The Chimera Secret

13

There was only one chief jailer and seven detention officers staffing the jail, which given Idaho’s low population density Ethan did not find surprising. Whereas back home in Chicago the jails were a teeming mass of drunks, hobos and gang hoods filled far beyond their design capacity, out here in north-central Idaho there were an average of just eighteen inmates each day passing through the system.

Earl Carpenter took them to an interview room with a one-way mirror, where Ethan and Lopez waited with obligatory Styrofoam cups of coffee until Earl returned with an inmate shackled to his wrist and led him into the next room.

Jesse MacCarthy was a thin, pale-looking kid with messy black hair and eyes sunken beneath the weight of too many sleepless nights. He looked up briefly from behind the veil of hair at the mirror behind which Ethan and Lopez watched and then dropped his gaze away again. Earl directed him to a chair and the kid sank into it without resistance. Earl’s voice reached them through a speaker set into the wall.

‘You want to talk again about what happened?’

Jesse sat silent and still, his dark eyes staring into nothingness.

‘Shock,’ Lopez murmured as she watched the kid.

‘Traumatic stress,’ Ethan confirmed with a nod. ‘I saw something similar once, after engagements with the Taliban. Some of the guys had that thousand-yard stare of terror.’

‘Jesse,’ Earl said to the unresponsive kid. ‘I can’t help you if you won’t speak to me.’

‘He’s closed up,’ Lopez went on. ‘He might go into denial if we don’t break him.’

Ethan nodded, and grabbed his coffee. ‘Let’s go.’

They walked out of the observation room, and Ethan knocked on the interview room door before walking in with Lopez.

‘Jesse, this is Ethan Warner and Nicola Lopez,’ Earl introduced them. ‘They’re trying to figure out what happened and how to help you.’

Jesse peered up at Ethan but said nothing. Lopez smiled down at him.

‘We’re not cops,’ she said.

‘You don’t look like cops,’ he observed in a voice that might once have been bold but was now scoured of confidence. ‘Why would you want to help me?’

‘Because you didn’t kill your brothers,’ Ethan said.

A glimmer of hope appeared in Jesse’s eyes.

‘They don’ believe me,’ he said, glancing briefly at the sheriff.

‘It’s not an easy story to believe, son,’ Earl said.

Ethan slid into a seat at the table and looked at Jesse. ‘You ever heard of a giant oarfish?’ he asked. When Jesse shook his head, Ethan went on. ‘It’s about sixty feet long and looks like a sea serpent, like one of those things that sailors used to swear attacked ships hundreds of years ago. People didn’t believe them, until they caught one. Now there’s a skeleton of one hanging in a university in Chicago.’

Lopez sat down next to Ethan and leaned forward on the table. She took Jesse’s hand, her rough-edged persona melting as she smiled at the kid.

‘We need to know what happened, Jesse, what you saw up in those mountains. Whatever it is, we need to prove it exists before the state of Idaho decides that you’re insane and puts you behind bars for the next fifty years.’

Jesse bit his lip, his attention fixed on Lopez’s disarming gaze.

‘I din’ kill my brothers, or that ranger. That…’ He struggled for words. ‘That thing got them.’

Ethan watched the kid closely. His hands clenched as he spoke of the animal that had killed his brother. A fingernail paled as it was crushed against the Formica surface of the table.

Ethan could see it wasn’t an act, the kid wasn’t lying. Most teenagers tended to be full of vigour and arrogance: they didn’t cry in front of others. Jesse MacCarthy had not just been frightened beyond belief but had been psychologically transformed from a cocky, fearless youth who had spent an entire childhood out in the woods into a cowering child, afraid of his own shadow.

Lopez squeezed Jesse’s hand gently.

‘Can you describe it? How did you find it?’

Jesse sucked in a trembling lungful of air.

‘Headed east out of Riggins and followed the animal trails into the mountains. We went up that way because the elk move to the valleys in the fall, and most all the hikers stay close to the towns with the tour parties. We figured there was nobody out there to watch us. Cleet, he was the shooter, I was the back-up in case our mark bolted.’

‘Season was out though, right?’ Ethan said. ‘Why not wait?’

Jesse managed a brief, bitter chuckle, staring at the table top as he spoke.

‘Cleet hated the tourists. He was like our old man, reckoned that the forests were better without the people in them. Exceptin’ himself, of course.’

‘We found the ranger’s body out by Fox Creek,’ Earl Carpenter said. ‘Did he follow you all the way?’

Jesse shrugged.

‘Guess so. We tracked a big male elk out that way. Cleet wanted to take his shot at dusk, when we could get real close in the half-light and make sure of the kill.’ Jesse shivered. ‘I guess the creature that killed the ranger was thinking the same thing.’

Lopez’s dark eyes narrowed. ‘You think that it hunted you on purpose?’

Jesse nodded, his voice haunted as he spoke.

‘The ranger collared us before we could take our shot,’ he explained. ‘He asked us who was with us. When we told him it was just the two of us, he din’ believe it and said that somebody was following us. Before we could figure out who the hell it was, we all smelled something.’

Ethan frowned. ‘You smelled something?’

‘Worst thing ever,’ Jesse confirmed. ‘Was like a soccer team’s used kit rubbed in crap then left in a steam room for a month. I nearly puked, it made my eyes water up, it was so bad. Then…’ He trailed off. ‘Then it broke cover and went for the ranger.’

‘Describe it,’ Lopez encouraged him. ‘As if it was a person.’

Jesse swallowed thickly, his hand gripping Lopez’s tightly enough that his knuckles showed white beneath the harsh glare of the lights.

‘Big, way bigger than a man or even a bear. Russet-brown fur, and it walked on two legs the whole time except when it charged down the hillside after Cleet. God, it moved so fast, and it screamed.’ Jesse stumbled over his words as fear poisoned his veins anew. ‘I’ve never heard a noise like it. It echoed down the valley and was so loud it hurt my ears.’

‘This thing was standing when it hit the ranger,’ Ethan said. ‘Can you tell us how tall it was?’

‘Nine feet,’ Jesse replied through his repressed sobs as he ran a wiry hand through his thick black hair, ‘maybe ten. Fucking hell, man, it was huge, made the ranger look like a little kid. Then it hit him. His head came clean off and went into the creek and I freaked. I just froze and couldn’t move. Cleet tried to protect me and fired at it. Hit it straight in the guts with a .308 slug from no more than fifteen yards — might as well have been at point-blank range.’ Jesse slowly shook his head. ‘If he’d have shot the elk that close it would have been dead before it hit th’ground. Man, it just made the thing madder. It went after him, hurled him into the river and broke his neck.’

Jesse went abruptly silent as he realized perhaps for the first time that his brother was truly dead.

‘Then what did it do?’ Lopez asked softly.

‘Beat ’im up real bad,’ Jesse uttered. ‘Was shaking him about and breaking all his bones. Didn’t care that he was dead already. Then it came at me.’

Ethan leaned forward. ‘But you got away.’

Jesse shook his head, but his entire body was shaking just the same as he replied in staccato tones, his words broken by fear.

‘No, I ran but it caught me just as easy as if I’d stayed right where I was.’ He looked at Ethan in confusion. ‘Then it let me go. It had me, was standing right over me. I must’ve passed out or something, and when I came around it was just walking away like I wasn’t worth the bother.’

Ethan leaned back and looked over at Earl Carpenter.

‘That sounds like a conscious decision,’ he said. ‘Not the kind of thing a bear would do.’

‘Bear probably wouldn’t kill more than once out of rage either,’ Earl admitted. ‘Sure, they take hikers from time to time and chew on them a bit, but this doesn’t sound like a bear attack.’

‘It was no bear,’ Jesse snapped. ‘Cleet was a fine shot, one of the best. If it had been a bear he’d have killed it long before it reached us. All I can think is that he was as scared straight as I was and didn’t make a clean shot.’

Ethan glanced across at Earl.

‘If there’s some dangerous animal out there in the mountains, wouldn’t the ranger’s office have posted warnings by now or sent teams out to track this thing down? Technically, it’s a man-eater, right?’

‘So are bears,’ Earl replied. ‘This is big bear country, Mr. Warner, and those critters don’t have much issue with hunting humans, especially unwary tourists who dump trash around their camp sites. It’s virtually a welcome sign for a hungry bear.’

‘They’ve been known to smash their way into cars,’ Lopez agreed, ‘because somebody’s left a window open and food on display inside.’

‘No way any ranger’s office could track all the bears at once, much less prevent them from crossing paths with people in the woods,’ Earl said.

Jesse MacCarthy looked at Ethan, his fists clenched and tears staining his cheeks.

‘Like I said, this weren’t no bear. It’s smarter, bigger and more dangerous, and it sure don’t like people.’ Jesse leaned in toward Lopez. ‘Whatever it is, don’t be goin’ after it. Get the goddamned marines out there, they might stand a chance.’

‘Would you be willing to lead us out there, Jesse,’ Lopez asked, ‘maybe help us track this thing and—’

Jesse recoiled from her, the cuffs on his wrist snapping taut. ‘No way,’ he choked, ‘no fucking way. I’m not goin’ out there ever again.’ He looked up at Earl, panic in his eyes. ‘Don’t make me.’

Earl unlocked Jesse’s cuffs and led him back toward the holding cells as Ethan and Lopez made their way out to the station’s lobby.

‘What do you think?’ Lopez asked him as they stepped outside.

The sun was out again, the soaring hills around the Salmon River looking like an idyllic haven for nature lovers, not the shadowy domain of some murderous beast.

‘Tough to know. We’ve still got one missing body, that of Cletus MacCarthy, but from what Jesse just said that could have been smashed to pieces and eaten by now.’

Earl Carpenter stepped out of the station office and joined them, pulling a Lucky from a packet in his shirt pocket and offering one to Ethan and Lopez. They both declined. Earl lit the cigarette and puffed a billowing cloud of blue smoke into the air.

‘So, what you want to do now?’

‘I want to talk to Jesse’s mother,’ Ethan said. ‘There’s got to be something we can follow up on here. Two brothers die on the same night, one out in the woods and one in his own garage. I don’t care if there’s a monster prowling the hills, it’s too much of a coincidence.’

‘You think you can connect the two killings?’ Earl asked in surprise. ‘With what?’

‘We’ll find out when we get there,’ Lopez said.

Her dark eyes brooked no argument, and Earl shrugged as he flicked the butt of his cigarette away into the parking lot and headed toward his truck.

‘You suit yourselves,’ he said. ‘Sally MacCarthy lives up off the main road. I’ll drop you there on my way through.’