gruesome stories from their years in the business, in which abortive attempts to hide bodies figured prominently. Mary Alice’s murder the previous summer had been the only one in the county in forty years, but Montana’s other fifty-five counties provided plenty of fodder. Even if Express reporters hadn’t actually covered those killings, they pored over the details in preparation for the day someone in Magpie went homicidal—and creative.
“No matter how well people plan a murder, they always seem to forget the fact that there’ll be a body to deal with afterward. Forget wood chippers. Bone fragments and DNA from here to Sunday,” Jorkki advised.
“Same for garbage trucks,” said Jan. “They can smash the junk from your kitchen trashcan, but a dead person just ends up in big chunks.”
Lola’s own contributions harkened to Baltimore, or as she had described it to Tina, “the town where nobody ever reported a bad smell.”
“People were forever shoving bodies into closets or under the bed or some such, and just leaving them there. Somebody would finally find them and all the neighbors would say, ‘We thought a mouse had died in the walls.’ ”
Nothing, of course, could fully prepare Tina for the day when she’d cover one of those stories on her own. But she’d learn to turn it into a tale later, to rely on the fiction that a good barroom recounting could stave off the shock and horror of those initial facts.
Now Lola shifted uneasily beside Charlie, wondering if Tina had thought of the missing girls—she’d grown up with them, after all—and despite her defiance on their behalf, wondered if her friends had ended up as nothing more than fragments in a DNA lab somewhere. Lola rued her own part in planting such images in Tina’s head. She checked the bedside clock again. No matter how she timed it, she’d drive a significant part of the way to the oil patch in the dark. Better to make that part early, given that the truck traffic would only worsen the closer she got to the patch. She moved her leg experimentally and Bub jumped to his feet, instantly alert. Charlie stirred and flung an arm around her. There’d be no sneaking out of bed without waking him. She pictured his arm across her small, pale breasts. When she’d first met him, she’d thought him tanned by the sun that shone as fiercely in the summer as the winds blew in the winter. His last name came by way of earlier generations of French fur trappers who married Indian women, but his mother was Blackfeet, mostly, the algorithms of blood quantum qualifying him for tribal enrollment. For his children to meet the quantum, though, he’d be best off marrying within the tribe. Which Jan had pointed out to Lola.
“Bad enough you slept with a source,” she’d said, speaking over Lola’s protestation that she hadn’t even been working for the Express when she’d started seeing Charlie. “But no white woman has a future with that guy. You’re just asking to get hurt.”
“Jesus, Jan. Nobody’s getting hurt, and for sure nobody’s having kids. It’s just a good time.”
Jan spoke with the authority of someone raised in a small town where secrets were nonexistent. “I know a whole lot of babies who started out as a good time. I hope you two are taking precautions.”
Lola’s face had grown warm, as much from pride as embarrassment. She’d held several friends’ hands through any number of pregnancy scares, had driven more than one to a clinic, trying to ignore their obvious resentment at her own clockwork biology that was, apparently, foolproof. Now, she checked a mental calendar, sighed, then nudged Charlie. He woke instantly, as fully alert upon waking as he was oblivious while asleep. Alert, and ready, too. “Condom,” she whispered, as he pulled her to him. The clock said five. Lola wound her arms around him, almost as grateful for the distraction of lovemaking as she was for the fact that she’d be on the road minutes
“No matter how well people plan a murder, they always seem to forget the fact that there’ll be a body to deal with afterward. Forget wood chippers. Bone fragments and DNA from here to Sunday,” Jorkki advised.
“Same for garbage trucks,” said Jan. “They can smash the junk from your kitchen trashcan, but a dead person just ends up in big chunks.”
Lola’s own contributions harkened to Baltimore, or as she had described it to Tina, “the town where nobody ever reported a bad smell.”
“People were forever shoving bodies into closets or under the bed or some such, and just leaving them there. Somebody would finally find them and all the neighbors would say, ‘We thought a mouse had died in the walls.’ ”
Nothing, of course, could fully prepare Tina for the day when she’d cover one of those stories on her own. But she’d learn to turn it into a tale later, to rely on the fiction that a good barroom recounting could stave off the shock and horror of those initial facts.
Now Lola shifted uneasily beside Charlie, wondering if Tina had thought of the missing girls—she’d grown up with them, after all—and despite her defiance on their behalf, wondered if her friends had ended up as nothing more than fragments in a DNA lab somewhere. Lola rued her own part in planting such images in Tina’s head. She checked the bedside clock again. No matter how she timed it, she’d drive a significant part of the way to the oil patch in the dark. Better to make that part early, given that the truck traffic would only worsen the closer she got to the patch. She moved her leg experimentally and Bub jumped to his feet, instantly alert. Charlie stirred and flung an arm around her. There’d be no sneaking out of bed without waking him. She pictured his arm across her small, pale breasts. When she’d first met him, she’d thought him tanned by the sun that shone as fiercely in the summer as the winds blew in the winter. His last name came by way of earlier generations of French fur trappers who married Indian women, but his mother was Blackfeet, mostly, the algorithms of blood quantum qualifying him for tribal enrollment. For his children to meet the quantum, though, he’d be best off marrying within the tribe. Which Jan had pointed out to Lola.
“Bad enough you slept with a source,” she’d said, speaking over Lola’s protestation that she hadn’t even been working for the Express when she’d started seeing Charlie. “But no white woman has a future with that guy. You’re just asking to get hurt.”
“Jesus, Jan. Nobody’s getting hurt, and for sure nobody’s having kids. It’s just a good time.”
Jan spoke with the authority of someone raised in a small town where secrets were nonexistent. “I know a whole lot of babies who started out as a good time. I hope you two are taking precautions.”
Lola’s face had grown warm, as much from pride as embarrassment. She’d held several friends’ hands through any number of pregnancy scares, had driven more than one to a clinic, trying to ignore their obvious resentment at her own clockwork biology that was, apparently, foolproof. Now, she checked a mental calendar, sighed, then nudged Charlie. He woke instantly, as fully alert upon waking as he was oblivious while asleep. Alert, and ready, too. “Condom,” she whispered, as he pulled her to him. The clock said five. Lola wound her arms around him, almost as grateful for the distraction of lovemaking as she was for the fact that she’d be on the road minutes
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