CHAPTER NINE

The rest of the day was a series of disappointments. Wyatt called around lunchtime to tell them that they had cleared every member of each victim's family. The reason was a simple and common one: they were thousands of miles away at the time of the murders.

As for friends, that proved to be as difficult as Wyatt predicted. They had neighbors, but they were both of the self-reliant type and rarely interacted with them. People knew that Ethan and Valerie had left for excursions into the wilderness, but they didn't know why or for how long or if anyone followed them or went before them. Alibis began to arrive for the neighbors as well, timestamped receipts and photographs from local businesses and occasionally security camera footage.

It was incredible in the worst possible way how difficult it was for them to find suspects. The pool was so small. There were fewer than a thousand people within a hundred miles in either direction. It should be easy to find people who knew them or had motive, but other than Garrett, there was nothing.

Faith wondered if this was the way cases went in the dark ages before computers. Nowadays, it was so easy to learn everything there was to know about someone with a few hours and a search engine, but up here, that tool was almost useless. She hated to think that someone could get away with crimes like this, but with no record of anyone's activities or relationships, it was getting easier to see how people could walk out into the wilderness and just disappear.

They got snack foods and drinks from the local general store and sat in their truck waiting for Garrett to leave his shop. The sun rose high—well, actually, low—and set just after four o'clock.

"I wonder why we're handling the cold so well?" Michael asked out of nowhere. "I mean, we have thick coats and stuff, but I feel like we should be in a lot more pain than we are."

"We're probably more focused on the dead-in-the-water murder investigation," Faith suggested.

"Jeez. I was just going to say that we're badass."

"Sure. I'll go with that."

Michael looked at her for a moment. "We'll get this guy, Faith. We always do."

"And I always say I'm not afraid we won't catch him; I'm afraid we won't catch him in time. However, this time, I do wonder. The normal avenues of investigation are closed to us. People here love their privacy a little too much."

"Yeah, but we always find a way. We just don't know what that way is yet."

She managed a soft smile. "You're right. I just wish things could be simple sometimes."

He looked at her again. "Is this about the case or about everything else in your life?"

Her smile faded. "Well, it was just about the case."

"Shit. I'm sorry."

Before she could tell him not to worry about it, the door of the shop opened, and Garett stepped outside. The agents snapped to attention and watched him as he loaded two duffel bags into his truck. He got into the driver's seat and pulled onto the highway heading west.

"What do you suppose are in those?" Michael asked.

"I don't know. But I would love to find out."

Michael followed him from a distance. With the sky dark, they didn't have a choice but to use their headlights, so they kept a mile in between themselves and Garrett's vehicle. He drove west for six miles and turned off onto a rough dirt road heading north into the forest.

The two of them followed, again keeping distance. The road quickly went from rough to very rough. Their truck had four-wheel-drive and all-terrain tires, but they wouldn't be able to follow much farther if the road got any worse than it was now.

Fortunately, just as Faith was about to tell Michael to cut the engine, Garrett pulled to a stop in a clearing of about ten acres. The agents stopped where they were, left the vehicle and quickly made their way to the clearing.

Garrett pulled the bags from the back of his truck and set them on the ground. When he opened them, the agents' eyes widened as they looked at the snare wire, various knives and guns, and other survival equipment that he unloaded.

They heard the sound of an engine behind them and turned around to see a van climbing up the same road. The driver didn't seem bothered at all by how rough the road was as he made his way up the hill.

Garrett lifted his head toward the van and grinned. He lifted his hand in a wave, and when the van stopped, he walked to the side door. Faith put her hand on her weapon and watched closely.

The door opened, and children spilled out. Actual children. Fourteen of them. Faith watched in amazement as over a dozen grade school children greeted Garrett with hugs and smiles and enthusiastic questions.

Garrett laughed and lifted his hands. "All right, all right. Calm down everyone. You'll all get a chance to look at my equipment, and more importantly, you'll all get to learn some valuable survival skills that will help you when you find yourself enjoying the Alaskan wilderness!"

"So he's like a youth group instructor?" Michael asked.

"Hey guys?"

The voice was soft but familiar. Faith spun around, her weapon in her hand. Michael did the same, and the heavyset man from Tundra Outfitters lifted both of his hands. "I'm unarmed," he said quietly. "I just want to talk to you two for a moment."

"So talk," Faith said curtly. "Did you follow us?"

"Yes. Can we please talk away from the children? You can search me if you feel more comfortable."

Faith looked over her shoulder. Garrett was listening to the children introduce themselves, a bright smile on his face. She looked back at Quint and said, "Okay. We'll follow you."

"Thank you."

Quint led them a couple dozen yards away from the clearing. Faith saw that they were in a small depression next to the road, about halfway to their parked truck. Behind their truck was a Jeep Wrangler on oversized tires. That must be Quint's vehicle.

"I want to start by apologizing for our behavior earlier," Quint said. "We get a lot of tourists here, but we don't get the FBI. We're not really trusting of outsiders. Tourists are one thing, but tourists just make us money. FBI… well, I don't have a good way of saying this. We just prefer to handle our own business."

"The problem is that someone here handled their business by murdering two innocent people," Faith said.

"I know. But you came in looking like you'd already decided it was Garrett. He's been my best friend my whole life, and I got defensive. I know I was wrong. I'm sorry."

Faith looked at Michael, then back at Quint. "Can you confirm his whereabouts the nights of the murders?"

"I can tell you that I believe him when he says he's at home. I know that's not enough. I can also speak to his character. That might not be enough either, but it might help you understand why I feel so protective of him."

"You called us away," Michael said. "Talk."

Quint nodded. "Well, you know Garrett has a violent past. He called me after you left, so I know you two talked."

"He has a very violent past," Michael agreed. "And he has a motive for wanting Ethan Holloway and Valerie North dead."

"I wouldn't say that. And neither would Garrett. He might be angry with them, but he wouldn't kill them over twenty thousand dollars. He has enough money that it's not the end of the world to lose that judgment. That's why he settled."

"He's still the same person who broke a man's jaw and both of his arms twenty years ago."

"No, he isn't," Quint said firmly. "He spends most of his time teaching children wilderness skills. He's donated twenty times what he paid to Holloway in that lawsuit to help improve our community's infrastructure and save people who were underwater on their homes. He does handyman work for free, and he travels to Juneau twice a year to speak to the state government about getting electricity, gas and water utilities to every community in Alaska. Not just here, but up north as well. You can verify everything I've just told you."

Faith and Michael looked at each other again. Faith sighed and said, "I'll accept that he has some good qualities, Quint, but look at it from my perspective. I have two people murdered in remote cabins both killed with improvised traps that suggest a high level of knowledge and experience as a hunter and more importantly, a high level of knowledge about each victim. And both victims happen to have been recently involved in legal action against Garrett. Then I show up, and you two act like thugs when we try to talk to him. Maybe he's a good person, but he was once violent, and what I've seen so far doesn't suggest to me that his violent streak has disappeared. And he had a reason to want them dead whether you think the money was a big deal or not."

Quint nodded. "I can understand where you're coming from. Please try to look at it from my perspective and from Garrett's. He made a very big mistake many years ago, a mistake that nearly ruined his life. He did his time, and let me tell you, time in Alaska is cold and lonely. He got out of prison and fought hard to change himself. He became a respectable business owner. He dedicated himself to his community. He went out of his way to be kind to others. He asked for nothing in return. He fought for twenty years and over time managed to become the kind of person he always wanted to be instead of the pariah he once was.

"Then someone buys a tool from him and doesn't use it properly. You can pick at the interaction all you want, but the fact is that it was Holloway's choice to use the wrong tool when ten seconds of research would have shown him what he really needed. Holloway puts his own life in danger, and instead of being grateful that he's still alive and learning his lesson, he wants to attack and blame Garrett for his own mistake. And his lawyers… I'm sure you have experience. They tore Garrett apart. They aired all of his dirty laundry. All of it. In front of his friends and neighbors, people who respect him. They risked the life he worked so hard to build for himself because their idiot client didn't bother reading a warning label."

"Who reads warning labels, though?" Michael interrupted. "Garrett could have taken ten seconds to say, ‘Hey, use this pick, not that one.'"

"I wasn't there, so I don't know if Garrett was given the information he needed to give proper advice."

"In any case," Faith replied, "what you've just described is called motive."

Quint sighed. "I was trying to explain why we were upset when you showed up. I wish I could think of something to say to convince you other than to promise you that the man who's teaching those children up there is the real Garrett, not the man who went to prison for assault a quarter of a lifetime ago."

"That's the thing," Faith said. "Both of them are the real Garrett."

Quint pressed his lips together and looked down.

Faith and Michael looked at each other again. "We'll let Garrett finish his class undisturbed. But we're going to keep an eye on him. On both of you. I know we're outsiders and we don't know him as well as you do, but we're looking out for two people who can't look out for themselves anymore."

"I understand," Quint said softly.

"If you want to help your friend," Michael offered, "Make sure he doesn't try to leave the area. Make sure he doesn't go out into the wilderness alone. I would follow the same advice as well if I were you."

"Okay," Quint agreed. "I'll do that."

"And stay in town," Faith added. "For the moment, you're both persons of interest in the case."

Quint didn't look happy about that, but he didn't protest the decision. "All right. We're just trying our best, you know. Both of us."

"I sympathize with you," Faith said. "I sympathize with the two dead people a lot more."

Quint didn't try to argue with that. "We'll stay in town."