There are many things from which I might have
derived good by which I have not profited, dare I say.
   —Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

THE BITTER air went through Matt’s clothes and cut into his skin. Quickly, he pulled a greatcoat close around his neck. He reached under the hood and unplugged the extension cord for the engine heater that kept Sall’s Jeep from freezing. Then he scraped the frost off the windows of the Jeep. In a few hours it would be colder still.

Clouds covered half the mountains. As they came into the foothills, the moon rose, illuminating the bulk of the range. They ascended into the fog, and Sall spoke again.

“Okay,” she said. “Tell me about it. So, we’re going to see this thing with Sherrill and Patricia—their play. But what happens afterward? Is this like that time when we had to spend all evening with your informer? Remember? That bum threw up all over me.”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Matt said. He reached in the pocket of his great-coat and pulled out a folded copy of the composite poster. “A man I know in Wallace—Old Albi—knows something about the case. He said I could come tonight.”

“But why are we going to Sixth Street Melodrama?”

“Albi is in the play. He was surprised to get my call—outside of work, he doesn’t like attention. So he suggested we see the play. Then we have a drink with him, afterward, and it’s not like we planned anything. He’s a pretty secretive guy.”

Her voice was soft now. “I wonder—Oh, wait, slow down! I love the view here.”

Matt carefully slowed the Jeep. From the top of Fourth of July Pass, they looked for a moment over a land of racing clouds torn apart by towers of ice projecting from the mountains. The Jeep pushed through the cloudbank toward the Valley. Then the wind kicked up a screen of blown snow, and the mountains were gone.

“Of all good days in the year, on Christmas Eve, Scrooge sat busy in his counting house.” One spotlight came up slowly on an old man sitting center stage, a bank register before him. “Scrooge was hard and sharp as flint. The cold within him froze . . .”

Sall leaned close to Matt and whispered. “That’s Patricia Grounds.”

“Are you sure?” said Matt. He looked closer, and recognized Doug’s old public speaking teacher, a longtime actress in the Valley. “She’s playing a male role?”

“She’s the star,” whispered Sall. “Her husband, Sherrill, is playing all the spirits.”

“The clocks intoned the hour. Fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole.”

Matt had last seen Doug’s speech and drama teacher ten years ago. He’d gone to see Doug in a play—and although he thought Doug was an atrocious actor, he’d loved seeing the joy on his son’s face after the performance. Although Doug’s teacher had always used a wheelchair, Matt remembered her as a cheerful, youthful presence. But he could see that this evening, the lines drawn to make her into Scrooge were sketched on top of existing wrinkles.

Seeing her brought Doug back into his mind. Back before the accident, before he lost the election, he’d used Doug as an excuse, a cover. He made him lie. Almost every day, he made him lie for his father. Whenever the election tension or some sheriff’s case got under his skin, he’d buy a bottle of Jack Daniel’s or good Scotch and disappear for a while. He always told Pop and Sall he was working on some car with Doug.

But he never was. Yet Doug, like a good son, always backed him up. And he must have gotten damn tired of dishonesty. It sickened Matt now, to think of the endless rounds of subterfuge he’d created to conceal his not-so-secret drinking sessions. He quit, finally, but it was too late for Doug. Of course he had to leave. He wanted a life that wasn’t a lie.

A wind machine filled the room with a white wash of sound. Matt looked at the stage again. The actors all approached a frozen center, a man who could not move. The wheelchair-bound Pat was an inspired choice to play Scrooge.

Albi’s face floated in the frame of a door. It was lit from below, a frozen leer. Matt nudged Sall. “That’s him. I guess he’s playing Marley.”

“Humbug!” said Scrooge.

But Marley shouted, “I am pursued by a legion of goblins, all my own making.”

“Humbug!” said Scrooge again. He sounded less convinced.

The audience jumped as Marley bellowed, “I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it, every link . . . Of my own free will, I wore it.”

“I don’t know about meeting him, Matt,” Sall whispered. “He’s pretty convincing.”

“Look to see me no more before the changing of the hours,” bellowed Marley. “And look that you remember what I have told you, this night!”

After Marley was gone, they turned off the wind machine, and the fatigue of the last week finally caught up to Matt, he found himself falling asleep. When he woke up to random lines, all of it seemed part of one continuous dream, where Matt himself, wearing the bloated body of the drowned, held Arlen’s severed head aloft at center stage. Someone screamed in the background as the theater flamed. Matt shuddered awake.

Outside the theater it was cold enough for their breaths to steam in the night air. Underfoot, tiny granules of hardened snow crunched and shifted like sand. From the front door of the theater, they could see the cars moving endlessly on I-90. The red taillights seemed festive as the cars stopped and started at the stoplight. From the intersection came a faint, tinny clanging, a bell and a charity kiosk on the highway corner.

“Hey!” called a booming voice from across the street. “Got time for a drink?” It was Old Albi, faint streaks of macabre makeup still on his cheeks and collar. Carefully, he unlocked the Bar and Grill next door to the Melodrama.

“Albi’s is closed,” he said. “But I’ve got a key.” Albi flipped the lights on over the bar and gave a mocking laugh. “Matt would know—you used to practically live in here.”

“Yeah, well,” said Matt. “I’ve been dry a few months now. Look—”

“You’ll never really go dry, Matty.” Albi expertly made a drink for Sall and poured another shot glass, pushing it to Matt. “You can have one for the holidays, can’t you?”

Matt pushed the glass away and looked at his watch. “Let’s cut to the chase. We still need to drive back over the pass, and I’d prefer to get going before it freezes up.”

Albi pulled the shot glass back and took a sip himself. “No need to get high and mighty, Matt. Better folks than you been here. Just last week, Jerry Dolph was in here—”

“The governor?” said Sall.

Albi nodded. “Yup—he came through on that special Centennial train, and then he stopped and spent two hours back there with the slots. C’mon, Matt, what’ll you have?”

“Got any coffee?”

Albi shook his head. “Damn, Matt, now you’re a fuckin’ Boy Scout.” He flipped on the coffee percolator.

Sall glanced between them, as if she sensed the edge of frost in the air. “May I?” said Sall, gesturing at the dimly lit back room where the slots waited.

“Sure,” said Albi sullenly. “But we don’t rig ’em for you, and there ain’t no refunds. Even for cops.”

Albi lifted his shot glass from the counter and held it in front of his mouth for a minute. He glanced toward the back room. Sall was out of sight. The faint rolling sound of the slots could be heard. Albi took a tiny sip before he put the glass down on the counter and leaned forward over the bar.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Matty? Highway over the pass is frozen harder than a wedding dick, snow’s pissing down. No one comes over here from Coeur d’Alene in the fuckin’ winter. What the hell do you need so bad that you couldn’t ask for it over the phone?”

Matt stepped back, as if struck by the blow. “Someone who talked to the chaplain, the night he died, said he was talking about you. Called you Leonard.”

“Jesus, this is about Arlen Bowman.” Albi breathed deeply, and seemed to brace himself on the bar. “So what—Arlen called me by my given name: Leonard. So what?”

Matt leaned forward. “I want to know what happened to Arlen. Why was he being followed? Who was after him? We found a guy dead in the lake—mining tattoos all over him, fingerprints matched for a Curtis Siwood. Yet his name is on the memorial for the dead from the Sunshine Mine. And I don’t know why this guy with Siwood’s name was after Arlen.”

He waited as Albi swabbed out a pair of empty glasses that sat on the bar.

“At least, I think he was a miner,” said Matt. “That’s all I know.”

Albi stared at him. “I can’t figure out what game you’re playing, Matty.”

“I’m still trying to figure it out—about why Arlen died. Who could have—”

“Well, hell, are you here because someone told you I catalogue my tapes?”

“Tapes?”

Albi cocked an eyebrow at Matt. “Videotapes. I got a security camera, got everything on tape—everyone who comes by here, every day. So when your poster came out, I found a segment that looked interesting. I showed that piece to a couple of my barflies. That must be why you’re here. You want to see that same segment?”

Matt shrugged. “Sure.”

At first, the images were ethereal, a mesh of lines and magnetic static from a tape that had been used too many times to count. The lines overlaid each person who walked along the street. Then Matt saw two small white boxes that moved up and down, coming into resolution as they approached closer to the camera. Small white food boxes.

“See?” said Albi. “Here he is—your guy comes out of Wah Hing Restaurant, carrying take-out Chinese. Then he walks up the freeway off-ramp with his little boxes, like there’s someone waiting in his car.”

Matt took the remote. As the man approached, Matt slowed the tape. There was a wariness in the man’s eyes, as if he were afraid of being watched. And now Matt could recognize the face. In the blotchy version on the videotape, the eyes tracked nervously.

“This is him. But there aren’t any answers coming from that quarter anymore.”

“Dead?”

Matt nodded. “Found in the lake. We’re going to bury him in a pauper’s grave, no family we can locate. We think his real name was Curtis Siwood. By all accounts, he was a bastard and a half.” In blurred slow motion, the man on the video screen turned his head, showing a profile. Around his neck hung something, a red blotch.

Matt looked sharply at Albi. “You talked to Arlen the same week you recorded this video, didn’t you?”

Albi crinkled his brow and touched the video remote. “Who said that?”

Matt shook his head. “I can’t tell you.”

The coffee bubbled and hissed behind him, and Albi reached for two mugs, poured black coffee, put one of them in front of Matt. “There are more angles in this town than a damn pool table. What’s yours?”

Matt ground his teeth together in frustration. “I don’t know if it’s safe to tell you, Albi. Dammit, you’ve known me for years, can’t you give me some help here?”

Albi put a set of clean glasses on the shelf behind him and pulled down an unopened bottle of whiskey. “You said you stopped drinking.”

Matt sighed and looked away, toward the wall. This again. “Yeah.” he said.

“How long you been dry?”

“Four months. But this time, it’s for real.”

Matt felt a sense of connection, some hope that he could be trusted again.

Then Albi sighed too, and the moment went away as suddenly as it had come. “Dammit, Matty, I’ve heard that line before, from every drunk in the world.”

“Look, what do I have to do to prove to you—”

Albi held up a hand. Flat, like a stop sign. “You don’t have to prove anything to me, Matt. I’m in it for me. You watch your own ass—I sure as hell ain’t doing it for you.” He looked over the rim of his coffee cup. “But you know, I am curious about one thing. I sure would like to know why you stopped drinking at the end of the summer. Why then?”

“Jesus, Albi, they’re tying me into it too, they claim they’ve got something on me too, and I just—” Matt’s voice dropped as he glanced toward the back room.

“Your wife doesn’t know this yet? Doesn’t pay to keep secrets from your wife. Let me tell you that from experience—I had three of ’em.” Albi held up a hand, touched the thick gold ring on one finger. “I’m stringing along number four right now . . . don’t know if she’ll go the distance, frankly. But hell, if you’re digging Sally’s grave, if you—”

Matt slammed his mug down with a sound like a hammer landing, a splash of black hit the table. He turned his back to the bar and gazed out at the tables sitting empty. The sound of the slots was a tinny echo from the back. “You want me to tell someone the truth—I’ll tell you then, Albi. Back in August, I know I was here at the Bar and Grill. Jesus, I remember waking up in the morning, feeling like hell, and with a vague memory of telling Arlen some of my secrets, what I . . .”

Matt paused and turned back toward the spilled coffee. “Only problem is that when I look at the record, it was the night before Arlen was found dead, the same night things went wrong for him. I don’t know.”

Albi opened a bottle and pointed at a corner. “I remember—you talked to Arlen for hours in that booth over there. Got all weepy an’ shit, as I remember.”

Matt turned quickly around. “You saw me? You remember?”

“You’re a mean drunk, Matty.” Albi held up a shot glass of whiskey and poured it into his coffee. Then he glanced up at Matt. “Arlen liked to say that Albi’s Bar and Grill was his church in the Silver Valley—and it seemed to me that usually Arlen didn’t mind confessions. But that night, he did mind. After he was done with you, Arlen looked like something the cat drug in. Before he left, he asked for a drink. He didn’t have a drink here very often. So I guessed, over the years, that he only did it when he felt dirty after talking to someone. So I figured you confessed to some nasty business that night—”

“But, Jesus, I just told him what happened with—”

Albi waved off his answer. “I don’t want to hear it all over again, Matty. So you told him something you weren’t proud of—maybe you cheated on Sally or something like that. And when you left here, I’d swear you were more drunk than I thought a man could be and still stand up. Arlen left right after you, maybe he met you outside, he’s not drunk, but he looks like hell. I’m worried for both of you.”

“What happened after that?”

“You have your secrets, Matty. I’ve got mine.” Albi raised his coffee cup in the air, giving a mock toast before he drank.

“Jesus, Albi. I’m asking you—I’m begging you—not as a sheriff’s officer or anything, but as a . . . as a friend. Please, please level with me. Save me.”

“Why the hell should I do that? You don’t even know if you need to be saved.”

“You know, truth is, I always disliked Arlen. I don’t like folks who turn to God to solve their problems. And he always seemed too high and mighty for me. But hell, I wouldn’t kill him, would I?” Matt’s voice trailed off.

Albi raised his coffee cup and drank from the steam. “You tell me, Matty. You had a God who lives in a bottle, didn’t you? I don’t know what you could have done.”

Matt leaned across the bar, his voice softening as he spoke. “Jesus, Albi, I’m beginning to doubt myself what happened. Afterward, I don’t know what I did—did I see him again? I went home and drank more. I don’t know what I might have done.”

“You’re saying you had a blackout. Another one. You’re sticking to that story?”

Matt shook his head slowly. He took a drink of his coffee and looked away, not trusting himself to meet Albi’s accusing eyes. “Will you testify for me?” he said. “Will you tell the prosecutor I was here all evening? That Arlen left long before me?”

“What’s it worth to me?”

“Jesus, I don’t know. I need a break here, Albi. I can’t sleep, I can’t think—I just keep seeing him dead, and everywhere I turn . . . If you talked to Arlen after that, if you saw him alive, or might know anything more about this guy on the video, I need that on my side. I need some breathing space to find out who did actually do it. I know for sure that the kid they arrested—Kevin—he didn’t do anything here. I want to know the truth. I think we deserve the truth, even if it points back to me. And truth is, this kid is innocent. Don’t you give a damn about the truth anymore?”

Albi didn’t seem to have heard Matt’s question. Slowly, he poured another shot of whiskey into his coffee. He held the shot glass in the air, the whiskey dripping into the steaming mug, the aroma drifting into the air. Slowly, he put it down and spoke again.

“Shit, Matty, I can’t believe the truth matters anymore. But maybe you’re the one with the straight flush. Because if you knew the truth, you wouldn’t be asking me.”

“What truth?”

“I think I made the phone call that got the whole shitstorm rolling. Back in mid-August, Arlen comes in here and he pulls me aside, and then he tells a humdinger of a hypothetical story. First, he asks me if I happened to know what caused some mine deaths, and if I could finger someone with serious dirty money in this town, what would I do? I know he’s thinking of Herrick— he’s the only money player still in town. Maybe Arlen thought he was being damn tricky, but I saw right through it.”

Albi breathed out, and Matt could smell the whiskey. “After Arlen leaves, I make my phone call. Now I make a call like this every so often, keep myself in his good graces. Make sure William Herrick knows me, pays me. And after I hear this from Arlen, I make my little phone call for that month.”

“You called William Herrick? And told him what?”

“Jesus, Matty, I cover my ass, same as anyone. I keep my ear to the ground for Will Herrick—or the other side, if that bitch would pay me. I send ’em both dirt, if I can. That night, I told Will Herrick that there were allegations floating around about mining sabotage, things his father may have done.”

“Why would you do such a thing?”

“Hell, Matt, those are some serious allegations. Could really affect his business—and of course at the time, I’m thinking it has to be bullshit. Anything like that would have come out years ago. And Herrick pays good money to shut down gossip like that.”

“You did it for the money?”

“What do you think, Matty? C’mon, besides, it just can’t be true.” Albi swallowed his drink in one gulp. “And if it is, I figure Herrick will cover his butt— maybe get proof out in the newspapers or something like that, that’ll be the end of it.”

“But that wasn’t the end.”

“No. I surely didn’t expect that Arlen would end up dead. I mean, goddamn, you think I’d make a call like that to kill that little priest, do you? I don’t cross some lines.”

Matt looked at him and took a sip of his own coffee. “You really think Arlen’s death is connected to the mines? If Herrick was covering something up, it would give him motive. If you’d say that, it could exonerate Kevin. It would save him.”

Albi looked at him sharply. “It would cover your ass. That’s what you mean.”

Matt squeezed his eyes shut tight. “Jesus Christ, Albi—no. I really care about this damn kid. He hasn’t done anything, he’s absolutely innocent here. No one else cares about him, except me. He doesn’t deserve any of this. He’s been shanghaied into—”

“Jesus fuckin’ wept, Matty.”

“Leonard, the kid is going to fry for this. He didn’t do it. He has no other help.”

Albi stared at him, drinking his coffee slowly. “Cry me a river. Jesus wept.”

“Don’t you care that someone who didn’t do it is getting set up? Don’t you?”

Albi looked away, at the sound of the slots in the back room. “It’s a real fuckarow, ain’t it? Jesus, Matty, I’m in this world to take care of me, myself, and I. Not you. Not your fuckin’ friends. Me. And I can’t see a way for me to get ahead, helping you, helping this damn kid with a rap sheet as long as my arm. But I can see plenty of ways I could get fucked, knowing what I know. But dammit, you came all this way. I’ll do you one favor.”

Albi reached underneath the bar. In his large hand was something rough-edged, small, and square. “I’m just going to wash my hands of this damn thing. Your secrets.”

Matt swallowed hard. “What secrets? What do you have on me?”

“I didn’t have anything on you before August. But it turns out Arlen did. So maybe if I give you this damn thing, you’ll go away.”

Albi lifted his hand from the counter. Matt looked down and saw a tattered notebook in a leather binding. “This little book was given to Arlen during a hospital confession. Someone saw a ghost—that’s what they thought—and the nurses called the chaplain on duty—Arlen—and this guy in the hospital confessed the whole lot to Arlen. Then, to wipe his conscience clean, he gave him this. This proves everything Arlen told me about Herrick. Yeah, it was all real, and you’re right there in the middle of it all. If you’re serious about wanting to help the kid, this is the only thing that will help the damn kid. But if I know human nature, you’ll just bury the damn thing.”

As Albi spoke, the sound of the slots came to a halt, and the rear saloon doors swung open. Sall looked back and forth between their intense faces. “Sorry, what did I interrupt?” she said. “I smelled the coffee.”

Albi looked down at the tiny notebook, a quick secretiveness in his eyes. Then it was gone, almost as soon as Matt had seen it. Without speaking, Albi poured a cup of coffee for Sall.

Matt glanced at Albi again and pointed away from the counter, toward the frozen image on the screen. Curtis Siwood holding white boxes. “Albi here has got a video of the guy on the poster. He was here in town, the night that Arlen disappeared.”

Sall looked between them, her mouth open in surprise. “A video? Jesus, that’s great, Matt! Now you have a witness, don’t you? With his testimony, Kev could go free and—”

Matt nodded. “That’s true. But we don’t have a witness to Curtis being alone with the girl. That could be important too. The kid in jail—Kev—he’s told me that. But we need another witness. In fact, we don’t have any proof that Curtis took the little girl.”

Albi clicked the remote, and the face on the screen shrank down to a dot of light. “You can take the videotape, Matty. But you know, I can’t testify . . . I just can’t.”

Sall spoke up. “You aren’t going to testify? What about that innocent kid, in jail!”

Albi finished off the shot glass. He did not say anything.

Matt put his hand on Sall’s shoulder. “You have to understand, the business Albi is in—there are consequences for getting involved. It’s a tricky place to be—”

“What? He’s a bartender. What’s so tricky about that?”

Albi put his hands together again, flexing the fingers. He did not say anything.

Matt fumbled for words. “Albi takes care of things for people—anything you need in the Silver Valley, Albi can get it for you. He usually doesn’t talk to cops though, takes care of everything himself.”

Sall looked back and forth between them. “But the kid’s innocent, isn’t he?”

“She has a point,” said Matt. “And think about the life you’re wasting, Albi. That’s a murder one charge. And if someone could say they saw this Curtis Siwood guy alone with the little girl, it might get someone out from underneath a rap they don’t deserve.”

“I couldn’t do that, Matt,” said Albi. “I made one mistake already, I’m not going to make another.” He looked up and shook his head.

“Jesus, Albi, make an exception for once in your life. My life—this kid’s life is gone, he’s hanging on by a thread, and you don’t know anything for sure. You know what I’m fighting for! One good man is already dead, but don’t trade another good man for him too—heroics aren’t going to bring Arlen back!”

“Jesus fuckin’ wept.” Albi sighed, and looked up at the black television screen. Only his reflection looked back at him. He took a swig of whiskey from the bottle.

After a long pause, he looked up again. “Okay,” he said finally. “I don’t know if the facts support the version of events you’re asking to hear, but you put me in front of a grand jury, I’ll testify that you were here for hours that night, long after Arlen left. That’s what I’ll say, just for you. And that’s all I’ll fuckin’ say.”

“But how will that help?” Sall began. “How will that help Kev in the case?”

Albi ignored her. He pointed a thick and shaking finger at Matt. “You just make sure any lawyer doesn’t ask about Herrick or this other thing—you never heard the rest of this damn story. If I stand up and open my mouth about that, everyone who ever trusted me is going to wonder if I’d sell them out too. My business would be gone.”

Matt put his hand on the counter. Without speaking, Albi slid the small book over to him. He poured himself another shot from the bottle. He downed half of it. He seemed relieved to no longer be touching the notebook.

Then Albi leaned over the counter, close enough that Matt could hear his whisper, low and hoarse. “You want me to help the kid—this damn thing will help the kid. It may not be what you want to hear, and you may choose to bury it, but this is his only hope. I’ll testify for you, but I won’t be holding on to your family’s damn secrets any longer.”

In winter, Fourth of July Pass at night was a fearsome sight. The Bitterroot Range was the last bulwark of mountains to hold back the Pacific weather as it spun toward the continent’s heart. Every winter, acres of trees buckled under the strain of tons of hoarfrost as the wind blew across the Palouse into the Big Sky country. As snow fell, the Bitterroot Range grew craggy cliffs and vast undulating spines of ice.

The chains on the Jeep’s tires bit into the icy road, and Sall moved closer to him. “When did you start caring again, Matt?” said Sall. “You haven’t cared about anything in a long time. Not since that accident. I’ve been waiting for you to come back.”

“It’s what we’re supposed to do—care about the cases. It’s my job.”

“C’mon, honey, for years now you haven’t cared about the job. What happened?”

Matt grinned. “I guess when I started moving forward, I just didn’t stop.”

“Well, I like it. You got Albi on your side, I think. What’s this book he had?”

Matt glanced down at the small, square notebook on the car seat. “From what I understand of this, someone had a heart attack and gave this to Arlen as a deathbed confession, in the hospital. Somehow, this explains things, what happened to Arlen.”

The Jeep slid across the ice. Matt pulled at the wheel, gritting his teeth. “Now I gotta talk to the prosecutor’s office. We have a witness to help me and Kev out of this.”

“Good,” said Sall. She leaned against his shoulder. “You know, despite your work stuff tonight, I think we should do more plays like this one—I really enjoyed being together with you again. How long has it been since we went out like this?”

“Too long,” said Matt. “Too long.”