Montana Read Online Free PDF Page B

Verle said. “We don’t want to be up here any longer than we need to.”
    Lola walked across the porch and tried the door handle. It was unlocked. She stepped inside. Something hard and sharp went to powder beneath her feet. She ran her hand along the wall until she found a light switch. Wished she hadn’t. The kitchen table, the one at which she’d downed entire inky oceans of coffee during more than a decade of friendship and that Mary Alice apparently had hauled with her to Montana, lay on its side in a slurry of what appeared to be the contents of the refrigerator and all the cabinets. Lola lifted her foot and saw the blue-and-white remnants of Mary Alice’s grandmother’s dishes. She moaned and the dog whined, a quick call and response of sorrow and incomprehension. A folded piece of paper lay amid the mess. Lola saw her own name in Mary Alice’s back-slanting handwriting. She stooped and picked it up. Shook it open.
    “Lola—Camping on the Two Medicine. Back before you get here. If you beat me home, you know where to find the liquor.”
    Lola snapped her wrist, as if to free more words from the paper, ones that would make sense. Mary Alice had planned to meet her at the airport. She’d sent an email to confirm the time and flight number. And she’d left the phone message, too. The dog squirmed. Lola slid one foot ahead of the other, skating through the devastation, and found a lone intact bowl in the back of a cupboard. She started to set the dog down upon the floor, but considered the broken glass and instead swept an arm across the counter and listened to things fall. She ran a half-inch of water into the bowl, and set it and the dog onto the cleared counter. The water disappeared in a few frantic gulps. He lifted his head and sought more with a bifurcated stare, one eye brown, the other blue. His tail painted the air in feathery sweeps. Lola reached for the tag on his collar.
    “Bub.”
    Bub.
    It was Mary Alice’s word.
    “You sure that’s how you want to phrase that, Bub?” Not Mr. Mayor. Or Congressman. Or whomever she was addressing. “Fine with me, Bub,” she’d say to an editor who wanted to soften a story. Letting him know it was anything but. Or, “Sure, Bub, you can have my phone number.” When hell freezes over.
    The dog looked toward the door. Hackles lifted along his spine. Lola slipped the note into her pocket. Verle kicked his way across the room with a tremendous commotion. The dog took a step away from him, backing into the space between the cabinets and the counter. “This is a sorry business,” he said. “Did you find any food for him?”
    She shook her head.
    “We can pick some up on the way into town. I’ve called down to Charlie,” he said. “The sheriff,” he added.
    “How? My phone wouldn’t work.”
    He reached for the faucet and held his hands under the water. “It’s tough to get service up here unless you’ve got a local plan. Most of us carry two cell phones, one for local and one for normal. Charlie’s on his way up. We can meet him down at the main road. No need to stay here with the . . .” He wiped his hands on his jeans and looked at her face. “We should just go on down.”
    The sheriff intercepted them halfway back along the two-track, lights flashing red and blue, startling colors in the moonlit landscape of black and grey. Verle pulled over. The sheriff’s car came alongside. The siren cut off midway through its rising wail. Verle leaned out the window. “Charlie.”
    “Verle,” the sheriff replied. He’d buttoned up his uniform shirt all cockeyed and his hair stood up in cowlicks. He was about half Verle’s age, younger even than Lola, and the disarray shaved off more years still.
    “Going all out, aren’t you?” Verle asked.
    “You said there was somebody shot up here. When was the last time we had somebody shot in this county? On purpose, I mean, not just somebody hunting and tripped? And not just any somebody, but Mary Alice?”