He glanced up at the wooded slopes beyond the valley. Del knew those hills like the back of his hand.

“Look here,” he said, pushing the half-formed questions from his mind. He pointed to splotches of discoloration that marred the folds of Daggrepont’s fat neck. “Looks to me like somebody had him by the throat.”

“I can think of only twenty or thirty people woulda liked to choke Miller,” Bardwell said. “You think of more than that, Pete?”

“You countin’ old ladies or just the men?”

Quinn frowned as he turned the lawyer’s head to the side. “Rigor’s just starting to set in in the jaw,” he mumbled. “He hasn’t been in here long.”

He fingered the dead man’s jowls, noting the way the discoloration remained when he applied pressure, indicating bruising rather than any strange kind of lividity. He hummed a little to himself, as if he were trying to come up with a list of viable suspects when he was really just wishing the whole damned mess away. Lucy MacAdam’s lawyer was dead under suspicious circumstances. He’d have Marilee Jennings camped out on his doorstep, trying to sell him her conspiracy theory. Blasted outsiders. Nothing could ever be simple with them.

“Well,” he said, rising and wiping his hands off on his pants, “we’ll ship him up to Bozeman and have them take a look.”

“Slice ’em and dice ’em,” Bardwell commented.

Quinn scowled at him. “Bardwell, shut up and get the body bag.” He turned back to J.D. “Guess I’ll have to go break the news to Inez that she’s out a boss. He didn’t have any family that I know of. Can you think of anyone else ought to know right away?”

“Yeah,” J.D. said on a sigh. He started for his horse with anticipation and dread pushing against each other in his chest. “I’ll tell her myself.”

DREW’S TRIO played from seven till one in the lounge at the Moose. Mari joined them, alternating two songs for every two played by the group. They offered the affluent crowd an eclectic mix of jazz, folk, country, and crossover rock. She drew heavily on her soft and bluesy repertoire, as always, her music reflecting her mood. She called on old favorites from Jackson Browne and Bonnie Raitt, and newer tunes from Rosanne Cash and Shawn Colvin, throwing in some of her own creations when the mood struck her. When the band members knew the song, they joined in and backed her up. It was one of those fine, rare instances where musicians’ styles and instincts meshed immediately, resulting in magic.

The audience, who had come into the lounge to socialize with friends, abandoned their conversations or toned them down to whispers as the music captivated them. The small dance floor was never empty. The applause was always enthusiastic.

At the start of the first break, Mari slid onto the piano bench beside Drew. The other two members of the band waded out into the crowd in search of drinks and friends. The noise level of the conversations rose to compensate for the lack of music.

“This is great,” she murmured, giving Drew a soft smile. “Thanks for inviting me.”

“The pleasure is ours, luv. You’ve a rare talent.” He picked up his tonic and lime and took a slow sip, wincing a little as he reached to set the glass aside.

“You okay?”

“Fine,” he said absently, rolling his right shoulder back. “Strained a muscle, that’s all. Clumsy of me.

“You seem a bit subdued tonight,” he said. His gaze was speculative above freshly sun-kissed cheeks.

Mari cringed. “God, do you think I’m depressing people?”

“Not at all,” he said with a chuckle. “They’re enraptured with you. It’s just there’s something awfully sad in those lovely blue eyes. Anything I can do to help?”

She shook her head, making a rueful comic face. “Got myself into something I shouldn’t have. Never fear. I’m a big girl; I can take it on the chin with the best of them.”

He frowned and reached up to tuck a rumpled strand of silver-blond hair behind her ear. “What do you mean, something you shouldn’t have gotten into? Does this have to do with Lucy?”

“No, why? Do you know something I should know?”

He glanced away, across the sea of faces in the crowd, wishing he hadn’t said anything at all. “I know if there was trouble to be had, Lucy would sniff it out, that’s all.”

“The kind of trouble that might have gotten her killed?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Mari leaned into him and tugged sharply on the full sleeve of his emerald silk shirt. “Dammit, Drew,” she whispered harshly. “If you know something, tell me. I don’t think Lucy’s death was an accident, but I haven’t been able to find a soul who gives a damn.”

Scowling, he turned his attention to the sheet music stacked against the piano’s scrolled music desk, thumbing through the titles impatiently. “I resent the implication, thank you very much. I know that Lucy was involved with MacDonald Townsend in a way he wasn’t entirely happy about, that’s all.”

“Was she blackmailing him?”

“Perhaps,” he said evasively. “Certainly he was footing part of the bill for her lifestyle, but he couldn’t have killed her.”

“Couldn’t he?”

He dropped his hands to the keyboard and stared at her. “My God, Mari, the man’s a judge!” he exclaimed under his breath. “Judges don’t go about shooting women.”

“And plastic surgeons do?”

“It was an accident. Sheffield had no reason to want Lucy dead.”

“Which makes him a very convenient fall guy, don’t you think?” Mari pressed on doggedly. “No motive, no murder indictment. He pleads guilty to making a boo-boo with a high-powered rifle and gets a slap on the hand. Ben Lucas is Sheffield’s lawyer. Lucas and Townsend are old pals. They all hang out together at Bryce’s little hacienda…”

Drew shook his head, exasperated. “You’re grasping at straws.”

Mari spread her hands and shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. You think Townsend is above reproach? District court judges aren’t supposed to snort coke either, but I saw him nosing up to a line in Bryce’s billiard room. Makes me wonder what other nasty habits he has.”

“I’d rather you didn’t find out.”

He turned back to the music. Mari didn’t think he was even looking at the titles as he pretended to sort through them. He was merely using it as an excuse not to meet her eyes. She sat there for a while, trying to probe his brain like a psychic, trying to deduce by Holmesian logic what secrets he knew. Her efforts met nothing but a stony expression and a mind closed like a steel strongbox.

“What else do you know, Drew?” she asked at last.

“I can’t shed any light on Lucy’s death,” he said, his voice low and impatient. “I don’t know that I would if I could. Sometimes it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie.”

He wasn’t the first to express that point of view; still, it made Mari furious. She was well aware Lucy hadn’t been a model citizen in life, but did that mean she didn’t deserve justice in death? Did her flaws make her life any less valuable? Did no one but Mari remember that she had possessed good qualities alongside the bad?

“Do these dogs have names?” she asked tightly.

He hissed a long sigh out through his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. “Marilee…”

“Fabulous music!”

Bryce’s voice snapped the tension and took it to a different level. Mari swiveled around on the piano bench to face him, manufacturing a polite smile. “Thanks.”

He stood with a bottle of Pellegrino dangling from his bony hand, a thousand-watt smile cutting across his tan face. Mari wondered uncharitably if the look was really just a grimace of pain with the corners tucked up: his jeans looked tight enough to raise his blood pressure into the danger zone. His arm was draped casually across the shoulders of Samantha Rafferty.

The girl looked uncomfortable with the situation, her dark eyes darting toward Drew and away, as if she were contemplating bolting from the room. Disapproval rolled off Drew in waves. Mari wondered if Samantha had heard about Will’s accident. The question was on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back. Hadn’t she taken enough lumps for butting into Rafferty business as it was?