“So what is the best month to die?”
Martha Ettinger sat back in her office chair. She linked her hands behind her head. “I’d go with February,” she said, answering her own question. “You’re sick of the snow and you’re always catching a cold from someone in the office, and it’s more winter as far as you can see down the road. Yeah, February gets my vote.”
“I don’t know,” Sean said. “The highest suicide rate is in April.”
“That’s because in February people are too depressed to act on the urge.”
“Fishing can be good in February, Martha. And the crime rate’s down, you have to give February that.”
“I don’t have to give February fiddle-de-dee.” Martha shook her head. “This antler thing sounds like a bunch of voodoo to me.”
“It isn’t voodoo to him, that’s what matters.”
“I suppose.” She leaned forward. “Gigi got back to me about the fingerprints this morning. The partials under the reel seat that you thought could be Hemingway’s actually were Hemingway’s. She said to tell you she was sorry for the delay. I thought you’d want to know, though I don’t know where that gets us.”
“It tells us we’re not just howling at the moon.”
“I suppose.” Martha nodded to herself, as if coming to a decision. “Time for me to knock off. You want to take a ride up the valley? I have the key to Freida Toliver’s place. Now that her brother’s dead, the next of kin is a half-Cheyenne sister from Kentucky, or maybe West Virginia. One of those states where cousins kiss their cousins. She’s coming out to lay claim when the estate clears probate at the end of the month. Harold did a once-over, but we never had a forensic team on the premises or made a detailed search. In light of what you’re telling me, maybe we should have. The gas and my good company are on the county.”
—
So they drove up the valley, and as they topped the Norris Hill and began the descent toward Ennis, Sean told Martha he had a confession to make.
“You saw Etta Huntington.”
“You know?”
“Walt was up in Wilsall. A rancher shot his neighbor’s pointer because it got into his cattle. He mentioned that he’d seen your rig turning up the Shields River Road. Wilsall. Shields River Road. Crazy Mountains. I can add to three.”
“I just went to borrow the antler velvet.”
“I told you not to tell me if you saw her.”
“I’m telling you because I was saying goodbye to her. I thought you’d want to know.”
They drove on in silence, slowing down for the three blocks that comprised Ennis’s business district and crossing the span of the Madison River.
“Was it a long goodbye, or did you just stop by for a quickie?” Martha pulled off the pavement onto the shoulder. “This is where the fox had the den last summer, in that field with the llamas. You know, the fox and the kits the National Geographic photographer shot for the cover?”
“I saw them,” Sean said. “Everybody did.”
“Yeah, they did. That pointer the neighbor shot? Its owner put the rancher in the hospital. He told Walt he wouldn’t have hit him so hard if he’d only been screwing his wife. But the dog had better bloodlines. This state, you gotta love it.”
She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that about you and Etta. I realize you were involved, that you can’t just walk away without being honest with her. And maybe it scares me, the thought of nobody standing between us. It’s up to us now if we keep this thing going. And what’s going to happen after you get your walls up? I can’t move out of my farmhouse. It’s my home. And I have animals to consider.”
“We’re only a few hundred yards apart. We’ll work something out.”
“Will we?”
That was the question they were still mulling over when they reached the Wolf Creek turnoff.
“It’s up about a mile and a half,” Martha said. “Harold said there’s a sign says ‘Elk Creek Creations.’”
“There’s no Elk Creek here.”
“No, but there’s a place where Wolf Creek splits for a hundred yards, so Freida renamed the channel that runs by her house. Makes business sense.”
It was a typical home before money came into the valley, a white one-story rancher, a kitchen out of the ’50s, a nice big living room furnished with farm auction pieces, with a wing added onto the north end that turned out to be the workshop. Homey, and oddly without a single elk antler chandelier. Not one hanging, anyway.
“And you say she lived here alone?”
“It was one of those marriages where both parties keep their houses and live together off and on. J.C.’s place is up Jack Creek.”
Sean’s eyes roamed the walls, lingering on the artwork—country pastorals, fox and hounds, and fish and game still lifes.
Martha scratched her throat. “They look like pictures you’d see in a manor house in Yorkshire.”
“Have you ever been to a manor house in Yorkshire, Martha?”
“No, but I’ve seen Masterpiece Theatre.”
Sean nodded. “Sporting art is a relatively new genre. I have a general appreciation for the period, but this isn’t in my wheelhouse. About all I know is that it was denigrated as an inferior art form and didn’t become collectible until the 1800s, and then more for its historical insight into the life of the times rather than the quality of the brushwork.”
“Humor me. Put a value on, say, that piece.” She pointed to a fox-and-hounds oil with a rolling landscape and hunters strung out in the chase. There was some age laddering, but the painting retained vivid colors, the red of the hunters’ jackets splashing against the background.
“I wouldn’t guess.”
“Guess.”
Sean stepped closer to see if it was signed. “H. Calvert,” he said aloud. “Three thousand to maybe eight. Higher-end if Calvert is a name I should know, but don’t.”
“But the low end is three thousand dollars?”
“If it’s original, and I think it is.”
“I count fourteen pieces in this room alone. Would they all be worth three thousand or more?”
“The miniatures might be less, it would depend on the name.”
“Still, any way you cut it, Freida Toliver took fifty thousand dollars’ worth of art in trade for a few pounds of elk antler velvet.”
“That’s a small price if you believe it’s the fountain of youth. Jackson thinks it will give him a window to complete his life’s mission.”
“Which is? Remind me.”
“The rancher who told me where he lived said Jackson was writing the great American novel. I’m not sure if he was being facetious, or it was something Jackson had told him. I do know he was trying to write. Or at least it looked that way. There was the start of a story in his typewriter.”
“Yeah, so you said. The best-month-to-die thing.”
“I’d like to run it by Patrick Willoughby. I thought we could drop in at the Liars and Fly Tiers Club later. We’re already up the valley.”
“Sure. So what are we doing here again, beside art appreciation?”
“You’re the one who suggested we come.”
“So I did. Let’s see what else Freida was up to, besides selling the fountain of youth.”
They found little of note, save a baggie of marijuana in a jam jar in Freida’s medicine cabinet and six shrink-wrapped packages in her freezer that were the size and shape of Vienna sausages. They each had a date, going back to the previous July, in blue permanent marker.
“Is this what I think it is?” Martha asked.
Sean nodded. “Carson Bostic said she was down to the end of last year’s supply. Maybe we should try some.”
“Is that what you did with Etta, drink antler tea?”
“I’ll take the Fifth. I’m just saying it might make you howl at the moon.”
“Officers of the law don’t howl at the moon.”
“I seem to recall—”
“Hush.” She felt her face color with heat.
“Or we could smoke the weed. I’m told it has the same effect.”
“You do that. I’ll save a cot in the jail.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Try me. Come on, let’s have a look at the workshop.”
It was a larger-scale business than Sean would have thought, the workshop occupying an add-on room that was the size of a double garage. Half of the floor space was stacked to the ceiling with shed antlers graded for size, symmetry, color, and species. The rest was occupied by two workbenches, vises with heavily padded jaws, precision drills, and racks of drill bits. There were saws, spools of electric wire—everything needed to turn the raw material into chandeliers, lamp bases, coffee tables, drawer pulls, dog chews, and antler chic whatnot. It told them little about Freida Toliver beyond that she was organized and professional, the mild chaos of her ledgers notwithstanding.
And she was armed.
A gun cabinet in her bedroom held an L.C. Smith double 12-gauge, as well as a Remington .22 semiautomatic and a synthetic-stocked, stainless steel Tikka T3 Lite in .300 Winchester Short Magnum, with a bipod for steady aim and a Leupold eight-power scope. On a velvet-lined shelf in the case stood three marksmanship trophies, one from a state championship turkey shoot in Billings, plus a sterling silver belt buckle with an embossed cartridge on it and Freida’s initials.
“Any elk steps within five hundred yards better have written his will,” Martha said. She drew back the bolt of the rifle to make sure it was unloaded, and dry fired it. “Nice crisp trigger pull.” She nodded and passed the rifle to Sean.
He squinted his eyes, lining up a distant imaginary target.
“Either that, Martha, or . . .” The gun made a click as he pressed the trigger.
“Or what?”
“I was going to say an insurance policy on his antlers.”
Martha raised her eyes to question the comment, then she understood. “I always said you were an idiot savant,” she said.
“I’ll take the savant part,” Sean said. “Think about it. The antlers that go into her chandeliers are sheds. We know she buys some and collects them in the spring; that’s what she was doing when she died. But how does she get the antlers when they’re in velvet a month or two later? I figure she either shoots a bull and saws his antlers off, or she just shoots the antlers off and the elk runs away with a bad headache. She wouldn’t need many. A couple big six-points would put her clients in velvet for a year. You’re nodding.”
“I’m remembering something her husband said. He said Freida was so softhearted she didn’t hunt anymore; she just stalked close and counted coup. Chuck was the one who had to stock the freezer with venison.”
“Maybe we should check with an elk biologist. See if hunters have reported shooting elk that only had one antler.”
“Why one?”
“Chances are the elk would run before she could get another steady shot. She’d have to collect an antler from each elk she lined up in the scope.”
Martha nodded. “I see what you’re saying. I don’t see where it gets us, though.”
“I don’t know, either. I’m just the idea man.”
She nodded absently, chewing for an answer on her lower lip. Then shook her head.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said. She collected the packages of velvet from the freezer.
“Are you going to take that bag of pot in the bathroom or am I?” Sean said.
“Take it. It could be evidence.”
“Of what? Having fun?”
“I’ll think of something,” Martha said.