“Do it,” she said.

“You’re not upset?”

“If you weren’t the man you are, I wouldn’t have married you.”

How do you beat that?

Chapter 7

SATURDAY MORNING I went fishing by myself on the Bitterroot River. It was a grand day, cool and full of sunshine and blue skies. The rain had turned the slopes on the mountains a velvet green and fresh snow blazed on the peaks, and the river had risen along the banks into cottonwoods that were just coming into leaf. I was on a sandspit that jutted into a long riffle eddying around a beaver dam when I saw a man in hip waders working his way across the channel toward me.

He had the cherry-cheeked face of the professional optimist, his upper half like an upended hogshead, his hand lifted in greeting, although I had no idea who he was or why he was wading into the riffle and ruining any chance of my catching a trout there.

“Your wife told me where you was at, Mr. Holland. Name is Reverend Elton T. Sneed. I think we got us a mutual friend,” he said, laboring out of the water onto the sandspit.

Where had I heard or seen the name?

In the letter written to the President of the United States by Wyatt Dixon.

“I hope you’re not talking about who I think you are,” I said.

“Wyatt’s a member of my congregation, but I’m troubled about him. The boy needs direction.”

“The man you call ‘boy’ is the residue people clean out of colostomy bags. Except that’s offensive to colostomy bags,” I replied.

Suddenly his eyes became like BBs and the corners of his mouth hooked back as though wires were attached to his skin, turning his smile into a grimace. He studied the trees on the far bank, searching for a response. “I guess my job is saving souls, not judging folks,” he said.

“The FBI came to see you?”

“Yep. But since that visit, Wyatt has told me about somebody he seen with Senator Finley. I get the feeling it’s some kind of past association Wyatt don’t need to pick up again. Thought you might be able to hep me out.”

“My advice is you get a lot of space between you and Wyatt Dixon, Reverend.”

“Man seems all right when he takes his chemical cocktails. Thought I was doing the right thing coming here.”

When I didn’t reply he looked wanly down the stream, his vocabulary and frame of reference used up. “I mess up your fishing?” he said.

“No, it’s fine,” I said.

He nodded. “Been catching some?”

“Let’s wade on up past the beaver dam and give it a try,” I said.

When I handed him my fly rod his face once more broke into an ear-to-ear smile.

MONDAY MORNING I started the paperwork to put up our property as bond for Johnny’s release. Then I looked up Amber Finley’s number in the directory and called her at home. “Is your dad there?” I said.

“He flew back to Washington,” she said.

“Too bad. Look, those guests you had at your house Tuesday evening? Is there any reason Darrel McComb would be interested in them?”

“Darrel is interested in watching women through their bedroom windows.”

“Would this guy Wyatt Dixon be interested in your father’s friends?”

“How would I know?” she replied.

“Could you give me their names?”

“Greta Lundstrum and a couple of campaign contributors. I don’t remember their names. What’s this about?”

“It’s probably nothing. Who’s Greta Lundstrum?”

“The Beast of Buchenwald. Go ask her. She runs a security service in the Bitterroot Valley. Are you getting Johnny out of jail or not?”

What’s the lesson? Don’t call boozers before noon.

THAT AFTERNOON, Temple walked into the office of a company named Blue Mountain Security and Alarm Service down in Stevensville, twenty-five miles south of Missoula. The office was located inside a refurbished two-story brick building that had once been a feed and tack store. An ancient bell tinkled above the door when she closed it. Through the window she could see the huge blue shapes of the Bitterroot Mountains against the sky.

“Ms. Greta Lundstrum, please,” she said to a man working at the reception desk.

“She’s in a meeting right now. Can you tell me what this is in reference to?” he said.

Through a glass partition in back, Temple could see a thick-bodied woman in a gray business suit, talking from behind her desk to a man who stood in her cubicle doorway. “It involves a criminal investigation. Would you ask her to come out here?” Temple said.

The man at the reception desk looked over his shoulder. “Oh, I see she’s out of the meeting. Just a moment, please,” he said.

“Right,” Temple said.

The receptionist went to the cubicle in back, and the woman in the gray suit gave Temple a look, then nodded to the receptionist. But she didn’t get up from her chair. Instead, she seemed to make a point of looking at some documents on her desktop. Temple walked back toward the cubicle.

“Just a minute, ma’am,” the receptionist said.

Temple brushed past him and entered the cubicle without knocking. “You’re Greta Lundstrum?” she asked.

“Yes, what do-”

“I’m a private investigator. You know a sheriff’s detective by the name of Darrel McComb?” Temple said, opening her badge and ID holder.

“No, I don’t think so. Who did you say you work for?”

“Billy Bob Holland. You were at Senator Romulus Finley’s home Tuesday evening?”

“How did you know that?”

“You were being surveilled by a sheriff’s detective. Who were the two men with you?”

“That’s none of your concern, madam. What do you mean ‘surveilled’?”

Greta Lundstrum had thick hair, wide-set green eyes, and a broad face. Temple removed a small notebook form her shirt pocket and wrote in it. “Nice place you have here. You know a man named Wyatt Dixon?”

“I never heard of him. Answer my question, please.”

“A sheriff’s detective and an ex-convict by the name of Wyatt Dixon were watching you while you stood in Romulus Finley’s backyard. You never heard of Wyatt Dixon?”

“I told you.”

Temple made another entry in her notebook. “That’s strange. He used to live at that white supremacist compound not far from here. He went to prison for murder. There was a great deal of publicity about the case and also about the white supremacist compound. But you never heard of him?”

“If I can assist you in some meaningful way, I will. But you’re being both rude and intrusive. I think our conversation here is concluded.”

“Ms. Lundstrum, Wyatt Dixon buries people alive. I know because I was one of his victims. You want to be cute, that’s fine. But if I were you, I’d give some thought to who my real friends are.”

Greta Lundstrum looked momentarily into space, then picked up the telephone receiver and punched in three numbers on the key pad. “This is Blue Mountain Security. We have a trespasser here,” she said.

THE NEXT MORNING, Temple used a friend at San Antonio P.D. to run Greta Lundstrum through the NCIC computer. Then she went to work on the Internet.

“Lundstrum was a security consultant in Maryland and Virginia. Divorced twice, no children, no police record of any kind. Her second husband ran a martial arts school. Greta came out to Montana seven years ago and settled in the Bitterroots,” Temple said.

“A dead end?” I said.

“I think she lied about not knowing Wyatt Dixon. The question is why.”

“Sometimes people don’t want to tell strangers they know bad guys. As soon as they make that admission, they’re asked what the bad guy is like, or how it is they came to have a relationship with him.”

“When they lie, it’s to cover their butts,” she replied.

LUCAS’S BAND PLAYED three nights a week at a busthead nightclub just off the Flathead Indian Reservation. That afternoon he arrived early at the club to set up the band’s equipment. While he wound new strings on his acoustical Martin, tuning them simultaneously with a plectrum, ping-ping-ping, at the back of the club, a young Indian woman and her boyfriend stood at the bar, knocking back shots with beer chasers. Both of the Indians were drunk, kissing each other wetly on the face, hardly aware of their surroundings.