BURYING ZIMMERMAN (The River Trilogy, book 2) (6 page)

"When Garrett opened the door," Bullard said,
"Drew had his revolver ready." He raised his hand to pantomime a
drawn gun. "I've concluded that he wasn't alone, because of what
happened next.

"Let's assume that Owen is right," he said,
glancing at me. Bullard's eyes were sparkling now, and it was hard
not to contrast his animation with my father's vacant stare. "Let's
assume that Drew is at the door with Henry Zimmerman," continued
Bullard, "and Henry has his gun drawn too.

"They walked to the cabin together after
deciding not to wait for Owen." He turned toward me again. "Drew
was your older brother, so it would be natural for him to try to
protect you. Perhaps your panic at the culvert made him doubt you
were ready for this adventure. Or maybe he felt that two armed men
would be enough, and he decided not to worry about you."

I shifted in my seat as I felt my mother's
eyes settle on me. I didn't want to look at her because tears might
be forming, and I wouldn't know whether to attribute them to Drew's
death or my own weakness.

"But I had the handcuffs," I managed
hoarsely. "And Drew said we could never make him cooperate without
them."

"Precisely!" Bullard said, springing to his
feet and looking at the four of us in turn.

My father exhaled audibly and buried the
lower half of his face beneath his hand. "Inspector, I'm not sure I
follow you."

"When Garrett opens the door, Drew and Henry
tell him to turn around with his hands behind his back. But then
they realize that neither one of them has the handcuffs. So they
march Garrett into the cabin and Drew says that he'll stand guard
while Henry runs to find Owen, who should be waiting a few minutes
away on the towpath."

"Why wouldn't Drew have run back to find me
himself?" I asked.

"Maybe he should have," Bullard said gravely.
"But maybe he didn't completely trust Henry. Or perhaps he wanted
to talk to Garrett alone."

This last possibility hadn't occurred to me,
and for over two decades I've wondered what Drew and Garrett might
have had to say to each other. Had Drew been trying to make sure he
had that opportunity?

Bullard was still standing, acting out the
scene while stepping in place.

"They know that even though Drew is armed,
leaving him alone with Garrett is risky. Garrett might charge him
or try to make a break for it. So they decide to make Garrett stand
in the wood cellar. They remove the trapdoor cover and tell him to
jump down. The cellar is five or six feet deep, and there's a notch
on a post that you use as a foothold to climb out. It's below
ground, with no other exit, so Drew can stand guard from above.

"Drew keeps his eyes and revolver trained on
Garrett through the opening in the floor while Henry leaves to find
Owen," Bullard said, pausing to make sure we were all still with
him. "And then things start to go wrong."

From the love-seat she shared with my mother,
Susan issued an uncomfortable sigh, slumped back into the cushion,
and started fanning her flushed face with her hands. My mother
helped her stand and guided her out of the room, cutting Bullard's
audience in half. He apologized for upsetting the ladies and
oriented himself toward my father and me.

"Drew must not have known, and let's presume
Henry didn't either, that Garrett had a loaded shotgun in the wood
cellar. It could have been hung from the ceiling or propped against
a post. Drew wouldn't have seen it, and it was probably easy for
Garrett to shift and lean a bit until it was within reach. Maybe he
says something that causes Drew to scan the room for a second or
two. Then in one motion he's raising the gun and shooting Drew in
the chest. From eight feet away, that one blast would be
enough.

"So now Drew is mortally wounded, probably on
his knees or worse, but he still has a revolver. As Garrett is
climbing out, Drew leans toward him. Garrett reaches for the gun,
but just as he grabs it Drew pulls the trigger. The bullet strikes
Garrett in the collarbone and knocks him back into the cellar, with
Drew's gun in his hand.

"Now Garrett is stunned and bleeding on the
cellar floor. But pretty soon he tries to get back on his feet. He
tucks the gun into his waistband, puts a foot in the notch, and
gets both hands on the frame of the trapdoor. He can't put much
weight on his right arm since his collarbone's shattered, but he
gets ready to push himself up to the floor with his left. Maybe he
sees Drew lying in the background, but he's focused on the trapdoor
frame, and he doesn't notice the blade until it flies down on his
fingers.

"Drew must have been able to crawl to the
fireplace and get the hatchet from the kindling pile. And then he
struck a clean blow... and took off all four fingers on Garrett's
left hand.

"Garrett falls back into the cellar and this
time it takes him longer to get up – neither of his arms is worth
much now. As he rolls onto his knees, Drew pours kerosene on him.
And before he can stand, Drew throws down the burning lamp. Garrett
ignites, and the last thing Drew can do before collapsing is empty
the kerosene can onto him as he burns."

Bullard paused to rest, and after acting out
the struggle, his hands descended to his sides.

"Are you still looking for Henry Zimmerman?"
my father asked. He had sat through Bullard's presentation while
sagging deeper and lower into his chair, face propped between his
forefinger and thumb, a distant look in his bespectacled eyes. Now
he straightened, put both hands on his knees, and spoke for the
first time since Drew's death with a vestige of authority. "How do
you know he wasn't involved in the killings? The story we just
heard sounds like something from a Wild West show."

Bullard nodded solemnly to show he
understood. "We're still looking for Henry. I told his parents that
he's wanted for questioning, and they claim to have no idea where
he is. But Henry will turn up, and we'll find out what he knows."
He plucked his hat from the chair and put it on. "Two guns, two
shots fired, and two bodies," he added. "I'd say that's pretty
simple. Closer to an old-fashioned duel than Buffalo Bill."

Bullard had made it clear on a previous visit
that nothing more was expected from me. While being questioned at
the scene, I'd produced the handcuffs from my coat and shown that I
was unarmed. A search of the burned cabin and its surroundings had
turned up no more guns or bodies, and the wounds on both victims
were accounted for. It became clear that Bullard was writing the
case up as he had presented it to us.

Though he had grown up on the canal and in
Williamsport, by the time Gig Garrett returned from Alaska in 1902
he was considered exotic, alien, and worthy of suspicion – linked
to both Jessie's death and the fatal stabbing of a miner in
Alaska.

By contrast, Drew had spent his whole life in
Cabin John and across the bridge in Glen Echo, and he worked for
the Baltzley brothers, two highly respected landowners, developers,
and benefactors. So Drew was mourned as a friend and neighbor but
also as something like a hero. By sacrificing himself to kill
Garrett, he had removed a potential predator from our midst.

But as I thought about Bullard's narrative
during the days that followed, questions gnawed at me. And they all
involved Henry Zimmerman.

First, was Henry even present that night? I
concluded that he must have been, because Drew wouldn't have tried
to apprehend Garrett by himself.

Once they met at the trailhead, why did Drew
and Henry leave without me? Was Drew trying to protect me, as
Bullard implied? Did he consider me a liability? Maybe Henry
convinced him I wasn't needed. But could they really have forgotten
that I had Drew's handcuffs? Maybe Henry brought a pair of cuffs
himself!

Assuming that Bullard had the first part
right – that Drew and Henry confronted Garrett at the door with
guns drawn, why was Henry sent back to get me? Bullard implied that
Drew might have suspected Henry would warn Garrett about the
fingerprinting, then let him escape. But I wondered whether Drew
had an agenda of his own. One that required he be left alone with
Garrett.

Why put Garrett in the cellar? Surely Drew
could have had him stand in a corner on the main floor, and Garrett
wouldn't have been able to run without taking a bullet or two at
close range. Granted, the cellar gave him no chance to flee. But it
had obviously been a fatal choice, because Bullard was right –
Garrett had kept a loaded shotgun down there.

What if Henry knew that? What if the entire
premise of that night's visit was false, and its real purpose was
to give Garrett an opportunity to shoot an armed intruder in
self-defense? If so, it hadn't worked out as planned for Garrett.
But maybe it had worked out just fine for Henry.

What had Henry expected or wanted to happen
that night, and what would have been different if I'd been there?
Those were the questions that nagged me during the weeks after
Drew's death. As the autumn wore into winter and Henry failed to
materialize, the nagging receded. I researched academic programs
and, after consulting with my parents, decided to apply for
admission to the University of Texas, where I hoped to study
archaeology or anthropology. Maybe Austin was far enough away from
Cabin John. I sat for the entrance examinations in Washington and
was relieved to hear weeks later that I'd been admitted.

But the questions about that night never
disappeared entirely, and twenty-two years later, I want Henry
Zimmerman's answers tonight. And I want to know how his
relationship with Gig Garrett changed after Jessie's death, and
during his stint with Garrett in the Yukon.

If after all that, Henry still felt loyal to
Garrett in 1902, why pretend otherwise to Drew?

And if he didn't, why leave Drew alone with a
killer?

Chapter 6

The lamplight glows in Captain McDonald's
lonely house as I pass by on River Road, but I'm too far away to
hear signs of life. The road to Sandy Landing is just ahead. I turn
left on the rutted track that follows a trickling gulch down to the
canal and the river, and make sure I remember what Henry Zimmerman
heard about me from my niece Isabelle, who met him at a speakeasy a
few days ago. The story that Zimmerman expects to hear again
tonight sounds like this:

I'm Tom Owens, here to buy heroin for my
wife, who suffers from debilitating muscle pains. She used it once
and found that it provided relief, but the pharmacist from Santa Fe
who offered it to her closed his shop and disappeared. Since I was
traveling east, I asked my niece if she knew where I could find
heroin near Cabin John. She got your name from a friend of a
friend, so I'm here tonight with a hundred dollars to
spend
.

Except that once we're seated across a table,
I'll tell him the truth. I'm Owen Thompson, and we met thirty-one
years ago when I was eight. He and my brother Drew rescued me from
a mine. And now I want him to explain his actions nine years later,
on the night Drew was killed.

Passing fence post after fence post, I try to
remember what Zimmerman looks like. The image I can conjure is a
hazy childhood view of him at Rock Run on that afternoon in 1893.
I'd seen him again during the days after Jessie's death, and once
more during the weeks before Drew's, but I have a hard time
picturing him as a man nearing fifty. Will he recognize me? How
could he? Before Drew's death, I was young and unscarred.

A small shape sprints away from me into the
grass and I veer off-course, startled. My heart rate spirals up as
I picture Zimmerman waiting for me in an abandoned scow beside the
canal. I stop for a gulp of whiskey and the thumping in my chest
dissolves into a warm glow.

I don't remember exactly when I learned that
he had returned to the area from his long exile in California. It
was a few years ago at least, while I was working in New Mexico
under Ted Kidder at the Pecos pueblo excavation site, a day's
journey east of Santa Fe. My sister Penny (who moved out to a farm
near Frederick, Maryland with her husband) mentioned in one of her
letters that a man named Henry Zimmerman had met a friend of hers
at the Great Falls Tavern a few weeks earlier. And Penny said that
Zimmerman was seen at the Cabin John Bridge Hotel soon after that,
but hadn't been spotted recently.

When I wrote back, I asked her to let me know
if she heard more about him. But in subsequent letters she said
there wasn't much more to tell – Zimmerman seemed to appear around
Cabin John and Glen Echo at unpredictable intervals, circulate for
a few days, then disappear for weeks or months. There were rumors
that he was involved with either bootlegging or drugs. Engaged in
our work at the ruins, I gradually lost interest in him. That was
before my nightmares started, just over a year ago at the Pecos
pueblo.

It was a Saturday morning in late March at
the excavation site, and ten inches of new snow was melting under
breezy blue skies. Ordinarily we might have worked that day, but
Kidder decided that the mapping and classification of the eastern
roomblock should be suspended until Monday, by which time the snow
would likely be gone. I was back at the site after three days with
Clara and Winnie in Santa Fe and had no interest in joining my
colleagues when they decided to hop the supply truck into town for
an extended afternoon meal.

Instead I walked out to one of the
unexcavated ridges at the northern end of the pueblo, then turned
down the hill toward a spring-fed creek that flanked the site to
the west. Water was brought to the camp in barrels from town, but
this creek was a secondary source and there was always a reason to
top off our supplies when time permitted. Carrying a three-gallon
bucket and a shovel, in case I needed to break a layer of ice, I
descended a trail to the drainage.