Authors: Lance Horton
Seattle
The FBI offices in Seattle resided in a plain, concrete and glass high-rise on 3rd Avenue overlooking the southern end of downtown and, a little farther to the west, Fisherman’s Wharf and Puget Sound. Except for the height, the building looked similar to the bureau’s headquarters in Quantico—which meant drab. To Kyle Andrews, it looked like something an architecture student might have designed overnight when faced with a project deadline. It appeared as if it was constructed of large, concrete rectangles with the windows recessed in order to provide a perfect roosting spot for the countless pigeons and seagulls. Its stark facade, however, seemed appropriate for the agency it housed.
When he stepped off the elevator into the third-floor lobby, Kyle switched the manila envelope he carried from one hand to the other as he took off his overcoat and hung it on the rack. He ran his fingers through his dark hair in an effort to help dry it out. He hated that it would get all wavy when it was wet, which was most of the time in Seattle.
Katherine, the receptionist, sat behind the large console desk, a dozen red roses taking up one corner of the counter. On the marble wall behind her loomed the seal of the FBI, flanked by pictures of the president and the director of the FBI. She looked up and greeted him with an understanding frown.
“How’d it go last night?”
“Same as always,” Kyle said. How else was a mother supposed to take it when she was told her five-year-old daughter was never coming back?
Abby had been taken by her father three weeks ago. They had made their way down the West Coast to California, where he had taken her to Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm before they headed east. The FBI had tracked them down, locating them in a cheap motel on the outskirts of Las Vegas. They had waited until the middle of the night before they had made their move. But as the agents closed in, they heard two gunshots from inside the room.
When they broke down the door, they found the father dead at the foot of the bed on which Abby was laying. He had killed her before he had turned the gun on himself.
It was the part of his job Kyle hated the most—the death notification.
“I just don’t understand how some people can get so messed up,” Katherine said.
“I know.” It was a question Kyle had been asked too many times before, and while he knew something of the reasons and motivations, he had grown tired of trying to explain them. They never understood anyway.
Katherine shook her head. “I can’t imagine—” She stopped as her extension rang. She held up her finger and answered the call.
Kyle started down the hall toward his cubicle.
“Kyle,” Katherine called after him. “It’s SAC Geddes. She wants to see you in her office right away.”
Kyle’s hand tightened on the envelope. He wasn’t ready to face the Dragon Lady yet. Did she know already?
Outside her office, Kyle adjusted his tie while he made a conscious effort to stand straight. He tended to slump when he was down, which caused his suit to hang on him as if it were two sizes too big. That didn’t conform to the strong, confident image the FBI wanted its employees to project. Taking a deep breath, he rapped on the door.
“Come in,” Geddes said, her voice raspy from a lifetime of chain-smoking.
Special Agent in Charge JoAnne Geddes stood behind her chair, rain streaming down the floor-to-ceiling windows behind her. The wan light of the day caused her hair to look darker than usual, turning it blood red. Shadows seemed to gather in the creases of her face.
Special Agent Lewis Edwards, an older black man with graying hair around his temples and a broad, flat nose, sat in one of the chairs across from Geddes’s desk.
“How’d Merideth Aames take it?” Lewis asked.
“Same as they all do,” Kyle said.
Lewis nodded.
The silence lingered for a moment. Kyle cleared his throat as he thought about what he should say when SAC Geddes suddenly spoke, “Edwards here tells me you’re interested in applying to become a special agent.”
Kyle’s eyebrows raised in surprise. He looked at Lewis, who nodded in encouragement.
He looked back at Geddes. “I’ve been thinking about it,” he admitted as he clutched the envelope in his hands.
Geddes’s green eyes narrowed. “I’ll be honest with you, Andrews. I don’t think you’d make it as an SA. I don’t think you’ve got the stones for it. You’re too …
compassionate
,” she snorted, as if the word left a bad taste in her mouth.
No wonder everyone calls her the Dragon Lady behind her back
, Kyle thought. An image came suddenly to mind: narrow-slitted, reptilian eyes and red hair flaring out from her head, cigarette smoke flaring from her nostrils. Had he not been so fearful of her response, he might have laughed out loud.
“But Edwards here seems to think differently,” she continued. “So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m sending you to Montana with him. We’ve been assigned a multiple homicide on federal land in Flathead National Park. You’ll officially be serving as a victim specialist on the case but will also assist Edwards with the investigation. He thinks it’ll be a good chance for you to see what being a special agent is really like.”
“Isn’t Montana in Salt Lake City’s jurisdiction?” Kyle asked.
“Normally, it would be, but the vics all appear to be from Seattle. We’ll be handling the case in conjunction with the Kalispell office, the county sheriff, and the Forest Service. Your flight leaves in two hours.”
Kyle started to thank Geddes for the opportunity and assure her that he wouldn’t let her down, but he knew that would be pointless. Results were all that she cared about. Besides, it wasn’t as if he was getting off easy. There were still death notifications to be made, families to console.
As they were leaving, Kyle stopped Lewis outside of Geddes’s office. “Hey, thanks for that.”
“No sweat, cowboy.” Lewis clapped him on the shoulder. “Just don’t make me look like an ass.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Kyle said with a wry grin.
“Anytime,” Lewis said as he started down the hall. “Oh, and pack warm,” he added over his shoulder. “I hear there’s a shitload of snow where we’re going.”
*
On his way home, inching along in the crawling traffic and frigid rain, Kyle pulled out his cell phone and hit the speed dial.
“Hola, Andrews’ residence.”
“Miss Vera, it’s Kyle.” Valeria Sanchez had served as Kyle’s nanny when he was a child and had been his family’s maid for as long as he could remember.
“Oh, Mr. Kyle, how are you?”
“I’m fine, thanks. How’s Janet?”
“Your mother, she is not so good today,” Valeria whispered. “She asked about you earlier, but she is sleeping now. The treatments make her very tired.”
“I know,” Kyle said. “When she wakes up, just tell her I called back, will you?”
“Yes, I tell her.”
“Thanks,” Kyle said. He was about to hang up when Miss Vera spoke again.
“Mr. Kyle?”
“Yes?”
“Your mother, she says you will be coming back to Dallas soon. Is this true?”
Kyle frowned. He had hoped to avoid the subject. “I don’t know, Miss Vera. I … something’s come up at work. I’m going to be out of town for a while.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Don’t tell Janet, all right? I promised her I’d let her know as soon as I decided.”
“Okay, Mr. Kyle.”
Kyle sighed as he hung up and looked at the envelope in the passenger seat. He could already imagine Janet’s response when he told her he hadn’t turned in his notice.
In an effort to improve his mood, he pulled out a Jimmy Buffett CD and stuck it in the stereo.
His love of the music had begun innocently enough when Angela, whom he had just started dating at the time, had invited him to a Buffett concert. She had just begun her residency in the emergency room at Parkland, and a bunch of the staff members there were big fans. They had invited her and Kyle to go along with them. Kyle hadn’t really cared for his music and wasn’t interested in going, but Angela had talked him into it.
It wound up being one of the best times he could ever remember. It wasn’t just a concert they attended; it was a miniature Mardi Gras. People had dressed in Hawaiian shirts and grass skirts, sailor uniforms, bikinis, and countless other wild costumes. For three hours, they sang and danced and drank and acted like children, laughing and tickling one another. And after the concert was over, the people kept it going out in the parking lot. He and Angela had joined in, buying a bottle of homemade sangria from some hippie-looking kid with a cooler full of the stuff. They drank straight from the bottle as they danced the night away. Later, when they finally made it back to Angela’s apartment, they made love for the first time. From that moment on, Kyle had been hooked. He had become a bona-fide Parrot-head overnight.
He thought about calling Angela to see if she had gotten the flowers yet, but he knew she was in the middle of her shift and he didn’t want to bother her while she was working.
“Son of a Son of a Sailor Man” began playing. Normally, it conjured up thoughts of better times to come: the warmth of the sun on his face, the salty tang of the ocean air, and him at the helm of a thirty-foot sailboat making his way down the Baja Peninsula.
But this morning, his disposition remained as gloomy as the weather.
Montana
Kalispell was a pleasant-seeming town of about twenty thousand. Situated in the middle of the Flathead Valley, it was surrounded by the jagged peaks of the Rocky Mountains to the north, east, and west and by Flathead Lake to the south. In spite of the overcast day, the entire valley seemed aglow, buried beneath a blanket of dazzling white snow.
Deputy Clayton Johnson, who had picked them up at the airport, prattled on about the valley, filling them in on all its finer points, including the fact that Flathead Lake was the largest natural freshwater lake west of the Mississippi. The deputy was a lean fellow, with a high-pitched voice and thinning hair beneath his western-style hat. He seemed as friendly as could be, like a real-life Barney Fife.
They turned onto Main Street. The street had been recently plowed, with four-foot banks of dirty snow lining each side. Clayton pointed out the shopping mall and the First National Bank building, which housed the FBI’s Resident Agency office on the second floor. For the most part, Main Street retained the quintessential look of small-town America. Two-and three-story brick buildings lined each side of the street, housing drug stores, law offices, bookstores, gift shops, and even a few small casinos.
The center of town was marked by a circular rotunda, which Main Street split around like an island in the midst of a stream. In the middle of the isle was the Flathead County Courthouse, a chateau-like four-story, yellow-brick building. On its northern face, a large, square tower with pointed spires rose above the snow-covered spruces ringing the rotunda. The scene looked like something from the front of a Hallmark Christmas card.
Across the street to the west was the Flathead County Justice Center, a modern, three-story, brown-brick, and mirrored-glass building that housed the county sheriff’s offices and detention facilities. Several news vans were already parked out front, antennas and satellite dishes sprouting from their roofs. A handful of reporters and camera crews huddling in their coats were camped out on the salted steps, filming introductory pieces and waiting for any signs of activity from inside.
“Look at ’em,” Lewis muttered. “Like a bunch of vultures.”
When they saw a county vehicle passing by, they all turned, cameras zooming in. Several followed them around to the back of the building, where they pulled into the sally port. As the large doors slowly rolled down, reporters and cameramen scampered up, filming as they shouted out questions.
“I tell you … this town’s never seen anything like this before,” the deputy said, shaking his head.
They entered through the booking area past the holding cells and continued to the administration area up front.
They turned down another hall, and the deputy led them into one of the offices. “Sheriff … the FBI men are here.”
Looking out the window across the room from them was a tall, broad-shouldered man. He stood motionless like a statue. Long black hair trailed across the back of his collar.
The man turned around slowly. Kyle was surprised to find he was a Native American.
“Gentlemen,” he said, his deep voice like the grinding of stone on stone. “I am George Greyhawk.”
Kyle had often thought that Lewis was an imposing man. Lewis was big and strong and had a deep voice, but Sheriff George Greyhawk
defined
imposing from the way he stood perfectly erect to the penetrating steel-gray eyes above his sharp, aquiline nose, not to mention the powerful timbre of his voice. It was as if he had been chiseled from the bedrock of the nearby mountains.
Lewis stepped forward to greet the sheriff, who was several inches taller than him. “Agent Lewis Edwards,” he said. “And this is Kyle Andrews, victim specialist.”
“Aay, you must be the boys from Seattle,” said a man with a thick, northeastern accent as he rose from a chair across from the sheriff’s desk. “How you doing?” He wore black jeans and a dark blue ball cap and a shirt with FBI stenciled on the front. Kyle guessed him to be about five foot six or seven at the most, but with a stocky build. He had thick, dark brown hair and a bushy mustache that helped to hide his badly stained teeth.
“Tony Marasco, Kalispell office,” he said as he offered his hand. “I’m told you boys are taking the lead on this.”
“That’s right,” Lewis said. “So what have we got?”
“Just got here a little while ago myself,” said Marasco. “We were waiting on you.”
Kyle stood back, taking a moment to scan the room while Lewis sat in the remaining chair in front of the desk. It was something he often did in victim’s homes to get a sense of the people he was dealing with. On a bookshelf behind the sheriff’s desk was a black-and-white picture of a striking, young, Native American woman with long black hair. She reminded Kyle of Cher when she was younger. She stood behind a tall boy of nine or ten, her arms wrapped around him. Even at such a young age, the boy’s strong jawline and broad shoulders left no doubt that it was George Greyhawk.
The wall to the left was adorned with plaques and certificates of commendation from the department, while behind him was a large map of the Flathead Valley. Curiously, Kyle noted there weren’t any items indicative of his Indian heritage on display.
Marasco picked up two manila folders from the desk and handed one to Lewis. Kyle looked on over Lewis’s shoulder as he opened it. Inside were copies of the crime-scene photographs, evidence log, and other information on the men.
“We’ve got at least three dead so far,” said the sheriff. “The remains were discovered around 6:15 this morning by an electrician repairing downed power lines. The site is about halfway down Hungry Horse Reservoir, just off Graves Bay.” He pointed at the map on the wall behind them. Hungry Horse Reservoir was a long, thin lake between two mountain ranges to the northeast of Kalispell. About halfway down the reservoir, Kyle found the quarter-moon-shaped bay.
“How long is the reservoir?” Lewis asked.
“It’s about fifty-five miles from the dam to the Spotted Bear Ranger Station at the other end,” said the sheriff. “We arrived on site about 8:45. The snow was so deep we had to use the Forest Service snowcats to get there.”
“Any idea what happened?” Lewis asked.
“Not yet,” said the sheriff. “Four men were staying at the cabin. Two nights ago, there was a big storm. Power to the cabin was knocked out. It appears at least two of them went out back to start the generator. From there, we aren’t sure what happened. But one of the men’s severed head was found in the living room, and another’s arm was found in the snow out back. After we called in the search-and-rescue dogs, we dug out in front of the generator. We found a flashlight and another hand. The decapitated man was Steve Haskins. From the fingerprints, we were able to identify the two other men as James Darrell and Jasper Earl.”
“How did you know the men were from Seattle?”
“From the luggage in the bedrooms. Their wallets were left along with the cash and credit cards.”
“Was a report taken from the repairman?” Lewis asked.
“Yes, the deputy that took his statement said he had no reason to suspect him.”
“I heard he pissed his pants when he found them,” Marasco added with a smirk.
“We’ll want a copy of the statement,” Lewis said.
The sheriff nodded.
“What about the fourth man?” Lewis asked.
The sheriff flipped through a few of the pages in front of him. “Larry Henderson,” he said. “We don’t know what happened to him. We’re still searching for him and any other remains. The truck and the snowmobiles they rented were left out front. He couldn’t have gotten far on foot.”
“Sounds to me like a poker game gone bad,” said Marasco. “I used to see this kind of shit back in Jersey. You get a bunch of drunk wise guys bustin’ each other’s balls. Then suddenly someone snaps, and
boom
—you got fuckin’ dead people everywhere.”
“Unless he had help,” Lewis said to the sheriff, ignoring Marasco’s comment. “What sort of condition was the road in before the storm?”
“It had been plowed recently,” said the sheriff. “A four-wheel-drive vehicle could have made it, but they would have had to have left before the storm hit. It doesn’t fit with the estimated time of death.”
“What about the evidence?” Lewis asked.
“It’s all going to the lab in DC,” said Marasco. “Including the body parts. I’ve already talked to the coroner.”
“Good,” said Lewis. “Make sure we get copied on everything.”
“You got it.”
Kyle knew that when he returned to Seattle, he would have to explain to the families what had happened to their loved ones and why they couldn’t claim their remains yet. It was not something he looked forward to.
“Any evidence of weapons fire?” Lewis asked.
“Just one from a shotgun,” said the sheriff. “We removed pellets from the fireplace.”
“Any other weapons found?”
“Not yet. And nothing that would explain the dismemberment.”
“Is it possible they were mauled?” Lewis asked.
“Not as the cause of death,” said the sheriff. “Haskin’s head was severed clean. Same for Earl’s arm. According to the coroner, the bones didn’t show any signs of fracturing or splintering, or any abrasions that one would expect to find if the arm had been hacked or sawed off. He says the arm was severed by something like an ax or a sword or a machete. Darrell’s hand did appear to have been bitten off, but we think that occurred postmortem.”
“What about these?” Lewis asked, pointing at a photograph of scratches on the hardwood floor.
“We think those were caused by whatever they used to decapitate the vic.” The sheriff reached across the desk and flipped to the next picture. “The ceiling is open-joist construction, with logs about eight inches in diameter. There are also scratches around that beam there. We think they might have looped something over, like a chain, and used that to hold them up.”
“Torture?” Lewis asked.
“Maybe,” said the sheriff. “Or just to bleed them out before they packed out the bodies.”
“Jesus,” Marasco muttered. “I ain’t never seen nothing like that, not even in Jersey.”
“So the bodies were taken and moved somewhere,” Lewis said. “Either by someone strong enough to carry it by himself, or there were several people involved.”
It didn’t make sense to Kyle, and he ventured to ask about it. “What would anyone want with the bodies? If you’re trying to make it hard to ID someone, wouldn’t you get rid of the head and the hands instead of the body?”
“Unless they were interrupted and scared off before they were finished,” Lewis said. “Or else someone was trying to make a statement.”
“Could have been drug dealers,” said Marasco. “Salt Lake’s also running a list of all the known cults and white supremacist groups in the area. Homeland Security wants to make sure these guys weren’t whacked as part of some terrorist plot. And it’s a pretty fucking long list. I think there’s more wackos in the woods out there than in all of Jersey.”
Kyle nodded. He hadn’t thought of that.
“Did it look as if the head had been moved? You know, placed in any particular position or arranged to send a message?” Lewis asked.
“No,” said the sheriff
Deputy Johnson stuck his head back in the doorway. “Excuse me, sheriff, but the Joneses are here. I put them in the interview room up front and got them both a cup of coffee.
“Thank you, Clayton. Tell them we’ll be right there. The Joneses own the cabin and two others along the bay that they rent out,” explained the sheriff.
“I’d like to handle the interview with you,” Lewis said to the sheriff. “Is the room they’re in set up to allow for observation?”
“Audio and video,” said the sheriff. “Agents Marasco and Andrews can watch from the room next door.”