Every Cloak Rolled in Blood

Chapter Sixteen

On Saturday morning there is a story below the fold in the Missoulian about the discovery of a woman’s body by hunters in a dry creek bed under a bridge outside St. Ignatius. The woman was single and had been missing for four days. The sheriff’s office and the Tribal Police Department have now confirmed that the deceased is Irene Barr, age forty-two, who was employed as a waitress in a Ronan café fifteen miles from St. Ignatius. The county medical examiner has not revealed the cause of death.

There is something wrong with the story. Every newspaper journalist knows that in police reporting, the issue is not the content of the story but what is left out. People fall from high places and die of a broken neck. No mystery. They have heart attacks and float down a stream, or accidentally shoot one another. They drive their cars off cliffs. The visuals tell most of the story within five minutes of discovery. Was she bruised? Was she naked? Was she without warm clothes? Did she have on shoes or have a purse? Single women don’t wander out in rough country in cold weather without telling anyone, particularly their employers, and then lie down on rocks under a bridge and die of natural causes.

Regardless of the story’s content or noncontent, I have a sick feeling in my stomach and also a problem of conscience, because I do not want to get any deeper in my relationship with Ray Bronson, with whom I drank coffee Monday morning in the café where Irene Barr worked. Ray Bronson said he was picking her up at six o’clock that evening.

I dial Jeremiah McNally’s cell phone number. He must look at his caller ID. Without preamble, he says, “I’m through with that problem behind your house, Aaron. Whatever is up that hill isn’t my business.”

“I’m not calling you about that,” I reply. “Do you know anything about the woman who was found dead in a ravine outside St. Ignatius?”

“That’s Lake County, that’s the res, it’s not my business.”

“I was in her place of employment Monday morning. I was with Ruby Spotted Horse’s former husband. The waitress’s name was Irene. He told her he was picking her up that evening.”

The line goes silent.

“That’s the first you’ve heard about Bronson’s possible involvement?” I say.

“That’s right.”

“What are you not telling me?”

“Both Lake County and the tribal cops are sitting on this one.”

“Why?”

“The woman was moved under the bridge. After she fell two hundred feet and bounced on rocks all the way down or somebody chain-dragged her behind a car or truck. Bronson was taking her somewhere Monday night?”

It takes me a couple of seconds to get the implication. “Bronson hasn’t told anyone he had a date with her?”

“Check it out if you want. I haven’t heard Bronson’s name mentioned in the investigation.”

“He said it in the café. He was picking her up at six. She said, ‘Roger that.’ ”

“Yeah, I got it. Talk to Lake County or the tribal police. They’ll appreciate it.”

“That’s it?”

“It’s called good citizenship. It beats anonymously dropping off guns and other shit in a post office box and muddying up a homicide investigation.”

“I’ve never heard you use profanity.”

“The pope gave me a dispensation.” He breaks the connection.

I call the Tribal Police Department. The young dispatcher, Officer Hackman, answers.

“How you doin’, partner?” I say.

“Is that you, Mr. Broussard? I just started one of your books.”

“I hope you like it. Is Officer Bronson there?”

“No, sir, he’s off today. Can I help you?”

“I wanted to talk to him about that woman who was found in a ravine outside St. Ignatius.”

“Yeah, she worked at the café I sent you to,” he replied. “She was a nice lady.”

“Is Officer Bronson taking this hard?”

“Sir?”

“I mean they were pretty close friends, right?”

“I guess he knew her from the café. Heck, I don’t know. You’d better ask him.”

“Know where I can find him?”

“He likes to whitefish in late fall. Up at Alberton, where Fish Creek dumps into the Clark Fork. Mr. Broussard?”

“Yes?”

“Officer Bronson might could use a friend.”

I don’t want to see Ray Bronson. But what are my alternatives? I drive fifty miles to Alberton Gorge. Even though winter is at hand, the Clark Fork is still running fast and wide between steep mountains that drop directly into the current and form a canyon whose whitewater turbulence is not for the weak of heart. Gray boulders spiderwebbed by large-leafed, plum-colored vines lie half-submerged in the water by a sandy beach at the entrance to the gorge, the slate-green current undulating smoothly to the next bend and the bend after that, the sun’s reflection floating like gold coins just below the surface.

Down the slope from the two-lane asphalt road that goes through the tiny town of Alberton, I can see Ray Bronson casting with a spinning rod on a slab rock in the shadow of a giant boulder. No one else is on the stream. I park among the willows and put on a mask and walk through brush until I’m behind him. He’s dressed in khakis and a checkered shirt and a fishing vest but without a hat, although the wind is cold when it blows across the water. A holstered chrome-plated snub is clipped on his belt.

“It’s Aaron Broussard, Officer Bronson,” I say. “I didn’t want to give you a start.”

He retrieves his line but doesn’t turn around. “I saw you. What do you want?”

“The waitress named Irene at the café in Ronan? She was killed?”

He lifts his lure out of the water. It’s a Mepps spinner, one with a treble hook. He flicks it over the riffle and lets the weight of the lure tighten the line, then begins to retrieve it. “It’s my day off.”

“It’s a yes-or-no question.”

He slowly winds the monofilament line onto the spool and turns around. There’re deep bags under his eyes. “There’s an investigation in progress. Mostly by Lake County.”

“You had a date with her the night she disappeared. Correct? Does Lake County know about that?”

He props his rod against a willow tree and takes a mask from his pocket and hooks it on his ears. “We were going out to eat, but she canceled.”

“You reckon her death was an accident?”

“I don’t know what it was.”

The wind changes and I can smell his odor, a mixture of nicotine and last night’s beer. And maybe fear. The kind that wets the armpits and leaves a stink like soiled kitty litter.

“I talked to an investigator,” I say. “To his knowledge, you didn’t tell anyone you were picking up the lady at six p.m.”

The skin under his left eye twitches. “You trying to do a number on me?”

“Nope.”

“Hell you’re not. You want in my ex-wife’s bread, you son of a bitch.”

I have no way of knowing where the hatred in his eyes comes from. But his vitriol is not of an ordinary kind. It has a question mark in it. As a child he was probably rejected and abused at the same time he was told he was loved and the pain he was enduring was for his own good. It is a masterpiece of deceit and guaranteed to cause the victim conflict with himself and the world for the rest of his days.

“I’m waiting,” he says.

“On what?”

“Did I call it or not? You’d like to get in her pants?”

“You ever have your jaw broken by an eighty-five-year-old man?”

His face is like a death’s-head. I’ve crossed a line. I see Fannie Mae standing in the shallows wearing a cute cap and a Garfield sweatshirt and pink tennis shoes without socks. She wiggles a finger of caution at me. But it’s too late. You don’t push a flawed man like Ray Bronson in a corner.

“Trout are out of season,” I say.

“What?”

“It’s catch-and-release on trout now. Why hurt them with a treble hook? Put some salmon eggs on a single hook and catch you a mess of whitefish.” I try to smile at him.

He shoves me in the sternum.

“Please don’t do that,” I say, and step back.

“This?” he says. He shoves me again, harder.

I take another step back. “I didn’t mean that about breaking your jaw. I’m sorry.”

He makes a fist and hits me in the center of the chest, twisting his knuckles into the bone. The air goes out of my lungs.

Time to deck him, Pops, Fannie Mae says.

“Okay, Buster Brown,” I say. “You called it. You’re fixing to be the deadest bucket of shit that was ever poured in the ground.”

“What did you say?”

“Put your hand on me again and I’ll punch your ticket. I’ve done it to people I didn’t have anything against.”

“I don’t care if you do,” he says.

“Say again?”

“I saw the photos that were taken under the bridge,” he says. “I can’t get them out of my head. Somebody—”

“Somebody what?”

“Twisted Irene all up. Sanded off her skin. She didn’t look human. Like her eyes were pasted on raw meat.”

The image is hard to deal with. I clear my throat. “You believe the guy who did this also killed the Wetzel kid?”

“The Wetzels are Mexican ’breeds from Albuquerque. They’re after the hundred grand that’s buried on the res.”

“What are you talking about?”

He wipes his eyes with his forearm. “I got to go.”

“Tell me about the hundred grand.”

“It’s just one of those urban legends, that’s all. Forget everything I said. Forget I put my hand on you. I’m sorry.”

His breath is bilious, his throat printed with blue veins, his face as bloodless as china. The illogical state of his mind is a given, his potential anywhere between either sobbing hysterically or shooting people in a church. But I no longer believe the dark energy in his eyes is generated by hatred of his fellow man. That’s too simple an explanation.

“You have a meth problem, partner?” I ask.

He points one finger between my eyes. “Stay away from Ruby. Touch her and you’ll deal with me.”

He throws his rod and reel in the current and marches up the slope to a brand-new Toyota RAV4 parked in the trees.

You gave it your best shot, Pops, Fannie Mae says.

“He’s a dangerous man.”

So are you. But you didn’t hurt him. That’s what style is all about.