Swan Peak (Dave Robicheaux 17)

“What is it?” Molly said.

“The trailer hitch punched a

hole in the gas tank. I’ll need to get us a tow and have the tank welded or replaced.”

“I should have seen the limo backing up. Dave and I will pay for it,” Molly said.

“I just remembered where I heard that snooty fellow’s name,” Albert said.

THAT AFTERNOON THE lead story on the local television news involved the death of the University of Montana coed. At sunset the previous evening she and her boyfriend had gone for a hike up a zigzag trail behind the university. When last seen, they had left the main trail and were hiking up through fir trees, over the crest of the mountain. The girl was found two miles away, in a stony creek bed. Her body was marbled with bruises, her skull crushed. The boyfriend was still missing.

CHAPTER 3

THE MISSOULA COUNTY high sheriff was a western anachronism by the name of Joe Bim Higgins. He had inherited the office after his predecessor fell off a barn roof and broke his neck. Joe Bim rolled his own cigarettes when no one was looking and wore his trousers stuffed inside Mexican cowboy boots, the kind stenciled up the sides with red and green flower petals. He had been at Heartbreak Ridge, and one side of his face was wrinkled like old wallpaper from the heat of a phosphorous shell that had exploded ten feet from the edge of his foxhole. He wore an oversize felt western hat of the kind Tom Mix had worn and seemed to care little about either his image or his political future.

In the early A.M. we thought dry lightning had ignited a fire on the far side of the ridge behind Albert’s house. But when I walked out on the porch, the sky was clear, the stars bright, and there was no trace of smoke in the air. Then we realized we were seeing the lights of emergency vehicles wending their way through the Douglas fir trees and ponderosa pines and that a helicopter was sweeping the canopy with a floodlight from the far side of the ridge.

At sunup Joe Bim Higgins’s cruiser pulled into Albert’s drive. Fifteen minutes later, the two of them drove to our cabin and tapped on the door. Molly was still in her bathrobe. I went out on the porch in the coldness of the morning and closed the door behind me. A helicopter swept by overhead, its searchlight off now, scattering the horses in the pasture.

Joe Bim was smoking a hand-roll, its tip wet with saliva. He asked if I had seen any activity on the hill behind Albert’s house two nights previous.

“I didn’t see anything. Maybe I heard a vehicle,” I said.

“What time?”

“After midnight. I didn’t pay it much mind,” I said.

“Know what kind of vehicle?” he asked.

“A car.”

He wrote on a notepad. “You didn’t think that was unusual?” he said, not looking up.

“Some loggers from the Plum Creek Company have been working up there,” I said.

“After midnight?” he said. He glanced at my face.

“I told you I didn’t give it much thought. I had no reason to.”

“I know you’re a police officer, Mr. Robicheaux, but I don’t like loading dead college kids into the back of an ambulance. This is the second one in two days. The coroner says this one has been dead at least thirty-six hours. Your wife hear anything?”

“No.”

“Let’s ask her,” he said.

“She’s not dressed,” I replied.

“How about we eat some breakfast and work on this afterward?” Albert said.

Joe Bim Higgins studied the hillside, his chest rising and falling. He folded his notebook and put it in his pocket, then buttoned the flap on the pocket. His face was fatigued, his breath sour. “You worked a lot of homicides?” he said.

“A few.”

“Thursday evening a girl by the name of Cindy Kershaw went hiking with her boyfriend up Mount Sentinel, behind the university. She ended up at the bottom of the canyon with a broken skull. We couldn’t find her boyfriend and thought maybe he was involved. Late last night a man called in a tip from a pay phone and told us where to look. He told us the kid was alive and tied to a tree, but we’d better get our asses up there soon. You ever get tips like that?”

“Yeah, from people who were jerking us around.”

“The boyfriend’s name was Seymour Bell. He was twenty years old. He wasn’t tied up. He was shot four times at close range, all in the face. According to the coroner, he was shot on the hill, not moved there from somewheres else. From the looks of his britches, he died on his knees. The shooter took his brass with him. You didn’t hear any shots?”