A Matter of Malice

by Thomas King

  Moses closed his eyes as though he were thinking about a nap. “All things considered,” he said, “you’ll probably have to make two trips.”

  Thirty-One

  Thumps had never been pushed off a cliff before, and he wasn’t sure he appreciated Moses’s idea of forensic science. Not that it had been a cliff. And not that Thumps had been in any real danger. The top section of Belly Butte looked steep, but it wasn’t. More a long, slow ski jump that curled up at the ledge. But after that, the plunge was quite severe, and if you didn’t catch the ledge, and tumbled over, the drop was straight to the bottom.

  So Thumps and the logs had been a good object lesson. Anyone pushed off the top of Belly Butte who had been alive and kicking would have been able to stop themselves. Anyone pushed off the top of Belly Butte who had been unconscious or dead would have wound up with the timber.

  It wasn’t really forensic science, but it was close enough, whereas carrying the logs back up the butte was pure physics.

  The drive home was in complete darkness. If there was a moon, it was hidden by clouds. If there weren’t any clouds, then there was no moon. And no stars for that matter. From the time he dropped Moses and the logs off and found his way back to the main road, it was dead black and the world existed only in the throw of the truck’s headlights. At one point, he wondered if he had somehow taken a wrong turn, and he was relieved when he came over a rise and saw Chinook all aglow in the distance.

  His house was dark. Except for the lights in the kitchen. He didn’t remember turning them on that morning, but on such a black night, they were a warm welcome. Maybe he should leave them on more often.

  He was almost to the porch when he saw the bag of cat food. Next to the bag was Freeway’s toy. He had left both of these at the blue and white house as a token of understanding. Now here they were, thrown back in his face, dropped off like so much garbage.

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit!

  The first kick split the bag open. The second sent the dry food flying across the porch. If Thumps had had his service automatic, he would have emptied the entire clip into the Tipsy Twilight Owl cat toy.

  He had the bag in one hand and was beating it against the newel post when the front door opened.

  “Thumps?” Claire was in the doorway, wrapped in a quilt. “Are you okay?”

  Thumps held up the remains of the bag, as if the ruined sack explained anything. “You’ve been gone.”

  “I have,” said Claire. “But now I’m back.”

  Thumps set the bag down and stepped onto the porch. He could feel the kitty bits crunch under his feet. “I should get a broom.”

  “Good idea,” said Claire. “I’ll make tea.”

  The cat food was everywhere. Thumps swept it off the porch into the shrubs. If it was good for cats, maybe it would help the plants. He stuffed the bag and the toy into the garbage.

  Claire was at the kitchen table with a teapot and two cups. “I was in Browning.”

  Thumps washed his hands. His fingers smelled vaguely of fish.

  “You should see the fall colours around Glacier. Golds, reds, purples. The high meadows were on fire.”

  “Glacier’s great.”

  Claire held the cup in front of her face. “I should have told you.”

  “I was worried.”

  “I know,” said Claire. “But there were things I needed to do.”

  “Test results?”

  “What?” Claire put the cup down. “No. I’m fine. The test results were good. Didn’t I tell you?”

  “Probably did,” said Thumps. “And I forgot.”

  Claire looked around. “Where’s Freeway? She’s normally chewing on our ankles by now.”

  “She’s gone.”

  “Oh, Thumps,” said Claire. “I’m so sorry. How did she die?”

  “No, she’s not dead.” Thumps tried to put a good face on Freeway’s treason. “She’s with another family.”

  “Another family?”

  “They have kids.”

  Claire waited. “This is about Seattle, isn’t it?”

  “She was never my cat,” said Thumps. “We just lived together. Sometimes.”

  “Sort of like us.”

  Thumps glanced at the clock. “You want to stay?”

  “I have a room at the Tucker.” Claire shifted in the chair. “I didn’t want to drive home tonight.”

  “You could stay here.”

  “I could,” said Claire, “but I have some things to work out.”

  “Okay.”

  “But I was hoping we could have breakfast tomorrow morning. Would that be possible?”

  “Sure.”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Sure.”

  “Good.”

  Thumps took a sip of tea. His fingers still smelled of fish. “Want to give me a hint?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.”

  Claire left the quilt on the chair. “Place looks good. You always did have a knack for order.”

  “What time?”

  “What?”

  “For breakfast,” said Thumps. “For our talk.”

  Claire smiled. “Worried?”

  “A little.”

  “Excellent,” said Claire. “How about eight?”

  “Will you be up by then?”

  Claire went to the door and opened it. “No one likes a smart ass.”

  THUMPS STAYED UP late and read a Craig Johnson novel that he had read before. He liked to imagine that he was the unflappable Walt Longmire, sheriff of Absaroka County, and that Claire was his foul-mouthed deputy, Victoria Moretti. It wasn’t a perfect analogy. He was not always as composed as Walt. The bag of cat food could testify to that. And Claire was hardly a bad-mannered siren with a libido the size of Canada.

  Still, he liked the general idea.

  It was after one before he got to bed, and then he couldn’t sleep. In spite of his efforts to keep the cat off the bed, Freeway had always slept with him, and now that she was no longer here, he missed her.

  He’d get over it. Maybe he’d get a pillow to put behind his legs or maybe he’d find a stuffed cat. Or one of those cuddly toy dogs for that matter. That could be the answer. A pet that didn’t require any care. A pet that you could pick up whenever you felt the need and could put down when you had other things to do.

  Something that would help buffer the pain and keep the world at bay.

  Thumps set his alarm clock for 7:30. The Tucker for breakfast. With Claire. A talk. Thumps set the novel on the nightstand.

  Where was Walt Longmire when he needed him?

  Walt would know what to do.

  Thirty-Two

  Thumps was up the next morning before the alarm went off. He showered, shaved, and went on a search-and-rescue mission for the bottle of Old Spice that Claire had bought him several Christmases back.

  The bottle turned up in his underwear drawer. Thumps tried to remember why he would have put it there and couldn’t come up with a convincing answer. But during his search, he also found the Benchmade pocket knife he thought he had lost, a beaded belt buckle he had found at a craft store on the Blood reserve in Alberta, and $4.75 in change.

  So the delay had been time well spent, and in spite of the brown residue around the little red cap, the Old Spice still smelled fine.

  So Claire was back. And she wanted to talk.

  Good news. Bad news.

  In Thumps’s experience, there were two kinds of conversations. There was the casual variety, where the topics were shallow and reasonably safe.

  Weather and sports.

  And then there was the serious sort, where the topics were singular and treacherous.

  Commitment and feelings.

  Thumps knew there were probably men who didn’t mind talking about feelings. He just didn’t know any.

  There were two shirts in the closet that were clean and ironed. More or less. And he settled on the blue one. He hadn’t worn the slacks since his last photography ex
hibition at Shadow Ranch, but they still fit fine. The sports coat was a remnant from his days as a cop on the Northern California coast and hadn’t gotten any better with age.

  Thumps wondered if the navy blue single-breasted blazer was old enough to interest Gabby Santucci. Maybe he could trade it for something more casual.

  He had seen a couple of nice-looking leather bomber jackets at a store in Seattle, was tempted by one in particular, but had passed on it. Claire had been undergoing the first of the chemotherapy sessions, and buying a new jacket hadn’t seemed sensitive or supportive.

  So it was the green and tan windbreaker. The relaxed retro look for men who didn’t own a sports jacket.

  Not that Claire would care.

  Thumps looked at himself in the mirror. Then again, maybe she would.

  TODAY, THE QUICK CLAIM was busy. A conference in town, by the look of the name tags hanging from lanyards around the necks of the men and women in PowerPoint business attire. Maybe he should have worn the blazer after all.

  “For how many?”

  The woman was tall, with brown hair and thin arms that she kept cocked in front of her body. “Darlene” on the name tag. She reminded Thumps of the stick insects that bite off the heads of their mates after sex.

  “I’m meeting a friend.”

  “Do you have a reservation?”

  Thumps resisted. It was an old joke and not particularly funny. “Maybe.”

  “Name?”

  “Probably under Merchant.”

  Darlene looked at her computer. “She hasn’t arrived yet. Would you like to wait or do you want me to seat you?”

  “Seat me,” said Thumps. “Someplace quiet.”

  “Is this an anniversary or a celebration of some sort?”

  “Probably not.”

  “There’s a champagne breakfast for two available,” said Darlene. “It comes with a red rose for the lady.”

  “Nothing for the guy?”

  Darlene smiled. “He gets the lady.”

  Claire was fifteen minutes late. Thumps wanted to make an exaggerated show of looking at his watch, but he knew better.

  “I know,” she said. “I’m late.”

  “I just got here.”

  “Liar.”

  Thumps had hoped that Claire would be dressed in slacks and a blouse. Instead, she was wearing a green and white print dress with red accents and a soft yellow sweater.

  “There’s a champagne breakfast for two,” said Thumps. “Comes with a red rose.”

  “You want champagne for breakfast?”

  “No,” said Thumps. “The woman at the front wanted to know if this was a special occasion.”

  Claire turned serious. “Maybe.”

  Okay. Now Thumps was sorry he hadn’t worn the blazer.

  The waiter came by with coffee and juice. “Lewis” was on his name tag.

  “Hi,” he said. “I’m Lewis, and I’ll be looking after you this morning.”

  “Morning, Lewis.”

  “Is this a special occasion?”

  Claire ordered the eggs Benedict. Thumps stuck with scrambled eggs and sausage. It wouldn’t be nearly as good as breakfast at Al’s, but Al’s didn’t have much in the way of privacy. And seeing as this was to be a serious talk, he didn’t want Alvera Couteau within shouting distance of the conversation.

  “Are you nervous?”

  “Nope.”

  “You don’t know what I want to talk to you about.”

  “Nope.”

  “And that doesn’t worry you?”

  “Nope.”

  “I told you that I got the test results back,” said Claire. “And that they were good.”

  “You did.”

  “So that’s not the reason.”

  “Okay.”

  “I wanted to talk about us.”

  This wasn’t the first time they had had this conversation. Commitment, intimacy, moving in together. And none of these talks had ended particularly well. So far as Thumps was concerned, talking about “us” had actually hurt their relationship.

  “You want to move in together?”

  Claire didn’t flinch. “Do you?”

  Thumps wasn’t sure why women liked to answer questions with questions. Maybe it was a strategy to avoid answering them.

  “I asked first.”

  “Christ,” said Claire. “Are we ten?”

  Thumps put his fork down. “I’m willing to give it a try.”

  “What?” said Claire. “Sort of like a test drive?”

  “For the both of us.”

  “But no commitment?”

  Thumps could feel his clothes tighten around him. Having Moses push him off Belly Butte had been more fun.

  “You might not like having me around all the time.”

  Claire sat back and wrapped her arms around herself. “How do you feel about children?”

  “Children?” Thumps manufactured a smile.

  “You know,” said Claire, “little humans?”

  “You want to have a baby?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  Thumps tried to hold the smile in place. “We’ve never talked about children.”

  “I had Stanley when I was young,” said Claire. “Too young. I’ve always thought about having a couple more.”

  Thumps wanted to remind Claire about her health situation. But he didn’t.

  “But now I can’t,” said Claire. “I’m too old. The cancer could come back. Motherhood from scratch is too much work. Babies are twenty-four/seven.”

  “You’d have me.”

  “What part of ‘too much work’ didn’t you understand?” Claire waited for Thumps to catch up. “But no, I don’t want another baby.”

  Claire opened her purse and took out a small photograph. “This is Deliah Standing and her sister, Nadie.”

  The two girls looked to be about six and four. The sisters were sitting on a floral sofa. Deliah was holding Nadie. Neither one of them was smiling.

  “Cute,” said Thumps. “Nieces?”

  “I’m going to buy a Subaru,” said Claire. “A Forester. It’s a kind of station wagon.”

  “Freddy Salgado said you were looking.”

  “I was leaning towards an Outback, but Freddy found a used Forester. Just off lease. Only twelve thousand miles.”

  “Supposed to be a good car in snow and ice.”

  “Angie Black Weasel is going to help me with the paperwork.”

  “For the car?”

  “No,” said Claire, “for Deliah and Nadie.”

  Thumps waited to see if Claire wanted to fill in the pieces. She didn’t.

  “These are foster kids?”

  “Actually, they’re available for adoption.” Claire’s eyes suddenly teared up. “Shit, it sounds like I’m picking up puppies from the pound.”

  “Adoption?”

  “Kids need a home.”

  “And you plan on adopting two little girls?”

  Claire nodded. Her eyes were still leaking. “Bet you’re sorry you turned down the champagne breakfast and the rose.”

  Okay, he hadn’t seen this coming.

  “What do you think?”

  “You have a big heart,” said Thumps.

  Claire carefully slipped the photograph into her purse. “What about your heart?”

  “Thought you didn’t want to get married.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Or live together.”

  “Maybe you can help me change my mind.”

  “Raising two girls is a big responsibility.”

  Claire kept her voice low and even. “The father killed the mother. He’ll be in jail the rest of his life. The only relative the girls have is a grandmother who’s in assisted living in Great Falls.”

  “This is all a little sudden.”

  Claire waited.

  “I’m not saying no.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Come on, Claire. That’s not fair.”

  “No,
” said Claire, “it’s not.” She slid out of the booth with her purse. “I have to use the bathroom.”

  Thumps watched her walk across the restaurant. It was good to have Claire back and even better to hear that the first set of test results had been positive. On the negative side, breakfast had gone somewhat worse than he would have imagined. A little advance warning about the girls and the adoption would have been helpful, and after being held at arm’s length for so long, he found Claire’s sudden proposal that they might live together disconcerting.

  Thumps didn’t think that Claire was suggesting that she move in with him. He was pretty sure that she would want him to sell his house and move in with her. He turned the situation over in his mind, tried to figure out what he was going to say when she got back.

  And came up empty.

  “Mr. DreadfulWater?” Lewis was back with the coffee pot. “Ms. Merchant took care of the bill and the tip. She asked me to tell you that she had to get to the airport.”

  “The airport?”

  “And I was to give you this.” Lewis placed an envelope on the table.

  “She’s not coming back?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Lewis.

  Thumps opened the envelope and read the note.

  “Did we leave any room for something sweet?”

  “What?”

  “You might want to try the pumpkin pie. It’s our seasonal special.”

  “I’m diabetic.”

  Lewis nodded sympathetically. “Then pie wouldn’t be a good idea.”

  Thumps read the note again.

  “Does it come with whipped cream?”

  Thirty-Three

  By the time Thumps got to Budd’s, he was in a foul mood. Breakfast with Claire had been more than a little unnerving. One minute she was a single woman not interested in a committed relationship and the next she was a mother of two looking for a partner.

  Back in three days.

  That’s all the note had said. She hadn’t even signed it. No “love, Claire” or “I’ll miss you, Claire” or even a “best, Claire.”

  Back in three days.

  The note hadn’t said anything about a deadline, but it was clear that three days was the time he had in which to make a decision.

  Three days.

  Thumps with Claire and two small girls in her house on the reservation, or Thumps alone in an empty house in town.