Mortal Fall

by Christine Carbo

  I sat and took a long gulp and as I set my beer down, I went through the files I’d researched earlier in my head. Names flashed through my mind: Jonathon Fieldland from Seattle, Zachary Gentry from Missoula, Paul something or other from Syracuse . . . a Bradley Talbert from Kalispell, Montana. I left my drink on the table and went to the men’s room. Mr. Talbert, apparently Will’s father, stumbled out of the bathroom stall and went to the sink and clumsily turned on the water. He looked in the mirror at himself, squinting, trying to make sense of his own sagging face.

  He reached for the soap, but couldn’t figure out where the push lever to dispense it was located, so I reached over. “Here, let me help you there.”

  He looked at me, that same baffled look, his eyes trying to catch some purchase, then muttered, “Uh thanks.”

  “Are you Mr. Talbert?”

  “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “Are you Will’s father?”

  He squinted at me, one eye completely closing, then began to laugh, his head swaying on his shoulders.

  “You’d have t’ ash him,” he said, then stumbled out of the bathroom. “He’d say no.”

  I pushed the lever on the soap dispenser and watched the pink liquid trickle down onto my palm. I figured it had been purchased in bulk, which, in and of itself, meant practically nothing since—I was also certain—a hundred other restrooms open to the public used the same type. But I couldn’t help think about what Gretchen had told me—that a residue of a commercial-grade soap was found under Phillips’s nails. I wiped it off my hand, grabbed my phone, and dialed Gretchen’s number, waking her up after all. She answered with a groggy voice, “Monty?”

  “Yeah, hi. Sorry to wake you, but I need a favor. Can you look online to see if a Brad and Will DeMarcus underwent any name changes and call me back with what you find? I wouldn’t call you this late if it weren’t important.”

  I went back out and sat down with my half-empty glass of beer, and eyed it suspiciously. I got out my smartphone again and pulled up the Internet. Sometime last year, I recalled that there’d been a few incidents in the town of Whitefish where several women had claimed they’d been slipped Rohypnol, the date-rape drug, while out at some of the local bars. If I remembered correctly, the date-rape drugs, specifically Rohypnol and GHB, were difficult to detect in a normal autopsy, much less a body that had been decomposing outside and fed upon. And even the full-panel toxicity test Wilson had sent to the lab, which took four to six weeks to get back, might not show the drug. For Phillips, Gretchen had said there had been no sign of struggle, a low level of alcohol, and residue from a type of commercial soap. I searched until I found the article, but it didn’t mention the name of the bars suspected.

  I took my beer with me to the end of the bar farthest from the men still talking too loudly and leaned into it with one elbow, motioning to Will. He looked around, then came over. “Hey, Will,” I said.

  “Hi,” he said. “You need a drink?”

  “Nah.” I held up my beer, the amber liquid rich in the light of the bar. “I’m still good.”

  Will picked up an empty to the side of me and put it in a tray full of other dirties.

  “I wanted to ask you,” I said. “Did your last name used to be Talbert?”

  He looked at me and blinked several times, one of the obnoxious men laughing boisterously and saying something to Will. “They’re calling me,” he said. “Just a minute.”

  “Will,” I said, catching him before he slid off. “I’m just wondering—the man over there.” I pointed to Mr. Talbert now studying something in his empty glass, his head bent over it like a broken-stemmed bud. “He says you’re related.”

  Will shook his head. “He’s a crazy ol’ man,” he mumbled as he scooted off down the bar.

  I waited for him to serve each of the men down the bar another beer, then called him over again, but he either legitimately couldn’t hear me or was acting like he couldn’t, so I moved closer and leaned in further. “Will,” I said.

  The expression on his face said he was annoyed to be bothered.

  “Your brother, Brad,” I said firmly. “Did he go to Glacier Academy?”

  Will frowned, deeply furrowing his brow. “What?”

  “Did Brad go to Glacier Academy?”

  “Why?”

  “I was just wondering if—”

  Lindsay, the cocktail waitress, walked up and called out for two glasses of the Trouchard and a vodka martini with extra olives for the cackling table of ladies.

  “ ’Scuse me,” Will said. “I’m busy here.” He hustled to the other end of the bar before I got out another word.

  I walked back to my seat and studied him. After Will filled the wine and made the martini, he said something to Lindsay as she stood holding the tray of drinks. They were nearly arguing, then Will walked into the back room and she looked confused and a little angry. I put a ten on the table and went up to her. “Excuse me, Lindsay.” I waved her over.

  She came and I said, “Is everything okay with Will?”

  “Yeah sure.” She shrugged. “I mean. I guess so. He doesn’t usually leave before closing, but whatever. Can I get you another beer?”

  “No, I’m good. I left some money on the table. Any idea where he went?”

  She shook her head, “Just said he needed to leave. Wants me to close up.”

  My radar shot up. I walked out the front, the only exit available to the patrons, and went around the block to where the back employee entrance was. It was dark and empty. I scanned the parking lot directly behind it for anyone getting into their car or leaving, but saw no one, just a couple giggling as they walked down the sidewalk. Will had either headed home on foot or had already pulled away.

  I went to my car and got my gun out of the trunk, where I’d locked it before going in, and drove the few blocks to Will’s apartment complex toward the railroad district. The windows of his apartment were dimly lit. Either Will had left a light on or he’d already arrived. I sat and watched for a moment, trying to see movement in the apartment, and also kept one eye on the street for anyone walking up on foot until my phone buzzed.

  I picked it up. “What did you find?”

  “That Willem’s and Bradley’s birth certificates show that they were born twins on April eleventh in Kalispell to an Ericka and Ray Talbert. At twenty-two, both Willem and Bradley Talbert changed their names to Willem and Bradley DeMarcus, the same as their mother and stepfather. Ericka married John DeMarcus in 1990 when the boys were nine.”

  I thanked Gretchen and told her I had a strong hunch, and that I was going to question Will DeMarcus again and would call her back as soon as I knew more. The fact that Will’s brother was also at Glacier Academy, and had worked for Wolfie before committing suicide was interesting. It didn’t mean Will murdered anyone, but I wanted to check it out, especially since Will left the bar early after he saw me there.

  I drove and parked outside the apartment complex, just as Ken and I had done before, and peered up at the windows of his unit. I waited, watching for movement to see if he was inside, but I didn’t see anything. I got out, tucked my gun away, locked the car, and went up the stairs and peeked inside the window. The light was coming from the hallway, but other than that, it didn’t look like Will was home.

  I knocked on the door, but no one came, then checked through the window again, still not seeing any sign of him. I went back down the stairs thinking I’d have to come back in the morning to talk to him. What I had learned was suspicious and interesting, but not enough to get a warrant. I strode through the shadowed street and went back to my car. My thoughts returned to Adam, and I wondered if Adam had known Bradley DeMarcus. I tried to remember the dates that Bradley was at Glacier Academy, and thought I recalled that it was several years later than Adam’s stay, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have a connection. I dug in my pocket for my keys as I got to my car, thoughts of Adam still plaguing me, and just as I was about to open my door, I heard the click of a gu
n safety unlatching by my right ear.

  “Stop,” he said, “and hold your hands up.”

  I could see a man’s reflection in my car window and was sure it was Will. My heartbeat shot up and I cursed myself for not being more on guard. His voice sounded strained, slightly shaky. His 9 millimeter was pointing no more than five inches from my head.

  “Hold it,” I said, shaking my head and raising my hands as he instructed. “Don’t pull that trigger, Will. It’s Will, right?” I looked slightly to my right, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see his face. I could sense fear in him, and I felt a solid dose of intense terror shoot through myself. Fear could be good or it could be really bad; scared-shitless people made for jittery fingers. People pulled triggers because they felt power doing so, or because they were angry or scared and had snapped. Or because they felt nothing at all, as if they were simply playing a video game and pulling the trigger gave them a rush. Will, he felt things, I could tell by the sweat gathering on his temple, the strain in his eyes, and the quiver on his lip.

  “Will,” I said as calmly as I could muster. “You need to point that someplace else. Point it at the ground.” I could hear his breathing, shallow and shaky—almost staccato.

  “Don’t look at me. Face the car.” The voice was rising. I hoped like hell someone from one of the apartments would look out and call for help. I did what he said and looked forward, back into the reflection of the car window.

  “He deserved it. He hurt my brother. He raped my brother.”

  I was going to ask who, but was afraid I’d interrupt his train of thought. “I’m sure he did a lot of things,” I said, still facing the driver’s door of my car. “Let’s drop the weapon and talk about it.” My head felt light. I knew it was the adrenaline mixed with the sharp stab of fear.

  “He’d come in all smug into my bar after his hikes,” Will continued. “Like he was some mountain man, at one with nature, healthy and fit as can be—his own body a temple. As if he’d never hurt a soul. Talking about his hikes and all the peaks he’d bagged like they were badges of honor, and he was some hero.”

  “We could have arrested him for what he did to your brother if you’d gone to the police.”

  “No, it was years ago.” I could see in the reflection that he was moving his head in small, frantic shakes. “Didn’t know about it until it was too late. Until after Bradley had killed himself. Now it’s too late for you. I didn’t want it to come to this, just like I didn’t want—” He stopped himself.

  “Didn’t want what?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “For Wolfie to die?”

  “You need to shut up now,” he said.

  “If you kill me, you’ll go to jail.”

  “Not if no one knows. Not if I take you to the woods, and they never find you.”

  “People know I’m here—that I’ve come to see you.” I considered my options. I could elbow him, but the safety was off, and one quick move might make him fire. I could inform him that I was slowly going to turn toward him, so that he could see my face. It always made it harder to shoot when you looked into someone’s eyes, and he was obviously wanting to talk, needed to justify his actions. Facing him would give me more options.

  “You’re lying. No one knows, and if they do, it’s a chance I’ll have to take.” Will’s hand was beginning to shake, but he kept the gun pointed right at my temple.

  “I’m not lying. Look,” I said, my hands still up. “I’m just going to slowly turn toward—” and then I felt the hard steel of the gun come crashing down on my head, felt my legs go instantly numb and weak, and my body crumble as the colors before my eyes went from pinkish red and gray to black.

  • • •

  My limbs still felt numb. Everything seemed smeared together in my head, which seared with pain, but I tried to get control of my thoughts—tried to remember who I’d been talking to and why, and where I was, but all the answers seemed to be swirling outside my head, just out of reach. The vision in my right eye was fuzzy. I felt rough carpet underneath me, and heard the hum of a motor. I realized I was in a trunk, and the car was moving. I felt terror rise up in me, flood into my head, which already was hurting like hell.

  I inhaled thick dust and felt the vibration and bounce of a rough road below me. We were on gravel. Maybe a logging road.

  The bartender. Will had hit me, I remembered. Will had put me in a trunk, and now we were heading somewhere. I tried to think through the fog, but I had no idea because everything, including my panic, was swimming away as raw streaks wormed into my vision and made everything dissolve to black again.

  47

  * * *

  I WOKE UP, THIS time clearer, and I was still cramped in the trunk. My trunk, I thought, because the shape, the carpet, and the sound of the motor all seemed familiar. Still driving, but now on smooth, paved road. The same paralyzing fear overtook me. We were heading somewhere where it was very dark. My knees were tight against my chin, and my wrists were bound before my stomach. I could feel them chafing and swelling against the tight ropes, but at least they weren’t behind my back. The muscles on my neck ached, my head was still throbbing as if it had been split down the center, and a pain pulsed down my curled spine.

  I tried to piece the night back together again—Adam, Ken, the police station, Adam’s cabin, the bartender, the Snow Ghost. It was coming back. I had had a beer. I had noticed that Will’s father had a different name than DeMarcus. I had phoned Gretchen to ask about a Mr. Talbert.

  Lying in the trunk while the car rolled along, one of the panels hot against my side, I remembered telling Will that I was going to slowly turn to face him, and that’s when it all had gone black. With my bound wrists and my elbows jammed into my stomach, I tried to wedge my arms to my side so my hands could pat my pocket. I couldn’t feel my cell phone. I knew he’d taken my gun as well because I couldn’t feel it against my waist. I ran through the time I had spent in the bar, going over what had made it obvious to Will that I was on to him—or at least suspicious, and wondered if it was when I followed his drunk father into the men’s room.

  Whatever it was, this much I knew: Will had killed Mark Phillips because Will’s brother, Bradley, had been hurt by Phillips. He raped my brother rang in my ears. I knew this as well: Will planned to take me somewhere and dump me over a cliff, just as he had done with Phillips. Just as he might have done with Wolfie, and judging by the curve of the road and the feel of the pavement, it was going to be very close to the others, if not exactly the same—the Loop. I knew better than anybody how empty the Going-to-the-Sun Road was in the middle of the night. We had been on gravel earlier, so if I was correct that we were now on the Going-to-the-Sun highway, it meant we took the unpaved North Fork Road to the north entrance with no cameras.

  It had to be three a.m. Even in the middle of tourist season in Glacier Park, it was highly unlikely anyone would be passing by. People needing to travel from east of the Divide to west of the Divide in the middle of the night were not tourists. They would be people trying to get somewhere and that meant taking Highway 2. During the day in the middle of summer, Going-to-the-Sun was no place for solitude, but in the middle of the night, it was a different story. Nobody was coming to help.

  I heard no sound coming from the car besides the motor, no radio, no talking. It had to be only Will. No accomplice. I remembered thinking of Adam as I was walking to my car and felt sick to my stomach that I’d been obsessing about him. Had I not had such tunnel vision, maybe I would have taken Will more seriously, maybe I would have felt him behind me—a shift of air or a soft footstep, my flesh prickling with instinct and making me turn and pull my weapon.

  I forced myself to stop it. Now was not the time for second-guessing. I took a shallow, shaky breath and played it out it my head. Will would open the trunk, force me to awkwardly climb out with my hands and feet bound, holding the gun to my head. He’d still be nervous, though. I could sense that he wasn’t a killer by nature.
He was scared, didn’t know what else to do, like a man who accidentally killed his girlfriend in a fit of rage. Will was afraid of jail, and if I were to guess, Will didn’t want to kill me. He just felt cornered and was afraid of getting caught. My only chance was to make the most of that fear.

  Beneath me, the car slowed and took what felt like a 180-degree turn. I knew we had just rounded the hairpin curve of the Loop. Then we parked, and adrenaline shot through me. Suddenly, a flush of images reminded me why I wanted to stay alive: Lara, with her delicate fingers and large eyes, Gretchen, luminous and glowing, smiling; Adam, angry and sneering, perhaps human after all; my job in the Crown Jewel of the Continent. Maybe I didn’t have kids to fight for, or maybe I’d found some type of false sense of order in my tidiness and diligence, as Lara implied, but at least it kept me from drifting aimlessly. In Glacier, in my job, I belonged, and not as a dead corpse at the bottom of a ravine, but as an officer and a detective. I would fight for it.

  I was in a full sweat when I heard the engine cut, the jangle of the keys, and the driver’s door click open. Will’s footsteps, crunching on the pavement, sounded like a hundred small shuffles. He was nervous, I thought, and wanted to get this over with.

  The trunk suddenly popped open, and I could feel an instant cool mountain breeze wash over me. I’d have known the smell of Glacier Park anywhere—the resin of pine, the chilled sighs from the mountains, the sound of roaring water in the distance.

  I saw a thick band of dark clouds from the earlier rain captured by the tall mountains and a partial moon straight above me shining a pale, very dim light on Will. I was right, his gun was pointing down at me. “Get out,” he said.

  I tried to steady my shaking and did as he said—made my awkward climb out of the trunk, with my hands bound before me and my ankles tied. The car swayed when I sat up, and I saw it was my car, which made sense. It would be easier to throw me in my own trunk than drag me down the sidewalk to a different vehicle. I realized this as I accidentally knocked the crown of my head again on the inside of the hood. I reflexively tried to lift my hands, but couldn’t get them very high up with the ropes around my wrists. “Will, listen to me. I wasn’t lying when I said someone knows I was onto you. Look at my cell phone. Check the log. I made some calls to find out why you and your brother’s names were different from your dad’s.”