The hotel lobby bears a resemblance to her accountant's waiting room. Small and pokey with a hard leather couch and a dusty plastic ficus. Veronica helps herself to the terrible coffee and free breakfast, of which the options are glazed donuts, or glazed donuts.

Balancing breakfast on a napkin on her knee, she dials his number. Nine rings. No answer. She dials the number immediately again. It's four rings this time before she hears his voice.

"You've been gone," Keith calculates, "nineteen hours Veronica, surely you can get to twenty-four without me?"

"Are you okay?" she asks.

"I answered the phone, didn't I?"

She sighs.

"How was your flight?"

"Fine."

"Have you spoken to Logan yet?"

"No, I'll go there this afternoon."

"How's that going to play out?" he asks.

"Jury's out."

"Have you got a game plan?"

"I'm going for a little improv," she says.

He makes a sound that's almost a laugh, "Well, good luck."

They both fall silent, listening to the nothingness between them. It's a push and pull. Veronica wants to hear him breathing, feels helpless when she isn't there, when she can't just pop her head into his office, the visual of him slowly working a strange comfort.

"Are you going to call me every six hours?" Keith asks.

"Maybe."

"Okay, well I better get some work done before my next check-up," his words are jovial but his tone is dry.

Veronica can hear the bell on their front door chime, the squeak of it opening and closing.

"Oh, well, whaddya know, Cliff just happens to have come by with a brown bag and what looks to be breakfast for me," says Keith, even dryer.

Veronica smiles.

"Isn't that fortuitous?" says Veronica.

Keith huffs and grumbles.

"Goodbye, Veronica."

"Bye, Dad."

She hangs up, takes a bite of the donut, wipes the crystallized sugar from the corner of her mouth and walks up to the counter.

Vivian's fingernails are purple and so long it's surprising that she can connect with the correct keys at all. Veronica watches her while picking at her own nails, unadorned and bitten to the quick.

"Hey love, what can I help you with?" Vivian says. Her brown hair is pulled tight into a bun close to her hairline and a chewed yellow pencil sits in the nest. A silver cross hangs from her neck.

"You mentioned your Uncle runs the historical society. Are you a local here?"

"You betcha! Born and bred. There's nothing about this place that I don't know," she says with pride. Vivian is one of those mythical pure-of-heart patriots who truly believe that their hometown is a glowing wonderland. She adds a side of optimism and Jesus to her cereal each morning. Both of which Veronica can't comprehend.

"I'm looking for a man named Ted Stojanovski, he used to run the hardware store," Veronica says, about to elaborate further before Vivian interrupts her.

"Oh, poor Ted, he ran the Red Lodge Hardware and Huntin' store for thirty-five years, he did, and he had to close it down just last year. Poor thing. He did everything he could to try and save it, but people don't just want one shovel, they wanna choose between five shovels, and they only wanna pay ten dollars for a shovel. You can't make money selling shovels, no, no. Not when you can just head on up to Billings for the weekly shop and pay half the amount of money. Or order it on the computer and have it at your door in three days."

Veronica stares at her, lets Vivian take a breath.

"Ted works in the Family Dollar grocery now, stackin' shelves, probably only makes twelve dollars an hour, poor thing, and he's only there a few days a week. His wife,she died a while back, had no kids. She used to make the most incredible crochet blankets, used to sell them at the market on a Sunday, and she used to make a pretty penny doing that too. Everyone here in Red Lodge has one of Marion's blankets in their house, no doubt."

Veronica cuts in quickly and asks the most direct question she can.

"Where is the Family Dollar?"

Vivian pulls the pencil out of her bun, reaches below the desk for a black and white photocopy of a town map, she draws some lines and arrows.

"You go up this street here, make a left onto main street, go past the nail salon and the ice-cream store and it's on the right. I don't know if Ted will be working today, but you can try."

"Thanks."

"Is Ted your friend?" Vivian asks.

"What?"

"The friend you said you're visiting in Red Lodge, is it Ted?"

"Oh, no. Just hoping he can help with something."

"Oh, rightio then, have a good day."

Veronica goes to leave, to get away from any further chance at being talked at, but she stops and Vivian snaps her head back up.

"Do you know Logan Echolls?" Veronica asks.

Vivian's right eyebrow cocks just slightly and she leans in towards Veronica.

"Why? Whattya know?"

"Oh, I don't know anything, I just heard he lives around here," says Veronica.

Vivian stands straight again, disappointed that she's not about to discover any juicy gossip, opens her mouth and begins.

"Yeah, he's around. He's out at Rock Creek Ranch, biggest ranch in these parts. Took it over from the Jeffersons when they'd had enough. Oh, it's a nice spread up there, I hear it has nine bedrooms, but I ain't seen it for myself. Who's got time to clean all those rooms? 'Spose he's got a cleaner? His daughter goes to the High School. He doesn't go out in the community much, I've never seen him at church or bible study. I've seen him at the post office before, and once at the hairdressers. My friend Carla, she saw him once at the local bar with his daughter, pretty little thing. Apparently he ordered the T-Bone, which is just the best thing on the menu if you happen to go down to the Dusty's Grill. Poor guy, he's had a bad run and I think he's just here trying to get away. Everyone's always talkin' about him when he goes out, mind you. Not surprised he wants to hide. I don't listen to what they all say about him, and all that speculatin' in the magazines, I think he's a nice guy."

Veronica stands, eyes wide, trying to comprehend the mouthful she was just dealt. Vivian just smiles.

The phone in her hand alerts her to a message, she points to it and uses it as an excuse to retreat.

Standing beside the plastic ficus, she sees it's a voicemail and her heart rate ups a few beats per minute. She dials through, waits for the message to replay.

It's not him. She expels a breath.

Its Mac, probing for a status report, of which there is none to deliver.

Yet.


The streets are glaringly clean, every fifty feet there is a wooden park bench with a memorial, from storefront roofs hang pristine American flags. There are no used syringes or baggy pantsed meth heads pissing in the gutters. Veronica's lungs fill with mountain oxygen, pure and crisp, and it feels good. She thinks the Neptune town planners need to schedule a visit.

Veronica follows Vivian's directions, and she's at the Family Dollar before finishing her coffee. In an attempt to avoid seeking out management, she takes a basket, throws in a chocolate bar, a bag of peanuts and wanders the aisles pretending to browse. It's the usual small five-aisle establishment with prices double what you'd pay at Walmart. She eyeballs nametags on limp green vests worn by apathetic sixteen-year-olds. In aisle four beside the diapers, she finds a short man with jet black hair stacking baby wipes. He's half a century older than the rest of the employees.

Jackpot.

"Ted?"

He turns and looks at her blankly.

"Hi, I'm Veronica Mars, are you the Ted who owned Hardware and Hunting on Main Street?"

"That's me."

"I'm a Private Investigator looking into the file of Joseph Moyer. Was it you who submitted the security camera footage for evidence?"

"Oh, well, yes, that was me. That was a few years back now."

"Can you tell me anything about it? What did he buy? Was that the only time you saw him?"

Tim looks to the fluorescent lights, thinking. An elderly woman walks by in a shuffle, her house-shoes squeaking on the polished linoleum.

"Well, I told the police all this, but he came in about three times, I think," he says, rubbing the five o-clock shadow that heavy beard growers have by lunchtime, the stubble crunches beneath his fingertips. Veronica rifles through her bag and passes him a photo still from the footage, hoping to jog his memory.

"I'd seen him before, but I can't really remember what he was buying. That day he came into the store to buy a few things, some nails, a pickaxe, some shotgun shells, 12 gauge."

"Did you take ID for the ammunition?" she asks.

"No. Anyone can buy ammunition in Montana, you don't need an ID or license."

"What made you report him?"

"He was quiet, a bit of a weird type, wearing a real big jacket and kept his head down, mostly. Didn't say two words to me. He looked familiar, so I asked him if I knew him from my old high school. He shook his head, dropped the cash on the table and practically ran out of the store. Then, later I realized I'd seen his face on that Most Wanted show that Marion made me watch every Tuesday. I looked it up on the internet, about how he murdered that policeman, I went back through the security footage and thought I should phone it in."

"After you did that, did he ever come back to the store?"

"Nope," he says, picking up baby-wipes, placing them on the shelf, a swift glance in either direction for a manager.

"Did you see how he got to the store? Did he come in a car, a truck?"

"I didn't. But Martha up at the post office said he comes on horseback."

"On horseback ? Into the town?"

Ted nods, "It happens sometimes. Not completely out of the ordinary. There's a tie-up for horses on 4th street."

Veronica muses, a horse made sense. From the satellite photos she'd studied, she couldn't find any trace of tire tracks. If there were no roads to his land, a horse was a logical option for him to access the property and get supplies.

She thanks Ted, who responds with a smile and pierces the lid of a box of pacifiers with an open pair of scissors.


Veronica stalled. She'd spoken to Ted, been to the county offices to find zoning maps, read front to back a year-old magazine called Distinctly Montana in a coffee shop . It included a four-page recount of a grizzly bear attack that reeled her in and left her horrified.

After a slow walk back to the hotel, she snuck by Vivian while a man was checking in. She lay on the bed for twenty minutes, staring at the ceiling before showering. She lets the hot water run as she undresses, standing naked and watching the steam creep the mirror until she eventually disappears.

Changing into fresh jeans and her nicest shirt she brushes her hair and scrunches the ends to encourage a natural wave. An application of mascara and nude lipstick signals an end to her transformation.

It was time.


The road carries her away from Red Lodge following the soothing directions of the rental's GPS.

"In 400 feet, please turn right," says a non-threatening British actor.

"At the intersection, continue straight."

It all seems to be going well until the bitumen turns to gravel somewhere down East Springbrook Lane. Veronica slows the car to a stop, looking up and down fences across the hills. On one side, a yellow crop stands to attention, like an army of soldiers, swaying in formation in the warm breeze. On the other, cows pull their heads up and stare at her, long eyelashes blinking, sensing an intruder in their midst.

Mac's maps were unreadable with their overlapping sharpie lines so she unfolds the rental's map and checks her location. She considers turning back, but knows that this will have to happen, eventually. If she really wants to find Moyer, if she really wants to help her dad, first she needs to find Logan Echolls.

Throwing the map down on the passenger seat, she pulls back out onto the lane. Another few miles and there it is, a rusty metal sign reading Rock Creek Ranch, beside it a No Trespassing sign, in bold red.

She proceeds despite the warning.


Is it circumstances, luck, good or bad that drives your life in one direction over another? Is it God's will? God's punishment? Mother Nature? Blind luck?

When Veronica pulls down the mile long drive and into Logan Echolls' circular driveway flanking his enormous estate, she asks herself these questions. They went to the same school, ate at the same cafeteria, had the same shitty second rate teachers, and yet here they were. The dichotomy of their lives was staggering. Logan Echolls, living in an expansive ranch flanked by the Beartooth mountains and what she could only assume was a well-stocked trout pond on the east. Veronica Mars, seven hundred and thirteen dollars in her handbag, every cent of it borrowed.

Pulling the handbrake, she peers out the windows to a sprawling log house. Two stories, with varying roof pitches, she counts nine windows to the left and four to the right. Each of the walls are broken up with wide stone fireplaces reaching into the blue sky. The ranch sits atop a slight rise, nothing but undulating crops and cows between her and the nearest town. A pair of dogs run towards the car, barking wildly. Veronica pulls down the mirror and checks her reflection, she reapplies lipstick on bitten lips, fluffs her hair again. Grabbing her bag, she opens the door and all the canines descend on her with excitement.

One dog is a beagle, the other resembles a piece of white lint. The piece of lint barks furiously at Veronica's ankles. She extends an outstretched hand, they tentatively lick her fingers with wet pink tongues. Satisfied with their assessment of her, they lead her up the stairs to the vast veranda that laps the entire dwelling and collapse upon their beds. A potted marigold in full bloom sits by the entrance and a set of Keds, very much like her own, laces undone beside it.

The huge oak front door is open, a screen door the only thing keeping her out. In the absence of a doorbell she knocks on it as loud as she can, then lays a palm atop a plank of wood that forms the walls. It's cool to the touch, even in the afternoon heat, weathered flecked greys and browns.

Through the open screen door, Veronica can see down a long hallway, past a hall stand, glimpsing what she assumes is the corner of a large kitchen. She hears the murmur of voices silenced by her knock, and then quiet footsteps growing closer.

She doesn't get nervous anymore. So attune to dealing with most situations on her own she seems to have blocked the emotion from her body. But yesterday, getting on the plane from Salt Lake to Billings, there was a small tingle, sitting just below her sternum. She brushed it away as a symptom of eating a lukewarm ham sandwich on the previous flight. But today, that tingle had grown, and now, listening to those footsteps, the tingle wraps her torso and constricts.

A shadow appears, the closer it comes it morphs into Logan Echolls, unmistakably him. The boy she remembered was decidedly more gangly, a typical California boy bejeweled with puka shells and oversized cargo pants swinging in her memory from a tree limb. This Logan was older, thirty-three now, same as her. His hair a little longer, pushed back. Jaw covered with stubble, a few grey hairs lingered amongst them. Tanned and rough, he bears scant resemblance to the preened man in a penguin suit she saw in photos last night, or the ones that used to be plastered across the tabloids at her local gas station. He's wearing jeans and a blue and red checkered button down with socks.

She pulls at her shirt, straightens her shoulders and tries for what she remembers a warm smile to be, mimicking characters from movies and television. She knows how it's supposed to look, but the undertaking itself seems arduous. From Logan's reaction, the desired result falls well short of expectations.

He cranes his head to the side, observing her, perplexed. Veronica's glad for the screen door, it dampens the possibility of a close assessment of her, like maybe he can't see the haggard lines of her eyes through the cross hatch of mesh, the way her cheeks hollow and shadow, even in the best light.

But he sees her, eyes like a summer storm.

"I'm sorry, were the No Trespassing signs unclear?" he says sharply.

"They were not, I saw four, they kept getting bigger as I drove."

"And yet, here you are."

"I thought they were more of a guide."

"What do you want, Veronica? Why are you calling me, why are you here?" he asks from safely behind his screen.

"Can't an old high school acquaintance come around for a chat?"

"Acquaintance?" he laughs, but it's not a friendly laugh, "What are you doing at my house, in Montana ?" he squints his eyes, like the synapses have stopped firing and he's trying to restart them.

Logan leans forward and gazes out the door and down the drive, Veronica suspects he's looking for some kind of Candid-Camera or Punk'd crew.

"I'm hoping you can help with something," she says.

"What the hell can I help you with?" his tone is dismissive, but he doesn't move away like you would a random pesky door-knocker. He stays in his place.

"I am a PI and I'm looking for some…" she starts, but he cuts her off mid-sentence.

"You're still working as a PI?" he scrunches his brow and she tries very hard not to punch him in the face. Quips about her lack of career progression hit hard and make her want to hit harder.

"Yep," she replies, clipped, "as I was saying, I'm trying to find someone and I really need your help." While she speaks, she takes a hesitant step toward the door. This causes his body language to match the evasiveness of his voice. He steps forward, blocking any path into his house.

"Veronica, get off my doorstep, get off my property," he draws a deep breath as though he wants to say more, but is holding it in.

"Logan, what happened, it wasn't me, you need to understand. I had nothing to do…"

He cuts her off, sighing deeply.

"Fuck off, Veronica."

With a flick of his wrist the heavy door slams with an almighty thud before her. Their one minute conversation passed like a car accident, that moment of elastic time that is both sheer speed and warped slowness. The intensity stretches the elasticity to a breaking point, and with a snap, she's propelled back into the present. The present where Veronica stands staring at the woodgrain, hearing his socked feet retreat.