Jenny sat cross-legged on the floor beside her husband as he sopped up the remaining spill with a towel. “You and me, we’ve got different ideas about winning. You think the only way to walk out of a fight a winner is to beat the other man down. That’s how men talk about fighting, right? Only a loser runs away. It’s not like that for us. We win by getting away. We win by staying alive. This happened to me, Greg, and it’s my right to say I won. I got away, and he didn’t.”
“I’m not stupid. I know why Anne called. He’s getting bail.”
“You know what? B… F… D. He buys himself a couple of months of freedom, but soon enough he’ll be pulling a dime at Deer Lodge, and we’re still us. In the meantime, you can bet that Wayne and the other boys will make sure that if he so much as jaywalks, his bail will get pulled.”
She smiled at him, but Greg shook his head and walked to the sink. He wrung the towel beneath the faucet, watching a pink stream of water circle the drain. “It’s not enough.”
ONE WEEK LATER, Greg went back to the pulp mill. Jenny was still on leave and used the day to prepare Greg’s favorite supper, grilled steak and fettuccine alfredo. Three hours after Greg’s shift ended, the steaks were dry, black bricks in the oven, and the noodles were glued together in a clump. An hour after that, the phone rang. Jenny answered and heard her husband’s heavy breaths in her ear.
“Greg? Greg, what happened?”
“Oh, Jesus. I… I don’t know what to do. I… there’s blood everywhere. It’s all over my clothes. If I get in the truck – ”
Jenny was already in the bedroom, opening the top drawer of her dresser. “My gun. My service weapon? The ballistics are on file. What did you do? What did you do?”
“I’m so sorry.”
Jenny held the top of her head with her free hand, like that might literally help her collect her thoughts. “Are you cut? Did he touch you?”
“No. I didn’t let him near me.”
“So the blood’s all his?”
“There’s a lot of it. It sprayed or something.”
“Have you stepped in it? Are there footprints?”
The pause felt like an eternity. “No. Some got on the tops of the boots, not the bottoms.”
“All right. Keep it that way. Don’t step in any blood. Your clothes. There’s an attached garage there, Greg. And a tarp. I saw a blue tarp on the ground for painting.” Jenny peered through the bedroom curtains. It was still snowing. That was good. “Stand on the tarp and strip off anything that’s got blood. Put the gun in there too. Wrap it all up, and be careful. Wipe down anything you might have touched. Doorknobs, door frames, stairwells – ”
“I wore gloves. I’ve still got gloves on.”
“Okay. Good. How’d you get in the house?”
“I knocked. I told him I was an investigator with the PD’s office, sent there by Rick Deaver. He opened the door for me.”
“Good. Just make sure he didn’t lock the door behind him.” Jenny moved through the house, collecting the things she’d need. A spray bottle of bleach. A book of matches. “Leave it unlocked, you hear? And open the windows. Are you listening to me?”
“Why – ”
“Just do it. Whatever room his body’s in. Open all the windows so it gets good and cold. Do you know how many times you shot him?”
“Twice.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
She took two cartridges from the top drawer. “What phone are you calling on?”
“Um… oh, my God.”
“It’s all right. We’ll deal with it. Just don’t get anything from his house or his body in your truck. Okay?” What else? One of the quick-burn logs near the fireplace. Lighter fluid too. She checked the mudroom. Greg’s corduroy coat was missing from its hook. That was good. She began feeding the uneaten dinner to the garbage disposal. “It’s isolated out there, so you’ve got enough time to be careful. Don’t miss anything. Wrap the tarp up tight and put it in the back of the truck. And don’t forget the gun. And drive perfect. Don’t get yourself pulled over in your boxer shorts.”
BY THE TIME Greg pulled onto their road, Jenny had everything ready. She pulled her shivering husband inside and washed his shaking hands under hot water in the kitchen sink. If they analyzed for gunshot residue, Greg would not be the one to test positive.
She checked him over for any blood he might have missed on his shorts and T-shirt, on his skin, in his hair. She poured him three fingers of Bushmills, made sure he downed it, then poured him another. She undressed him and tucked him into their bed, resting the whiskey bottle on the nightstand beside him. He’d wake from nightmares and reach for it. She stroked his cold, damp hair until his breathing was steady. She picked up Sushi from her side of the bed and tucked the little fish beneath one arm of her husband’s resting body, kissed his cheek, and told him she was going to be gone for a little while to get rid of the tarp of clothing. To be safe, she grabbed his T-shirt, boxers, and socks, along with the kit she’d put together. She didn’t wear a coat.
She used the quick-burn log to start a fire at a campsite along I-90 near the Clark Fork River. She burned his clothes – everything but the coat – using the lighter fluid to make sure the flames consumed it all. As a precaution, she poured half the bottle of bleach on the pile of charred wood and ashes. She turned the coat inside out, rolled it into a ball, and placed it gently on her passenger seat. She sprayed the empty tarp with bleach, then folded it and tucked it into her trunk. Finally, she held her familiar pistol and added two cartridges to fill the magazine. She fired two shots into a nearby tree and tucked the gun snugly into her waistband at the small of her back.
The drive to Nine Mile wasn’t easy. The snow was sticking heavily, and she made a point of taking her Escort instead of the truck that Greg drove to work. The bad memories of the last time up this road didn’t help. Neither did the current situation. By the time she neared the house she never wanted to see again, whatever tracks had been made by her husband’s tires had been smoothed over by a perfect layer of white. She parked her car in the driveway, took a deep breath, ran through the plan one more time, and exhaled. She was ready. She retrieved the corduroy coat and blue tarp and walked through the unlocked front door.
The house was cold from the opened windows, like Jenny wanted it. The man’s body was splayed on his living room floor. Two shots, just like Greg said. One near the bottom of his gut. One in the neck. The neck shot must have hit an artery. That’s what caused the splatter. The gut shot probably took him down all mangled on his side like that. Jenny was grateful her husband wasn’t a better shot. With a cool head and a well-formed intention to kill, Jenny could easily plug a man squarely in the middle of the brain and heart from this range. These wayward shots would allow a different narrative.
She tiptoed over the body to pull the windows shut, making certain not to traipse through any of the blood. Within a few minutes, she could feel the room temperature rising from the wood-burning stove in the corner. Then she stepped near the body again, this time placing her boots firmly in the puddle that had formed beneath the man’s torso. She took a quick look. The chill had kept the body fresh enough. Time of death wouldn’t pose a problem. She walked to the phone and dialed a cell phone number she knew by heart.
“Wayne Harvey.”
“Wayne, it’s Jenny. I need your help.”
“Anything. You know that.”
Then she told Wayne the story. The man called the house during dinner. He said vile things about what he’d done to her. He said he’d tell everyone in prison. Montana is small. Her days in law enforcement would be over. Greg started drinking. She was at the Nine Mile house now and needed his help. She needed Anne Lawson from the County Attorney’s Office to come out too.