In the Clearing (Tracy Crosswhite #3)(61)

“They weren’t bad kids,” Goldman said. “You know how it is. None of them came from much, and suddenly they were getting a lot of attention and seeing their names in the paper every week. Adults would stop them in the street to congratulate them and want to talk all about the upcoming game. It went to their heads a bit.”

“They ever get in any trouble?”

“If they did, friend, I never heard about it.”

“You sound uncertain.”

“Rumors. Nothing I could ever print.”

Tracy watched Kaylee Wright leave the coffee shop and head to her SUV. Tracy gave her a wave. “Sometimes there’s truth in a rumor,” she said.

“And lawsuits,” Goldman said with a burst of a laugh. “I’m like Joe Friday. I print just the facts.”

Tracy decided to push it. “Who might have sued?”

“Like I said, kids start reading their names in the paper, getting slaps on the back—sometimes they think they can do no wrong. High school stuff, you know?”

“Drinking? Smoking pot?”

“Here’s the thing. Little Timmy gets caught with a beer, the police drive him home, and nobody cares. One of the Ironmen gets caught, and the police still drive him home, but everyone in town knows, and now they’re worried he’s going to get kicked off the team and their undefeated season is going to go up in smoke.”

“Right, but you had your finger on the pulse. Any truth to those rumors?”

Goldman sighed. Then he said, “Not a lot to do in a small town.”

“Any of them have any romantic involvement with Kimi Kanasket that you’re aware of?”

Goldman paused, and Tracy knew he was connecting the dots between her questions. “If there was, I wouldn’t have known about it.”

“You never heard anything like that?”

“Nothing of the sort.”

“Any connection at all you can think of?”

Again there was a lengthy pause. “Coe and Gallentine ran track. That’s the only thing I can think of.”

“What can you tell me about Arthur Coe?”

“Archie Coe,” Goldman corrected. “Nice kid. He was probably the least heralded of the four. He joined the Army after high school, but he washed out, came home with a medical discharge.”

“Do you know what for?”

“Officially, he hurt his back.”

“Unofficially?”

“Unofficially, he had some type of nervous breakdown. He lives in Central Point now. Works in the nursery—at least he did fifteen years ago when I last tried to speak to him.”

Tracy thought of the man she’d seen in the clearing and of the freshly planted shrub. “Was he married? Did he have any kids?”

“Divorced. His wife and kids moved to somewhere in California. Palm Springs maybe.”

“Why’d you try to speak to him fifteen years ago?”

“I was writing an article on the twenty-five-year anniversary of the championship. It turned out to not be the celebratory piece everyone was expecting.”

“Why not?”

“Eric Reynolds is the only one of the four who made anything of himself. He played four years at UW, but he blew his knee out during practice sophomore year. If he did it now, it’d be no big deal, but back then it was the kiss of death. He never reached the kind of stardom he did in high school. Still, after he graduated, he moved home and started his construction and cement business. Any public-works job this side of Seattle, you’re likely to see a Reynolds Construction banner.”

Tracy again considered her notes. “What about Darren Gallentine?”

“He shot himself. He was living in Seattle.”

“When?”

“Sometime in the late eighties, I believe.”

“Do you know why?”

“Not a clue, friend,” he said. “The last of the four was young Hastey, who is universally considered the town drunk. Like I said, not exactly a feel-good story. We shelved it.”

“What does Hastey do for Reynolds?”

“He drove a cement truck until he got his third DUI. Now I think he shines a seat in the office.”

“Sounds like Reynolds is pretty loyal to him.”

“Old ties run deep in a small town.”

“Yeah,” Tracy said, thinking of Cedar Grove. “I’m going to need to come down and take another look at your newspapers, Sam. Would that be all right?”

“Anytime, friend. We’re not going anywhere.”





CHAPTER 21


Monday morning Tracy drove to the squat cement building on Airport Way that was home to the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab. She’d left the coffeehouse Friday feeling both energized and sick. She had definitive forensic proof that Kimi Kanasket had not thrown herself into the White Salmon River. Far from it. She’d been run down and run over, her body unceremoniously dumped like a piece of garbage.

And Tracy’s focus had now shifted squarely to the Four Ironmen.

She refrained from calling Jenny. She’d learned not to prematurely express her conclusions every time she thought she had a significant break in a case. Too often that break turned out to be a false lead, and she had to go back and explain why she’d been wrong.