11
The night had
been “early,” as the chief ranger suggested, but way too short, the middle bitten out of it by Rory Van Slyke’s blackmail plans. Anna’d slept the remainder of it with the cassette beneath her pillow, stowed in a plastic box taped shut. It was all she had to protect herself against untold mental cruelty. She would have no peace until she’d made several copies and cached them in safe places.
Between the fragmented naps that passed for sleep and, more productively, during the long hot shower she took before Joan woke up, Anna pondered what to do with her blackmailer. It hurt her to admit it, but on a very basic level she did not trust the National Park Service. This was nothing personal; she didn’t trust any operation that was run by committee and few that were not.
Despite the fact that she had a tape with what amounted to a confession on it, she didn’t want to go to Ruick with her story of Rory’s threatened accusation. The tenor of the country was that of growing paranoia. Americans were happily forfeiting their freedom of choice for imagined increases in security. Mandatory sentencing hobbled judges, taking the intelligence and humanity from their jobs. Zero-tolerance policies for weapons in schools was forcing teachers to suspend children of seven, eight and nine for bringing butter knives to spread their lunchtime peanut butter. Taking away parole and time off for good behavior undermined the incentive system in prisons.
People as individuals were giving up their decision-making power because they did not want the responsibility. Society as a whole chose to believe one-size-fit all so they would not be troubled by the inexact science of justice.
The park service was no exception. The merest hint of litigation sent the brass scurrying. The threat of a sexual harassment suit rendered them virtually impotent. Even the discovery of a plot to make an unfounded accusation would land Anna in a prison of red tape and hushed conversations.
Before she subjected herself to that particular form of slow torture, she had two options: to find out whatever Rory wanted to keep hidden before he knew what she was up to and made good on his threat, or to use the tape for counter-blackmail.
She intended to do both.
Once Rory’s secret—or more precisely, Lester’s secret—was brought to light and broadcast, there would be little reason for Rory to carry out his plan. Revenge was the only one Anna could think of, and he didn’t strike her as a vengeful person. Presenting him with the truth in one hand and the tape in the other would, she hoped, end the matter.
Setting out for the resource management office she crossed her fingers as she’d done when she was a girl and hoped Rory Van Slyke, like most adolescents, would sleep past noon.
Anna had been loaned a vacant desk and computer in the main room of the resource management office. Like most buildings of similar vintage it was painted green inside and out. Within the draping, needle-laden branches of the gracious old pines that surrounded it, Anna had a pleasant sensation of being hidden away in a forest bower.
Settling down in front of the computer, she studied the bulletin board above. It was full of eight-by-ten glossy color photographs of
Ursus horribilis
looking not in the least horribilis. A hidden camera on a motion sensor had caught the great bears in the act of frolicking. In photo after photo their magnificent play was frozen: bears rolling in the blood lure, tossing the scent-soaked wood high in the air, lying on their backs hugging their treasures like sea otters hugging abalone.
She forced herself away from this delightful display to the dreary gray and black of the monitor and took a deep breath. The ineffable odor of government saturated the air: an indefinable smell containing years of burnt coffee, spilled copy fluid and antique cigarette smoke, with a unique overlay of dusty file folders.
If the park service ever got rich and replaced these old offices with wall-to-wall carpeted off-white cubicles, Anna would have to resign.
Time mattered. She put aside the urge to dive into Lester Van Slyke immediately. Whatever secret his son was so dedicated to keeping she was sure it related back, however tangentially, to the death of his wife. Before she began rooting around in Lester’s life she needed to build a frame of reference. Failing to do so might mean that when the secret appeared, should she be so lucky as to stumble across it, it would slide past her unrecognized.
Putting Rory, the threat, the tape and the previous night from her mind, she concentrated on the task at hand.
As a matter of course, she had collected the vital information on the people she’d interviewed. She had names, addresses, and numbers on Bill McCaskil, the Van Slykes and Mr. and Mrs. Roger Heidleman of Detroit, Michigan. They were the couple who’d told her McCaskil spent a considerable amount of time in the company of the murder victim.
Despite these easier paths, Anna chose to start with Geoffrey Mickleson-Nicholson. Ruick showed little interest in him and Joan felt positively benevolent toward this mysterious lone boy. Anna wanted to know who he was. Feminine intuition, or years in law enforcement, made her think he was somehow connected with the strange goings-on. Using a variety of spellings for each name, she ran him under both Mickleson and Nicholson.
Unsurprisingly there was no one by that name on the backcountry permits list. No one by that name had received a ticket for a moving violation in the State of Montana in the last three years, though lacking any numerical data, the search was not as complete as it could be. She found no felony arrest warrants or convictions for either Geoffrey Mickleson or Geoffrey Nicholson.
Moving on, she was reassured to find the midwest as solid as ever. Mr. and Mrs. Roger Heidleman had done everything right. Their backcountry permit was in order. From that she got the plate number of their car and ran it to get Roger’s driver’s license number and date of birth—the keys to the kingdom as far as data was concerned. Other than a speeding ticket in 1998, fifty-three in a forty-mile-per-hour zone, Heidleman was clean. The missus didn’t even have a traffic citation against her record.
Bill McCaskil had also filled out a backcountry permit. He’d filed for the full two weeks allowed at Fifty Mountain Camp. That struck an off chord with Anna. Two weeks is a hell of a long time to camp, especially in one place. The burden of necessary food would be enough to stagger a seasoned hiker. McCaskil looked to be a greenhorn, unhappy and uncomfortable in the natural world.
Using the license plate number on his backcountry permit, she followed the same route along the information highway that she had with the Heidlemans. The results were considerably more interesting. McCaskil was not a pillar of the community. He’d been indicted for fraud three times, convicted and served eighteen months in a Florida state prison. The first indictment was for credit card fraud. The one he’d served time for was a real estate scam. The third was for selling bogus fishing permits for protected marine areas. His prison record took some time but Anna was able to access it. McCaskil had spent five weeks in the prison psychiatric unit for “stress-related antisocial behavior.” Given he was in jail, the phrase could mean anything. Other than the psych ward, he was an unexceptional convict, serving his time quietly.
McCaskil was not a good citizen, but other than the vague “antisocial” label, he was apparently nonviolent. Crooks dedicated to paper crimes—check kiting, insider trading, fraud—were usually no more likely to turn to murder than an average citizen, unless put under undue pressure. However, their chosen profession was more likely to bring them to that point by way of blackmail or fear of exposure than that of a welder or the checker at the neighborhood Albertson’s. McCaskil’s antisocial behavior was linked to stress. Crime was a stressful business.
Anna sat back. The computer screen had drawn her in till she’d been sitting hunched over with her head at an uncomfortable angle and her eyes too close to the screen. Twisting in her chair, she cracked her back in a satisfying rattle of bones. While she’d been lost in cyberspace, the office had come alive. There was the smell of fresh coffee and the hum of humanity at work.
Consciously, she relaxed the muscles of her neck and balanced her head properly atop her spine. Then she brought Carolyn Van Slyke into the mental picture she’d been building of Bill McCaskil to see if the two connected anywhere except around the cold fire pit of Fifty Mountain.
Could Carolyn have been blackmailing McCaskil? Had he followed her to Glacier for the purpose of murder? Anna pulled out his backcountry permit and that of the Van Slykes. McCaskil had arrived three days earlier than they had. It was possible he’d discovered their vacation plans and come to the park to lay in wait. Possible but not probable. Why expose himself so unnecessarily? Fill out a permit, be seen in company of the victim, remain after the deed was done?
McCaskil was from Florida, Van Slyke from Seattle. They’d have to travel a long way to cross paths. Still, Anna made a note to check prior addresses and possible business connections, the obvious being a divorce where Carolyn represented husband or wife.
Unconsciously sacrificing good posture, she returned to the computer screen to digitally pursue the Van Slykes. Their vehicle, a grating combination of the Bavarian Motor Works and sport utility vehicle, was registered in Carolyn’s name. Anna discovered the Van Slykes’ home address, which she’d already obtained from Rory, and the fact that Carolyn was an inveterate speeder, seven tickets in three years. From that one could surmise that Mrs. Van Slyke fancied herself above the law or simply had a lead foot.
Anna went to the photocopy of Ruick’s notes and observations during his interview with Les that his secretary had kindly made for her. In the upper righthand corner neatly printed was Rory’s name, social security number, driver’s license number and date of birth. It was what Anna’d been looking for but seeing it was an unpleasant reminder of her own deficiency. Knowing Rory—or thinking she did—and the fact that he was a minor had worked against her and she’d neglected to get his vital information. She could get the information from Joan’s records but that wasn’t the point. She’d gotten mentally lazy. It wouldn’t happen again.
Yes it will,
she corrected herself, but hopefully not for a while.
Even a minor could rack up wants and warrants. Murder was no respecter of age. Teen killings in schools were big news. Mass murder was relatively new, but kids killing kids was a horror floating mostly unseen and unacknowledged beneath the presumed innocence of childhood.
Molly had participated in a psychiatric study done in 1995 through the joint auspices of three east-coast medical teaching facilities. The findings were unsettling. On too many occasions to ignore, children as young as four years old had caused the “accidental” death of a friend or sibling: the child that died in a fall, the child that wandered into the bull’s paddock, the one who drowned.
With these grim thoughts clouding any natural sunniness of spirit she might lay claim to, Anna ran Rory through the paces on the computer. No wants. No warrants. No moving violations. His only brush with the law had been when he was in his early teens. Twice he’d run away from home. Anna made a note to find out why.
Lester was next. No hits; Les hadn’t so much as been caught running a red light in the previous seven years. There were those who could squeeze a whole lot more of Lester’s life out of the computer, but Anna was not one of them. She would have to do it the old-fashioned way, lowering herself to the archaic practice of actually talking to people.
She went back to Harry’s notes. Lester Van Slyke worked as a quality assurance engineer for Boeing in Seattle. His wife had been with the law firm of Crumley and Pittman, also in Seattle.
Two calls got Anna the number of Boeing’s personnel department. She was shuffled around to three different people but finally got what she was asking for—a list of the company’s quality assurance engineers. Lester was one of nine in the electronics department.
She called the eight. Three were available. Without out-and-out lying, she gave each the impression that she was making routine calls gathering general background information on Lester Van Slyke to the end that he would be granted a higher security clearance on a government project where he was acting as a consultant.
Ms. Tremane was suspicious and told Anna nothing. Mr. Burman was uninterested in helping Lester and came across as jealous of the fictitious government consulting job. He told Anna that Lester took a lot of sick leave, implied that he was accident-prone and hinted that the government could get a more dependable consultant, namely himself. Mr. Richmond was positively loquacious. He seemed to genuinely wish to help Lester get the apocryphal security clearance. He described Les as quiet, self-effacing, humble, intelligent, caring, hard-working and a slew of other adjectives that fit with what Anna already knew. When pressed, Richmond admitted that Lester had been down on his luck for a few years and taken a good deal of sick leave. It wasn’t bogus, the well-meaning Richmond went on to say. Twice Lester had been hospitalized.
Richmond was one of those people who so love to talk that the pure joy of rattling their tongues between their teeth overcomes reticence and discretion. He told Anna Les was concerned about his son. Though the boy seemed to love his stepmom, he’d never really recovered from his biological mother’s death and Les’s remarriage. Riding the tide of gossip, he told her Les always spoke highly of his second wife but not with the love and humor with which he’d spoken of Rory’s real mom. Carolyn, he said, seemed attached to Les. She’d call him at work three or four times every day and Les would get anxious when he missed her call and downright upset when he had to work late for any reason. Anna kept him on the line several more minutes in which “tired, harried and worried” were added to the list of descriptors, and she obtained the name of the hospital where Richmond claimed to have visited Lester.