Read Online Bitterroot by James Lee Burke - Free Book Online Page B

said.
    “Why don’t all of you stop talking like I’m not here?” Maisey said.
    We all turned and stared at her. She wore no makeup, and her face had the bloodless quality of people who have experienced long illness.
    “They did it to me, not you. What right have you all to make decisions about what happens around me? You’re treating me like a dumb animal,” she said.
    In the silence we could hear the wind blowing in the cottonwoods and the water coursing around the exposed boulders in the middle of the river. The photographer rubbed the back of his neck, as though he were massaging an insect bite or waiting for a momentary external problem to pass out of his vision. Then he detached the telescopic lens from his camera, got back into the Jeep, and yawned sleepily, waiting for Holly Girard to join him.
     
     
    AFTER HOLLY GIRARD was gone, I drove down to Bonner and called the sheriff’s office.
    “You kicked Lamar Ellison loose?” I said.
    “At eight o’clock this morning. Right after he ate. He said he couldn’t hardly let go of our sausages and hashbrowns,” the sheriff replied.
    “You think that’s funny?”
    “You give your damn guff to somebody else. If I had my way, I’d pinch his head off with a log chain.”
    “Then why don’t you do it?”
    “Because I don’t have victim ID. They put a pillow down on her face. Besides, I don’t have bean dip for physical evidence.”
    “There was DNA in her clothes and on the bed-sheets. They took swabs at the hospital,” I said.
    The line was quiet.
    “Hello?” I said.
    “It got sent to the lab … We don’t know what happened to it,” the sheriff said.
    “Say again?”
    “You heard me. I’m coming out there to explain all this to Dr. Voss.”
    I could feel my hand opening and closing on the phone receiver, my chest rising and falling.
    “These bikers, the Berdoo Jesters? Cleo Lonnigan says they may have been involved in her son’s murder,” I said.
    “That’s what she believes. I like Cleo, but the truth is her husband washed money for the Mob. Maybe she don’t like to admit where her wealth comes from. There might even be a mean side to Cleo you don’t know about,” the sheriff said, and hung up.
    I called him back, my hand shaking when I punched in the numbers.
    “Rapists who get away with it come back. They increase their power by tormenting the victim,” I said.
    “Take Dr. Voss and his daughter back to Texas. Let us handle it,” he replied.
    My ass, I thought.
     
     
    THE FIRST CALL came the next day. I happened to answer it. In the background I could hear people laughing and a motorcycle engine revving.
    “Is this the doctor?” the voice said.
    “Who’s calling?”
    “Thought you might want to know she’d already lost her cherry. So don’t make out it’s a bigger deal than it was,” the voice said.
    “What’s your name, partner?”
    “I just wanted to tell the pill roller his daughter gives good head. I’ve had better, but she’s got promise. If I get horny, I might give her another tumble. Have a nice day.”
    “You’re not a smart man.”
    The line went dead.
    I went into the living room. Doc was rubbing oil into a pair of lace-top boots by the fireplace.
    “Who was that?” he asked.
    “One of those motorcycle boys.”
    He rubbed another layer of oil on a boot and turned the boot over in his hands and looked at it.
    “You reckon they’ll be back around?” he said.
    “If they think they can blindside you,” I replied.
    He wiped the excess oil off his boots with a rag and looked idly out the window, his thoughts masked.
     
     
    I SPLIT WOOD on a chopping stump in back. The morning had grown warm and I was sweating inside my clothes. It had snowed up high during the night and the newly fallen snow was melting in the trees on the ridges, and there was a dark sheen on the pine and fir needles. I whipped the ax through the air and felt it rip cleanly through a chunk of dry larch. The ax handle was solid and