25

Wayne Clairmont didn’t have an alibi.

“Didn’t know I needed one,” he told Stevens and Windermere when they tracked him down at home in Butcher’s Creek. “Probably would have made more of an effort if I’d known she was going to go off and die.”

Clairmont’s home was small and cluttered, a few blocks from the Northwestern tracks. Between the agents and Sheriff Parsons, his living room was full up.

“When’s the last time you saw your ex-wife?” Windermere asked Clairmont.

He took a drag from his cigarette. “Guess it was last week, when she came by to borrow the car.”

“You lend her the car often?”

“Sometimes.” Clairmont laughed, and the laugh turned into a cough. “Only when she’s broke, I guess, but that’s often enough.”

“Do you know what she was doing at the Gold Spike that night?” Stevens asked.

“Oh, the usual, I expect.”

Stevens and Windermere traded looks, and Clairmont stubbed out his cigarette, looked past them to Sheriff Parsons.

“You gotta be smart people, you FBI agents,” he said. “Do I really have to spell it out for you?”

—

The Gold Spike was mostly empty. It got emptier when the sheriff walked in.

The bartender was an older guy with a long white beard, looked like he belonged on the back of a Softail in a Harley-Davidson ad. He watched a bunch of his regulars make for the front door, slipping past Parsons and Stevens and Windermere as they did. A couple of women among them, Stevens saw. They didn’t exactly look dressed for the weather.

“Help you, Sheriff?” The bartender didn’t bother to hide his distaste. Parsons didn’t seem to mind.

“Want you to meet some friends of mine, Hank,” the sheriff replied. “These here are a couple of real-life government agents. They want to ask you about Kelly-Anne Clairmont. You know her?”

The bartender reached for a rag, wiped it lazily over the surface of the bar. “Sure, I know her. I know what happened to her, too. But I don’t have nothing to say about it.”

“And why’s that?” Windermere asked.

“Because I don’t know a damn thing,” he replied. “She was in here that night, doing her thing like always, making friends, the usual. She was here, and then she wasn’t, and then she was, and then she was gone for good.” He put down the rag. “And I daresay I didn’t much care either way.”

“You remember any of those friends she was making?”

The bartender didn’t even pretend to think about it. “Nope.” He flung the rag into a sink behind the bar. Then he pointed across the room. “But she might.”

Stevens and Windermere followed his gesture and saw one of the escapees trying to sneak her way from the front door to a booth in the corner, a purse lying forgotten on the vinyl. She walked a couple more steps before she realized every eye in the room was on her. Then she stopped. Regarded the assembled like the raccoon by the trash bins.

“Aw,” she said. “What kind of bullshit are you all trying to pin on me now?”

—

The woman’s name was Ramona.

“But I go by Joey,” she told Stevens and Windermere. “You know, like the Ramones?”

“You like punk music?” Stevens asked her.

“Yeah, some. It’s more Ramona Henry isn’t exactly the best name for business.”

She was a prostitute. She was probably about forty, wore a faded denim miniskirt and a low-cut top, a high schooler’s clumsy makeup. She’d agreed to sit with the agents on the promise that they weren’t out to bust her, and maybe a free beer for being such a good sport.

Now she drank her Rainier and fidgeted in the booth, clutching her purse to her chest like she was afraid to lose it again.

“What did Kelly-Anne go by?” Windermere said. “Did she have a business name?”

“Not that I ever knew,” Ramona said. She made a face. “Then again, she wasn’t named anything as bad as Ramona, either.”

“Were you here a couple nights back? Did you see her?”

“Honey, I’m always here.” Ramona drank. “And yeah, I saw her. It’s a small room, isn’t it?”

“Was she working that night?”

Ramona gave them a look, like Why else would you come to a place like this? “It was a decent night. Steady crowd, lots of guys.” She grinned. “The snow closed the roads, too, so we had a, you know, captive audience.”

“Business was good, huh? How’d Kelly-Anne seem to be doing that night?”

Ramona emptied the bottle. “Oh, Kelly-Anne did great. She had a real good fricking night. There were these railroad guys in the corner who were all into her, and a couple of truckers over by the pool table. I think she pulled one of each, right after the other. Bam, bam.”

A railroader, Stevens thought. Wouldn’t that be convenient?

“You remember anything about these guys?” Windermere asked. “Where they were coming from? Where they were going?”

“The railroad guy was an engineer, I think,” Ramona said. “Came in on a coal train. But he and Kelly-Anne came back to the bar when they were through. Then she left with the truck driver.” She scratched her neck. “He was a logging guy, I think. Had a buddy with him. They were gone ten, fifteen minutes. Then he came back alone.”

She was looking at her empty beer bottle. Windermere signaled the bartender for another. Waited until the beer was delivered before she asked her next question.

“You think the truck driver could have done anything to her?”

“What, like drive her out of town and leave her dead in the snow, then come back to the bar in fifteen minutes?” Ramona shrugged. “I mean, I’m no expert, but—”

“Maybe he waited to hide the body,” Stevens said. “Stashed her somewhere safe and then came back after the bar closed.”

“Mmm, no, I don’t think so. Those boys left with us, Carli and me. If he came back to the Gold Spike, it wasn’t until morning.”

Windermere leaned back in the booth. This wasn’t helping. “What else do you remember?” she asked. “Anything about that night strike you as odd? Anything stand out in your mind?”

Ramona looked up at the ceiling. “I mean, it was a normal night, I guess. Mostly all regulars, train guys and truckers. There was this one guy in the corner for a little while, but he didn’t want company, so we left him alone.”

“Did he talk to Kelly-Anne?”

“Sure he did. She was the first to go over there. He shut her down, you know, a little too fast, like he was nervous or something. Wouldn’t make eye contact. He did have a wedding ring, not that that ever stopped anyone.”

“Was he an old guy? Young guy? You remember anything about his face?”

Ramona took a long pull of her beer. “Honey,” she said, “you’ve been doing this long enough, the faces blur together. I don’t remember a damn thing about him.”

That was it for Ramona. Stevens gave her his card, asked her to think on it some more. Put twenty bucks on her bar tab and told her to be safe.

He stood and made to follow Windermere to where Parsons waited by the door. Then he stopped at the edge of the booth. “You ever hear any rumors of a killer around here?” he asked, turning back. “Someone preying on Native women, runaways and the like?”

Ramona arched her eyebrows. “What, like a serial killer?”

“That kind of thing, yeah. You ever hear any stories?”

She scoffed. “Honey, we don’t need a serial killer around here, not my demographic. The guys in these parts seem to dispose of our kind well enough on their own.” She drained her second beer and looked him square in the eye. “You want my opinion, you put that girl’s death down to natural causes, whether it was cold that killed her or a man. It’s all the same thing on this side of the mountain.”