Expecting to Die

CHAPTER 14
S
ince Pescoli couldn’t beat ’em, she decided to join ’em and attend the meeting
of the Big Foot Believers with her daughter. They parked in the courthouse lot as
it was after hours, then hiked the two blocks to the building that had originally
been built by the Sons of Grizzly Falls, a fraternal organization with secret
meetings where, it had been rumored, men had met, drank, played cards, and
brought in prostitutes all under the guise of working for the betterment of the
community. The organization slowly dissolved and the building had been sold to
the city. Since World War II, the Sons Building, as it was called, had been city
hall, the police department, and the town library, but over the years each of those
entities had moved on, and now the building was used to house meetings, art
festivals, adult education classes, and the like. The latest rumor was the city was
ready to sell the building to a developer who wanted to turn it into a mall of
some sort. As far as Pescoli knew, negotiations on the sale were stalled and
specific groups such as the Big Foot Believers were still able to rent out space.
Bianca tried not to limp on her way into the building, but she winced a little as
she headed through the massive double doors and into a wide hallway with
soaring ceilings, complete with stained-glass skylights. The architect who had
designed the edifice had spent three years in Europe and had been greatly
influenced by medieval architecture. While most of the buildings in Grizzly Falls
were constructed with wooden western facades, even, in some cases, adorned by
hitching posts, or were long and low, built in the style of mid-century strip malls,
not so this enormous structure. The Sons of Grizzly Falls building was thick and
square, like a fortress. Built of concrete and stone with huge, exposed cross
timbers and high ceilings reminiscent of a cathedral, it had withstood two fires
and over a hundred and fifty Montana winters.
Wide stone steps led to huge doors, through which they entered into a grand
hall with thick columns and a marble floor inlaid with tile. People were milling
around the center area, some climbing the steps, voices muted but echoing
slightly.
Smaller rooms branched off the cavernous hallway. One door was shut firmly,
a handwritten sign posted over the carved panels:

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BIG FOOT BELIEVERS MEETING
MOVED TO ROOM
211
Come and meet Hollywood Producer
Barclay Sphinx
Visitors Welcome!
Please: No cell phones
No firearms
Up the stairs they trudged and followed the signs to room 211, where a door
stood open. Just as they walked inside, they were met with an obstacle, a long
folding table manned by a heavyset woman in jeans, a T-shirt, and a vest. Her
face was square and tanned, blue eyes a shade bordering on green and covered
by cat’s-eye glasses. Over one ample breast was a button that read
I B
ELIEVE
in red
letters over the silhouette of a black Sasquatch. Upon the table was a stack of
brochures about Big Foot, a cash drawer flipped open, and a stamp resting on a
pad oozing green ink. “Are you two together?” she asked, peering upward
through her glasses while motioning in an arc between Pescoli and her daughter
Bianca.
“Yes,” Pescoli said.
“That’ll be fifty dollars. No student discounts tonight.”
“Fifty bucks?” Pescoli was outraged. “We were invited by Carlton Jeffe.”
The woman squinting behind her glasses said, “And I was told to charge for
everyone who wants in. We’ve got serious entertainment tonight and,” she said,
on eye level with Pescoli’s belly, “you’re lucky I’m not charging you for a third.
You look like you could pop and have that baby any minute.”
Pescoli was getting real tired of being reminded of her condition.
“So that’ll be fifty. Cash only.”
“Wait a second.” Pescoli was seriously thinking about reaching for her badge
while Bianca died a thousand teenage deaths of embarrassment beside her. “I
didn’t want my daughter to come down here in the first place but—”
“I’m Bianca Pescoli,” Bianca cut in. “I was asked to speak by Mr. Jeffe.”
The woman’s mouth rounded into a silent O just as Carlton himself squeezed
through some men who had gathered around the other side of the table. The
noise from within was a cacophony of serious voices punctuated by occasional
bursts of sharp, short laughter.
“Is there a problem, Edie?” Carlton asked. He was medium height, maybe a
couple of inches under six foot, wiry, with near-black hair that matched his eyes.

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In his early forties, he was a man who looked like he took himself seriously. His
nose was hawkish, his skin stretched tight over his sharp features, and when he
smiled, it seemed forced, a hasty stretching of the lips to show peg-like teeth.
“This woman doesn’t want to pay. Says she was ‘invited, ’ whatever the hell
that means.” Her voice dripped skepticism.
But Jeffe recognized Bianca. “She’s right.” His gaze moved from her daughter
to Pescoli. “They are special guests.”
Behind the slanted glasses, Edie’s eyes were flint. “Well, someone shoulda
told me, don’t ya think?”
Carlton reached across the table, grabbed the stamp, and pressed it onto first
Pescoli’s, then Bianca’s wrist. “Okay, you’re in. Sorry, Edie, it’s been crazy, you
know. What with Barclay coming.”
Wending through a couple of guys who looked like members of ZZ Top,
Carlton rounded the table. “Bianca’s our guest, and she’s here with her mother.”
“Fred told me to charge everyone, and that’s what I was trying to do,” Edie
muttered, irked that her authority had been usurped. “That’s the problem,
Carlton. I hear one thing from Fred and Ivor and those guys with their rifles and
scopes out to hunt down and kill a Sasquatch”—she flipped her hand to a group
of a dozen or so bearded men in trucker’s caps, jeans, and T-shirts who were
huddled into a group—“and then I hear something else from you tree huggers
who just want to capture one on film.” She twisted the same hand toward the
other side of the room, where there was a smaller contingency. Groups A and B
didn’t look much different aside from the fact that there were more women in the
cluster identified as tree huggers. “So, you tell me, Carlton,” Edie went on. “You
tell me, who am I supposed to listen to?”
“Well, I am the president of the club, elected, mind you, this past January, and
I did set up this meeting with Mr. Sphinx, so you tell me.”
Red color climbed up her neck and suffused her face, and she turned aside.
Jeffe either ignored her or didn’t notice as he ushered Bianca and Pescoli inside.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Everyone’s on edge. Not only is Barclay arriving, but
when we moved the meeting to this room, we discovered some of our
decorations, the things we usually have at meetings, were missing.” He was
obviously disturbed. “It’s irritating as hell to spend hours looking for a folding
table we need and can’t find it and, God, the costume. Where the hell is it?”
“What costume?” Pescoli asked.
“We have a Big Foot costume, you know. For plays and reenactments. Parties.
Whatever. Very expensive. Very lifelike. Supposed to be locked up, but it’s
missing. What’re ya gonna do?”
“You’re missing a costume and there have been Big Foot sightings? Don’t you

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think someone took it and used it? That it’s what someone was wearing when
they chased Bianca?”
“Why would they do that?”
“Maybe a prank.” Or, worse, she thought. “Which of the members have access
to that closet?”
“Anyone who’s a member, I guess.”
“You said it was locked. Where are the keys?”
“Well . . . they’re in a box in the regular meeting room, and before you ask,
the key wasn’t missing. I used it earlier when we were setting up.”
“I need you to get me a list of members and note on it anyone who was in the
closet recently, or since you last saw or used the costume.”
“Oh, come on.” She stared at him and Jeffe shrugged. “I’ll try,” he said, then
led her through the crowd that was, for the most part, about seventy percent
male. There were women, of course, but most of them seemed attached to one of
the men.
Pescoli had expected all the members to be mountain men, and there were
definitely those who looked like they could be a part of the cast of Duck Dynasty
or Swamp People. With long, unkempt hair, bushy beards, trucker’s caps, old T-
shirts, and faded jeans, they seemed intense and what she would consider part of
the outdoors-man landscape. But the rest of the crowd could have been found in
any town in America. Men in khakis and work shirts, some wearing glasses,
others in slacks, with wives, some even looking as if they were heading to
church or, alternatively, a rock concert.
There were those who had tattoos visible, metal studs in their faces, and those
clean shaven with trimmed hair, checking their smartphones. The ages ranged
from preteen to an old guy in a wheelchair hauling an oxygen tank who didn’t
look to be long for this world. But he was here, at the meeting that seemed, to
Pescoli, more like some kind of rally.
Despite the vastness of the room, it felt stuffy and close, almost
claustrophobic, and there was a definite buzz to the conversation. She heard
Sphinx’s name said with what was almost reverence, and she recognized more
than a few familiar faces. Lex Farnsby, the crime scene tech, was chatting up
Jenner Stevenson, an accountant of about fifty who was standing next to his
wife, Barbara, a schoolteacher. Along with the Stevensons was Ivor Hicks, who
now sported a short white beard and yellow-tinted shades. Ivor was one of the
local nuts and had suffered his own set of tragedies. Pescoli made a note to avoid
him, along with the others gathered nearby. She also spied Sage Zoller, a junior
detective with whom she worked at the sheriff’s department. She’d known Zoller
was a bit of a conspiracy theorist but hadn’t realized she, too, was a Big Foot

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Believer.
Fred Nesmith was in a heated conversation with Otis Kruger. Nesmith lived
off the grid, was an anti-government type who’d fathered six kids and probably
would have had a dozen more if his wife hadn’t died in labor with the sixth. He
hunted for meat and pelts and didn’t give a damn about the local laws. Like
Nesmith, Kruger was also a known poacher and proud of it, another guy who
considered the wilderness his own personal realm. Once again, no laws mattered
to Kruger, a beanpole of a man whose face was weathered, his hair long enough
to show where it had started to turn from brown to gray, his temper mean.
She recognized some of the kids, too, those she’d recently interviewed. Kywin
Bell, a big, blocky guy stood out. He and Donny Justison were hanging out with
the O’Hara brothers. Not far away, Maddie Averill sipped from a water bottle,
her gaze drifting to TJ. Lindsay Cronin and Seneca Martinez were in attendance
as well, huddled together and talking with Bryant Tophman and Rod Devlin near
a table where T-shirts and Big Foot paraphernalia were for sale. Lindsay kept
looking around, as if nervous, or more likely searching for someone she deemed
more popular than Seneca. Tophman was a football player and looked the part.
In the past year or so, he’d bulked up, developed a lot of muscle. Devlin, in
contrast, was a little taller, but whip-thin, his skin acne-prone.
Pescoli caught glimpses of the others, as well, and decided that nearly
everyone from the party at Reservoir Point had suddenly taken an interest in the
Big Foot Believers, or, more likely, the rumors of a television show being filmed
in the town and the fact that Barclay Sphinx was here.
Shifting from one foot to the other, she glanced back at the group of boys.
Austin Reece, all smug smiles and obvious sense of privilege, had joined his
friends and wasn’t far away from TJ and Alex O’Hara, the ubiquitous Madison
standing by.
Rod Devlin and Austin Reece stood near the table with Simone Delaney, who
caught Pescoli’s eye and quickly looked away. A second later, she disappeared
into the crowd, and Pescoli wondered if her mother, perfect Mary-Beth, knew
her daughter was attending the event.
Probably not.
“I’d like to talk to you before we get started,” Carlton said to Bianca just as
Regan spied Luke moving toward them. In one hand, her ex held a water bottle,
his other fingers laced with those of his wife, Michelle, who, in five-inch-heeled
boots, was having some trouble keeping up with him.
Bianca nodded. “Okay.”
“There’s a connecting room behind the stage.” He offered a smile. “It’s kind
of like our green room. Barclay’s already there.”

---

“What?” Luke asked, joining the group. Then, “Hi, Carlton. You’ve met
Michelle.”
Carlton brightened. “Several times. I was just telling Bianca that we should go
meet Barclay before the meeting gets going.”
“I’m in!” Luke was grinning from ear to ear and Michelle was nodding. Aside
from the high heels, she hadn’t over-glammed herself and was wearing a yellow
shell and tight white jeans that funneled into her short, suede boots.
Pescoli just wanted her ex to butt out, but decided not to make a scene.
Santana and Jeremy, who had both insisted upon joining, were meeting her here.
Santana had to finish overseeing a project at the Long ranch and Jeremy had a
class that wouldn’t be over until 8
PM
.
So, she’d have to go it alone.
Single-parent it one more time.
Well, fine.

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