by Neil Mcmahon
For openers, his true identity was still a mystery. He had used a time-honored method of establishing a false past-obtaining the records of a child born around the same time as himself who had died in infancy, and with that documentation acquiring a Social Security number and driver's license, establishing credit, and so on.
Then there was the question of exactly what he did. The tacit assumption had been that he was sort of a sportsman and gentleman rancher, and a businessman who helped Evvie with her realty transactions and had investments of his own. But the ranch was devoid of livestock, his business trips were in fact gambling and partying junkets, and he paid no attention to the real estate operation-except that he had pushed his wife to wangle the job of selling the Callister house, no doubt so that he could keep tabs on Renee and the photo cache he'd planted.
He didn't have or make any money of his own-it all came from Evvie's inherited wealth-but he'd set up at least two corporate entities. They were clearly fronts which didn't conduct any tangible commerce; it appeared that he used them mainly as conduits to sock away large chunks that he drained from her, no doubt into bank accounts that would be difficult or impossible to trace. Through them, he also leased vehicles, with frequent turnover-enumerating them and getting their descriptions was another paper trail the cops would have a hell of a time unraveling-and a network of storage units, where he maybe kept some of them and Lord knew what else.
By all indications so far, Evvie was being honest about what she knew, although it was possible that this was an act she'd long been rehearsing.
According to her, Lon Jessup had first come to Montana about fifteen years ago to visit Astrid and Professor Callister. Astrid introduced him to her longtime friend Evvie-in her thirties, unmarried with no suitors, but rich-and romance bloomed.
The romance part didn't last long, but it wasn't one of those sordid situations that descended into abuse and despair. Lon simply wasn't interested in her. She and her money were a convenience, and he made it clear that he intended to use them as he pleased and do what he wanted. It took her a while to accept that, as it would anyone, but he was very effective at getting it across. He didn't use violence or outright menace. He was the kind of man who didn't have to.
Once that was settled, they got along quite well. He was outwardly solid and decent, and above all he was a husband, rescuing her from spinsterhood and giving her that societal credential. If there was a hole in Evvie Jessup's heart, she had plenty of things to fill it up with that most other people didn't.
But it had never occurred to her that he might be an entirely different person than he claimed.
He had never been a suspect in Astrid's murder. Besides his being a good friend of the Callisters and a respectable citizen, with no hint of a motive, Evvie remembered distinctly that he had been out of town when it occurred and had hurried home to offer his support to the family. But that was an alibi almost certain to fall apart under new police scrutiny.
What the motive might have been was still unknown. But an intriguing connection had surfaced. Lon had occasionally let something drop to Evvie that indicated military training-as a Navy SEAL, she thought. However, he had insisted that she never mention anything about it.
The fact that he didn't want that known inclined me perversely to believe there was something to it. I'd never met a man who denied that kind of credential, and I'd run into several who claimed it when it wasn't true. It was a measure of how seriously Lon Jessup wanted his background erased.
Further, before coming to Montana, he'd been living in Colorado-the home of the phantom ex-Special Forces ranger who supposedly had led Astrid on a raid to shoot up a gyppo logging camp.
And who Astrid had counted on to blow up the Dead Silver Mine.
I remembered Buddy Pertwee's story about her sudden emotional upset and change of attitude not long before her death, as if something had gone very wrong.
Was Lon Jessup the commando? Did he and Astrid have a falling-out, maybe involving the demolition plan? Something that angered or threatened him enough to drive him to murder her?
Such as fear that the past he'd worked so hard to conceal might be exposed?
Then, just after three o'clock that afternoon, one of Gary's deputies stuck his head out the courthouse door and yelled at Madbird and me to get our ass inside.
A helicopter had spotted a woman with long dark hair in the mountains around the old mining town of Basin. She had run from the cover of trees out into a clearing, frantically waving her arms to flag them down.
55
The woman was Darcy, and the copter was able to land and get her on board. The immediate report was that she was cold, shaken, and scratched up, but otherwise unharmed.
The cops at the courthouse whooped and cheered and everybody exchanged high fives. Madbird got a big hug from Faith, and even Gary Varna and I gripped each other around the shoulders for a quick, awkward embrace.
They estimated that it would take another forty minutes or so to fly Darcy to the Helena airport and drive her here to the courthouse. Madbird called Hannah to tell her the news, then walked outside again. I went with him, assuming we were going to wait out front for Darcy to arrive, but he strode on to his parked van.
He went into the gear he carried in the back and got out a favorite Puma hunting knife and a whetstone. Then he sat inside the open rear doors and honed the knife, drawing the blade carefully across the stone in even, precisely angled strokes. He kept its edge like a straight razor anyway. After this attention, it would literally split hairs.
He paid no attention to me and didn't speak a word. I decided to leave him alone.
Madbird finished the task to his satisfaction, set the knife aside, and dug out a pair of insulated hunting boots. He laced those on and was rummaging around through his other stuff when the sheriff's cruiser carrying Darcy pulled into the parking lot.
She jumped out of the car, rushed to Madbird, and clung to him, sobbing, face buried in his chest.
"Okay, baby girl, okay," he muttered, patting her back gruffly. "Hannah's on her way here. She's bringing some burgers, you must be starving."
The deputies gently pried her loose from him, to take her inside and continue debriefing her. This time Madbird went with them. I stayed out of the way again and pieced together information as it was filtered to me.
The upshot was that while Lon Jessup had covered his bases with extraordinary cunning, he hadn't counted on the savvy and courage of a Blackfeet girl who'd grown up on the wild northern rez.
Early this morning, before dawn-Darcy remembered glimpsing her bedside clock reading 5:47-she had awakened to find a man beside her bed, holding a gun to her face.
When the police showed her a photo of Lon Jessup, she identified him positively, although he had shaved his beard and abandoned his tinted spectacles.
He had spoken to her soothingly, assuring her that he didn't intend harm, only wanted to have some fun. But he also warned her not to resist or cry out, and Darcy knew enough about weapons to realize that his pistol was small-caliber, probably a.22, with a sound suppressor on the muzzle; a shot would make less noise than the snap of a mousetrap. That, along with his chilling sense of authority, convinced her that he wouldn't hesitate to use it.
He ordered her to get dressed-and to go into her laundry hamper and give him the panties she had worn yesterday. Then they walked quietly out to his vehicle, where he had her crouch down on the floor of the passenger seat. She obeyed, assuming through her haze of fear and confusion that this would turn into a kinky sexual assault.
They went to a storage unit with a different vehicle parked inside it. He tied her up with an efficiency that made it clear he knew what he was doing, then zipped her into a mummy sleeping bag. Before he closed it over her face, he gripped several strands of her hair and yanked them from her head. He warned her again to stay quiet, and they took off on a longer drive.
This time, they paused along the way for several minutes-probably while Je
ssup broke into Seth Fraker's pickup truck to plant her hair and the nylon scrap from her panties.
After that they drove for most of an hour. She couldn't see anything, but the first and longest stretch was fast and relatively smooth-the highway to Basin. Then they turned off onto a slower, rougher road up into the mountains.
When they stopped for good, he pulled her out of the vehicle and freed her from the sleeping bag. They were deep in forest, far from any sign of humans. He untied her legs and they started walking.
By then, Darcy's mind had reached a state of frightening clarity. This man was not marching her out into the cold wet wilderness for sex. He made no more attempts to reassure her-didn't speak except for terse commands. And it had registered on her that he'd made no attempt to hide his face.
No doubt he was taking her to a remote hiding place, maybe one that he'd spotted on his fishing and hunting trips. The terrain was on the fringes of the Continental Divide-rugged, rarely traveled off-trail-and besides offering plenty of natural cover it was dotted with old mining excavations.
The odds that she ever would have been found were slim to nil.
She got her chance when they got to a deadfall-choked coulee and Jessup ordered her to stop; he climbed to the top of a small knoll, apparently trying to get his bearings. The distance between them still wasn't more than ten or fifteen yards, but as he scanned the surroundings, he half turned away from her. She sprinted the few steps to the ravine edge and threw herself over it, tumbling down the steep slope and digging her way frantically into its brush. He shouted at her to stop, and she thought she heard the popping sound of gunshots, but the cover was good and she wormed her way through it until she was shielded inside a jumble of rotting fallen timber.
Then began a desperate hide-and-seek, with her waiting, straining to listen for sounds of his pursuit-SEAL or not, he was a bulky fifty-year-old man, no match for lithe young Darcy in that kind of thick ground cover-and crawling farther each time she dared. He fired more shots that crashed through the brush around her, but she widened the distance between them steadily.
She guessed that the pursuit went on for an eternity of twenty or thirty minutes. Then, abruptly, the noise he made started to recede, and she wondered if he had given up and was heading back the way he'd come-or if that was what he wanted her to think.
She dug in, quietly covering herself with duff, and lay still for another hour, fearing that he'd found a vantage point and would see her if she moved. Eventually, she became aware of the drone of aircraft-and then, that the sound was more constant than just an occasional passing plane.
It finally dawned on her that that was probably what had scared Jessup into retreating. She dared to start moving again, at first still crawling and pausing to listen every few yards, then moving into thick forest and running. At least another hour passed before she heard a helicopter approaching close enough for her to flag down. By then she was on the edge of exhaustion.
Now all law enforcement resources were closing in on the area, looking for Lon Jessup. The immediate question was whether his vehicle was still where he'd left it when they started walking-whether he had gone back to it and gotten out, or was still on foot.
Darcy had only gotten a glimpse of the place, just enough to see that it was under the shelter of some decaying timbers. Now she couldn't describe the location with any accuracy; she'd never been in that country before, and she only had a rough idea of the distance and direction she'd traveled while running away. But authorities had identified a couple of possible sites and searchers were already on their way in to check them; the aircraft had narrowed their flyover zone and other personnel were ringing the overall area, hoping to spot and intercept Jessup.
It didn't take long for the experienced local men to get to those areas and relay back digital photos. Darcy quickly recognized the sagging, timbered overhang of an abandoned mine shaft in a cliffside; the tunnel was long since caved in, but the entrance formed a pocket big enough to shield a vehicle from casual view. Fresh tire tracks confirmed the find.
But the vehicle and Lon Jessup were gone.
Darcy hadn't gotten a good take on what he'd been driving, either; wrapped up in the sleeping bag, she'd barely seen it. She thought it was something like a Suburban or Expedition, off-white or gray, another of the generically common rides that Jessup seemed to favor, for reasons that were coming clear. It probably wouldn't have helped much, anyway. Interstate 15 was only a half hour's drive south, with highways branching off in all directions and places where he could rent or steal another car.
Madbird received the news with his usual stony face.
"Goddamn shame he ain't still in them woods," he said quietly.
Jessup had made a lucky decision to get the hell out of there. If he'd kept chasing Darcy long enough to get cut off from his vehicle, Madbird would have gone in after him, alone, and come back with his ears.
56
As the excitement settled down notch by notch, I started realizing that I was worn out and deflated, drained by the long nerve-racking day. There was nothing that I could do here. I said my good-byes, let Gary Varna know I'd be at my place if anything came along, and headed home.
Of course, I was hoping there'd be a phone message from Renee.
During the hours of waiting, I'd had plenty of time to think about how this might affect the situation between us.
Her father was finally absolved of Astrid's murder. It was virtually certain that the killer was the man who called himself Lon Jessup. Renee had triumphed. The years of ugly suspicion were ended, and the hidden menace that had hovered over her was exposed and on the run.
The question remained as to whether Jessup posed a long-term threat to her. At this point, it didn't seem that he had anything to gain by harming her. But a mind like that was unfathomable.
Even with an APB out for him and national law enforcement agencies joining the hunt, I wasn't at all confident that he'd ever be caught. His escape plan hadn't worked like he wanted; he'd been forced to jump the gun. If he'd succeeded at diverting attention to Fraker, he'd have had time to quietly fade away while the police were occupied with Fraker, going on vacation or a "business trip" and never coming back. There'd have been no reason to connect Jessup to Darcy. If anyone eventually did get suspicious, he'd be long gone, and it was unlikely that they'd even try to pursue him.
Still, it was clear that he had the groundwork well laid. He'd gotten a head start of a couple of hours, and no doubt he had plenty of money stashed and another identity to slip into. Soon he'd be just another bland-faced, middle-aged, outwardly solid citizen with vague business interests. As long as he paid his way and didn't cause trouble, he'd be welcome most places in the world, no questions asked.
With any luck-and, I thought, in all likelihood-he wouldn't want to jeopardize his safety again, and he'd stay far away for the rest of his life.
That still left a lot of baggage for Renee and me to deal with, along with the other concerns of our very different lives-and the good man, Ian, who wanted to marry her.
The only thing that would resolve all that was time.
Driving out of town, I remembered that the larder in my cabin was bare, so I stopped at the usual market and bought deli fried chicken, potato salad, bacon and eggs for breakfast tomorrow, and a six-pack of Tecate beer. As I walked back across the parking lot to my truck, I realized that I was feeling and breathing the delicious spring air in a way I'd been oblivious to for the past weeks. I couldn't say that I'd achieved closure, but in spite of weariness, the worries that lingered, and problems that still lay ahead, a deep sense of of relief was penetrating into my being.
Then I heard a rumbling sound behind me. It was quiet-somehow stealthy-and approaching fast.
I turned to face it as its source came abreast of me-Ward Ackerman's big green rust bucket of a sedan. It was traveling ten or fifteen miles per hour, not aimed at me like he was going to run me down, but close enough to brush me. My instant thought w
as that he was going to slam on the brakes and jump out, and we'd go through another bullshit confrontation.
Instead, the son of a bitch threw open his door without slowing down. I just had time to cover my gut and chest with my right arm, like I was blocking a body punch. The door caught me hard enough to knock me clear off my feet and send me skidding, with the groceries flying in every direction.
Ward screamed something at me and stomped on the gas, screeching away and waving his raised middle finger out the open window.
But my bile was swept aside by a flood of illumination. My mind, all on its own, suddenly created-or maybe discovered-a realm called Pissant Purgatory, where all the nasty, sneaky little shitweasels like Ward would do time when they died. There were no burning flames, no demons with pitchforks. The punishment was that they were forced to hang around with others just like themselves, with no nonpissants to suck blood from.
I got up carefully, wary of my still-healing ribs. They let me know they'd been hit, but my elbow and upper arm had absorbed most of the shock. The only other part of me that felt impaired was my dignity. A couple of the eggs were broken, but otherwise the groceries were okay, too.
I gathered everything up, popped open a frothing can of beer, and drank it on the way home.
57
The last tree-lined stretch of Stumpleg Gulch Road opened into a football field-sized meadow at the front of my property. My father had set the precedent of leaving a few big firs around the cabin for shade, but otherwise clearing a swath as a fire break, and I kept it that way.
So as I drove up to the gate, I had a clear view of a surprising and unsettling sight. My black tomcat was crouched under the fence, not moving.
Like a lot of pets, he recognized the sound of familiar vehicles like mine and Madbird's, and he'd usually meet us, stalking around and yelling at us to say hello, or just complaining.
