BMV records told them that Jay Baldwin lived on Twenty-Second Street West in Red Lodge, the last street off Highway 212 before it began to climb into the Beartooths. The home was a nice A-frame with a garage below the decks and wide banks of windows facing the mountains.
Mark parked on the curb, and they had just gotten out of the Tahoe when the garage door went up. A man’s boots and jeans became visible, and then the whole of him—Jay Baldwin, standing at the top of a short staircase, locking the interior door to the house. He had his back to them, and when he turned and saw them he jerked and moved a hand toward his heart like they’d given him a coronary.
“Mr. Baldwin?” Lynn said.
“Yes. What?” He hurried down the steps and out of the garage. “Who are you?”
“Private investigators,” Lynn said.
He stopped walking. Stopped breathing, it seemed. He looked like they’d fired off a flash grenade in his face.
“There’s nothing wrong,” Lynn said. “Nothing about you, I mean.” She offered him a card.
“Your name came up in an article about some vandalism on the high-voltage lines around here,” Mark said. “We were hoping you could tell us a little about that.”
“The lines?” He had frantic eyes. They bounced from Mark to Lynn and then out beyond, to the street. Most of the time, in fact, they were on the street.
“Yeah. In the paper, you were quoted as—”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
Mark raised his eyebrows. “Pardon? You don’t know anything about the words you provided to the newspaper?”
“I know what I said. I just mean…look, we’ve got public relations people for this. I can’t just…” He finally brought his eyes back to Mark. “Do you think you know who did it?”
“We might have some ideas. First, though, we need to know the situation. You said somebody had been cutting trees onto the lines. You called it, I believe, intentionally malicious.”
“Right. So who do you think it was? What’s his name?”
He shifted his weight from one leg to the other. A subtle movement, not as jittery as his eyes, but still restless. Something about him didn’t feel right, and Mark realized what it was: Jay Baldwin in person did not convey the same impression as Jay Baldwin in the photo, the man who looked a little worn but plenty steady. The guy you’d want responding to your emergencies.
“Everything okay, Mr. Baldwin?” Mark said.
“Fine, yeah, but I can’t deal with this. I just…it’s not for me.” Mark saw that he had something in his hand, something that for an instant looked like a twin of the dive permit Mark carried. A small plastic chip. He put it in his pocket before Mark could see it clearly. “Listen,” he said, “I’d really like to know the specifics of your case.”
“We can discuss all of that,” Lynn said. “You mind if we come in for a couple minutes? We can tell you—”
“No!” He barked it at her, and she tilted her head back, startled.
“Okay. We can stay out here. But—”
“No,” he repeated. “I’m not the guy who can discuss things like this. It’s, you know, it’s a, um…a policy. It’s a corporate policy. You’ll have to call the company.”
He backed away from them but kept his head up, his eyes darting. The street was empty but you’d have thought there was a pack of feral dogs out there. He reached his truck, tried to put his key in the door lock, fumbled, and dropped the keys. When he moved to recover them, the white chip fell free and hit the garage floor and he swore at himself in a harsh whisper. He went for the chip before the keys, picked it up from the floor and inspected it as if he’d dropped a Rolex facedown onto gravel. He put it back in his pocket, but it was a different pocket this time. His breast pocket. He had to unzip his jacket to secure it.
Mark walked back out to the street and joined Lynn in the Tahoe as Jay Baldwin backed out of his garage and lowered the door. He pulled away without looking at them, driving too fast for the street. On 212, he turned left and headed northeast.
“Waste of time,” Lynn said. “That guy isn’t much of a talker, is he? I’m amazed he gave a quote to the newspaper.”
“We scared him,” Mark said.
“He was a little leery of us. Didn’t even give me a chance to charm him.”
“No,” Mark said. “We scared him, Lynn. Really. He was afraid of us.”
She gave him an odd look. “What do you mean?”
“Did you see the way he tried to unlock his truck with his key?”
“He dropped the key. He was flustered.”
“When was the last time you saw someone unlock a modern vehicle by actually turning the key? That’s a new truck, it has keyless entry, they all do. And he didn’t need to do anything. The truck was unlocked. When he finally did get in, he just opened the door. He was just going through motions before, like he was stoned.”
“Maybe he was.”
Mark shook his head. “He thought we were coming for another reason.”
Lynn already had her phone in her hand. “Is there any place in this state with a good cell signal? I’ve got a dossier on Pate from the office, but I can’t download it. Can you find us someplace with Wi-Fi?”
“Sure.” Mark started the Tahoe, drove out to 212, and turned toward town. The main street looked just as he remembered it. The flickering neon sign of the Red Lodge Café was even still there. When they’d had the money, his family ate breakfasts there. It was also the last place Mark had stopped for coffee before he’d left the state of Montana entirely, heading south. At the stoplight by the gas station, Mark could see the taillights of Jay Baldwin’s pickup as he headed out of town. He felt like he was missing something, that Jay had shown Mark something he should have understood but had failed to pick up on. He wondered what the plastic chip was and why Jay handled it the way Mark handled Lauren’s old dive permit.
“He showed his hands,” Mark said.
“What?”
“He made a point of it. Like a guy might do if he’s hustling cards and he knows people are watching close. He made a point of showing his hands. Even when he didn’t need to, like the bit with the truck keys. That was about showing his hands.”
“Why would he think we cared?”
“Either somebody is watching our boy,” Mark said, “or he thinks somebody is.”
Jay’s truck had vanished down the highway, and the reddening pines stood silent as the sun fell behind the Beartooths.