Mortal Fall

by Christine Carbo

  “Adding to our urgency is the current rate of climate change and some administrations—in fact, almost all of them these days—find it conducive to conceal or conveniently ignore relevant research, and this wouldn’t be the first time the DOI has meddled into designation of imperiled species and habitats. Several years ago, a senior appointee resigned under pressure after some investigators discovered that he’d altered scientific evidence and basically removed species and habitats from the endangered species list.”

  “I remember that,” I said.

  “So it turns out, even though RMRS is supposed to be a unit unto itself, it can’t be. Not entirely, because funding still comes from the Forest Service, which walks a very fine line to appease Congress. It just simply can’t come across as championing any particular species. Wolfie”—Sam frowned—“well, he didn’t want anyone knowing he might need extra resources on our studies, especially investigative law enforcement, since funding is dwindling as it is, as well as possible stonewalling from our own administration.”

  I nodded that I understood and remembered the note I found in Wolfie’s reports about receiving a call from a high-ranking official. “It seems that Wolfie and this Dorian got into a fight in Hungry Horse, outside the Outlaw’s. Did he mention it to you?”

  Sam shook his head. “No, he didn’t. But I would have thought he would have.”

  “Why do you think he didn’t?”

  Sam shrugged, then looked down. “We didn’t always have time to discuss everything.”

  “Sam, were you and Wolfie getting along before he fell?”

  “Yes, of course. Why?”

  “Just seems like something he would have shared with you.”

  “Like I said, we didn’t share everything. Most things about our work, but not every detail.”

  “Okay then.” I looked at him seriously and he looked back at me. There seemed to be something perceptible hanging in the air, a tension I could sense, but perhaps it was just Sam’s grief and the burden of the project now falling entirely on his shoulders.

  “Wolfie got most of the traps out of the South Fork when he saw how many wolverines were getting killed in them.” He sighed loudly as if my waiting had made him surrender a pent-up breath he’d been holding. “The South Fork was his idea. He didn’t run it through the proper channels. I refused to be a part of the studies in that region and continued with the Glacier end of things. He may have not told me because of that. I approved of the studies there. I just didn’t entirely approve of foregoing the correct channels because once a biologist quits playing by administrative rules, it can be the kiss of death to their credibility. But that needs to stay between us, okay? Cathy and the kids.” He frowned. “They’ve been through enough here. They don’t need to think Wolfie was doing anything wrong. And he wasn’t really. There are no laws saying he can’t run a study up that drainage. Ultimately, it’s volunteer work on his part, but like I said, he just didn’t run it by RMRS in the same way we have with other studies.”

  “Because he didn’t want the politics?”

  “Precisely.”

  “But that research,” I said, “having not gone through the proper channels, would have no credibility. So what good would come of it?”

  “Exactly.” Sam nodded sadly. “No good in terms of documentation, papers, and ultimately where land legislation is concerned. The only good was that Wolfie himself would understand the animal more. And for Wolfie, that’s what the quest had become—an intense mission. He was beginning to quit caring what others thought. He just wanted to understand the animal, whether the research could be used or not. And who’s to say that if he understood something from the South Fork area, that that information couldn’t be slid into the legitimate Glacier studies? It’s all closely connected, and the same wolverines from Glacier cover the South Fork.”

  “But that’s not good science—to use studies from a different area and pretend they apply to another.”

  “No, no, it’s not. So now you understand where our disagreement came from.”

  “So”—I lightly tapped my pen on my notepad—“avoiding the politics from your own agencies, that’s the reason you didn’t report the tampering?”

  “Yes, along with the other stuff I told you. Again, he wasn’t doing anything illegal, just not exactly as the organization would have expected.”

  I took it all in for a moment. Sam’s face sagged and he looked deflated. Eventually, I thanked him for his help and told him that if he remembered or heard of anything else relating to the South Fork situation or Wolfie’s death to please call me. Then after I got in my car, I pulled out my notebook again and put a star by Sam’s name with a note saying, “maybe he and Wolfie not getting along as well as we all think. Claims to not know of altercation with Dorian.”

  25

  * * *

  GRETCHEN CALLED ME twenty minutes after I left Sam Ward’s office to tell me that the lab results were in. I was heading into town to help Lara with the grill when she called. She was somewhere noisy—a café or coffee shop—because I could hear bustling and many high-pitched voices in the background.

  “Wilson faxed me the results on both victims,” she said. “Said he got the lab to rush ’em in spite of being backed up for about four weeks.”

  “Awesome,” I said. “I’ll have to call him to thank him.”

  “Or maybe just send him some milk and cookies,” she said jokingly. Most of us who’d met Wilson knew that he looked more like a young college student than an accomplished, highly acclaimed forensic pathologist with his faux hawk and untied sneakers. “But I’m sure he’d appreciate either.” Her voice sounded distant and muffled.

  “Where are you?” I asked. “I can barely hear you.”

  “Just got out of the office and was supposed to meet a friend in Whitefish at the Snow Ghost, but he just texted and said he can’t make it. Got stuck at work. Anyway, I guess it’s happy hour here, but I can go outside. I haven’t ordered anything.”

  I could hear her mobile jostling a bit as she walked and suddenly it got much quieter, but instead of saying, “That’s better,” I said: “If your friend’s not making it, I’ll just come meet you and you can fill me in on the results.”

  “Are you close?”

  “Yeah, I’m heading into town anyway.” I thought of Lara. I had not given her a time for when I’d be over to help her.

  “Tell you what. Let’s meet across the street at that hotel bar instead. Too loud in here.”

  “Wherever you want,” I said.

  • • •

  “So the tox screen was negative on Sedgewick.” Gretchen pushed her fair hair behind her ears with both hands, dipping her head forward as she did so. “No drugs, no alcohol, no medications. He was covered in his own blood and the trace of outdoor elements, as expected: dirt, rock fragments, black cottonwood seeds, pollen—all the usual suspects for someone who’s fallen, and all consistent with Glacier’s soil and rock composition. Phillips was covered in trace too, exactly the same. There is no evidence that these bodies expired before the falls and were later dumped at these sites.”

  “No, I never thought they were. Too much blood and Wilson confirmed it.”

  “And, the footprints you got near that seep don’t help at all. Most of them are so blurry and smeared from overlapping that they’re of no use.”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t expecting much from those either. But is there nothing? No clothing fibers that don’t match their own?”

  “I’m getting to that.” Gretchen took a sip of draft beer she’d ordered before I arrived. We were sitting at a small table near the wall opposite the bar. Pictures from the early 1900s of old railcars filled with timber and loggers with wide smiles lined the wall. Back then, in the early 1900s, Whitefish was initially called Stumptown because to make room for the town, a huge number of trees were cut down, leaving so many stumps behind that they created traffic and construction problems. Thankfully, the name never stuck and the town’s nam
e switched to that of a nearby lake, a few years later. “There were some fibers on Sedgewick that did not match what he was wearing, but nothing distinctive. There were some hairs on him that match his wife, several that match his son, and some that are canine, from the golden they have.”

  “So the fiber—anything worth searching?”

  “Again, just some type of cotton blend. Probably from one of the kids’ clothes or the laundry room.”

  “Damn.” I frowned.

  “And,” she said, “toxicology was negative for Phillips too. A small amount of alcohol was in his system, nowhere near sufficient to cause impairment, and certainly not death. There was no way to study his stomach contents, as you know.”

  “Yeah.” I pictured Phillips’s meager remains on the table and felt lucky we got any toxicology report on him at all. “So, alcohol. Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.” Gretchen gave me a level gaze, her eyes intense and intelligent. “Wilson used the vitreous fluid of the eye, which gave him the approximate BAC one to two hours before his death. It’s interesting that he was up at the Loop—out hiking.”

  “That would suggest he had drank either before starting his hike or while on his hike, which would seem like an odd thing to do.” I was thinking specifically about how he didn’t have a car and wondered if maybe he had had a flask with him. “So first guy to drop has alcohol in him, but not the second. I’ll be damned, maybe I’ve been wrong. Maybe these two really aren’t related cases. Maybe the first guy was tipsy enough to trip.”

  “I’m not sure if this means anything, but”—Gretchen gave me a half smile, like she was saving the best part for last—and I sat up taller in my seat. She held up her hand. “Don’t get too excited. It’s not that great. It’s just that along with the dirt and dust, there is a very small trace of a soap residue, a commercial or industrial type with lye—sodium hydroxide—which we found on Phillips’s intact hand, under his nails. It suggests he washed his hands sometime before the hike or walk at the Loop. I can get you the exact makeup of it, but it does not match the soap he has in his home, which is an organic soap. It’s definitely the type you might find in a convenience store or gas station bathroom, some fast-food joints—that type of soap.”

  “Okay, that’s something. Not sure what, but something.” These two cases were beginning to make my head spin. I had a strong inkling that they were somehow related, but I had no hard evidence to prove it, other than the fact that they had occurred in the same area. “Any sign of struggle at all? DNA under fingernails?”

  “No, but these bodies as you know, weren’t in the best condition. But both Wilson and I find it interesting that there is nothing under the nails of significance. Somebody slipping close to the trail would be grabbing for anything possible for purchase. There should be sediment and broken nails at the very least.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, the absence suggests a clean break away from the edge—a suicidal jump or a push. Plus”—I recalled Wolfie’s launch area—“it was lipped and concave where we figure Sedgewick went off. Hard to slip off from.”

  “So it’s not a lot to go on, but it’s something. Don’t advertise this, but from a CSI’s perspective, pushing someone off a cliff is probably the cleanest way to get away with murder.”

  “Yeah, I wish we could have at least gotten some DNA or something to go on, but thanks for trying,” I said to her, and I must have looked disappointed because she reached out and touched my wrist—just lightly and only for a split second, but it surprised me and sent a zing of electricity through me.

  “You’ll find something one way or another—something either to link them or extricate them.”

  “Hopefully soon,” I said, the beer making me feel more relaxed. “So this guy who let you down tonight—boyfriend?”

  “Let me down?” She laughed. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. But, no, not a boyfriend really. We’ve had a few dates. Nothing serious, but he’s nice.”

  I held up my hand. “Not really my business, is it?”

  “It’s okay. I don’t mind. What about you? You divorced yet?”

  The question was so simple, but most people in my circles never asked because either they didn’t want to make me feel bad or they figured it was too personal. But to hear it so rationally and plainly made me realize how pathetic it was: Lara and I married, but split for the better part of a year. Not together, but not divorced. Me, Mr. Get-’er-done, finding it acceptable to hang on month after month in limbo all because Lara continuously vacillated between wanting out and missing me. Suddenly, I felt ridiculous. “No,” I ’fessed up. “I’m not.”

  “How long have you been separated?” She asked, no hint of anything. She inquired just like an interested coworker might.

  I didn’t answer right away, as if I gave her that information something in the air around us would shift and make this easy, casual acquaintanceship even less accessible. She looked at me thoughtfully, her mouth in a soft curve, and I realized I was being foolish and reading way too much into something very simple.

  “The better part of a year,” I finally admitted. “But enough of that,” I said and looked down at my phone because it vibrated. A text from Lara came in: Where are you?

  I excused myself and texted her back: I’ll call in a bit. “Would you like another?” I looked back to Gretchen.

  “Sure.” She smiled. “Why not? We can talk about this case some more. I’m pretty decent at this sort of thing.”

  “What happened to, ‘I’m only here for the facts’?”

  “Oh, that was while working. I’m not working now, so I can go into theorizing mode.”

  I slid the phone back in my pocket and got up to go get us another round.

  • • •

  After that second beer with Gretchen, I walked her to her car and thanked her for meeting with me. When I got to my Explorer, I called Lara back.

  “Where have you been?” she asked.

  “Working,” I grunted, irritated that she felt she had the right to check on my whereabouts at this point, but I knew that I wasn’t being fair either. I had texted her earlier that I would come over when I was done for the day.

  “I thought you were coming over?”

  “Sorry, but I got busy. This case has a lot of unknowns, and I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “Can you come over now?”

  I thought about it without answering right away. The car was warm from the evening sun, and I turned the key so I could roll the windows down.

  “Monty?” she asked. “Are you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here.” I was kicking myself for texting that I’d go see her. All I really wanted to do was to go home and continue chipping away on the case. But I had promised, and I’m a man of my word. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll be there in ten.”

  26

  * * *

  THE LILAC TREES were still in full bloom and draping over the side fence when I pulled up to the house Lara and I had lived together in since we moved to Kalispell from Choteau six years before. I could tell she had recently mowed the lawn and the scent of freshly cut grass and sweet lilacs enveloped me when I stepped out. To the left of the house stretched a large field that we had to buy a riding lawn mower and large quantities of buffalo grass seed to tame. It was where she planned to have the big reunion with white tents, music, and caterers. The field ran down to the Flathead River and although waterside property, we got the place for a steal because we bought at the right time and the house was run-down and in need of a new roof, furnace, and all sorts of other repairs that we spent a lot of time doing after we first moved in. I missed the place, in many ways—it was home.

  Lara came out onto the landing when I shut my car door. The sun had dipped low in the western sky, but the evening was still aglow with light and her face took on a golden warmth. I thought of the other evening when the light had held the same quality and I told Cathy Sedgewick that her husband wasn’t returning. The days would be getting shorter now wit
h summer solstice behind us, but it was staying light past ten still. Lara was wearing a cream-colored T-shirt, blue shorts, and sandals. Her legs were the color of honey in the sunlight. “Hi, you made it,” she said.

  “I just need help moving it into my car.”

  We walked around back and I took in the smaller rectangular patch of lawn directly behind the house and hemmed in with a white fence. The apple tree stood near the back, the main reason Lara had fallen in love with the place when we were house hunting. There had been days when we couldn’t keep up with the number of apples fallen to the ground, pitted with wormholes. Lilac bushes lined the side of the house and were at least twice the size as when we first moved in.

  I shouldn’t have come here, I thought. The sweet flowers and grass smells were blending together and triggering something wistful inside me. I suddenly recalled us having a playful tousle on a chilly fall day, pushing each other into piles of leaves we’d spent the whole day raking, and later paring apples to run through the vegetable juicer we’d bought.

  “See.” She was standing next to the old grill, her hand on one hip. “It’s seen better days.”

  I nodded, agreeing with her and went over and closed the lid, unhooked the gas line, and grabbed the side of it. She grabbed the other and we carefully walked it over to the gate, set it down to open the latch, and continued to the car.

  After getting it situated, Lara said, “Come inside to visit Ellis.”

  I followed her to the back again and in through the kitchen screen door. Ellis sat perched on the kitchen windowsill and meowed demandingly several times in a row when he saw me.

  “Aw,” Lara said. “He’s missed you.”

  I felt something achy sift through me, picked Ellis up, and rubbed behind his ears. He began to purr.

  “Do you want something to drink?” Lara asked.

  “No, I’m good. Thanks anyway,” I said, awkwardly standing in the kitchen as if it had never been my own home. “I need to get going.”