A raven squawks like a petulant teen cursing me for coming home. I bought my little run-down place before prices skyrocketed, right after I joined the KPD and thought I was starting a lifelong career. The pay wasn’t great, but enough to cover a monthly mortgage payment. The bank agreed.
Now the picture’s muddied. I’ve fallen behind on my credit card payments because I figure the mortgage takes priority. Still, I’m optimistic. In addition to Clarissa Haynes’s case—I’m not charging Paxton Rhoads much, since he doesn’t have it—I’ve got insurance work to fall back on. Thank goodness for the lead on Lasserio that I got in Choteau two weeks ago.
I look out beyond the row of pines behind my house to the wide expanses of fields stretching toward the rolling, friendly peaks of the Whitefish Range, so unlike the barred fangs of the Divide farther east. I’m scanning for anything that seems out of place or strange. A few years ago, I laid down sod and distributed wood chips in the border below the house that doesn’t have flowers or bushes. Now I wish I’d left the old dirt and its better ability to capture prints.
I hike my backpack up onto my shoulder and wheel my other bag to the front stoop.
The porch is also clean—no obvious disturbances.
I leave my luggage by the front door and check the front windows. They’re locked and tight. There are no broken twigs or leaves knocked to the wood chips. Dust on the white sills hasn’t been smudged. I inspect all the side and back windows and the kitchen door. All good.
Inside, I bolt the door behind me. Everything’s in order: sofa pillows stacked as usual, pictures on the shelves unmoved, artwork on the walls straight, frames in need of TLC. I cleaned before I left, but early fall—fire season—means endless Montana dust.
I check my office on the main level and my bedroom and another smaller room—the guest room—upstairs.
In my room, I open the bottom drawer of my bathroom vanity and find the rectangular leather travel case. The case is special to me, a Christmas present from my mom—the last one I’ll ever receive from her. A month after I said goodbye to her following holiday break during my senior year of college, she ran her car off the road east of town. She crashed into a tree, landing upside down. The roads were icy. She’d been drinking. She was a functioning alcoholic who could accomplish daily tasks relatively well, but not this day. The only silver lining was that she didn’t hit another vehicle.
I pull out the leather case. My mom had my first initial,C, engraved on the top. I remove the individual pouches that contain various earrings, rings, necklaces, and bracelets. I inspect each one.
But no earrings.
Impossible.
I check my bedroom, feeling a weird and loopy lightness. Knickknacks from Glacier Park—a sculpture of a mountain lion, a stuffed moose—sit untouched on my dresser and beside my table. There’s a pair of bookends made from the original timber from the legendary Sperry Chalet, which burned down in 2017 when a wildfire raged through Glacier. A framed photo of me with a group of my Uof M friends, including Sophie, and one of my mom and Les on high school graduation day. The photo of me the day I completed Basics, which I stuffed way back in a drawer the day I quit KPD.
No earrings.
I keep a safe in my closet to hold the Sig Sauer P226 I purchased after I turned my back on police work.
I dial the combination and peer in. My Sig sits in the center on top of my passport and birth certificate.
Nothing else. I pull out the gun and squeeze my palm into the waffle grip of the handle. The weight of it instantly reassures me.
But no, I refuse to carry a gun around in my own house, especially when I don’t evenknowif I’m the woman in the sketch. I shove the gun back in the safe, close the door, spin the lock.
I dig through the catchall drawers in the kitchen. Useless. I lift all the cushions on the couch. Nothing but crumbs, a nickel, and two quarters.
In the kitchen, I lean against the counter. The back of my neck tingles. The small house is stuffy, so I swing open the back door and step out. A flock of chickadees dispatch from the crab apple tree, all exacting the same angle as they fly off. The wind picks up, slapping gusts of warmth against my cheeks.
The deer have gone to town on my hostas and hydrangeas and eaten most of my geraniums and potato vine that were still hanging on into the fall. The repellent mix I spray on the beds only works when I apply it regularly. Otherwise, my plants are a delectable smorgasbord.
I walk the perimeter of my yard, where the mowed parts end and the unruly fields of wild, dry grass stretch through a heavily treed area toward the Whitefish Range. Other than deer hooves, no tracks. I walk it again, just to make sure.
Close by sits an old double garden swing. Since I figure no one will search under the rusty thing on the opposite end of the yard, it’s where I hide my spare key.
I lift the left corner of the heavy iron legs. I’m relieved to find the key, dirty and ground into the soil, two earthworms keeping it company. I pick it up and shove it in my pocket.
Jess has texted me again:Are you at your house yet? Call me!
Wallace too:Home now. Call or text if you need anything.
I spin around, taking in everything, looking for anything out of the ordinary. I spot the raven in a pine tree beyond my yard, where it squawks again. A squirrel scurries down my crab apple tree, grabs a rotting crab apple, and races back up. A dog barks in the distance. An airplane flies above over the Whitefish Range, leaving a contrail that’s beginning to fray. The whole scene, although typical, feels like things are on the brink of change. I remind myself that early fall always seems this way as the heat tries to hang on but can’t outpace the shorter days and the lengthening shadows.
In the two days since the updrafts from the late-August heat generated a massive thunderstorm in the valley, making me race to Jess’s, the air has cooled and the light is already changing. Darkness comes a touch earlier and shadows stretch a little farther across the valley floor, devouring everything.
I’m about to turn to go back inside when there’s movement in a copse of aspens. I flinch. Go rigid. The hairs on the back of my neck rise.
Suddenly, a deer darts through the brush, twigs snapping. My pulse slows as I shake my head in disappointment. Is everything going to make me jump now, too, like Jess?
