Mortal Fall

by Christine Carbo

  “Far as I’m concerned, served him right.” Adam’s voice went back to normal.

  For a moment, I thought he meant Nathan. “Served who right?”

  “Phillips.”

  “Phillips?” I tried to resist sitting taller in my chair, tried not to move a muscle as I wondered if it could really be this easy. If Adam was going there after all. I considered that maybe he was tired of it all, maybe his guilt was finally brimming over and he wanted to simply be put in a small cell where tax dollars could care for him.

  “You think I killed him?” His face showed no expression now. “You think I’m capable of murder? Well, you know what, I might just be.” He chuckled. “But I didn’t do it. If you think I had anything to do with that, then Jesus, Monty, you really suck at your job.”

  “You’re the only suspect with ties to both victims,” I said evenly.

  “Can’t help you with that. Maybe you haven’t looked hard enough.”

  “You and Phillips were picked up a year ago for fighting.”

  “As you can see, I like to fight. Especially pricks who take advantage of their power.” I couldn’t tell if his comment was directed at me or Phillips, probably both.

  I changed directions. “That what Sedgewick was doing? Taking advantage of his power through his brains, through his research and the likes of you and Dorian didn’t like that?”

  “No, I had no problem with your man, Sedgewick. He looked like he cared about the wilderness, which in my book isn’t such a bad thing. It’s more than I can say for Dorian. He pretended to be someone who cared about the land, but he didn’t. He’d slaughter anything that moved, given the chance, and trust me, he had plenty. I had no bone to pick with your man Sedgewick.”

  “But you did with Phillips?

  “Did.” He nodded. “And that ended when we fought.”

  My look must have sent waves of incredulity his way because he started shaking his head in small little moves, narrowed his eyes, and pointed at me. “You sit there all smug with your notebook and your partner here.” He gestured to Ken with a toss of his head and for a moment, I had forgotten that Ken was even in the room. “Not believing me—thinking I killed not only your friend, Nathan, but two other men. You’re out of your mind. You’re completely clueless, Monty. I was your shield, that’s what I was. Get it?”

  I closed my eyes in disbelief that he was going there again.

  “Before you were born, want to know how it was with Dad?”

  “You need a tissue or something?”

  “No, you listen.” Adam angled toward me. “Before you came along, he used to take me to the bars in the middle of winter. Thirty degrees out and he’d leave me in the truck for hours getting drunk and would forget to come out and turn the heat on for me until I’d have to go in and get him or freeze to death. And do you know how old I was, Monty? Four. Four years old.”

  I threw a quick embarrassed glance Ken’s way, then turned back to Adam. “Like I said, if you need a tissue, sorry, we don’t have one. This is a police station, not a therapy suite.”

  “I don’t care what it is. You need to hear this.”

  “Maybe I do, but not now, and Officer Greeley and I, we have—”

  “He couldn’t leave me with Mom,” he interrupted, loud and direct, his voice slicing the room. “Because she was too pregnant with you and couldn’t be stressed out with me around bothering her. And I was old enough, he used to say, to hang out for just a little while in the car by myself. As if it was safe out in some bar parking lot about to freeze to death, watching him drive home drunk, hitting reflectors on the side of the road, then crossing the center line back and forth. Basically fearing my life, and eventually yours whenever Dad went all cross-eyed. When you came along, Mom got worse—call it postpartum depression on top of everything else she had. But they at least had a built-in babysitter, and I was relieved to not have to go with him until I found out it wasn’t any good at home with Mom either. As bad as any bar parking lot, just different. Scared all the time that she wasn’t going to wake up after taking all her pills or when she did wake up, that she’d think I was put there to spy on her.”

  I thought about the prospect of Adam being able to remember these things at the age of four, then realized I recalled some of the more dramatic events that involved my mother and father at that age as well. “Poor you, lots of people in this world are dealt a not-so-stellar family hand, doesn’t mean it’s an excuse to screw up your life.” I knew I shouldn’t be entertaining the discussion.

  Ken was sitting there, eyes wide open, his mouth slightly ajar. I was glad he wasn’t chewing his usual gum.

  “Besides, you think it was nice and pleasant for me. You think I loved getting the crap beaten out of me by my babysitter—as you call yourself.”

  “Better than freezing outside in some shithole bar. Dealing with Dad’s fits of anger and getting the shit beat out of me.”

  “Oh, and dealing with your fits of anger was any better? Huh? Living in terror that my big brother might fly off the rails and beat the shit out of me for having my hair combed in the wrong direction or think it’s just thigh-slappin’ fun to lock me in a basement closet for hours?”

  “Hours?” He shook his head. “You don’t get it. You never will. Yeah, I was a little hotheaded, still am. I admit it. I was angry. Angry that I had to be your shield. I sure as shit didn’t have one. It pissed me off—the unfairness of it all and Mom wanting me to protect you from the CIA or aliens from space or anything else that popped into her head. Yeah, I was angry, all right.”

  “And that’s supposed to invoke all sorts of sympathy? Huh, Ken.” I lifted my chin to him. “You feeling all sorts of sympathy for this guy, here?”

  Ken looked at me funny, cleared his throat, and said, “I think we should get back on the subject of—”

  “I’m not getting back on any subject about Sedgewick or Phillips,” Adam said loudly. “I didn’t kill either one of those guys. I’ve been angry for a long time, yeah, but that doesn’t make me a criminal. You can do what you want with me, but it won’t be for the murder of Sedgewick or Phillips.”

  “And Nathan?” It came out expectantly. I blurted it out before I even considered what I was saying, and immediately I was horrified that I had. Everything seemed to go silent except for a faint roar, like the ocean in my ears. I stared at Adam like an idiot, my mouth partially open, and my grip on my pen so tight I almost snapped it in half.

  A small, faint smile crept to Adam’s lips that he’d gotten to me—that his little whisper act had resonated, then he slowly said: “Fuck you, Monty. I’m done here.” He gave a sloppy-handed wave toward the door. “Go do your paperwork or whatever it is you do.” The electricity had completely vanished from his voice. He sounded spent and exhausted, his eyes even more bloodshot in the harsh light than they appeared on his porch. “Go do what you need to do.”

  Suddenly I felt chilled surrounded by the cement blocks capped with the garish-green ceiling. In reality, if I were to be honest with myself, I had been thinking of my brother as a killer for longer than you’d expect, way before this case. I knew that there were things in the world—certain truths—that you could decide to look at face-on or peer to the side of, live with a little ignorance for the sake of getting by. You don’t grow up in a family like mine and not learn a certain dose of denial; a certain amount of self-preservation comes from not staring directly at the blinding light for too long.

  The river he had mentioned kept pinging in my mind. I remembered steam rising from water, but I didn’t remember being by water that night. He was right: I wanted more, like a coyote sniffing out a weakened deer, I wanted more on Nathan Faraway than I wanted to confess. I’d never admitted it to myself. I kept it pushed down like a nightmare, like some subterranean animal that wasn’t supposed to show itself in the light of day, but here it was under these bright fluorescents, peaking its ugly head out of its hole, and I was finding it difficult to turn away.

  But
as much as I wanted it, now was not the time. I stood up and carefully slid my chair back under the table, looked at Ken, and motioned to the door. We walked out, not saying a word, and before I closed the door behind me, I saw Adam drop his head.

  • • •

  “What are we going to do?” Ken said when we returned to the observation room.

  “I don’t know. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know, but I don’t think he’s our man.”

  “Why? You fell for all that family bullshit?”

  “No, it just looks like he’s telling the truth. Look, the reason most cops don’t interrogate their own family members is because they’re likely to not go as hard on them, somehow convince themselves that their relative didn’t do anything, didn’t commit any crime. With you, man, it seems like the opposite. Are you sure you don’t have him already tried and convicted of these murders just because he is your brother?”

  I thought about it, ran my fingers through my hair, and rubbed my eyes. “Yeah, I see what you’re saying. I’m sorry you had to sit through that.”

  “I had a feeling it might go to other matters.”

  “That’s a nice way of putting it.”

  “So who’s Nathan?”

  “Old stuff,” I said. “A friend from years back that went missing and was never found. I’ll fill you more in later. It’s not pertinent now. I shouldn’t have gone there.”

  “You want to press charges for the assault?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “Let him go. If he’s guilty of murder, something else will pop up and we can get him then.”

  “What if he runs?”

  “Then we know he’s guilty. Charging him now would only ensure he kept his mouth shut, just like Dorian did. If he’s out there free, he might lead us to something else.”

  Ken sighed, pulled out a piece of gum from his pocket, and popped it in his mouth. I was relieved to see something habitual that I had gotten used to because the world looked different all of a sudden, like I had shifted a kaleidoscope slightly to the side for a different arrangement, a different pattern that still made no sense. “Will do, Officer,” Ken said to me and walked out.

  I stayed put staring at Adam. He had receded back into himself, his stare toward the wall, but a million miles away on absolutely nothing. His face was slightly turned to the side, and in that particular angle, I realized his profile—the high, sharp cheekbone, the shape of the chin—resembled mine and our dad’s. We were definitely related. I turned away, began to get ready to leave, wondering who the hell my brother was and who the hell he’d become—some odd mixture of brawn, anger, and his own brand of ethics. The question of whether or not he was trying to make his way in the world in a less than lethal way than I’d originally thought was plaguing my mind as I slipped out of the station into a soft pattering of rain that had moved into the valley.

  46

  * * *

  I COULDN’T GO RIGHT home. My mind buzzed with thoughts of Adam and I felt completely revved up. First, I sat silently in my car, the droplets of rain collecting softly on the windshield and the street lights shining in the dampness of the pavement.

  Columbia Falls was quiet and ghostly with only a few stray cars passing on the main drag. I wanted someplace busier, someplace with energy and laughter to shift my mind from the degree of self-loathing I was feeling for getting into it with Adam over family nightmares in front of Ken. Deep down, I was frustrated that I couldn’t pinpoint whether my brother was a sociopathic lying murderer or a person who’d changed, adjusted, and grown up enough to get by in the world—someone who could still throw a good punch or hold a good headlock, but in general had moved beyond the disturbing acts of hurting others to prop himself up to higher self-importance.

  I felt like an amateur because I couldn’t tell. I’m sure any psychologist would tell me that the ambivalence about a sociopath is part of the process, that it’s exactly what sociopathic individuals work to achieve—the illusion that they’re good deep down and capable of change. They play on your own gullibility, your own belief and optimism that people you care about deserve a chance. They prey on your refusal to understand that people like my brother might just be made that way, and all the help in the world wouldn’t make a difference in the long run.

  I told myself I knew better than to be fooled. Sure, we were letting him go for now, but if he’d done it, I was more determined than ever to find out. I started my car and drove to Whitefish where I knew more people would be out and about the touristy town. It was going on one a.m., and I figured I had enough time just for my usual two drinks—enough to settle my nerves so I didn’t have to go stare at the blank walls of my dorm, unable to find sleep and thinking of Adam, my dad, my mother, Lara, and all the things this case had brought up out of nowhere.

  It was as if this case was a prism, through which collections of translucent images from my past were being filtered, tossed about, and doled out to me. It made my head spin and weakened my reasoning. I refused to let that happen. I had worked too hard to get to this point. It was important that I remained calm, relaxed even, but even more precise in my moves from here on out. I didn’t want to go to a bar because I was interested in drinking: this would be no repeat of my stint following the reunion. I simply had no desire to be in my dorm alone. I craved normalcy, some smiling people—not so much to engage with them, just to be around them so that I could relax and, hopefully, think clearly.

  The Snow Ghost Bar and Grill was busier than I expected and, with its golden evening lighting, looked more inviting than it did when I met the veterinarian, Dr. Pritchard, for lunch in the middle of the afternoon with only the sunlight from the front windows streaming in to illuminate the lounge. About half the tables were occupied and the bar was still lined with people, just as I had hoped. Will was working, serving drinks to the patrons lined before him. I found a seat at an empty table not far from the bar and ordered a beer from the cocktail waitress. I thought of Gretchen, halfway wished she was with me to go over the case. I wanted to ask her about the trace elements in the car, but would have to wait until morning. She didn’t need to be woken up in the middle of the night with questions from me.

  I was sitting near a young couple that were crooning and melting into one another. Beside them sat a wiry and white-haired man hunched over a glass of whiskey, definitely looking like he shouldn’t drive. I hoped he was within walking distance to wherever he was headed after closing. Two red-faced men farther down the bar were arguing over politics with big gestures and loud voices. A round table was full of garrulous middle-aged women and some low, throbbing music droned in the background. I sat back in my chair and watched everyone, trying to shed the evening’s events.

  When the cocktail waitress brought me my draft, I thanked her and started up some small talk, asking her about her summer, where she was from, and whatnot. It felt good to act like everything was normal, like I was just some visiting tourist and that I hadn’t just interrogated my own brother in a jail room. She said her name was Lindsay, and she wore a tank top, her shoulders sunburned as if she’d been out playing on the lake or up in the mountains all day.

  “You’ve been busy tonight?” I asked her.

  “Yeah, always this time of the year. It’ll slow down for just a few weeks in the shoulder season, but even that’s getting smaller and smaller these days.”

  The drunk from the bar stood up and staggered toward us. “I’d like another,” he slurred to Lindsay. “Will won’t serve me.”

  “Mr. Talbert, you’re going to have to stop now. It’s close to last call.”

  He looked at her with the confused face of a drunk—one I’d recognize anywhere—for a moment, shrugged, then stumbled off to the bathroom.

  “Poor guy. He lives nearby.” She shook her head sadly. “He’s lonely. Gets drunk a lot. His son’s a bartender here, so he comes in quite a bit even though it drives him crazy.”

  “His son works here?” I asked.

  �
��Yeah, Will.” She motioned to the bar.

  “Yeah, I know Will. I thought his last name was DeMarcus?”

  “Yeah, it is.” She shrugged. “Not sure how that works. You better drink that one quickly if you want to get another in before last call.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “That probably won’t be a problem.” I watched her saunter off to the next table, a tingling sensation starting in my arms and spreading to my fingers. I’ve read that some creative people, like painters, musicians, or writers, claim that halfway into their paintings, songs, or stories, it is almost no longer their piece, and that some greater energy or muse takes over—that the painting almost paints itself, and the song or story nearly writes itself.

  Now, I’m not pretending that solving a case is some creative process; quite the opposite. It involves fact-finding and plenty of objective thinking, but when a case begins to come together, begins to make sense, there is a similarity to other creative endeavors. I experienced it as a game warden, as Park Police, and on the Lance case while working with Systead. At some point, all the cogs begin to rotate as one. Information that feels like it’s free-floating suddenly finds gravity and pulls together into something that makes sense. Clues fall seemingly out of nowhere right into your lap and eventually, order emerges.

  It feels like sheer coincidence, but perhaps it’s just the power of the brain—subconscious parts leading you to a particular clue or spot that your mind has been dwelling on and steering you toward anyway, so that when the hint pops up right in front of you, it feels like luck . . . like the detective angels are out there looking out for you, when, really, your own mind has been setting you up for a break all along.