CHAPTER 14

THE CRIME-SCENE TAPE enclosed an area not unlike a trapezoid on the hillside, the emergency vehicles from the Ravalli County Sheriff’s Office lighting the trees with their flashers, firemen spraying the area outside the tape where sparks had blown into the underbrush.

J. D. Gribble sat in the back of a silver Stratus with a government tag on it while an Amerasian government agent stood outside the door, in jeans and a gunbelt and a windbreaker with the yellow letters FBI on the back, asking him one question after another.

“You didn’t see where the guy in the mask went?” she said.

“No, I told you, he bagged ass while I was stomping out the fire,” Gribble said.

“But you heard a vehicle of some kind?” she said.

“Yeah, but later, like it was way off down the road. It didn’t have no lights. I just heard the engine, then maybe a door slamming.”

“Like somebody was already in the car?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t see anything, I done told you. I had to put the fire out before it got to Mr. Purcel. Then I had to get them ties off his wrists and drag him out of there before sparks set off the gasoline again. You could smell it everywhere. It was soaked into his clothes and on everything around him.”

“Then you walked down the log road to the farmhouse?”

“An old man was up watching television with his grandson. He called 911. Then I come back up here to help Mr. Purcel.”

“And you never saw a vehicle headed for the highway?”

“Maybe. I ain’t sure. Long as that guy wasn’t coming back up here, I didn’t care what he did.”

She put her hand on his shoulder. Because she was bent forward, her long hair hung on her cheeks and made her face look narrower, more intense. “You did a good job, Mr. Gribble. But we want to catch this guy. Every detail we learn from you can put us one step closer to this guy. Did you hear him say anything at all?”

“If he did, I didn’t hear it. He had that mask on, and the wind was blowing in the trees. I pointed my rifle at him, and he dropped a piece of burning paper on the gasoline and took off. He looked back once over his shoulder. The moonlight on that mask was maybe the scariest thing I ever seen. Is that the guy killing people around here? Is that why the FBI is here? I read about the murders in the paper, those kids and that couple in the rest stop.”

“Tell me again what you actually saw the man do. Don’t leave anything out. Small things can turn out to be real important to us.”

“I saw him throw an armload of sticks and leaves on Mr. Purcel. I saw him pour gas from that can yonder on Mr. Purcel. I saw him searching around on the ground. He picked up a cigarette butt and put it in his pocket. Then he kind of kicked at the ground with his foot.”

She scratched at a place on her cheek and seemed to think about his last statement. It was cold in the trees, and a mist had started to settle on the hillside. “This next question doesn’t imply any reflection upon you. But why didn’t you shoot?” she said.

“I’m a ranch hand. Shooting people ain’t in my job description.”

“We can find you at Albert Hollister’s?”

“I got no reason to go anywhere else.”

“You’re sure about that?” she said.

“What’s that mean?” he asked.

But she walked away without replying, and J. D. Gribble wondered if he had wandered into an outdoor mental asylum.

Two Ravalli County sheriff’s deputies were interviewing Clete Purcel. He was sitting on the floor of the ambulance, the back doors open, his legs hanging over the bumper. He had taken off his shoes and socks and gasoline-soaked clothes and had put on a big smock given to him by the paramedics. His bare feet looked strangely white and clean in contrast to his face and hair, both of which were streaked with soot and the cleansing cream the paramedics had used on him.

“Give us a minute?” the FBI agent said to the deputies.

After they had walked off, she stepped into the box of light created by the interior of the ambulance. “What did the guy in the mask have to say to you?” she asked.

“Not much. He said he was having fun.”

“Just like that, ‘having fun’?”

“I asked him why he was doing it. He said, ‘It’s fun.’”

“What else did he say?”

“I tried to keep him talking and turn his thoughts on himself. I thought maybe I could buy a little time. He thought that was funny. He said, ‘No cigar.’”

“That’s all of it?”

“He said, ‘No cigar, fat man.’”

“You told the deputies he blew smoke in your face?”

“From a cigarette. I could tell by the smoke. You find a butt?”

“No. Gribble said he picked it up from the ground. The guy was evidently sanitizing the crime scene before he set you on fire.”

The image her words created made Clete glance up at her face. “The FBI was still following me?”

“No, we got a call from the Ravalli County Sheriff’s Office.”

“What have you found so far?”

“The tie cuffs and the tape he used on your eyes. We’ve got his gas can, too. Maybe we can trace it back to the vendor.”

“I heard machinery up the hill, steel treads and a clanking sound.”

“It’s a front-end loader with a claw bucket on it. He hot-wired it.”

“Why was he digging on the side of the hill?”

“I think he was going to cook you and put you in a grave.”

“We finished here?”

“You ought to go to the hospital.”

“I need a drink. Thanks for your time.”

“Thanks for my time? Your vehicle is evidence. It’s going to be towed into Missoula. You’re not driving anywhere.”

“Then I’ll walk.”

She looked at the flashlights and emergency flashers burning in the mist, one hip cocked, a holstered Glock on her gunbelt. Her dark hair looked clean and full of tiny lights. “Go sit in my car with Mr. Gribble. I’ll take you home in a few minutes.”

“I didn’t ask for a ride home. I told you I need a drink. How do I get that across?”

“We can stop at a store on the highway,” she said. “I’d like to tell you something on a personal level, Mr. Purcel.”

He waited for her to go on.

“You deserve better treatment than you’ve gotten. I think Sally Dee and his men died because of an engine failure. If the airplane crash wasn’t an accident, I still say good riddance,” she said. “We’re going to find the guy who did this to you. But you’re going to have to help us, and that means you need to take care of yourself.”

“The guy knows heavy equipment. He had the burial site set up. He also knows a cigarette butt is a source for DNA. I think he’s done this lots of times.”

Alicia Rosecrans made no comment. Clete looked at her left hand and the absence of a ring on it.

“I’m gay,” she said.

REVEREND SONNY CLICK didn’t think anybody’s luck could be this bad. First those two plainclothes roaches had come to his house asking questions about a double homicide, then they’d indicated he was a molester they were going to throw into his own airplane propeller. His stomach was flip-flopping for an hour. He smoked a joint down on the river to calm his nerves and rebuild his mental fortifications, then threw his suitcase in his twin-engine and fired it up. He blew out his breath, resolving to put the two plainclothes snerds out of his mind, and eased the throttle forward, gaining speed down the pale green runway that had been mowed out of a hayfield. In seconds he would be climbing above the Clark Fork River on his way to East Oregon, where that evening he would address a rural audience that treated him like a rock star. Enough with the polyester jerk-offs and their threats.

Except his port engine began leaking oil across the wing, and the propeller locked in place and the plane spun sideways on the strip.

Now it was Monday morning, and he was still stuck in Missoula, having canceled out in East Oregon and Winnemucca, wondering if those cops would be back again, asking questions about a pair of dead kids he wished he had never seen.