"Which guy?"
"The sheriff."
I put the receiver to my ear.
"Hello?" I said.
"What'd be say?" the sheriff asked.
"Sorry, I wasn't listening," I replied.
"Then you'd better listen to this. We just pulled Terry Witherspoon out of a tree. He's alive but that's about all. His back's broken. Guess who did it to him?"
"Wyatt Dixon?"
"Witherspoon left a knife blade in Dixon's chest. He says Dixon has plans for you and the Voss girl and Ms. Carrol."
"Thanks for telling us."
"You're responsible for all this bullshit, Mr. Holland. I hope you can sleep at night."
"Like a stone. Good-bye, sir," I said, and clicked off the phone.
But my lie hung in my throat.
An hour later Holly Girard drove a hand-waxed, fire-engine-red Corvette across the field behind the house and came to a stop two feet short of the front steps and got out and slammed the door behind her. Her hair was blown into a tangle on her head, her face red with windburn around her brown-tinted aviator's glasses.
"Has Xavier been here?" she said.
"Not to my knowledge," I said.
"Go inside and ask Doc and Maisey."
"Pardon?"
"Do I have to say it more slowly so you understand? Go inside and find out if that drunk idiot has been here."
"No, he hasn't. I can't think of any reason he'd want to come out here, Ms. Girard."
"He went up to the set of my new picture and accused the director of being a money launderer for
Nicki Molinari. He had a gun with him. He starting screaming about protecting the river. I may be fired off my own picture."
"A gun?"
"Oh, you are listening."
"I'd appreciate it if you'd take your anger out on somebody else."
"You twerp," she said, and went past me and into Doc's house.
Doc was reading in a chair by the window, his granny glasses down on his nose. His eyes lifted up into Holly Girard's.
"Eventually the poor, self-deluded weakling I married will be out here. That's because you've been stoking him up ever since you moved to Montana and he can't pee in the morning without first praising the noble Dr. Voss. If you don't call the sheriff the minute you see him, your troubles with rapists will be the least of your problems," Holly said.
Doc folded his book and removed his glasses and dropped them into his shirt pocket and gazed at her face.
"I'm really sorry to hear you take that point of view, Holly," he said.