Michael Koryta - Last Words

“He was a troubled kid. Or at least from a troubled family. The family was just a wreck. Dad got arrested as often as most of us go to the movies. Mom went through jobs faster than that until she left, when Evan was maybe eight, nine years old. Then Dad, he’d take off, only he’d wander back, time to time. You ever read Huckleberry Finn ?”

“Yes.”

“Picture that father, and you’ve got a sense of Carson Borders. Evan was pretty well on his own as a kid. Had an uncle who as good as raised him, a man named Lou Leonard. When Sarah started dating Evan, I thought that by showing him trust, I was helping him overcome that upbringing. But then... then it happened, and I wondered...”

“Right,” Mark said. There was no need to make her finish.

“It was probably for the best that Carson was out of Evan’s life, honestly,” Diane said. “Evan worked, he showed some initiative, and I think he carried a lot of shame, which I always felt bad about. It’s hard for a child to have to deal with that sort of family reputation, particularly in a small town.”

Mark nodded. It certainly was hard. He’d never known his own father, but he knew small towns and family reputations. He’d been raised by uncles who were on a first-name basis with every jailer in western Montana and northern Wyoming and a mother who changed her name almost annually to try to keep her scams from catching up with her. The worst part of the family burden was the lack of surprise people showed. The way they just nodded over the news, as if they’d been expecting it, and then they looked at Mark with eyes that said, Wonder when your time will come.

“Was Carson Borders ever considered a suspect himself?”

“Briefly.” Her eyes flickered away. “Then he was... cleared, I guess you’d say.”

“What cleared him?”

“His teeth.”

Mark cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. Diane Martin took a drink of her beer and said, “Someone mailed a bag to Evan with Carson’s teeth in it.”

“Good Lord.”

She nodded. “The package was sent from Detroit. Evidently Carson had tried to negotiate his way out of prison by giving up some information on cell mates from Detroit.”

“Evan must have understood something about them too. You get that package in the mail, you know why. It was a message to him.”

“If it was, he never explained it.”

“Which means the message was received.” Mark thought about that for a minute and then said, “Did Ridley have a similar reputation? Any history of violence, of crime?”

“He had a reputation, but not for being a criminal. He was viewed as an eccentric, that was all. But he was never right. He was always saying strange things, giving you strange looks. Ever met someone who doesn’t seem to fit into the world the rest of us share? People who seem to belong to another one, up in their own heads? He had that sort of reputation. He used to go caving with some of the groups around here, but he made them uncomfortable. He’d talk to the cave, he’d say odd things, and most people who went out with him once never went back to him again, even though he was apparently very skilled at what he did. He was as comfortable underground as any snake.”

You ought to spend some time down there. In the dark. Think about her, think about me.

“Anyone else?”

“Brett and Jeremy Leonard. They’re Evan’s cousins. Bad kids. He felt some loyalty to them, I think, but they were always trouble and he wasn’t, at least not back then. One of my rules for Sarah was that she was not to be around those two.”

“But you’d put money on Ridley?”

“Yes. If he had just stayed with the group and not broken off on his own, well, then his story would either hold up or it wouldn’t, right? Then we would know the truth. But instead, he went off alone and conveniently forgot the path he’d taken, so whatever happened down there became harder to prove.”

“He says he doesn’t remember anything. What do you think of that?”

She fixed that penetrating stare on him again but this time added are-you-kidding-me raised eyebrows.

“Yeah,” Mark said. “I know.”

“Total memory loss? Please. Something happened down there. He has to remember something. ”

“I agree. Now, what happened once he was inside, we don’t know. But what about before he was called out?”

“He was already underground.”

Mark frowned. “He was inside the cave when this happened?”

“Another cave. Or so he says. The surveillance videos say he didn’t go into Trapdoor. But Ridley was the one person on earth who might have known another way in.”

“My understanding,” Mark said, “is that the police were never able to locate the spot where...where Sarah was found.” He was careful to say Sarah, not the body or the corpse or the remains.

“That’s right. And that’s another reason that Ridley Barnes becomes so hard to believe, because he’s an expert, right? He supposedly knows the place better than anyone alive, but he claims he can’t even begin to remember where he was when he found her?”

“Okay,” he said. “So it’s Ridley, Evan, and these cousins of his. Nobody else stands out to you?”

Diane went quiet. When she spoke again, her voice was lower.

“I lied to you,” she said.

“When?”

She turned to face him, and her eyes were bright with unspilled tears. “You asked who keeps me awake at night. I gave you three names. But I didn’t give you the one that matters most. I keep myself awake at night. I’m the one. Because isn’t it my job to see that someone finds out the truth, finds out who did it? Isn’t that my job?”

Mark shook his head and said, “No, it’s not yours,” but he’d never convinced himself to believe that either.

“Then whose is it?” Diane Martin asked.

“The police.”

“And when they can’t do anything? When they don’t do anything?”

“Then you need help,” Mark said. “Then you need...”

“Someone like you,” she said when he didn’t finish.

He drained his beer and put some cash on the bar. “I appreciate your time, Mrs. Martin. I truly do. You had every right to be angry with me, and yet you heard me out.”

“So you’ll help?”

“I’ll do what I promised. I’ll evaluate things, and the rest is up to my boss.”

“You should go there.”

“Pardon?”

Her face was intense; she was leaning close to him now, one hand on his arm. “To Trapdoor. To the place where she died. I think you should see it for yourself.”

“People keep telling me that,” he said, and he was afraid she’d ask who else had said it, but she didn’t.

“People are right. You should go down there and think about your wife, and then make up your mind.”

“My wife has absolutely nothing to do with this. That has to be understood.”

The silent smile she offered in response was impossibly kind.

He didn’t feel that he’d had that much to drink, but by the time they left the bar and walked into the wind-whipped cold, Mark had a shakiness and disorientation that suggested he’d had a few more than he remembered. Diane Martin was rock steady, though, walking briskly through the parking lot and toward the hotel. She stopped in front of a row of cars and turned back to him and offered her hand. The parking lot was poorly lit and he couldn’t make out her eyes in the shadows and was grateful for that.

“Consideration,” she said. “That’s all I’m asking for. If you believe you can help, and you wish to, then you should allow yourself to. It’s all up to you.”