The transcription of her interview with Sue Lynn Big Medicine was two pages long.

"She uses the words 'blackout' and 'stoned' six separate times," Temple said. "The impression I get is that Ellison went outside the bar, smoked a lot of reefer with some other bikers, then came back in and told her something that made her skin crawl. You got any idea what it might be?"

"No," I replied.

"Why would she want to hide it from us?"

"She's working for the G. She wants to be careful about what she says. What else do you have on her?" I asked.

"She was arrested on the edge of the Crow Reservation for armed robbery of the mails."

"What?"

"She went into a general store with three or four other Indians. One of them pulled out a gun and robbed the owner of fifty dollars and a quart of whiskey. But the general store was also a post office. The Indians were charged with robbery of the mails, which is a federal offense. Sue Lynn's case is still pending."

"So that's the hold the Treasury agents have on her."

"Here's the rest of it. One of the guys she was arrested with was Lamar Ellison's cell mate in Deer Lodge."

"They had the perfect person to plant inside the militia."

"There's one other detail, but I don't know if it has any bearing on the fact she's a government informant. Two years ago her little brother disappeared from a Little League ball game in Hardin, Montana. A month later his body was found in a garbage dump outside Baltimore."

"How old was he?"

"Ten," Temple said. "This is a pissed-off young woman."

"She's seems to be a mixed bag, all right," I said, spinning my hat on my finger. "Her little brother was found dead in Baltimore?"

"He'd been strangled. No clues, no leads." When I didn't speak, Temple said, "Your boy's in the sack with her?"

"Celibacy isn't a high priority with most kids today."

"I wonder who their role models were," she said.

She got up from the table and gazed through the cedar trees at the river. Downstream, college kids were riding bicycles back and forth across an old railroad bridge that had been converted for pedestrian use.

"Why do you act like that, Temple?" I said.

"Because sometimes I feel like it. Because maybe I just get depressed digging up grief and misery in people's lives."

"Then warn me in advance." Her lips started to shape a word, but no sound came out of her throat. Her eyes were fixed on mine now, an expression in them that was somewhere between anger and pain and the love that teenage girls sometimes carry inside them as brightly as a flame. I put my hands on her shoulders and when she raised her face, unsure of what was happening, I kissed her on the mouth. I felt the surprise go through her body as tangibly as an electric shock.

She stepped back from me, her eyes wide, her cheeks coloring.

"Go ahead and hit me," I said. Instead, she averted her eyes so I could not read whatever emotion was in them and packed all her notebooks and file folders in her nylon backpack and walked toward my truck, the backs of her thighs wrinkled from the picnic bench.

And once again I was left alone with the beating of my own heart and my confused thoughts about Temple Carrol and the certainty that I had succeeded once more in making a fool of myself.

Later, I had the oil changed in my truck, then called the sheriff at his office.

"Do you know a hood named Nicki Molinari?" I asked.

"He and a bunch of other greasers own a dude ranch down by Stevens vine," he replied.

"It doesn't bother you to have these guys on your turf?"

"We've had gangsters here for years. They'd like to get casino gambling legalized and turn Flathead Lake into Tahoe," he said.

"I saw Molinari with Xavier and Holly Girard this morning," I said.

"That's supposed to be skin off my ass?"

"You pointed me at the Girards when I first met you. It was for a reason."

"So go figure it out and stop bothering me," he said, and hung up.

I drove out to the Girards' home on the Clark Fork. My visit was to become another reminder that it's presumptuous to assume a common moral belief governs us all.

I SMELLED alcohol on Xavier Girard when he answered the door. But he wasn't drunk, at least not so that I could tell. In fact, his thick hair had just been barbered, his eyebrows trimmed. His shoulders were straight, his demeanor casual and nonexpressive. If his mood could be characterized at all, it was a bit melancholy and perhaps resigned.

"Am I disturbing you?" I asked.

"I was writing."

"Can you give me ten minutes?"

"Come in," he replied.

I followed him into a spacious office with cedar bookshelves that ran from the floor to the ceiling. The windows were arched and looked out on wooded hills and a red barn down below and a pasture that was full of Appaloosa and quarter horses.

The wall was covered with framed book reviews, all of them sneering indictments of his work. The centerpiece was a legal form initiated by the censor at the Texas State Prison in Huntsville, stating Girard's last novel had been banned from the Texas penal system because the dialogue made use of racial and profane language and encouraged a disrespect for authority.

The convict whose copy of Girard's novel had been confiscated was in the Ellis unit, awaiting execution.

On the shelves above Girard's desk were his two Edgar Awards, in the form of ceramic busts of Edgar Allen Poe, and a display of arrowheads and pottery shards and a collection of.58-caliber oxidized lead minié balls and rusted case shot.

"This is Civil War ordnance. You dug this up in Louisiana?" I said.

But he wasn't listening. I thought I heard voices through the wall or perhaps the ceiling.

"What could I help you with?" he asked.

"Nobody's looking at you for the murder of Lamar Ellison," I replied.

"Are you?"

"He vandalized your vehicle and punched you out just before somebody boiled his cabbage."

"You want a drink?"

"No."

"You don't really think I killed Ellison, do you?" he asked.

"Probably not."

"Then why are you here, Mr. Holland?"

"The sheriff's got you and Ms. Girard on his mind. I just don't know why."

"If that's all, I'd better get some pages ready for my editor," he said.

I could hear a knocking sound, like a headboard slamming into a wall, and a woman's voice mounting to a barely suppressed shriek. I felt the skin draw tight on my face. Xavier's eyes lifted toward the ceiling.

"You wanted to say something?" Girard asked.

"No, not really."

"People have different kinds of relationships, Mr. Holland. It doesn't mean one is better than another."

I nodded, my eyes averted.

"I'll let myself out. Thanks for your time," I said.

"Sorry. It looks like the landscaper has you blocked in. I'll find him. He's out back somewhere."

So I had to wait ten minutes for the landscaper to move his vehicle. But at least the sounds from upstairs had stopped. As I turned around in front of the garage, Nicki Molinari came out the front door of the house barefoot and headed for my truck, gesturing at me to stop. His hair was wet on his shirt collar. "Say it," I said.

"Don't drive out of here with your nose in the air. You got the wrong idea about what's going on here."

"You were bopping the guy's wife while he was downstairs," I said.

"He's a marshmallow and a drunk. Besides, we didn't know he had come home."

"Take your hands off my truck, please."

"I checked you out, Mr. Holland. You killed your best friend. I knew your kind in 'Nam. A ROTC commission and a cause stuffed up your butt, except it's always other guys who get turned into chipped beef."

"You should have put your shoes on, Nicki," I said.