“Candles, I think,” she responded reluctantly. “Try the cabinet near the sink.”
He limped over, rummaged in the cabinet, and produced several squat votive candles and a box of kitchen matches. He lit two of the candles, and set both of them on the floor. Then, emitting a weary sigh, he gingerly sat down between the candles and supported his back against the cabinet. She noticed he was shivering again.
She was still holding her purse. She thought about her cell phone, then remembered that someone in her family should be calling her soon to check on her. Her fear, momentarily forgotten while they moved the cars, now returned in full force. The man had shown all the tenderness of a wounded lion. He wouldn’t take kindly to any more tricks. Staring at his large form and tough, weary expression, she suddenly realized the truth of the “eighth house.” She should have never come up to the mountains and shown the cabin. It had proven disastrous.
“Do you have to pace like that?” he sniped.
“I’m sorry. The gun makes me nervous,” she confessed.
“I put it away.”
“Yes, but it’s right there, handy. Isn’t it?”
He ignored her, sleeving beads of sweat off his forehead. His wound was getting worse, she realized when she noticed his pain-clouded eyes. Despite her fear and anger, she felt a twinge of pity for him.
“Who shot you?” she repeated. “The police?”
He shook his head. “Not the same police you have in mind. It was federal marshals.”
She halted, shocked into immobility. Federal marshals…his crime or crimes must be serious.
He gave a snort at the look on her face. “If you can’t handle the answers, don’t ask the questions.”
“You needn’t worry about what I can handle.”
She started pacing again.
“Will you please sit the hell down?” he demanded. “I’m getting a crick in my neck watching you.”
“I’ll sit down,” she agreed, doing so. “Now will you please tell me what’s going on, Mr. Loudon?”
For some time he simply ignored her question. Finally he nodded. When he spoke, his voice showed the strain he’d been through lately.
“I’ll leave out the names and just cut to the chase. Basically, I was sent out here from Washington, D.C., to assist on a massive, ongoing investigation into kickback schemes involving the Montana Department of Highways. Or I guess I should say allegedly involving them.”
“I’ve heard the word all my life,” she confessed, “but I’m not exactly sure what a ‘kickback’ is.”
“It just means a slice of the pie. Cost overruns are a venerable part of construction profits. You know, the doubling or even tripling of a project’s estimated price after the work is underway. Most in government understand this and seldom bring indictments over it. But lately there’s been a corps of new, reform-minded attorneys in the Justice Department. We’re trying to change the business-as-usual graft.”
He hesitated, as if trying to gather his thoughts. The front door stood open, the wedge of sky it revealed turning purplish blue in twilight. A breeze wafted, making the candles gutter. For a moment Constance smelled the clean, nose-tickling tang of the evergreens on the lower slopes. It only made her more miserable to be his captive.
“One day last spring,” he resumed, “I had to go see a certain judge in Billings. It was a touchy matter—I had already, under federal guidelines for internal review, subpoenaed certain phone and financial information on some attorneys he knew on a social basis. I’m allowed to do that, without notifying anyone, so long as no charges are filed.”
This time when he hesitated, on a sharp intake of hissing breath, she knew it was his wound.
“Anyway, I intended to ask the judge’s permission to execute a search warrant. I wanted agents to seize the private financial records of a certain state legislator, a guy I suspect is at the heart of the kickback scheme.”
A spasm of pain crossed his face, etching his handsome features even deeper in the candlelight.
“I never did talk to that judge. The county sheriff and I were on the verge of knocking on his office door when we saw the door was open a crack, and the judge was inside with a…ahh, let’s call him an attorney who represents certain road-construction bosses. This attorney was also one of the guys I had been investigating. Right before my ears and eyes—and the sheriff’s—he hands a briefcase stuffed with money to the judge.”
“A bribe?” she encouraged him to continue when he hesitated.
“The wise guys never use that word. It’s usually called a contribution, but damn straight it was a bribe. I knew it and the sheriff knew it. Schra—I mean, this judge regularly rules on cases involving the attorney’s clients.”
He paused, and she watched him touch a dry tongue to chapped lips. “Does that thing work?” he asked her, pointing to the hand pump bolted to the sideboard of the sink.
“I think so. It’s cistern water, but up here it’s safe to drink.”
She resisted the urge to help him when he struggled to his feet. He pumped the air out of the pipes, then waited for the rusty water to run clear. She watched him cup his hand and drink greedily.
“Anyway,” he said, picking up the thread of his story again as he joined her on the floor, “I made one very stupid mistake. I forgot all about the hallway security cameras that are standard equipment now in courthouse buildings. The tapes are routinely reviewed, at fast speed, and any unusual events are reported. So there the sheriff and I were, caught on film outside the judge’s door. And of course the date and time were recorded, too.”
“I see. So the men who were inside had sure knowledge that you came to the door and saw them?”
He nodded, his face morose and pensive in that flickering, yellow-orange light.
“Exactly. At first I thought it was just the security cameras that might have them worried. Us standing outside the door when the bribe came down. But now the sheriff’s missing. And I realize they must know, or at least suspect, that I’ve been building a case against them. They’ve turned my own game against me.”
“How do you know?”
His voice was sharp with bitter resentment. “The sheriff was just a good old boy retired from the fed that I knew and liked. We had lunch whenever we both had to go to the courthouse. He had nothing to do with the situation, just the wrong place, wrong time. Now he’s missing.” He stared at her, his eyes dark and sunken in his pain-filled face. “When they realized what we saw they knew it’d be damn hard to off an assistant U.S. Attorney in the middle of an investigation, but Cod—I mean, the sheriff, he was a piece of cake. They made him disappear, then they set about turning all the evidence against me, even that tape. You see, I was carrying a briefcase, too. So it was totally logical to simply suggest that I had come by that day to bribe the judge. Then, seeing he was with someone, I supposedly changed my mind and left without knocking.”
“But
