Montana (32 page)

L
IGHT FROM
the laptop pulsed across Lola’s face as the files from the flash drives transferred into her computer’s memory. The file names were a jumble of nonsensical-seeming numbers, in a code known only to Mary Alice. She’d developed it after she lost a laptop in one of Baltimore’s routine smash-and-grabs, watching from inside a Starbucks just a few steps away as a leather-gloved guy shattered the window of her illegally parked car with a short, practiced punch. He’d had the audacity to turn and wave in mid-dash as she ran down the sidewalk after him, screaming curses and sending her perfectly frothed latte in a high, helpless arc in his direction.

“He was just a punk,” she’d said to Lola. “But what if he hadn’t been? What if he’d cracked the password and saw a file labeled ‘Cops on the Take?’ Worse yet, what if the cops had recovered it and held onto it for evidence?” Lola agreed that would have been a very bad thing indeed. So Mary Alice invented an elaborate system to protect her important files, transferring them nightly to the flash drives, giving them innocuous names as a backup. The list of files in front of Lola marched down the screen and disappeared somewhere below its bottom margin. She picked one at random and clicked and almost laughed. The first screen—as well as the second, third, fourth and fifth—was occupied by an interminable, years-old story on abuses within the Baltimore Parking Authority. Another ruse. Lola knew Mary Alice’s habit of putting boring stuff atop short takes of important information. Lola held her finger on the down arrow and eventually was rewarded with a list of names and numbers:

Hassan Fouad, $9,799

Juanita Alfonso, $8,095

Jonah Yazzie, $9,006

Akram Shadden, $8,705

And so on.

“TMResources,” she breathed. She’d found their donor list.

L
OLA SAT
at her laptop, fingertips tingling. She went first to the Federal Bureau of Prisons website, typing in one name after another to see if any had drug trafficking convictions. None did. “That would have been too easy,” she told Bub. She went next to the federal court system site and through the slightly more cumbersome process of determining whether anyone on the list had at least been indicted. Again, she drew blanks. She opened another of Mary Alice’s files. More names, more amounts. And more unproductive searches. She clicked faster and faster. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. She went back to Google and tried pairing the names with Fantonelli. Nothing. Then with Montana. Nothing. She tried a couple of the names individually, a search so broad she usually avoided it as meaningless. The results reminded her why.

Yazzie turned out to be the surname of about half the Navajo Nation. There were dozens of Juanita Alfonsos, among them a teacher, an artist, and an accounting student who posted all sorts of inappropriate photos of herself on Face-book. All of the Juanitas, however, apparently abided by the law. The various Akram Shaddens included a horse, of all things. But no heroin dealers. Or even a wealthy oilman who might have served as a clean front man for a dirty issues organization.

Lola looked at the clock. It was nearly noon. She went to the sink and took another awkward gulp from the faucet. She picked up the flash drives and rattled them like dice in her hand. She’d imagined a blessed moment of clarity, bright lights, the whole package tied up in a big bow of certainty. She sat back down at the laptop and blew ash from the screen. She wiped her hands on her pants and set her fingers back on the keyboard, hitting all the wrong keys. The screen blinked crazily, flashing back to an earlier search. Juanita Alfonso, artist-not-political-donor. Lola struck at the keyboard, trying to get back to Google, and opened the page instead. A photo display of pots filled the screen, then disappeared as Lola’s finger found the backspace key.

“Wait,” she breathed. “Come back.”

But she’d already gone back to the main search screen. This time she typed slowly, carefully, spelling the name aloud as she typed. Juanita Alfonso.

Got the link to the website. Clicked it open.

Went to “Works.” Clicked again.

The screen full of pots. Pots glazed black, patterned with unglazed geometrics.

Verle’s voice in Lola’s head. “Noticed you went for that one first. You’ve got a good eye for quality.”

Lola clicked back to Mary Alice’s list, chose another name. There were several Jonah Yazzies, but one turned out to be a weaver whose pieces sold for tens of thousands of dollars. Lola thought of the rugs on Verle’s walls and floors. She went back to one of the Arabic names and pasted it into Google, ready this time for what she’d see. Akram Shadden was a promising Arabian stud. Verle must have been smart enough to buy the horse before his price soared beyond ten thousand dollars. Bub rose from his position across Lola’s feet and put his head on her thigh, divining as always any change in mood. “Ten thousand,” Lola told him. “The magic number. The tragic number.”

Pay less than ten thousand dollars and the IRS—mostly—didn’t give a rat’s ass. More than that, though, and the agency got interested. Very interested. Folks who wanted their cash clean and clear bought things that cost less than ten thousand dollars. Lola thought of Verle’s house, its pottery and rugs and paintings. All the renovations outside, probably done in small, nine-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-dollar increments. The horses. The Charlie Russells. Entire cellars full of wine. Cash to the sellers, twice the asking price, with the understanding that half the cash would go toward a political donation. Johnny would have needed somebody local to work with, the sheriff had said. And he’d reminded her that a campaign, even one for governor, wouldn’t have begun to soak up all the money flowing from heroin. But rebuilding a ranch inside and out, even in ten-thousand-dollar increments—that, thought Lola, might have done the trick.

Lola thought of Verle.

Whose hay trucks and horse trailers had been rolling in or out of his place whenever she’d been there. The horses on their way to shows in Denver and Boise and Billings, all the places the sheriff said heroin had shown up. Verle’s people had been driving more than prize horseflesh to all those shows. Had hauled more than hay on those flatbeds.

Verle, with his handcrafted, probably-just-under-ten-thousand-dollar rifle leaning by his front door. “I can drop a bear at a hundred yards,” he’d said. Which was double the distance from Mary Alice’s cabin to where her body had been found. She remembered the rifle’s big bore. That gun hadn’t killed Mary Alice, but Verle probably had another that had. Of all the bullshit Johnny had slung Lola’s way, one comment had been genuine. “I didn’t kill her,” he said. “I wasn’t there. Remember?”

But Verle was.

Verle.

Who knew Lola was alone in the cabin.

Lola’s fingers froze on the keyboard.

She looked at Bub.

“Run,” she said. “Run.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

T
hey were halfway to the car, Bub flinging himself ahead of her, when a high sound ripped the air.

Spot stood at the corral gate, neck extended, sounding another prolonged and agitated neigh. A deeper call answered him. Lola hissed to Bub and ducked into the underbrush, grabbing at low branches to still any telltale movement. She heard the heavy hoof beats before she saw him. Verle entered the clearing atop the big bay, the rifle tucked into a scabbard. His head swiveled toward her rental car and he kicked at the bay and urged him toward it. He circled the car, the bay bending around it as though it were a balky steer. Verle reined the horse closer and leaned from the saddle and put a hand on the hood. Lola knew it would feel cool.

Verle straightened in the saddle and spurred the horse toward the cabin. He dropped the reins to the ground and pulled the rifle from the scabbard. He swung a leg over the horse, slid to the ground and climbed the steps. He stopped in front of the door and turned, surveying the clearing. Lola closed her eyes and held her breath. When she opened her eyes, the porch was empty. She rose from her knees and crept hunched toward the car, careful not to move the bushes above, Bub slinking beside her. She reached the edge of the underbrush. The car sat twenty feet away, the cabin another thirty feet beyond it. Verle almost certainly would have realized she wasn’t in the house. But maybe his attention had been distracted by the laptop. Lola calculated the time it would take her to spring that twenty feet, turn on the ignition, and outdrive the bullet that would zing her way within seconds of his hearing the engine turn over. She fumbled in her pocket for the hard plastic key holder.

The key holder with the lock button she’d automatically pushed when she’d left the car.

The mocking beep echoed in her brain. The beep that, if she hit the unlock button, would signal her presence to Verle, give him that extra split second’s warning, enough for a long stride onto the porch, the rifle moving from crook of elbow to its fixed position against his shoulder as she turned the key in the ignition. More than enough time for one shot. The only shot he’d need.

Even as she fingered the keychain, the cabin door opened.

He cradled the rifle in one arm, his hand on the trigger guard. Lola watched again the sweeping scrutiny that would take in the silent car, the empty stretch of road beyond. A turn of his head would bring the corral into view above the cabin, Spot still attentive along the fence.

The door banged shut. He’d gone back inside.

Lola dashed through the brush until she was behind the cabin, drawing herself up tall and narrow behind a thick-trunked ponderosa pine, Bub pressed against her ankle. She stared at the bedroom window until Verle’s silhouette appeared. He’d be checking under the bed this time, opening the closet doors, stepping into the bathroom and pulling aside the shower curtain. The silhouette was gone, then back again. She counted—one, two, three, four, five—enough time for him to leave the bedroom and go back into the living room. She crossed the clearing at a sprint. The bay raised its head and stepped back. A noise began deep in its chest. Lola grabbed a lead rope and went for Spot, no time for a saddle or even a bridle, just snapped the rope to his halter and made a desperate scramble onto his bare back. Leaned and stretched to unlatch the gate and squeezed her knees to urge Spot into a swift walk, the soft dry earth absorbing the sound of his hoof beats.

Behind her, Lola heard the bay’s outraged whinny and the answering sound of the cabin door as she slammed her heels into Spot’s sides and urged him into full gallop up the trail.

S
POT PLUNGED
through the trees, Lola clinging monkeylike, hands wrapped in his mane, knees high on his shoulders, wondering how long she could possibly stay aboard.

She’d forgotten about the path’s steep switchbacks. The horse sank onto its hindquarters and wheeled at the turns, nearly unseating her at each one. Bub was a black-and-white blur, crossing the path ahead of them. Lola wanted to turn and look for Verle, but was afraid even such a small motion would send her dangerously off balance. Spot tilted through another corner. Lola flung her arms around his neck. Ahead, just yards off the trail, flames licked the ground beneath the trees. Spot backpedaled to a halt. Lola pushed herself upright and stroked him, afraid to waste even a second, more afraid that he might, in his panic, turn and gallop straight back toward Verle. “Easy,” she said. “Easy.” Bub waited, flanks heaving. Lola nudged at Spot’s ribs. “Let’s go,” she said. He sidestepped and stopped again.

“Lola!”

Verle’s voice rang through the trees.

“Christ,” Lola gasped. She lashed the end of the lead rope back and forth across Spot’s withers. “Move!”

The horse leapt ahead into a choking swirl of smoke that muffled the voice behind them, even as it failed to disguise the fact that it was getting closer.

And still Verle kept calling.

“Lola! Lola!”