The Wild Inside (3 page)

What I later tried to get my ma to understand was this: parks, ships, and prisons are tightly controlled places, and the super is the guy feeding the public relations officer and decides what goes out to the rest of the world. He may have made my father look careless, but he was only buffering the park, protecting the tourism trade, no matter the perfidy. I told her these things as if I had no hand in the game—a lie I would keep telling myself as I reentered Glacier.

“This is Officer Monty Harris,” Ford said after we shook. He would
have no reason to remember me other than the Systead name, and I’d be lying if I didn’t wonder if he had any recollection of it after all these years. Suddenly, I became aware of every aspect of my appearance, every flaw: my disheveled hair, my slouching shoulders, my boyish face. “Officer Harris is going to tail you.”

“Tail me?” I stood taller, pulling my shoulders back wide. With the officer’s briefcase, glasses, and prim mouth, he looked like he belonged in a library running card catalogues.

“Help you out. Show you around.” Ford’s features were angular and sloped downward. Even the outside corners of his narrow gray eyes seemed to point toward the sides of his shoulders.

“Not sure I need it.” I wasn’t certain why I was put off by the suggestion. It’s not like we didn’t frequently get help from the uniforms.

“Oh, that’s right.” Ford squinted. “Smith told me you’re from here. That you used to work for the Kalispell force. Well, the park’s not the Flathead Valley. We think it would be good for you to have some assistance.”

“Nothing like familiarity.” I shrugged nonchalantly as if I had no care in the world, and I ignored the uneasy pit forming in my gut. “Let’s get going, then.” I held my hand out for Monty to lead the way.

• • •

We drove from the West Glacier helicopter pad to the scene in Monty’s SUV, up a twenty-seven-mile washboard dirt road called the Inside North Fork Road that leads to a ranger station on the north fork of the Flathead River. Few tourists drive it because not many know about it, and if they do, they soon turn back because it’s too dusty and bumpy. I had the urge to grab my quarter, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to roll it effectively.

Other than some small talk, I was glad Monty didn’t chat while he drove. I took in the forest and was struck at how much it had changed since I’d seen it over twelve years ago. The Roberts fire of 2003 had
lashed through and decimated it. Skinny ashen trees like old bones crossed over one another on the forest floor, while hundreds of charcoaled trees managed to continue standing. Thick reddish bark peeked out between black strips, revealing the sturdier ones as the old ponderosas trying to survive like great-grandparents of the forest.

I was relieved when we began to emerge from the burn area just about five miles into the Inside Road, where green trees and mostly lodgepole pines and tamaracks with needles like yellow felt lined the dirt road. Flathead County’s Crime Scene Services van was parked behind a park ranger’s car and beside a line of caution tape. We pulled in behind two white county sheriff vehicles. A Park Police officer who’d been sitting in his car with the door ajar stepped out to greet us. “Hey, Benton,” Monty called. “This is Agent Ted Systead. I say that right?” He had pronounced the “stead” as “steed.”

“Close enough.” I shook the officer’s hand. Usually, people missed the first syllable and pronounced the Sys part as
sise
instead of the short
i
sound, like
sis
. But people usually got the “stead” right. I didn’t correct him because I’m not one of those people who care if my last name gets butchered. What’s a name really, other than another signifier? So many are attached to them as if they bring immortality, and in a way, they do. But I can say that there have been many criminals caught because they were simply too proud or ego-driven to quit dropping them around.
Yeah, Johnson, met him in the bar; he was drunk and mentioned that he stole that Buick. Oh yeah, Briggs, I’ve heard of him. My girlfriend used to date him before he took up with that neo-Nazi gang.

“He’s from the Northwest Regional Division Homicide Unit,” Monty added. “Came in from Denver.” He said this as if I’d come across the border illegally.

I gave a curt nod. “And you guys were happy that you finally had some quiet after your crazy summer?” Officer Benton tried to smile, but his face had that whitish-green tint like he’d been battling nausea. “Up for showing us the way? If not, I’m sure we can find
it.” I gave him my laziest grin possible to try to ease any anxiety. I was known for that—for an easygoing smile that calmed people’s nerves, even when nervousness or pessimism brewed beneath my own veneer. It was this incongruous thing about me—my skeptical nature paired with a childlike grin that made you think I didn’t have a malignant bone in my body. I’ve also been blessed with my mother’s thick, dark wavy hair, so that at forty, I still have youthfulness about me, not entirely unlike the pilot Moran, which throws people off and has come in handy more than once when I enter the interrogation room.

“No, I’m good,” he said. “It’s just in there a ways.” He pointed toward McGee Meadow.

I took a deep breath and could smell the pine and the pungent decaying fall skunkweed. I knew the trail, if you could call it that. During snowy months, it’s not maintained and the underbrush and fallen logs claim it. From the road, you wouldn’t even know where it was if it weren’t for a little worn red, cross-country ski marker set high up on one of the ponderosas.

“The trail to McGee Meadow.” Monty lowered his voice for an official effect. “In the winter, the locals ski in from Fish Creek, then cut over to McGee Meadow and out to Camas Creek Road and loop back. With all the snow, they have to find these markers.” He pointed behind me to the small tin flag nailed to the tree.

“Yeah, I know.”

“You’ve done it?”

“Several times.” I thought of my ex, Shelly, and me with our cheap cotton long johns getting soaked to the bone with sweat even in the cold of February as we trekked up the ol’ snow-covered Robert Frost–looking road. Even all these years later, I could recall the smell of her cheap, overly sweet perfume made pungent by her perspiration, while we stood peering down and arguing over whether the large tracks in the snow were moose or elk.

“One of the CS guys said we can’t come in on the path,” Benton said, almost in a whisper.

I gave the officer a quick pat on the shoulder to lead the way, and just as he stepped ahead, a raven let loose a piercing caw that made him pause. A cool breeze rattled the trees and a few small-diameter lodgepoles rubbed against one another and made an eerie groaning sound.

We stayed left of the trail, trekking through vibrant red-and-yellow brush. A few stray spider filaments touched my face. The autumn light, although bright, felt slanted and oblique. Mostly, it felt quiet, as if it were waiting for something to happen. Unlike direct summer sunshine that had something specific to say and shouted it, this light held mysteries and patiently whispered its secrets. I was aware of our noisy, rustling movement through the foliage, as if we were disturbing such secrets. The fist at the base of my sternum clenched tighter, and I thought, only for an instant—like a shutter opening and closing—of the raw, wild solitary desperation I felt at Oldman Lake after I got the fire going and sat in my own wet pants, waiting in shock for enough light to make it down the trail so I could run for help.

• • •

We reached the spot a quarter of a mile in and about fifty yards off the path, where several huge old-growth ponderosas stood more vibrant, like sentries for that particular patch of forest. To our left, only one line of yellow caution tape draped from tree to bush to tree. Out in the woods, there was no telling how large a circle to mark, so there was simply no point in doing it. One line to block the area from the trail was sufficient.

Two CSS techs in tan coveralls busied themselves. One inspected foliage, peering at branches of a small spruce, his gloved hands pulling down a limb and tweezing something from the bark and bagging it. The other snapped photos and carried the evidence log.

A county sheriff spoke to Joe Smith, chief of the Park Police in West Glacier. Wispy tips of fine white hair shot out from under his cap against his still-tanned neck. His sizable but sinewy frame reminded me of some lean animal on the savannas of Africa. Monty and I waited for his wave to cross the tape. The officer who’d walked us out had stayed back and just stood on the trail.

“Thanks, Officer.” Smith followed a line of small orange flags that delineated where he could walk without angering the lead crime scene investigator. “Go ahead and just head back to the road,” he yelled over us to him, “and continue making sure no one without clearance tries to wander back here, will ya?”

I had worked with Joe not only in DC for seminars we were all forced to attend, but several times when I was on the local force and needed to collaborate with park officials. Actually, I considered him a friend. We had gone out to shoot the shit a time or two when we needed an off-duty beer in DC. As far as I could see, he never let ego interfere with his work or his friendships, and in this line of work that was certainly refreshing.

“Systead.” Joe refocused on me and smiled. He held out his hand to me.

“Good to see you, Chief.” We shook, grabbing each other’s shoulders with our free hands. He then greeted Monty and introduced us to Sheriff Walsh, using my full title, Special Agent Ted Systead from the Northwest Homicide Division of the Department of the Interior
.

Walsh looked me up and down, not a hint of anything but confidence in his icy blue stare. He obviously could care less about titles—special agent this and that division—and I have to say I respected him for it. “Heard you used to work for the Kalispell force in the midnineties. That so?”

“That’s correct,” I said.

“Oh.” He shrugged, still unimpressed. “Well, not sure how this one’ll break down, but the victim might be local.”

I could sense Joe tensing a bit. And so, the usual pissing contest had begun on some level. I couldn’t blame Walsh if he was irritated. I mean, the Park Police had called his forensics unit first. From his perspective, there was no need for our intrusion, and I wasn’t convinced yet that there was a need for us either other than that we were federal and Glacier Park was federal.

“From Martin City,” Walsh continued. “
Outside
the park. Before that, he lived in Trego, that’s t’ward the Canadian border.”

I shrugged, knowing that where the victim came from made no difference. The crime was clearly in Glacier, but again, I could understand where he was coming from. He and his boys, being from the area, would have an easier time investigating a local. “Yeah, Trego, right past Fortine.” I couldn’t help but remind him that I knew the area well. I caught a glance from Monty out of the corner of my eye and could sense Smith subtly let out a pent-up breath, relieved that I was
local
enough for at least some credibility with Walsh.

I looked around to take it all in. Blood smattered the dirt and bushes around the tall ponderosa. Layer upon layer of duct tape circled the victim’s chest under his armpits, around his hips, and all the way around the tree. What was left of his upper body hung limply like a broken and solitary puppet someone had raided for parts. Blood soaked what was left of a barely recognizable strip of shirt draping from one shoulder toward the hip on the same side. I caught my breath and held it until my pulse began to race.

Some equally shredded and bloody jeans still hung from a belt around his waist, but his entire thigh had been ripped cleanly off as if a butcher had sliced it off with a knife. Huge chunks had been bitten off the other leg as well, and one arm from the shoulder down had been ripped clean away. His head dangled so that I couldn’t see his face straight on, but could tell that a large flap from his skull and the side of his face had been bitten away.

My throat began to tighten, and I began to feel as if my feet were
barely touching the ground. I swallowed hard. “Who’s lead tech?” I turned away, found Walsh’s steely gaze first.

Walsh pointed to a woman whom I’d not spotted when we first came. She was walking to join the other techs in the woods farther past where the taped line ended. “Gretchen Larson. I’ll introduce you in a minute.”

I turned back to the body and the smell of earth, decaying flesh slowly warming in the October sun and a hint of that overly pungent skunky bear smell seemed to grow stronger. Flies buzzed everywhere, and I could feel the fingers of that imaginary fist in my sternum spread out as if trying to reach my stomach and my throat, where the beginning of either fear or nausea built. A tech snapped photos somewhere off to my side, and the smooth clicking of the camera in the distance pulled me away from the chill rapidly spreading inside me.

“Have you ID’d him yet?” I asked.

“We think so. A Victor Lance.”

“He have ID on him?”

“No, our guys found a first initial and last name on the inside of his belt and we have someone in the system who matches the name and what we’ve determined of his build. Won’t be sure about prints until the remains get to the lab; his remaining hand has been chewed on.”

My father’s gold wedding band flashed in my mind and I wasn’t sure why. He rarely even wore it because, as he always told my ma, it interfered with scrubbing and putting on and taking off his gloves.

“From the pinkie and ring fingers that are left,” Walsh continued, “we think we can get a match. So far, we can’t tell from the face, but if it is him, turns out he was charged ’bout four years ago with threatening to beat up the attendant of a Town Pump quick stop if she didn’t hand over a couple cans of chewin’ tobacco and some cigarettes.”

I stayed quiet, and Monty seemed to have enough sense to follow my lead, perhaps because he was starting to look a little faint. I wondered if he’d been around a stiff before.

“We might have to look at his teeth if we can’t get it from his prints. If there’s family around, we’re leaning against having them ID’ing him for obvious reasons.” Walsh adjusted his belt, hiking his pants up a notch. “Tape is thickly layered and tight under the armpits and around the hips. Arms were not bound. Like some goddamned freak show.”