The Wild Inside

by Christine Carbo

  “Uh, no, thanks.” He sat up straight, poised.

  She shrugged and took a few draws of her own and held it in her lungs with her chin lifted.

  “Ms. Lance.” I sighed. “Finding who did this to your brother involves us trying to dig up as much information as possible about him, especially the days leading up to when this awful thing occurred.”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea of what he’s been up to for months now.” The edge in her voice didn’t match my initial impression either.

  “And why is that?”

  “In case you haven’t figured it out yet, my brother wasn’t exactly a pillar of the community.”

  “Your mother told us about his addictions, and we know he was charged with theft at a local convenience store.”

  Megan pursed her lips together and tapped her cigarette into a glass ashtray spotted with dirty black spots. “I didn’t much approve of his lifestyle, so we stayed clear of each other.”

  “When was the last time you saw your brother?”

  “I believe it was this summer. In Aug—” She caught on the word, suddenly betraying her sorrow or perhaps guilt for not seeing him sooner before his life was taken. I waited, the silence not going anywhere, providing enough space for her eyes to well up. I could hear the cars driving below on Nucleus Avenue. She peered out the window toward a flattop roof across the street, but she looked as if she weren’t seeing the things in front of her, only working the task to push back tears. “In August,” she said firmly and crushed her cigarette into the tray. “I saw my mom give him some money and it pissed me off. We were at a barbecue for my uncle Lou’s birthday out at the cabin. And you know, even at a fucking family barbecue, he had the one-track mind going, like a dog sniffin’ out a bone.” She shook her head angrily. “After my mom gave him some money, he left, and then I had some words with her about it. I ended up leaving early and angry.”

  “So August—what was this barbecue?”

  “Eighteenth. Uncle Lou’s birthday.”

  “And where’s the cabin?”

  “In Glacier. My mom’s family is one of those that, somewhere along the line, got grandfathered into being able to keep property in the park, near Apgar.”

  Surprised, I glanced at Monty. I made a note that I needed Monica to run a full background check on the mother’s family. I hadn’t expected Victor to have a connection to the park. There are a number of people who still have cabins and even a few who reside year-round in Glacier. “Near Apgar on Lake McDonald?”

  “Yeah, near Fish Creek, you know, up that dirt road from McDonald Creek, near those other cabins.”

  “The north Apgar Road?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “And someone stays there year-round?”

  “My uncle Lou does. My grandparents have both passed on. They wanted Lou to have it. He loved it the most and spent a lot of time there in his life. He takes good care of the place. Plus Lou works in Hungry Horse, closest to the cabin.”

  “So your uncle, his last name?”

  “Shelton.” She took out another cigarette with a limp hand, lit it with a blue lighter, and folded one leg up under her. The picture of her with her brother on the raft came to my mind, and I imagined her lazily dangling her toes in cold Lake McDonald, enjoying her brother’s company in happier times. “My mother’s maiden name.”

  “Were they close?”

  She blew smoke out of the corner of her mouth so that it plumed before the window. “My mom and Lou?”

  “No, Victor and your uncle?”

  “I doubt it, but you’d have to ask Lou.”

  I glanced at my notebook, the black stripes across the yellow paper, my chicken scrawl tilting backward like most lefties’ writing does. I lifted my gaze back to her with intensity to stake claim to the idea we needed to get down to business. “Help us out here, Megan.” I lowered my voice. “What’s the deal with your brother? What trouble was he mixed up in?”

  Megan took another drag. “I don’t know what he’s been into lately. I honestly don’t.” She looked tired, caught between grief and anger like a semicolon between sentences, resigned to the loss, but pissed about the waste of her brother’s life. We knew she was two years younger than Victor, twenty-five, but her eyes held hardness the way shells hold the ocean, as if on some level, she considered that Victor chucking his life away perhaps made no difference—that perhaps it didn’t matter if he tossed his life into a Dumpster at age eleven or lived an entirely different life—nurturing it with care until it took root and blossomed, then withered into old age.

  But perhaps I was being overly dramatic because of the bear growling at me from the corner of my mind. “Somewhere along the line”—she sighed heavily—“things just went wrong. They say some people are just born bad apples, and I’ve wondered if my own brother was one of them because even though he could be really sweet at times, he just always seemed to make bad choices. That day at the cabin, when my mom gave him money, I wasn’t upset because he was using again. I’d long since surrendered to the idea that he was a fuckup, and ain’t never going to change that. But my mom, see, she’s a good apple, and I didn’t want to see her pissing any more money away on him.”

  “Understandable.” I leaned in closer, my full interest on her. I could sense Monty shifting slightly closer too. “And why a bad apple? Why not just someone troubled or someone hurting with a nasty addiction?”

  Megan shook her head, her lips tightening again as if she might clam up. I sat back again to give her space. She didn’t speak.

  “I mean,” I tried again, “there’s the obvious—the meth. Was there something about that or any other bad-apple stuff you can think of that could get him killed?”

  “Honestly, mister, I wouldn’t know. It’s just an expression. Basically, my brother could piss off a lot of people.” She lifted her chin, anger now full in her eyes, the grief going somewhere else for the moment, as if it had gotten a nibble of relief and scurried back to its hiding place.

  “Do you know any names? Who his dealer was?”

  “No, they were always changing. Last one I knew was a guy called Stimpy. I think ’cause his name was Stimpson. Don’t know his first name and this was at least a year ago.”

  I saw Monty write it down. “Do you remember any others?”

  She shook her head.

  “What about girlfriends?”

  “Oh Jesus, he had all sorts of winners in that department. Some girl named Tara for a while, don’t know her last name. And someone named Rita. Don’t remember hers either. And Mindy. Mindy Winters. And Leslie Boone. And there were lots of others here and there.”

  “Would any of them have any reason to hurt him?”

  She shrugged. “My brother could be pretty mean, verbally and physically, but he could also be a charmer. If he set his eyes on you, he could make you feel like the most special person in the world.”

  “He hit any of them?”

  “Not sure, but I saw a black eye once on Mindy, if I remember correctly. Not to mention . . .” She trailed off, looked out again. A group of chickadees flew perfectly in unison, zigzagged before the window, then all landed together on a wire linking to a roof across the street. I could tell she saw them because her eyes darted as she tracked them.

  “Not to mention . . .” I nudged her on.

  She cradled her cigarette in the ashtray and stood up, leaving the smoke to rise in a cloudy, borderless bundle between Monty and me. “Look, can I get you some water or something?” She shuffled to the kitchen, her slippers scuffing across the floor.

  “No, thanks.” I reached over and nonchalantly put the cigarette out. Monty had already backed his chair a few inches away from the table, and I could tell by the slightly strained look, the tightening between his nose and his upper lip, that he was trying to avoid inhaling too deeply. I figured not many park
employees were used to cigarette smoke. “You were saying?”

  “Nothing.” Megan opened a pumpkin-orange cabinet, the paint chipping along the edges and exposing a darker wood underneath. “Not really sure.” She had the type of body where, from the waist up, she was very thin, but her hips were round and curvy, her jean-clad thighs rubbing against each other when she walked. She closed the cabinet door a little too loud and brusque, her anger definitely outweighing her sorrow.

  Monty and I stayed seated. “Look, Megan, I know your brother wasn’t a good brother, but good or bad, he was your brother, and he still deserves a thorough investigation of this crime. Were you about to say not to mention that he hit me?”

  “Oh Jesus.” She laughed a cold laugh, moved her wet hair behind her shoulders, and shook it out while raking her fingers through it. “Are you fucking kidding? Plenty. But it’s not like I didn’t hit him back. We weren’t exactly your average Disney family. But, you know, I eventually learned to stay clear of him. But that’s not what I was going to say.” She wiped the back of her hand across her cheek as if there was a leftover tear there, although I didn’t see one, perhaps a trail of salt. “What I was going to say was, not to mention his more recent craziness. Just something I heard”—she waved her hand in the air and looked at the floor—“maybe involving animals.” She leaned against her Formica counter the color of dirty river runoff and crossed one leg over the other.

  “Animals?” Monty asked surprised. “You mean incidents of animal cruelty?”

  Megan shrugged. “Possibly.”

  “Since he was young?” Monty asked again and this time, unlike when we questioned Penny Lance and he chimed in, I was slightly taken back and irritated to hear him questioning Megan—to know he was somewhat of a participant, a poacher in the waters into which I was casting. Instead of feeling like a productive mentor, I felt a stitch of resentment rise inside of me, and the only possible explanation I could conjure was that Monty had defended Ford in the car. Not obnoxiously, just enough to add some edge, just a tiny minnow of an intrusion in already crowded waters. I shoved the twinge down because I knew I was being irrational. I refocused on Monty’s question, which also irritated me, especially since Megan was about to tell us about a particular incident, and Monty was leading her to the more general—away from the specifics, a no-no in police inquiry. But still, I was curious. His question was pertinent to understanding Victor Lance. If he was abusive to animals as a youngster, it could indicate that he was a potential sociopath.

  “No.” She shook her head. “Nothing like that. It’s, it’s just something I heard lately. You have to understand that Victor was an angry and confused kid, especially after our dad left.”

  I nodded. “Your father split when you were pretty young?”

  “Yeah, he moved to Washington when I was about eight or nine.” She came over and sat back down. “We stayed with him some when we were little. After he moved, we rarely saw him after that. Victor was pretty hurt when he left, went into a sort of depression for a long time. I remember when he was little, he used to be really good at spelling. Loved to study the dictionary even and always used to win the school spelling bees, but after our dad left, he quit trying in school completely and my mom couldn’t get him to spell a word for her, even for fun, after that.”

  “Victor and your father were close?” I asked, giving in to the line Monty had taken us down.

  “I guess.” Megan shrugged indifferently, but her eyes showed something akin to fervor. “As close as you could get to a guy like my father.” Now that we’d gotten her going I sensed that she could go on, resentment now eclipsing the fond memory that had risen. “I guess that would explain Victor’s mean gene. My dad was no picnic either. Hot-tempered and hated certain groups of people. Catholics, Jews, Arabs, black people, liberals, you name it.” She laughed bitterly. “Christ, he’d never even met an Arab or a Jew, and you could count the number of blacks on one hand who live in this town, so I have no idea what there was to hate. As it is, the whole friggin’ area’s an advertisement to the Aryan Nation.”

  “So, Megan”—I needed to rein this in—“what was it that you heard involving animals?”

  “Well, that’s what I was getting to when you brought my father into it.” She sounded like an upset child, irritated by my question. She relit the cigarette I had snuffed out, sat back, and held it to her young lips, plump and now pouty. “Last spring, there was an incident with a dog at the mouth of the canyon, near Columbia Mountain turnoff.” She pointed her cigarette out the window, in the direction of the canyon, where the Flathead River cuts through. “It was written up in the local paper. Someone had tied the poor thing, a Lab or something, by its leash to a fence post, then beat the shit out of it with a bat. I remember being disgusted, but not thinking anything more of it.”

  “Uh huh.” I gestured for her to continue.

  “Then in July, I ran into my brother’s longtime buddy, Daniel. They’ve been friends since elementary school.”

  “Your mom mentioned him.”

  “Anyway, we had a few beers together and he brought Vic up. Said he was worried about him using again. I had said, ‘What’s new,’ but he said he heard something strange. Said he’d heard from another mutual friend of theirs, Rick Pyles, that my brother and another guy were the ones that beat this poor dog. That they’d been trippin’ out of their minds.”

  “Do you remember who the owner of the dog was?”

  “No, but it was in the paper, so you could look it up.”

  “Did the dog die?”

  “Eventually. The article said he was taken to a vet, and they put him out of his misery.”

  “How did you leave it with Daniel?”

  “Nothing really. What was there for us to do?”

  “Did you talk of doing something about it, going to the cops or talking to your brother?”

  “Yeah, we discussed it. But we weren’t positive it was Vic. Just hearsay, you know. And going to him would only piss him off. I did tell my mom about it, but she said that it was just talk and that she knew he would never do something like that. She begged me not to spread such lies.”

  I remembered Penny Lance’s look when we were done talking and actually, I had a pretty good idea that she at least suspected her son had changed enough, perhaps because of the meth, to possess the potential to do something like that.

  “Thank you, Megan, we’ve taken up enough of your time and you’ve been a great help.”

  “What’s next?” she asked.

  “We just keep plodding along, asking questions. We may need to ask you more, but for today, that’s enough.” I stood up.

  She crushed her cigarette out, stood, and walked us to the door. She seemed stronger than when we had come in, as if our questions, or rather her answers, were some form of sustenance.

  8

  “BEAT THE SHIT out of a black Lab.” Monty winced, then made his signature whistle when we returned to the car. The whistle didn’t bother me; I was sort of expecting it now, like the regular chime of a clock.

  “Sounds like our victim definitely pissed some people off.”

  “I’d say so,” Monty said dryly. “I think I remember reading about that in the paper. Nice guy, huh?”

  “A real love bug.” We learn early that it’s best to never sympathize with the victim, to never get emotionally drawn in over any factor at all, even if the victim was a child. But honestly, when the victim was a creep, staying neutral was definitely much easier. The danger of going too far the other way, not caring at all and even feeling contempt, was equally ill advised. Both extremes invited miscalculations and misjudgments. “I’ll get Monica on the news article, and we’ll pay a visit to the treating vet and the owner of the dog. Right now, I want to speak to Lou. With his cabin being closest to the crime scene, there might be something there.” I looked at my watch. I’d definitely be working very
late.

  “And what do you think about the animal thing?”

  “Could be something there. It’s hard to say. If the owner of the dog found out who did it, I mean, it fits with the teaching-him-a-lesson thing. Sweet revenge. Tying him to a tree for any wild animal to give him what he deserves?”

  “But what about the gunshot? If you were going to let him get tortured by wild animals, why kill him?”

  “Yeah, it doesn’t quite square. Unless you went back to check, saw that no animal had gotten him yet, so you shot him. Then as luck would have it, that animal comes along anyway.”

  “It fits,” Monty said. “I know people love their animals, but would anyone go to such lengths and kill someone over it?”

  “People kill over much less. I worked on a case where the guy killed his buddy over a motorcycle that they’d both worked on. And it wasn’t even a Harley, some piece-of-shit Honda. But, thing is, it’s always best to stick with the most straightforward explanation.”

  Monty looked at me with an eyebrow raised.

  “This meth business, right?”

  He nodded.

  “It’s the most obvious thing, and no denying that the meth world is one messed-up place. ’Course you know that excessive users are prone to paranoia, violence . . . schizophrenia. Yeah.” I nodded. “Twisting this into some kind of animal cruelty situation would probably be a mistake, but that doesn’t mean we won’t check it out.” I looked out the window at the pines interspersed with the bright golden tamaracks on the hillsides against a milky, fading sky that scattered a dull, pointless light, one that suggested a lack of grace, meaning, or purpose. It was the thing I hated most about Montana, the endless gray throughout so many months of the year, as if it were mocking my inability to stay buoyant and content. “Whoever got him out there must have used the gun to do it, and trying to secure tape while holding a gun to someone’s head would be tough. It’s definitely plausible that this was more than a one-man job.”

  “But doable for one.”