by Paul Moomaw
Arden Marks came out last. He stood on the porch and watched as the other members of the community greeted Arceneaux. Wrapped around his left wrist was the mobile part of the Ravalli County Attorney’s electronic monitor that insured that its wearer would stay put. The other half would be inside Marks’ house. Larry French had guessed that Barbara Drake would not be able to resist using her new toy. He had been right. At regular intervals, according to French, Marks was required to connect the two, which triggered a transmission to wherever Drake had installed the base unit.
“I got no help at all from Marks,” French had said. “He just kept saying he didn’t care whether he got out or not, and sure enough, when he was sprung, he just walked out without a word. No thanks, no kiss my ass, no nothing. I guess if it had been up to him, I wouldn’t have even known he was home.”
Marks had not sounded eager on the phone to meet with Arceneaux, and he still looked unhappy about the idea. In his cell, he had reminded Arceneaux of a large, wild animal. In the open air, he still looked big, and dangerous, but the trapped, bewildered expression was gone.
“Thanks for seeing me,” Arceneaux said.
“Don’t know what good it will do,” Marks replied.
“Neither do I, not yet. But I need to start somewhere.”
Marks shrugged and led the way inside. “I guess you have to do something to earn that money,” he said. He walked through the front room, into the kitchen. Arceneaux stood in the middle of the room and looked around, surprised at what he saw. The furniture was finely crafted and well cared for, and floor-to-ceiling shelves, filled with books, covered all of one wall. The books themselves ranged widely in quality and subject, from tattered paperback mysteries to thick, glossy history texts, and a few collections in the leather-bound Great Books style. One shelf consisted entirely of Fodors and other travel books. They looked as if they must cover every country in the world, and most of the major cities. Arceneaux remembered Tina’s description of Arden the young boy, who spent hours reading National Geographics and wondering about distant lands. A dining room table stood under a window across from the books. It was a pedestal table, smoothly curved, with perfect proportions that spoke of an artist at work. Arceneaux walked over to it and stroked its glossy surface.
“You like that?” Marks asked. He stood in the door to the kitchen.
“It’s pretty great,” Arceneaux said. “Where’d you get it?”
“I made it,” Marks said. He waved his hand around the room. “I made all this. I do cabinetry for a living. People all up and down the valley have my stuff, but the best I save for myself.”
“The books yours, too?” Arceneaux asked.
Marks nodded. “Even a dumb Bitterrooter has a few dreams,” he said.
In one corner stood a wood-burning stove of cast iron and pale green soapstone. A brass and leather bellows and an ornate brass poker with a handle in the shape of an animal leaned against the wall next to the stove. Arceneaux stroked the stove, enjoying the smoothness of the soapstone. “Nice piece,” he said.
“I got that in trade from a dealer in Salmon I made cabinets for,” Marks said. “I think it adds a little class to the place.” He turned back to the kitchen. “You thirsty?”
“I could drink something.”
“Water is what I’ve got to offer,” Marks said. He pulled two glasses from a shelf and filled them at the kitchen sink. “Straight out of the rock, from an untainted well. God’s gift.” He handed a glass to Arceneaux, motioned toward the kitchen table, and sat down. “Brother Detweiler says milk is God’s gift, too, but I figure if the Lord wanted me to drink milk, it wouldn’t give me the bloats. So I drink water. I might put more stock in Brother Detweiler’s words if he would paint his trailer and pull his knapweed.”
“Water’s fine,” Arceneaux said, and took a swallow.
“Elbert says you’re Indian,” Marks said.
“I am.”
“You don’t look it.”
“He said that, too.”
“Bet you get tired of hearing it.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you approved of betting.”
Marks threw back his head and laughed. It was a good laugh, open and clear. Arceneaux decided he could like the man. He took another swallow of water.
“I need to talk about the night your wife died,” he said.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“When I saw you in your cell,” Arceneaux said, “you told us you had already killed Samantha. What did you mean?”
Marks clenched his hands together and stared at them. “It’s a long story,” he said.
“We have time.”
“My brother makes Samantha out to be evil.” Marks rose and began to pace. “She’s not.” He caught himself. “She wasn’t. She was a good woman, and a wonderful mate, at first. I know she loved me, and God knows I loved her. I still love her. I don’t understand what went wrong. She started changing about a year ago. Got hard, pulled away, was angry a lot, then she’d cry and go hide in the woods for hours. Finally started refusing to come to our bed.” Marks set down heavily at the table. He looked as if he wanted to cry, and was determined not to.
“I didn’t understand,” he said, then shook his head. “Worse. I didn’t even try to understand. I rebuked her, called her names. Then she took that job at the Double Pine. I think that was mainly to get away from me and keep the peace, but it just made things worse. I had no trust, no understanding. She was troubled, and instead of loving her and helping her, I passed judgment on her. Instead of talking with her, I talked with Elbert. Instead of listening to her, I listened to Elbert. My brother is a rigid man, sees everything in black and white, good and evil. That’s just his nature, he can’t help it. But I shouldn’t have listened to him, because he fed my own doubts, and I let those doubts poison me.”
Marks fell silent for a long time. He gripped the water glass until Arceneaux was sure it would break.
“A couple of months ago,” he finally said, “Samantha told me she was going to leave. She said I was right, she was evil.” Marks’ face rippled with conflicting waves of feeling that Arceneaux could only guess at. He stared hard at the ceiling, as if he might find salvation there from his own private hell.
“I didn’t know what to do,” he said. “So I didn’t do anything. We both pretended she hadn’t said anything. She went to work at the Double Pine, came home and did her chores. I did mine. We even went back to sleeping in the same bed. I tried to make love once,” his face turned dark red, “and she tried to let me; but when the moment came, I couldn’t get anything to happen.” He paused and glanced toward his lap. “Down there, I mean. She was kind about it, and that nearly killed me, too. Other times I would get angry, and say terrible things to her.”
Marks looked at Arceneaux, pain deep inside his eyes. “I never understood what happened. I realize now that it had to have been something awful. A good person doesn’t just turn bad. She needed my understanding. Instead, I killed her a few inches at a time.”
Marks stared at the floor for a long time. “She told me she was leaving for good,” he said finally. “Said she wouldn’t come home after work, that she intended to stay with a friend. I knocked her down. She got up and kicked me right where it hurts, and we wound up rolling around on the floor like a couple of drunk derelicts. She clawed me good.” Marks fingered his neck and jaw. “I must have scratched her, too, because there was blood on her face when she went out the door.” Marks shook his head. “She was brave, you know? She went out the door, stopped, and came right back in. She had left the suitcase, and she came back in to get it. Didn’t say a word. Just looked at me like she didn’t care what I did. Then she walked back out.” He shook his head. “A week later, they came and told me she was dead, and that they knew I had killed her.”
“You went to the Double Pine the night she was killed.”
Marks gave Arceneaux a hard look. “Says who?”
“A guest. He says you tried t
o kill his dog with your truck. He got mad and took down your license plate number.”
Marks stared silently at Arceneaux, then finally nodded. “Okay,” he said. “It’s true. I went to the lodge to apologize.”
“At two o’clock in the morning? Come on Arden. If you’re going to lie, at least make it believable.”
Marks straightened up in his chair and extended a huge fist half way across the table. Arceneaux held his breath and got ready to duck if he had to. Then Marks relaxed, and so did Arceneaux.
“You’re right,” Marks said. “But if they know I was there, no one’s going to believe I didn’t do anything to her.”
“Try me.”
Marks nodded. “I went there. But not at two o’clock. It was about nine, maybe a little later. Samantha had just finished her shift in the dining room. I managed to get her to come outside and tried to talk to her. I wanted her to come home. She wouldn’t budge, and I lost my temper and called her a slut. She hit me, real hard. Gouged me good with her fingernails.” He leaned forward, grabbed his water glass, and held it in both hands. “Then she went back inside, and I slunk home like a whipped dog. That was the last time I ever saw her. I never even got to see her body.”
“Arden,” Arceneaux said gently. “They found your hat. It was inside the cabin where Samantha was killed.”
Marks looked up from the glass. “Hat?” He looked genuinely puzzled. “I didn’t wear a hat.”
“They say it was your hat for sure.”
Marks shook his head. “Why would I wear a hat at night? There’s no sun at night. Don’t need a hat when there’s no sun.”
Arceneaux stood up and looked down at Marks, who continued to toy with the glass. The man was damned believable, Arceneaux thought. He would make a credible witness, if Larry French would ever get motivated to mount a defense, instead of merely trying to plead his client into prison. He moved toward the door.
“I’ll keep you informed,” he said.
“Okay, sure,” Marks said. He did not look up.
“Arden,” Arceneaux said. “Did you know Samantha was pregnant?”
Marks stared at Arceneaux, his eyes wide. He shook his head slowly back and forth, then stared at the table again.
“I’m sorry,” Arceneaux said. Marks was still staring silently at the table as Arceneaux stepped through the door, closed it softly behind him, and headed for his car.
A front door opened two houses down the road, and a middle-aged woman came out. Instead of the dress and kerchief the other women wore, she had on jeans and a green sweatshirt under a dirty parka that had once been blaze orange, and her feet were tucked into a pair of old Sorel Caribou pacs that had seen better days. Her hair, gone mostly gray, was braided into two pigtails that bounced and swung as she strode rapidly toward Arceneaux. She planted herself in his path, hands on her hips. She was almost as tall as he was.
“You police?” she said.
Arceneaux shook his head. “I’m a private investigator,” he said.
“You trying to bust Arden?”
“I’m trying to help him.”
“About time somebody was,” the woman said. “Arden couldn’t have killed that poor girl. He was right here.”
That got Arceneaux’s attention. “How do you know that?” he asked.
“Saw him, of course.” The woman turned and pointed toward Marks’ house. “He was right on the porch.” She turned back to Arceneaux and nodded emphatically.
“Tell me about it,” Arceneaux said.
“Not much to tell. I was at home, watching a movie. I’ve got a satellite dish. Some people think that’s extravagant, but it’s by God kept me from going nuts up here since my husband died.” She crossed her arms tightly over her chest and stared at Arceneaux, as if daring him to criticize her.
“I like all those movie channels myself,” Arceneaux said.
The woman’s eyes softened a touch. “Well that’s a switch,” she said. “Most men waste their time watching sports. That’s why my husband bought the satellite dish to begin with. Sports all day, sports all night. Soon as he died,” and she glanced upward briefly, “rest his soul, I canceled the sports channels and ordered movies. Next thing I did was take that damn head covering off. I dress as I please, and if the others don’t like it, to hell with them. I can’t move away. Can’t afford to. But they can’t push me around.”
“We all do what we have to.”
The woman smiled. “That’s right.”
“You saw Arden the night of Samantha’s death,” Arceneaux said.
The woman nodded, then leaned toward Arceneaux. “Is it true they found her naked in a hot tub with a man?”
“So I’m told,” Arceneaux said. “What about that night?”
“Like I mentioned, I was watching a movie. I’m not sure of the time, but it was late, probably close to ten. All of a sudden there was this big racket. I thought at first it was Arden on his trail bike. He’d been going out almost every evening on that thing, took it out the night before, as a matter of fact. Said it helped him calm down to ride around in the woods.” She shook her head. “Don’t see how anything that noisy could calm a man down, but that’s what he said.” She looked around. “Don’t see that trail bike, matter of fact. Anyway, I went outside, and it wasn’t the bike. It was Arden’s old green Power Wagon. It’s about as noisy as the bike. It was bouncing off down the road, and I figured Arden was in it, but about then he came out of his house and sat down on the porch.”
“You’re sure it was Arden,” Arceneaux said.
“Don’t I know my own neighbor?” she replied. “We even talked a little, which was different for Arden. He usually pretty much keeps to himself. I guess he’s been feeling lonely, what with the troubles between him and Samantha. Anyway, he waved and stepped out into the yard, and we talked some about nothing in particular, and then he went back inside. And he never went out the rest of that night. I would have heard the bike, and the Power Wagon was gone until close to breakfast. I sure heard it coming back.”
“Did you see who was driving it?” Arceneaux asked.
The woman shook her head. “I try not to be nosy,” she said, and her look dared him to contradict her.
“Did you tell the police about this?” Arceneaux said.
“I tried to,” the woman replied. “I called the police, and they told me to talk to Arden’s lawyer, and I called him once, but all I got was an answering machine, and so I decided they could just damn well come and talk to me if they want to know anything.” She slammed her hands down onto her hips again and nodded.
“What’s your name?” Arceneaux said.
“Jasmine,” the woman said.
“What’s your last name, Jasmine?”
The woman gave him a pitying look. “That is my last name,” she said. “First name is Darline. That’s Darline with an I.”
Arceneaux chuckled. “I bet you get a lot of people with that one,” he said.
“People are easy to fool, is what I think,” Darline said. “If you need to talk to me again, I live right over there.” She pointed to house. “That’s where I’ll be. That’s where I mostly always seem to be.”
“Watching movies,” Arceneaux said.
“Watching movies,” she said over her shoulder as she strode away.
Arceneaux walked back to Marks’ porch, knocked on the door and opened it. “Hey, Arden,” he called. Marks was still sitting at the table. He looked up silently.
“I just talked to your neighbor. She says she saw you at home the night Samantha was killed, and that someone else had your truck.”
Marks nodded. “Yeah, I know. I heard her. You can hear Darline a mile away.”
“Why in hell haven’t you told anyone that you have a witness who can alibi you?” Arceneaux said.
“To tell the truth, I forgot I saw her that night.” Marks shrugged. “I guess I’ve had other things on my mind.”
Arceneaux shook his head in disbelief. “That’s a pretty imp
ortant thing to forget,” he said.
“If you say so,” Marks replied.
“Look,” Arceneaux said. “You don’t have a whole lot of stuff on your side right now. This may make a big difference. It’s really important for your attorney to know.”
“Tell him, then,” Marks said. “If you’re sure you won’t just be confusing him with facts when his mind is already made up.”
Arceneaux laughed. “We’re going to beat this thing,” he said.
Marks gazed steadily at him. “Why do you care so much, Mister Arceneaux?” he asked.
The question caught Arceneaux off guard. He paused, then shook his head. “Do I have to have a reason?” he said. He waved and turned to leave. “I’ll be in touch.” He stepped onto the porch and paused, staring at the trees. He realized he wanted very badly to believe Marks was innocent. He was not sure where that came from. Maybe just because nobody else believes you, he thought. Maybe just because nobody wants to give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe because, if I can believe in you, I can believe in myself. He snorted and shook his head. He was starting to sound like some dumbass psychologist.
He was still worrying at Marks’ question like a dog at a bone that evening as he sat across from Anne at a back table at Liquid Planet, where they served off-beat crepes, good wine, and every kind of beer you could imagine.
“He wanted to know why I was trying so hard,” he said. “I think Larry wonders the same thing.”