In the Clearing (Tracy Crosswhite #3)
Robert Dugoni
PROLOGUE
Friday, November 5, 1976
Klickitat County, Washington Buzz Almond informed dispatch he was rolling, punched the accelerator, and smiled at the roar of the 245-horsepower V-8 engine, the g-forces nudging him back against his seat. Word in the office was that the politicians would be phasing out the gas-guzzling dinosaurs and downsizing to more fuel-efficient vehicles. Maybe so, but for now Buzz had one of the big boys, a Chevy Caprice hardtop, and he intended to keep it until they pried his fingers from the steering wheel.
The shot of adrenaline made him sit up, his brain synapses firing and sending out electrical impulses. Fully operational. In the Marine Corps, they’d called it “combat ready.” He saw no reason to change now that he was a Klickitat County deputy sheriff.
Can I get an oorah?
Buzz slowed, lowered the driver’s-side window, and adjusted the spotlight, searching for the cross street. Most of the streets around here were marked, but not all; some were nothing more than narrow, unpaved paths. With no street lamps, and with a dense cloud layer shrouding the area, it was dark as ink. You could drive right past a road without ever seeing it.
The light hit upon a cluster of battered mailboxes atop wooden posts. Buzz inched the beam up a metal pole until he saw a reflective green street sign: “Clear Creek Rd.” That was it. He made the turn. The car bounced and pitched in the ruts and potholes. The residents groomed some roads in spring and summer. Not this one.
He continued a quarter mile through heavy scrub oak, pine, and aspen. At a bend to the left, a light shimmered in the tree branches. Buzz drove toward it, onto a gravel drive leading to a double-wide. Before he’d parked, a man pushed out the front door and descended three wooden stairs, crossing a dirt yard cluttered with unstacked firewood, scrap metal, and an empty clothesline.
Buzz checked the name he’d jotted on his pocket notepad and got out. The air, smelling of pine, was heavy with the weight of impending snow. First of the season. His girls would be excited.
The ground, starting to freeze from the quick drop in temperature after a week of punishing rains, crunched beneath his boots. “Are you Mr. Kanasket?” Buzz asked.
“Earl,” the man said, extending a rough, dry hand. From Earl Kanasket’s dark skin and black hair, which he wore pulled back in a ponytail, Buzz surmised he was a member of the Klickitat tribe. Most had moved northeast to the Yakama Reservation decades earlier, but not all. Earl wore a heavy canvas jacket, jeans, and thick-soled boots. His face was pocked with dark moles and had the weathered look of someone who worked outdoors. Buzz figured him to be early forties.
“You called about your daughter?” Buzz asked.
“Kimi walks home after work. She calls from the diner before she leaves. She’s never late.”
“The Columbia Diner?” Buzz asked, taking notes. He’d passed the one-room log cabin less than a mile back on State Route 141.
A woman hurried out the door, wrapping a long coat around herself. A young man followed, likely a grown son, given the strong resemblance.
“This is my wife, Nettie, and our son, élan,” Earl said.
The hem of Nettie’s nightgown extended from beneath her coat. She wore slippers. élan stood barefoot in jeans and a white T-shirt. Buzz felt cold just looking at him.
“What time does Kimi usually get home?”
“Eleven. Never late.”
“And she called tonight?”
“Every night. She calls every night she works,” Earl said, starting to sound impatient.
“What did she say?” Buzz asked, trying to remain calm but getting a sense this was not just a girl late for her curfew.
“She said she was on her way home.”
Nettie put a hand on her husband’s forearm to calm him. “This is not like Kimi,” she said to Buzz. “She wouldn’t upset us. She’s a good girl. She’s going to the University of Washington next year. If she said she was coming home, she would be home.”
élan turned his head and folded his arms across his chest, which Buzz thought an odd response.
“So she’s in high school?”
“She’s a senior at Stoneridge High,” Nettie said.
“Could she have gone to a friend’s house?”
“No,” Earl said.
“And she’s never done this before? Never been late?”
“Never,” Earl and Nettie said in unison.
“Okay,” Buzz said. “Is there anything going on at home or at school that could have caused her to break her routine?”
“Like what?” Earl said, now sounding angry.
Buzz kept calm. “Recent disagreements. Teenage-girl drama at school?” Buzz had no real point of reference—his daughters were four and two—though he recalled that his own sisters and their friends had become royal pains in the butt when they hit puberty.
“She broke up with her boyfriend,” élan said, stopping the conversation cold.
Buzz looked to the young man. When he didn’t elaborate, he redirected his attention to Nettie and Earl. From the blank expressions on their faces, Buzz could tell this was either news to them or something they didn’t think worth mentioning.
“When did that happen?” he asked élan.