Killer Summer

by Ridley Pearson

  “What on earth possessed you to just… stand up like that?” Walt asked Kevin, raising his voice to be heard.

  “I don’t know,” Kevin answered.

  “You could have gotten yourself killed.”

  “I guess.”

  “John said the plan was for you to fire a couple shots, create a distraction.”

  “Did he?”

  “Was that your idea of a distraction?”

  Kevin shrugged, then winced with pain. He wouldn’t be shrugging again anytime soon. “Plans change,” he said.

  “You were lucky it was John. Not many like him.”

  “Do you know him?” Kevin asked, thinking it sounded like he did.

  “I know him professionally. He’s a good guy who got himself in a bad situation maybe eight or nine years ago. Two men dead. In Lemhi County, not my case. Way I heard it, it was self-defense. That’s the way the judge saw it too. Trial was in Hailey, to get a fair jury. John couldn’t seem to get it right after that, even though he was acquitted. He took to drinking, got himself in more trouble. Then there were these men in Challis and Salmon, relatives and drinking buddies of the two who were killed, and they’ll never see it the way the law sees it. It’ll never be safe up there for John. So he just dried up, went to work on Mitchum’s Ranch, and has been a hermit ever since.”

  “Without him-” Kevin started, his throat constricting. He hung his head, not wanting Walt to see.

  Walt tousled the boy’s hair with his free hand, an intimate, fatherly, forgiving gesture that Kevin couldn’t remember anyone doing for years.

  “Listen, he said the same thing about you. Said how you saved his life back there at the river.”

  That gave Kevin another reason to keep his head down. He didn’t want Summer to see him. After a minute, he dragged his left arm across his eyes.

  “Don’t hold that stuff in,” Walt said. “You’ve got to just let it out. We’ll get you and Summer some help, some counseling. It’ll get better, you’ll see.”

  “Grandpa was ticked he couldn’t come with us in the plane.”

  “Grandpa,” Walt said, “has issues.”

  Kevin laughed out loud. Summer somehow heard him through her headset and turned to make connection once more.

  Walt wasn’t about to wander farther into those waters and held his tongue. He noticed that the wound had stopped bleeding. He eased his grip on Kevin’s arm.

  But Kevin immediately reached up and covered his uncle’s hand with his own, reapplying his own pressure. Then the fingers of his bad arm twitched, and they sought out and joined the fingers of Walt’s free hand.

  The two rode out the rest of the flight hand in hand. Nothing more was said. And just before Garman circled the Hailey field to land, Kevin’s head slid onto Walt’s shoulder and he fell into a deep sleep.

  89

  It was such a Jerry thing to do: organize a family dinner on the same night his grandson was rescued from the backcountry. He was obsessed with the public’s impression of his family. Walt believed Jerry’s neurosis could be traced back to Robert’s death. Jerry had to show everyone that the Flemings were okay, that they could rebound from adversity with the best of them. If Norman Rockwell had been alive, Jerry would have commissioned a family portrait.

  Things were already getting back to normal.

  Jerry’s bad timing was matched by his choice of bad location. He’d insisted on the Pioneer, all the way up in Ketchum, rather than any one of the good eateries in Hailey. But the Pioneer was Kevin’s favorite. And Kevin wasn’t about to fight it. Not now, anyway.

  Kevin was stitched up at St. Luke’s and moved to a private room, where he slept six hours before being discharged to his mother’s care. Myra had been uncommonly quiet throughout the ordeal. It had taken Walt several hours to realize she’d been praying.

  For his part, Walt spent most of Sunday on the telephone and in meetings. Dog tired, he finally called a joint press conference with the FBI, emphasizing the success resulting from cooperation between his office and their agency. In a strange, almost surreal, twist, the FBI fielded nearly all of the questions. In the end, according to the wording of the official statement, it was a “well-choreographed, jointly operated raid that had resulted in the safe recovery of assets.” By assets, he meant the two teenagers.

  The dinner itself was painful. Forced but enthusiastic conversation through the salad course when Myra, fueled by white wine with ice, made a reference to Bobby that had silenced the table.

  “I am so done with that,” Kevin said.

  Walt didn’t know if it was his nephew or the painkillers talking.

  “Excuse me?” Jerry said.

  “My dad, the family’s inability to get past his death and remember his life. I don’t want to remember that day, I want to remember all the days that came before it. I mean, come on, people.”

  Kevin caught his grandpa’s startled expression and turned his attention to a baked potato the size of a football. But then something happened that Walt definitely attributed to the painkillers: Kevin lifted his head and bravely entered into a staring contest with the senior Fleming.

  “The thing is,” Kevin said, “I was the one that found him… suicide or no suicide-”

  At this, Jerry rose several inches in his chair.

  “Oh, yeah, I know all about that,” Kevin said. “But I don’t care how he died, I care how he lived. He was a good dad. Maybe not as smart as Uncle Walt or as brave as you, but that only made him different, not bad.”

  Myra had buried her face in her napkin and her shoulders were shaking. Walt reached over and placed his hand on her back, and she sagged toward him.

  “And I’m sick of no one ever talking about him. You all act like he never existed, and that’s just not going to work for me. He was there with me today.”

  He stabbed at the potato, then set down the fork.

  “I dropped that gun because of him, and I don’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. But I’m not pretending anymore that he never existed.” Kevin looked around at each of them. “So all of you had better get used to it.”

  Definitely, it was the painkillers, because his statement was followed by a devilish grin that he fought to conceal but couldn’t. And then, inexplicably, he began to laugh-a small laugh, at first, a chuckle. But it grew inside him and then spread like a virus around the table until everyone, including Jerry, was laughing. The uncontrolled group laugh drew the attention of the crowded restaurant. They were laughing about a dead man and everybody was watching them, noticing them. It was a laugh that made Jerry proud.

  Before heading back down the valley to the now-open bridge, Kevin asked if they could stop by work for a minute, meaning the Sun Valley Lodge. Walt knew damn well he had no intention of talking to the boss, who wouldn’t be there at eight o’clock on a Sunday night anyway. But Walt dropped Kevin off while he and Myra waited silently in the Cherokee, Myra not knowing what to say and for once not trying to.

  Then her shoulders began shaking again, and she reached into her purse and fished out a tissue, cleaning herself up.

  “Thank you,” she whispered hoarsely.

  “No problem,” Walt said, looking out the windshield at the hotel’s reddish façade, thinking briefly of Hemingway as he always did no matter how many times he visited the lodge. He pushed his anger over Teddy Sumner back, having no idea how or even if the law would ever catch up to him. Cantell was dead, and quite possibly so was the connection between the two. Walt had a couple of interview tapes he needed to decide what to do with.

  Kevin came out of the lodge a few minutes later. Despite having his arm in a sling, he seemed to be walking taller. He had a confident, almost smug expression on his face as he climbed into the back.

  “Everything okay?” Walt said.

  “We’re good,” Kevin said.

  “We’re good,” said Myra, unable to control her tears.

  “Mom, get over it,” said Kevin. “She’s just a friend.”<
br />
  Myra’s shoulders continued to shake but now with laughter. She was laughing into her tissue and looking over at Walt, her teary eyes filled with utter amazement.

  90

  – hwz it ging?

  sme. u? WYCM?

  Kevin responded to the “Will you call me?” by immediately dialing her number.

  “Hey,” she said. She sounded so close all of a sudden.

  “Hey,” he said. “How’s the tennis?”

  “Haven’t played.”

  “You should.”

  “You sound like my father.”

  “How is he?”

  “The same. In big trouble. I may have to live with my aunt, or something. It sucks.” A silence crossed the line. She filled it. “No big deal.”

  “I… I think about you all the time.”

  “Yeah. Me too,” she said. “My shrink says that’s part of it.”

  “Mine says I’m supposed to move on. Right… Not going to happen.”

  “We’re coming up there.”

  “Here?”

  “Yeah. Some kind of hearing or something.”

  “I don’t think I’ll ever fly again,” he said. “That’s what I dream about: those flames.”

  “My dad, he cried like a baby,” she said. “Apologizing. As if that’s going to change it. Said how he screwed it all up. I said: Duh!”

  “My uncle says people do weird stuff when they’re cornered.”

  “Don’t go defending him,” she said.

  “You’ve got to forgive him,” Kevin said.

  “No way.”

  “Way,” he said. “So he goes to jail, so what? Maybe you could live up here or something. Maybe it all works out.”

  “Yeah, like that’s going to happen.”

  “It might,” Kevin said.

  Silence.

  “So, will I see you when you’re up here?” he asked.

  “If you’re looking for me,” she said.

  He tried to follow the shrink’s advice and just say what came to his mind, but it wasn’t as easy as she made out, and he heard himself whisper, “The thing is… I think about you all the time. I feel like-”

  “Shut up,” she said. “I love you too. BFF.”

  Best friends forever.

  Kevin swallowed, trying to regain his voice. “No… not for me. It’s more than that, more than BFF.”

  “Yeah, I know,” she confessed.

  He felt good all of a sudden. Incredibly good. “I’m going to see you when you’re up here.”

  “Duh!”

  He thought he heard her crying. Only a few seconds later, mumbling some excuse about needing to be somewhere, she hung up.

  Kevin held the phone in his hand, staring at it. He remembered calling his uncle from the back of the jet as it took off. He remembered leaving the phone by the chimney of the lodge and his uncle telling him how it had helped track him to the ranch. He considered calling the cowboy and thanking him for everything he’d done. He’d been invited to spend time at the lodge and to fish or white-water raft, and he thought maybe that would be a fun thing to do with his uncle. But he wasn’t going to fly in. If they ever went back there, they would have to hike it.

  91

  What’s to become of her?” Fiona asked. The view from Walt’s back porch included a dozen hummingbirds battling for control of the feeder. Shadows from the aspen trees slanted across grass that needed mowing. It was almost nine P.M. He’d made them a dinner of microwave lasagna, peas, and coleslaw from the deli. He was sipping Mexican beer. She preferred red wine.

  “A white-collar guy like Sumner, he’ll win multiple extensions. He’ll push the trial back at least a year, maybe two. Days before the court date, he’ll cop a plea and get eighteen months in minimum, where he can get home visitations and play volleyball. She’ll be in college by then, immune from a lot of it.”

  “I feel bad for her.”

  “Yeah.” He worked on the beer and watched the hummingbirds duel with their long bills, their wings going a million miles an hour. He felt like that more often than not: insanely busy but just hovering in the same place. “We caught the woman. Reno, at the tables. We have the phone records connecting her to Cantell, and our visual of her here. She’ll do time along with the others.”

  “But months, not years. That’s what you said, right?”

  “Way of the world. She’ll do less time than either of the other two. They’re in for kidnapping. Big difference.”

  “Kevin?”

  “Doing better. I owe him a night of fishing. Maybe you could guide us on Silver Creek.”

  “Love to do it. Just name a date.”

  They took Bea for a walk around the block, the smell of barbecue lingering, windows lit blue with the glow of televisions. Crickets buzzed loudly, mixing with the sound of lawn sprinklers. A jet flew overhead, its wheels down for landing. Walt thought back to all the walks around the block he’d taken with Gail, surprised and comforted that those memories didn’t land in the center of his chest. He looked over at Fiona a couple of times and knew she was aware of him doing so, but neither said anything for a long time.

  “You don’t talk much about your life before coming here,” he said.

  “This was-is-a place for me to start over,” she said. “The past is better left where it is. You know?”

  “I’m not sure I know, but I’m learning. Yes.”

  Kids, playing in a tree fort, cried out. The tree fort had a stained-glass window and an asphalt roof. Walt wondered if this was the right place to bring up kids. The private jets. The tree houses.

  “It’s not the same place it was ten years ago,” he said. “This place.”

  “You’re tired. You need a break.”

  “The girls will be back from camp tomorrow.”

  “You must be looking forward to that.”

  “Big-time,” he said.

  Bea raced out ahead of them, then circled back and came to heel on her own. Fiona reached down and rubbed her head, and Bea jerked up to lick her hand; Fiona laughed.

  Walt nearly said, “I could get used to this,” but held his tongue for fear how she might take it. Baby steps, he thought.

  “We could go over to Henry’s Fork,” she said. “It’s fishing really well. With Kevin, I mean.”

  It would mean motel rooms. Three or four days at least. Meals together. A five-hour drive each way. That was the subtext, and it wasn’t lost on him.

  “I don’t think I’m good enough to fish Henry’s Fork,” he said,

  “but Kevin would love it.”

  “I can teach you,” she said. “It’s what I do, remember?”

  “With the girls getting home, we couldn’t do it right away.”

  “But you’ll think about it?” she asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  Beatrice ran to the base of a tree and barked up at a pair of crows. Walt called her back to his side.

  “You’re probably buried with work, anyway,” she said, giving him a way out of such planning.

  “I am. But I always am. I can get away. It’s got to be coordinated with Kevin’s schedule. He’s back at the lodge. Lisa would have to watch the girls.”

  “They could come, couldn’t they? We could take turns with them. They’d love the park. We could do a day trip.” They walked another half block. “Too pushy?”

  “No. Not at all. It’s me and work. That’s all. I love this job, but it owns me. I have to prepare for the hearings. There’s a ton of paperwork to get done. There will be pleas. I don’t always see eye to eye with our prosecutors. I don’t want to be away and miss something.”

  “If the kids hadn’t been on the plane,” she said, “do you think they would have gotten away with it?”

  “I suppose the insurance would have paid out. If they hadn’t, then the plan was to go back months later and fly it out and sell it out of the country. A jet can hide for a long time in the Nevada desert.”

  “So in a way Kevin and the girl… they’
re the ones who stopped it.”

  “And the bird strike-the plane going down. But, yeah, they did. It’s true.”

  “Young love,” she said. “Chalk up another one.” Bea licked her hand again, causing Walt to reach down and tug her collar. “I didn’t mean to lessen your role in it,” she said.

  “I didn’t take it that way.”

  “But you’re okay. Right?”

  “With wounding a man and killing another? Is that the question being asked?”

  “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “You have every right to,” he said. “I don’t have an answer. That’s the truth. I don’t know what to say. He’d fired and hit John. Was aiming for a second shot. You don’t think at times like that. You just do what you do and live with the consequences.”

  “I didn’t mean-”

  “So here we are,” he said. “Do I think about it? Yup. Can I do anything about it? Nope.”

  “It’s past,” she said.

  They looped around the block and headed back toward the house. What was at first an uncomfortable silence settled away to the sound of Beatrice’s paws on the asphalt and the rustle of their clothing. A neighbor waved and called out to Walt, and Walt called the man by name returning the greeting.

  Walt’s hand brushed Fiona’s, and for an instant he considered hooking her fingers with his, and maybe she was having the same thought the way her eyes looked out straight ahead, but nothing came of it.

  “Beautiful night,” he said.

  “Someday I’ll tell you,” she said, surprising him.

  “No need. You’re right about the past. I like what you said.”

  “Easier said than done, like everything else.”

  “Looks like the Dalai Lama’s coming to town.”

  “Are we changing the subject?”

  He chuckled.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Well… not nothing. Gail and Brandon.”

  “What about them?”

  “Just before the auction dinner, she ripped him a new one. Made him heel like a bird dog.” He rubbed Beatrice’s head.