Don't Look Back - Chapter Four

"Thank you for allowing us to meet with you so promptly, Mrs. Whitley." The rotund detective, Marcus, coughed, phlegm rattling noisily in his throat. His partner, Dayton, much younger and fitter than the former, grimaced slightly.

"Miss Whitley," Cooper said cordially, sitting behind her desk with Dan standing against the window of her office next to her. "I'm no longer married, detective. And it's no problem at all. I was upset to hear about Claire's death."

And she was. Cooper's stomach churned at the thought of a woman so young and troubled dead just hours after she'd met with her. And not because that put Cooper in such a compromising position--she was hardly new to scrutiny--but because Claire was tormented by the things she'd seen and heard throughout her marriage, understandably so. There were too many factors for Claire's death to be a coincidence, and the suddenness of it only added to the blood-chilling eeriness of everything Claire had told her.

"You went down to Augusta to interview her, correct?" Detective Marcus wiped his mouth with a handkerchief after his coughing fit eased.

"Correct."

"Can you elaborate on that for us?"

"Unfortunately, the details of our interview were conducted under the premise of complete anonymity. I can't disclose anything we discussed in the meeting."

Detective Marcus harrumphed at that a bit, bristling almost immediately, but it was the calm, assessing gaze of Detective Dayton that set her on high alert. He leaned forward in the seat across from her desk with a smile.

"Just throw us a bone here, Miss Whitley. You understand how incriminating these circumstances are. Yesterday, you meet with a woman who, for all intents and purposes, you have no known association with or connection to. Today, she's found dead in her mother's house of apparent suicide. You're the last person known to have seen her alive. That makes two people now you've been the last person to see alive, isn't it?"

Nice try, buddy, Cooper thought with an internal smirk, even as her heart panged with grief, and Dan cleared his throat from his position.

"Gentlemen, as you're well aware, this meeting is a courtesy. Your implications are unwelcome and unwarranted, and conducting yourselves in such a way, unbecoming of law enforcement as it is, in a building full of journalists, is unwise." Dan's tone was courteous, but the number of 'un' words in his sentence was a clear giveaway of his dissatisfaction, and Marcus picked up on that. He gave me an apologetic look.

"I apologize for the insensitivity of all this. It's an intriguing case, you understand. The Augusta police department was very quick to reach out to us with your name. Apparently, Miss Willamette's mother explained to responding officers that the last she'd heard from Claire was shortly after you left the house. Miss Willamette had texted her, upset, said she was going to bed and when her mother arrived home from work the next morning, she found her daughter dead on the couch. Police in Augusta recognized your name, as did we. It's all very coincidental. Too much of a coincidence for us to overlook. You understand."

Cooper paused to ponder that. Claire had been clearly distraught when Cooper left, and whether that was from the onslaught of emotions she experienced after bringing up such repressed memories, or her anxiety over anyone finding out that she'd spoken to Cooper, Cooper would now never know. It was entirely possible, likely even, that Claire would've been overwhelmed enough to take her life. The thought broke Cooper's heart. Regardless of the other contributing circumstances, whatever they could be, Claire's death was directly related to Cooper's visit. She refused to dismiss that.

"My initial impression of Claire is that she was... skittish. Nervous. Disengaged. What I can tell you of our meeting is that she giving me a lead for one of my ongoing stories. She was hesitant of the interview from the beginning and wasn't any more at ease by the time I left."

"And what time was that?" Dayton pulled out a notepad as he asked.

"About 6:20pm yesterday."

"What did you do afterwards?"

"I took a cab back to my hotel."

"Which hotel?"

Cooper told him.

"And which cab company?"

Cooper sighed. "I left Claire around 6:20pm yesterday. I used Speedy Cab services, cab #387, and got a ride back to my hotel. I went straight to the hotel bar where I spent roughly an hour. Hotel security should be able to verify my arrival time. The bar should have a record of my credit card transaction. I ordered room service at 8:00pm--a burger with no lettuce or tomato, fries, and a vodka tonic--and didn't leave my room again until 9:45am the this morning when I left for the airport. Surveillance cameras are located in each hallway and all the elevators, the entrance and exits, so the Augusta detectives will be able to verify all that."

The detectives exchanged a glance for a moment, before Marcus cleared his throat, and Dayton scratched the back of his neck, closing his notepad. "Thank you," Marcus said.

"Is that all?" Dan asked gruffly, and Dayton nodded as both men rose to their feet.

"We'll pass this along to the APD, and let you know if we have any other questions."

They left, closing the door to her office as they did, and Cooper's face fell to her hands with a low groan. She heard Dan shuffling around the side of her desk, and she lifted her head as he sank into the chair Detective Dayton had just vacated.

He looked tired. The salt-and-peppering of his black hair at his temples was increasing, and the wrinkles around his eyes and mouth seemed to be especially creased whenever she saw him. But maybe that was just around Cooper.

"Is this about Iris?" He asked, and Cooper sighed.

"Dan-," she started, but he held up a hand and cut her off.

"No, Cooper. No more excuses, no more lies. You told me you were going to Georgia to interview someone, no details, and then a day later, a woman is dead, and the police are investigating the very unfortunate timing of your meeting. So, tell me, are you really still pursuing this?" His hands waved animatedly as he spoke.

There was a lump the size of Texas in Cooper's throat as her eyes bounced between Dan's grey ones. "I have to do this, Dan. Iris is alive, okay? I know she is, and I can't keep trying to explain it, because you and Evan, and this whole office already think I'm crazy, but there is something very off about all this, okay? Claire Willamette was married to one of the men I saw that night. She showed me pictures of him and all the guys in his tribe, and the whole thing is so much more messed up than I thought. I mean, we're talking about possible ritualistic human sacrifice kind of messed up."

The journalist in Dan caught on to that, and his brows furrowed. "Really?"

"Yes. You should have heard the stuff she was telling me, Dan. And it disturbed Claire enough that she quit her job, left her marriage, lost sleep, and started chain smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. This is serious, and Claire suspected that maybe Iris was being hunted for some pagan Native American offering, and it what she was telling me is true at all, this has been going on for years."

"Jesus, Cooper, listen to yourself!" Dan stood throwing his arms to his sides. "You flew across the Midwest at the whim of a sleep-deprived, mentally unstable woman with delusions about her ex-husband who may or may not be part of some human-sacrificing cult?"

Cooper huffed, rifling through the papers on her desk with jerky movements until she found the notes she'd taken on disappearances through the Teton Mountain range over the last thirty years, like Claire had said. She pointed to the list of names she'd hastily compiled in the few short hours of sobriety she'd had last night.

"Look at this. Eighteen children have been reported missing in those mountains over the past three decades, and all of them went missing around this time of year."

He took the list with a sad sort of resignation, glancing over the names and dates of birth circled in red with skepticism. There were another two dozen names of kids that all went missing in the same area at other times of the year throughout those same decades. He glanced up at her in disappointment.

"You're a journalist. You should know better than to analyze data with bias." His eyes roamed the paper again, flipping over to the map she'd haphazardly dotted with the disappearances, but he couldn't see whatever pattern Cooper thought she was seeing. He handed the papers back to her, braced his hands on his hips and stared down at his mentee.

How had they gotten to this? How had she come to this point?

He absorbed the dark circles under her eyes, the manic expression on her tired face. Her fingers twitched, and Dan's jaw ticked with irritation. He stalked around her desk to the drawer on her left, and pulled it open with angry, jerky movements. The glass bottle rattled against the wood, and Cooper bit her lip with a wince when he yanked it out. A humorless laugh left his lips, and he tilted his head to the ceiling, taking a breath.

With a deceptive gentleness, Dan placed the half-empty vodka bottle on Cooper's desk and slowly walked to the door.

She'd messed up this time, Cooper knew it. She'd kept her drinking under wraps for the most part, but she should have known Dan would see through it. She rose shakily to her feet.

"Dan, I'm sorry," she started.

"No, Coop, I'm sorry. I gave you too much freedom, made too many exceptions for you, turned a blind eye to all the trouble you were having, and I can't do that anymore. It's not fair to me, to you, or this paper. And now you've dragged us back into the attention of law enforcement. The board isn't going to let this one go. I'm sorry, Cooper, but you're fired."

His chest ached, but he left her office without another word, and Cooper sank back into the chair slowly. She leaned forward, laying her arms on the desk and her head in her arms.

Well, shit.

The horse cantered in a circle around Mato, who held the rope in one hand and the whip in the other, snapping it behind the horse every so often to encourage its pace. It was a beautiful appaloosa mare that he was breaking for one of his father's friend's daughter. She was a spirited animal, but Mato appreciated that about her. Stronger-willed horses needed firmer hands when breaking, but this one responded better to encouragement, so he kept his responses limited to high whistles for praise and low whistles for correction. After a couple hours, she had a layer of sweat darkening her brown and white coat, and Mato brought her pace down to a walk, slowing until she paced to a stop.

"Tsaan ma nahate," He whispered against the side of her head, petting her neck with long strokes. She followed Mato easily as he led her out of the corral and to the pasture where she could run and graze for the night. He himself had sweat a bit underneath his thick coat, so after putting the lead and bridle away in the barn, he walked back to the house to wash up and make dinner. The fire in the wood stove still blazed, and the interior of the house was comforting in its heat and familiarity. His house was simple, the furniture outdated and the walls a shade of blue that was no longer distinguishable underneath the layers of nicotine, but it was home. Mato kicked off his boots and pushed the playback button on his answering machine as he sauntered into the kitchen.

"Hello, Mato, it's Deborah, Claire's mom."

Mato froze, his spine straightening from where he was leaning into the fridge for a beer. The woman's voice was heavy, strained with tears, he could hear that, and his heart began to race with trepidation.

Claire had left him six months ago, and as much as he hated it, had longed to make her stay, his father and grandfather had pressured him to let her go. "She doesn't belong in our world, dua," his father had said, "She does not understand our faith." They hadn't supported the marriage between them either, but Mato was the youngest and most free-spirited of their tribe. He would have left them for Claire, he loved her so. He'd been careless with her. Scared her, he knew that, and regretted it. His faith--his reason for existence--and his love for Claire had warred, torn him apart, and in the end, when she'd left him, he let her go. She deserved to be happy, even if that meant being away from him. But he never stopped loving her. He'd go to the stores closer to the trailer park, thirty minutes out of his way, just to catch a glimpse of her, though it didn't happen often. She always looked to withdrawn and tired. Mato hated that.

He listened, holding his breath, desperately wanting Deborah to say nothing else and say everything all at the same time.

"I know the two o' y'all ain't together no more, but I thought you should know--" Deborah's voice broke, and he heard her quiet sob come through the answering machine. "I thought you should know that Claire passed away last night." Mato's stomach dropped, his heart stopped, and there started to be a ringing in his ears. No, no, no, no, no. "I got home from work this mornin' and she was... she was..." Deborah sobbed again. "She killed herself. The police are saying she overdosed on her meds and then cut her wrists." The woman's voice wavered, and Mato still hadn't taken another breath. "Anyway, uh, I just thought you should know, and uh, I'm gonna be flying up there in the next few days to get her things. Take care, Mato." The voicemail didn't cut off before Deborah finally lost her voice and started crying, but when it did, Mato could no nothing but stand frozen in front of the machine with a chasm splitting his chest in two.

His heart was dead. His love, with her striking eyes and endless spirit, who had met his gaze over a stampede of horses in the pen at that horse auction and captured his soul with one look, was no longer of this earth, and Mato had never felt a pain so keenly. Esa help him, 'She's dead' swirled in his mind like a drug, numbing his limbs with anguish. For once, he thought nothing of his faith, his tribe, his duty; He thought solely of the mistakes he'd made with Claire, and imagined how different things would be had he chosen her over the expectations of his family. Slowly, he slid to the ground, sitting with his arms on his knees and his head hung between his shoulders, and Mato succumbed to his grief.