IT WAS NEVER good news when my phone rang in the middle of the night. It had happened so many times over
the course of my career that I couldn’t believe it still startled me so badly. But my initial reaction was always about
trying to ke ep it from bothering anyone else.
Tonight that wasn’t an option. Before I even picked up the phone, my wife asked in the dark, “Who could that be?”
The answer was almost always the NYPD or someone associated with them. The result was usually me having to
leave my comfortable bed to go to some homicide scene in upper Manhattan.
I looked at the phone’s screen and saw that it was Rob Trilling.
Somehow that made me even more nervous. I answered the phone and said, “You okay, Trilling?”
The tone of his r eply gave me a chill.
“No.” There was a pause, then Trilling said, “Sorry to call so late. I forgot about the time difference. But I’ve
stumbled into something that might be over my head.” He filled me in on everything that had happened between his
arrival in Bozeman that morning and the discovery of Lillian’s body in the remains of his brother’s burned-out
office.
I asked, “What do the cops say?”
“No cops here—just a few d eputies from the county sheriff’s office.
Right now they don’t know what caused the fire. It’s going to take a couple of days of investigation. But I can tell
you they don’t want to entertain any theories about an out-of-town guy murdering local citizens. They’re looking
for the quickest and most efficient way to close the case.”
I threw out a few more general suggestions, then Trilling blurted, “I hate to ask this, but is there any way you could
come out to Montana?”
For a few moments, I considered the bombing investigation, Mary Catherine, and my life in general. Then I said,
“Let me talk to Harry Grissom in the morning. I’ll find a way to get out there.”