“Last night there was a shoot-out not far from the Higgins Street Bridge,” he said. “The person who called in the 911 claims a woman driving a vintage Cadillac convertible was involved. Who might that be?”
Clete’s eyes showed no expression.
“Can you venture a guess, Mr. Purcel?”
Clete watched a robin light on the branch of an ornamental crab apple. “Shit happens,” he replied.
“There’s another interesting development. We found Gretchen Horowitz’s fingerprints inside Bill Pepper’s home,” the sheriff said.
Clete nodded gravely. “If I had a man like that in my department, I’d pay a reward to the person who put him on the bus. If I knew where his grave was, I’d piss on it.”
“We also found an abandoned pickup with a tire blown off the rim. Somebody had wiped the inside and the door handles with motor oil, so we couldn’t lift any prints.”
“Sounds like you’ve got some pretty sharp criminals around here,” Clete said.
“We have our share of visiting comedians, too,” the sheriff said. “Let me line this out a little more clearly so there’s no misunderstanding between us. This isn’t the O.K. Corral. We’re not a collection of hicks. You gentlemen don’t make the rules.”
“We can’t argue with you on that,” I said.
“You don’t know anything about a shooting by the bridge, Mr. Robicheaux?”
“I don’t know what to tell you, sir,” I replied.
“Here’s how it went down, Sheriff,” Clete said. “Two guys tried to smoke my daughter. One guy got away in a pickup, Kansas tags. The other guy’s whereabouts are unknown. I told my daughter not to call it in because I didn’t want to see her hung out to dry. Bill Pepper was a dirty cop. You know it and so do I. First time, shame on them, know what I mean?”
“You don’t trust us?”
“We didn’t deal the play,” Clete said.
“I’ve got a surprise for both of you,” the sheriff said. “My biggest concern isn’t the shooting by the bridge. Two witnesses said your daughter acted in self-defense, Mr. Purcel. Evidently, one man was badly wounded, so I expect he’ll show up one way or another. I want you to look at some photos.”
He untied the manila envelope and took out at least a dozen crime scene photographs. “The former sheriff was an obsessed man when it came to crimes against children and women. Beginning in 1995, there were a number of murders in the Northwest that seemed to bear similarities. The first one was right here in the Bitterroot Valley, followed by one in Billings, then Seeley Lake, Pocatello, and Spokane.” He began placing the photos in a line on top of the stone wall by the front entrance. “There were never any forensics that would tie one homicide to another, except they were all obviously committed by a sexual deviant. I’d like both of you to study these and tell me what you see.”
Crime scene photography, especially homicide, is never pleasant to look at. Defense attorneys try to suppress it as inflammatory, more so as the trial nears the sentencing phase. It’s invasive in nature and seems to degrade the victims in death. Their eyes are fixed and stare at nothing; their mouths often hang open, as though they realized in their last seconds the irreparable nature of the fate imposed upon them. As you gaze at their photos, you identify with them, and for just a moment you understand the terrible nature of the crime that, in retrospect, you are being made witness to: These people, made out of the same clay as you, were not simply killed; they were robbed of their dignity, their hope, their identity, their belief in humanity, and sometimes their religious faith. As you gaze at these photographs, you are tempted to revisit your objections to capital punishment.
Clete picked up the photos and looked at each and passed them to me. “What do you want us to say?” he asked the sheriff.
“You think these people were killed by the same guy?”
“The killer was into bondage and torture. He was big on suffocation and using plastic bags.”
“What else?” the sheriff asked.
“The women’s dresses have been pulled up. You or somebody else have drawn felt-tip circles on the women’s legs.”
“That’s where the killer or killers ejaculated on them.”
“Most of these bastards mark their territory,” Clete said.
“In the same way at every homicide scene?” the sheriff said.
“What difference does our opinion make?” I said.
“The guy who killed Angel Deer Heart ejaculated on her.”
“Where?” I said.
“On her legs.”
“There was no penetration?” I said.
“None.”
“Did you get a hit on the DNA?”
“We’re working on it,” he said.
That one didn’t sound right. “You ever hear of a guy named Asa Surrette?” I asked.
“I talked to your daughter about him,” the sheriff said.
“I didn’t know she called you.”
“I got the sense you don’t agree with your daughter’s perceptions about him. You think he’s dead?”
“The state of Kansas says he’s dead.”
“What do you say?” the sheriff asked.
“Maybe he’s out there. Maybe he was the guy who left the message in the cave. Or maybe somebody is using his MO.”
“Why did you mention the cave?”
“I don’t know,” I lied.
“It’s the biblical reference, isn’t it?”
“No, evil is evil. There’s enough of it in the human breast without having to ascribe it to the devil.”
“I hope you’re right,” the sheriff said, gathering up the photos and replacing them in the envelope. “Where’s your daughter, Mr. Purcel?”
“In town.”
“That’s convenient.”
“If she has time, maybe she can give you a ring,” Clete said.
“Repeat that, please?”
“Gretchen isn’t the problem,” Clete replied. “It’s not our job to follow you guys around with a dustpan and a broom.”
“Come back here, Mr. Purcel,” the sheriff said. “Did you hear me? Sir, don’t walk away from me.”
That was exactly what Clete did, gazing up at the strips of pink cloud in the sky and at the trees bending in the wind on the hillside. I knew we were in for it.
Chapter 12
At first light Tuesday morning, Wyatt Dixon woke from a nightmare, one that left his armpits damp and turned his heart into gelatin. For Wyatt, the dream was not about the past or the present; nor did it have a beginning or an end. Instead, the dream was omnipresent in Wyatt’s life, and it waited for him whenever he closed his eyes, whether day or night. In the dream, the man he grew up calling “Pap” was walking toward him bare-chested in his strap overalls, his skin as shriveled and bloodless as a mummy’s, his bony hand knotted into a fist. “You touch your sister again, boy? Your mother seen you,” Pap was saying. “Don’t lie. It’ll go twice as hard if you lie. You worthless little pisspot. The best part of you run down your mother’s leg.”
Wyatt got up and put on his jeans and went outside barefoot and shirtless into the cold morning and the mist that was a ghostly blue in the cottonwoods and as bright as silver dollars on the steel swing bridge over the river. The current was dark green and swirling in giant eddies around the boulders and beaver dams on the edges of the main channel, and wild roses were blooming along the banks. The dawn was so soft and cool and tangible, Wyatt believed he could taste it in the back of his mouth and breathe it into his lungs. He pulled a tarp off a woodpile and threw it on the grass and lay on his back with his arm over his eyes, his chest rising and falling slowly, the world once again a place of leafy trees and a breeze blowing down a canyon and German brown trout undulating in the riffle. Just that fast, Pap had gone away and become the bag of bones that someone finally dropped in a hole in a potter’s field.