Bitterroot Blues

by Paul Moomaw

  As they rounded a curve, a young boy on a dirty green trail bike suddenly shot out of a Forest Service road and into the path of the Navigator. Peck slammed on the brakes and swerved, putting the big machine up on two right wheels. Arceneaux found himself staring straight down at the river for a few scary seconds before the vehicle righted itself and squealed to a halt. The boy stopped briefly and looked over his shoulder at them, his eyes wide with fear, then shot off down the road and out of sight around the next curve.

  Arceneaux took a deep gulp of air and willed his heart back into his rib cage. “Too close,” he said.

  “Damn kids,” Peck said. He ran his fingers through his thinning hair, and then managed a smile. “Of course, I was just as crazy at that age. I just showed it in different ways. We didn’t have trail bikes and mountains in Cicero.” The Lincoln’s engine had died. Peck started it up and headed down the highway again.

  “It isn’t just kids, either,” he said. “Last fall I nearly killed a grown man on one of those little machines. If I was heart attack material, I probably would have had one that night. My wife and I were coming back from dinner, and all of a sudden this guy is in my headlights.” Peck slowed the Ford down and pointed to an approaching side road. “Right there is where it happened. He was coming out of the road that goes up to that resort, I can never remember the name. It sounds like Double Tree, but that’s not it.

  “The Double Pine,” Arceneaux said. He found himself growing tense, and not sure he was going to like hearing the rest of Peck’s story. An uneasy image of a stove-in, red trail bike flashed into his mind.

  “Right. I slammed on the brakes, which made the wife kind of unhappy, because her doggy tray spilled all over her dress. I couldn’t avoid hitting him, knocked him down. He lay there for a minute, and then he got up and started kind of staggering toward the car. Man, he was big. This thing sits pretty high, but he looked like he could have picked it up and thrown it right down the hill. I guarantee you, I was scared. He had this crazy, mean look in his eye, and he was waving a goddam brass poker around. I thought sure he was going to bust us up with it.” Peck chuckled. “I’ve been married forty-one years, and I haven’t ever heard my wife scream, but she sure did then.” He paused again. “That may have helped, to tell the truth. When she started screaming he stopped and turned around. Then he grabbed that little bike and ran into the woods. He was one huge guy, too. Riding that trail bike, he must look like he belongs in a Shriners parade.”

  Arceneaux felt something squirm inside. “Real big?” he asked.

  “Built like a big old bear,” Peck said.

  “Do you remember the date?” Arceneaux asked.

  “Damn right. It was our anniversary. October fifth.”

  “Oh, shit,” Arceneaux said.

  “Did you forget something?” Peck asked. “We can go back.”

  “It’s nothing,” Arceneaux said. He sat, staring through the windshield, but not really seeing anything. Suddenly, all kinds of insignificant details, things he had forgotten, or only half attended to, clicked into place, and he had a growing certainty that he had been had. “I think I backed the wrong horse,” he said half to himself.

  “How’s that?”

  “Just thinking out loud.” Arceneaux absently massaged the back of his neck. He glanced at Peck. “Did you ever think you were absolutely right about something, and then find out that maybe you had your head up there where the sun never shines?”

  Peck grinned and nodded emphatically. “You bet. My first marriage. Which led to my first divorce. Which cost me my first business. Had to start all over again, but, hey, as long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late.”

  Arceneaux laughed. “Sounds like something my dad would say.” He stared at the trees for a while, then asked, “You ever see him again?”

  “No, I’m happy to say.”

  “Did you report the accident?”

  “I never did,” Peck said. “I suppose I should have, but there was no damage to my car, and I figured the guy on the bike wasn’t going to.” He chuckled. “And to tell the truth, I wasn’t all that eager to meet him again, anyway.”

  Peck insisted on driving Arceneaux all the way to his office, instead of taking the bypass route more directly to the airport.

  “I hope you get that little car of yours running,” he said.

  “I think it’s time for a funeral and a cremation.” Arceneaux opened the passenger door, then paused.

  “Have you got another five minutes,” he said. “There’s something I’d like to show you.”

  “I suppose. What’s it about?”

  “The guy you hit. I’d like you to look at a picture.”

  Peck shrugged. “Sure,” he said.

  Arceneaux swung down from the Lincoln and sprinted across to the building, up the stairs and into his office. He unlocked the file cabinet and found the Marks file, which contained a copy of the Ravalli Republic story about the murder charges against Marks being dropped. The story had included a photograph of Marks. He pulled the clipping out and charged back down the stairs, out the building, and across the lot to the Navigator. He went to the driver’s side and held the clipping out to Peck.

  “Does this look like your guy?”

  Peck stared down at the photo, and his eyes widened.

  “That’s him, for sure.” He shook his head and grinned. “So I hit an accused murderer?”

  “Maybe not just accused after all,” Arceneaux said. “Are you in the phone book?”

  “Yeah. Lloyd Peck. The listing is for Darby. What do you mean, maybe not just accused?”

  “One of the reasons he got off is that nobody could prove he was at the murder scene.”

  Peck stared at the picture again. “Oh, wow,” he said. “You’re talking about that double killing up at that resort.”

  Arceneaux nodded. “You may get a call from the County Attorney about this. Sorry to make trouble this way.”

  “It’s no trouble. I’m not exactly pinched for time these days, and I don’t much like murderers.” Peck pulled out his wallet and retrieved a card. He turned it over and wrote on the back, then handed it to Arceneaux. “The card is old, but this telephone number is the one we have now.”

  “Thanks,” Arceneaux said. “And thanks for the ride.”

  “Any time,” Peck said. Arceneaux stepped away from the Navigator, and Peck waved and pulled away.

  Arceneaux watched him drive off, and wondered what to do next. He could go back up to his office, where there was always work to finish, but the idea failed to appeal to him. At any rate, he needed to think, and walking always cleared his mind. He headed out of the parking lot to the street and north across the bridge. The river worked its magic as it always did. A school of whitefish was rising to a hatch of some kind, dimpling the eddy along the south bank. Almost directly above the bridge, an osprey hung in place, hovering like a helicopter, and then suddenly dove into the water and emerged with a trout. By the time Arceneaux reached the north bank of the river, he was able to begin to collect his thoughts, and then managed to stay lost in them the rest of the way home. He let himself in the front door, went straight to the kitchen and grabbed a beer, then settled onto the living room couch.

  That poker, he thought, and remembered he had seen a brass one in Marks’ house, next to the soapstone stove in the corner. It had been ornate, and massive looking. Helen Lousen had said a fancy poker was missing from the cabin where the murders took place. He got up and went into the spare bedroom that also served him as a home office and dug out the spiral notebook he had used when he investigated the killings. He flipped the pages and came to his interview with the housekeeper. He had remembered correctly. Someone had stolen a poker, one with an erect grizzly bear for a handle. He could not recall noticing much about the poker at Marks place, except that it had been ornate.

  “But it it’s the same one, you should have gotten rid of it a long time ago, Arden,” he muttered. He tried to remember if he had
noticed it the last time he had visited Marks, the evening they had found Elbert Marks’ body, but nothing would come.

  And there was something about that body, too, something that had left Arceneaux with a vague sense of unease that he could not identify at the time. He took a swallow of the beer, closed his eyes, and tried to bring the scene back. He was in the church, looking up at Elbert, who was hanging from a rafter, the noose around his neck, snugged down with a hangman’s knot.

  Arceneaux’s eyes snapped open. He put the beer down and went to the storage room that opened off his kitchen. He rummaged through shelves until he found a three- foot length of nylon cord. It was half-inch stuff, about the same diameter as the cord that had squeezed the life out of Elbert. He returned to the living room, sat down and took another swallow of beer, then laid the nylon out on the coffee table. He grabbed one end of the cord and looped it over the rest, then did his best to tie a hangman’s knot with his right hand, allowing his left to do nothing more than rest on the table as a backstop. He messed with the cord for close to ten minutes, then switched and tried with his left hand. After another five minutes he gave up. He picked up the cord and threw it at the wall.

  “I can’t do it,” he said. “Nobody could do it. Elbert sure as hell couldn’t do it.”

  He sat back and finished the beer, then picked up the telephone and punched in Arden Marks’ number. A computer recording announced that the number was no longer in service. He sat for a moment, wondering what to do next, then got up and went to the phone book.

  “Darline Jasmine,” he muttered. “Darline with an I.” He found the number repeated it to himself several times as he returned to the couch and picked up the telephone again.

  Darline answered on the third ring. Arceneaux identified himself.

  “I just tried to call Arden,” he said, “but his line’s been disconnected.”

  “I’m sure,” Darline said. “He’s moving. In fact he just drove up this morning with a U-Haul truck. He’s got a nice new Jeep Cherokee, too, the fancy kind with leather seats and everything. Says he’s on his way to Las Cruces, New Mexico. Told me he’s going to go to college there. He seems real happy. I’m surprised he didn’t tell you. You should drive on up here and say goodbye.”

  “I think I will,” Arceneaux said. He hung up and looked at his watch. It was just past three, so there was plenty of daylight left. He got up and headed for the back door, then stopped, staring at nothing for a moment. He shrugged.

  “I guess I’d better,” he said, and turned back to the spare room. A gun safe stood against one wall of the room. He unlocked it, reached in and pulled out the little .22 magnum derringer he had jokingly offered to lend to Harvey English. He grabbed a box of ammunition and pulled out two cartridges, then cracked the top of the gun and slipped one into each barrel. He returned the ammunition to the safe, locked it up, and slipped the derringer into the cargo pocket of his trousers. Then he headed to his garage.

  The old International Harvester started up with a smooth purr. Arceneaux gave a mental nod to David Crisp’s skills as a mechanic as he backed out of the garage.

  “Here I come, Arden,” he said. “Ready or not.”

  Chapter 46

  Woodvale looked empty as Arceneaux parked the truck in front of Arden Marks’ house and got out. Then he heard the faint sound of singing coming from the direction of the church, which meant that everyone would be at worship. The Power Wagon no longer occupied Marks’ driveway. In its place stood a middling-large U-Haul truck. There was no sign of the Jeep Darline Jasmine had mentioned. Arceneaux walked up to the house. The front door was open, but the place appeared to be unoccupied. Maybe Marks was in church, making his goodbyes, Arceneaux thought. He looked quickly over his shoulder, then stepped inside. The house was mostly empty. All the books were gone from the shelves, and the big table had also been removed. The only remaining furniture was a single, wooden chair standing in the middle of the room.

  “The boy must be about ready to pull out,” Arceneaux muttered. He looked across to the stove in the corner of the room. It was still very solidly there, and propped next to it were the bellows and brass poker. Arceneaux strode quickly across the room to get a closer look. It was clearly the poker Helen Lousen had described; brass with an erect grizzly bear for its handle, and the bear’s rear feet poised on a pedestal that had the words DOUBLE PINE engraved into it.

  “I’ll be damned,” Arceneaux said. He shook his head and smiled. “Good luck for me, bad luck for you, Arden.” Other than the fancy handle, the poker was of standard construction, with visible seams where the handle and the curved business end were screwed onto the brass rod. He remembered that the murder scene had been described as well splattered with blood. The odds were good that some of that blood had found its way into the screw threads underneath the handle and tip, just as it had gotten into the cracks of the bat that had killed Laura Hooters.

  Arceneaux failed to hear the arrival of a vehicle, and his first warning that Marks had returned was the sound of heavy footsteps on the porch. He spun to face the door just as it opened and Marks stepped in. The other man stopped and stared at Arceneaux, looking startled. Then he took another step inside and closed the door behind him.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “I heard you were moving out. I’m a little hurt you didn’t let me know.”

  “Now you know,” Marks said.

  Arceneaux nodded and then pointed toward the stove. “I was also worried to death that you’d forget to return that poker you stole from the Double Pine.”

  “I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Marks said.

  “Sure you would, Arden. That’s what you killed Samantha with. Who knows why you brought it home. Maybe to help frame Elbert. But Elbert didn’t kill her, did he? And if he didn’t kill Samantha, I don’t suppose he killed himself, either.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Marks said.

  “Give it up, Arden,” Arceneaux said. “I ran into the guy who hit you with his SUV the night you killed her. He thought you were going to use that poker on him, too.”

  Marks frowned and took a step forward, and Arceneaux matched him with a step back.

  “I am just really disappointed in you, Arden,” he said. “I liked you. It tears me up to think what a dope I was, but there it is.” He nodded toward the corner. “And now that little piece of brass is probably going to get you hanged. You should have gotten rid of it a long time ago.”

  Marks took another step toward Arceneaux and made a fist. Then he let the hand relax. “I will, somewhere between here and New Mexico,” he said.

  “Why did you kill her?” Arceneaux asked.

  Marks stopped stared at Arceneaux. His eyes were cold.

  “For the money, of course,” he said. “To paraphrase what Doctor Johnson said, or at least what Boswell claims he said, no man but a blockhead ever killed for anything but money. I don’t suppose you think dumb country boys read Boswell.” He stepped closer and sneered, and Arceneaux, staring up at his towering figure, had a flash of understanding of what Samantha Marks must have felt.

  “And let your brother take the fall.”

  Marks sneered. “My brother. The only man I ever hated more than my father. At least the old man wasn’t a hypocritical coward. Fucking Elbert made trouble for me right up to the end.”

  “I know. He cheated on you with Samantha and got her pregnant.”

  Marks laughed and waved the words away with one huge hand. “Whose idea you think that was to begin with?”

  Arceneaux stared at the other man, letting the words sink in.

  “That was when the little kiss-ass was still being helpful,” Marks said. “Helping to frame himself.” He laughed. “He tried to be helpful right to the end. He even wrote his own confession note. Not that he knew what he was confessing to. And when he found out Samantha was shacking with that Wallace guy, and came right home to tell me, I knew the time was ripe. Strike
in the heat.” He paused and smiled again. “That’s Shakespeare. I read that, too.”

  “So you talked him into taking your truck to the Double Pine that night?”

  “He was supposed to call her out to talk. Then I was going to knock him out, kill her with his knife, and leave the knife in his hand. But he didn’t get her outside, so I had to go inside.” Marks sighed and shook his head. “Like they say, if you want a job done right, do it yourself.”

  “Now what?” Arceneaux asked, afraid he knew the answer already.

  “Now I leave. Thanks for reminding me about the poker. I’ll take it with me for sure.” He paused and cocked his head to one side. “Better take you, too.”

  “I don’t think so,” Arcenaux said, and began to edge toward the chair.

  “How you going to stop me, little man?” Marks said.

  Arceneaux leaped to the chair and grabbed it.

  “You can’t hurt me with that,” Marks said.

  “Didn’t plan to try,” Arceneaux sprinted toward the front window and slammed the chair through the glass, then spun and threw the chair at Marks. As the other man ducked away from the chair, Arceneaux launched himself through the window and onto the porch. A lancing pain in his right shin and ankle told him that he had misjudged and struck a shard of glass on the way out. He rolled and rose to his feet. He was cut, and the pain made him limp, but he sprinted as fast as he could into the drive as Marks threw the front door open and charged out.

  Marks veered toward the wood pile and grabbed the splitting maul from its stump, then came after Arceneaux with murder in his eye. Arceneaux looked briefly toward his truck and realized there would be no safety there. He ran for the woods that surrounded the house, hoping he could at least make Marks use up precious seconds dodging trees, but the wounded leg slowed him down, and Marks was faster than such a big man had any right to be. He reached the trees almost as quickly as his prey, and as Arceneaux ducked behind a Ponderosa pine, Marks was on him, reaching around the trunk of the tree and grabbing him by the arm. He jerked Arceneaux away from the tree and threw him effortlessly to the ground, then raised the maul. In the momentary silence Arceneaux could hear singing still coming from the church, and thought this was a stupid way to die.