Mortal Fall

by Christine Carbo

  “I knew”—I pointed at the bartender—“that when she said she ran into him at Costco it was bullshit.”

  “Ran into who?” he had asked me, rhythmically rubbing the spots from the dishwasher off his mugs, as if he did it all day long to calm himself whether the glasses needed it or not.

  “My brother,” I said. “As if he’d have a membership to Costco, for Christ’s sake.”

  Hours later, when I stumbled slightly on my way to the men’s room while I sang along to “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction,” I knew I was tipsy. When I got back to my barstool, the bartender, who I’d learned was named Doug, said, “You ain’t driving this way,” and pushed a glass of water in front of me. “Cops are out in force for the Fourth.”

  “I won’t drive.” I shook my head. “I’ll get a ride.” I pulled out my cell phone and called Ken.

  “What are you saying? That you’re drunk?” Ken asked after I’d mentioned I needed a favor.

  “Not drunk, just, well”—I considered—“careful. One too many, you know. So can you give me a lift?”

  “I’m sorry, I’m home with Chase while Val is out with some friends. He’s asleep. I guess I could wake him, but—” he sounded nervous. “She’d kill me if she knew I drug him out.”

  “No, no, no,” I slurred into the phone, and in some parallel consciousness, in some overseeing mind, I saw my dad and my brother in me and hated myself even more for drinking as much as I had that I had to call someone for a ride. “Don’t get her angry.”

  “Look,” Ken said. “Why don’t I call Bridwell. I’ll bet he can come and get you.”

  “No,” I said again. Somehow through the blur, I knew that the last thing I wanted was for all the other officers to know that Mr. Control, Mr. Thorough, Mr. Detective, as Ken had mocked me earlier, had gone and gotten too drunk to drive. “Bartender’s already got a taxi for me. Yeah. On the way. Just forget it, Ken.” I waved my hand in front of myself. “Just forget it, ’kay?”

  “Okay, you sure? It’s going to cost a pretty penny to get a ride from there to Glacier.”

  “M’sure,” I said and hung up.

  “Want some more water?” the bartender asked me.

  I nodded.

  “You know, don’t you? There aren’t any taxis around. The last company that serviced the airport just went under ’bout two months ago.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I know.” I looked at my cell phone. There was a text from Lara and through double vision, I could see it asked where I was. I deleted it. Then I thought of Gretchen. I felt I could trust her. I scrolled through my contacts and found her name and hit Call before I even fully thought it through. When she answered, I asked her to come get me.

  • • •

  In twenty minutes, Gretchen was there, looking at me with big, blue eyes and a confused and worried frown. “At your service,” she said sarcastically, then added sincerely, “You okay?”

  “I’m fine. Just had one too many and I’m smart enough not to get in the car and drive.”

  “Okay then. I’ll chalk that up as a wise move. Come on, let’s get you home.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and when she grabbed my arm, I gladly leaned into her and smelled the flowery shampoo scent of her hair. When we stepped out, I could see most of the evening had passed, the sun beginning to shoulder the horizon. “Damn.” I waved to the evening. “How’d it get so late?”

  “Apparently drinking the hours away,” she said. “That’s how.”

  I got into her silver Honda, and set my head back. “I really, really appreciate this,” I said when she slid in and closed her door.

  “Yeah, well, as far as I’m concerned, this means you owe me again. What brought you”—she motioned to the bar—“here in the first place?”

  “A ‘reunion gone bad.’ I don’t wanna talk about it.”

  “Okay then.” She pulled onto the highway and I looked out the window, at the passing stores, signs, and fields. I rolled mine down to get some fresh air. The storm had passed through, leaving the ozone smell of fresh rain and earth. A buttery light skimmed the mountains and a herd of deer fed in the field we passed, their bodies tan blobs in the distant green fields. A little farther on, a black dog loped up the side of the highway, his tongue hanging out the side. “Hope he knows where home is,” I said.

  “I hope so too,” Gretchen replied. “The thunder always freaks a few of ’em out, sends them running like they’re being hunted.”

  “I can’t say I blame ’m.” I thought of how I’d run—how I deserted Lara at the party. With my anger dulled by the whiskey, a twinge of guilt struck somewhere behind my heart, panging through my chest. I’d always had Lara’s back and would never leave her in the lurch like that before. “We should stop,” I said. “Check his collar.”

  “I think he’s heading in the right direction.” She looked in her rearview mirror. “He’s turning down Walsh Road now like he knows his way home, which is where you need to be heading too.” Gretchen glanced at me then set her eyes back to the road.

  “You’ve really gone beyond to help me twice now. How come?”

  “I don’t know.” She didn’t say anything for a moment, just kept her eyes on the road. “Maybe because I’m bored.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Or maybe I feel like you’re just trying to do the right thing. I mean, really trying to do what’s right, not just because it’s your job. I guess I don’t come across that level of passion and commitment in all that many people.”

  I stared at her for a moment. I wasn’t quite sure what to say, so I simply thanked her.

  We drove the rest of the way in silence, through Columbia Falls and into the mouth of the canyon, where the setting sun spread a fiery glow over the deep-green water of the Flathead River moving in languid ripples. Several people fished from the banks, casting their lines from drifting rowboats as dusk swelled around them. We pushed through Hungry Horse, Coram, and into West Glacier, where odd-shaped masses of clouds left over from the storm gathered around the dark silhouette of Apgar Mountain standing like a sentry before the entrance to the park. I childishly imagined clouds forming sinister shapes like daggers, hooks, chains, teeth, claws, dismantled corpses, bloodstains. . . . I thought of the jackals outside all the houses that frigid Halloween night I walked home without Nathan.

  Suddenly, something low to the ground darted across the road in front of us, Gretchen’s headlights illuminating its bushy tail. She pushed on the brake, and by the time we slowed, it was gone.

  “Fox,” I said. A flash in the night, I thought.

  “Yeah, definitely a fox. Cute little thing.” She glanced at me. “You’re more alert than I thought you’d be.

  “I guess.” I looked back out my window. The domain of wild animals wove all around the park, around the Flathead Valley and I thought of the wolverine, ominous and defiant against the world, and Wolfie, one of their strongest defenders against the humans who loved to subdue and conquer that which they couldn’t understand.

  I thought of Adam and how a twisted soul like his would always want to insert havoc into others’ lives like a coiled and quivering rattlesnake waiting to strike, if for no other reason than to make his own chaos seem normal. Something one of my professors uttered in one of my psychology classes popped into my mind—that children from troubled homes learn to read people’s emotions with acuity because they’re always trying to determine when things might go sideways. I know I was always overanalyzing, but I considered Adam. I never figured him for the type to bother reading anyone, but now I wondered if he had more figured out about Lara and me than I ever imagined.

  We drove under the trestle, through the gates of the park, over the bridge crossing the Middle Fork River, and to my dorm—back to my little haven in Glacier, as if the park itself was a type of medieval fortress that carried special powers and spells that could inoculate me from my past, from Adam, and from my childhood memories.

  All the way home, I had wa
tched the landscape blur outside my window. Trees, fields and buildings mixing into a pale swirl of motion that made me dizzy. I was feeling guilty and incompetent, the two emotions I hated the most. Now that I was sobering up, I could add embarrassment to that list.

  When Gretchen pulled up and stopped in front of my dorm, I thanked her.

  “It’s not a problem,” she said. “You did the right thing by calling.”

  I leaned over, placed a hand on her shoulder, and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  She smiled.

  “Want to come in?” I asked, my fingers—thick and heavy feeling—still lingering and woven in the ends of her hair.

  She shook her head. “You go in, get some sleep, and take a few Tylenol in the morning.”

  I nodded, gently removed my hand. “Will do.”

  “And if you need a ride to your car, it’s got to be early because I work tomorrow at nine.”

  “Thanks, Gretchen. I owe you. Again.”

  34

  * * *

  I WOKE UP IN the clothes I had worn to the reunion, stood in the shower until the hot water began to turn lukewarm, and despite my usual routine, made myself some scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast because I knew I should get something substantial in my system. I had a headache and felt a little fuzzy, but I wanted to get back to work even though it was the Fourth of July. I thought of Gretchen as I brushed my teeth and rinsed with mouthwash. The night wasn’t as big a blur as I thought it might be, and I clearly remembered how she had said to call in the morning for a ride to my car.

  There was a message on my phone from Lara, from around nine p.m., asking where I was. I deleted it and called Gretchen around quarter to seven. She picked me up by seven thirty and drove me to my car and headed off for her day. I considered asking her what she had planned for the holiday, but I decided not to. It seemed to me that I had gone too far already and had no right to know how she planned to spend her time. I thanked her profusely and said that I owed her. “Damn right, you do,” she said right back.

  I got another cup of coffee at Starbucks and drove straight to Diane Rieger’s—now Diane Hanson’s—house. She was one of Mark Phillips’s ex-girlfriends and had written the poem I found in his office. I needed to talk to Adam too, but not until I did all my homework, so I headed to Kalispell first. I found Diane’s house on the east side surrounded by big maple trees green and busy with birds and squirrels and knocked on her door around eight forty-five. I wanted to catch her in case she and her family had plans for the day and were leaving early.

  She answered, completely dressed in what looked like green nurse’s scrubs, which squared up with the information I had found: that she worked for the valley’s main hospital, the same place Lara worked.

  Unlike Beverly Lynde, she was petite, even smaller than Lara—no more than five foot two or three, and I realized that she could not be the one Nick Ferron was thinking about. She wore clogs and had dark Snow White hair pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck. Her skin was pale and spotless, her eyes the color of her pale-green uniform. Her smile revealed dimples, like parentheses on each side of her mouth, as if everything she was going to say was going to encase beautiful secrets. Yes, she was the type to write a poem, I thought. And she seemed lovely enough for any guy, including Mark, to hold onto a poem written by her, even if it was juvenile and sappy.

  When I asked if she was going to work, she said she was and that hospitals don’t stop just because it’s a holiday. “The Fourth is actually a hugely busy day for us. Lots of stupidity going on.” She smiled. I agreed and said it was the same in my line of work. Then her smile faded, and I told her the reason for my visit as she stood in her doorway. With over a decade having passed since she was with Mark, she looked confused at first. But once she understood, shock registered on her face and said she could spare a few minutes. She invited me in and offered me coffee. I told her I’d already had a bunch and was good.

  She introduced me to her children, a boy and a girl sitting slack-mouthed and mesmerized by cartoons, and told me she’d have to leave a few minutes early to get them to the day care at the hospital. Then she brought me out back to her porch nestled in a small rectangular-shaped, well-mowed backyard with a small koi pond made out of stone. It was fitted with a skimmer and filtration system and looked as if it had a heater attached for the cold weather. “You keep those around all winter?”

  “Try to,” she said. “It’s my husband’s hobby. Sometimes the raccoons get in and eat them, but these’ve made it through this winter.”

  “Nice,” I said.

  “Thank you. We like it.” We sat down at her outdoor table after she took off the cushions and placed them on a rock wall by the patio to dry because she said they were still wet from the rainstorm the night before. She said she couldn’t take them out of the rain because she was at work and her husband was out of town for his railroad shift. I reassured her that I didn’t mind sitting on the chair’s iron mesh without the cushion.

  “So, Mr. Harris,” she said. “How did you even know that I used to date Mark Phillips?” She looked at me confused.

  “I found this in his home.” I pulled out her poem, tucked in a plastic baggie, and she reached out and took it, her fingers petite like Lara’s. She inspected it through the plastic. “In his office among other memorabilia,” I added. “And from there, I discovered that you two worked together at Glacier Academy and that’s how I found your maiden name.”

  “Oh my God. How embarrassing.” She put her hand to her lips, looking surprised. “This is a blast from the past.” Then her dark, delicate eyebrows slanted down pensively. “And how in the world does this old poem help now, all these years later?”

  “I’m not sure it does,” I said. “It’s a long shot that you can even help, but I’m just looking for a clearer picture of Mark Phillips. Anything might help. You can start by telling me how long you dated.”

  “Oh gosh, not that long. Maybe just six or seven months, but we were young and you know how those relationships feel overcharged and important even if they were fleeting. Back then, it felt like it lasted a lifetime.”

  I nodded, thinking of Serena—how we’d found our own haven together on Sundays when my brother was busy with duties doled out to him by the academy, most likely by Mark Phillips.

  “Were you a counselor too?”

  “Yes, I was. For a little over two years. I dated Mark the second year I was there.”

  “And did you think the place was run well?”

  “Well, no, not particularly. There were lawsuits eventually. Why? What does Glacier Academy have to do with Mark’s fall?”

  “Perhaps nothing. Like I said, just trying to understand history, especially after finding your poem. Again, not that it means anything in particular, just one more person who knew him.”

  “But we’re talking years ago.” She held her palm to the sky to suggest none of this made sense, and part of me felt disingenuous and sheepish for bothering her, knowing my brother had been there around the same time, and I had no intention of telling her about that.

  “I’m just being thorough, Mrs. Hanson. Did you keep in touch with Mark over the years?”

  “No, no, not at all.” She motioned with her chin to the poem. “I have no idea why he’d keep that silly thing all those years. Look, Mark and I fell for each other, but it was short-lived.”

  “Why was that?”

  One shoulder twitched up, and I could sense an irritation rising, perhaps reentering old territory she’d worked hard to put behind. “Because, like I said, we were young, and, well, maybe I wasn’t such a great judge of character back then.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I don’t know. That place.” She threw her hand in the air. “It was just messed up. Everything started great. I was so excited to have a job helping troubled kids, to make a mark on the world, to do something heroic and useful, you know, like Greenpeace, without going to the edges of the world, but . . .” She
blew out a puff of air. “I was just a kid too. I must have thought of myself as so much older and wiser, but I wasn’t. None of us were, especially Mark, and the owners—they just weren’t organized. I think they meant well, but they just didn’t know what they were doing and having young adults like us in charge, well, that was just a disaster waiting to happen.

  “I remember”—she shook her head in part disgust, part amusement—“the first time we had to go through the kids’ things. You know, when they check in, they’re supposed to surrender all their belongings so we can make sure there are no sharp objects, no stashes of drugs, that kind of thing. Mark, a guy named Steven, and I were in this little room with about three suitcases and backpacks and stuff from three different kids checking in, but we had no system in place. We had their stuff spread all over the room, checking underwear, bras, pants’ pockets, and on and on—clothes strewn all over the floor—until we got giggly and confused and couldn’t remember who owned what. It took us forever to try to get it all back in the correct suitcases.” She laughed, the parentheses widening, framing her mouth as she recalled the disorder and shook her head. “It was crazy. We were just so, so young ourselves.” She sounded wistful, like a part of her was lost forever and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She tilted her head and looked reflectively across the lawn at a small sandbox in the corner with tractors and other toys embedded in it like an abandoned worksite.

  But I had locked onto one particular word she had used when she began. “Why especially Mark?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. He acted so sure of himself, more confident than the rest of us, like he knew what he was doing and what those kids needed, but . . .” She caught her breath. “He was the lead counselor and he, he just shouldn’t have . . .”

  “Shouldn’t have what?”

  “Shouldn’t have treated those kids the way he did.”

  I could feel my shoulders tense, picturing Adam and the other kids with Mark as their counselor. “How did he treat them?”