Bitterroot Blues

by Paul Moomaw

  The Ford reached the West Fork Road, slowed briefly to turn, and picked up the pace again. Arceneaux followed at a more sedate pace, knowing there was no danger of losing him from this point. At Piquette Creek Road Crisp turned off. Arceneaux slowed down further, wanting to give the other man time to get well around the first curve before he went by the intersection. Then he drove past the dirt road and found the secluded spot he had parked in the last time. He pulled up, turned off the Subaru’s engine, and set to work on the peanut butter shake.

  An hour went by before Arceneaux heard the sound of the Ford’s big diesel approaching again. He started the Subaru and waited. The Ford barely slowed as it reached the highway and turned north. Arceneaux gave it time to round a curve, then pulled out and began to follow. Crisp stayed on the highway, reducing his speed only a little as he passed through Darby, and then hitting more than eighty when he was beyond the town limits. The aged Subaru was already close to its upper limit, and then Crisp speeded up even more. Arceneaux kept the gas pedal to the floor, hoping he could at least keep the Ford in view all the way to Hamilton. They crossed the Bitterroot River bridge at the south end of town, then curved into the outskirts. The speed limit dropped here, but Crisp paid no attention, continuing a high speed into the city. Arceneaux hung on and crossed his fingers. Finally, where the limit was set at thirty-five, and then dropped quickly to twenty-five, Crisp slowed down. Arceneaux kept up some speed until he was a couple of blocks behind the Ford, and took a relieved breath. He knew he probably could keep Crisp in sight from this point on.

  Then, at the first traffic light, Crisp caught a yellow and sailed through the intersection. Arceneaux cursed and pulled up to the light as he watched the Ford pull farther away. “Thank God for ugly yellow paint jobs,” he said. The light turned green and he started up, then saw the Ford make a right turn onto a side street. eight or ten blocks ahead.

  “Damn, damn, damn,” Arcneneaux said. Wherever Crisp was going, it was not to his house, or he would have been turning left. Arceneaux sped up again, hoping to reach the turnoff in time to keep Crisp in sight. At least there were no traffic lights in his path. He sped up a little more, afraid of losing the truck, and almost failed to see the small, white dog that leaped suddenly into his path, followed by a boy almost as small whose attention was focused completely on the dog. Arceneaux gasped and slammed on the brakes, and managed to stop two feet in front of the boy, who had finally turned and was staring at him, frozen, his eyes filled with terror.

  Arceneaux opened the door, got out of the car, and walked over to the boy.

  “You okay?” he asked. The boy nodded silently, his eyes still like moons, then grabbed up the dog and dashed for the safety of the sidewalk. Arceneaux took a deep breath and looked down the street. There was no sign of Crisp.

  “Next time,” Arceneaux muttered, and returned to his car.

  Chapter 24

  Laura Hooters worked tables at the Rivers Edge Cafe in Hamilton, a formica and stainless steel establishment that specialized in steak and eggs for breakfast, chicken fried steak for lunch, and bad coffee all day—and closed in time to let its employees go home for a decent dinner. Glistening from the rain that had fallen through the afternoon, its neon sign glowing red under the overcast sky, the place looked more inviting that it usually did.

  When Arceneaux walked in, Laura was wiping tables down and engaging in desultory conversation with the cafe’s only remaining patrons, an elderly couple drinking coffee at a table next to the room’s one big window, and a fat man in coveralls and a stained baseball hat with Cummins Diesel printed in red, who sat at the counter meditating over a piece of pecan pie so shiny brown it looked waxed.

  Arceneaux picked a table and sat. Laura looked across the room at him and smiled.

  “I can give you coffee,” she said. “Or a piece of peach pie. Leroy got the tail end of the pecan. But that’s about all. The kitchen is closed down.”

  “I”ll try the coffee,” Arceneaux said. “But mostly I came to talk with you.”

  Laura nodded knowingly. “You must be that private eye,” she said. “Anna Mae told me all about you.”

  “That’s me,” Arceneaux said. His gaze swept almost involuntarily across her chest. She was by no means meagerly endowed, but after Anna Mae Preston’s comments, he had expected something pretty remarkable.

  “They used to be a lot bigger,” Laura said, and Arceneaux felt his face redden.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to stare.”

  “It’s okay,” Laura said. “I knew what Anna Mae told you. It’s only natural you’d check it out.” She walked away from the table. “I’ll get your coffee,” she said over her shoulder. The elderly couple rose and headed toward the cash register. Laura took their money and chatted briefly with them, then went behind the counter to pour Arceneaux’s coffee as the couple went outside. She brought the steaming mug to his table. “It’s the bottom of the pot,” she said. “Hope it doesn’t stain your teeth. I’ll be finished closing up in a few minutes. Then we can talk.” She strode briskly to the counter and laid a hand on the shoulder of the man in coveralls. “You going to eat that pie, Leroy, or marry it?”

  “It would make a better wife than the three I already had,” the man said, and they both laughed. Laura went back to wiping tables down, and the man she called Leroy finished the pie in a few fast bites, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and stood up. “Put that on my tab, will you?” he said. “I get paid tomorrow.”

  “No problem,” Laura replied, and waved as he stepped through the front door. She wiped the top of one last table, ran the rag down the counter, and then disappeared into a rear room. Lights started going off, until the only thing left glowing was the bulb in the pastry cabinet.

  “The boss makes me leave that little light on,” she said as she returned to the dining area. “He thinks it keeps the burglars away.” She grabbed a pale blue jacket from a coat rack next to the counter and slipped into it. “We can talk at my house,” she said. “I’ve been here since breakfast. That’s long enough.” She pulled the front door open and held it for Arceneaux, then closed it behind them and rattled the handle to make sure it was locked. Then she started walking across the cafe’s small parking area toward the street. The rain had diminished to a mist that was hardly noticeable, but Laura’s jacket looked like something that would soak water up instead of repelling it.

  “We can take my car, if you like,” Arceneaux said.

  “It’s just a few blocks,” she replied. “I need the fresh air.” She paused and looked at Arceneaux’s battered Subaru. “And I don’t think anybody is going to want to steal that.”

  “Probably not,” Arceneaux said, and quickened his pace to catch up with her. As they began walking along the shoulder of the highway, a truck approached. It was David Crisp in his big yellow Ford. He slowed as he came abreast, and gave them a hard stare. Laura gave no indication that she noticed, but after the vehicle passed by, she muttered, “That guy gives me the willies.” Then she straightened her back, tossed her head, and snorted. “I bet seeing me with you scared the shit out of the little creep. He’s got to wonder how much I know.”

  “About what?” Arceneaux asked.

  “I’ll tell you all about it,” she said.

  They walked side by side in silence to the first cross street, where Laura turned. “It’s about three blocks,” she said. “Almost to the river. It isn’t much of a house, but I love the location. Lots of trees and only one neighbor, right across the street. She’s the nosy type, and I know she keeps tabs on me, but she doesn’t hassle me, so I don’t care.”

  They walked another block. “What Anna Mae didn’t tell you about me,” Laura said, “was that I had a breast reduction three years ago. That’s why you didn’t find what you were looking for.”

  “Tired of lewd looks?” Arceneaux said.

  “Not really.” Laura shook her head. “I got huge so young that by the time I was out of middle school
the looks and stupid remarks didn’t bother me any more. The problem was, the damn things hurt. I guess it would be hard for a man to understand, but a pair of forty-C howitzers add up to a lot of weight, even when they just lie there. And it was worse because I’m real athletic. Can you imagine what it’s like to run five or ten miles with those things slamming up and down? They’ll never invent the sports bra that can handle that.”

  They had reached the end of the pavement. A rutted dirt track continued from there, and disappeared into the lengthening afternoon shadows of a stand of pines and cottonwoods.

  “The river’s just about a hundred feet down there,” Laura said. She waved toward the house on the right, a white clapboard that needed a coat of paint. “That’s mine. I wish I had the time and energy to get it looking as good as Old Lady Mickelson’s.” She nodded toward the house across the street, slate gray with white trim, and a neatly mowed lawn with a low picket fence across the front. “But then she has two grown sons to help her keep things up.” She strode toward the front door of her house. There was no paved walk, just grass and a muddy track worn by feet coming and going over the years, that reached the worn wooden steps of the front porch. “This will give her something to gossip with them about,” she said. “I expect she’s sitting at her front window right now.”

  As if in response, a curtain fluttered across the window in question. “See what I mean?” Laura said. She stepped onto the porch, and unlocked her front door, then held it open for Arceneaux. As he started to go inside, she put a hand on his chest, holding him back. “You’re not going to hit on me, are you?” she said. “Because then I’d have to kill you.”

  Arceneaux shook his head. “No you wouldn’t,” he said. “My girlfriend would do it for you.”

  Laura laughed and motioned him in, then followed and turned on the overhead light in the living room. It was small and cluttered, with a worn rug over scarred hardwood floors, a flowered love seat and a couple of stuffed chairs that had seen better days. A table and three rickety chairs dominated one end of the room. A large bureau stood at the other end, its top crowded with framed snapshots. Almost all of them were of Laura and Samantha, sometimes holding trophies, sometimes just grinning and mugging at the camera. The views of Laura showed she had not been kidding about her reasons for a breast reduction.

  Laura headed for the kitchen. “I’m ready for a beer,” she said. “You want one?”

  “Sure,” Arceneaux said.

  The refrigerator door opened and closed audibly, and there was the sound of bottle caps popping off, and then Laura returned to the living room. “Full Sail,” she said, handing Arceneaux a bottle. “One of life’s little luxuries.”

  Arceneaux took the bottle with a nod of thanks, and motioned with it toward the pictures. “You and Samantha went back a long way,” he said.

  “We grew up together,” Laura said. “Played dolls, fought, swam, fished, later on chased boys. Samantha practically lived here when we were little, I think mainly to get away from David.” Her eyes turned cold. “I hope that son of a bitch rots in hell.”

  “Anna Mae Preston says she thinks he killed her,” Arceneaux said.

  “I’m totally sure she’s right,” Laura said, “but not for the reason she thinks, not just to keep his hands on her mom’s money. There’s practically none of that left.” She shook her head, drifted over to one of the chairs, and sat down heavily. “Take a load off,” she said, waving to the love seat.

  Arceneaux sat down and stretched his legs out, then took a swallow of the beer. It was a brand he had not tasted before, and better than most. “Where’s this from?” he asked, holding the bottle up.

  “They make it in Oregon,” Laura said. “In one of those little breweries. It’s kind of expensive, but now I’m hooked on it I could never go back to Millers.”

  “You and Samantha stayed close after she got married,” Arceneaux said.

  Laura nodded. “I was her door back to the outside,” she said. “She was pretty isolated up there, but she would come into Hamilton once, sometimes twice, every week, and we would drink coffee, and pig out on grocery store pizza, and just talk. That never changed. From the time we were little kids we could talk and talk. We always told each other everything. No secrets.”

  ‘What did she say about her marriage?”

  “It was fine for a long time. She was crazy about Arden. I never knew why. He seemed like kind of a dim bulb to me, but Samantha said he was really smart. Read books she had never even heard of, and knew all about all kinds of things. She said they used to day dream about traveling all over the world, visiting places he had read about when he was a kid.”

  “No indication that he was abusive, that he ever got physical with her?” Arceneaux said.

  Laura shook her head emphatically. “No way. She would complain sometimes about how butt headed he could be, but she always said he was warm and gentle, even after things started going bad.”

  “When was that,” Arcenaux asked.

  “Last year some time, maybe early spring. All of a sudden she was upset a lot, and started talking about how she didn’t think the marriage could last. I remember her saying a couple of times that she had thought she would do anything for Arden, but now she wasn’t sure. She wouldn’t say what she meant, just that she’d tell me sooner or later.” Laura stopped, took a deep breath. “I guess she won’t now. I asked her if it had to do with that creepy brother of Arden’s, that Elbert. He had started hanging around her. He even brought her into town a few times and then he would come to my house to get her and take her back to Woodvale. She would look like she couldn’t stand to touch him, but she wouldn’t say a word.” Laura stood up. “You want another beer?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Arceneaux said.

  She brought two bottles and a churchkey from the kitchen, and opened the bottles at the table.

  “Around the end of summer, Samantha told me she was starting to see a psychologist. She said Arden didn’t know, and that he would probably be mad if he found out, but she realized that she had to go back and take care of some old, unfinished business. I figured I knew what that meant, at least; and I was right.” A deep shadow of sadness passed over Laura’s face, and her eyes welled up with tears. She got up, went back into the kitchen, and returned with a paper napkin. She sat down again and began poking at her eyes. “Anna Mae told you she was sure Bryce was Samantha’s baby?”

  Arceneaux nodded.

  “She’s right. I knew that from the beginning, when Samantha got pregnant and went away to have the baby; and when she wanted to go along with the charade that Bryce was her baby brother, I figured that was her decision.” Laura fell silent and stared at her feet for a long time, then looked up at Arceneaux, her eyes wide and still filled with pain.

  “What I didn’t know,” she said, “was who the father was.”

  Arceneaux suddenly knew what she was going to say, and beat her to it.

  “David Crisp,” he said.

  Laura nodded. “Yeah. He’d started raping her when she was six or seven, and it never stopped. It was one secret she had kept from me until last year. She said she had tried to tell her mom, and Elizabeth just wouldn’t listen. She did get a little backbone when Samantha got pregnant, and actually threw David out at first. But then she caved in, and when Samantha had the baby, Elizabeth pretended it was hers, and let David move back in to be the father. Which he was, of course.”

  Laura drained her beer and stood up. “Want one more?” she asked. Arceneaux shook his head.

  Laura left the room and returned with another beer for herself. “That’s why David Crisp killed Samantha,” she said. “She was about to blow the whistle on him, finally.”

  “How do you know?” Arceneaux said.

  “That was why she was seeing the psychologist, Harvey English over on First Street. She used to give me a blow by blow of the sessions. He was really encouraging her to confront David, and her mother, and get what he called closure. I guess shri
nks are big on closure. Samantha was just on the edge of doing it, too. I know she had talked to her mother, warned her about what she was going to do. That was the last time I saw her, about a week and a half before she was killed.” She shook her head again. “She got closure, all right.” She turned the bottle up and drank half of the contents at once.

  Arceneaux sat, mulling over what Laura had told him. It was a good fit, and God knew that would be a good enough motive. It fit at least a little with Wallace’s death, as well. Crisp was a martial artist, after all—maybe not the best, but with a little luck and knowledge of anatomy he could have done that kind of physical damage. And if he was as sadistic as he seemed to be, it wouldn’t be out of the question for him to have toyed with Samantha for a while before he killed her, which would account for the time difference between her death and Wallace’s. Arcneneaux finished the last of his beer and rose.

  “You’ve given me a lot to think about,” he said.

  “Do more than think,” Laura said. “Please.”

  “I hope I can,” he said. He looked out the window. “It sure got dark.”

  “I’ll light your way out,” Laura said, and flipped a switch next to the front door. Nothing happened. “Porch light must have burned out,” she said. “And I don’t have any spare bulbs.”

  “I’ll find my way,” Arceneaux said. He opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. The rain had stopped altogether, but everything was wet. Across the road, the neighbor’s porch light went on.

  Laura laughed. “I ought to give you a big hug and kiss, just to give Old Lady Mickelson something good to tell her boys about,” she said. Then her face turned serious again. “Do you think you can do anything?”

  “No promises,” Arceneaux said. He paused. “Did you know Samantha was pregnant when she died?” he asked.

  Laura’s eyes widened. “No,” she said. Before Arceneaux could speak again, she held her fingers to his lips. “I don’t want you to tell me about it,” she said.