The Bitterroots (Cassie Dewell #4) - C.J. Box Page 0,17

I said.”

In her notes, Cassie wrote down: Hayloft Saloon / Lolo / Lindy. Corvallis Tavern / Hamilton / Hawk.

“You’re less than helpful,” Cassie said. “Can you help me with a time line from the hour you entered the Hayloft Saloon to when you were arrested?”

“Not anything other than what I told you. I was blotto.”

Cassie sat back. “How often does this happen—these blackout periods when you’re drinking?”

He shrugged. “Back when I was a young big swinging dick on Wall Street it was every couple of years, but it hasn’t happened in a long time. This place isn’t good for me, I guess.

“I don’t know what it is about coming back to Montana,” Kleinsasser mused. “But whatever it is—the big sky or the bad memories—it makes me want to find a bar stool as fast as I can.”

Cassie looked over at Rachel again. The attorney looked as exasperated with Kleinsasser as Cassie felt.

He said, “They used to tell me when I went on a bender that the people I talked to didn’t even know I was drunk,” he said. “They described me as ‘lucid.’ But afterwards, I couldn’t remember a damned thing.”

“Let’s say there was a scheme against you,” Cassie said to him. “Who would likely be the prime mover in it?”

“J. W.,” Kleinsasser said quickly. “Absolutely John Wayne. He thinks of himself as the keeper of the family name. Rand is unstable and he worships J. W., so I wouldn’t be surprised if he were in on it.”

“What about your sister?”

He shook his head. “Cheyenne and I have the same problem. We tend to go on benders where we can’t remember what we did. Except when Cheyenne goes on one she comes back pregnant.”

“Your parents?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past them.”

“And why would Franny lie?”

“I wish I could tell you. I liked her. She’s a little off in the head but anyone would be growing up in that family.”

“So, in conclusion,” Cassie said, “everyone in your family is poison, twisted, and paranoid except for you. Your role is to show up and try and help everyone out of the goodness of your heart after twenty-five years of being away. Did I get that right?”

Kleinsasser started to talk but caught himself. Then he turned to Rachel. “I don’t have to listen to this bullshit.”

Rachel said, “This is nothing compared to what you’ll hear in the courtroom.”

“I’m not copping a plea,” he said. “There’s no way I did this.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t remember what happened,” Cassie said.

*

Cassie waited on a worn bench in the jailhouse hallway for Rachel to finish her meeting with Blake Kleinsasser. She couldn’t spend another minute with him.

When Rachel came out she flashed her palms up. “Don’t say it, Cassie. I know.”

Cassie nodded.

“If you go up there and come back with corroboration maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to convince him to change his plea and we can move past this.”

“How do you do it?” Cassie asked. “How do you look at yourself in the mirror?”

“I don’t.”

“We’re on the wrong side here,” Cassie said.

Rachel didn’t disagree. She looked out the smudged jailhouse window and said, “The fires are bad this morning. My throat feels like I smoked a pack of cigarettes.”

“I’ll go tomorrow,” Cassie said as she stood up.

They walked down the hallway together but didn’t say another word until they parted for their separate cars in the parking lot.

“Sometimes, they’re not guilty,” Rachel said over her shoulder.

But most of the time they are, Cassie thought to herself.

Like Blake Kleinsasser.

four

The dining room still smelled of soy and MSG as Cassie gathered the dishes after dinner that night with Isabel and Ben. She’d stopped at Chinatown Restaurant on West Main on her way home and picked up cartons of sweet and sour pork, cashew chicken, fried rice, and hot and sour soup. Chinese was a compromise of sorts: Ben liked it because it was still exotic to him after living in North Dakota, and Isabel tolerated it because in her mind it was the product of struggling indigenous immigrants in a Caucasian world even though Chinese had built the railroads and had been established in Montana for generations.

Dinner had been quiet: Cassie with her thoughts, Ben with his, and Isabel scrolling through her iPad. But they’d all eaten together and not argued about anything, so it was a win. Often, lack of tension was all she could ask for.

While she scraped off the dishes and placed the half-full containers in the refrigerator for future meals, she tried to