“Don’t be afraid to ask the direct question, Alex.”
“What would that be?” I said.
“Paul Battaglia and I didn’t have ‘that kind of personal relationship’ either. I think those were your words.”
“It wouldn’t have been out of the question,” I said. I hadn’t meant the idea as an insult. “I know his taste.”
“You certainly don’t know mine.”
“That’s true, Chidra,” I said, aware that I had crossed another line. “I’d never heard of you until James showed up at three this morning.”
“I’m in a long-term relationship, and I’m monogamous, if that’s where you were going.”
“I didn’t mean to pry,” I said. “It might well have been relevant if things were otherwise.”
Chidra Persaud summoned the attendant to clear our tables.
“I’m gay, Alex. Paul Battaglia didn’t get it at first,” she said. “But I made it clear to him. My partner lives in London, if that’s of any concern.”
“Thanks for your candor,” I said.
I felt like I’d been beating into the wind. I knew it was time to change course, to turn my sails in another direction.
“I’m sure James told you that I know nothing about hunting,” I said.
“Apparently you managed to put Battaglia together with the Order of Saint Hubertus, didn’t you?” Persaud said.
“I had some help. But that’s an all-male society, isn’t it?”
“For centuries. Yes, it is.”
“I’m told you were the only woman on the hunt out here two weeks ago, when Battaglia was present,” I said.
“I was.”
“So this club—is it called Diana?” I asked. “This club obviously admits women.”
“It does,” she said. “Someday you’ll have to tell me how you came to know about us. Or maybe it was James who made the discovery?”
“Will James and I be able to get a list of members?”
Chidra Persaud shrugged. “I suppose we can ask Charles Swenson. There are rules, you know, and one mustn’t violate them.”
“Was Battaglia a member?” I asked.
“He’d been accepted,” she said. “He would have been inducted at our next meeting, early next year. I guess there’s no need for secrecy now that he’s dead.”
“Accepted by whom?”
“That’s part of the point, Alex,” Persaud said. “The rest of the committee—the other members—need to be consulted before I give you their names.”
I turned to James Prescott. “Have you explained to Chidra that you’re able to subpoena whatever information you need? That you’ve opened this matter before a grand jury?”
“Before I got on this plane, Alex,” Persaud said, flipping her tray closed, “Charles Swenson assured me he’d be talking to James, laying out the ground rules for my cooperation. The club is headquartered in the UK. I’m not sure an American subpoena will stretch that far.”
What the hell good was it to take this trip with Chidra Persaud? Ground rules—for what? James Prescott knew something he hadn’t yet confided to me. Amy Battaglia had told him that the reason for her husband’s trip involved a case he was working on. James must now have an idea what that case was. I was right not to trust him entirely.
“Tell me, James,” I said, “is this a wild-goose chase of some sort?”
“Keep your cool, Alex,” he said.
“What the hell is this about? What does all of this have to do with Battaglia’s murder?” I asked. “What did the DA think I possibly knew about Diana, and more to the point—what did he know?”
“For one thing, Alex, Paul Battaglia knew that Diana is me,” Chidra Persaud said. “That I am Diana. What I’m not sure about is whether he was ready for anyone else to know that, too.”
THIRTY-SIX
I reset my watch when we landed on Mission Field in Livingston, Montana. It was still only 6:37 A.M. local time.
A silver GMC Sierra was waiting at the end of the airstrip, and a black government car had been rustled up from some local agency. The pickup was driven by Chidra Persaud’s caretaker. She got in the front seat and left the rear for Prescott and me. Her assistant rode with the two agents in the other car.
James had asked more questions throughout the flight than I did. On the personal side, we learned that Diana’s ties to the British royals had started in early childhood, connected to their seasonal visits because of her grandfather’s legendary prowess as a hunting guide for the rich.
A lesser royal—an earl from Devonshire—had nicknamed the young Chidra “Diana” when he saw her kill a tiger that was mauling a villager with a single shot. She was thereafter invited to accompany the earl’s hunting party, which previously had been all adults, year after year. It was eventually that Englishman who sponsored the young woman for her education in London and at Oxford, and who gave her the seed money to start her company.
“Where are we going?” I asked. “To your ranch?”
“No,” Persaud said. “I thought you wanted to see the preserve the club uses, the one where Battaglia stayed two weeks ago.”
“We do,” James said. “Also the site where one of your hunters was killed. You said a couple of the men would talk to us but wouldn’t leave Montana to do it.”
“We’re going to the mountain,” she said. “Literally, I guess I’m bringing Muhammad to the mountain, since they wouldn’t go to you. Bowing to the inevitable, as I was taught that expression to mean.”
The landscape in the valley was spectacular. I had never seen such vast wide-open spaces, with a richness and variance of topography. There were acres of land, green with grasses or alfalfa—kept colorful by irrigation—and there were huge patches of brown earth. All around were mountains, the northern end of the Absaroka Range, which were capped in snow and made a dazzling backdrop for our vista.
Along the way we saw herds of pronghorn antelope grazing by the side of the road, and every now and then a couple of deer would dart across the highway.
The driver went off-road at one point and began to wind around a hill on a dirt path that didn’t look as though it could handle traffic coming from the opposite direction.
“The location isn’t marked?” I asked.
“That’s the way we like it around here,” Persaud said.
“Do you own the land?”
“I do. It’s about seven hundred acres, some of it on the Yellowstone River. It backs onto a national forest, so there can’t be any development in the future,” she said. “Hunters like remote. And we like privacy.”
“This isn’t your home?” I asked.
“No, no. McLeod’s about ninety minutes away. My partner doesn’t like to hunt, nor does she enjoy the company of strangers.”
When the pickup finally came to a stop, near the top of the mountain, James and I stepped out to stretch.
“That’s the main lodge,” Persaud said.
Straight ahead of us was a modern-day log cabin. It was enormous—probably eight thousand square feet—built on prime hilltop.
She walked toward it, looking back, expecting us to follow.