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don’t go inside it. I wanna be able to tell the dicks that no patrolman of mine screwed up their crime scene. I’ll get these people on the move here. And get those arrows outta that J. B. Hunt trailer. Do it without screwing up the shafts, okay? We might get prints off them.”
    It took Rita and McAllister awhile to close down Bell’s Oasis and empty out the snack bar. They put a tarpaulin over the dead boy and wrote down the names and numbers of anybody who would admit to seeing anything.
    Most of the witnesses agreed that the first thing they noticed was Joe Bell coming out of the station with the barrel of his shotgun stuck into the belly of that dead boy over there.
    He got the same story from the waitress on duty. She was a weathered-looking number with pale yellow hair that floatedaround her head like cotton candy. She said her name was Marla LeMay and had ID to prove it, which was good enough for McAllister. She had that seen-it-all-and-seen-it-first look that made McAllister think of cops, hookers, and old nuns.
    “How long you been working for Bell, Marla?”
    “Six weeks. Maybe seven. I got a place over in Hardin, near the post office? I work double shifts here ’cause Joe can’t seem to keep his help.”
    “Yeah? Why’s that?”
    “He lets his little head think for his big head.”
    “Oh—that doesn’t bother you?”
    “No. First time he tried anything, I put my hand down the front of his jeans and give his tail a twist. Then I told him if I leave I’m goin’ straight to Montana Labor and sue his ass off. Plus I’d come back and kill his dog.”
    “You sure Bell has a dog?”
    “If he doesn’t I’ll buy him one and
then
kill it.”
    They both laughed.
    “Okay, Marla. What’d you see today?”
    “Can I just not say anything?”
    “Why?”
    “I need this job. I just don’t like lying to cops, either.”
    “Why would you have to lie to me?”
    “Because I ain’t at all sure anybody had to get shot today.”
    “Why don’t you just tell me what you saw, and I’ll work out where I mighta heard it?”
    “Bullshit, Sergeant.”
    “Call me Beau.”
    “Bullshit, Beau. Call me Marla.”
    “I’ve been calling you Marla.”
    “Yeah. But now you got my permission.”
    “Why’s it bullshit?”
    “I been to court a coupla times. You guys are always saying hey, well now,
you’ll
never have to testify. Then you go back to the office, and some college-kid DA says fuck that. Subpoena the bitch.”
    He smiled down at her again.
    “You’re a smart woman. You can see how sometimes shit happens and all you can do is try to scrape it up. I got a poor dead boy over there, died while Joe Bell was playing at Wyatt Earp. Bell says it was self-defense, but all I can see is a dead kid. I don’t see a cash bag. I see arrows—an odd choice for armed robbery, but that’s okay. Everybody says the first they saw was Bell backin’ the dead guy out of his office with his Winchester. Is that what you saw?”
    “I saw the boy go into Joe’s office. I heard them talking. Then I seen the boy backing out, and Joe’s got that shotgun shoved right into the kid’s belly.”
    “Were they fighting?”
    “It
looked
like a fight from where I was at.”
    “Yeah, but what was being said?”
    “I really couldn’t hear. By that time, some of the customers were screaming and a lot of people were trying to get out of the way.”
    “And the kid?”
    “He wasn’t saying anything. He was just trying to back up without falling.”
    “You see a weapon?”
    “Yeah. I saw a knife. The kid had it in his hand when he came backing out.”
    “Was it in his hand when he went in?”
    “I didn’t see it. Knife like that, you notice it.”
    “Was Bell in his office when the kid went in?”
    “Yeah. He’s always in there. Has a bunch of skin magazines under the desk. We call him Zamfir.”
    “Why Zamfir?”
    “Bell’s a master of the skin flute.”
    McAllister thought it over. Bell said he saw weapons. When? Not