Bitterroot (Billy Bob Holland 3)

"You pointed me at the Girards when I first met you. It was for a reason."

"So go figure it out and stop bothering me," he said, and hung up.

I drove out to the Girards' home on the Clark Fork. My visit was to become another reminder that it's presumptuous to assume a common moral belief governs us all.

I SMELLED alcohol on Xavier Girard when he answered the door. But he wasn't drunk, at least not so that I could tell. In fact, his thick hair had just been barbered, his eyebrows trimmed. His shoulders were straight, his demeanor casual and nonexpressive. If his mood could be characterized at all, it was a bit melancholy and perhaps resigned.

"Am I disturbing you?" I asked.

"I was writing."

"Can you give me ten minutes?"

"Come in," he replied.

I followed him into a spacious office with cedar bookshelves that ran from the floor to the ceiling. The windows were arched and looked out on wooded hills and a red barn down below and a pasture that was full of Appaloosa and quarter horses.

The wall was covered with framed book reviews, all of them sneering indictments of his work. The centerpiece was a legal form initiated by the censor at the Texas State Prison in Huntsville, stating Girard's last novel had been banned from the Texas penal system because the dialogue made use of racial and profane language and encouraged a disrespect for authority.

The convict whose copy of Girard's novel had been confiscated was in the Ellis unit, awaiting execution.

On the shelves above Girard's desk were his two Edgar Awards, in the form of ceramic busts of Edgar Allen Poe, and a display of arrowheads and pottery shards and a collection of.58-caliber oxidized lead minié balls and rusted case shot.

"This is Civil War ordnance. You dug this up in Louisiana?" I said.

But he wasn't listening. I thought I heard voices through the wall or perhaps the ceiling.

"What could I help you with?" he asked.

"Nobody's looking at you for the murder of Lamar Ellison," I replied.

"Are you?"

"He vandalized your vehicle and punched you out just before somebody boiled his cabbage."

"You want a drink?"

"No."

"You don't really think I killed Ellison, do you?" he asked.

"Probably not."

"Then why are you here, Mr. Holland?"

"The sheriff's got you and Ms. Girard on his mind. I just don't know why."

"If that's all, I'd better get some pages ready for my editor," he said.

I could hear a knocking sound, like a headboard slamming into a wall, and a woman's voice mounting to a barely suppressed shriek. I felt the skin draw tight on my face. Xavier's eyes lifted toward the ceiling.

"You wanted to say something?" Girard asked.

"No, not really."

"People have different kinds of relationships, Mr. Holland. It doesn't mean one is better than another."

I nodded, my eyes averted.