Free Montana by Gwen Florio Page B

pressed her thumb into the wound on her palm from the cribbage peg. She’d heard less subtle warnings, warnings involving gun barrels warming against the flesh of her throat and spittle-flecked shouts mere inches from her face, but this one, she thought, was just as pointed. An organ creaked into another plodding hymn, only slightly more tuneful than the bagpipes, and Lola sank into her seat, wondering what Mary Alice had gotten herself into in Montana.

    Y OU’RE HER friend, right? The one who came to visit? The one who found her?” The young woman, camera slung over her shoulder, stood at Lola’s elbow after the service. She wore a denim jacket over a black dress that wrapped and rewrapped itself around her legs in the wind that swept Lola free of any lingering warmth from the church’s interior. Lola stared at the pearly skin nutmegged with freckles and wondered when everyone in her business had gotten so young. “Jan Carpenter,” the woman introduced herself. She pulled out a tape recorder barely larger than a cigarette lighter. “I wonder if we could visit for a minute.”
    Lola scanned the crowd spilling from the church, seeking the dark hair, the braids, finding him at the edge of the throng, talking with Toothless. She turned back to Jan Carpenter. “Tell me you’re not trying to interview me at my best friend’s funeral.” Trying to forget all the times she’d done exactly that, not just at funerals but right at the graveside, for the big stories and the small ones, too, people grieving just as hard after a garden-variety Saturday night shooting in South Baltimore as at a suicide bombing. All the while, Lola standing there among them, offering Kleenex and sympathy, notebook and pen at the ready.
    Jan shrugged and the jacket fell open, her collarbones bracketing a neckline far too low for the occasion. She clutched at the jacket, pushing the buttons belatedly through their holes.
    “What is that?” Lola asked. “Your old prom dress?”
    Jan’s fingers stilled at their task. “I just want to ask you a few questions about Mary Alice. About finding her. Charlie—he’s the sheriff—won’t tell us anything other than that she was shot.”
    “I know who Charlie is.” Lola glanced back toward Johnny. The toothless man, Frank, had taken over the conversation. His body twisted as he spoke. He staggered and nearly fell. The sheriff stood a few feet away, openly watching them. “Forget it,” she told Jan.
    “It’s my only black dress,” Jan called after Lola as she pushed her way through the clusters of mourners. Frank showed his gums as she approached.
    “Mar’ Alice,” he said. “She’s dead.” His cheeks puffed. “Puh-pow.” He raised his hand and pointed a forefinger and folded the other fingers against his palm. “Mar’ Alice got shot. Pow.” He dug the finger in his cheekbone. “Right in the face. Poor Mar’ Alice.”
    Lola recoiled. The sheriff stepped in, folding his hand around Frank’s, lowering the offending finger. “Yes, Frank. That’s what happened to Mary Alice.”
    Johnny used the moment to take his leave. “Frank. Charlie. Good seeing you both again. Shame about the reason.”
    Lola put her hand on his arm. Firmly. “You’re Johnny Running Wolf?” He tried to pull away. She tugged him back, just hard enough to be obvious about it. As soon as one head in the crowd turned, so did all the others, a progressive motion from the core of the throng to the edges. Johnny smiled weakly. “My condolences. Sorry I can’t stay. Campaign’s got me on a tight schedule.”
    Lola had always envied people who could cry on command. She couldn’t. She put a hand to her eyes anyway, wishing she still had Verle’s handkerchief, and injected a pitiful quaver into her voice. “I just want to talk about my friend.”
    Johnny made a big show of it then, the protective arm around her shoulders, lips pursed in concern. “Sure thing. We’ll talk all you want about Mary Alice. She was