s beard. His was salt and pepper. Balding, he wore round wire-framed glasses.

  “As I indicated on the telephone, Detective, federal laws prohibit me from telling you anything about Mr. Gallentine’s treatment.”

  Tracy pushed forward. It was why she preferred face-to-face meetings. It was easier to hang up a phone than to ignore a person sitting across from you. She’d also learned to avoid debate and just get the witness answering questions. “I understand. You were able to confirm he was a patient of this clinic?”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “And for how long?”

  “Just under two years.”

  “Did he come regularly for those two years?”

  “His billing records indicate he did.”

  “And you still have a copy of his records here?”

  “Not his physical file. We move physical files older than five years to a storage facility and maintain electronic files.”

  “Someone scanned in the contents of those files?”

  “Correct.”

  “So you can access them, search them, that sort of thing.”

  “Correct.”

  “Do your records indicate whether anyone has ever asked to see Mr. Gallentine’s records before my request?”

  “There have been no prior requests.”

  “Mr. Gallentine was married?”

  “According to his file, yes.”

  “His wife didn’t ask for the records?”

  “There’s no indication in the file that she did.”

  Tracy thought that odd, given that Darren Gallentine had committed suicide. She would have thought a spouse would have wanted to know if his psychotherapy records revealed why. Then again, maybe Tiffany Gallentine knew why. Tracy certainly knew why her father had shot himself—grief and depression brought on by the disappearance and presumed death of Sarah. “He had minor daughters at that time?” Tracy asked.

  “Two.”

  “Neither has asked to see the file?”

  “There have been no requests by anyone for any purpose,” Womak said, sounding officious.

  “Did Mrs. Gallentine or either of the two daughters seek any treatment?”

  “Our records indicate they came in for family grief counseling after Mr. Gallentine’s death.”

  “How long did that continue?”

  “Just a few visits.”

  “And Mr. Gallentine’s therapist no longer works here?”

  “She does not.”

  “Was she fired?”

  “I won’t answer questions related to our employees’ work history.”

  “What I’m trying to determine is whether your clinic did any type of an investigation or inquiry as to why one of your patients, while undergoing regular treatment, killed himself.” Sometimes when she challenged a person’s decision making, particularly doctors, Tracy found they would get their significant ego feathers ruffled and endeavor to defend their actions, giving away information they might not otherwise.

  Womak, however, remained calm. “We have staff meetings every week to discuss patient treatment and, yes, we do have discussions in the event a patient chooses to end his own life.”

  “It’s happened before, besides Mr. Gallentine?”

  “U
nfortunately.”

  “How could I get a copy of the file?”

  “The only way is if Mr. Gallentine designated a personal representative, and that individual notified us that he or she was waiving his privacy.”

  “Do you have a last known address in the file for Mr. Gallentine?”

  “I do.” Womak provided the address.

  “Do you know if Mrs. Gallentine has remarried or if she still lives in the area?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “What about either of his two daughters, Rebecca and Rachel?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t. It’s been many years.”

  “Do you know if Mrs. Gallentine worked outside the home when Mr. Gallentine was seeking treatment?”

  “Again, I don’t know and would have no way of knowing.”

  Womak looked at his watch and started to rise from his chair. “I’m afraid I’m out of time.”

  “He killed himself in what year?”

  “October 1999.”

  Gallentine’s obituary indicated that he worked at Boeing until 1997. “What about billing records? Was his therapy paid through his insurance at Boeing?”

  Womak sat again. His fingers clicked the keyboard on his desktop, and he raised his nose to read through his bifocals. “The file indicates his therapy was paid by insurance. But it wasn’t Boeing’s. It was paid through his wife’s insurance as an employee at Microsoft.”

  When she left Evergreen, Tracy called Ron Mayweather and asked that he pull up property records and run the address Womak had provided for the Gallentine family home. She also tasked him with doing a search of King County records to determine if a will was probated for a Darren John Gallentine in 1999, and if it named a personal representative. Then she dialed information and asked for the number for Microsoft.

  “Any particular department?”

  “What do they have listed?”

  “How much time do you have?”

  “Human Resources,” Tracy said.