He had his glasses on now and he was breathing through his mouth, like a fish on land, his cheeks and neck bladed with color.
"You were the man at my window," she said.
"I'm taking you home now. That's all you should care about. Then I'm going back for Wyatt. You don't realize what you've made me do."
"Made you do what?" she asked.
"Things just don't work out for me," Terry said, and hit his fist on the steering wheel. "I just don't know why. They just never work out. I'd like to tear somebody apart right now."
He squeezed the floor shift knob tightly in his hand and passed a camper on the double stripe, whipping back into the proper lane an instant before an oncoming log truck crested the hill in front of them. He shot the finger at the truck's headlights.
Chapter 17
After Terry Witherspoon had dropped Maisey off and she had told Doc of the events of the evening, I thought he was going to go after either Witherspoon or Wyatt Dixon or the three football players at the nightclub.
Or at least lecture Maisey on her recklessness.
"Wyatt Dixon went into the rest room with a handful of change? That's when this kid Witherspoon decided to bag it down the road?" Doc said.
"Yes. Was the older man going to buy-" Maisey began.
"Come on into the kitchen," Doc said.
"What is it?" she said.
"You didn't eat supper," he said, and removed two steaks from the freezer and unwrapped them from butcher paper at the sink and began thawing them with hot water. "Why don't you help me slice a few potatoes and we'll cook some hash browns?"
Maisey looked at him curiously.
"You're not mad?" she asked.
"Not at you, Maisey. Never at you," he replied.
She placed a chopping board on the counter top near the sink and began peeling an Idaho potato, pausing to glance at her father's profile, as though seeing him for the first time.
Nicki Molinari didn't give up easily. I saw him in downtown Missoula the next morning, coming out of a sporting goods store. He carried a tennis shoe box under his arm.
"You saved me a trip out to your place. Come out to the ball field with me. It's right down by the river," he said.
"No, thanks," I replied.
"You want this guy Wyatt Dixon out of your hair? Or maybe you'd like him climbing your investigator, what's the lady's name, Temple something? Give it some thought, Mr. Holland."
He got into his convertible and drove away.
I tried to ignore what he had said, but he had planted the hook. I drove my truck down to the ball diamond by the Clark Fork and parked behind the stands and walked toward the third-base line. Nicki Molinari was hitting grounders to three other men out on the diamond, splintering the ball low and hard across the grass.
Two people were sitting on the top row of the otherwise empty stands. The man lifted his hand in recognition, but the woman with him kept her gaze fixed on the field, her face as hard-planed as refrigerated wax.
Nicki Molinari tossed his bat to another player and walked toward me.
"What are Xavier and Holly Girard doing here?" I asked, nodding toward the top of the stands.
"He's writing a book about me. I got stock in her new movie. It's being shot on the Blackfoot. Why, that bother you?" Nicki said.
"You said something about my investigator, Temple Carrol."
"Yeah, I want my seven hundred large back from the skank. That's Cleo Lonnigan to you. You're not interested in a finder's fee, I can shake and bake Wyatt Dixon for you or anybody else who might be giving you a hard time."