Du Pré.
“Oh,” said Harvey, “I already did.”
“Prick,” said Du Pré. “You know I say yes, huh?”
“Yup,” said Harvey. “I need you on this one, we do anyway.”
“OK,” said Du Pré.
“Bodies are dumped out in the sagebrush,” said Harvey. “Very few FBI guys know much about sagebrush.”
“Yah,” said Du Pré. “I am trying to find Benetsee.”
“That would have been my next question,” said Harvey.
“He is in Canada,” said Du Pré.
“I’ll send you some money,” said Harvey. “You buy him some wine and tobacco and meat.”
“Oh,” said Du Pré, “I take care of it.” “Thanks,” said Harvey. “Yeah,” said Du Pré.
CHAPTER 5
“D U P RÉ!” SAID M ADELAINE . “You ask him to ask you them question I give you.”
“Yah,” said Du Pré. “He ask me I am fucking twelve women, like you keep telling me I am, I say no, the machine, it says I am lying.”
“OK,” said Madelaine. “I thought so.”
“It is fourteen, anyway,” said Du Pré. “My dick, it is huge and it is very hungry. Twelve women, they do not quite do it for me, you know.”
“OK,” said Madelaine. “I fix that. You don’t be telling me, you have a headache, you hear.”
Du Pré nodded and grinned at her.
“Now on, you don’t got time, fuck more than me,” said Madelaine.
“Love is holy,” said Father Van Den Heuvel. “And never more so than when the two of you discuss it.”
The three of them were sitting at Madelaine’s kitchen table having lunch. Elk and vegetable soup and Madelaine’s good bread and home-canned corn and peppers.
The big, clumsy Belgian Jesuit had splotches of elk soup and kernels of corn down his cassock.
Been a while since he knock himself out shutting his head in his car door, Du Pré thought, he should maybe do that pretty soon again.
Three times the good priest had been found lying by his car, out cold. He was the clumsiest human being Du Pré had ever known. He was not allowed to split wood anymore. He had split his own foot so badly he was two years on crutches.
It was maybe the only congregation in the world which laid bets on whether or not the priest would drop the Host during Communion.
There was half a foot of snow outside on the ground. Even though it was the first week of June, it was Montana, and it seemed to snow at least every other year in early June. Late June.
“It ever snow here in July?” said Father Van Den Heuvel. “I think it has snowed every other month.”
“Yah,” said Du Pré. “We got two feet once, Fourth of July.”
“Ah,” said Father Van Den Heuvel, “God’s love is wonderful.”
“It is sad, them girls, no one know who they are,” said Madelaine.
Only one of the three bodies could be identified. Father Van Den Heuvel had buried the unknown two this morning. The county had paid for the coffins.
“Poor children,” said the big priest. “I wonder where their families are.”
“Lots of runaway kids,” said Madelaine.
The pathologists had said that the two bodies that Du Pré had found were approximately sixteen. Dental work had been of minimal quality. One of the girls had a tattoo, the kind made in jails with pen inks and dull needles. A skull with a cross sticking out of it.
On the web of skin between thumb and forefinger of her left hand. The girl may have done it herself.
“How come they bury them so quick?” said Madelaine.
“They get their samples and that is that,” said Du Pré.
Modern times.
Don’t want to pay the cold storage on them, Du Pré thought. These are not kids from nice homes. People who have some power, money. These kids, they will be forgotten. They always were forgotten. Their parents never even knew that they were there, I bet.
Only Du Pré and Madelaine and Benny had come to the interment.
Benny left immediately.
Father Van Den Heuvel had said his few words and then he and Du Pré and Benny had let the coffins down. They were very light.
“Du Pré!” Madelaine