In the Clearing (Tracy Crosswhite #3)(104)

His smile widened, and he stuck out his hand. “Thanks,” he said. “I owe you an apology.”

“Don’t worry about it. Where is he?”

“Come in. I’ll take you.”

élan closed the door behind her. The interior had also been cleaned and straightened. The walls had been prepped to be painted, spotted with patches of spackling, blue painter’s tape along the trim.

“You’re fixing up the house,” she said.

“It was time,” he said. “After my father passes, I’m moving to Arizona to take a job down there.” He smiled. “A friend has a sister.”

“I hope it works out for you.” She followed élan up the stairs.

“It’s just a matter of time, now that he’s asked to come home,” élan said. “Hospice is here in the mornings, but I stay with him in the afternoon.”

“I’m very sorry,” she said.

élan stopped at the landing and faced her. “Don’t be. My father is at peace for the first time that I can remember. He’s ready to go, thanks to you.”

“What about the dog?”

“He died,” élan said. “When my father went to the hospital, the dog went to his chair, laid down, and went to sleep. He never woke up.”

He led Tracy to a room just to the right of the stairs. The door was open, the hospital bed placed so that Earl Kanasket could look out the window at the expansive green field that seemed to stretch to the horizon. “I wanted him to have the best view in the house,” élan said.

Tommy Moore, seated in a chair at the side of the bed, stood as they entered. He shook Tracy’s hand. “Thank you, Detective. You’ve lifted a huge burden from our shoulders.”

Tracy looked down at Earl. He’d been thin when she’d come to see him initially, but now he was just a skeleton of that man. “Is he coherent?”

“Not this afternoon, I’m afraid,” élan said. “But he wanted you to have something.”

“Something for me?”

élan left the room and returned a moment later carrying the feathered dream-catcher earring Tracy recognized from Kimi’s senior photo. “This was Kimi’s,” élan said. “He kept this hanging in his bedroom window. He wanted you to have it for bringing Kimi home to him.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Tracy said. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Thank him. The nurses say that he senses our presence. Talk to him. He’ll hear you.”

Tracy walked to the side of the bed. Earl Kanasket’s hair was no longer in a braid. She reached out and touched his hand, which was cold and nearly translucent.

“Mr. Kanasket,” she started.

“He would want you to call him Earl,” élan said, smiling.

Tracy looked to élan, then back to Earl. “Earl? It’s Tracy Crosswhite, the detective from Seattle. I came to tell you that you can put Kimi to rest.”

She felt Earl’s hand twitch, an almost imperceptible flutter.

“We found the men responsible for Kimi’s death,” she said.

Earl slowly opened his eyes. élan and Tommy stepped closer, to the opposite side of the bed.

Tracy squeezed Earl’s hand. “Buzz Almond and I found them. Kimi did not take her own life, Earl. The men responsible are being brought to justice.”

Earl’s expression didn’t change, but Tracy thought she might have detected just the faintest indication of understanding in his eyes. Then she noticed them pooling, and a lone tear trickled down his pronounced cheekbones. Tracy reached out and gently brushed it away with the tip of her finger.

“Tears of joy,” élan said.

When Tracy looked back, Earl’s eyes remained open, but he was no longer looking at her. He was staring out the windows, beyond the field, to the distant horizon.

Gone.





EPILOGUE


Tracy waited until spring, when Jenny invited her and Dan back to Stoneridge for the ceremony dedicating the headstone that would mark Buzz Almond’s grave.

On the drive down, she and Dan stopped at the Central Point Nursery, where Archibald Coe had cared so diligently for his plants. Tracy had never been much of a gardener, so she told the woman at the nursery she wanted something hardy, something that could grow anywhere, maybe with a flower that would bloom.

She left with four plants.

From the nursery they drove to the turnout just past the dilapidated log building that had once been the Columbia Diner. Dan carried the box containing the plants and followed her into the brush and along the path Kimi had run during the final moments of her life. The muscles of Tracy’s legs strained when she came to the incline, and she heard Dan’s breathing as he carried the heavy box of plants up the hill.

“Be careful,” she said when she reached the top. “The grass can be slick.”

Halfway down the other side, she stopped, uncertain of what she saw.

“What is it?” Dan asked.

Tracy walked to where Archibald Coe had planted his single bush. She’d expected to find it dead, but the plant looked instead to be flourishing, the leaves no longer brown, the branches longer and fuller, and even sprouting small buds.

Dan set down the box, and Tracy smiled. She’d bought four plants, but she’d only need three—one for Earl Kanasket, and one each for Darren Gallentine and Archibald Coe. She’d been skeptical that the plants would survive.