In the Clearing

by Robert Dugoni

  CHAPTER 31

  The image of Tiffany Martin and her two daughters crying tears of sadness and tears of regret, but also tears of joy, was not one Tracy would soon forget. She suspected that even before she had appeared in their lives, the three women had suffered their share of sleepless nights, wondering why their husband and father had taken his life. She knew from experience that when the answer doesn’t readily present itself, the mind can come up with terrible things; during the twenty years following Sarah’s disappearance, Tracy had imagined all types of horrible scenarios.

  Tracy wanted to drive straight to Eric Reynolds’s home, to let him know that she knew, definitively, what had happened to Kimi. She wanted to wipe the smug and confident smile off his face, to ask him why he got to enjoy a privileged life when he’d ruined so many others. That was the travesty of a murder. It was never just a single life lost. It destroyed many lives. But Tracy also knew that knowing Reynolds was guilty wasn’t the same as proving it in a court of law. Yes, Tracy had the physical evidence from Buzz Almond’s photographs. She also had Kaylee Wright’s and Kelly Rosa’s analyses, but they could only offer opinions, not facts.

  Now, on the drive home, her mind was processing the problems with Darren Gallentine’s counselor’s file. Even if they could get it into evidence, which wasn’t necessarily a given, a good defense lawyer would pick it apart. Any number of arguments could be made—the false recollection of a troubled man who was recounting what happened in a manner that he could live with but which was far from the truth. It was also hearsay. What Darren had told his counselor—Tracy might or might not be able to still find her—was an out-of-court statement that would be offered as the truth. The defense would argue it was untrustworthy, not subject to cross-examination, and, therefore, inadmissible.

  Tracy began to ask herself if the entire investigation had been one big lesson in futility, and if that was what Buzz Almond had also come to conclude.

  Tuesday, November 23, 1976

  Buzz Almond drove home but did not immediately get out of the car. He sat staring at the small guesthouse he’d rented for his family. They’d have to move. The house wouldn’t be big enough when the baby was born.

  He was now certain that Kimi Kanasket had not committed suicide. He was certain Eric Reynolds, and likely the other three members of the Four Ironmen, had come upon Kimi as she walked home along 141 and that something had happened—what exactly, he did not know, but words were spoken, maybe some high school juvenile exchange, and one thing had led to another horrible thing. They’d struck Kimi with the Bronco, running her over in the clearing. That’s why the ground was torn up. Buzz had compared the tread marks in the grass and mud with the tread on the tires on Eric Reynolds’s Bronco. From his perception the two matched. That’s why there were footprints going in dozens of directions. It had nothing to do with kids partying over the weekend. There had been no kids in town that weekend to party. There had been no one in town. They’d all left and gone to the big game. The ground had been torn up Friday night.

  Looking at the terrain, he suspected they’d never intended to hurt Kimi, probably just to scare her, but they’d come over the top of that ridge and the Bronco went airborne, and then control of the situation was no longer in their power. It belonged to physics. What went up had to come down, and in this instance it came down fast and powerfully and smashed into Kimi Kanasket—damn near in the exact same spot where the town of Stoneridge had hanged an innocent man a hundred years earlier. Buzz could have forgiven those four boys for running Kimi down; what had happened after that, though, was unforgivable. What had happened after that had been a deliberate and intentional act. They’d tossed her body in the river like garbage.

  Sitting in his car, Buzz also knew the four boys would never be convicted, and it was that knowledge that he was wrestling with, that was causing him to question why he’d become a cop in the first place, that was making him sick to his stomach.

  He had gone over Jerry Ostertag’s head. He’d taken his information to his lieutenant. He’d sat down and told him everything he had, with earnestness and sincerity, and showed him the photographs. But even as Buzz spoke, he could see from the almost imperceptible grin on the lieutenant’s face that he was only being humored.

  “How long you been on the force?” were the first words out of the lieutenant’s mouth.

  Brownie points for you, Buzz Almond, you eager beaver, he must have been thinking, but you’re a newbie, and your inexperience is showing like a virgin on her wedding night.

  His lieutenant wouldn’t do a thing, just like Jerry Ostertag wasn’t about to do a thing. The coroner said suicide. The circumstantial evidence said suicide. And they were satisfied, lazy, or didn’t give a damn. Buzz had reached a dead end. He’d intended to give his lieutenant the file he’d put together, but as he sat in that office he envisioned the file being shoved in some box and shipped off to mothballs in a dusty storage unit, discarded and forgotten, just like Kimi Kanasket. So he decided he’d file it himself, as an active investigation, knowing exactly where he could find it if he ever chose to look at it again.

  Jerry Ostertag had not been happy with him. He’d made a point of confronting Buzz when Buzz finished his shift and had come back to the building to clock out. Ostertag didn’t mince his words. He’d asked Buzz who the hell he thought he was and what exactly he thought he was doing. He made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that what Buzz had done was not a good way to make friends, that cops watched each other’s backs, and that Buzz might want to consider that if he hoped to make a career out of law enforcement, especially in Klickitat County. It was all Buzz could do to not bust Jerry Ostertag in the mouth, but that would have definitely put an end to his career. And this wasn’t just about Buzz. This was about Anne and Maria and Sophia, and the baby on the way. This was about giving them a good life. He couldn’t sacrifice that for the satisfaction of knocking Jerry Ostertag out.

  Buzz got out of his car and walked up the front steps. His feet felt as heavy as if cast in concrete blocks, and his heart felt hardened by the futility of his situation. When he stepped through the front door, Maria and Sophia came running barefoot from the kitchen, still in their matching nightgowns, hair in need of a good brushing, which Buzz would get to after their breakfast.

  “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” they cried, voices sweet enough to melt an angel’s heart.

  He lifted one in each arm, and they gripped him around the neck, nuzzling and kissing him. It was horrible to even think, but the thought rushing through his mind at that moment was that Kimi Kanasket was dead, and he couldn’t do anything more for her. These two little girls in his arms, showering him with unconditional love, and the third baby on the way, had to take priority.

  Anne followed the girls into the room. Dressed in her nurse’s uniform, she was as beautiful and sexy as the day Buzz first set eyes on her, and just the tonic he needed that morning. You’re a lucky man, Buzz Almond, he thought, trying to convince himself. You are so very blessed.

  “Okay, girls,” Anne said. “Finish your breakfast before it gets cold.”

  Buzz lowered their bare feet to the ground, and they padded off on tiptoes. “I made oatmeal,” Anne said, starting to gather her keys to get out the door. “With some fresh blueberries.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  She stopped, considering him. “Everything okay?”

  “Tough day at work,” he said, looking away, though he knew she’d already seen the tears in his eyes.

  “Something that can be fixed?”

  Buzz thought again of Kimi, and of Earl and Nettie Kanasket. He now knew they would be the hardest part of his job. He’d bring them home with him—and other families like them, families hurting and in pain—long after he punched out of work.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “Not this time.”

  Tracy went back to West Seattle and dismantled Buzz Almond’s file, spreading it out on her dining room table, twice having to shoo away
Roger and finally having to distract him with food.

  She’d found with difficult cases that sometimes it helped to see all the evidence in one place. Despite the certainty she now had about what had happened on November 5, 1976, she felt like she still didn’t have the complete picture. She was still missing something. It was usually nothing dramatic—not some hidden clue only a Sherlockian mind could unearth. It was usually something much simpler than that, something logic dictated but that her mind had not stopped to consider—the way you don’t stop to consider the meaning of a stop sign. You just take your foot off the gas and apply the brake.

  She picked up the reports, skimming through them. She moved next to the photos. Was there something staring her in the face that she wasn’t seeing? Maybe, but it was unlikely Kaylee Wright would have missed something obvious. She reached the same conclusion with respect to Kelly Rosa and her analysis of the coroner’s report. She ruled those out.

  Her mind shifted to the evidence she hadn’t yet completely fit into the puzzle, and she picked up the receipts for the bodywork and windshield repair at Hastey Devoe Senior’s two shops: $68 to Columbia Windshield and Glass, and $659 to Columbia Auto Repair. Buzz had included those in the file because that was where the Bronco had been repaired, for cash. She was surprised a cash receipt even existed, that Eric Reynolds would have asked for one, and even more surprised Buzz had located them. How was not the question though. Why was the question. Why would Buzz have gone searching for the receipts?

  She thought again of Eric Reynolds’s statement that Buzz Almond had come to the house to ask if he had been out Friday night. Why would Buzz have suspected Eric? He wouldn’t have, not unless he’d first suspected that the tire tracks could have been made by the Bronco’s tires. It was more likely that if Buzz had visited, it was not to talk to Eric but to see the car, to determine if the car had any damage. And if the car had still been damaged, Buzz would have never tracked down the receipts because he wouldn’t have known it had undergone repairs. The fact that he had the receipts, therefore, had to mean that the Bronco had already been repaired.

  That’s when what had been gnawing at the back of Tracy’s mind—not one thing it turned out, but several, all interrelated—began to become clear.

  And Tracy realized she’d been dead wrong.

  Kaylee Wright hovered over the table, using a magnifying glass with a bright light on an extension arm to inspect the photographs. Tracy stood beside her, in Wright’s home office, trying not to crowd her, or to rush her. She’d called Wright’s cell, told her what she suspected, and asked if Wright could go over the photographs again. After nearly ten minutes going over multiple photographs, Wright straightened and moved the magnifying glass out of the way. Tracy felt like she was in court, waiting for a jury’s verdict.

  Wright looked to her and sighed. “You’re right. I missed it.”

  Tracy felt a huge surge of adrenaline. “How certain can you be?”

  “Very certain. I’m sorry. I should have seen this.”

  “Don’t be. You hadn’t finished your analysis.”

  “I should have seen it.”

  “Water under the bridge, Kaylee.”

  “The truck that made those impressions entered and exited twice.”

  Tracy forced herself to ask questions one at a time, not to rush, to be certain they had the evidence to support her hypothesis. “Will you explain to me how can you tell?”

  Wright picked through several of the photographs on her desk until settling on the one she wanted. She adjusted the magnifying glass over it. “Take a look,” she said, stepping aside.

  Tracy looked at the enlarged image as Wright spoke. “This is the best photograph depicting the tire tread. You can clearly see two defined paths in, and two defined paths out. The paths overlap in certain places, but cars, like people, don’t move in a perfectly straight line. You can see clearly where the paths deviated.”

  “Could it have been two separate vehicles, one following the other?” Tracy asked, wanting to eliminate that possibility.

  “No. Both sets of tracks were made by the same tires, and within a relatively short period of time.”

  “How can you tell it was a short period of time? Why couldn’t it have been a week or a month apart?” Tracy knew that had not been the scenario because, according to Buzz Almond’s report, he’d taken the photographs the Monday after Kimi Kanasket had gone missing.

  “Again, you have to look at the impressions. If the second vehicle had come at a time significantly after the first, I would have expected the photographs to depict bits of crumbled dirt. Remember, I said that in my opinion, to get this quality of impressions the ground had to have been wet and then frozen in a relatively short period of time. These impressions in the dirt would have hardened like a plaster-cast mold. If a second vehicle came at a later date, it would have torn up the first set of tracks and obliterated the first vehicle’s impressions. We would be seeing large clumps of chewed-up dirt. I don’t see anything like that here.”

  “So the same vehicle had to have come back before the ground had time to freeze.”

  “I’d say within an hour or two. I’m not certain we can quantify it any better than that. Maybe weather records back that far can tell you the temperatures on that particular night.”

  Tracy switched mental gears. “Okay, let’s go over the boot impressions. They lead from where Kimi’s body lay to where the second set of incoming tire tracks stop. Correct?”

  Wright nodded. “I’d agree with that, yes. There is a deliberate set of prints between those two points.”

  “So the person who came back was wearing the boots, and that person carried the body to the vehicle.”

  “Yes. He walked in a straight line to the body and, after getting balanced, walked back to the vehicle.”

  Still thinking out loud, Tracy said, “And the fact that the person picked up the body and staggered under the weight, and that there are only the bootprints leading to the vehicle, indicates that he did it on his own, that there was no one else to help him.”

  “I would agree with that also,” Wright said. She looked as if she’d been struck by a thought.

  “What is it?” Tracy asked.

  “Probably nothing, but remember that I told you those boots were made for soldiers and that the company went out of business?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The company never made boots again . . . which might be helpful to your investigation.”

  “Tell me how.”

  “For one, they’re rare. You won’t find them now, except maybe on some vintage clothing sites and for a lot more money than what they originally cost. People who owned a pair kept them.”

  “You’re saying you think it’s possible that the person who owned these could still have them?”

  “The boots were highly sought after because they were so durable. A person might wear them maybe twenty-five to fifty days out of the year. Maybe. Someone who owned a pair would have no reason to ever get a new pair. I’m just saying these are not the kind of boots you throw away or give to Goodwill if you don’t have to.”

  Tracy thought about that but didn’t say anything.

  “Are you going to tell me what you think it all means?” Wright said.

  “Remember when you said that what happened in that clearing that night was ‘truly frightening’?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think it goes beyond frightening; I think what happened there was evil.”

  CHAPTER 32

  At just after six that evening, Tracy called Jenny from the car and told her she was coming back to Stoneridge that night to visit Eric Reynolds. Jenny insisted that Tracy have backup, but Tracy declined, and eventually, Jenny conceded. She wasn’t being heroic or stupid. She’d thought it through, and she had a good sense of what was about to happen. “He’s had forty years to do something,” she said.

  “He’s never had to do anything,” Jenny countered. “Nobody has ever accused him.�
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  “I have my Glock,” Tracy said, “and he won’t be expecting me. Even if he’s armed, I could empty my magazine before he could draw his weapon.”

  Jenny argued with her, but only briefly. They compromised and agreed that Jenny would wait nearby in a sheriff’s vehicle with backup and that Tracy would remain in phone contact.

  Tracy had the address in the file from the Accurint check, and when she plugged it into her iPhone, the directions popped up and led her without fault to the large home—very large by Stoneridge standards, though certainly not as ostentatious as some of the mansions people had built in Seattle’s wealthier neighborhoods. What the two-story stone-and-wood-siding home lacked in square footage and grandeur, it more than made up for with acreage. After passing between stone pillars, the long drive wound its way through what appeared in the darkness to be a vast expanse of fruit trees and vineyards, as well as a man-made lake. As beautiful as it all was, it also felt isolated and brought to mind the image of a deserted island, uncharted and lonely.

  Tracy parked in the circular drive beside a Chevy Silverado truck. The temperature had dropped since she’d left Seattle that afternoon, and a heavy cloud layer obscured the night sky, tempered all sounds, and dampened even the slightest breeze.

  She approached a front door of leaded glass and oak and rang the buzzer. She had visions of a butler opening it and greeting her. Inside, dogs barked, followed by Eric Reynolds issuing commands for them to be quiet. They complied.

  “Detective Crosswhite?” Reynolds said, opening the door and looking genuinely perplexed. “What are you doing here so late?”

  The two dogs looked to be rat terriers. One emitted a low growl.

  “Hush, Blue,” Reynolds said, and the dog lowered his head, though he kept his eyes on Tracy.

  “I have a few more questions. I know it’s late, but with all the festivities going on this weekend, I suspected you’d be a hard man to run down.”