Bitterroot Blues

by Paul Moomaw

  “You’ll see,” Arceneaux responded sleepily. He put an arm around Anne’s shoulders and pulled her closer. “How about a goodnight kiss? Then I’d better tuck myself into bed.”

  Just as their lips touched Josh’s bedroom door opened with a bang. Startled, Arceneaux looked over his shoulder. Josh stood across the room, staring at him and Anne.

  “When is she going home?” he asked.

  Anne rose to her feet. “Right now,” she said. She looked at Arceneaux and shook her head as if to say, I told you so.

  “Good,” Josh replied.

  “Now you go back to bed,” Arceneaux told his son, but Josh shook his head and stayed where he was. He watched as Anne pulled on her coat and walked with Arceneaux to the front door. He waited as Arceneaux opened the door, let her out, and closed it again. Only then did he turn silently and go back to his room.

  Chapter 26

  The next morning, Arceneaux had gotten up feeling well enough to drive to Hamilton; but now, sitting in the windowless space that served as the Ravalli County Courthouse conference and general purpose room, he was no longer so sure. His headache was coming back, and his left arm was beginning to swell under the cast. The table was just the wrong height for resting the arm, but when he left it in his lap, it throbbed. The room itself was stuffy, and the plumbing ran down one wall, so that every time anybody in the building went to the bathroom, the sound of flushing filled the air with a thunderous racket. Barbara Drake and Sheriff Dave Butcher sat across from him. Tyler Rentz had placed himself at the end of the table.

  “Where should I start?” Arceneaux said.

  “Start by telling us what happened,” Rentz said. “We know we found you in the mud, out like a light. We know a neighbor saw you leave Laura Hooters’ house and saw you scuffling with somebody. And we know somebody killed Laura Hooters. What do you know?”

  Arceneaux shook his head, slowly, so it would not hurt. “I know David Crisp killed Laura Hooters, and tried to kill me.”

  “Did you see him?” Butcher said.

  Arceneaux shook his head. “No,” he said. “But that’s who it was.”

  Barbara Drake shook her head. “You were always too damn sure of yourself in law school, and I guess that hasn’t changed. Give me a reason to believe Crisp killed the girl.”

  “To save his own skin,” Arceneaux said. “The same reason he killed Samantha Marks.”

  “Give me a break,” Barbara said. “Better yet, give me some evidence. I know you want to take the heat off Arden, but this is too much.”

  Butcher placed his hands together on the table and leaned toward Arceneaux. “If you know for a fact Crisp has killed two people, just how do you know?”

  “All right,” Arceneaux said. “I have good reason to believe Crisp killed both women. And no matter how stuck you are on pinning Samantha’s murder on Arden, you sure as hell can’t claim he did the job on Laura Hooters.”

  “You’re spinning your wheels, Sam,” Barbara said. “What’s the basis for your belief?”

  Arceneaux’s arm was starting to tighten in its cast again. He lifted it to the table top, which helped the swelling, but made his shoulder and elbow hurt. “Laura Hooters believed Crisp killed Samantha, and so does Anna Mae Preston. And Laura told me the reason. Crisp had been raping Samantha since she was a little kid, and he finally got her pregnant. Bryce Crisp isn’t Samantha’s brother; he’s her son. Samantha was about to blow the whistle on Crisp, and he knew it, because she had told her mother what she was going to do. So he killed her. Then he killed Laura, because she knew, too.”

  “Whoa, hoss,” Butcher said. “How do you know Bryce is Crisp and Samantha’s kid?”

  “Laura told me the whole story,” Arceneaux said.

  “And how did she know?” Barbara said.

  “Samantha told her.”

  “Great,” Barbara said. “Real solid stuff. Let’s see, we’ve got two witnesses to Crisp’s misdeeds who are dead, and one angry amputee who has done her best to make trouble for David Crisp for years. We’ve got a file six inches thick of the complaints Anna Mae Preston has lodged against him.” She shook her head and leaned back “Come on, Sam, you’re a lawyer. Even if Crisp did it, we can’t move on that.”

  “For what it’s worth,” Rentz said, “I did a little informal poking around Crisp’s background, called in a couple of favors. I found out a couple of things. First, he was flat broke until a few months ago, and all of a sudden he had money. His deposits to his checking account more than doubled, and he opened another bank account in Missoula. A lot of the deposits to both accounts were in cash, but not enough to trigger a bank report to IRS. And second,” and Rentz turned to Arceneaux, “He wasn’t kidding when he told you he had killed a man. It was another soldier, back when he was in the service. He was court-martialed, but acquitted of deliberate because the other guy got violent with him. They ruled self defense, but with excessive force, busted him to private, and gave him a General Discharge.”

  Arceneaux pointed a finger at Barbara. “You said to bring you a better suspect than Arden, madame prosecutor,” he said. “There he is.”

  Barbara shook her head emphatically from side to side. “I’ll stick with Marks, thanks.”

  “No one’s saying you should arrest Crisp,” Arceneaux said. “But it seems to me it’s worth looking into. He’s at least a possible suspect. Who else have you got?”

  Butcher pointed a meaty finger at Arceneaux. “We’ve got you, Sam. You were right there on the scene. That’s more than we can say about Crisp.” He laughed, then saw that Arceneaux was not laughing with him. “Sorry,” he said. “Bad joke.”

  “Look,” Arceneaux said. “I know it isn’t much. But it can’t hurt to look around. For instance, it was muddy at Laura’s house the other night. People leave tracks in the mud. Crisp..”

  “Or whoever it was,” Barbara said.

  Arceneaux nodded in exasperation. “Okay. Whoever it was, I’m pretty sure he came at me out of the trees. There may be footprints.” He looked around. No one was buying. “Okay,” he said. “I guess we’ll just have to wait until Crisp comes after me again. He knows I spent time talking with Laura, and he knows I’m interested in Samantha’s death.” He looked around again. “I’m the logical next target, right? So I’ll tell you what. I will do my damnedest to get a piece of him when he tries to kill me. Even if he succeeds, I’ll try to leave a sample of his skin under my fingernails.” He managed a tight smile through a growing sense of anger and frustration, and started to get up, then remembered something.

  “Someone else knows about Crisp and Samantha. Laura Hooters said she had started seeing a psychologist, Harvey English, and had told him the whole story. In fact, he was the one who encouraged her to blow the whistle after so many years of silence. I don’t suppose it would hurt to talk with him, would it?”

  “Wouldn’t do any good,” Barbara said. “Harvey is a stickler for confidentiality. He wouldn’t reveal a damn thing unless he was subpoenaed, and we have no grounds to ask for one.” She smiled gleefully at Arceneaux. “Tell you what, Sam,” she said. “Why don’t you make yourself a big sign, one that says, ‘David Crisp, I know everything,’ and parade in front of his house with it. Then after Crisp kills you, maybe the judge will issue one.”

  She laughed, and even Arceneaux joined in. They all stood up.

  “You know?” Butcher said. “I guess it couldn’t hurt to take a daylight look at the ground around Laura’s place. We pretty well scoured the inside of the house, but I don’t think anybody ever got around to doing much outside.” He nodded at Rentz. “Why don’t you make a run by there,” he said. “Maybe take Sam with you,” he paused and looked questioningly at Arceneaux.

  “I’d like that,” Arceneaux said.

  Rentz and Arceneaux made the drive in a comfortable silence borne of long friendship. Arceneaux had an impulse to tell Rentz about the cabin filled with drugs, but he sat on it. Barbara had gotten to him, he had to admit. She had pis
sed him off, and that just made him more determined than ever to catch Crisp in the act and hand him to her on a plate.

  As Rentz turned onto the road that led to Laura Hooters’ house, he smacked his hand lightly against the steering wheel and said, “It sure would feel good to put that son of a bitch away.”

  “Who?” Arceneaux asked.

  “Crisp. It’s easy for me to believe that he killed Samantha and Laura both. Like I said before, there was a basis to Anna Mae Preston’s complaints, but mom and daughter both always covered for him.” He pulled the car to a stop and shook his head in disgust. “For my money, Elizabeth Crisp is as useless as a tit on a bull. Who knows? Maybe if she had any backbone, both of those girls would still be alive.”

  “I try not to judge people if I haven’t walked in their shoes,” Arceneaux said. “We had neighbors like that. The husband beat on the wife and kids all the time, except when he was out blowing the family allotment on booze. I got really pissed about her being too cowardly to take her kids and leave. I was about fourteen at the time. My dad, he sat me down and told me I had my head up my ass. Turned out the woman had been beaten and abused every which way from the time she was tiny, and by the time she got married herself, she had already had all the backbone beaten out of her. He said it was like a horse that had its spirit killed. I could understand that, because we took in a filly that a Mormon potato farmer down the road had done that to. She was sweet, but she never amounted to anything. You could see it in her eyes. That’s how it was with that neighbor woman, and I think I saw the same thing in Elizabeth Crisp’s eyes.”

  Rentz sighed. “I suppose you’re right, but still . . .” He closed his mouth and got out of the car. “Let’s take a look.”

  It took only a quick examination to see that there would be nothing to find. The area where Arceneaux had been attacked was right at the path that went down to the river, and it was clearly a popular route. The mud had obviously seen ample foot traffic, before and after the night of the murder. Arceneaux and Rentz looked at each other and shrugged.

  “So much for my great idea,” Arceneaux said.

  “It was a good idea,” Rentz said. “Just because it didn’t work out.” He spread his hands. “Hell, most of my great ideas don’t go anywhere.” He opened the driver’s door. “It’s lunch time. I usually grab something at Maggie’s Cafe when I have time. I figure I’ll drop the car off at the courthouse and walk from there.You want to join me?”

  “Sure,” Arceneaux said. “All this sitting is making my arm hurt. And then I think I’ll see if I can pay a call on that psychologist that Barb thinks won’t give me the time of day. The stickler.”

  “Anal is what she usually calls him,” Rentz said. “But I think that’s just because she can’t boss him around. He does a lot of forensic work for the courts, and she has yet to break him down on the stand. It pisses her off.”

  Chapter 27

  Harvey English had his office in an small frame house on First Street a couple of blocks from the highway through town. A middle-aged woman, Arceneaux assumed she was a patient, was coming out the front door as he parked in front of the house. She stood for a moment on the porch, glancing around worriedly, and then walked quickly down the steps and across the street. Arceneaux watched her clamber into a Toyota 4Runner, and then entered the house. A chime sounded once as he opened and closed the front door.

  What had been the living room now contained four ugly, cane backed chairs, a magazine rack, and a small table with a percolator, plastic cups and a jar of instant Folgers on it. Arceneaux stood in the middle of the room, not sure what he should do next. Wait, he decided. He had called English that morning, and the psychologist had said he would be free from three to four. He sauntered over to the magazine rack and found a Fly Rod and Reel back issue he had not read before, and settled into one of the chairs, which was as uncomfortable as it looked.

  A door opened and a man came out. He wore Levis, a green flannel shirt, and stained New Balance running shoes, and his wavy, salt and pepper hair was pulled back into a loose pony tail.

  “You Sam Arceneaux?” he said. “I’m Harvey English.” He extended his hand as he approached.

  Arceneaux nodded and took the hand. “You don’t look much like a psychologist,” he said.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” English said. He turned and headed toward the room he had come from. “Let’s go on back,” he said. “It’s more comfortable.”

  The inner room was heavily carpeted, and the furniture was soft and inviting, with a tall, narrow window on one wall, and a set of double doors on the other. The doors were open to reveal another room, with bare floors, file cabinets and a computer.

  “Do you live here, too?” Arceneaux said.

  English shook his head. “I thought about doing that, but then I had a vision of patients knocking on the door at two in the morning, and decided against it.” He settled into a blue recliner chair. “Sit where you like,” he said. “You said on the phone you’re a private investigator?”

  Arceneaux nodded.

  “I suppose I should ask you for some identification,” English said.

  “I can give you a business card,” Arceneaux replied. “That’s all I have on me. If you like, you can check with Barbara Drake for my bona fides.”

  “I wouldn’t check my hat with Barbara,” English said. “She’d keep it and try to use it on me, one way or another. In the meantime, I’ll take you at your word. What do you need from me?”

  “I want to talk with you about Samantha Marks,” Arceneaux said.

  English shook his head slowly back and forth. “You can talk about Samantha all you want, but don’t expect me to say anything back. It’s a matter of confidentiality. My mouth stays shut unless the patient signs a release. Until then, everything she told me stays locked in my head,” he paused and nodded toward the other room, “and in that computer.”

  “Samantha obviously can’t do that,” Arceneaux said.

  “Sorry,” English said. “Anything else I can do for you while you’re here?”

  “Look,” Arceneaux said. “It’s not as if you’re protecting her. She’s beyond protection.”

  “Even the dead have a right to privacy,” English said. “And there’s her family, too. My talking out of turn could have an impact on them.”

  “And if it was a member of her family that killed her?

  English cocked his head and shrugged. “I guess I can tell you this much, if it helps any. Samantha mostly didn’t come here to talk about her husband.”

  “I didn’t come here to talk about her husband, either,” Arceneaux said. “And if it helps you open up any, I know exactly why she came to see you. She told her best friend all about it, and her best friend told me. Now her best friend is dead, too.”

  “That would be Laura Hooters,” English said.

  Arceneaux nodded. “I’m convinced that whoever murdered Samantha followed up with Laura, because she knew the secret Samantha had been keeping for years. You know it too, and the killer must at least guess that you do.” Arceneaux spread his hands questioningly. “Would you like to follow that line of thought to its logical conclusion?”

  English tapped his fingertips together and grimaced. “Not a whole lot,” he said. He sighed and heaved himself up from the recliner. “But I still can’t say anything to you. Maybe you can convince Barbara to subpoena my records, and then I’d at least have to decide what to do. Right now, all I can do is say I’m sorry.”

  “So am I,” Arceneaux said, and stood up. “This guy, and you know who I mean, has been pulling some really nasty stuff for years, and now you’re helping him get away with it.”

  English walked silently with Arceneaux to the front door and held it open for him. “Good luck,” he said.

  Arceneaux did not reply. He walked to his car and got in, then sat and stared at nothing for a few moments. It would serve English right, he thought, if Crisp did go after him. Not that he had anything against th
e psychologist, but if it happened, he would have only himself to blame. And then, of course, even Barbara Drake would have to take Crisp seriously as a suspect in Samantha’s death. He started the car, made a u-turn, and headed back toward the highway.

  “Oh well,” he said to himself. “Nothing I can do about that, one way or the other.”

  Chapter 28

  Ruth Cantrell, Arden Marks’ first wife, was a trauma nurse for the Life Flight helicopter service at Saint Patrick Hospital in Missoula. When Arceneaux called and asked to speak with her about Marks, she hesitated, then agreed reluctantly to see him.

  “That’s a time in my life I’d just as soon forget,” she said. “I was young, and dumb, and had about as much direction in my life as a cork in a bath tub; but I guess it can’t hurt to talk.” She agreed to meet him in the hospital cafeteria the following day, after she finished debriefing from her shift. “I’ve got dirty blonde hair, and lots of freckles,” she said, “and I’ll be wearing a flight suit—sort of a shit-green coverall.”

  She could have simplified it, he thought when he spotted her, by telling me to look for the most gorgeous woman in the hospital. She was sitting at a table with two men dressed the same as she was, and stood up as Arceneaux approached. She was tall, easily five-ten, and had the kind of features you expect to see on magazine covers.

  “You don’t dress like a doctor, and you look too healthy to be a patient, even with that cast on, so you must be Sam,” she said. She smiled, and the smile went with the rest of her, the kind that pins you back like a butterfly on a specimen board. “Let’s find an empty table,” she said, and waved to her companions. “See you tomorrow.” She led the way to a table across the large room from the serving area. “Not so noisy here,” she said, and sat down. Arceneaux sat down across from her. She pointed at his arm. “I bet there’s a great story behind that,” she said. “You being a private eye, and all. Does it hurt?”