Karl Warren - The Stone Harvest

1 - Today, Early Spring

The stones come up every year, like mushrooms. They crept up bit by bit with the annual frost heaves as the earth chilled and thawed. Left alone long enough, perhaps the field would end up being littered in the type of stones that would elsewhere cost $200 per ton at a landscape supplier.

This field had been left alone long enough, though. For the second time in as many springs, I used the antique, red, and grey tractor to ride over every square inch of the field, dragging a harrow rake. The previous owner's family left it behind when they abandoned the property, and I was more than happy to make good use of it.

Last year, my first on the property, I paid a neighbor to disc up the field and broadcast a native seed mix, fescue and wildflowers mainly. Having been ignored for several years, the twenty-acre patch had turned to knapweed, vetch, tansy, and oxeye daisy. It hadn't been grazed or mowed or burned or sprayed. Nothing. An excellent, five-year project for what I had in mind.

After that seed broadcast was the first time I had harrowed this lonely field. Harrowing knocked down any furrows caused by the discs, filled any low spots, and gave the seeds a good covering of earth in which to take root. It also educated me on just how many stones there were in this piece of dirt. On all the other properties nearby, I had seen huge piles and long rows of the stones dumped after they had been gathered from the fields. A farmer would work the soil then send a son or daughter out with a pick-up or 4-wheeler and trailer to collect them. The rock harvest would usually take longer than any other aspect of the farming cycle. Nothing was growing yet, and the kids needed a chore to keep them out of trouble. Hence, this part of the country had lots of fields with four foot tall stone boundaries.

It was during this, my second season of stone harvesting, that the problems began. In this same spot the year before, I had noticed an unusually large collection of stones, or rather, so many in one tight place. It didn't seem like the rest of the field, but I didn't give it too much thought. Plenty of stones to deal with so no use getting worked up over these few. This year, the same problem in the same area. The harrow grabbed just enough of one or two of the buried nuggets that they dislodged the others, exposing ten or twelve to the grey sky. It was unusual enough to get on my radar but not enough for me to alter my plan. What could possibly be wrong, right?

I didn't return to that spot for two days. I had been harvesting from other parts of the field and had started an impressive collection for the stone wall I was hoping to build. By the time I returned, oddly enough, the rocks hadn't moved on their own like I had wanted them to. One by one, they went into the back of my new-to-me farm truck.  

BAM!  

BAM!  

The low clouds and the closeness of the mountains made the din of granite on metal echo loudly. A rich, satisfying tone.

As I cleared the first few stones, I could see that there were several more just below the surface. "Might as well." I thought. There was no way this project was going to be easy, so I just kept plugging along. By the twenty-third stone (I was odd about counting things), I began to ignore a growing suspicion that the rocks were in an unnaturally neat, elongated shape. "Nope. Perfectly natural." I half-whispered to no one in particular.

It was rock number 37 that did the trick. Nothing special about it. Mostly grey, a few specks of black, and two ribbons of white going through the center. Its uniqueness was what lay beneath it. I saw the cuff of a sleeve from the remnants of what was probably a grey hoodie or sweater. And with it, a small, desiccated hand.

Though not a surprise at this point, I did have to take a step back to collect my thoughts. It's not every day that you find a dead body. Rarer still to find an old one buried on your property, property you bought and moved to for the express purpose of not finding dead bodies anymore.

Despite the apparent age of the body and its long-term exposure to the elements, it still had traces of that smell, that goddamn smell of death and decay. I said to the world my first clear words of the day, "Well … Fuck!"

I may have to alter some expectations of this new life in Westwood, Idaho.

2

Chief Christian Sanchez was at her desk reviewing personnel files when she got the call from Warren. She had come in earlier than usual because she needed extra time to weed through the files to sort out a few staffing issues the department had. Though she'd been in the role for just over three years, the City Manager kept her on a short leash regarding getting new blood in the department and especially about culling the deadwood from the team. This was going to have to change, but not today. The files had barely been spread out her desk when she knew she had to go catch the newly found dead body, so she stacked them up again and secured the lot in her right, bottom desk drawer.

The Chief didn't like dead bodies any more than any other cop. In fact, the fewer dead people she had to deal with, the better. Not at all, an unusual point of view. This part of the country had plenty of ways to create dead bodies, whether anyone wanted them or not. Sometimes it's the environment. Sometimes it's a farming accident, or sometimes it's the sheer stupidity and evil that humans can inflict on each other. 

When Sanchez left Kansas City, Missouri, almost 4 years ago, she really expected the amount of pain and misery she encountered to diminish. This has not been the case. While there hadn't been an increase, it still struck her as amazing the myriad ways that humans can inflict such pain and misery on each other. Having a dead body found on Warren's property, while unsettling, wasn't that much of a surprise. Christian gave up being surprised about such things a long time ago. 

Christian and Karl had known each other for many years. Since Kansas City. Since the academy where young Sergeant Sanchez was an instructor and Cadet Warren was a kid just out of the Army. Though they butted heads a lot, Sanchez understood his post-military vigilance and failure to accept civilian bullshit. She had spent 10 years in the service herself, Air Force, and she knew how hard that transition could be. When Sanchez's days at the academy were over, and she was put in the same patrol division as the rookie, two years into his tenure with KCPD, they were tight. 

After too many murdered children and dead bodies bloated from the Missouri heat, after one divorce too many, Sanchez had had enough and, on a whim, applied for the position of Police Chief in Westwood, Idaho. The job was what she was looking for, and they were looking for someone like her. 

Two years later, she was surprised as hell when she got a call from her former patrol partner asking to help him set up a soft landing place in someplace quiet. What were the odds that Warren would be the guy to find a dead body on his property? Pretty good, actually. If anyone could find trouble, it was him. 

"Hannah!" the Chief called out to the clerk on duty. "I'm headed out on a call. Our buddy found a dead body on his property. Can't take that boy anywhere! I'll call dispatch and let them know." She didn't wait for a response.  

Had she waited, she would have seen the odd look on Hannah's face and heard her ask, "The Baker place?"

Sanchez took the department's new Ford Explorer and weaved her way through a couple block's worth of Westwood's old residential neighborhoods to Highway 41. A couple miles south of town, she got on the first of the few gravel roads that would lead to Warren's Little House on the Prairie. 

Before he had moved into the place, she hadn't visited the property but had driven past it a few times, always noting the impressive collection of old car and truck chassis. The overgrown weeds were a nice touch, she had thought. The previous owner had been dead for a few years, and it had stood abandoned until Warren moved in. She recalled being impressed at how quickly he had gotten rid of the vehicles. As she pulled close, she saw that some of the front area was still a bit of a mess of weeds, but it was coming along nicely. 

Warren was on his front porch, sipping coffee when she pulled her vehicle into his front lot. The image she saw was nothing like the doorkicker she had known back in the day; flannel shirt, jeans, sitting calmly surrounded by a few of his hens.

"Morning, Chief. Cuppa?" he said warmly.

"Maybe in a few. Let me see what you got, OK?" she replied a bit more cooly. 

"Can do." Warren got up and started walking around the east side of his light blue pole barn of a house while the hens and the Chief followed. "I told you a couple days ago that I was gonna spend some time harrowing the field and collecting the new stone harvest. This morning I was working on a thick patch of them and found a new friend."

One thing about Warren hadn't changed, Sanchez noted. He still walked too damn fast. It wasn't just that, she thought. He shifted gears so quickly. It took her 25 strides to catch up to him and match his quick, martial pace across his field of stubble. The spot where they eventually stopped was 25 feet away from the modest rock pile that Warren pointed towards and 200 yards north of the barn wall.

Warren stayed where he was, but after a pause, the Chief understood and proceeded alone. Warren also moved up here to get away from dead bodies and was reluctant to spend any more time with them than he had to. As she got closer, it was pretty easy to see which way the stone grave cover was oriented. The few stones covering her hands had been removed, exposing part of her abdomen, a grey sweater, and about 6 inches of her forearms.

Sanchez looked in Warren's direction and asked, "Did you try to give CPR?" Back in the day, Warren had always been the one with a quick bit of gallows humor. She tested out the line not so much as a cheap joke but to gauge where her old friend's mind was.

Nothing. Just a cool stare in return.

She got up and headed back to him. "I'll take that cuppa now if you don't mind."

3 - Today minus 12 years

Tracy Goodson knew what she wanted out of life. Unfortunately, none of those things existed in this county, so she did the best she could with what she had. Again, unfortunately, what she had was just enough to get her in trouble; poor parents, good looks, and bad choices in men.

She was 24, a stunner, living in a trailer park in Athol, and dating a married coworker from the mill. Her youth and looks gave her a shot at life, but the trailer park and mill doomed her to a life far less than she ever imagined. Her fella, Barry Gillum, was fun enough company, but she knew well enough that it wasn't true love. There was a part of her that hoped, though.

She had worked at the Upriver for almost two years now, mostly up in the Administration department. Barry was one of the floor foremen who kept track of the logs coming in and the pulp going out. She saw him at the mill often and at the bars in the area, so it was easy to strike up a conversation. The physical relationship followed closely, but the emotional one didn't. An association of convenience and fun. Barry was married, looking for simple fun, and had no desire to be any deeper into this than for sex and companionship. 

Lately, there'd been strife between them because of the things she learned about the mill. She had access to the companies reports regarding their discharge into the local waterways. She had seen the raw data, and she had seen the second, falsified report that was sent to the EPA. If they had been putting as much filth into the Belmont River as she thought, the results would be an environmental disaster. The news would sink Upriver Mill for good.

Her concern wasn't for the finned, furred, and feathered friends in the area. She was just thinking that getting copies of the real and false reports would be a great bargaining chip for some kind of pay off to keep her mouth shut. She had an instinct for self-serving acts but didn't have a clue on how to proceed. She wanted to talk to somebody about it.

Before the end of their shift at 1630, Tracy found Barry in the millyard and told him the outlines of her plan. She told him about the massive amount of filth being put into the river and about the falsified reports. He knew something like this was going to happen, so he suggested that they meet later at The Snoot, an old tavern tucked in the woods between the mill and Blanchard. 

"Look!" she told him outside in the yard, "Just meet me there. I'll show you the copies, and we can figure out how to handle this. This is our way outta here. We don't need much. Just enough for a start somewhere new. You can divorce your cow of a wife, leave her that shitty trailer, and we can get the fuck out of here."

"Gum Drop, you don't want to do this." Barry feebly protested. "Mallard isn't gonna let that happen. You know full well that he's a bit whacky and he'll do what he needs to do to stay outta trouble. This is a bad idea, and it's not gonna end well!"

"You just be there at 8! Why do I have to be the only one in this relationship with a set of balls?" she said. It came out as a half whisper, half hiss, the way that mothers talk to their children in public right before the child gets a spanking if they don't behave. She turned and walked away without waiting for a response.

Barry Gillum stood stunned for a minute. She was right. He didn't have the balls for this sort of thing. Crossing Gerald Mallard would always be a horrible idea. On top of all that, he really didn't want to run away with this gal. Sure, he hated his wife, and she hated him, but he sure wasn't ready to leave on a moment's notice like this. He was just banging this girl for a little fun, and he may have developed some soft feelings for her, but in her desire to escape and start a new life, her dreams and emotions had gone and developed a fantasy and plan of action all their own.  

After she walked away, he stood in place for a solid three minutes, thinking about how to handle this mess. As usual, in cases like this, he had no idea what to do except talk to Cha about it. "That ol' fucker will know what to do.", he thought.  

Charlie "Cha" Baker hadn't gotten his hands dirty at work for several years. Back in the day, he had been a Bleacher, one of the workers responsible for soaking the milled pulp with the toxic array of chemicals needed to make it usable down the road in the paper mills. Cha started at a mill up north on Highway 2, near Bonners Ferry when he was 16 and had been in the industry ever since. He wasn't afraid of hard work but was always smart enough to find a shortcut if it worked out well enough. Over the years, he wasn't afraid to push out a competitor or supervisor to get a promotion or a raise if the opportunity presented itself. Over those same years, he had gone through three wives and three children to which he never paid much attention.

Cha was not one anyone would call loveable. 

Barry entered the same admin building as Tracy had but through the entrance that was inside the mill. Cha's office was down the hallway from Mallard's. The boss always wanted to keep Cha within yelling distance if there was ever a problem to be solved. That's what Cha was now, a problem solver. Production problems? Cha could deal with it. Labor shortage? Cha could fill every role in the opertion that needed filling, either by himself or one of the many men he knew in the area that always needed work. A manager gets caught with blow or a hooker? Cha found a way to smooth it over with the Deputies or Staties. Money or blackmail always worked.

When Gillum entered, Cha was in his usual spot on the couch in the corner of the office next to the coffee pot. The office was an interior one and didn't have any windows. The paneling was the same fake wood that had been there since the factory was built in 1968, and the furniture didn't seem much newer. Though the space was nowhere close to stylish, Cha was such a meticulous cleaner that the bleach and vinegar mixture that he used to clean the place had almost worked to cover the smell of decades' worth of cigarette smoke.

Cha had been ordered by his doctor to stop smoking several years back. Though he was never one to take advice from anyone, Cha had coughed up enough blood the previous months to think long and hard on that piece of wisdom. Between the menthol cigarettes and the chemicals at the factory, Cha figured he'd listen this time. He stopped smoking years back, cold turkey and had never thought twice about lighting up another.

The office was sparse. The heavily worn tan carpet held an old metal desk near the far wall accompanied by a metal filing cabinet to the right. On the desk, a computer sat unused. A painful reminder that times were changing, times that Cha didn't want. In the corner to the left of the door lay the old teak and leather sofa, chair, and table that had sat in that space for nearly 40 years. This was where Cha held court. In all the times he'd been in the office, Baker couldn't recall a single time that he'd seem Cha at the desk. This was where business was done, next to the table with the coffee pot.

"We have a problem!" Baker blurted. He had given a courtesy knock but still half barged into the office. Cha was sitting in his corner, waiting as a spider waits for a fly. Cha always seemed to know when something was about to happen. Maybe the old guy just always WANTED problems to occur, so he always stayed primed for action. He told the story as best he could, and Cha just listened, eyes soft but the wheels in his head turning.

"OK. I got this", Cha spat.  

"You gonna tell the boss? This is gonna be a mess.", Baker whined.

Cha took a moment, leaned forward, and stared back hard at the kid. "I got this. What time are you supposed to meet? 8? Pick me up at my place at 6:45. Don't say a word about this to anyone. Keep the meeting as planned and play nice. I got this. I got this."

Barry had known Cha long enough to see when an emotion poked out of him. Cha always had a cool demeanor, especially when in his vampire mode or whatever you call it when he's just sitting in his barely lit office. It was no different when he was telling his story about Tracy. Still, near the end, when Cha had to make a decision, Charles noticed an extra flicker in the eyes, an excitement. Was it stress or worry about the blackmail? No, he'd seem Cha stressed before, and it didn't look like this. Cha seemed to be looking forward to this, excited about it.

______________________

The ride from Westwood to Blanchard was an unexciting one. This late in Fall, before the snow began in earnest, all the seasonal residents had departed, and no one was playing tourist in these northern backwoods. The sun had already set, and the close mountain range to the west blocked any of the slivers of the setting sun from lighting up the woods here. The headlights of Baker's truck were the only thing bringing light to Highway 41.  

Cha sat noticeably silent, and Baker knew better than to ask any questions when the old man was in this state. He wanted to know what was going to happen but was too worried about pissing him off. He knew that he was partially responsible for this mess, so it was best to keep his mouth shut as much as possible.

The Snoot was a tucked away from the highway and barely visible behind the natural hedge of alder saplings, hawthorne, and ninebark. Were it not for the fed lights on the place, it could be easily missed by passers-by in the dark.

"Park in the back.", Cha said calmly. There were two other trucks in the front lot but only one in the back, larger lot, probably belonging to Rob, the bartender.

"Park there!" he said as he pointed to a space in the gravel that was darker than the rest of the area. When they stopped, Cha said, "Give me your phone and go in and wait an hour. Tell Rob that you're waiting for Tracy. Watch TV, drink a few beers, keep your mouth shut about anything else. Your phone will be here in your seat when you come back."

Barry just sat stunned for a minute and stared blankly at Cha. The old man looked calm but still had an air of excitement and animation that he'd never seen before. "Give me your fucking phone and get out!" Cha said more forcefully. 

With phone in hand and the kid out of the way, Cha went to work. It was 7:40. Early, but who knew if Tracy was going to be prompt or not. With his heavy coat on, Cha slipped out of the cab, shutting the door with as little noise as possible, and walked about 100 feet into the woods to the west of the lot, grabbed a seat on a downed log, and pulled Baker's Razr phone out.

HERE EARLY. PARK IN BACK. NEXT TO MY TRUCK.

Cha texted like Baker would, all caps and curt language. Cha rarely said much, but he appreciated the English language more than the kid did. He also knew that cell service was spotty between Spirit Lake and Blanchard, so she may not even get the text.

Ten minutes. The woods were dark and quiet. A car came from the north, parked in the front lot, and all was quiet again. More witnesses to see Baker sitting alone. Good.

Ten more minutes. The Razr vibrated with a new text from Tracy.

"K," was all it said. Cha wanted to know her ETA but decided against pressing it further. No worries. He saw the headlights and outline of her car appear moments later as she came close to The Snoot. She did what he asked. She pulled into the lot and chose a spot near the truck. It wasn't as close as he had wanted, but it'll do. Before she had even entirely pulled into the lot, he had moved from his spot and started towards her, left hand in the pocket of his green, Army coat that he'd had forever.

He did his best to keep a tree between him and Tracy as she pulled her car the last few feet into her spot, and when he got to the edge of the clearing, he waited. He was behind a big Douglass Fir about 20 feet from the car and to its 9 o'clock. Inside the car, it looked like she was fixing her make-up for the last time before seeing Barry. For the last time ever, if he could do this right, Cha though.

She finished her touching-up and opened her door. Cha moved. He moved towards her in an arc that brought him just behind her as she put one foot out of the vehicle and started to stand. When he was ten feet away, he brought his left hand out of the pocket of his coat and pointed his taser gun, his newest toy at the exposed flesh around her neck. Just as she stood on both feet, she turned around, and both of the electrodes stuck into the flesh of her face, one on the left cheek and the other into the softness of her neck. She didn't have any chance to react, and she just slumped to the ground. Cha kept the trigger pulled for a few more seconds just to ensure the power of the shock was complete.

Moving with a quickness, he pulled the electrodes out and quickly wound the 15 ft wires around the gun, shoving the whole thing in his pocket again. He pulled out a pair of zip cuffs, secured Tracy's hands behind her, opened the rear door, grabbed her slight frame, and tossed her in the backseat with the strength and ardor of a younger, stronger man.

He grabbed her car keys from the gravel, where they had dropped after the initial attack. Moving over to Tracy's car, he opened the driver's door as quietly as possible and set the kid's phone onto the seat. He shut the door as quietly as he had opened it and after a final look around, folded his large frame into the tiny car. He slowly exited the lot, took a right turn onto 41, and was lost in the dark, Idaho night.

The backside of The Snoot didn't have any windows, nor did the south side from which Tracy entered the lot, so the odds were good that no one saw her car as it arrived. If they did, they'd also have seen her leave a minute later. Inside, 'Hold on Loosely' by .38 Special was playing on the jukebox while Baker worked on his third Kokanee, waiting for the girl who would never come.

4 - 24 miles west of St Rupert, British Columbia 

Vasyl Marchuk was almost home. He and his men had been in the Gulf of Alaska for nearly two weeks, and as much as he loved the sea, he was ready to be on land again, to be with his wife and close to the bars. Their hold was full of herring and had been for almost two days already. He was ready to return home when he got the call on the radio to pick up one more load. This one wasn't more fish, though. Vasyl wasn't sure what it was, and he knew better than to ask. The voice on the radio was one he didn't know, but again, he would be paid well enough that he wasn't going to ask.

 The voice gave him a set of specific coordinates nearly forty miles west of Baranof Island where he was to await further instructions. After waiting for twenty-eight hours, the next call sent him to another set of coordinates where a buoy was waiting. Attached to it would be a floating, sealed bundle that if he knew what was good for him, he'd treat like a sack of newborn babies swimming in mother's milk. This was his fourth trip like this, so he and his crew knew what was expected. Do everything as asked and get paid lots of money. Fail, and his wife would be hurt, and he'd be killed. Simple as that. The Ukrainian "family" that helped him get his fishing boat had certain expectations of him, and he understood.

 Vasyl suspected the delay was because of the weather. When he got the first call, the tail head of a high-pressure system was passing through the eastern part of the gulf and was making the chop more than any skipper would like. By the time the second call came, sending him south, the sea was as close to glass as it was going to get. 

Using the expensive and accurate navigation gear that the "family" provided, he headed towards the second destination. He slowed his boat, The Odessa Princess, and came alongside the bright orange buoy. One of his deckhands used a gaff pole to grab the float by its rope. Getting the package onboard was tough but no more so than a net full of herring. As long as the damn thing was in and he didn't lose any men or fingers, he was happy.

 His hold was full, the package was on board, his men were safe, and they were headed back home. A smooth transfer awaited them, and he was free of obligation until the next time.