Mertrice Stroup-Ogle lived high in the foothills, but not in the trendy part of town. By the time I got to her street, the sun had dropped most of the way behind the horizon, and now a steady orange glow washed out of the west up the hills. The houses here were old and battered, crouched on their small, miserable lots, bristling with rusting chain fences and the occasional tangle of barbed wire. Everything, even the gnarled, wind-bent trees, had a kind of pathetic defensiveness like a dog crawling off to die. A dark sedan perched a little higher up the road, near a drop-off that overlooked Vehpese’s sprawl to the west. Maybe that was the other journalist, I thought. The one I had seen outside Emmett’s.
Stroup-Ogle’s house wasn’t any different from the rest of the street. At some point it had been nothing more than a cabin, and the weather-stripped wood must have been at least eighty years old. A carport, much more recent in construction, stuck out from one side, with Stroup-Ogle’s memorable van parked inside, and a wobbly trail of pavers led through the knee-high weeds. The air smelled like those weeds—a wet, rotting vegetable smell. In a fairy-tale, those weeds would grow around a witch’s house.
Somehow I crossed the pavers without losing my balance and disappearing into the weeds. When I reached the front door, I used the knocker. It hadn’t been part of the original construction; the rest of the cabin showed no sign of adornment at all, and the brass knocker slipped when I used it and revealed the same bleached wood underneath as the rest of the door. No response. I knocked again. Still nothing. I gave it one more time, really hammering the knocker home, and the thin door rattled in its frame so badly that I was afraid I was going to put a hole in it.
I had no sooner released the brass handle when the door swung open.
“What in the—”
Some people, I always thought, looked better when they were at home. Maybe it was just that they were more comfortable. Mertrice Stroup-Ogle, unfortunately, wasn’t one of those people. She wore a sparkling turquoise kimono that gaped at the top and at the bottom came barely to the top of her skinny shanks. The kimono did nothing to hide the uneven distribution of her weight; her breasts, sagging and pendulous like a pair of flour sacks, strained the kimono, while her rail-thin legs, a fishy blue-white exploding with spider veins, shifted restlessly. “Oh,” she said, catching her breath. Her tone became mild and sweet and poisonous, the way I’ve heard antifreeze can be. “Well, I won’t say no to a handsome young man at my door.”
“I haven’t asked you anything yet.”
“You’re about to,” she said with a leer.
“I want to talk to you.”
“And I, my dear, darling boy, have been dying to talk to you. You’re very naughty you know,” she said, adopting a scolding tone. “You haven’t returned a single phone call.”
“What?”
A knowing look passed over her face. “So. She didn’t tell you. Well, I can’t say I expected any better from her, knowing what I do. I could tell you things about Sara Miller that would curl your toenails.”
“I doubt that.”
“Oh, yes. You’re the hard one. Quite the hard and tough one.” She trilled an affected laugh. “Well, come in, come in. What we’re going to say, the whole world doesn’t need to know.”
She leaned against the frame, exposing more of her heaving chest, arms and legs spread behind her like too much bad acting.
“Isn’t that the whole point?” I asked, squeezing past her. One skinny, fish-blue foot skipped along the back of my calf, and I tried to hide a shudder. “Of being a journalist, I mean. Aren’t you trying to get the whole world to listen to you?”
“Yes. My, yes.” She shut the door, leaning against it and still looking like an aged, out-of-work Hollywood starlet. “But not until they pay.” Then she trilled that laugh again and fluttered her hands.
It took a moment for me to realize that she was gesturing for me to sit. We stood in what must have been the cabin’s main room. A wood-burning range stood against one wall, its door open to expose a cherry-red glow. From what I could tell, the range also served as the cabin’s source of heat, and it did a fairly good job. Two chairs decorated with antlers, the cushions covered in hide, sat close to the stove; one of the chairs was covered with Pepto-Bismol colored nail clippers. I decided I knew what Mertrice had been doing when I knocked on the door. And I decided I was going to take the other seat.
Mertrice flopped down opposite me, the kimono flying up and scattering the toenail clippings. She didn’t seem to notice any of it. Instead, one of her claw-like hands snatched a steno pad, then a pen, and then a tape recorder.
“You don’t mind, do you?”
“I mind.”
“It’s for your own safety,” she said. “As much as for mine. If you claim I’ve misrepresented what you said, there will be a record.”
“I’m not here to talk to you. I’m here because I have questions.”
“My dear boy, everyone has questions. They make the world go round, don’t you know?” She leaned back, tapping the pen on the steno pad as if that settled everything.
“Do you remember Harold Hanshew?”
“Oh, now that’s very interesting.” She jerked forward in the seat and scribbled on the notepad. “I suppose Sara told you, didn’t she? Well, what does it mean to you? Why bring it up now?”
“What happened with him?”
Peering at me through puffy eyelids, Mertrice seemed to consider what to do next. Then, cocking her head to the side, she said, “Is Emmett Bradley a good young man?”
“What?”
“You want an answer. I want an answer.”
“I’m not talking about Emmett.”
“Hmm.” She scribbled something. “Do you have a good relationship with Austin Miller? As lovers, I mean.”
I choked when she said the word lovers, and my brain scrambled for something to say. “Emmett’s fine. I mean, he’s a decent person.”
Cooing in disappointment, Mertrice continued to scribble.
“Who’s going to publish this crap anyway?”
“You never know. You simply never know. The story about Makayla’s disappearance was picked up by the AP. That was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. And this—well, even if the AP doesn’t want it, there will certainly be local interest.”
“And if there isn’t?”
“My dear boy, not to toot my own horn, but I do have something of a reputation. The internet has leveled the playing field. People can now have direct access to unmediated journalism. High-quality, authentic reporting. It hasn’t been that way since the golden age of newspapers.”
I didn’t know much about history, but I was pretty sure it hadn’t been that way back then either, but I didn’t bother to say so. “Well?”
“Oh. Hanshew was killed.”
I waited, but she said nothing more. “That’s all?”
“I’m sorry, but you didn’t give me very much either.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I want to know about Emmett Bradley,” she said, and the affected tone dropped from her voice, replaced by something very close to ferocity. “More particularly, I want to know about you and Emmett Bradley. If you aren’t willing to talk, then neither am I.”
“Fine.”
I stood and moved towards the door. Before I could reach it, though, Mertrice called after me, “You are interested, although I’m curious to know why, in the Feast. Is that right?”
“What do you know about it?”
She smiled and pointed her pen at the empty chair.
When I had sat down again, her voice resumed its false brightness. “Now, you simply must tell me everything. Or not everything, I suppose. A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.” She tittered into her hand. A portion of my rage must have made its way to my face, though, because some of her humor disappeared and she swallowed. “As I was saying, I’m doing a piece on Emmett. He’s a very difficult person. I mean, as the object of my research. What can you tell me about him?”
“Ask me something else. Ask me about Samantha Oates. Ask me about the shooting in Austin Miller’s basement.”
Curiosity gleamed in her eyes, but she shook her head. “Oh no. I’m afraid this is my current project. Although I’d be happy to interview you on those other subjects another time. Tell me about Emmett Bradley.”
“What do you want to know? I’m not going to tell you any secrets; I don’t know any.”
“Oh nothing big, nothing grand. No secrets.” Her laughter trilled in the room, but it faded quickly, and her eyes darted across my face like a woman scrambling to read a tickertape. “Whatever you’d like to say. Think of yourself as a character witness.”
I knew I shouldn’t talk to her. I knew that Emmett hated her, and I knew that he had told me to stay away from her. But I needed to know what she knew about the Feast. And, if I were being honest, part of me hoped that I could help. Maybe she really did just want to know something about Emmett. Maybe I could change what she wrote about him, give it a positive spin.
“He’s smart. He’s brave. He’s . . . determined, when he puts his mind to things. He can play guitar.”
“He’s brave? What makes you say that?”
“Just some experiences we’ve had together.”
She made approving noises, scribbling as fast as she could. “Are you jealous of his relationship with Makayla Price?”
The heat from the stove pounded against me, and sweat broke out across my forehead. “That’s a stupid question. I’m dating someone else.”
“Fine, then. How do you feel about his relationship with Makayla Price?”
“If it makes him happy, that’s great.”
“Really?”
“Listen, if you—”
Hurrying, she spoke over me. “What do you think about Makayla Price’s safe return?”
“I think it’s a miracle.”
“Your tone makes it sound like you don’t really believe that.”
“Say whatever you fucking like about my tone. You got my answer.”
“Can you comment on rumors that you and Emmett Bradley have had an ongoing sexual relationship?”
I lurched up from my seat. For a moment, I was so furious that I couldn’t speak. A log in the stove popped, and embers whirled through the open door. A few of them scattered across the back of my hands, stinging me, but I barely felt them.
“That’s enough,” I said. “And you’d better watch your mouth.”
Her eyes rose to meet mine, and they were unafraid. Excited, yes. Triumphant, maybe. And that made me feel unsettled, as though I’d misjudged the situation or perhaps missed something.
“Of course,” she said, her voice fluttery and apologetic. “You’ve been very kind. Do sit down, my boy. Please do.”
“What do you know about Belshazzar’s Feast?”
“That is an interesting question,” she said. “I’ve only had one other person ask me.”
“Sara.”
Mertrice didn’t respond, though. She tucked the steno pad behind her and turned the pen slowly in her hands. When she spoke, her voice had a pathetic kind of eagerness, as though she’d been wanting to tell this story for years and never could work up the courage. “No one ever threatened me, you know. No notes tucked into my mailbox, no phone calls in the middle of the night. I was young when I published that stupid piece. Not much older than you, if you can believe that. I was very naive, then. Very foolish. I thought that people wanted to know the truth, and I dug very hard to find the truth.”
In spite of my earlier anger, I dropped back into my seat. “What were you researching?”
Tugging on a fleshy earlobe, she considered the question, staring into the cherry-red glow of the stove. “It was a boy who went missing.” Out of the corner of her eye, she must have noticed the shock on my face because she smiled. “It’s been happening for a very long time, Mr. Eliot. Did you think Makayla was the first?”
“But Mr. Big Empty took her—” I said. I stopped myself, but it was too late.
“Who?” Before I had time to consider an answer, though, Mertrice surprised me. She put up one shriveled hand and shook her head. “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Vie Eliot, it’s been going on for decades. A boy, a girl, sometimes a few all at once. Many come back. They got lost, they say. It’s possible. Very possible, in a place like this. Sometimes they don’t come back. Sometimes the bodies are found. Sometimes they aren’t.
“I was looking for a boy, and then he came back. He was fine. He had fallen off his horse in a draw, and then he had gotten confused, wandered for days. It was, to borrow your phrase from earlier, a miracle. Not the first such miracle in our town, but a miracle nonetheless, and everyone was grateful. But I knew this boy’s family. And I knew he was too smart to lose himself so easily. And during the three days he was missing, a long-distance trucker had reported seeing a boy that looked just like the missing one, and that had been up in Montana.”
She paused, and the burning logs popped again, sending a cascade of embers across the scarred floor.
“What happened to him?” I asked. “Was the trucker right?”
“The boy wouldn’t tell me anything. You might try asking him yourself. His name is James Spencer; he teaches at the high school.”
My hands tightened reflexively on the antler frame of the chair. “Jim Spencer? He was . . . what? Kidnapped?”
“Oh yes. Although no one, least of all him, will admit it.”
“You’re joking.”
But all the laughter, all the pretense, had vanished from her face. Instead of the mocking, supercilious affectations she had shown earlier, Mertrice Stroup-Ogle now only displayed a bone-deep weariness.
“As I said, no one ever threatened me. But I could sense it all the same. Like a kind of pressure, a weight on the back of my neck, like a pair of eyes watching me. At first—” She choked out a sound that might have been a laugh. “Oh, God, I was young, but at first I liked it. There was a bit of a thrill. Being a small-town reporter at a failing paper, I wanted a bit of thrill. So I followed the case. I asked questions. I looked deeper. It took me almost two years.”
“You found where he was taken?” I shook my head. “What does this have to do with Hanshew?”
“Jim Spencer disappeared in 1993. Two years later, in early 1995, I was following a line of money that I was sure connected to the disappearance. I met a Highway Patrol officer who was cagey, jumpy, and who was convinced someone was waiting for him around every corner. He was following the same line of money, and he wanted someone to talk to. I wasn’t convinced we were after the same thing, but I was never one to turn down a friend with insider information.”
“And Harold Hanshew led you to Belshazzar’s Feast.”
“No,” Mer said. Her fingers fumbled the pen, and it clattered to the floor. She tightened her hands into fists, and the thin skin over her knuckles blanched. “No, I led him to Belshazzar’s Feast, and he was killed. Dragged for twenty miles.” She shivered and then laughed that same coughing laugh. “God, they didn’t even need to threaten me. What they did to Scotty was threat enough. I published that one article because . . . because I knew it was nothing, just tapping them on the nose, and because I thought I owed it to Scotty. But then I dropped it.”
“So the corrupt cops, the drugs, the prostitution?”
“Oh yes. All of it real. I’m sure not much has changed; the world’s oldest professions have a kind of timeless elegance.”
“So where is it? Belshazzar’s Feast, I mean.”
“I have no idea.”
“What?”
“I’m fairly sure it’s in Montana. Likely just across the border on Crow land, although that part is guesswork.”
“How did you find out about it? How do you know anything about it?”
“As I said, we followed the money. Over time, the money disappeared, vanishing into various shell companies and different laundering schemes. So I went backwards, tracking anything I could. And do you know what? Someone, somewhere made a wonderfully, terribly stupid decision: they bought something. It was a dinky shop in Sheridan, and I had to drive there and bribe the clerk a hundred dollars. They made signs. You know, neon store signs.”
“And the sign said Belshazzar’s Feast.”
“I think it was that name that got Scotty killed. He had friends; I think they would have tried to transfer him, or blackmail him, or found some other way to keep him quiet. But when he started spreading around that name, I think they decided he had to go.”
With a sigh, Mertrice heaved her weight out of the chair. She wobbled for a moment, steadying herself daintily with two fingers on the antler armrests. Then she waved for me to wait and disappeared into the back of the cabin. When she returned, she was carrying a shoebox. She perched on the edge of the chair, balanced the box on her knee, and wiggled the top loose. Dust rolled off in a cloud.
“I’ve only kept two things from those days. And I suppose I’m stupid for having kept even that much, but remember that there’s a part of you that remembers what it was like to be young, and to believe that good always wins and that the truth is the ultimate arbiter for rational men and women.” From within the shoebox she retrieved a single photocopied page and a photograph. She handed me the photocopy first. The quality was poor, and the original document must have been ancient. Even in the grainy reproduction, the flourishes on the handwriting and rows of ledger entries marked this as an old, but important, official record. A single yellow highlighter line ran across one of the entries.
I tried to read the script, but before I could puzzle it out, Mertrice spoke. “Taxed this day, October 27, in the year of our Lord 1853, Belshazzar’s Feast, proprietors Urho Rattling Tent and the Lady Buckhardt.”
I tried to swallow, but the heat from the stove had baked me dry. I had heard those names before. Ginny had mentioned them when I asked about Vehpese and the people who lived here with strange abilities. “What does that mean?”
“Very little, I’m afraid. That’s a tax ledger from the Eastern circuit of the Oregon territory, which stretched into Montana back then. A little old lady in Billings had the microfiche for her genealogy. But you think about that: 1853. How many kids have gone missing in all those years?”
My hand was shaking a little, and the paper rustled like dry leaves. This was much older, much bigger than anything I had expected. It was bigger than me and Mr. Big Empty and Makayla. It was bigger than dirty cops and drugs and prostitution.
Mertrice plucked the photocopy from my fingers. Before handing me the photograph, she studied it for a moment. Then, like a woman tossing down her cards and waiting for the showdown, she handed it to me. Three men stood with their arms around each other’s shoulders. They had on the same green and tan uniform, and they all wore smiles. The man on the left I recognized immediately: Harold Hanshew, with his round, pleasant face. The man on the right I didn’t know. But it was the man in the middle that made me go numb, like I’d dropped into a pool of ice water. Deputy Fred Fort stood there—younger, slimmer, but still definitely Fred Fort.
“Fred Fort was Hanshew’s commanding officer,” Mertrice said, retrieving the photograph and returning it to the shoebox. “He got a job in Vehpese in 1996. Left the Highway Patrol, according to him, because he didn’t like the loneliness. But I think the truth is that he let Hanshew get too far out of hand, and they busted him for it.”
“You’re telling me that Fred Fort was a dirty cop.”
“I’m telling you that I think Fred Fort killed Scotty himself.”
I didn’t answer. Mertrice set aside the shoebox and walked me to the door. As I stepped outside, blasted by that smell of rotting vegetation and the cold wind, I wrapped my arms across my chest. Mertrice stood there, still spilling out of her kimono but no longer looking quite as ridiculous.
“One more thing,” she said, her thick, fleshy features mottling with color, and a sudden nasty coldness coming into her eyes, like a snake about to bite. “I told you that only one other person has asked me about Belshazzar’s Feast. But it wasn’t Sara Miller.”
“Who was it?”
Her lips peeled up, exposing her canine teeth in what might have been a smirk or a grimace before she spoke. “It was your father.”
And then she shut the door in my face.