Swan Peak

by James Lee Burke

  “You think Wellstone stirred up the feds?”

  “Of course I do. That’s how his kind operate. They call up Fart, Barf, and Itch or somebody in the attorney general’s office or another bunch of bureaucratic asswipes just like them. They never hit you head-on.”

  “I’d shitcan this stuff. Sally Dee was a pus head. He got what he deserved.”

  “I got news for you. People who get in the way of Ridley Wellstone and his friends are going to be speed bumps.”

  “Yeah?” I said, glancing at Clete.

  “Lose the Little Orphan Annie routine, will you?” he replied, his big head hanging down, his expression empty, like that of a stuffed animal.

  We sat on the back porch in sun-spangled shade with a tall, lean, bare-chested kid by the name of Ben Hauser. He told us his dead friend Seymour Bell had grown up on a cattle ranch outside Alberton, west of Missoula. He also said Seymour was nothing like his girlfriend, Cindy, that Seymour had one foot in the next world, and no matter what Cindy said or did, Seymour would find a church where the congregants glowed with blue fire or neurosis, depending on how you wanted to define it.

  “Seymour was a little eccentric about religion?” I said.

  “No, he believed in it, full-tilt. The crazier, the better,” Ben Hauser said. “He joined a Pentecostal group here, but he quit because they didn’t give witness in tongues. Then he started going to revivals hereabouts. That’s when him and Cindy got into it.”

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “Cindy went to church on occasion, but she thought these revival people were hucksters. Sometimes Seymour trusted folks when he shouldn’t. Cindy would get mad as hell at him.”

  “Did he wear a small wood cross?” I asked.

  Ben Hauser looked into space. “Yeah, come to think of it, he did. Or at least I think I saw him wearing one. Why?”

  “Would someone want to tear it off him for any reason?” I said.

  “No, people respected Seymour. He was a good guy. I don’t understand how something like this happened.”

  Ben Hauser’s hair was buzz-cut and already receding above the temples, giving him a look beyond his years. Down below us was the Blackfoot River, and a group of kids were diving off the railroad bridge into the water, shouting each time one went off the side. Ben Hauser seemed to stare at them, his face wan, his eyes unfocused.

  “You okay?” I said.

  “Sure,” he replied.

  “You don’t know anybody who had it in for Seymour?” Clete asked.

  “No,” Ben answered. “I tell you one thing, though. Seymour was smart in school. He had a three-point-eight GPA. He was tough, too. The bastard who did him in had a fight on his hands.”

  “How’s that?” I said.

  “Seymour might have been churchgoing, but he rode bulls in 4-H. I told the cops the fuckhead who kidnapped him must have used handcuffs. You get Seymour mad, he’d take on three or four guys with fists and feet and anything else they wanted. He did it one night in front of the Oxford when some guys made a remark about Cindy. I bet there were handcuff burns on his wrists, weren’t there?”

  He stared up at me, waiting for my answer.

  I LET CLETE drive and used my cell phone to call Joe Bim Higgins. “We just interviewed Ben Hauser,” I said. “He told us Seymour Bell wouldn’t have gone down without a fight. He says if Bell was kidnapped, the perp probably used handcuffs.”

  “That’s a possibility,” Joe Bim said.

  “Say again?”

  “There were abrasions on Bell’s wrists. They didn’t look like they came from rope or wire. I thought I mentioned that.”

  He had not, but what do you say under the circumstances? “I was just double-checking, Sheriff,” I said.

  “Anytime,” he said.

  I closed my cell and looked at the highway rushing at us.

  “Where to?” Clete asked.

  “Let’s see what we can find out about the California couple who got killed at the rest stop. Let’s start at the saloon where they were drinking with Jamie Sue Wellstone.”

  “You got it, big mon,” Clete said, putting an unlit cigarette in his mouth.

  We drove up through the Blackfoot Valley, through meadowland and across streams and sky-blue lakes that eventually feed into the Swan Drainage. The weather had just started to blow when we pulled into the saloon, and the lake was chained with rain rings, the mountains gray-green and misty on the far side, like images in an Oriental painting. Some fishermen were drinking in a booth, but otherwise, the saloon was empty. A heavyset bartender in black trousers and a white shirt was looking out the back window at the rain falling on the lake. He turned around when he heard us sit down at the bar. “What are you having, fellows?” he said.

  I opened my badge holder. “I’m Detective Dave Robicheaux. My friend here is Clete Purcel. We’re helping out in the investigation of the double homicide that happened in a rest stop west of Missoula Monday night. It’s our understanding that the two victims were drinking here earlier the same day.”

  The bartender leaned on his arms. His cuffs were rolled, and his forearms looked thick and sun-browned in the gloom, wrapped with soft black hair. “You want to show me that shield again?”

  “Not really,” I said.

  “Because it doesn’t look local. I’m wrong on that?” he said.

  “No, you’re right. But you can call Joe Bim Higgins on my cell if you think we’re pulling on your crank,” Clete said.

  “It was just a question. What do you guys want to know?”

  I opened my notebook on the bar. The bartender told us his name was Harold Waxman and that he worked part-time at the saloon and sometimes drove 18-wheelers after Labor Day, when the tourist season shut down. “Lot of the mills have closed. There’s not that much log hauling anymore,” he said.

  “Did the California people have trouble with anybody here? Exchange words, something like that?” I said.

  “Not exactly,” the bartender said.

  “How do you mean, ‘not exactly’?” I asked.

  “The guy was a negative kind of person, that’s all. He wasn’t a likable guy.”

  “What did he do?” I asked.

  “Said the place was dirty or something to that effect. Look, there was a half-breed or a Mexican-looking guy hanging around. He was watching Ms. Wellstone or the California woman from the doorway over there. Maybe he’s a cherry picker. It’s not the season yet, but they’ll be showing up at Flathead Lake for the harvest pretty soon.”

  “You told this to the sheriff?” I said.

  “Yeah, or to the detectives he sent out here. You want a drink? It’s on the house.”

  I shook my head. “Give me three fingers of Jack straight up,” Clete said. “Give me a beer back on that, too.”

  “The woman and the guy with her?” the bartender said, fixing Clete’s drink. “The way they talked, I think maybe they were in the life, know what I mean?”

  “What did they say?” Clete asked.

  “She said she’d been a high-priced hooker. She was talking about it to Ms. Wellstone like it was nothing. It was embarrassing to listen to. If you ask me, California is a big commode overflowing on the rest of the country.”

  He set down a deep shot glass brimming with whiskey on a paper napkin, then drew a draft beer and set it on a separate napkin. The foam swelled up over the lip of the beer glass and pooled onto the napkin. Unconsciously, I touched at my mouth with my knuckle, then looked out at the rain dancing on the lake. The mist on the water’s surface made me think of Lake Pontchartrain years ago, long before Katrina, long before I had blown out my doors with Jim Beam straight up and a beer back.

  “Did Ms. Wellstone seem to know these people?” I asked.

  “No, not at all. I don’t think she liked them, either. Ms. Wellstone is highly thought of hereabouts. She could be a Nashville star if she wanted to. She gave up her career to sing gospel. That pair from California were low-rent. To be frank, anybody who think
s Ms. Wellstone would be mixed up with people like that has got his head up his ass.”

  Clete knocked back his Jack and sipped the foam from his beer. I could see the color bloom in his cheeks and his eyes take on a warm shine. “I hear Jamie Sue Wellstone married a guy who was fried in a tank,” he said.

  “Mr. Wellstone was wounded in a war. But I don’t know how. Maybe you ought to ask him about it,” the bartender said.

  “You know what I can’t figure, Harold?” Clete said. “You’re knocking people in the life, but you’ve got a photograph of Bugsy Siegel and Virginia Hill on your wall there.”

  The bartender looked at him silently.

  “What I also can’t figure out is why young, beautiful women never marry mutilated poor guys or even old poor guys,” Clete said. “It’s a mystery.”

  “You guys want anything else?” the bartender asked.

  Clete looked at me and back at the bartender. “Not a thing,” he said, and slipped a folded five-dollar bill under his empty shot glass.

  We talked to the waitress in the café about the man who had been looking through the bead curtain at the murder victims and Jamie Sue Wellstone. Then we walked out to my truck.

  “What was that stuff with the bartender?” I said.

  “I don’t like blue-collar guys who suck up to rich people,” Clete replied. “The Wellstone place isn’t far from here. Let’s check out the broad.”

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” I replied.

  “What are they going to do? Dime me with the feds? Lighten up, big mon. Everything is copacetic.”

  CHAPTER 6

  THE WELLSTONE RANCH was only a half hour from the Swan River, up on a plateau of emerald-green meadowland bordered by sheer mountains that were still capped with snow. The house was Tudor, huge, more a fortress than a home. The barns and sheds were red with white trim, the pastures separated by the same hand-stacked rock fences that you see in the Upper South. At least a hundred head of bison grazed on one slope; Texas longhorns grazed on another. The Wellstones, at least ostensibly, had created a bucolic paradise. The fact that they wanted to dig test wells on it, or anywhere else in the Swan Drainage, was beyond comprehension.

  The security man at the gate called up to the main house, and we were waved in and told to meet Ms. Wellstone at the entrance to the garden. She wore a bloodred dress with a white ribbon that was threaded through the eyelets at the top of the bodice. She carried a martini glass with two olives in the bottom. I thought perhaps alcohol explained the casual access she had given us to her home. But I quickly began to feel that Jamie Sue Wellstone was one of those rare individuals who could use booze selectively, perhaps to deaden the senses if need be, and not become hostage to it.

  The garden was dissected by gravel pathways and surrounded by a gray stone wall that was stippled with lichen in the shade. The flower beds were planted with pansies, English roses that were as big as grapefruit, forget-me-nots, violets, clematis vine, and bottlebrush trees. I wondered if the eclectic nature of the ornamentals in the garden said something about the undefined and perhaps deceptive nature of the Wellstones and their ability to acquire an entire culture as easily as writing a check.

  “Would you like a drink?” Jamie Sue said, indicating a redwood table where a bottle of vodka sat in an ice bucket.

  “I would,” Clete said.

  “Is your husband home, Ms. Wellstone?” I asked.

  “He’s taking a nap. This is about the people who were at the saloon on the lake before they were killed?” she said.

  “Yeah, the bartender said a guy who was maybe a Latino or part Indian was paying undue attention to either you or the homicide victims,” I said.

  “I don’t remember that, really. I didn’t see anything unusual there that day,” she said.

  The sky was still sealed by rain clouds, and it was cold sitting at the table. The garden itself seemed like an intrinsically cold place, dotted with stone benches and tarnished bronze sundials, shut off from the vistas surrounding the ranch. Clete poured himself a full glass of vodka and dropped three olives in it. “Bombs away,” he said, and tanked it down.

  “Would you like a beer or a Scotch, Mr. Robicheaux?” Jamie Sue Wellstone asked.

  “No,” I said. “It’s odd you have no memory of a Mexican or Indian watching you at the saloon, because the bartender made a point about his being there.”

  “Maybe an Indian or Mexican was there. It’s just not the way I remember it. I’m not saying the bartender is wrong,” she said.

  Know what the false close is in the ethos of a door-to-door salesman? The salesman backs off, concedes that the customer’s reluctance is understandable, and seemingly gives up. It’s a hot day. The salesman is tired and asks for a glass of water. A moment later, he’s the customer’s friend, a victim himself, a family man with a wife and kids depending on him. The customer gets sandbagged without ever knowing what hit him.

  “I see,” I said, nodding, studying my notebook. “Did the California couple indicate they’d had trouble with anyone? You think maybe they were mixed up with criminals?”

  “The woman sounded like she’d lived a checkered life,” Jamie Sue said.

  “As a prostitute?” I said.

  “I can’t say that with authority.”

  “On an unrelated subject, why would y’all hire a man like Lyle Hobbs to work security for you?” I said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Hobbs has served time for child molestation. He also worked for a Mafia pimp by the name of Sally Dio,” I said.

  “My husband and brother-in-law try to help ex-felons. They also believe in forgiveness. You don’t believe in forgiveness, Mr. Robicheaux?”

  “I think the best place for child molesters is the graveyard. But I’m not a theologian,” I said.

  She took a drink from her vodka and let her eyes rest on mine. She was pretty; her voice and accent were lovely. It would have been easier to dismiss her as deceptive and cunning, even villainous. But I had the feeling she was much more complex than that and would not fit easily into a categorical envelope.

  “I saw you once,” Clete said to her out of nowhere.

  “Oh?”

  “In a joint in Uvalde, Texas. A big live-oak tree grew up through the floor. I was chasing down a bail skip over there. You sang ‘I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know.’ You reminded me of Skeeter Davis.”

  “I knew Skeeter. She influenced me a lot.”

  His green eyes lingered on hers. The moment was one that made me think of a red light flashing at a train crossing. “You ought to stay clear of Lyle Hobbs. Also that racist from Mississippi who works with him,” he said.

  “I wish I could oblige, but I don’t decide who works here,” she said.

  “Can you describe the man who was watching you at the saloon?” I said.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t remember anyone watching me. How many times do I have to say that to you, Mr. Robicheaux?”

  “That’s perplexing. The waitress in the café remembered him. She also remembered you coming in and asking about him,” I said.

  “Maybe I did. I’d had more to drink than I probably should have,” she replied, then turned her attention back to Clete. “When were you in Uvalde?”

  The French doors on the back of the house opened, and Leslie Wellstone walked out on the flagstone patio, dressed in gray slacks, a print sport shirt, and a blue blazer. “Comment va la vie, Monsieur Robicheaux? Et votre ami aussi?” he said.

  “Ça roule,” I replied.

  “I heard your remarks about the quality of our personnel. You don’t think Mr. Hobbs quite fulfills the requirements of the reborn?” he said.

  “I’m sure he’s a special kind of guy. Most ex-cons with a short-eyes jacket are,” I said.

  He let the reference pass and inserted a cigarette into a holder. “Did you know in 2004 we were responsible for getting the anti-gay marriage initiative on the ballot in your ho
me state?”

  “Yeah, you got the fundamentalists into the voting booth, and once there, they pulled the lever to put your boy back in the White House,” I said.

  “Smart man. You should come work for us,” he said.

  “Not at gunpoint, Mr. Wellstone,” I said.

  “Time to dee-dee,” Clete said.

  “You must be a veteran of our Indo-Chinese experience,” Leslie Wellstone said.

  “Thanks for your hospitality,” Clete said. He turned toward Wellstone’s wife. “By the way, you didn’t just remind me of Skeeter Davis. You were better than her.”

  Maybe the disfigurement in Wellstone’s face or the somber atmosphere surrounding the garden colored my perception. But when he looked at Clete, I would have sworn there was an iniquitous presence in his eyes, like the liquidity you associate with an infection.

  Minutes later, as we drove off the Wellstone property, I waited for Clete to explain his behavior. Instead, he gazed at the snow clouds up on Swan Peak and the cottonwood trees flashing past the window. He reached down and adjusted himself. “Something wrong?” he asked.

  “Yeah, stop having the thoughts you’re having about that woman,” I replied.

  “What’s to think about? She was lying about the guy watching her at the saloon. She’s protecting him for some reason. That doesn’t mean she’s dirty.”

  “Who are you kidding?”

  “Did you check out that pair of ta-tas? My flopper was flipping around in my slacks like a garden hose.”

  We didn’t need this kind of trouble.

  OVER THE MOUNTAIN from his residence, Albert Hollister owned two hundred acres up a drainage that was dry most of the summer and fall. Years ago, he had bought the acreage cheap as rough land from a timber company, then had immediately set about stacking and burning the snags and splintered logs that covered the property. He drilled two water wells and scarified the soil and reseeded it with a mixture of upland grasses, fenced the bottom land with smooth wire, and built a cabin with electricity and plumbing and an eight-stall barn strung with heat lamps so it could also serve as a brooder house for his poultry.