“Cut that out, Beau. You sound like a church organ—Hello there, Vanessa!”
Eustace and Beau got to their feet as the assistant district attorney for Yellowstone County came gliding into the room on a wave of poison and the squeak of rubber on hardwood.
Vanessa Ballard was a problem for Beau. He was always a little off balance when he was in the same room with this tall, slender horsewhip of a woman with a golden bell of blond hair and creamy white skin, eyes a little too far apart and as blue as glacier ice, a rich red dahlia of a mouth, always a little breathless, long-fingered surgical hands ending in blood-tipped nails as red as taillight glass, and legs that went, Beau assumed, all the way to heaven in a flawless sweep of jazzercise and good genetics.
Today The Ballard was exquisitely fine-tuned in an imperial purple suede suit with a radically abbreviated skirt and little touches of solid gold at the silky hollow of her throat and the supple turning of her wrists. She wore, as usual, one of what seemed to be hundreds of different pairs of expensive jogging shoes in a spectrum of shades. Today’s shade was pale lavender.
“Hello, Lieutenant Meagher.” She shook his hand twice, hard, making excellent eye contact. Ballard was radiating testosterone today, as she always did when she had to go out and tolerate policemen, a breed she seemed to consider an evil necessity, like tick birds on a rhino.
“I’ll need the desk,” she said, and seated herself behind it. She began to riffle through her black snakeskin attaché case, head down, a glittering sweep of heavy golden hair hiding her face. Her voice was a velvet growl, her enunciation as honed as a glass blade.
“This situation, gentlemen—I’d say the word sucks catches the essence of it. Joe Bell is sitting on his ass in Sweetwater”—at this point she looked up through her waterfall of cornsilk hair and fixed Beau with one steel—blue eye—“perhaps I should say lying on his belly over in Sweetwater General, having a seance with Dwight Hogeland even as we speak. And if I know Hogeland, that man will do his level best to sue us all into Go-Home Bay for his two-thirds contingency fee and all the troopers he can butt-fuck. This means you, McAllister!”
“Hey, Vanessa!”
She slammed a tape recorder down on Meagher’s desk and threw her hair back in a kind of wild-horse twist Beau could feel in his belly.
“How many times are we going to have to explain this stuff to you, McAllister? If you must shoot the citizenry, shoot to kill! It’s a hell of lot cheaper to kill one—only eighty cents a round for your revolver, use as many as you want—plead you criminally stupid, for which we’d get the thanks of the regiment and the Nobel Peace Prize, plus, all we pay for then is some bereavement settlement, and we’re all off to the Ramada for blabbermouth soup. But noooh! Our Beau must have his jest! And another opportunistic scumsack limps straight to a lawyer, and bingo—we find ourselves up to our earrings in alligators!”
Beau sat up and raised a hand.
“Now, Vanessa, if you’re gonna get into that thing, the guy from Deer Lodge last year? I did shoot to kill on that one. It’s just that when you’re being shot at, it affects your concentration. And everybody was screaming and running around.”
“It was the Hilltop Mall, Beau! Of course people were running around. And screaming. Not to mention, it was a County call you should have left to the Yellowstone guys.”
“I was shopping, for God’s sake. I was off duty.”
“And you got involved anyway. You could have ducked it.”
“He was endangering the citizens, Vanessa. I’m supposed to stop that kind of thing. Anyway, I’m just making a point.”
“I agree. And my point is, if you’d just plain killed him, then there’d have been nobody around to sue us for excessive force. He didn’t have any relatives.”
“So why’d you let ’em settle?”
“Beau, nine times out of ten, the County settles out of court, and the County settles because it’s just plain cheaper!”
“Even when the plaintiff is a paroled con committing an armed robbery? Even when he’s firing on a law enforcement officer?”
“I’ve seen worse. And you fired first.”
“Jeez, Vanessa! What do I do—give him a free one? I’m supposed to fire first! That’s how it works!”
“Beau, read the papers. Everybody has rights except those who really need them. It’s the American way. You used your firearm in a crowded mall. The guy said he was just trying to get away, that you provoked the exchange.”
“You actually believe that?”
“What I believe and what I can prove in an action are different things. The law isn’t about belief. It’s about advantage and disadvantage, about technical distinctions between separate realities.”
“Well, that asshole was sure as hell trying to separate me from my reality. With a Delta ten-mill, too.”
“That was real for then. It wasn’t real for later.”
“So what was I supposed to do?”
“Learn to shoot straighter.”
“So I should have killed Joe Bell?”
She sat back in Meagher’s leather wing chair and swiveled back and forth in silence, looking across at Beau. The lieutenant leaned against the wall and tapped a finger on his brass buckle.
“No … look, Beau, I’m sorry to come on so hard here. The County barely has enough money to run a decent court system as it is. You guys are still hung up in Helena trying to get two officers in a car for night patrol. And you need three more troopers we can’t give you. Over in Big Horn County, we have two troopers on administrative leave while we sort out what looks like a police chase that didn’t have to happen and got a young Crow girl and her baby killed. Indian Affairs is onto us for that one. Now Joe Bell’s talking to Dwight Hogeland about another lawsuit. This we don’t need.”
“You mean Harper and Greer?”
“I do.”
“What happened there, anyway?”
“A woman named Mary Littlebasket was killed, along with her newborn baby. Her uncle—Charlie Tallbull, Eustace, you know him, don’t you?—he’s in Sweetwater General with internal injuries. The whole thing was just one overreaction after another. We’re going to—hey! Don’t try to change the subject, Beau. I’m saying we didn’t need another law enforcement sideshow right now.”
“We didn’t need Pompeys Pillar blown all the way to Bozeman, either. I did what I had to do to stop him.”
“What happened to the robbery guys, Beau?”
“They, ah, sorta slipped away.”
“Sorta slipped away? You mean, while you were drilling Joe Bell a new asshole?”
“That’s not how it went, Vanessa.”
“Okay.” She set her Pearlcorder up on the desk and punched the button. “Let’s see how it did go. My name is Vanessa Ballard, assistant district attorney for the counties of Yellowstone, Big Horn, Powder River, Treasure, Custer, and Rosebud. In connection with the wounding by gunfire of one Joseph Bell, a citizen of Yellowstone County, this day and date, in Yellowstone County, we are questioning the officer of the Montana Highway Patrol who answered the emergency call. Please identify yourself.”
“Staff Sergeant Beauregard McAllister, shield number 2211, District Four of the Montana Highway Patrol.”
“Staff Sergeant McAllister, did you have occasion to make entries in your notes concerning the events of this date as they affect the matter in question?”
“I did.”
“Would you feel it necessary to refer directly to your notes as they concern this matter, should you be required to testify in court or in a pretrial hearing or in an examination for discovery, Sergeant McAllister?”
“I would.”
“Duly noted. Now … are you prepared to answer direct questions in this matter at this time, if such questions fall within your area of knowledge as they affect the discharge of your firearm while responding to this ten-seventy call?”
“I am.”
“And do you wish to have legal representation as is your right und
er the terms of the police act and the Escobedo decision?”
“Are formal charges being considered against me?”
“Not at this time, Sergeant McAllister.”
“Then I do not wish to have legal representation.”
“You agree to make this statement of your own free will. No one has made threats or offered you inducements or guarantees?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Very well. Can you tell us in your own words what you know of the events under investigation?”
Beau flipped out his notebook, ran a thick forefinger down the pages. “Okay. Got the radio call at sixteen-thirteen hours this date, a ten-seventy, an armed robbery in progress, at Bell’s Oasis. I attend scene accompanied by a Four car, the dog car, Trooper Thornton, and that wild-assed mutt he lives with—”
“You have that phrase in your notes, Sergeant?”
Beau grinned and kept reading in an official monotone.
“—and as we arrive at the scene we become aware of gunfire coming from the direction of the pump island. Trooper Thornton and I acquire tactical defense positions—”
“I beg your pardon, Sergeant?”
“Positions out of the line of fire, possessing sufficient material obstruction as to deflect or absorb such lethal ballistic energy as may be directed at the officers, Ms. Ballard. Tactical defense positions. We reconnoiter the scene. We observe citizens in various positions of hiding, having taken cover from the line of fire. We also observe one white male in possession of Winchester semiautomatic twelve-gauge shotgun. White male known to this officer as Joseph Arnold Bell, D.O.B. the eleventh of the seventh 1939. Mr. Bell is the owner of Bell’s Oasis, at Pompeys Pillar in Yellowstone County in the sovereign State of Montana. Upon attempting to identify ourselves to Mr. Bell, these officers received immediate return fire from Mr. Bell.”
“Let me understand you there. Mr. Bell shot at you?”
“Yeah. Didn’t I mention that?” Beau’s smile was guileless and sweet. “Anyway, the officers received immediate return shotgun fire from Mr. Bell, whereupon the responding officers returned to their defensive positions and another attempt was made to identify ourselves to Mr. Bell. This attempt was successful, and Mr. Bell informed us that there was an attempted robbery in progress at his place of business.”
“That would be the Shell gas station known as Bell’s Oasis?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Please continue.”
“Yes, ma’am. An attempted robbery in progress. At that time I observed a young Native American male lying approximately twenty feet from Mr. Bell’s position by the pumps. This young male appeared to have sustained a wound in his side and was in a prone position on his back.”
“Did you attempt to provide emergency aid at this time?”
“No, ma’am. At that time, we were advised by Mr. Bell that he was receiving hostile fire from a location in the vicinity of the propane tank on his property. I studied that area and did observe figures in that vicinity.”
“And you made no attempt to reach the wounded male?”
“I identified myself as a law officer to the people by the propane tank. I was then fired upon by one of those individuals.”
“What kind of fire did you receive?”
“It was arrows, ma’am.”
Ballard picked up the Pearlcorder and shut it off.
“Arrows! Some Indians shot at you with arrows, Beau?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well—how dangerous could that have been? Toys.”
“Vanessa, Finch Hyam’s got them in his evidence kit. You go look at ’em.”
She shook her head and turned the machine back on.
“You confirm that the fire you received was—were arrows?”
“Yes, ma’am, arrows. So we again secured a tactical defensive position”—Eustace was trying to restrain a smile—“and we commenced to deploy for a flanking maneuver.”
“Did you execute this flanking maneuver, Sergeant?”
“No, ma’am. At that time, Mr. Bell was attempting to return fire from his position, and I felt it was necessary to attempt to stop him from returning fire.”
“Why was that, Sergeant?”
“Because Mr. Bell was discharging a twelve-gauge shotgun in the direction of a fifteen-thousand-pound tank of liquid propane gas, and I considered this course of action to be unwise.”
“Why did you consider it unwise?”
“Why did I—jeez, Vanessa!”
“Please answer the question.”
“I considered it unwise because this tank has a dual-steel wall that can be punctured by a double-ought ball fired at a short range. Each twelve-gauge shell of double-ought contains twelve steel balls, each ball being of approximately .38 caliber and leaving the muzzle at approximately eleven hundred feet per second with a normal choke. I considered it to be highly likely that one of the double-ought balls being fired by Mr. Bell in the direction of that tank would penetrate the skin of that tank, thereby causing a violent rupture of said tank, resulting in the rapid dispersion of highly volatile gaseous material with a high explosive value, and that a blast of that magnitude would be likely to kill and injure anyone within the blast radius.”
“Are you in a position to know the blast radius of a fifteen-thousand-pound propane tank, Sergeant McAllister?”
“I am, ma’am. I witnessed such a blast while working as a truck driver for Steiger Freightways in 1971. I witnessed a head-on collision between a propane tank truck and a touring bus on Interstate 94 outside Miles City, Montana, on the second day of July of that year. At the time of the blast I was approximately one half-mile away, and the blast wave blew in the front windshield of my truck and caused severe injury to myself and my co-driver, who subsequently died of her wounds.”
There was a long silence in the room.
“So yes, I would say I know something about the kill zone of a propane tank. Ma’am.”
Ballard shut off the recorder again.
“Eustace, did you know about this?”
“Yeah. Sorry, Vanessa. I didn’t think it would come up.”
Ballard looked at Beau for a long time.
“You never told me about this, Beau.”
“It’s not the kind of thing you bring up over lunch.”
“Is this the … Doc Hogeland worked on her, didn’t he? I remember the … she was in the Sweetwater burn unit for a while, wasn’t she? Her name was—”
“Alice Manyberries. She was a Crow Indian.”
“I—didn’t Custer County prosecute on that? Contributory negligence? Wasn’t there also a suit?”
“Manyberries versus Provo Gas Transfer, Felcher, et al. We lost the criminal on a faulty pathology report, but Provo Gas Transfer agreed to an out-of-court. Five years after.” It had paid for his daughter Laurel’s college tuition.
“Yes. And didn’t Doc Hogeland—”
“It took Alice three months to die. Doc Hogeland paid for all of her medical expenses himself, as well as mine. He said the State owed it to the Crow Nation.”
Ballard was quiet for a while. Beau tried to see something other than blue fire and flying glass and red blood.
“I’m sorry, Beau. That was a big case. Spellman Sterling wrote a paper on it for the law review. I remember reading it in school. I didn’t get the connection. I never knew she was your wife.”
“She had to keep the Manyberries name, or Indian Affairs would have taken away her status. We married under Crow ritual. Never mind, Vanessa. It’s a long time back.”
There was another long silence.
Finally, Ballard reached forward and turned the recorder back on.
“Ah … yes, Sergeant. That would seem to be persuasive. So the—the—kill zone would have been somewhere in the area of one half-mile, in your informed opinion?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And can you tell us what buildings and people might lie within a half-mile of Bell’s Oasis?”
&nbs
p; “Yes, ma’am. About half of the town of Pompeys Pillar, including most of the main shopping area and two other gas stations that might have become involved in the subsequent fire.”
“We have noted that these events took place around four-thirty on the afternoon of Friday this date. Can you estimate for us how many citizens might have been within the blast radius of this tank at that time?”
“I can try—say, fifteen hundred people.”
“I see. Fifteen hundred men, women, and children. Can you tell us what steps you considered taking to prevent this explosion?”
“Yes, ma’am. I made several verbal attempts to dissuade Mr. Bell from discharging his weapon in that direction.”
“With what words, Sergeant?”
“What words?”
“Yes. What words did you use to dissuade Mr. Bell from shooting at the tank?”
“I said … I said if that tank went up, we’d all come down as pink rain. I may have called him an asshole, too.”
“I see. And what was Mr. Bell’s response?”
“He stood up and prepared to fire again.”
“And at this point, what did you do?”
“At that point, nothing. At that point, one of the Indians—Mr. Bell was struck in the left shoulder by an arrow that seemed to have been fired from behind the propane tank.”
“And what effect did this missile have upon Mr. Bell?”
“Jeez—what effect!? He didn’t like it. It made him angry. He came out from behind the gas pump and fired another shell at the tank.”
“And what were your actions then?”
“Then I yelled at him to stop, and he said he was going to get some payback—”
“Pay back? Were those his words? Pay back?”
“One word. Payback. It’s an army term, ma’am. Bell was in the army for years. It means to get even. To get some.”
“I see. And did Mr. Bell continue firing after you had given him this verbal warning?”
“He fired that once, ma’am.”
“And what did you do?”
“I had the Browning on him at that point—”
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