“Why are y’all interested in my medical history?” he said.
“Because we think you probably suffer from post-traumatic stress di
sorder. Because maybe there are people in the Bureau who don’t want to believe you murdered Sally Dio and his men. Maybe some people believe there were complexities involved that others don’t understand.”
She kept her eyes straight ahead as she drove, her hands in the ten-two position on the steering wheel. Her face was free of blemishes, her profile both enigmatic and lovely to look at. Clete continued to stare at her, his frustration growing.
“I never had post-traumatic stress disorder,” he said. “I drank too much sometimes and smoked a little weed. But any trouble I got into wasn’t because of Vietnam. I dug it over there.”
“Look at the photo taken at the homicide scene on I-90. There’s a man walking toward a compact car. If you look closely, you can make out a rectangular shape in his left hand. We think he’s the killer,” she said.
“Where’d you get this?”
“There was a surveillance camera in the rest stop on the opposite side of the highway. Evidently it had been knocked off-center, and it caught the man in the white shirt in two or three frames. Unfortunately, it didn’t catch the license number on the compact. Does this man look familiar?”
“No, it’s too grainy. He’s just a guy in a white shirt. Why are y’all investigating a local homicide?”
“Because during the last five years, there have been killings on several interstates that bear similarities to the one outside Missoula. The victims were made to kneel or lie on their faces. They were executed at point-blank range. They were sexually abused and sometimes burned or mutilated. Look at the next photo. Do you know that man?”
The eight-by-ten color blowup had been shot with a zoom lens in front of the saloon on Swan Lake. A tall ramrod-straight man wearing a short-brim Stetson hat and western-cut trousers and yellow-tinted aviator shades was looking directly at the lens. He had reddish-blond hair, and the sun on the lake seemed to create a nimbus around his body.
“I’ve never seen him. Who is he?” Clete said.
“We’re not sure. That’s why I asked you,” she said.
“Why does the FBI have Jamie Sue under surveillance?” Clete said.
Alicia Rosecrans turned a corner carefully, her turn indicator on; she glanced in the rearview mirror. “Look at the last photo in the folder,” she said. “Do you recognize that man?”
Clete lifted up the eight-by-ten and studied it. “He’s a nice-looking guy. But I’ve never seen him before.”
“Yes, you have, Mr. Purcel. That’s Leslie Wellstone, Jamie Sue’s husband, before he was burned in the Sudan.”
Alicia Rosecrans didn’t speak the rest of the way to the university.
CHAPTER 9
CLETE HAD NOT called me from the jail, either out of shame or because he had thought he could elude a pending assault-and-battery beef by claiming he had feared for his life and acted in self-defense. Montana was still Montana, a culture where vegetarianism, gun control, and gay marriage would never flush. Nor would the belief ever die that a fight between two men was just that, a fight between two men.
That afternoon I went down to Albert’s house to talk to Clete. He was already half in the bag, but not because of Lyle Hobbs.
“Why’d that agent show me the photo of Jamie Sue’s husband before he was burned up?” he asked. “She wants to cluster-fuck my head?”
All of his windows were open. The weather had taken a dramatic turn, and the valley was covered with shadow, the air cold and dry-smelling, snow flurries already blowing off the top of the ridge.
“They’re not interested in Jamie Sue Wellstone,” I said. “They’re after her husband or brother-in-law. But I don’t know what for.”
“These murders?”
“Whatever it is, they’re not going to tell us. I don’t think they’re sharing information with Joe Bim Higgins, either.” I told Clete I’d been deputized by Higgins.
“What about me?”
“You weren’t here when he called,” I said.
“Cut it out, Streak.” He was spooning vanilla ice cream into a glass and pouring whiskey on top of it. “And stop giving me that look. Get yourself a Dr Pepper out of the refrigerator and don’t give me that look.”
“I don’t want a Dr Pepper.”