Dead Right (26 page)

Officer Grimsman: Where did you go that night?

Montgomery: (breathing hard—no answer) Officer Grimsman: I’m talking to you,
Clay,
and I can promise you it’s going to get real ugly if you don’t start cooperatin’. Do you hear me?
Real
ugly. And not just for you. For your mom and your younger sisters.

Montgomery: Leave them alone!

Officer Grimsman: Where did you go?

Montgomery: Corinne’s house.

Officer Grimsman: What?

Montgomery: (louder) Corinne Rasmussen’s house.

Officer Grimsman: What happened while you were there?

Montgomery: Nothing. We just hung out. Ask Corinne or Jeremy. They’l tel you the same thing.

Officer Grimsman: When did you return?

Montgomery: About nine o’clock.

Officer Grimsman: That early?

Montgomery: It was a school night. And I was hoping to beat my mother home.

Officer Grimsman: Did you?

Montgomery: No.

Officer Grimsman: She was there when you arrived?

Montgomery: Yes.

Officer Grimsman: Was she angry with you?

Montgomery: What do you think?

Chief Jenkins: (holding subject’s arms back)
So Montgomery couldn’t strike
was written in the margin, but Hunter suspected Clay wasn’t the one swinging his fists.

Chief Jenkins: Officer Grimsman is not the person answering questions here.

Montgomery: (head hanging down) Of course she was angry with me. I’d disobeyed her.

Officer Grimsman: Were you punished?

Montgomery: She said I’d be punished when my stepfather got home.

Officer Grimsman: But he wasn’t home yet.

Montgomery: How many times do I have to say it?

Several lines had been blacked out right below that.

Officer Grimsman: Wasn’t anyone beginning to worry about him?

Montgomery: (answer difficult to decipher) Officer Grimsman: Clay?

Montgomery: No. We figured…he got hung up at the church. He sometimes…had meetings that…ran late. (shakes off Chief Jenkins)

Hunter frowned while shuffling through the papers. So the chief had restrained Clay that whole time? Or had he been holding Clay for Grimsman to
convince?

Whatever had happened, the next line didn’t fol ow.

Chief Jenkins: What about you?

Montgomery: I don’t have any secrets.

Officer Grimsman: Did he punish you when he got home? Is that what happened, Clay? Did things get a little out of hand? You can tel us, you know. It would be better for you, for your mother, too, if you’d tel us.

Montgomery: He never came home.

Chief Jenkins: Yet you didn’t cal the police.

Montgomery: Why would we cal you ass-holes?

Another dark line made Hunter suspect some more information had been cut from the transcript. Disgusted to think they’d beaten a sixteen-year-old boy, Hunter shook his head.

Chief Jenkins: This time with respect.

Montgomery: We went to bed, thinking he’d come in eventual y.

Chief Jenkins: Your mother didn’t wait up for him?

Montgomery: I don’t think so.

Officer Grimsman: What did she do?

Montgomery: Far as I know, she put his dinner in the fridge and went to bed.

Chief Jenkins: That sounds pretty indifferent, considering he was later than she expected.

Montgomery: Was she was supposed to cry that his dinner was getting cold?

Officer Grimsman: It doesn’t bother you that he could be dead, son?

Montgomery: It bothers me that I’ve been here for eight hours.

Officer Grimsman: Sorry to put you out, but a man’s life could be in jeopardy. Or is that man already dead?

Montgomery: How should I know? He’s probably fine. Nothing ever happens here in Happy Val ey, right? And he’s a preacher. Who would hurt a preacher?

Chief Jenkins: That’s what we’d like to know.

Montgomery: I’m guessing he’s tired of this piece-of-shit town and—

More black marks.

Officer Grimsman: Didn’t your mother get worried, try to reach him?

Montgomery: Don’t know.

Officer Grimsman: You went to bed?

Montgomery: That’s what I said. Mrs. Lederman is taking it al down right over there. If you’re confused, just have her read it back to you.

Officer Grimsman: You son of a—

More black marks.

Chief Jenkins: Did you go right to sleep?

Montgomery: (nods once)

Officer Grimsman: You weren’t agitated or upset about your impending punishment?

Montgomery: I wasn’t in any hurry to meet up with it.

Officer Grimsman: What type of punishment were you expecting?

Montgomery: To be grounded.

Real y? Hunter wondered. Somehow Clay’s answer didn’t ring true.

Officer Grimsman: Had he grounded you before?

Montgomery: Yes.

Officer Grimsman: For what?

Montgomery: The usual.

Officer Grimsman: Spel it out.

Montgomery: He caught me behind the barn with my hand up a girl’s shirt—

Officer Grimsman: Whose?

Montgomery: I won’t say.

Officer Grimsman: It better not be
my
daughter.

Montgomery: You’l never know.

Officer Grimsman: You little prick—

More document tampering. Hunter was positive of it. The marks on the paper, the cadence and timing of the questions…It al hinted at physical interference. If Hunter had his guess, Clay had sustained quite a beating that night. But Clay didn’t break down and promise Grimsman it hadn’t been his daughter he’d been feeling up. Hunter had to smile about that.

The phone rang. Lowering the document he was reading, Hunter rocked back and reached for the receiver.

Unable to sleep and not wanting to disturb Al ie, Clay slipped quietly out of bed and went to his study, where he hoped to get caught up on paperwork. He preferred to spend his time outdoors or in the barn, restoring his antique cars, so he sometimes let the office work languish. But he couldn’t put it off any longer. He had bil s to pay and bookkeeping to do in preparation for tax time.

He picked up the day’s mail, which Whitney had placed on his desk. She loved running out to visit the mailbox, felt important carrying in the parcels and letters that arrived.

She usual y col ected al the junk mail she could, which she liked to play with. But it didn’t appear that she’d scavenged anything today. There were a couple of credit card offers and a catalog from an office supply store that she would normal y have taken. Al ie must not have gone through the mail, either, he decided. Nothing had been opened.

As Clay glanced through the envelopes, he tossed the credit card offers in the trash—he didn’t believe in doing anything on credit except, perhaps, purchasing land or a house—and added the bil s to the pile he planned to pay. A letter at the very bottom bore his name and looked as if it had been addressed on an old typewriter instead of a computer.

He nearly threw it in the trash. Over the years, he’d received his share of anonymous letters. Some cal ed him to repentance. Others told him he’d burn in hel for what he’d done to the reverend. He didn’t need to hear any more of that. The actions he regretted weren’t the ones they condemned him for. Even now, when he revisited The Night in his mind, he knew he’d make the same decisions he’d made then.

His hand hovered over the trash can.
Screw them and
their scorn,
he thought. They had no idea what he’d been through, the battles he stil fought. Why give his critics an audience?

But then he noticed that this letter hadn’t come through the USPS. It didn’t have a stamp.

Curious as to why someone would hand-deliver him a message, he tore it open and pul ed out a piece of lined paper.

The same typewriter had been used on the letter as on the envelope, but there was stil no indication of who’d sent it. There were only five words:

Stop her or I will.

“Hel o?” Hunter held the phone to his ear with his shoulder so he could continue to turn through the transcripts of Clay’s interview.

“You comfortable?”

It was Madeline. “I’m fine. Just familiarizing myself with the files.”

He lowered the volume of the TV. “How’d you get these, anyway?”

“I borrowed them last fal , made a copy.”

“Most police departments won’t turn something like this over to a private citizen, even on loan. That’s taking al kinds of risks.”

“I’m the owner of the paper, the closest thing they have to an investigative reporter. And after last year when they let Clay go, no one seemed particularly concerned about the files. Al ie had already been through them and found nothing. Everyone else seemed to be giving up. So I asked Al ie’s dad to let me take a look. He’d just been fired and was moving to Florida, so he didn’t have anything to lose, and he knew I’d return them right away.”

“Does Pontiff know you’ve got a copy?”

“I’m not sure if he remembers, but he was there when I returned the originals.” He heard fresh tension enter her voice. “So was al the time I spent at the copy machine worth the effort? Have you found anything promising?”

“I wouldn’t categorize it as promising yet,” he said cautiously, “but I’m finding Clay’s first interview with the police interesting. I’m guessing they were none too gentle with him.”

“They were insistent.”

“I mean physical y.”

There was a slight hesitation, which gave him the impression that she’d been trying to avoid addressing that issue. “Yes. That, too.”

“What’d he look like when he got home?”

“He was pretty banged up.”

“Did anything come of it?”

“No. Chief Jenkins claimed Clay started swinging while they were questioning him. They forced him back into a chair, but the chair fel over and he went down, hitting his face on the corner of the table.”

Hunter stared at the evidence of the changes that had been made to the records. “What’d Clay have to say about that story?”

“He didn’t contradict it.”

“Probably because he felt powerless to do anything about it.”

“I’ve asked him since, but he always says none of this matters.”

“Chances are good that it doesn’t have any bearing on the case. It just makes me angry.”

“Me, too.” She moved quickly to a new subject, as if Clay’s being hurt was too difficult to think about. “Anything else stand out?”

He eyed her childhood journal. “Not yet.”

“Okay. It’s getting late.” Her words came through a yawn.

“You’d better get some sleep.”

“I wil ,” he said, but when he hung up, he went back to his reading.

Chief Jenkins: Did your stepfather spend much time with you on the farm?

Montgomery: No more than he had to.

Officer Grimsman: Then what’d he do every day?

Montgomery: Jacked off in his office, I guess. Can I go? I’ve been sitting here for hours. And I already told you I don’t know anything. There was no fight. He didn’t come home.

Officer Grimsman: Would you rather sit in a jail cel until you can speak with a civil tongue?

Montgomery: Where’s my mother?

Officer Grimsman: We’re taking care of her.

Montgomery: If you’re taking care of her the way you’re taking care of me, so help me—

Chief Jenkins: Don’t you threaten me, boy.

More blacked-out lines.

Officer Grimsman: If there was no fight, how do you explain the bruises on your face?

Montgomery: The ones I got
before
I came in here?

Chief Jenkins: Before the accident with the chair.

“Accident, my ass,” Hunter muttered.

Montgomery: I told you, I hit a tree.

Officer Grimsman: You weren’t driving that night.

According to your friends—

Montgomery: (interrupting) We went to Corinne’s house in Rhys Franklin’s truck. But once I got home, I remembered I’d left my coat out in the south forty where I’d been working earlier. I knew I’d catch hel if anything happened to it. So I jumped into the old Ford anything happened to it. So I jumped into the old Ford and went after it.

Officer Grimsman: I thought you weren’t al owed to drive your stepfather’s vehicles.

Montgomery: I couldn’t take them off the farm.

Officer Grimsman: Tel us about the accident.

Montgomery: I was afraid to turn on my headlights in case my stepfather got home and realized I wasn’t in the house. I was going too fast. On the way back, my right tire hit the soft lip of the irrigation ditch, I overcorrected and rammed into a tree.

Officer Grimsman: What happened to your face when you hit the tree?

Montgomery: What do you think? It went into the damn steering wheel!

Chief Jenkins: That’s enough profanity.

Montgomery: (no response)

Chief Jenkins: Getting back to this accident. You didn’t cal for help?

Montgomery: No. I was scared my stepfather would get home any minute and I wanted to be in bed.

Officer Grimsman: Wouldn’t he see the damage to the truck?

Montgomery: It was already so old and beat up, I was hoping he wouldn’t notice.

Officer Grimsman: You thought he might not notice the damage to your face, either?

Montgomery: I was leaving for school early the next morning.

Officer Grimsman: And if he saw you?

Montgomery: I’d tel him I got into a fight or something.

Officer Grimsman: So you’re admitting you’re a liar.

Montgomery: I’m tel ing you the accident didn’t do any major damage to the truck, and I didn’t want to get in more trouble than I already was.

So, according to Clay’s own words, his face had been banged up
before
he went into the police station. Whatever injuries he sustained there were in addition to the truck accident or, as the police implied, a fight with Barker.

Hunter pul ed out a manila folder marked
Photos.
Inside, he found several pictures of Clay with dates written on back. One read October 5th, the day after the Reverend went missing but before the police interview. It showed him with a black eye, a swol en lip and a cut on his cheek.

A steering wheel could’ve done that damage. But it looked more like a fight….