Deadly Reckoning

  Irita had the answer in her expression. Her piercing eyes were always sizing up a situation. When she talked, she never took her eyes off you. And when she wasn’t talking, if she had something on her mind, it was impossible to hide.

  “Mountain Gallery and Frames is into us for three months of quarter-page ads and has paid for one week. Come on, what do you know?”

  Irita sighed and then said, “You didn’t hear it from me.”

  Mesa nodded.

  “I think Chance and she might have something going,” Irita said and turned her head away as if she expected Mesa to yell or throw something.

  True, women adored Chance. That wasn’t news. Even Stephanie, who had divorced him, still loved him. Women sensed they could trust Chance— not that he didn’t have all the usual male blind spots, but he was not a steamroller, and that was rare. He had manners and he knew how to treat women. “What do you mean, ‘thing’?” Mesa asked. “You mean ‘thing’ thing?”

  Irita rolled her eyes. “I hate talking about stuff like this. I think you should ask Chance.”

  “You bet I will. I’m not asking you to gossip,” Mesa said matter-of-factly, as if she knew Irita wouldn’t dream of such a thing. “Just tell me what you do know.”

  Irita sighed and Mesa had the sense that her newly found confidante was genuinely reluctant to reveal the story. “We’ve been having these Art Walks the last few summers, once a month, on Fridays. Local artists set up exhibitions of their work in different stores around town. Well, these last two months Adrienne DeBrook has been showing her own work, and at least one of her paintings is of Chance. Apparently, she has a cabin north of town, up on Moulton, where she goes to paint. So I guess he’s spent enough time up there to get his portrait done.”

  Mesa was taken aback. She had suspected that Chance might be giving a break to yet another local who was down on her luck. She might have gone along with trading ad space for a new set of golf clubs. But romance? And with an artist, no less? What surprised her even more was that he hadn’t told her about the woman himself.

  His only real interest in art had been limited to architecture. Their parents had dragged them, as kids, to every museum within a half-day’s drive from the various Air Force bases where they had lived. They had visited most of the great museums of Europe, but Mesa was the one who liked art.

  The phone rang and interrupted her quandary.

  “Mesa?”

  She recognized Chance’s voice. “Where have you been?” she asked, trying not to sound too snarky.

  “Don’t leave for lunch yet. I need to talk to you.”

  “Likewise,” she said, but he had already hung up.

  When Chance walked into the editor’s office barely five minutes later carrying a white paper bag filled with Pork Chop John sandwiches and fries, Arnold Cinch was haranguing Irita and Mesa about “local hooligans” who had vandalized a Messenger distribution stand.

  “The airplane that crash-landed didn’t belong to the guy in it,” Chance announced with animated gestures. “And, there was no ID on him either. So the National Transportation Safety investigator had a fingerprint check run on the guy,” he said and began offering the bag of fries around to the trio. “Guess who the victim was? Go on, take a guess.”

  Mesa shrugged her shoulders. “Jimmy Hoffa?”

  Chance rolled his eyes. “None other than the criminal who caused one of the biggest manhunts in the West in the past thirty years.”

  “Now wait a minute, did I miss something?” Irita asked. “Last I heard, Ted Kaczynski’s in federal prison in Kansas or some damn place.”

  “Ha, ha,” Chance said. “This is someone who served his time and was released. Come on now, don’t you people read the newspapers? Cinch, you’re the resident historian. Help ’em out. Who caused the biggest stink in poaching history in the Northwest in the last twenty-five years?”

  “If this is Final Jeopardy,” Arnold said, his face deadpan, “I’d like a new category.”

  Chance grabbed the front section of the Standard from Mesa’s desk and tossed it onto the sofa. Lowell Austin in his last prison photo stared out from the bottom corner of the front page. “You mean you haven’t read the morning paper today?”

  Irita sat quietly, pensive, for once.

  “You know, don’t you, Irita?” Chance said, turning toward her. “Apparently women loved this guy. That’s probably why he got off so light. They even wrote a country and western love song about him, for God’s sake.”

  “You don’t mean Lowell Austin?” Irita said in disbelief.

  “One and the same.”

  “They’re teaching flying in prison now?” Cinch said.

  Chance plopped down between the two employees and put his arms on the sofa behind them. “I didn’t say he flew the plane, but he’s who they found in it, very dead.”

  “Well, I’m sure every Fish, Wildlife, and Parks warden in the Northwest will be ecstatic,” Cinch said. “May I go now?”

  “Somebody want to fill me in?” Mesa said with her arms folded.

  Chapter 8

  Mesa had never been particularly drawn to tales of rugged, western individualism, with the exception of Brad Pitt and “A River Runs through It,” but this story had her attention. Cinch summed up the life of Lowell Austin like it was a made-for-TV movie, which apparently it had been.

  “Killed two law officers and led the FBI around by the nose before charming a nearly all female jury into convicting him of the least severe charge possible,” Cinch said in a disinterested monotone. “Unrepentant, Austin thumbed his nose at the parole board and served his full twenty-five years, minus three years for so-called good behavior, so he could be released a completely free man.”

  Mesa quickly did the math. This had all happened long before she began reading newspapers. “He must have had a good lawyer,” she said.

  “I don’t remember hearing anything about this guy either,” Chance said to Mesa. “Maybe we weren’t stateside. Must have happened, what, in the mid-’80s?” He looked to Cinch for confirmation.

  Cinch nodded. “I was a stringer in DC at the time. I was sipping my bourbon in some dive bar in DuPont Circle one afternoon when somebody showed me an article in the New York Times about the trial. They glorified Austin, the loner with good manners, a vivid imagination, and a mean streak. You’ve seen that kind of journalism back East,” Cinch said with a nod toward Mesa. “Look at the animals in the zoo kind of thing,” Cinch said with disdain. “That kind of romanticized reportage would make even open-minded Montanans want to repeal freedom of the press.”

  Unfortunately, Mesa did know. Happenings in the western states rarely made the front page of an eastern newspaper, unless you counted news from California, which might as well be a foreign country as far as most Montanans were concerned. The other news that was covered tended to be as Cinch described. “I can imagine what the Fish, Wildlife and Parks types thought,” Mesa said quietly.

  “They still haven’t forgotten,” Cinch said. “I was at the Nite Owl last week when the news broadcast that Austin was getting out. You know Hoyt Rawlins, who works in Fish, Wildlife and Parks?” Cinch said to Chance in a way that suggested to know him was not necessarily to love him.

  Chance nodded. Rawlins was a monster of a guy who had spent several years as a boxer before he had taken up a career as a game warden, a job he loved more than money.

  “The general consensus in our local Fish, Wildlife, and Parks office is that Austin was a rattlesnake and a murderer who should have been hung,” Cinch said. “Of course, in Butte, just as many people would say he’s done his time, leave him alone.”

  Mining towns were notorious for their tolerance of those down on their luck, even those who had been rightfully convicted. If you did a hard day’s work, no one cared about your past. “Judging from what happened to him,” Mesa said offhandedly, “he was safer in prison.”

  “Exactly my point,” Chance said. “And obviously, he wasn’t flying that pla
ne. Unless, like Cinch said, they’re teaching something in prison besides furniture making.”

  “So what are you saying?” Mesa asked. A hint of curiosity began to arouse in her.

  “A pilot, who apparently didn’t want to be associated with the crash or Lowell Austin, walked away. That’s the story I’m interested in.”

  “That’s not a crime, is it?” Mesa asked. “Like leaving the scene of an accident if you’re driving a car and somebody gets hurt?”

  “Ask the FAA,” Chance said. “Maybe if you’re dazed and confused, you could wander off. But if it was my plane, I’d stick around.”

  “Speaking of being responsible,” Irita chimed in, “Cinch and I have work to do.”

  The two departed, and Chance stood up to follow.

  “Hold up,” Mesa said. She wasn’t about to let Chance walk away without hearing about Adrienne DeBrook. “I need to talk to you about the advertising revenue. Seems we have some accounts that are in arrears.”

  “Okay, but let me get Erin going on this story first,” Chance said between French fries.

  “Anna showed me the budget this morning,” Mesa said, not relenting. “You’ve turned her into a nervous wreck.”

  “Not to worry,” he said over his shoulder. “The Copper Pot will settle up at the end of the month. The Dumas, well, I’m putting them on a long-term payment plan. Plus, they may reopen. The antique sex toys have turned up.”

  “And what about Mountain Gallery and Frames?” Mesa asked, trying not to seem any more concerned about it than the other accounts. She handed the insert to Chance, who stopped in the doorway and looked at the ad “We haven’t lost that account,” he said. “The owner just decided to diversify her marketing strategy.”

  “Well, you don’t suppose the Standard ran that ad for free, do you?”

  “What do you mean?” Chance said. He sounded genuinely puzzled.

  “Mountain Gallery and Frames owes us twelve hundred dollars.”

  “They do?” Chance said and took the spreadsheet that Mesa held out to him.

  “She’s good for it, I’m sure. I’ll get on it right away,” he said with a big smile and headed down the hallway with Mesa after him.

  Anna Takkinen called to Mesa from her cubicle. “A check arrived in the mail from Mountain Gallery this morning. Paid in full.”

  “See, I told you,” Chance said with a grin.

  “Who is the owner anyway?” Mesa asked. There was nothing for it but to be direct. “I’ve never heard of the place.”

  “Name’s Adrienne DeBrook,” Chance said in his usual casual way. “She’s an artist. Moved to Butte last spring.”

  And then he was gone before Mesa could ask any more questions. So be it. She would find out more on her own.

  * * *

  Around 1:30, Mesa walked up Wyoming Street, deciding she needed to reacquaint herself with the ambience of Uptown Butte from the point of view of the pedestrian. The fact that her route took her to Park Street and directly past the Mountain Gallery was purely coincidental. She peered through the tall front windows into the long gallery. At the back, she could see a counter with sample frames mounted neatly on the walls behind, but no one was about.

  She entered the shop, telling herself she would never pass up a new art gallery, not even in Butte. On one wall, half a dozen large portraits by a local artist she had heard about, Bonnie Rummenthal, caught her attention. The features of the figures were brash and bold—miners wearing headlamps, a ranch hand wiping his brow—the subjects teeming with enthusiasm for hard work.

  Mesa turned to look at the opposite wall, on which hung dozens of smaller pieces—watercolors of street scenes and mine head frames in Uptown Butte, suitable for souvenir-seeking tourists. Clearly, Adrienne DeBrook had some marketing sense. Mesa had to concede that the establishment felt comfortable—unpretentious but appealing, not to mention prosperous, which was how she liked to think of their advertising customers, especially if they paid on time.

  Toward the back wall mounted on an easel, Mesa saw the painting Irita had called Chance’s portrait, or at least the painting he had posed for. It was less a portrait than a painting with a figure in it, though anyone who knew Chance would know he had posed for the artist. Mesa wondered why that bothered her.

  Bare-chested, grappling with a fence post with a head frame in the distance, his deerhide-gloved hands drew the viewer’s focus into the center of the watercolor. High-contrast greens, golds, and dark browns made Mesa think of an Andrew Wyeth exhibit she had seen once at the Smithsonian. This one, titled “Whiskey Ridge Gulch,” was priced at $1600.

  She wasn’t sure how long she had been looking at the painting when she heard a measured voice say, “I’m not sure I like the title.”

  Mesa looked up to see a woman standing behind her and gazing at the same painting. Dressed in a denim skirt and lavender, short-sleeved silk blouse, she wore amethyst earrings, accented with diamond chips, and looked like she could afford to plop down sixteen hundred bucks for a painting without any trouble.

  “I think using numbered titles or geographical names is a good idea,” Mesa said, trying not to sound proprietary, as though the fact that her brother was the model for the painting gave her some special insight. “Otherwise the artist overstates the work, like she’s trying to tell the viewer what to think. Wouldn’t you say?” This last statement sounded more perfunctory than she meant it to.

  The woman smoothed her well-coifed, silver-gray hair away from her tanned face and nodded, not so much in agreement as in consideration. The scent of expensive perfume wafted through the air.

  “How can you tell a woman painted it?” she asked.

  Mesa shrugged. “I can’t really. I mean I’m not sure I would say a woman did. I just happen to know the artist.”

  “You do?” the woman said, her face lit up in a curious smile that made her look younger than the graying hair would suggest.

  “I know of her, I guess I should say,” Mesa said, not wanting to seem as if she was trying to impress this stylish woman.

  “Are you from Butte?” the woman asked.

  Mesa shrugged. “Might as well be. I have family who live here, and I spent lots of time with them as a kid. I moved back for a while just recently.”

  Mesa suspected this woman was from the West Coast—L.A. or Seattle. She moved easily, inviting the space around her—poise you didn’t see often in Easterners out of their element. She wasn’t afraid to strike up a conversation with a stranger in some out-of-the-way place either. That was confidence that came from living in urban quarters. “Where are you from?” Mesa asked.

  The woman moved toward the counter, adjusting a watercolor of a gallows frame along the way. A queasy feeling engulfed Mesa, like the time she had discovered Chance’s stash of girlie magazines under his bed and wanted to believe they didn’t belong to him.

  “I live here in Butte, though I’m a transplant. I was born in Kalispell, but I have to confess I spent thirty years in dreaded California. And I’m working hard to recover and fit in again,” she said with a smile. “I just opened this gallery.”

  Mesa took a deep breath and tried to think what she should say next. A heart-pounding moment of fight or flight finally passed. Mostly she thought about telling the truth, but even that was hard—the order of things, what to say first. Thankfully, Adrienne DeBrook seemed to have some task at hand, or at least she had the good grace to pretend she did.

  Finally, Mesa just blurted it out. “I’m Chance’s sister, Mesa.” She stepped forward to the counter with her hand outstretched and hoped she didn’t look as much like someone’s kid sister as she felt, and probably sounded. Why hadn’t she said, “I’m Mesa Dawson” and just left it at that?

  Adrienne immediately broke into a smile and came back around the counter. She took Mesa’s hand in both of hers.

  “Of course, I should have known. The resemblance is obvious. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. Chance speaks of you so often,
I feel like I practically know you. So what do you think of ‘Whiskey Run Gulch’?” She reached with her hand toward the painting as if she were remembering how it felt to touch him. “Chance says you’re the one in the family with the artistic sensibility.”

  She was so relaxed that Mesa was filled with envy. “I like it,” Mesa said. “I’m impressed with your technique. Dry brush, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Adrienne said and talked for a few minutes about why she chose the method, which involves squeezing most of the moisture from the brush and painting with a few bristles to intensify the hues, especially in the detail of the gloves and the belt buckle.

  Mesa’s mind was abuzz. The issue of the gallery’s accounts had faded to the background. All she could think about was what kind of relationship Chance might have with this woman, who had to be easily fifteen years older than her brother. She barely heard Adrienne’s question.

  “Do you paint?”

  Mesa shook her head. She probably never would either as long as someone as accomplished as Adrienne DeBrook was in Chance’s life. “No, I lean toward the written word for artistic expression.” She sounded so lame. God, how was she going to get out of this?

  “Chance tells me how good a writer you are. I’m looking forward to what you can do with the Messenger.”

  This was the segue Mesa needed to retreat gracefully, expressing gratitude for the Gallery’s advertising business, mentioning specifically the most recent payment. Speaking of the Messenger, Mesa was about to say, when the bell at the door rang and an equally well-coifed woman in matching linen blouse and shorts entered, carrying several rolled canvases and demanding attention.

  Adrienne excused herself to attend to her customer, and Mesa backed out of the shop, promising to return soon. Once on the sidewalk, she hurried back around the corner and leaned against the building to gather herself, all too aware of her hyper-physical reaction to the idea of Chance with an older woman.

  Her mind spun with self-criticism. If Chance were seeing a woman fifteen years younger, would she react this way? How could she call herself a feminist if her ideas about sex and age were so narrow? And would she feel this way if the younger guy involved with Adrienne was somebody besides Chance?