“You seen the man in the photograph?” Troyce asked.

“What kind of finder’s fee we talking about?”

“Finder’s fee?”

“Yes sir,” Quince said, zipping his pants. He began touching at his face in the mirror, feeling the stubble, without washing his hands.

“How about you don’t get charged with aiding and abetting a fugitive?” Troyce said.

“You aren’t a cop.”

“No, I’m not. But can I tell you a secret?”

Someone tried to open the door. “I got a sick man in here. You’ll have to wait,” Troyce said, squeezing the door shut again, shooting the bolt.

Quince stopped touching at his face and looked at the locked door.

“You know why you don’t get a finder’s fee?” Troyce said. “It’s ’cause you’re for sale. A man who’s for sale suffers the sin of arrogance. What he don’t understand is that nothing he’s got is worth the spit on the sidewalk. You remind me of the tramps down at the blood bank. The blood you sell has disease in it, but you pass it on to other people to put wine in your stomach. You ain’t no different from a whore, except your skinny ass ain’t worth the time it’d take to kick it around the block… Where you think you’re going?”

“I’m finished talking with you,” Quince said.

“What’d you say to my lady friend out yonder?”

“You don’t listen, do you, boy? That woman was staring at me like her shit don’t stink. Your size don’t bother me, either. Mess with me, I’ll get you down the road. Take that to the bank, motherfucker.”

Quince tried to brush past Troyce and unbolt the door. Troyce ripped his elbow into the side of Quince’s face, knocking him into the condom machine. Then Troyce hit Quince with his elbow again, this time in the temple, splaying him cross-eyed to the floor. He grabbed the back of Quince’s neck and drove his face down on the toilet bowl, smashing it again and again on the rim. Blood and pieces of a dental bridge slid in rivulets down the porcelain into the water.

When Troyce straightened up, the pain that went through his chest felt like tendons were pulling loose from the bone. For a moment he was sure he was going to pass out. He forced himself to breathe slowly, his face draining in the mirror, his eyes out of focus.

Quince was on his knees, bent over the toilet, his hands cupped to his mouth, strings of blood and saliva hanging from his fingers.

Troyce pulled a half-dozen paper towels from the dispenser and wadded them up and stuck them in Quince’s hand. “You dealt it, bubba. Don’t come around for seconds,” he said.

He slid the bolt and went outside, the racks of snack food bright and colorful under the fluorescent lighting, the glass doors on the cold boxes smoky with refrigeration, the cashier ringing up a purchase for a sunburned woman in a swimming suit, the world of normality back in place.

“Is that sick man still in there?” the cashier asked.

“He’s cleaning up. He’s gonna be fine,” Troyce said. “Thanks for the use of your facilities.”

“Anytime,” the cashier said.

Troyce got in the SUV and let Candace drive. As they headed up the highway, she glanced sideways at him. “There’s blood coming through your bandages,” she said.

He touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Want to rent a cabin at one of those lakes? Maybe have dinner at the steak house up the road this evening and dance under the stars? Like reg’lar folks, just me and you. What do you say, you little honey bunny?”

She was sure there were words that would adequately express what she felt, but she didn’t know what they were.

CHAPTER 12

AFTER CLETE AND I interviewed Reverend Sonny Click, we stopped by the courthouse to see Joe Bim Higgins. I could tell Joe Bim was not happy to see Clete, but I didn’t care. Clete had found the wood cross that belonged to Seymour Bell, and the wood cross had linked Bell to Wellstone Ministries. If Joe Bim didn’t want to give Clete credit, that was his problem, not ours.

“You think this preacher might be involved with Bell’s death?” he asked.

“Who knows? On one level or another, I suspect he’s a predator,” I replied.

“What do you base that on?”

“He had a coed at his house. She’s poor and uneducated, and I don’t think she’s there to water his plants.”

“Did she indicate she was being molested?”

“How many people willingly admit they’re being sexually exploited, Sheriff?”

“Sounds like you didn’t have the best morning.”

“Click’s dirty, Sheriff. He’s hunting on the game reserve. In Louisiana we’d take him off at the neck,” Clete said.

“I thought Click was from down south. Wonder why nobody got around to punching his ticket,” Joe Bim said.

I tried to speak, but Clete had gone off cruise control, and I couldn’t shut him up. “Somebody creeped Seymour Bell’s house. I think it was somebody working for the Wellstones,” he said. “I think Bell had something in his possession that the Wellstones don’t want anyone to see. Why not get a warrant on their ranch?”

“What you say might be true, Mr. Purcel, but there’s no evidence the Wellstones are connected to a crime of any kind.”

Clete stuck an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He wore a long-sleeve tropical-print shirt and cream-colored slacks, and he had not removed his porkpie hat when he entered the building. With his driving-range tan and sun-bleached hair and behemoth proportions, he looked like a misplaced Miami Beach tourist inside the spartan confines of Joe Bim’s office. “Dave and I are just trying to help out,” Clete said. “I think the person who killed those kids should be chain-dragged down the highway. But it’s your backyard, not ours.”

I wanted to punch him. I could see a thought growing behind Joe Bim’s eyes, as though he were on the brink of making a decision he had postponed too long. Then he blinked and touched at the side of his mouth, and the moment passed. “I got a call from the Highway Patrol this morning,” he said. “A man who works for the Wellstones got beat up in a convenience-store restroom near Swan Lake. His name is Quince Whitley. He claims he doesn’t know who beat him up or why, but the witnesses say he was talking to the assailant out by the pumps before they got into it. The witnesses say the assailant was about six-four and had a Texas accent. Sound like anybody you know?”

“He sounds like Troyce Nix, the guy who was showing a photo around at Jamie Sue Wellstone’s revival meeting on the res,” I replied. “I saw Nix and this guy Quince get into an argument outside the tent.”

Joe Bim was sitting behind his desk. He looked at a spot on the far wall. “I don’t see how any of this has any bearing on those kids getting killed,” he said. “To be honest, I think there’s too much information in this case. Furthermore, I think people’s personalities are getting too involved in some of the issues. There’s times when less is more and more is less, get my meaning?” He let his gaze drift back to Clete. “You can’t smoke in here.”

“Sheriff, there are only one or two probable conclusions we can come to regarding the deaths of Bell and Kershaw,” I said. “They were either killed at random by a psychopath who’s operating in the area, or the Wellstones are involved. All the information we develop somehow leads back to the Wellstones. I don’t think that’s coincidental.”

“You seem like a reasonable man, Mr. Robicheaux. How in God’s name could a couple of kids from rural Montana be a threat to Ridley and Leslie Wellstone?”

“A heavy-hitter greaseball by the name of Didoni Giacano used to run all the vice in New Orleans,” Clete said. “Frank Costello gave him the whole state as a personal gift. On his deathbed, a priest asked Didi Gee if he had forgiven all his enemies. Didi told the priest, ‘I don’t have any enemies, Father. I killed them all.’”

“This isn’t Louisiana,” Joe Bim said, the expression going out of his eyes. “I’d like to talk with Mr. Robicheaux a minute.”