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  “My pleasure, ma’am,” I bowed with a spatula taking the place of my sword. “Keeping the natives subdued is good for a knight errant’s soul, believe me.”

  3

  2010

  The parade had been a huge hit with the Lawtons. The many horses and riders along with the many wagons, buggies, and farm equipment pulled by horses, mules and oxen had the boys’ full attention.

  After the parade, we joined a lengthy line to buy tickets to tour the new Round-Up museum.

  The museum had been open for two years, and had really rounded out compared to my last visit. There were many more exhibits, and it was visibly set up to provide working historians with ample opportunity for research.

  We spread out through the displays as different things attracted one or two of us lingering at a photo or placard while the rest went on to other things where they lingered and lagged behind or joined as the case may be.

  We found the boys pointing and giggling at one massive photograph that covered one interior wall dedicated to the spirit of volunteerism that is, at its core, the secret to Round-Up’s magic.

  “What’s so funny?” Gail asked the boys as she caught up with them.

  “Looks like Mr. Stanton is older than we thought,” James said with his hand covering his mouth as if to try to keep me from hearing him.

  “What?” Gail moved in among the boys and Paul reached up and pointed to one face in the massive photo.

  Gail jerked her head a bit in reaction. “That’s amazing.” She stepped back and took in the entire photo. It was some 12-feet long, and depicted some 30 young men leaning and sitting on a rough wooden fence that was part of an arena. In the corner of the photo was the notation: “Round-Up, 1933 – even during hard times of the Great Depression, the community supported their rodeo with their time, work and sweat.”

  I joined them along with Miles, and Gail asked me, “Did you grow up here?” I shook my head no. “Did you have family here?” Again I shook my head, wondering what this was all about.

  “Then you should check this out,” she said as she stepped aside and pointed to a young man in dungarees and a white t-shirt somewhere in the middle of the photo.

  I had seen that face before, too; pretty much every morning when I shaved it. The resemblance to me, at least the me when I was in my 20s, was amazing.

  I considered the figure of the man and compared his height with the rest of the young men, some with hats, some without; some in chaps and spurs, some just boots and jeans. Some were without shirts; others with collared shirts and vests. Some were dressed up; others, like the man in question, dressed to work.

  Miles stood at my shoulder. “That guy looks like you, except he’s only about six-foot tall, but he could be your kid brother.” I compared the man’s height again and realized Miles was right, he was much shorter than my 6-foot 5-inch frame, but we could have been brothers.

  I addressed James in my best stern voice: “Pal, let’s get this straight; I was younger once, but it wasn’t seventy-seven years ago, okay?”

  The youngster stood in a somewhat stunned silence for a few seconds, and then the smile in my eyes and his mother’s outright giggle set him straight. He recovered quickly, “Well, Mr. Stanton, you are old, and to kids like us, it’s hard to tell just how old you are after you turn old.”

  Everyone laughed, and we moved on to the rest of the exhibits. Gail had all three of them taking notes on 3x5 index cards. At the small gift shop, she bought a couple of the history books as well as a photo guide to the museum. A smaller version of the big photo was in that book, too.

  As we made our way back to the car, she hooked her arm in mine. “Can’t help it, Jim; I have to wonder if someone in your family tree was from Pendleton. It’s the romantic in me, wondering … that likeness; it was the spittin’ image of your pictures in that scrap book this morning.”

  I thought for a minute. “I know that during the Depression, before he married my mom, my dad tramped around the country looking for work as a teamster. I know he worked the timber camps in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Idaho; but I never heard him mention Oregon, not once.”

  She sighed. “It doesn’t really matter, but I think it would be sweet if he or one of his brothers was in that picture… think of the story that could tell.”

  4

  2010

  Sunday morning dawned bright and clear. Miles and I had an anxious company of kids and a dog following us back and forth as we put gear in the back of the truck for our fishing trip.

  Gail was still in bed, and Miles gave the boys strict instructions on the need for quiet and order until she came down to make breakfast. I put Judy in her pen in the backyard as Miles finished packing the cooler with our lunch and grabbed a thermos of coffee.

  Once out on the highway, we headed east towards La Grande. East of the city, we left the highway for a back-country gravel road that would deteriorate into raw dirt as it snaked its way south.

  “How far?”

  “About an hour at twenty m.p.h.” I answered.

  We had the windows down, and there wasn’t enough road or wind noise to make it difficult to talk. Miles was telling me about a couple of cases he’d closed just before taking the time for this trip.

  “Convenient,” I said, “closing your cases just before leaving on a vacation. How many times has that happened?”

  “Hardly ever; but, you know, if you don’t take the time to spend with your family, recharge your batteries, you know, you’ll just end up being no good to anybody, not the force, not your family – you just gotta go sometimes. It’ll be there waitin’ when you return, or somebody else will catch the lucky break and close the case for you. I’ve closed cases for other detectives who had to take some time; it happens.”

  “What’s the toughest case you ever closed?”

  “That’s easy; the first one. It changed my whole career. I don’t want to bore you.”

  I thought for a minute. “And I don’t want to pry, but I’ll bet it won’t be boring.”

  “It’s not like a war story where the guy brags about his exploits. It was one of those early times, before it became a habit, when my gut talked to me and it was one of the first times I just went with it…” His eyes took on a far and away look, like he was seeing it in his mind’s eye.

  “Well, you know how it can be some times. You’re a rising star, you’re promoted to detective, the youngest in Michigan State Police history, and you’re assigned to work down state, where you grew up.

  “The state police function a bit in Michigan like the FBI functions on a national scale. When criminal investigations spread out across various county, township or municipal boundaries, the locals will often call in the MSP investigators. That happens especially when the heat for a quick solution builds up to the point where political futures are at stake.

  “That was the kind of case I caught just a few months after I’d married Gail, my high school sweetheart.

  “I was stationed in Livonia; working the metro area around Detroit. Then Gina Trowbridge wound up dead in a state game area just outside Riverton, up in the middle of the Lower Peninsula.

  “Gina had been eight years old. Her mother had moved Gina; her brother Terry, six; and her sister Amy, four; to Riverton from Detroit to avoid the violence and danger that goes with growing up in the big city.

  “She’d found an accounting job with a local industry in Riverton, and bought a house on a tree-lined street just a block from the elementary school. She thought she’d died and found heaven.

  “There was affordable day care for Amy, and both Terry and Gina fit right in with their new school. They were making friends and as school was just about to close for the summer, it seemed they’d made the move at exactly the right time to ensure a smooth summer vacation with lots of fun for the kids.”

  His voice changed. He went Sergeant Friday: “Then Gina didn’t come home from school with Terry. He said he’d seen her talking with some kids, and then she was gone. He thought she had gone home without him, so he walked home alone.

  “Gina was still not there when her mother came into the house just after four. Still not panicked, she called a couple of Gina’s friends down the block, but nobody had seen her after school.

  “Mrs. Trowbridge then retraced the way to the school, but it was shut down and empty. Nearly hysterical by the time she returned to her house, she had called the local police.

  “The police had done all the right stuff. There was an Amber Alert. They called Gina’s dad, an engineer with General Motors in Detroit, and found that he’d been in his office with three others all day. He said he was going to drive up immediately and hung up.”

  It was as if he was trying to explain just how this all had happened; as if he’d been trying to explain it to me and even himself for years: “The pressure to find Gina was intense from the start. Here was this little girl who had been moved to a “safe” place, and in just a few weeks she had disappeared.

  “They waited for a call, but it never came. As the days passed, the pressure from the media and elected officials was mounting.

  “Then six days after she disappeared, Gina’s body, partially covered with leaves and limbs, was found by a man and his wife who had been walking their dog as was their weekly habit.

  “Evidence indicated Gina had been taken to that place in the county, sexually assaulted and then strangled. The sheriff’s department had no investigative arm. They called in the MSP, and I caught the case.”

  “I had been the kid in high school that everyone liked, but at the twentieth class reunion nobody could remember. I hadn’t been a great athlete or a great brain. Earning Bs and Cs with an occasional A, I had served on every kind of club and committee from decorating for the prom to soliciting for the annual food bank drive. A worker bee, I had never been the chairman or president.

  “I had gone to college at Michigan State University, and melted into the thirty-five thousand or so on-campus students. I went to school on a mission, and majored in criminal justice. I landed a job with the campus newspaper and found I really liked the gathering of information, but I was lost when it came to writing a story.

  “I could really interview, however, and that talent worked well for me. After graduation I applied to the MSP, accepted to the academy, and graduated with honors. It was the first time in my entire life I had stood out in anything.

  “I was a patrolman for six years, taking tests and training opportunities whenever they came up. And I was always the best and brightest.” He gave a little shrug as if to say, “go figure?” and continued.

  “When I applied for the Detective exam, my Captain endorsed it, but cautioned me that I might be a little shy of experience to do well on that test.

  “Quite the contrary, I recorded the highest score in the test’s history. The academy staff actually entertained testing me again to see if I had somehow cheated on the initial exam, but that was a non-starter for the Commandant. I was a detective that spring.”

  I slowed at the only intersection on this road, and stopped to watch a group of elk pick their way down the bank above the road. They eyed us as calmly as pedestrians waiting for a light, and then proceeded at their stately pace into the ravine below the road.

  Miles whistled gently, “I’ll bet that never gets old, does it?”

  “Never. So, go on with the story, please.”

  “Anyway, my work for the next four years was by the book, but routine. My superiors gave me superlative evaluations for my ability to interview suspects and witnesses. They gave me lower marks for my ability to handle controversial issues with appropriate tact. One comment on my evaluation talked about my inability to see beyond the trail I was following. Another spoke to my unwavering pursuit of the perpetrator with no feelings for those innocents who might be hurt in the chase.

  “I was counseled repeatedly that in addition to crime solving, a successful investigator had to have a sense of the environment within which he was operating, and be prepared to make an effort to smooth feathers and still close the case.

  “Then I landed in Riverton. The officer in charge had no leads, no ideas. He reviewed the case with me and then suggested I start from the beginning, interviewing everyone as if it were day one.

  “The pressure and back-biting among the locals had reached a fever pitch. The sheriff, an elected official, was talking on the radio and to the newspaper about how the Riverton Police Chief – hired, not elected – had botched the investigation from the beginning.

  “The district attorney was openly calling into question the intelligence and motives of all the police, promising that if they’d give him a suspect to charge, he’d bring the full force of the law down on the perpetrator.

  “The only person I had for counsel was my wife, and my only explanation to her questions was, ‘It’s all shit, and it’s all rolling downhill. This is going to be ugly before it’s finished.”’

  “What did she say to that?” I asked.

  “The same thing I’d been hearing from friends and colleagues for four years. ‘You just keep your head down, Miles. You don’t want to be part of that stuff. You catch him; let them all take the credit.”’

  His voice changed again, and he was explaining himself to a peer; I was flattered.

  “I started the interviewing with Terry, the younger brother who had seen his sister at school but lost track of her. I spent quite a few minutes listening to Terry tell me about his birthday party which had been just the day before.

  “The local detective I was assigned with, Rich Stuart, who had been on the case since the beginning, was impatient with Terry’s party story and started to interrupt, to steer the conversation back on track, but I waved him off and started to probe. ‘So what kinds of presents did you receive, Terry?’ and like that.

  ‘“Neat stuff,’ Terry beamed. He told me about a game for his video player, and about marbles and cards and other gifts that had been so much fun, and the cake and ice cream.

  ‘“Sounds great, I told him. ‘What was the neatest thing?’

  ‘“The video game; Eric gave it to me,’ he said automatically.

  ‘“Is Eric your best friend?’ He thought about that for a minute, and then shrugged. ‘I dunno, maybe.’

  “I followed up immediately, feeling certain this was going somewhere, even though I didn’t have a clue as to where or how. ‘Where does he live?’

  “Terry didn’t even blink. ‘Across the street. He’s our sitter, too. He had us at his birthday party, too.’

  “So we talked about Eric. From Terry’s memories, it seemed to me Eric had made himself useful around the neighborhood, picking up odd jobs like raking leaves, shoveling snow, washing cars. When the Trowbridges had moved in, he had helped out, and when Mrs. Trowbridge had needed to leave the kids at home for a quick run to the store, he had volunteered to watch them for an hour or so. My alarm bells were going off like July fireworks.

  “Terry didn’t know Eric’s last name, but he said he lived with just his mother, just like he and Amy did. When we started talking about Gina’s last day, it became clear to me that Terry was taking his lack of knowledge personally, as if it was his fault that he didn’t remember something that would have saved Gina’s life.

  “As he stumbled on the gentle questions, he became more and more agitated. I remembered something I’d read studying for the test, and took the conversation back to birthday parties, and Terry immediately calmed down. Outside, Stuart lighted a cigarette and grumbled, ‘That was a total waste.’

  “Stuart walked to the driver’s side of the county car, but I started across the street. Stuart yelled at me, ‘Where ‘n’ hell…’ I wanted to meet Eric. ‘This is bullshit,’ Stuart yelled, but he didn’t climb into the car.

  “The lady that opened the door across the street was much older than I had thought the mother of one of Terry’s friends, even an older friend, might be. It took me back for a second, made me unsure.

  “I introduced myself, and she asked how she could help. I asked her if Eric was home, and she allowed that he wasn’t. ‘Since his driver’s license, I don’t see him before supper. He goes riding around every day after school.’

  ‘“How long has he been driving?’ I asked.

  “‘Just more than a month now, the day after his sixteenth birthday. He couldn’t wait. He’s a good driver, too. I’ve been riding with him all through his training. He’s very mature.’

  “Finally, I asked her if Eric was her son. ‘Of course he is. My youngest; his two sisters are both a bit older. We had Eric later in life. Why do you need to ask that?’

  ‘“Just for my records,’ I said as I nodded my head in Stuart’s direction. ‘I have to be able to prove I really talked to folks, you know?’

  “She noticed Stuart, standing half in and half out of the state car. ‘Everyone has bosses,’ she said with some bitterness.

  “Then she seemed to relax with me; she patted her hair to make sure it was in place, ‘Of course. I’m a widow, not one of those divorcees. Eric was God’s blessing on me. Both my girls were grown and gone and then, surprise, God sent Eric. He must have known how hard it was going to be when he took George from me, so he gave me Eric. He’s a blessing…’”

  “I thanked her for her time, but when I climbed into the car, Stuart was steaming. ‘She give you any tracts?’

  ‘“What are you talking about?’ I asked him.

  “‘That Henry woman is a loony, partner. She’s constantly trying to convert everyone, even if they’re regular church goers like me. If you don’t praise God in every other breath, you’re not sanctimonious enough to meet her standards for heaven.’

  “I had to do some research, but my alarms were blaring, really.

  “When we put Eric Henry’s name into the computer, we found a juvenile record that was sealed. My first thought was ‘we can work past that,’ but I was dead wrong.

  “Just after six we ran down the local juvenile judge on his home phone. The judge was furious that I would even consider that he might lift the veil on a juvenile record. We went round and round for about fifteen minutes, then the judge told me to go to hell and hung up. I considered it briefly, you know, contemplating the appropriate time and place for tact, then I called the DA.