“Tessa Revelle?” Irita said to Erin as they stood with Chance and Mesa in her office conferring about the whereabouts of one of Butte’s own. “I know she doesn’t work up at the Broadway Café anymore. I think maybe she went back to school.”
Chance had looked up Tessa’s address in the Butte phone book. All it said was “south of Butte.” No one answered the phone when he called. “Up at Tech?” Chance asked.
“Let me call Connor, my brother,” Erin offered. “He and Tessa’s brother, Bart, used to play hockey together.”
Chance followed Erin toward the newsroom but turned toward Mesa just before he left her office. “If you hear from Hardy, tell him I want to talk to him. And if he doesn’t want to talk to me, tell him he can talk to Rollie Solheim.”
Mesa sunk back into her chair and let out a long, slow breath. Irita came over and leaned on the corner of the desk. “What was that all about? I haven’t seen him this serious since your grandmother had her heart attack.”
“Kevin Murphy ended up in the hospital last night,” Mesa said.
“I heard,” Irita said. “Not like it’s the first time.”
“I know,” Mesa said, “but Chance thinks it has to do with this plane business. He has it in his head that Hardy Jacobs and Kathy’s brother, Garrett, beat Kevin up. Apparently, Chance saw Garrett talking to Hardy at Shoestring Annie’s last night.”
“Holy shit,” Irita said in a whisper. “I thought Garrett had left town. At least that’s what Kathy said.”
“Maybe she’s trying to protect him,” Mesa said. She knew that would be her instinct if she thought Chance were in trouble with the law, which of course she couldn’t imagine. “Kathy said Garrett showed up at her house on Saturday night but didn’t stick around. She says he never even saw Austin, not that Chance believes her.”
“It would certainly be a weird set of circumstances,” Irita said. “I don’t know Garret that well. He’s hard to read. I don’t think he ever said more than two words at one time to me. Not that I’d give him a chance, the way I jabber.
“He’s always seemed like the somber, brooding type—not mean but always keeping to himself. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a lot of torment underneath. Can’t see him wanting to spend ten minutes with Hardy Jacobs though. They’re oil and water. How would they even meet?”
“Hardy told Chance they had worked together at Big Sky,” Mesa said. “Maybe before Garrett got called up?”
Irita shrugged. “Garrett drove for UPS in Billings before he went off to Kandahar for fun and games. Maybe he delivered to Big Sky?”
Mesa doubted it. The ski resort was more than three hours from Billings. And even though people liked to say that Montana was just one big city connected by really long streets, she seriously doubted UPS looked at it that way. She picked up her cell phone. “Maybe I better ask Hardy myself.”
* * *
Chance pulled into the parking lot next to the World Museum of Mining, where Tessa Revelle worked three days a week. Erin had needed exactly two phone calls to get the particulars on Tessa. Now that was investigative journalism at work as far as Chance was concerned.
Built on the site of the Orphan Girl Mine, the museum actually spanned several acres designed to replicate an 1880s mining town—the Butte version of a theme park, as yet without the rides. Some of the buildings, the church, and school had actually been saved from Meaderville, when the mostly Italian neighborhood in Butte had been cannibalized to make way for the Berkeley Pit operation.
Chance looked at the mine head-frame, an iron silhouette against the already snow-capped Anaconda Pintler Mountains to the west. A sudden gust of cold wind came up, blowing dust everywhere, a reminder of the long winter to come. He hurried into the museum gift shop.
When he saw Tessa Revelle behind the cash register, he remembered why her name had sounded familiar. She had once graced the arm of Mattie Gronauer, Mr. Hockey Puck, back in their high school days. At least she had had the good sense to dump him quicker than most.
Tessa was a good-looking blonde whose smooth complexion and pink cheeks preserved her youth, though she had graduated from high school a few years behind Chance. She often wore a pouty expression that made her look permanently disappointed. Nevertheless, hers was a welcoming smile when she greeted Chance by name.
“I heard you were back in school,” Chance said and picked at a box of tiny bottles near the cash register, each supposedly with a flake of real gold in it.
Tessa smiled and said, “Finally decided to get an accounting degree. It’s boring but I’ll get a decent job. This is just part-time.”
“Kind of quiet,” Chance said, looking around at the empty gift shop with a feigned grimace.
Tessa smiled. “My dad helped put this place together when I was a kid. I guess I have a soft place in my heart for it. It’s starting to slow down now that Labor Day’s past, but sometimes volunteers come in and talk about the old times, which is cool.
Chance stooped to look at a shelf of kids’ toys—a miniature miner’s lamp, a plastic rock hammer—while Tessa talked. She seemed so gentle. He wondered if she had any idea what Garrett Birch was capable of, if in fact Chance was right about Kathy’s brother.
“What brings you to the Museum? Is there something you’re looking for?” she asked with a shy smile. “Can I help you find something?”
Chance stood up and shook his head. “To be honest, Tessa, I’m looking for Garrett Birch. I heard he was staying with you.”
“I see,” Tessa said and nodded, the hint of the pout returning. She turned to a pile of invoices next to the cash register and began to sort them.
“I know this might seem out of the ordinary but I know his sister is worried about him. We were thinking maybe you could help her get in touch with him.”
“He doesn’t have a cell phone. But I guess you could try calling him at my house, but usually he won’t answer the phone. If he’s still there.”
“Did he say he was leaving?” Chance said, uneasy about the possibility that he might lose the opportunity to talk to Garrett at all.
“He’s been talking about leaving for a couple days now, but he was still here this morning.” She shrugged. “I didn’t know you and Garrett knew each other.”
“We don’t,” Chance admitted. “I just met his sister today, as a matter of fact. She’s really worried about him,” he added, hoping Tessa might offer some information about Garrett. “The Army called Kathy looking for him. Did you know he was coming to town?”
Tessa shook her head, one eyebrow slightly raised. “He called me Sunday afternoon,” she said, “and asked if he could stay at my place for a couple of days.” She began to leaf through a box of maps of the mines on the hill and attach price stickers to them while she talked.
“We dated for a while back when his sister and I worked together. He used to drive over from Billings now and then to visit her.” She paused, and then added, “I hadn’t seen him since he left with the Guard. I was kind of surprised when he wanted to crash at my house, but I don’t mind. He’s a nice guy.”
“Afghanistan must be some experience,” Chance said. Had that been where Garrett could have learned how to kill Lowell Austin the way that Adrienne had described?
“He doesn’t really talk about it, except he said he needed to be around someone who understood how he can be at times.”
“How’s that?” Chance asked.
“Sad, mostly,” she said kind of absently, as if she were taking stock of Garrett for the first time. “He’s been staying in my spare bedroom for the past couple of days. He helped me replace a switch on my furnace, but besides that, I’ve hardly talked to him.”
“When did you meet up with him?” Chance asked.
“On Monday. I picked him up at his sister’s house. Then we went over to the Labor Day Picnic to hook up with Kathy and the kids.”
“Garrett didn’t have his own car?” Chance asked. That meant he could have driven Kathy’s SUV on Sunday morning, then somehow got back to the airport on Monday morning and driven it back about the time Jake Brinig had left the airport. His sister would never even have known he used it.
“I didn’t ask. He just said he needed a ride so I gave him one.”
“So you guys aren’t . . .?” Here he motioned with his hands in an awkward sort of way, trying to indicate a stronger connection.
“No, we’re friends. That’s it,” Tessa said, “He’s kind of a loner.” She chuckled. “Maybe that’s why we clicked originally. People say that about me sometimes, living in a cabin out of town by myself.”
“Garrett and I got thrown together, you might say. Whenever his sister would have people over, it always seemed like Garrett and I would be the ones without dates.” She stopped again, embarrassed perhaps that she had revealed as much as she did. “There’s really a good guy behind that long face.”
“How do you mean?” Chance said, trying not to sound too eager.
“People mistake him being quiet for not caring about things.” She paused, as if searching for words that had once been applied to her, “like he’s hard-hearted. That’s not true. I know he worries about his sister’s kids, being without a father. He says that’s part of what made him the way he is.”
* * *
Mesa called Yukon Glass and talked to Ronnie Jacobs, who told her his brother had gone out to the parking lot at Wal-Mart. The owner of a gigantic RV wanted someone to check on a crack in its windshield. Hardy had a cell phone, Ronnie added, though what good it did, he didn’t know since Hardy intentionally kept it off most of the time. He used it when he wanted to make a call. There was nothing else scheduled for him. They weren’t sure when he would be back, but would tell him to call.
Mesa looked at her watch. She could wait and see if he showed up at Pork Chop John’s. She decided instead to drive to the big box superstore, which sat all too grandly at the end of a long string of car dealerships, and across from Mountain View Cemetery at the south end of town. Usually the RVs, which Wal-Mart so graciously permitted to park in its lot overnight, clustered near the street.
When Mesa pulled in to the far entrance of the parking lot, she saw Hardy. He was shaking hands with a portly gray-haired man who wore what looked like a pair of suit pants that had been converted into Bermuda shorts and a pair of clean, white tennis shoes. She was in luck. It looked like Hardy was just finishing up.
Mesa parked between two pickups away from the nest of RVs. Walking over to the Yukon Glass pickup, she reminded herself to ask Hardy about his traveling entertainment center, not that he would need it for work. She leaned on the front fender of the truck and tried to look nonchalant until Hardy noticed her. She didn’t want to seem overly interested in anything in particular. He came around from the rear and looked surprised to see her.
“Thought you might be ready for lunch,” she said quietly. After last night’s true confessions, she felt sure she could get him to answer Chance’s questions without putting a strain on anybody’s friendship.
He looked at his watch and said, “Sure, why not. I got a little bit of time between jobs. Let’s go into Wal-Mart to the Subway.”
Time between jobs? That wasn’t what she had heard from Ronnie. This wasn’t like Hardy. If he wanted to blow off work, he would just say so.
While they strolled across the half-empty parking lot, Mesa broached Chance’s accusations carefully. “Chance asked me to let you know he wants to talk to you.”
Hardy looked over at her and said, “Yeah? Sounds official.”
“He wants to talk to you about last night.”
“You mean about you and me.” His voice sounded slightly surprised.
“No,” she said dismissively, “about Kevin Murphy. Somebody jumped him outside Shoestring Annie’s last night.”
Hardy stopped walking. “What’s that to do with me? I was with you. You told him that, right?” He scratched at his ever-present scraggle of a beard. Mesa could see he was uptight. “Murph’s going to be okay, right?”
She nodded as they started walking again and cut between a line of shopping carts and a station wagon filled with kids. “You know last night when you said you had made a huge mistake and couldn’t go back to Moab?”
He stopped again. “Mesa, what’s up? Why all the questions?”
Mesa pressed on. Now, in the light of day, she wanted to know the truth too. At least then, she would know what she could do to help him. “You took that plane from Moab, didn’t you? That’s what you were talking about last night. Chance saw you talking to Garrett Birch, Hardy. He thinks you took Birch and Austin up in that plane and you had to crash land. Is that what happened?”
She reached out to touch his arm as if to convey her concern. “I know you couldn’t kill anybody. But if you took that plane, Jesus, you’re in a lot of trouble.” Her voice tailed off. She was in no position to judge Hardy for whatever lies he told, but stealing was something else. “Maybe I can help you, but you have to tell me what happened.”
Hardy didn’t have to say anything. She could see the answers in his face. He had that hung-dog look that always appeared in the waning seconds of a big game that his team had lost, when he knew winning wasn’t in their cards. He turned back in the direction they had come, almost walking in front of a van backing out. “I don’t know anybody named Garrett Birch. I gotta get going,” he said.
Mesa held onto his arm even as he tried to pull away. “It was Garrett, wasn’t it? Do you know where he is? I know he might be in a bad space right now, but maybe we can get him to turn himself in.”
“I told you, I don’t know anybody named Garrett Birch,” Hardy said, his usually laid back voice, tinged with irritation.
“I met him at the Labor Day picnic, and I know his sister. He’s AWOL from the Army, Hardy. He’s got nothing to lose.”
Hardy was walking fast now, shaking his head while Mesa talked. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Okay, how about we can talk to Rollie Solheim. Explain it to him. He knows you and your family. He can help you. I know he can.” Mesa was walking fast now, trying to catch up. Who knew what the Sheriff would do, but she had to try to stop Hardy.
Her instincts told her that Hardy was on the verge of hopping from the frying pan into the fire. And despite her mixed feelings about him, they went too far back for her to give up on him.
They were almost back to the truck. She had to know what they were dealing with. “Hardy,” she said, raising her voice. “Tell me you didn’t kill Lowell Austin.”
Hardy unlocked the truck door and said in a whisper, “Mesa, I didn’t kill anybody. You know me better than that. I made the best I could out of a bad situation, and that’s what I’m gonna keep doing.” He reached up and touched her cheek, lifting a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I’ll be in touch,” he said and jumped in the cab of the truck.
He cranked the engine, and Mesa looked around, wondering if anyone had seen or overheard them, as if she might recruit help make Hardy listen to reason. She was exasperated, not sure what to do next. Her eyes settled on the bed of the pickup. Propped on its side against the built-in stainless steel toolbox was a black and green contour backpack she had seen Hardy use countless times. He was going somewhere all right, she realized uneasily, and it wasn’t back to work.