In the Clearing (Tracy Crosswhite #3)(16)

She flipped to the first entry, which turned out to be a yellowed newspaper article folded in half to fit the length of the file. It had been cut from the Stoneridge Sentinel, the date handwritten above the headline: Sunday, November 7, 1976.



Stoneridge Red Raiders

Reach Pinnacle, Win State Title



Tracy quickly skimmed the article. The Red Raiders had defeated Archbishop Murphy 28–24, capping an undefeated season for Coach Ron Reynolds and capturing the school’s first state championship in any sport. A parade was to be held in Stoneridge that Monday afternoon to celebrate the accomplishment.

Accompanying the article was the type of iconic photograph found framed in high school trophy cases everywhere. Young men, looking exhausted but jubilant, beamed at the camera, their uniforms grass-and dirt-stained, their hair matted with perspiration, their faces smeared with black eye grease and bits of dirt. They held aloft a shimmering golden football mounted atop a wooden base.

Tracy moved to a second article, hand-dated Monday, November 8, 1976, this one commemorating the parade in the team’s honor. In the accompanying photograph, three boys wearing letterman jackets sat atop the backseat of a convertible, fingers raised. A sizable and animated crowd of fans waving Stoneridge High pennants and pom-poms lined the sidewalks, streamers and confetti fluttering all around them. Like the previous picture, it was a moment forever frozen in the small town’s history, and that was likely the reason Buzz Almond had included the articles in the file. Trying to get witnesses to remember an event months or even just weeks earlier could be difficult, but the fact that Kimi Kanasket had disappeared the weekend of what was apparently the most celebrated sporting event in Stoneridge’s history gave Buzz Almond, and now Tracy, a point of reference to ground witnesses’ recollections. It was like asking people who lived through the sixties “Where were you when Kennedy was shot?” It was also an indication that Buzz Almond had deduced that the investigation could take years.

Tracy set the second story aside and reviewed an article on Kimi Kanasket’s death.



Local Girl’s Body Pulled



from White Salmon River

This article was given far fewer inches of print—just half a column and a few inches long, with Kimi’s senior photo halfway through. It said that as a junior at Stoneridge High the previous year, Kimi had competed in the state track championship in the hundred-yard dash and the high hurdles, finishing second and third, respectively. She was survived by a mother and father, Earl and Nettie Kanasket, and an older brother, élan. There was no mention of suicide. There was no mention of an investigation. There weren’t even any follow-up articles.

Having grown up in a small town in the mid-1970s, Tracy knew people didn’t air their dirty laundry or others’. If Kimi Kanasket had killed herself, Tracy doubted anyone would have been eager to publicize it or to read about it. A stigma was firmly affixed to suicide and, unfairly, to the family. When Tracy’s father shot himself two years after Sarah’s death, he destroyed not only his own legacy, but also the family’s. People talked—never in front of Tracy or her mother, but they talked. It was one of the reasons Tracy wanted her mother to move with her to Seattle.

Tracy next found a wallet-size photo of the young woman stapled to a missing-persons report. Kimi had lustrous black hair that flowed well past her shoulders. Visible just beneath her right earlobe was an intricate feathered dream-catcher. Tracy suspected that Kimi’s youthful facial features would have become more angular with age, making Kimi a stunningly attractive woman. But Kimi Kanasket, like Sarah, wouldn’t get that chance. She would be forever young.

Buzz Almond’s responding officer’s report was next. The onionskin paper and uneven type indicated that it was his original report and not a copy. It looked thorough—nearly seven pages—and documented everything, starting with Almond’s receiving the call from dispatch and his conversations with the Kanasket family at their home.

A separate report documented Buzz Almond’s conversation with Tommy Moore the following Monday, the day of the parade.




Monday, November 8, 1976



Buzz Almond left his house before the sun had risen, though it was officially his day off. He avoided downtown Stoneridge. With the parade preparations under way, most of the streets had been cleared of snow, but portions were blocked off with sawhorse barricades and orange cones. People would be up early, despite the chilly temperatures, to set up folding chairs for the best seats. The superintendent had canceled school, and the mayor had proclaimed the day Red Raider Day. Many of the local businesses were shutting their doors between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. so everyone could take part in a celebration that would wind its way through downtown and end with speeches and a potluck in the school gymnasium.

Not being from Stoneridge, Buzz thought the hoopla was more than a little over-the-top, but he’d read about such things—high school football games in small towns in Texas that drew 20,000 spectators, and standing-room-only crowds for basketball games in Indiana. He got a sense that the victory wasn’t just about sports, but rather a validation of a way of life, proving that the small-town kids could compete just as well with the big-city boys, which somehow equated to small-town living being equal to, if not better than, urban living.

Lost in the euphoria was the fact that a young woman’s body had been pulled from the river. Buzz was starting to sense that maybe the town didn’t think of Kimi as one of their own, and he wondered if that was because of the increased tension caused by the protests outside the football games. For white residents, the name “Red Raiders” was synonymous with high school football, and both were sacrosanct. The suggestion that the name was offensive didn’t sit well. If anything, the locals countered, the name and the mascot were flattering to Native Americans; their football boys were fierce warriors ready to do battle.