“Uh, Deputy,” Hallstrom’s eyes shifted to read the nameplate. “Ennis? You watch a lot of Matlock or something? Work as many of these pissant bar shootings as I have and you’ll realize there’s not a lot of mystery to puzzle out. Everything else adds up, so your barmaid is full of shit. Hell, if I had a dime for every witness got the time wrong.”
Hallstrom jerked his thumb toward the cell. “This asshole had a great reason to kill the guy. He was drunk enough to do it, he was carrying a gun big enough to do it, and he was in the vicinity to do it. Finally, our victim is sporting a .44 wound if ever I’ve seen one. And I have. We match the slug, that’ll cinch it. So, I think I’ll go ahead and pursue this avenue of investigation. That work for you?”
Ennis smiled.
“Your call. But if the barmaid is right about the time, Roy here couldn’t have killed Jackman. No mystery about that, either.”
Hallstrom shook his head, looked at his watch. “Yeah, well, thanks for the tip, Sherlock. I’m taking off. Winnett’s our guy. Maybe you ought to get out to this Jackman’s place, let his wife know her husband’s dead.”
Ennis had delivered such news before, and he supposed Mary Ann Jackman took it as well as could be expected. Now she was hunched forward on the sofa, her velour bathrobe clutched around her, turning her wedding ring on her hand and staring at what appeared to be a very expensive Navajo rug. She said nothing as Ennis recounted the basic details of the shooting. He stood hat in hand, regarding the spacious interior of the Jackman living room.
Dean Jackman might have been unlucky in love at the end, but he had done pretty well in real estate. His sprawling log home occupied a twenty-acre hillside east of town, accessible from the gravel county road by a newly paved driveway about a quarter-mile long. The home itself must have been 6,000 square feet. It still smelled new. Inside, it was all adobe and knotty pine; every painting on the wall had an elk or an Indian in it. No doubt the undersheriff, Hallstrom, would be right at home here. Flanking a big Frederick Remington print over the stone fireplace was a crossed pair of branding irons on one side and an antique gun belt with what looked to be a pair of Colt Peacemakers occupying the holsters — he hoped they were nonfunctioning replicas. There was even an old saddle on a stand in the corner. Right next to the enormous plasma TV.
Mary Ann Jackman cleared her throat. Ennis saw her jaw muscles working. Still no tears. “At this bar,” she said. “Was he alone? Was he... with anybody?”
She was the same age as her husband, Ennis guessed; he knew they had moved here maybe a dozen years ago from Chicago, where Dean had been an accountant of some sort. They’d been pretty well-off then and were really well-off now. Dean had opened his Shining Mountains brokerage just in time to catch a decade-long boom in Montana real estate: retirees and telecommuters and third-tier celebrities seeking a respite from urban cares, the sort of people who could remain aloof from the vagaries of a logging-based economy and didn’t mind paying top dollar for the space and the scenery.
There were some old photos on a table behind the leather sofa. One of them showed Dean and Mary Ann in formal regalia, each wearing a ridiculous crown: prom royalty, he supposed. They’d changed some since then. Mary Ann was blond now, and both had put on some weight.
“I don’t know,” he said. “There were no witnesses to the actual shooting. We did make an arrest, but we can’t be sure...”
“Who?”
“Did your husband know Roy Winnett? Any reason he’d have a grudge against Dean?”
Ennis knew the answer to this, but he thought it might be good to get her reaction. Her voice was flat. “His wife. Alana. She just started working at Dean’s brokerage.”
She closed her eyes, then abruptly rose and began to walk around the room, her right fist clenched. “Okay, yes, I’ve heard things. Small-town gossip... people love to talk, there’s nothing else for them to do. But I told Dean, I told him: You make damned sure there’s nothing to this. Goddamned sure, or I’ll...”
She stopped by the pair of antique six-shooters; Ennis had an alarming vision of her grabbing one and emptying it into him before turning it on herself.
“Her and her bubba husband: stupid white trash, the worst kind, this town is full of them. She’s a checkout girl and he doesn’t even have a job. Now look at what’s happened. My husband, he was trying to make something of this town, trying to help people. Now he’s dead. That bitch. This is her fault.”
Ennis noticed another photo as he was turning to go: Mary Ann in hunter’s orange, gripping the antlers of a dead buck. It was a winter day, and her cheeks were flushed with the thrill of the hunt. A rifle was slung on her back. It seemed Mary Ann had fully embraced the Montana lifestyle. The deer’s tongue lolled out as though it never knew what hit it.
The Winnetts’ estate was a little less imposing than the Jackmans’: a doublewide and a carport at the end of a steep gravel driveway about a mile on the other side of town — and the other side of the tracks. An older Ford Taurus occupied the rutted driveway. A little girl’s bike, pink with streamers from the handlebars, leaned against the unfinished deck. Alana Winnett appeared in the doorway when he drove up. She was holding a cigarette and a glass of white wine, and the way she leaned against the doorjamb suggested it was not her first drink of the evening.
“Oh Lord, the law,” she said. “It’s Roy, isn’t it? Tell me he didn’t do something stupid.”
Ennis knew her from when she worked the checkout at Ace Hardware. She had a sleepy smile and her husky voice carried the trace of a Southern accent. Someone said she had moved here from South Carolina as a teenager. Probably quite pretty then and not exactly plain-looking now, even without the benefit of makeup. Her dark brown hair, bound tightly in a ponytail, betrayed a wisp or two of gray. Some lines were visible at the corners of her large brown eyes, and others had begun to radiate faintly around her lips — he could imagine her looking at those lines each morning and calculating the cost of Botox against a single income. She was dressed for comfort much as her husband had been: the same plaid flannel shirt and faded jeans, even down to the leather slippers. He wondered if those slippers had been gifts to each other, his and hers, exchanged with a kiss on some Christmas morning before all the reasons for being married had begun to drain out of their lives.
“I had to arrest him tonight.”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “Oh God, that idiot. I was afraid of that. We had a fight; he left here like a bat out of hell. He didn’t hurt anybody, right? He’s okay?”
“He’s okay,” Ennis said.
“And he didn’t hurt anybody?”
“There was a shooting, a homicide. Do you know Dean Jackman?”
Her mouth opened, but she didn’t say anything. Just nodded, staring. Finally she asked, “Is Dean all right?”
“Dean’s dead. We picked up Roy not too long after. He had a gun.”
Alana Winnett turned away. Her hand brushed the door; the wineglass slipped from her hand and shattered on the threshold. She put her hands to her face. Ennis stepped around the glass and followed her into the cluttered living room. It smelled of dust and cigarettes. She looked around, as if finding herself surrounded by the worn furniture and dingy tan carpet for the first time. The little TV was going, The Daily Show. Jon Stewart was in good form tonight, and the audience laughter went on and on.
“You mind if I turn this off?” Without waiting for an answer, Ennis did so. He looked at her and waited.
Alana’s hands trembled as she shook a cigarette from the pack of Virginia Slims on the coffee table and lit one. When she spoke, it was with difficulty. “What happened?”