Page 92 of Into the Fire

“Anything else? I’ve got a county run at nine. Hanson wants his copies signed for in person.” He turned a page. “And Dante’s statement appointment is this morning, the federal one, nine o’clock at the county building. It’s on the schedule. He called it in last night.”

“I know about that.”

“I assumed you did.”

“That’s all I’ve got,” I said.

“There’s a first.” He went back to his work, and I left.

I continued to move from one building to another. The base worked around me while I did it.

At the racks, one of the ground crew hands couldn’t find the replacement webbing that had come in a day earlier. “Ask Marty,” Hollis said without looking up. “He signed for it.”

At the ramp, Lancaster wanted to know whether the fuel delivery had moved again. “Marty’s got it,” the other hand said. “He fought Ray about it yesterday.”

Then Teller found me. He had a paperwork problem. “Take it to Marty,” I said. It was the answer the entire base gave for everything.

I stopped walking.

There was exactly one person on the base who opened every door. I tried to reconstruct where he’d been the day of the tower and the night of the rig, and I couldn’t. I could account for every jumper down to which side of the shade he’d eaten lunch in, but I couldn’t account for the one man nobody had ever needed to track, because he was everywhere.

I’d been asking who had unusual access. That was the wrong question. Everybody notices unusual access. I wanted the man with ordinary access to everything.

Marty.

I pushed back against the conclusion in my head. I decided to run Marty from Dante’s arrival.

Dante drove up the base road, and Marty met him at the gate. His locker was ready. Forty-one, cleaned out the night before, because Marty figured he’d want it. Nobody asked Marty to do that. He did it on his own.

The requal packet came through with a per diem error. Marty caught it, resubmitted it, and told Dante to hang up if Helena called.

The reporter from the Missoulian called ahead of the anniversary, and Marty got in front of it so I wouldn’t have to deal with a mess. He spoke on my behalf. He told her the findings were the findings.

I remembered being grateful.

We pulled the Carson Ridge box, and we asked whether any work had ever been authorized in that fork, and Marty spent an afternoon in two boxes and came back with the answer: nothing with a number attached. We started the preservation push, and Marty knew the records officer’s name and the magic words, and drafted the memo himself so I only had to sign it.

I thought about Dutch’s cabin. Somebody had a key and knew what to look for. There used to be a spare in Operations. I’d said that out loud, standing in Dutch’s front room.

On the tower day, I’d cleared Marty myself. He was in Operations with the phones and a window with no useful view. I’d written it on the pad and moved on. There was no need to confirm it because Marty was the man you asked to confirm everyone else.

Just days ago, a licensed examiner stood in the loft and said somebody opened this bag. Marty pushed his glasses up and asked what needed copying so the file on our end would be complete.

He was exactly what I’d wanted as an Operations Coordinator. He still was.

I didn’t have proof, but Marty fit the position. I needed one fact that existed outside my own head.

Marty had handed me one that morning. The county run at nine. Hanson’s copies, signed for in person.

It was eleven-ten.

I went to my office, closed the door, and called the sheriff’s substation. Hanson answered his own extension, and I kept it flat: following up on the file copies, wanting to confirm they’d transferred complete.

“They haven’t transferred at all,” Hanson said. “Marty Keene called yesterday and set it for nine. I’ve been here all morning.”

“He hasn’t been in?”

“Nobody’s been in but the mailman. Your other man showed, though—the feds had Vega across the hall since nine. Those two are still at it.” A chair creaked on his end. “You want to tell Keene his copies are getting lonely?”