An End to a Silence: A mystery novel (The Montana Trilogy Book 1) by W.H. Clark

Troy’s
parents but they had disowned him a while ago on account of his various issues.
They were nice normal people, Cherry had said, and she wanted them to play a
role in Laurie’s upbringing. Troy, wisely, stayed away. His father Joe, an
old-fashioned type who espoused hundred-and-fifty-year-old Montana values when
it came to drug abuse, had said he would shoot Troy down dead if he ever
stepped on his porch again. He took good care of his guns and Cherry didn’t for
a minute doubt that he would use them if Troy did show.
    Cherry’s
own parents had leapfrogged Idaho and landed in Spokane following work and they
weren’t as accessible and, besides, she had her issues with her mother, and her
father for that matter. They weren’t ‘live in your pocket’ parents. They got on
with their own lives and were biding their time before they retired down to
Florida, at which point, Cherry assumed, she would probably only see them once
a year on one of the major holidays. She was kind of philosophical about it and
that surprised Ward, who was close to his family even though he didn’t see them
much either. But he talked to his mom and grandmother regularly by phone. His
mother had tried to get him hooked up on Skype but that sort of thing just
confused and exasperated Ward.
     
     
    “Thank
you, cowboy, for an unexpected evening” was the last thing Cherry said to Ward
at her door. She kissed him briefly on the mouth and he didn’t wipe it off. As
he left he thought suddenly of Alice White and that made him feel uneasy and he
wanted to go back to Cherry but didn’t know why. He told himself he would call
her when he got back to the motel but he realized he didn’t have her number.
When he did get back, he lay on the bed and stared at the dreamcatcher and knew
that sleep was way beyond the horizon.

32
    The Westmoreland
Echo was the first thing Ward noticed on McNeely’s desk. He was a little
later this morning as he had driven straight to the Honey Pie but it was in
darkness. Didn’t open till eleven anyway but that didn’t calm Ward’s nerves,
which had been on edge since last night. The story under Pete Larsson’s byline
carried a photo of Newton, and Ward knew that it would take another notch out
of Newton’s steadily faltering psyche.
    So he was
surprised when Newton emerged from his desk as sprightly as a keen young
rookie. Newton strode over to McNeely’s desk and plucked the newspaper from it
and tossed it into the trash can.
    “Ward,”
Newton said, and he walked back to his desk and picked up a box and gestured
towards two more. Ward nodded and he picked up the other two boxes. He followed
Newton towards the door and just as they had almost reached it, Gammond
appeared.
    “What you
got there?” Gammond said.
    Both
detectives stopped and turned toward Gammond. Ward looked at Newton.
    Newton
said, “Just my things. Taking them home.”
    Gammond
stared at the boxes for a long spell and nobody moved. Then Newton took the lid
off his box and tilted it towards Gammond. Gammond saw the photographs that
Newton had had on his desk. He waved a fat hand at them both and walked to his
office.
    In the
parking lot Newton walked straight to Ward’s Alfa Romeo, and Ward put his boxes
down and popped the trunk. They put the boxes in the trunk and Newton opened
the box with the photos inside. He lifted up the photos and Ward saw the papers
relating to the Ryan Novak case concealed beneath them.
    “Your
wife?” Ward said, and Newton nodded. “We’re going out on a limb here.”
    “I know
it.”
    “Okay.
I’ll take a look at this later,” Ward said, and he dropped the trunk lid.
    Back
inside the warm station McNeely said to Ward, “We are where we were. We have no
meaningful forensics from the first scene. All we got is the latents from the
windowsill. We’ve sent away for DNA tests on those but we won’t get the results
back for a day or two. Plus, if he’s not in the fingerprint database, chances
are he