James Burke - Swan Peak

It was time to take a different tack. The convergence of so many disparate elements at Albert’s ranch was too much for coincidence. Clete had trespassed accidentally onto the Wellstone ranch, setting off a reaction by the Wellstone employees and then the Wellstones themselves. A college kid with ties to the Wellstone Ministries had been abducted and murdered on the ridge behind Albert’s house. Later, a drifter with a Texas accent who looked part Indian and called himself J. D. Gribble had shown up at Albert’s secondary pasture, claiming to be a down-and-out rodeo man but with a singing voice like Jimmie Rodgers. In the meantime, a drifter who looked a lot like J. D. Gribble had been hanging around the Swan Lake café and nightclub where Jamie Sue Wellstone often stopped in for a drink. Last, Troyce Nix, also from Texas, had appeared on the scene, looking for a man who had put a shiv in him, a man I thought Albert knew was his newly hired hand, J. D. Gribble.

I had gotten Jamie Sue Wellstone’s cell number from Clete before I drove in to the Swan. I parked in front of the nightclub on the lake and punched her number into my cell, wondering at the levels of unhappiness people could visit upon themselves, usually over things that were only symbols for the things they actually wanted. But the fate and choices of others were not my business. The attack on Clete Purcel was.

After the seventh ring, I got Jamie Sue’s voice mail. I left my name and told her I would like to talk with her, at any time or any place of her choosing. I did not tell her where I was. Nor did I expect her to call me back. I had already placed Jamie Sue Wellstone in a categorical shoe box, that of opportunist and user of other people. However, I was about to relearn an old lesson, namely that our judgments about our fellow human beings are usually wrong.

My cell vibrated while I was eating in the café. I flipped it open and placed it against my ear. “Hello?” I said.

“Mr. Robicheaux?” the voice said.

“Yes?” I replied.

“This is Jamie Sue Wellstone. What is it you want?”

Go right to it , I told myself. “To talk about a guy by the name of J. D. Gribble.”

I could hear her breathing in the silence. “Is he all right?” she asked.

“As far as I know. When can we talk?”

There was a long pause. “Where are you?”

“At the café on Swan Lake.”

“Are you a Christian?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“You’d better not deceive me, Mr. Robicheaux.”

How strange can it get?

Fifteen minutes later, she turned out of the late-afternoon shadows on the highway and parked in front of the nightclub. Her little boy was strapped into the child seat in back. She walked into the café holding him against her shoulder, a diaper bag hooked around her waist. She looked through the front window, then studied the vehicles parked in the side lot. I pulled out a chair for her, but she ignored the gesture and asked the waitress for a high chair, then walked through the bead curtain and checked to see who was inside the bar. When she sat down, her expression was circumspect, her frown like a tiny stitch between her eyebrows. She had not spoken a word.

“That’s a handsome little boy you have there,” I said.

Still she didn’t speak. Her eyes were busy with thought, as though she was reconsidering the wisdom of meeting with me.

“What was Gribble down for?” I said.

She didn’t understand.

“He doesn’t deny he’s done time,” I said. “He just doesn’t say what for.”

“He tried to help someone.”

“You’re seeing him?”

“I came here for one reason only, Mr. Robicheaux. Somebody has to help J.D. before he gets hurt. That female FBI agent was out to our house again. She talked about you.”

“FBI agents don’t do that.”

“She said you were an ex-drunk but an honest man. I took her at her word. I’m taking you at yours. A man named Troyce Nix came to our house. He’ll kill J.D. if he catches him.”

“Why don’t you tell J.D. this?”

“J.D. wants both me and his son back. He won’t leave unless we go with him.”

“I think your friend is a fugitive, but I’ll say this anyway. If I were you two, I’d take my little boy and get a lot of gone between me and the Wellstone family.”

“You don’t know them.”

“I don’t want to.”

“They won’t let me go. I know too much. The Wellstone Ministries aren’t a scam about money. They’re not interested in money. They don’t even preach politics. They focus on the family, on family values, all that kind of stuff. They’ve won over millions of people that way. Toward election time, the message goes out: If you believe in the family, vote against gay marriage and abortion. Vote against the people who believe in them. The Ministries don’t get you to vote for people, they get you to vote against them. All they need is about four percent of the electorate. They’re hooked in with some of the most powerful people in the country.”

“Who cares? Get away from them.”

“They’ll find J.D. No one will know what happened to him. No one will find a body. No one will find a witness. You think I’m making this up?”

No, I didn’t. But I had no solution for her predicament or the sorrow and regret that I suspected characterized her daily life. “Who killed those two college kids?”

“I don’t know. I don’t like to think about it,” she replied.

“I doubt their parents do, either.”

Wrong choice.

“You hear me on this, Mr. Robicheaux. I just wanted a good life for my child. I also wanted to get his father out of prison. That’s why I married Leslie. He came to a club where I was playing. He was a gentleman, and he was kind and well mannered. He’s good to little Dale. He treats him like his own son. But I-” She took a butter knife out of her child’s hand and gave him a ring of car keys to play with. “I made a mistake when I married him. Leslie is not to blame, I am.” She hesitated again. “I was attracted by his wealth, too. I have to live with that knowledge about myself, and it’s not pleasant. I don’t know who murdered those kids. Probably the same person who killed that poor couple from California. But I’m not the person to ask.”

“The attack on Clete Purcel was not random,” I said. “The attacker is a sadist whose targets are given to him by someone else. Who has that level of hatred for Clete, Ms. Wellstone? Who has the motivation? You’re a smart woman. Don’t tell me you don’t know the answer to that question.”

“Leslie is too proud and vain.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“He believes in nothing except his own disillusionment with the world. He thinks his war injuries are such that he’s above any pain others can inflict upon him. He thinks of revenge as a mark of mediocrity.”

“You’ve already said he and his brother are capable of having J.D. killed.”

“You weren’t listening. They do nothing in a direct way. When somebody gets in their way, they bring up the problem with their attorneys or a man who runs their computer systems or the head of a security agency in Dallas. Without their ever knowing what happens, somebody’s life becomes a nightmare, or he just disappears.”

“Somebody broke into Seymour Bell’s house. He and his girlfriend, Cindy, had evidence of some kind about the Wellstones. What was it?”

“They were just kids. What could they have that could hurt Leslie and Ridley?”

“That’s the point. They were rural Montana kids. What did they have in their possession that would make someone kill them?”

“It’s not how Ridley and Leslie operate,” she said, more to herself than to me, her eyes searching in space.