Free Montana by Gwen Florio

boundaries shrank. Lola had the feeling that most of the time it stood empty and forgotten. She’d grown up in the lush Catholicism of Baltimore, all gilt and garish stained glass and arrow-pierced saints with eyes rolled heavenward. More recently, there had been the centuries-old mosques of Central Asia, gorgeous wrecks with turquoise-tiled minarets and fantastical geometric patterns on the crumbling walls. She’d forgotten about the austere faiths of the heartland, devoid of imagery and comfort, exacting doctrines all of a piece with their unforgiving surroundings.
    Still, despite the stark interior, the air in the church was electric, ions of emotion caroming off the tall clear windows, sliding along the severe casket parked up in front. Lola recognized some faces: Jolee, from the convenience store, heavy-lidded and scowling. The toothless vagrant who’d felt so sorry for Mary Alice, face scrubbed, a clean red bandana around his neck, rocking a little in his seat. Fred, Lola thought, trying to fix his name in her mind, eyeing him with heightened interest. No, Frank. She wondered why Charlie had been so insistent that he couldn’t have killed Mary Alice. Frank sat between the busboy from the cafe and a small man in thick glasses with heavy black rims, lenses cloudy with scratches.
    The sheriff stood alone at the back of the church, raking the mourners with his gaze. Lola wondered how many of these people were Mary Alice’s friends and how many were there solely for the entertainment value afforded by the county’s first murder in forty years, according to the newspaper story she’d finally forced herself to read. The few funerals for journalists Lola had attended were generally hushed, uncomfortable gatherings in museums or community centers or other secular places, the members of the newsroom generally being an unchurched lot. There’d be some generic music and short speeches by editors fumbling for polite euphemisms for the person’s less pleasant qualities. In her own case, Lola imagined words such as “determined,” “hard-working,” “driven.” The subtext ringing through: stubborn, stiff-necked. Nobody’s idea of fun. The same sorts of things her editor had implied when he’d sent her off to Montana. What had he said on her way out the door? “Stuck.” As in, “You’re stuck in those old days. They’re gone. Go hang out with that friend of yours, watch some TV, figure out what people really care about. Then come back and write me some stories with pop and sizzle.”
    Pop and sizzle . Lola silently shaped her lips around the ugly words. They felt like something she shouldn’t say in a church. She looked around to see if anyone had noticed her distraction. But everyone was sitting up taller and twisting in their seats, the high-octane event flaming even brighter with a new arrival. Lola saw the suit first, dove-grey, the jacket buttoned over a lustrous black silk shirt and a bolo tie with a big chunk of turquoise. Her gaze slid to his feet and she almost laughed at the idea of anybody picking his way across the sagebrush-dotted churchyard in those paper-soled, butter-soft eyelet oxfords. She belatedly lifted her eyes to his face, to the hair black as oil paint and woven into two short braids gathered into a single ponytail; to the nose that still bore the blow of whatever fist or other blunt object it had encountered years earlier, its high arrogant arch resolving into a shapeless mass. A secondary commotion localized at her pew. Verle Duncan squeezed past people, scattering pardons like confetti in his wake, shoehorning himself into the nonexistent space beside her.
    “Johnny Running Wolf sure cleans up good.” He nodded toward the man in the suit.
    “That’s Johnny Running Wolf?” Lola leaned past him for another look at the subject of Mary Alice’s recent journalistic focus. Lola had gone online to look up those stories, but the Daily Express website had a pay wall that demanded a credit