Free Back of Beyond by C. J. Box Page B

accident or suicide theory. Because that means somebody opened a bottle and left it to be found with the body, and somebody opened the door of the stove.”
    Nodding, Cody said, “So our killer bashed him in the head, drank or poured out the bottle, and set the place on fire.”
    “You’re jumping to conclusions,” Larry said.
    “Well,” Cody said, “here’s another jump. Whoever did it knew Hank once had problems with alcohol. Since Hank hadn’t had a drop in five years, they’d have to know Hank’s history. A stranger wouldn’t likely know that, would he?”
    Larry started to argue but the edges of his mouth turned down and he nodded. “I see where you’re going. But who would know, besides you?”
    Cody didn’t answer. He let Larry figure it out.
    “Every other person in your AA group,” Larry said. “You people confess everything to each other. They would know.”
    Cody said, “Exactly.”
    Larry said, “So we need to establish the whereabouts of all of the Helena AA members between the hours of eight and midnight three nights ago.”
    Cody paused. “How’d you determine the time of death? The ME?”
    “Naw. The receipt from when Winters bought the steaks had the exact time on it: 6:03 P.M. It takes almost an hour to drive from the store to his cabin, so let’s say he was there by seven. Montana Power and Light said the cabin had a power outage at midnight, which I attribute to the fire. So there’s our window.”
    Cody was impressed. Larry was good.
    “Back to the alcoholics,” Larry said. “Do you know them all?”
    Cody nodded.
    “Do you have a list?”
    “At home,” Cody said. “There’s thirteen in our little group. Of course, there are groups all over and a hell of a lot more alcoholics in Helena than you’d imagine. But our group is small because of when and where we meet. I can e-mail it to you. I can’t officially work on the case, but I can feed you. ”
    “Cool,” Larry said. Cody could see a light behind his eyes. They were getting somewhere.
    “I hate this, though,” Cody said. “I’m betraying their trust. This is really a shitty thing to do to them. I mean, you’ll be surprised. We’re talking doctors, lawyers, a couple politicians. Even somebody in our office.”
    Larry was surprised.
    “Edna,” Cody said. “But you don’t need to question her. She was working dispatch here every night this week.”
    “Don’t worry,” Larry said. “I won’t even hint at how I got their names. I’ll say we’re simply following up on everyone we could find who might have known him. I might even fudge it a little and say we recovered an address book and we’re just calling all the names in it. I won’t mention AA and I won’t bring up your name.”
    “Thank you, Larry. Really.”
    “But you’ve got to understand something, you asshole,” Larry said. “I’m not being your pal here. I want you to go back. You need to go back to AA, or I’ll never work with you again. And I’m not blowing smoke.”
    “I know you’re not.”
    “Oh,” Larry said, slapping the tops of his thighs, “I forgot to tell you something else. I sent the hard drive of that fried computer down to some IT guys at MSU. They think they may be able to retrieve the data off it. That surprised the hell out of me because I thought data would, you know, melt. ”
    “No shit.”
    “They’re looking at it now. I’ll let you know what they come up with.”
    Cody stroked his chin. “See if they can find any letters or documents he had stored away. That and e-mails, of course. There might be an e-mail exchange with whomever he invited to dinner that night. That would be a hell of a stroke of luck. And the history on his Web browser. Maybe we’ll know what he’s been looking at lately.”
    Larry rolled his eyes. “Gee, I hadn’t thought of any of that before, Cody. Good thing you’re here to straighten me out.”
    Cody grinned.
    The office door opened without a knock. Bodean filled the