by Lisa Stowe
Chapter 31
The drive back to Florence’s was empty of conversation and Cody listened instead to the rhythmic rub of tire on pavement, the wheezing of the heater trying to warm the Jeep, and the slight intakes of air from Rachel. It was as if she wanted to talk, kept breathing in to form words, and then exhaling back into silence. Cody figured she was trying to find a way to apologize for her abruptness and didn’t want an apology. And so she rode in quiet, too.
As they parked and walked up the steps to the house, the cold air bit, grabbed on, and sank its teeth deep into every inch of exposed skin. With the sun well down, the shadows in the bottom of the canyon were like dark robes of winter.
Inside the house, the warmth from the woodstove was as welcoming as Sunny’s broad smile.
“So, how was it? Did you try leading? Want to try some free climbing with no gear?”
“It was more fun than I expected,” Cody said, shedding her coat and making for the woodstove. “But I doubt I’ll ever go without gear.”
“Give it time,” Sunny replied. “Matt wanted me to call him when you showed up so I did, and he, like, says to get changed for dinner ‘cause he’s on his way.”
Cody’s stomach bottomed with the same sense of dropping into a void as when she fell on the climb.
“You know, I think I need to cancel. I should check in on my mom.”
“Yes!” Sunny shouted, pumping a fist in the air. “I bet Matt twenty bucks you’d say exactly that!”
Cody turned to hide the warmth in her cheeks, wondering if she was really so predictable.
“How’s Granny?” Rachel asked as she dropped the pack and gear next to the closet door.
“Oh, we had so much fun. We built a wild west town with the Monopoly pieces and had a really nice gabfest. She, like, scarfed down the pizza I had delivered, and then fell asleep in the armchair. I had to almost carry her to her room.”
“So she was clear, knew who you were?” Rachel asked.
“Oh no,” Sunny said. “She thought I was you, then she thought I was her mother, and at one point she was calling me Brandy. No idea who that is.”
“Her dog,” Rachel said. “She had it when she was a child.”
“No wonder she kept telling me to sit." Sunny picked up her purse, a multi-colored rectangle of beads. “See you ‘round.”
The front door shut behind her and Cody waited while Rachel stared at her with an odd expression somewhere between fear and puzzlement.
“What?” Cody finally asked.
“I don’t get you, that’s all." Rachel dropped onto the couch and stretched out her legs. “Better go get ready for that hot date.”
“You know what Rachel? Sometimes I don’t get you, either." Cody tossed her coat on the back of a chair and left.
In her room she took her clothes and threw them across the bed. But there was no reason to change because everything looked the same. Drab. She shoved them on the floor and sat down on the quilt.
She truly didn’t understand Rachel. Sometimes she was supportive, sometimes she made Cody forget herself and laugh, and yet sometimes her words cut almost as deep as May’s.
Cody stood, dressed, and jammed the rest of her clothes back into the duffel and hefted it up. Who was she fooling? She hadn’t known any of these people long enough to think of them as acquaintances let alone friends. Was she so desperate for company? She didn’t need friends, and she sure didn’t need to go out to dinner with a forest ranger. What she needed was to be alone. She’d never been completely on her own, and maybe if she was she’d figure out what to do with this life of hers.
She dropped her chin, her shoulders slumped, and she drew in a heavy breath. It wasn’t Rachel making her grumpy. It was the thought of dinner. Best to just get it over with. She rummaged around through the clothes looking for her wallet before remembering it was in Rachel’s Jeep.
Back in the living room, Rachel was slung across the couch, an afghan tossed haphazardly across her legs, and eyes closed. Cody trod quietly across the creaking floorboards and Rachel didn’t stir.
Outside, Cody made her way down the steep steps, running her hand reluctantly over the rough wood handrail. She wanted to grip it, to hang on and freeze movement as still as the cold mountain air. Two cars had pulled off the road. One was a Forest Service Bronco and the other a big battered Ford diesel pickup. Cody expected Matt to get out of the Bronco, and was surprised when Hailey jumped out and ran, notebook in hand, to the truck.
Matt got out of the truck and faced Hailey as he shoved hands in his pockets as if restraining them.
He looked different, Cody thought as she neared. Taller, shoulders broader, blond hair and green eyes more defined, like late summer sunlight on mountain water. Maybe it was because he was out of uniform, in jeans and a black shirt, sleeves shoved up and some sort of design above a breast pocket.
Cody left the steps reluctantly as nausea shoved nerves around in her stomach. She realized suddenly that it wasn’t Matt who looked different. It was that she looked at him differently. He’d changed from someone safe, a Ranger who was working on a murder, to a man who wanted to have dinner with her. Something that washed away all her newfound confidence and left her exposed.
“You’re not listening to me, Tanner,” Hailey said.
“You’re right,” Matt said as Cody slipped past Hailey and pulled open the passenger door of Rachel’s Jeep.
Hailey slapped her notebook against her thigh. “I told you what needs to happen here! And what needs to happen now!”
Cody rummaged through the papers on the Jeep floor, searching for her wallet, trying to be invisible.
“And like I told you earlier,” Matt said, his voice level. “I think you’re wrong. I think you’re on a personal vendetta.”
Cody found the wallet, shoved some papers back from their bid for escape, and shut the door.
“That thing’s a mess,” Hailey said, watching Cody a moment before looking back up at Matt. “I want you to do something right for a change.”
“Oh, that’s going to help,” Matt said. “Insulting your superior.”
Hailey started to speak, started to bounce up on her toes, and then all movement stopped and the cold air seemed to move into her eyes.
“Never mind,” she said, and started for the steps to the house. “I need to speak to Rachel.”
Matt and Cody both stared after Hailey as she reached the landing half way up the stairs. She paused for a moment to stare down at them before turning her back and continuing to the front door.
“She’s…different,” Cody managed.
“She’s bizarre,” Matt said, and ran a hand through his hair as he sighed heavily. “Let’s eat and pretend she doesn’t exist.”
Cody gestured to the insignia on his shirt, a Celtic design and the words ‘Ardbeg’. “What is that?”
“A very fine single malt whisky.”
“Rivers like whisky,” Cody said once she’d pulled herself up into the truck and buckled her seatbelt. “She said it lowers her stress.”
“That it does,” Matt said, starting the truck. “Though she likes Lagavulan. I’d settle for either right now. Hell, I’d even take Tullamore Dew, and that’s not even scotch.”
Silence slipped in after the words, and Cody looked out the passenger window, staring at trees and rocks. What could she talk about except murder? She didn’t know Matt. The weather? The climb she went on? She wished for a moment that she was home, cooking dinner, with her mother at the table criticizing what she was doing. Back where life was familiar and safe, if not happy.
“Looks like you fell,” Matt said, gesturing at Cody’s scraped arms. “Unless someone punched you again.”
“A fall. Only a few feet. Rachel stopped it.”
Silence fell again. Should she continue on the climbing theme?
“We did part of the Crack Horror. Went through Nate’s camp to get there.”
“No shit." Matt glanced away from the road, frowning. �
��I didn’t know there was access from that side. Rachel know Nate was there?”
“Sounds like she stumbled across his camp. She only talked to him briefly." She gripped her fingers tightly in her lap.
“Huh. I’ll have to try that access. I like the Horror. Did you do any of the crack itself?”
“No. We were almost there when I fell.”
Matt laughed, a sound that filled the truck and left no room for nerves. Cody relaxed a little, settled into the seat a bit.
“The third pitch,” he said. “I’ve fallen a few times there myself. And Kelly always fell there. I don’t think he ever made it up the crack.”
“Kelly was a climber?" Cody braved a quick glance at Matt’s profile.
“Oh yeah. Not in Rachel’s caliber obviously. His climbing style was kind of like a rugby player in a ballet.”
Cody’s fingers loosened with audible pops and she flushed, hoping he hadn’t heard. “Are we going to the Corner?”
“No. I thought we’d go down to the Pulaski. You’ve been to the Corner a couple times so I thought you’d like to try something different. And I figured if I offered to cook at my place you’d hit the highway and burn rubber.”
The flush warmed and spread. But she knew he was right.
“I’ve been in the Pulaski,” she said.
“I know. I heard. But you were in the bar and the food’s not edible there. In the back there’s a half way decent diner and they make great Reuben’s.”
“So what were you going to let me know?”
“Jess has been upgraded and can have brief visits. I thought maybe after dinner you’d want to go by and see her.”
“Sure." Cody thought about Jess, her kindness and professionalism. And giving her the cell phone that she rarely remembered to carry. “Oh. That reminds me. I forgot to check the cell phone to see where that whisper call I got came from.”
“That’s not a problem anymore,” Matt said. “It’s tied in with Keith.”
“You still think Keith killed his son?" Cody tried to keep the skepticism out of her voice, not wanting to offend him. “How do you think he made it up the trail?”
“What are you talking about?" Matt turned onto Cedar Street while staring at Cody and bounced over the curb. “Sorry. But what did you say?
“You were talking about Keith on the phone. Like you’d solved everything.”
“Not the murder,” Matt said. “I’m after Keith for what’s happened to you.”
“I don’t get it." Cody shifted sideways in the seat to look at Matt.
“We’re still working on the murders. Kelly and Nate. Nate’s dad. And Jess being shot. It’s pretty obvious they’re all linked. But that’s not what I was talking about. I meant your room, you being assaulted, the calls you’ve been getting.”
“But, isn’t that because of Kelly and Nate? Weren’t you thinking it was something I’d seen? I mean, the camera was taken.”
“Hang on. I can’t talk about this and drive at the same time." He pulled into the parking lot of the Pulaski Bar and shut the engine off. “Okay. At first I thought everything was connected. Just like you said. But as we worked the scenes, Jess said everything kept pointing back to Keith. Like you, we couldn’t figure out why he would kill his grandson. So it didn’t make sense until I started separating out the events.”
“They’re not connected?" Cody tried to make the various threads meet and tie together, but her thoughts were a tangled ball.
“What’s been happening to you isn’t connected to Kelly and Nate. It’s connected to your grandfather. Keith told you how many times not to dig into the past?”
“I don’t know. A few. But-”
“Hear me out. Keith didn’t want you bringing back old rumors about Ethel. You said you only wanted to learn about Charles. But Keith couldn’t risk it.”
“Risk what? I’m totally lost here.”
“Okay. Let me back up. You go to the museum and meet Rachel. What souvenirs did you buy there?”
“I don’t know." Cody thought back trying to remember something that seemed like it had happened to someone else. “Pamphlets with stories about Wallace. The Sunshine mine fire. The 1910 fire. Some histories.”
“And shortly after the visit to the museum you start getting whispered phone calls. So do you drop history? No. Not only do you keep digging for Charles, you threaten Keith.”
“I didn’t threaten him!”
“Okay, maybe Jake exaggerated. Either way you pretty much told Keith you were going to keep looking. And what happens next?”
Cody could only shake her head, hoping the movement might jostle thoughts into place.
“Your room gets ransacked and you get assaulted. And what was stolen from your room?”
“My camera." Cody took in a deep breath of revelation. “And pamphlets.”
“Back to history." Matt pulled the keys from the ignition. “Let’s get some food. We can finish in there.”
“No, wait. Tell me." Cody caught his arm.
“Okay, but I’m starving here." Matt dropped the keys on the dashboard. “Did you talk to Keith about looking for Charles’s birth certificate?”
Cody again tried to remember back over the last few days. How could things connected to her grandfather have become so trivial that she was forgetting? Why were things like visits with Rivers, laughing with Rachel, Kelly’s smile, so utterly clear?
“I don’t think I mentioned the birth certificate. I think I just told him I was going to look closer at Ethel.”
“And I think that’s all it took." Matt’s stomach growled and he absently rubbed it. “Think about camouflage for a minute. Remember T.J. Culhane? At the senior center? And you told me about running into him when you were looking for Florence. Which reminded me that you’d mentioned shades of green when you got assaulted.”
“Camouflage,” Cody said, as a mental thread became untangled.
“I went over everything with the police, and today T.J. was picked up while driving down Sixth Street on a quad, with a rifle on his back and an open bottle of Rolling Rock in his lap.”
“A rifle?" Cody flashed on Jess spinning and sinking, on blood flowing.
“He’s not the one who shot Jess,” Matt said. “But he was in a pretty damn talkative mood. And once he started talking, the Deputy called me in. Culhane said Keith hired him to steal some old papers. To make those prank phone calls to you, trying to scare you off.”
“But why?”
Matt’s stomach growled again. “Come on Cody, please can we go get some food?”
Bemused, Cody got out of the truck and followed Matt toward the bar through the deepening twilight. She struggled to separate the things that had happened to her from Kelly and Nate’s murder, but it just wasn’t making sense.
In the bar, Matt led her back to some tables, flagging a waitress on the way and asking her to bring them at least three different kinds of appetizers. Once they had sat down and accepted glasses of ice water, Matt planted his elbows on the table.
“You’ve been looking at Ethel because Charles thought she was his mother. Did he ever wonder about his father?”
“No. His dad was a railroad man. His dad is the one who told him to question his parentage.”
“So why did you think he meant Charles’s mother?”
“Florence thought it. Charles always thought his dad was a secret spy or something. You know, kid dreams.”
“Well Florence was partly right, but she’s not exactly all there you know. I’ve been spending most of the day talking to Keith, and would you like to finally know who your family is?”
Cody opened her mouth to say of course she did, that this was the whole reason she had come to Wallace. But the realization of what Matt was going to say froze the words in her throat. She shook her head slowly.
“Ethel was his mother,” Matt said, and his voice grew gentler. “And Keith was his half-brother.”
“No.”
“Keith says he can prove i
t, although he’d prefer the whole story die. His father was having an affair with Ethel, just like everyone thought. She got pregnant and had the baby, but agreed to adopt it out. Keith’s father then had Keith with his wife. Two sons, one legitimate, one not.”
Cody gripped the sides of her seat. It had been one thing to consider Ethel as family. A strong woman, independent for her times, taking care of a child she couldn’t acknowledge. But to find out Cody was related to someone as nasty as Keith?
“No,” she said. “That can’t be.”
“What?”
“I can’t be related to them! I don’t want them!”
“Cody, you can’t pick your relatives. And they don’t define who you are.”
“Like I don’t know that!" Cody stood up. “All these years dealing with my mother. Then Charles shows up and here’s family I can be proud of, someone who loves me. And he dies. So I try to find more family like him, and what do I get?" Hot tears burned across her cheeks. “Keith! I don’t need more family to treat me like dirt. I just…I just want to belong someplace where I fit.”
“You didn’t just get Keith for family,” Matt said, and his voice was still calm, and his eyes held sympathy, and she hated it.
“No I didn’t. I got Kendra, too.”
“I meant Kelly,” Matt said. “He was a good person. He was someone to be proud of.”
“He’s dead, Matt. And you just made it worse. The family I could love consists of two men who are dead.”
Cody’s throat ached with the weight of loss. She shoved her chair out of the way and ran.
