by Paul Moomaw
“And?”
“Seems obvious to me. I took the job. You take a job, you do the job. What’s the big deal?”
“But you do seem to have a lot of your ego wrapped up in this one,” Anne said. “I thought they trained that out of us in law school.”
“Well, I admit it would be fun to stick my thumb in Barbara Drake’s eye. She’s so damn cocky.” He paused and fiddled with his fork. “And more than Barbara. If Arden is innocent, then he’s getting screwed by the same white man’s legal system that stuck it to me last year. Anyway, I kind of like Arden.” He glanced across at Anne, who did not look convinced.
“Who cares?” he said. “ I’m not into examining my belly button all the time. I take life at face value, and that’s how I take myself, too. I got that from my dad. He used to say that what’s inside always shows on the outside. You just have to know how to look for it. Good enough?”
Anne smiled. “Good enough,” she said.
Chapter 12
The big brown was holding in the shade of an undercut bank about a hundred yards above the confluence of the east and west forks of the Bitterroot River. Arceneaux had been on his way to the Double Pine to talk to the housekeeper, one Helen Lousen, who had found the bodies of Samantha Marks and Corey Wallace. But the autumn sun was pure gold, the water looked like trout heaven, and Helen Lousen wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, so he made the only sensible choice and went fishing, drowning any whimpers of guilt with the constant, soft sound of the water, the light breeze in his hair, and the steady river current massaging his thighs. He stationed himself on a submerged gravel bar thirty feet from the trout and watched silently as it rose rhythmically, pushed its snout through the water’s surface and sipped lazily at insects. He tied a small, pale dun to his leader, gauged the distance, and cast carefully to the bank, mending a curve into the line so that the fly would float as naturally as possible. The brown rose to feed just before the dun passed over it, and rose again after the fly had passed.
Arceneaux retrieved the line and cast a second time, but his timing was off again. As he tried a third cast, an osprey sailed into view and out again, distracting him and throwing his aim off. With a shake of his head, he let the line drift in the current and stood silently, watching the trout feed. He counted the seconds between rises, and when he knew he had the rhythm down, he cast. The fly landed perfectly and floated over the trout, which rose at exactly the right time, and took a natural that had emerged two inches to the right of Arceneaux’s fly.
Arceneaux muttered to himself and decided he needed to change flies. He reeled in the line, waded back to the bank and sat down. He rummaged through his fly boxes, but nothing grabbed him. Finally he let his fingers settle on a small, red and black ant. It was late in the year for terrestrials, but the ant was bright and flashy for such a small thing, and might get the trout’s attention. He tied the ant to his tippet and waded cautiously back to the gravel bar. His first cast was timed poorly. The second drifted over the trout at what should have been the perfect instant, but the big fish ignored it.
“So much for that idea,” Arceneaux said, and started to retrieve the line. The ant skittered against the current, and suddenly the trout turned down stream and lunged for it, the force of its attack carrying it out of the water. Arceneaux grunted and tried to set the hook, but he was too late, and after a couple of flashy leaps, the trout freed itself and shot out of sight. Arceneaux knew it would not return to its feeding station any time soon.
But next time, you’re mine, he thought. He reeled in his line and waded to the bank. He broke down his rod and tossed it into the back of the Subaru. Now it was time to talk to Helen Lousen. Then he could cross another task off the list and feel as if he were at least half way earning the retainer Elbert Marks had paid him. Arceneaux started the engine and headed down the highway to the side road that led to the resort.
The main lodge was as big and tasteless as he remembered it—a two-story edifice of large blonde logs standing in a clearing at the end of a steep gravel road. Smaller roads and pathways led into the trees where the detached cabins, some of them as big as Arceneaux’s house, were tucked away. He stepped onto the porch, crossed it, and pushed open the door to the lobby. The same dead animals stared at him as he walked across a highly polished hardwood floor to the registration desk. A young woman in jeans and a sweatshirt smiled at him as he approached.
“Help you?” she asked.
“I wonder if you could tell me where to find Helen Lousen,” Arceneaux said.
The girl gave him a look. “Just a minute,” she said, and retreated through a door behind the desk. When she came out again, a large man with a resort tan and muscles came with her. The girl nodded toward her companion.
“He’ll help you,” she said, and busied herself with a stack of registration forms.
“You’re looking for Helen?” the man said.
Arceneaux nodded.
“I’ll need to know your business,” the man said.
Arceneaux pulled out his identification and tossed it onto the desk. “I’m investigating the deaths of Samantha Marks and Corey Wallace,” he said.
The man looked at the card, then at Arceneaux, then back at the card. “Private eye,” he said. “You don’t look like a private eye.”
“I don’t look like a lot of things,” Arceneaux said. He pulled out his driver’s license and offered it for inspection. “But there I am.”
“Sorry to seem unfriendly,” the man said. “But after what happened, we’re a little cautious when strange men come asking for one of the girls here.” He handed the ID card and license back to Arceneaux, then pulled out a loose leaf notebook and consulted it. “Helen is in Whispers,” he said. “That’s one of the cabins. Not the one it happened in.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Arceneaux said.
The man pointed across the lobby. “Go outside and down the main road to the left for about seventy or eighty yards. You’ll see a path to the right. Follow that and it will take you straight to the cabin. There’s a sign hanging over the door.”
Arceneaux thanked the man and headed toward the front door. He paused as he reached a large black bear that stood on its hind legs and stared down at him with its glass eyes. Arceneaux reached out and tapped the claws on the right paw.
“I guess this is good bye, big fellow,” he said, and headed outside.
Whispers was one of the small cabins, single bedroom, no porch, and a fenced deck just big enough to hold a hot tub. Arceneaux knocked on the door. There was no response. He knocked again, louder. “Anybody home?” he called.
“Hold your horses,” a woman’s voice replied. There was a rattle of equipment of some kind, and then Helen Lousen emerged from the cabin’s bathroom and came to the front door. “I would have told you to come on in, except I was scrubbing tiles, and who needs to be seen on her hands and knees, with her butt sticking up in the air?” She opened the screen door and took a closer look at Arceneaux. “Who are you?” she asked.
“My name’s Sam Arceneaux. I wanted to talk to you about Samantha.”
“If you’re from the Sheriff’s office, you already know everything I know.”
Arceneaux shook his head. “I’m private,” he said. “I don’t know anything you know.”
“Arceneaux,” she said. “You any relation to Dale Arceneaux up at Mission?”
“My dad,” Arceneaux said.
“No shit,” Helen said. She stepped the rest of the way through the door. “Come on over here,” she said. “I need a cigarette, and we can’t smoke inside the cabins.” She led the way to a stand of ponderosa pines, settled into the grass cross-legged, and pulled a package of Camel filters from her shirt pocket. She fired one up with a butane lighter, leaned back against the tree, and took a deep drag, then coughed. “I ought to quit these things,” she said. She looked up at Arceneaux. “I knew your dad,” she said. “He still around?”
“He died ten years ago,” Arceneaux said.<
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“Damn shame,” Helen said. “He was a pretty good man when I knew him.” She grinned widely. “For a Salish, anyway. I’m Blackfeet, grew up around Browning. Before I started getting married all the time, my name was Helen Quick Badger. I met your dad when we were both at that damn Indian school in Twin Bridges.” She shook her head, stared at the trees for a moment. “Your dad ever tell you about that school?”
“He didn’t talk much about his childhood,” Arceneaux said.
“That was a school for bad kids,” Helen said. “The ones that wouldn’t kiss white asses. It was like a reform school. Couldn’t do shit there. Couldn’t speak your own language. Couldn’t observe rituals. Couldn’t have family visit. Had to try to be white.” She smiled. “Your dad, he just wouldn’t give in. He ran about three times. They always brought him back, and he would just tell them he was going to do it again, and he would. To tell the truth, I was a little bit in love with him, but life goes on, doesn’t it?” She stared up at Arceneaux. “You know, you don’t really . . .”
“Look like an Indian,” Arceneaux finished for her. They both laughed.
“I bet your dad married a white woman,” Helen said. Arceneaux nodded.
“Did they stay together?” she asked.
“No,” Arceneaux said. “She left when I was nine. Ran off with a white guy from Idaho.”
“I didn’t mean to pry,” Helen said.
“It’s all right,” Arceneaux said. “She’s dead now, anyway. They said she fell out of a canoe on the Snake River and drowned. I think I was about twelve. I hardly even remember her.”
“I married white, too,” Helen said. “Three times. The first two were no good. I’m not sure Leroy—that’s number three—is any better, but he provides, and he works so hard he’s too tired to give me any hassle when he comes home.” She shook her head. “Makes me wonder if that school didn’t do a better job of brainwashing us than I like to admit. I mean, they couldn’t turn us into white people, but your dad and I both married them.” She glanced at Arceneaux. “You married?”
“Divorced.”
“Was she white or Indian?”
“Indian,” Arceneaux said, and found himself not adding, but I’m seeing a white woman now. Helen stubbed out the cigarette and rose to her feet. “Come on back inside. We can talk while I clean.”
Inside the cabin, Arceneaux settled into a pine log armchair and watched Helen apply Windex and a rag to the windows. He pulled out his notebook and pen. “Mind if I take notes?”
Helen glanced at the notebook and smiled. “Nobody ever bothered to write down what I say, not even the sheriff’s guy.”
“Tell me about Samantha,” Arceneaux said.
“I didn’t really know her that well,” Helen said. “She was friendly, kind of sweet, but she kept to herself. I tried to get her to go into Darby for a beer after work a couple of times, but I gave that up once I realized she was from Woodvale.”
“Did she seem to connect with anyone else around here?” Arceneaux asked.
Helen shook her head. “She was real married, as far as I could tell. A couple of the guys tried to hit on her, but she wouldn’t give them the time of day.” She paused. “I don’t know how happily she was married, you understand. Her husband came to see her some when she first started working. He seemed like an okay sort of a guy. It’s hard to imagine he killed her. Later on he stopped showing up, and about the same time she went from being real cheerful and perky all the time to seeming kind of sad. I asked her once if she needed to talk, but she just shined me on. Then, a couple of days before she got killed, she told me she was leaving her husband. That’s all she said, wouldn’t talk about it.”
Helen put the rag and Windex onto a cart that carried her cleaning supplies. She sat down. “There, that’s done,” she said. “It’s not as clean as I keep my house, but I figure most of the guests here are too drunk and horny to notice a little bit of dust. At least these guests didn’t steal anything.”
“That happens?”
“Yeah. You’d think as rich as the people who come here are, they wouldn’t have sticky fingers, but they do. Towels, glassware. The cabin I cleaned before this one was missing a brass corkscrew.” She paused. “Now I think of it, the cabin where I found Samantha, somebody had taken the fireplace poker.” She waved at the fireplace across the room, where a poker, shovel and brush stood. They were brass, and had ornate handles in the shape of an elk’s head, antlers and all. “They’re all fancy like those. The one that’s missing had a handle shaped like a bear, a grizzly bear, standing erect. What with the big fuss, I forgot to tell the boss.”
“So you never saw Samantha act interested in anyone?” Arceneaux said.
Helen shook her head. “Just friendly interest, but she was definitely not the kind of kid to screw around. No way.” She paused. “Well, maybe that could have changed toward the end. That Wallace guy came here three, four times a year. Always for a couple of weeks at a stretch, and always in the same cabin, Moondust. The last two times was after Samantha started working here, and she seemed to take a shine to him. She worked tables mostly, and she always made a point of getting him at her station, so she could flirt a little with him. Then I saw her coming out of his cabin just before breakfast one morning. I didn’t tell. They would have fired her for that, no matter how many people liked her.” She stubbed her cigarette into the ground, then field stripped it and tucked the paper remains into a pocket.
“You know, her dad showed up a few times, too, but you would never have known it was him, the way she acted. In fact, I only saw them talk once. He passed her on a path and said, ‘Hi,’ and she just nodded and said, ‘Hello, Dad,’ and kept right on walking. The other times he was around I don’t think they even saw each other, so I figured he must have been here on some kind of business. I did see him talking with Corey Wallace a couple of times, come to think of it.”
Helen stood up. “I’ve still got three cabins to clean,” she said. “You can follow along if you like.”
“I don’t guess so,” Arceneaux said. “I appreciate your time.
“No trouble. And I got a kick out of meeting Dale’s son. I wish he was still alive so I could have you tell him hello.”
“I wish he was, too,” Arceneaux said.
“I bet you do,” Helen said. They went outside. “I really miss having Samantha around,” she said. “She was good-hearted, just damned nice to hang out with. She was stubborn, too. When she first came to work, she was wearing a John Deere cap. She wore that hat all the time, even waiting tables. The manager tried to make her stop, but she just smiled and said no, and he wasn’t about to fire her, because all the customers liked her a lot.” Helen sighed and shook her head. “That’s the way I’ll always see her,” she said. “With those big eyes, and that sweet smile, and that silly cap.”
They walked down the path to the road. “Do you think Samantha’s husband really killed her?” Helen asked.
“As a matter of fact, I don’t,” Arceneaux said, and was a little surprised at the conviction he felt as he spoke the words. “I sure don’t,” he repeated.
“I’ll tell you the one time Samantha wouldn’t smile,” Helen said. “That brother-in-law of hers came hanging around a few times. She couldn’t stand him. In fact, you know, I think she was afraid of him. I don’t know why. He never looked very fearsome to me. Just a scrawny little shit with a face like a ferret. But he walked up right behind her once, when she was outside taking a break, and she half jumped when she saw him, and I could see the fear in her eyes.”
Arceneaux turned to go.
“Wait a minute,” Helen said. “I’ve got something in my bag I think maybe I should just give to you.” She went back into the cabin and re-appeared with a brown grocery sack rolled up around something. She opened it and pulled out a sheath knife. “I found this in the cabin where Samantha got killed,” she said. “I hadn’t done anything with it until now.”
Arceneaux took the knife. The sheath
was of an exotic wood that he did not recognize. He pulled the blade free. It was about six inches long, an inch across at the hilt, and forged of Damascus steel, the intricate, hammered layers forming wavy lines across the metal. He ran his thumb over the edge. It was as sharp as a razor.
“Where was it?” he asked.
“Lying right on the bed. I saw it there, and then I heard the jets going in the hot tub. That’s the only reason I went out on the deck, and now I wish sometimes I never had. Anyway, I went back in, and saw the knife again, and grabbed it without thinking much about what I was doing. When I got it home, I thought I’d give it to my old man, because he loves nice knives and things; but then I thought maybe it’s some kind of evidence, so I was going to bring it back, but I was a little scared to admit I had taken it.” She waved her hands impotently. “Now you take it, and do whatever’s right.”
“I suppose I should turn it over to the Sheriff,” Arceneaux said. He turned the blade in his hand, letting the light shine on the burnished steel, and felt a pang of covetousness. “It sure is pretty,” he said.
“It sure is,” Helen replied. “I’m glad I could give it to you.”
Arceneaux put the knife back into the grocery sack, and tucked it under his arm. “Thanks for your help,” he said.
Helen nodded and smiled. “If Samantha’s husband didn’t kill her, I hope they find out who did,” she said.
“Me, too,” Arceneaux replied. He started back down the path toward the main lodge. It was still early in the afternoon, and he should have time to stop by David Crisp’s place of business and see if he was as uncommunicative as his wife said he would be.
Back on the highway, though, he found himself thinking not of Crisp, or the murder, but about his father. He could not fit the rebellious, proud Indian boy to the father he had grown up with. Dale Arceneaux had made a point of getting along with white people, to a degree that had sometimes bothered his son. A picture flashed into Arceneaux’s head, from a summer day when he had ridden around with his father, and a white farmer who was cheating on his water use said no goddam Indian was going to tell him what to do on his own land, and Arceneaux’s father had just turned and walked away. Arceneaux had never been exposed to traditional culture. No sweats. No ceremonies. Hell, Arceneaux thought, he never even took me to a pow wow. He had even married a white woman, and never had a bad word to say about her before or after she abandoned the family.