FIVE DAYS AFTER
“So Kyle is completely cleared?” Cassie asked Tom Wright.
“He’s completely cleared,” Wright said. “Turns out we not only had your testimony but the bar had a CC camera for the back parking lot. The footage is crappy but there’s no doubt Westergaard didn’t pull the trigger until Duplisea drew on him. It was self-defense all the way, so we cleared him and sent him back to North Dakota.”
“Wonderful,” Cassie said, “especially since self-defense is a controversial topic these days.”
“Not in Montana, it isn’t.”
Cassie was a little hurt that Kyle had not stopped by on his way home, but she figured he needed to get back as soon as he could to check on Grandma Lottie. Additionally, she guessed Kyle had been spooked by being questioned. His past experiences with some law enforcement personnel hadn’t been good.
They were in Wright’s office within the DCI wing of the Montana Department of Justice in the state capital of Helena. Cassie had just arrived, having driven from Bozeman that morning. It was one of her favorite short drives in the state, especially in early June. To her, a “short drive” in Montana was anything under two hours.
The journey had included views of snowcapped mountains of the Bridger, Elkhorn, and Big Belt ranges surrounding her, the banks of the Missouri River bulging with runoff, and the hundreds of newborn calves in the painfully green meadows.
Wright’s office itself was the complete opposite of that. It was institutional light blue, claustrophobic, and cheerless—despite the cluster of family photos behind him on his credenza. He had a large family of cherubic children and an attractive wife, she noted.
He swiveled toward her in his chair and said, “You might have heard that Annan is fully cooperating.”
“I heard.”
“He’s blaming everything on Doug Duplisea. And I mean everything.”
“Not a surprise. Do you believe him?”
Wright shrugged. “So far, I guess. I’m afraid we don’t have any hard evidence otherwise. Annan led my officers to an abandoned mine outside of Butte. That’s where we found Spengler’s body in the trunk of his car, plus poor Sheriff Westphal’s remains. There was also the body of a local named Tim White. Duplisea’s prints were on the lock of the mineshaft gate and we found the key in the glove box of his pickup.
“Annan claimed he knew about the mineshaft location because he used to go drinking there with his friends in high school, including Doug Duplisea. Duplisea used to say that if he ever had a body to get rid of he would use that old mine, according to Annan.”
Tim, Cassie thought. Tim White.
Tim, Doug, and Matty.
She recalled Lyla’s warning: Watch out for them! If anybody goes missing around this town it’s because of one of them or all three of them. Watch out!
Lyla pretty much had it correct all along, Cassie thought.
“You know,” Wright said, “if I were to have to dump a body in Montana I think I’d do it in Butte. There are hundreds of old mines on that hill. Who knows what we’d find if we started digging into all of them?”
“Were all of the victims killed with Duplisea’s weapon?” Cassie asked.
“It’s too early to say because we don’t have the forensics back yet. But I’d bet on it. Except for White. He didn’t appear to have any injuries. He likely drowned in the mineshaft, according to the local coroner.”
“He was a buddy of Annan’s and Duplisea’s, from what I understand,” Cassie said. “The three of them grew up together.”
Wright nodded. “I’ve heard that, too. White must have gotten crossways with them somehow. Or at least Duplisea.”
Wright leaned forward across his desk and clasped his hands. He said to Cassie, “You know I don’t have much use for PIs, but you may have saved a life back there in the Club Moderne.”
“You mean my own?” she asked.
“Besides your own.” He smiled. “We found a prescription bottle in Duplisea’s truck for Jillian Westphal, the sheriff’s wife. Inside were capsules of pure fentanyl. We think he replaced the contents and that she was next. What a scum he was.”
“Why?” Cassie asked. “What did she do to him?”
“She probably asked too many questions about her husband, is my guess. But like a lot of the details of this case, we may never know the whole truth. The only guy who could tell us is dead.”
“I can live with that, I think,” Cassie said. “What does Annan say about his relationship with Duplisea?”
“Oh, quite a lot as it turns out,” Wright said. “He claims Duplisea took twenty percent of everything Annan earned out in the world. Annan said it was protection money and he was forced to pay it.”
Wright raised his eyebrows and said, “Another thing. Annan claims that it was Duplisea who researched and targeted the fraud victims using law enforcement resources. We’re running diagnostics on the computers in the sheriff’s department to see if we can corroborate that. So far, we can’t.”
“What about Annan’s devices?” Cassie asked.
“Annan’s phone and home computer were both completely clean. We found nothing on either to prove that he researched the victims on his own. Or, I should say, he was careful to delete any records from them.”
Cassie said, “Annan is really smart. I think he kept Duplisea at arm’s length so if things went bad he could blame everything on him and walk away. Like he’s trying to do now.”
“Yeah, I hear you,” Wright said. “But there’s no doubt the undersheriff was getting paid. We found receipts and deposits. The timing and amounts correspond to what Annan got from each of your women victims.
“So far,” Wright said, “we can’t connect Annan to the murders. There are no witnesses who are still alive, and his phones—all five of them, I think—show some texting between Annan and Duplisea but nothing incriminating. There are no smoking gun communications. Everything is pretty innocuous and could be explained away. Duplisea was law enforcement, after all. He knew better than to spell things out that could get him in trouble.”
Cassie nodded. “I think when they communicated they did it in person. My son and intern saw them together at one point doing exactly that. They knew better than to leave a digital trail of any kind.”
“Makes sense.”
Cassie said, “I think they were in it together from the jump. It was a criminal racket. Annan was the charmer and Duplisea was the muscle. They worked it all out together and played their parts. They’ve been doing this kind of thing since they grew up together as pals in Anaconda. They shared the same grudges.”
“I suspect you’re right,” he said. “But we don’t have anything to prove that at this point. Annan is good at playing the victim. He comes across as very sympathetic.”
Cassie smiled. “Let’s hope when he goes to trial it’s an all-male jury. And believe me, you’ll never hear me say that ever again for the rest of my life.”
“He got to you a little, then?”
“A little,” Cassie said. She hoped she didn’t blush.
“Well, you’re not the only one,” Wright said. “The town is rallying behind him. Since we were able to freeze all of his assets they’re doing a big fundraiser to help pay for his legal effort. Apparently, he’s a huge philanthropist in Anaconda. He built their new football stadium, he buys equipment for the clinic, he funds the homeless shelter … they love him.”
“And he loves them,” she said. “No one claims he’s all bad. That’s how he justified what he did. But he’s bad enough.”
“We think so,” Wright said. “We think as this investigation continues we’ll find more on him. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Thank you,” she said. Then: “What will become of that Copper King mansion he relocated?”
Wright shrugged. “Who knows? It’s in legal limbo. Maybe they’ll make a museum out of it or something. Or more likely a shrine to Matthew Annan, savior of Anaconda.”
Cassie said, “I was wondering if it could be sold with the proceeds going back to the fraud victims.”
“Maybe the judge will go for that, but I kind of doubt it.”
“He’ll become a martyr,” Cassie said. “Just like his great-grandfather. I kind of think he’ll be okay with that.”
After signing her affidavit and attaching the report she’d written about her investigation into Matthew Annan on behalf of Candyce Fly, Cassie looked up and said, “I have another favor to ask you.”
Wright moaned. He said, “Can’t I wrap this all up first?”
She smiled. Meaning, no.
“What?” he asked.
“Do you have friends within the administration of the Montana State Prison? Someone you trust?”
“Do you mean a fellow Mormon?”
“Yes.”
“Sure—why?”
“I need to get some unofficial background on a particular CO there,” she said. “I need someone to grant me access.”