Killer Summer

23

As Walt left the hangar, he heard a radio code spoken over his handset and decided to respond himself. Another day, another weekend, he would have left the call for others-he tried hard to avoid micromanagement-but with his patience worn thin awaiting word from the patrol he’d sent out to Democrat Gulch, he knew the short drive down to Bellevue would keep his mind on other things. Besides, he’d known Bob Parker, the owner of Sun Valley Log Homes, for years.

A round-faced man, with clear blue eyes and hard hands, Bob had taken a small lumberyard and turned it into a company that manufactured homes of all sizes and budgets. He dressed like a lumberjack, disguising a six-figure income.

He shook his head at Walt from the summer porch. Beatrice, who’d been heeling nicely, broke away to investigate an empty dog bowl by the porch steps.

“Damnedest thing,” Bob said.

“What’s that?” Walt asked, one eye on Beatrice. He didn’t begrudge her the pursuit of food, but it was incorrect to break heel without permission. Like everything else around him, Beatrice needed his time.

“The only way I can get five minutes with you is to have my place busted into,” Bob said.

“I thought you were probably still sore over the whooping you took in the tournament,” Walt said.

“A different third-base umpire and you would be the one that’s sore.”

“So you’re still sore?”

“A game should be decided by the players, not the umps.”

“So let’s have a rematch,” Walt proposed.

“For the trophy?”

“I didn’t say that. But bragging rights should be good enough for a losing team.”

“Losing team? You think?”

“Why don’t we find out?”

“Oh, we’ll find out,” Bob said. “Or, more likely, you will.”

Walt called Beatrice away from the bowl. She’d licked it any harder, the glaze would’ve come off.

“Such claims are better settled on the diamond.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Bob.

Sheriff’s Deputy Bill Tuttle was to Walt’s left, consulting two paramedics and overseeing their care of one of Bob’s employees, sitting on the bumper of the ambulance, a blood-pressure sleeve around his left arm.

“So why am I here?” Walt said.

“It’s not exactly like we guard this place at night,” Bob said. “You know me, Walt: throw a chain around the gate out front, make sure the keys are out of the equipment, and pack it up home. What’s to steal? A few hand-drawn logs? I don’t think so. Cash? Never a pe

“Isn’t that the Dodge kid?”

“Morgan? Yeah. Looking to get a jump on his college loan.”

“How’s that?” Walt asked.

“College loan,” Bob repeated, as if Walt hadn’t heard. “He’s been working nights for the past month. Starts over in Moscow middle of August. Wanted to get a nut under him, and I said fine. Why not? If he wants to spend his evenings sharpening mower blades and swapping out air filters, who am I to stop him? I didn’t know that that would mean working ’til one in the morning. Good God, talk about initiative. Walt, the kid’s got a battery in him that won’t die.”

“So Morgan was here late last night?” Walt said, hoping that might encourage the Cliffs Notes version.

“He was. Wishes he hadn’t been now, I want to tell you.”

“Kids?” Walt asked. “Vandals?”

“Who the heck knows?” Bob said. “Whoever it was fried his ass with a cattle prod or Taser or something. Knocked him flat on his ass, I’ll tell you that.”

Walt looked around the yard: five acres of piled logs, mountains of split wood, and stacks of scrap. There were a half dozen badly worn-out Caterpillar tractors and forklifts.

“Damned near stopped his ticker, from what the ambulance boys are saying,” said Bob.

Walt didn’t like the sound of it. The break-in itself wasn’t all that unusual. The Wood River Valley had seen a sharp increase in vandalism and burglaries over the past few years. But a cattle prod didn’t knock a person unconscious, and a Taser wasn’t exactly a common weapon in the valley. His department had two-the only two he knew of up here.

“Anything missing or messed with?” Walt asked.

“Not as if I’ve kicked every tire or anything,” Bob said, “but nothing sticks out.”

“I’m going to ask him a few questions before they get him out of here.”

Bob didn’t object.

Morgan Dodge had an intense face, with brooding dark brown eyes peering through floppy hair. He was trying to grow a mustache, which wasn’t going to work out. He looked like a hundred hungover kids Walt had interviewed the morning after a DUI.

“You okay?” Walt asked.

“It’s kind of like a migraine,” Morgan said, “only worse.”

“Tell me what happened,” Walt said.

“Not much to tell.” The boy-he couldn’t have been over nineteen-averted his eyes. “Other than I was in the shop, minding my own business, and some asshole zaps me and drags me outside and leaves me there.”

“You see him? Get a look at him?”

“No, sir.” Head down, boots swinging forward and back, reminding Walt of his girls on a swing set in the backyard.

Walt took a second to look around, specifically over at the back door of the shop where presumably Morgan Dodge had been dragged.

“You didn’t see who did this to you?” Walt repeated.

“I said I didn’t.” Defensive, a little too adamant.

The boy’s reaction fed Walt the way a biscuit rewarded Beatrice, who currently was sniffing Morgan’s right ankle.

“Give us a minute,” Walt told the paramedic.

Morgan’s head came up, worry in his eyes.

Walt sat down beside him on the ambulance’s bumper. He allowed a good deal of silence to settle between them, waiting to fill it.

“Let me guess,” he finally said to Morgan, “it was beer.”

Morgan looked over at him, puzzled. “What was beer?”

“No one dragged you anywhere, Morgan.”

Another long silence, not strictly for effect. He wanted to give the boy a chance to rethink the situation.

Walt lowered his voice. “A girl? You have a girl here keeping you company? Afraid of what Bob might have to say about that?”

“No, sir, no girl. What do you mean, I wasn’t dragged? Was too.”

“Careful, son. It’s dangerous territory, okay? I’m the sheriff. There are actually laws against lying to me. Serious laws. You can get yourself into some big trouble. So I’m going to start again and pretend your headache got the best of you and that you weren’t yourself, okay? You understand?”

Walt dreaded the day he would need to have a similar conversation with one of his daughters. “I’m your father. You don’t lie to your father.” He wished his girls could stay young forever and not grow up only to make the same stupid mistakes everyone else makes. He missed his girls. The freedom that summer camp had promised turned out to be much harder on him than he’d imagined. The house was too quiet, and all he did was think about what they were doing. The not knowing drove him nuts.

“Look down there,” Walt said. “Right there, in the dirt. What do you see?”

“Wood chips?” the boy asked.

“Don’t ask me,” Walt said, “tell me. What do you see?”

“Wood chips… sawdust… dirt…”

“Very good. Now, what about them?”

“I don’t get it,” the kid said.

“See how scuffed up things are? That’s because this yard is about six inches deep in wood chips and sawdust. Everywhere you go, you disturb it. Like walking through a light snowfall or something.”

“So?”

“So look over at the back door of the shop.”

Morgan turned his head.

“You see any disturbance?”

“No,” the boy said, a little too quickly.

Walt toed the ground in front of the ambulance’s bumper, drawing a perfect line.

“If someone had been dragged out that door, son, we’d be able to see it.”

Morgan did his best imitation of a bobblehead doll. “But I-”