The only reaction the deputy displayed as Cassie walked across the parking lot toward him was the dance of the toothpick in his mouth. He remained there leaning against his vehicle with his arms crossed over his chest and his left leg bent so that his boot sole rested against the exterior of the SUV.
He’d parked so his cruiser blocked the exit of Cassie’s Cherokee. She assumed it was deliberate.
Cassie noted that the edge of the business card she’d left with Margaret poked out of his meaty grip.
Her ploy had worked.
“Yes, Officer?” she said. “Can I help you?”
He was a big man with large features and thick limbs. His head was huge and shaped like an overinflated football. She guessed he was in his late fifties but the flap of loose skin under his jaw made him look older. She imagined that if she reached out and squeezed his bicep she’d find flab, not muscle.
“Are you Cassie Dewell?” he asked. He pronounced her last name as “DOOL.”
“I am.”
He nodded and the toothpick froze in place. “I’m Undersheriff Duplisea. I understand you’d like to have a chat.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“First of all, what were you doing in there?” he asked, chinning toward the Flint Creek Motor Court. “I understand you’ve been driving all over town harassing our business owners.”
“That wasn’t my intention. I didn’t harass anyone.”
“I heard different. But anyway, what are you doing here?”
“I’ll show you,” she said.
“Show me what?”
“I’m going to reach into my purse to get my phone.”
She was deliberate in her movements. Even with the notice, she could tell that Duplisea tensed up a little when she did so.
Cassie could think of dozens of scenarios where civilians had been shot because a police officer came to the snap judgment—justifiably or not justifiably—that a subject they encountered was reaching for a gun.
She glanced at Duplisea to see if he was wearing a body cam. He was not.
She drew out the phone by pinching it with two fingers.
“I was hired by my client to find this man,” she said, pulling up the shot of Spengler and showing it to the deputy. “His name is J. D. Spengler and he’s a licensed private investigator out of Florida.”
Duplisea thrust his face forward to view the screen but he didn’t reach for the phone. Then he leaned back to his original position. Cassie didn’t think the deputy looked at the photo very carefully.
“I don’t know the man,” Duplisea said.
“He’s her uncle,” the manager of the motel chimed in from behind Cassie. She hadn’t heard him come out.
“Is that the case?” Duplisea asked.
“Not really,” she confessed.
“That’s what she told me,” the manager said. He was irritated.
Cassie could feel her face flush hot.
“So you lied to him?” Duplisea asked.
“I told him a fib. But it doesn’t matter. I still want to find Spengler and I thought the contents of the bag he left here might help my client.”
“Are you gonna take her in, Doug?” the manager asked. Cassie noted the first-name basis.
Then she turned on him. “Please stay out of this. Or give me back the hundred and fifty dollars I paid you to look inside the suitcase.”
The manager turned on his heel and walked back to the motel office. Duplisea chuckled at the scene playing in front of him, and Cassie felt humiliated.
“So you lied to the man,” Duplisea said to Cassie. “Now tell me more about this guy you’re trying to find.”
Cassie recovered and said, “He vanished on or about May nineteenth. His rental car was a gray 2021 Chevrolet Malibu four-door with Idaho plates.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Duplisea said.
“Anaconda was his last-known location.”
Duplisea grinned. “Known by who?” he asked.
“Pardon me?”
“You said his last-known location was my town. What I’m asking you is by whom? Who knows he went missing here, of all places?”
Cassie hesitated. “That’s my client’s recollection,” she said. “Spengler sent her a photo of the ‘Welcome to Anaconda’ sign on the edge of town.”
Duplisea’s grin curled into something cruel. “So no one here saw him?”
Cassie shook her head. “That’s not true, Deputy. Spengler booked two nights in the motel. He dropped his luggage here but he never retrieved it. The manager inside recognized him and he has his registration on file.”
“Well, that’s something,” Duplisea said skeptically. “What I’m wondering is why I’m just now hearing about this. Did your client call our office to report this?”
“She didn’t,” Cassie said, “but my understanding is that his office did and a missing person case was opened.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“No. It’s secondhand information.”
Duplisea shook his head. “This is pretty weak stuff. You must have a dumb client. Who is this client, anyway?”
“I can’t say. I’m sorry.”
Duplisea simply looked at her. She wished she could see his eyes but they were hidden behind the dark lenses.
He nodded in the direction of the motel. “I think you might have defrauded that man with your lies. I need to look up the specific offense but I think we’re talking about a misdemeanor. Defrauding an innkeeper? Does that sound right to you?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said. But she knew that if a police officer was determined to find a charge against someone, odds were on their side.
“My job isn’t to protect out-of-town PIs,” Duplisea said. “My job is to protect and serve the good people of Anaconda. Especially when folks blow in here and try to deceive them.”
“I need to call my lawyer,” Cassie said. She knew her face was red now. “Have you heard of Rachel Mitchell?”
For the first time, Duplisea visibly flinched.
“So you have,” Cassie said.
“We all have,” he said. “She’s the one who goes after the cops for doing their duty whenever she can. Yeah, we’ve all heard of her. She’s a snake.
“Miss Dool,” he said, “I think I have a good idea how we can resolve this dilemma of yours and then you can be on your merry way. It doesn’t have to involve charges or goddamned lawyers.”
“How’s that?”
“Follow me back to my office. We’ll sit down and file a missing person form on this Spengler guy. I’ll circulate it through the office and post it on all the appropriate sites. You can tell your client you did all you could to find him and then you can go back to Bozeman knowing you did your job. How’s that sound?”
Not good, she thought. But she could use the interaction to her advantage if she played it right.
“By the way,” she said, “I’m recording this conversation.”
He flinched again. He had a very quick fuse. For a half second Cassie got the impression he was going to assault her. He glowered, and leaned forward as if poised to lunge. She stepped back.
Duplisea took a deep breath, straightened back up, and the faux smile came back.
“I think we may have gotten off on the wrong foot here,” he said. “So if you’ll just come with me we can get everything sorted out.”
“I’d rather follow you in my car. That way, you won’t need to bring me back here.”
And my car will be in public view parked in front of the Justice Center if I go missing, she thought.
He narrowed his eyes, calculating. Then: “Suit yourself.”
She nodded.
Cassie sat in an uncomfortable hard-backed chair across the desk from Duplisea. He’d invited her to his office through the lobby after telling her she’d need to leave her belongings in a small locker mounted to the back wall.
“I don’t have my weapon on me,” she’d said.
“Protocol,” he’d replied. But what he really meant was that he didn’t want the conversation they were about to have recorded. She had no choice but to comply.
Cassie filled the locker with her handbag, keys, and phone. The recording app was still active and she didn’t turn it off.
The sheriff’s department space was open concept, with four desks shoved together in the middle for officers. Only one deputy, a fresh-faced slight man with a starter mustache, sat at a desk. When Cassie and Duplisea came in she noted a wordless exchange between the two men. The deputy grabbed his cap and stood up and left the room. Cassie wasn’t sure what the undersheriff had signaled to the deputy aside from, “Clear the room.”
She followed Duplisea into one of two individual offices on the right side of the room. The other office had a plastic SHERIFF PHILLIP WESTPHAL plaque in the corner of a window that looked out at the rest of the office. It was dark inside the sheriff’s office.
“Okay,” Duplisea said, adjusting the tilt of his computer monitor and tapping a few keys to wake it up. “Give me a second here.” He put on a pair of reading glasses. The monitor faced away from her on the desk. With his sunglasses removed she could see his dull brown eyes. They were not the eyes of a kind man. They were hard and mean.
He said, “There, I found it. ‘2021 Montana Code Annotated Title 70, Chapter six: Defrauding an Innkeeper.’”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “I thought we were through with that.”
He didn’t acknowledge her and he kept reading and quoting from the screen. “‘70–6–501, Innkeeper’s liability as to property of guests—dollar limitation.’ Nope, that doesn’t apply. ‘70–6–512, Innkeeper’s responsibilities—limits.’ I guess that doesn’t apply, either.”
“Of course it doesn’t,” Cassie said. “You’re just wasting my time here.”
“Maybe so,” Duplisea said. “But I thought it was best to check. I wouldn’t want you to think I wasn’t thorough. You might have to report that to your lawyer friend.”
“Can we get on with this?” Cassie asked.
He leaned back in his plush office chair and turned to her. “By all means,” he said.
Then he said nothing. He simply stared at her for nearly a full minute. She stared back. Cassie knew the dead-eye stare to be an effective interrogation tactic at times. Cops did it to suspects hoping the uncomfortable moment would compel them to fill the void by talking.
“Go ahead,” he said finally.
“As I told you back at the motel, I’ve been hired by my client to find a missing PI from Florida. I called your office this morning to let you know I’d be here in your community because I consider that a professional courtesy. I was also hoping I could speak to you or the sheriff about the missing man. Despite you making this as difficult as possible, here we are.”
Duplisea nodded. Then: “This just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Why would a client hire a private investigator to find another private investigator? Is there some kind of dispute between them?”
“Not that I know of,” Cassie said.
“So what was this other guy investigating in the first place?”
Cassie chose her words carefully. “My client alleges that a man defrauded her of millions of dollars and that he may have fled here. Or that he may be a local. The missing PI tracked him across the country and apparently came to the same conclusion. I was hired to find either man—or both if possible.”
Duplisea looked amused. Cassie wanted to lean across the desk and slap him.
Finally, he asked, “What’s the identity of the so-called fraudster?”
“I have a name but I’m pretty sure it’s false,” she said.
“And that is?”
“Marc Daly. Marc with a C.”
Duplisea laughed out loud and shook his head. “Marc as in Marcus Daly? The founder of Anaconda? He’s been dead for a hundred and twenty years. I think you and your client are being played.”
“I said it was a false name,” Cassie said. “Maybe you should take notes.”
“Oh, not necessary,” Duplisea said while pointing to his big head. “I’m keeping it all up here.”
Cassie didn’t give him the pleasure of a reaction.
He said, “So, because this fraudster gave his name as Marc Daly, both you and the missing PI figured out he must be from Anaconda. Is that it?”
“The other PI had that theory. That’s why he came here. But, as you know, he’s gone missing. I’m here following up.”
“Maybe he’s holed up in Missoula with a working girl?” Duplisea said. “Or maybe he’s in Las Vegas having the time of his life on his client’s dime? He could be anywhere.”
The undersheriff’s speculation was ridiculous and meant to humiliate her further, she knew. But she tucked it away and didn’t respond.
“Yes,” Cassie said. “He could be anywhere. But I thought I’d start here. And I thought you might be able to help me at least rule it out. But you don’t seem interested in helping me at all.”
“I don’t know why you’d say that,” Duplisea said, showing her his huge palms.
She said, “I’ve started a file on the missing PI. I’ll be happy to forward it to you. Think if it as my gesture of goodwill, the sharing of information.”
“Okay,” Duplisea said. His feigned interest didn’t fool her.
“Do you know anyone in Anaconda who might be the type to trick a woman out of her fortune? My guess is he’s done this before.”
Something passed over Duplisea’s face at the question. A shadow. A tell of some kind.
“Can’t say that I do,” he said. “Oh, we got all kinds, just like any town. But you’d think I’d notice if one of our locals suddenly turned up rich. In a small town like this that kind of thing would get around.”
Cassie gestured to the empty office next door. “Where’s your sheriff?”
“He’s not in at the moment, as you can clearly see.”
“Margaret said he’d been gone for two or three days,” Cassie said. “Aren’t you concerned?”
“Why would I be?” Duplisea said. He sounded defensive. “I can handle things around here. I was the undersheriff when Westphal got elected and I’ll be the undersheriff when he moves on. I’ve got three years left before I retire. I can ride it out no matter what happens.”
“I have to say I find that very odd,” she said.
“You shouldn’t,” Duplisea said. “It’s not your concern. Look,” he said, lowering his voice, “the man has a bit of a drinking problem. This isn’t his first bender. When he’s off the sauce he’s a damned good sheriff and I’d even call him a friend. He’ll show up any day now all remorseful. It’s kind of a pattern.”
Cassie nodded as if she understood.
“We take care of our own around here,” Duplisea said. “It isn’t like other places where they throw people to the wolves if they screw up. We’re tight here. We’ve been here a long time. We’re Anaconda Strong,” he said.
“I’ve seen the posters.”
“And you probably thought it was funny, didn’t you?”
“I thought this was a town with pride,” she said.
He rolled on as if she’d said nothing. His voice rose as he went on. “If it were up to all the newcomers in this state, they’d like this town to dry up and blow away. They’re embarrassed by us. We don’t fit the profile of Montana these days. We’re not Teva-wearing metrosexuals mining bitcoin on their laptops at some Bozeman wine bar, or fly-fishing with a two-thousand-dollar fly rod. We’re made up of four generations of hard rock miners here. People from all over the world: Irish, Scottish, Polish, Russian, Lithuanian, Italian—you name it. We did diversity before diversity was cool, you know?”
Duplisea prodded the desktop with his index finger as he made his points.
“But it doesn’t matter where they came from because they have one thing in common. They stick together. We stick together.”
He raised his arm and pointed toward the window and to the town the Justice Center overlooked.
“Those people out there are from stock that put their lives on the line every day for shit wages and shit safety conditions. If you don’t know anything about the 1917 mining disaster, I suggest you read up on it to see what it was like.”
“I’ve heard about it,” Cassie said. “I’m from Montana.”
“Bozeman isn’t Montana,” Duplisea said. “Maybe it used to be at one time, but it sure isn’t now.”
By now his face was crimson. He scared her.
“I think I’ll be going now,” she said. “I know you already have my card. I’ll follow up with the file and send it to your email address, as promised. I hope you’ll give me a call if you find anything out about the whereabouts of Mr. Spengler.”
“What if I find Marcus Daly?” Duplisea said sarcastically. “Should I call you about him?”
Cassie stood up. Before turning to get her items from the locker in the lobby, she said, “Tell me something, Deputy Duplisea.”
“What’s that?”
“Earlier, you speculated that Spengler could be holed up with a prostitute in Missoula or living it up in Las Vegas.”
“So what?” Duplisea said, his eyes narrowing.
“I’m just curious why you went in that particular direction if you were totally unfamiliar with him. Who’s to say he wasn’t an extremely devout Christian family man who was devoted to his loving wife in Tampa? It’s almost like you knew he had condoms and a pill bottle of Viagra in his shaving kit.”
Duplisea’s eyes got larger and Cassie could see that quick fuse lighting again.
“What in the fuck are you implying?” he said.
“Oh nothing,” she said.
She opened the door quickly and let it wheeze closed behind her while she retrieved her belongings. Duplisea was right behind her and he snatched her phone out of the locker before she could get it. He quickly deleted the recording and handed it back to her before retreating to his office.
“Must be fun working with that guy,” she said to Margaret on her way out.
“It’s like every day is a party,” Margaret said wearily.