“Michael Bettich? Sure. Deputy Gretchen’s pal. We don’t see much of her these days.”

I took the photograph of Alison out of my pocket and showed it to her.

“Yep, that’s her,” Ginger confirmed. “I think she’s prettier in person.”

“You say you don’t see much of her anymore?” I asked.

“Nah. This gambling thing has emotions running pretty high. I think she’s trying to keep a low profile. Especially around Ingrid.”

“Why?”

“I guess because she might become Ingrid’s chief competitor.”

Have you ever felt like you’ve just walked in at the middle of a movie?

“I don’t understand,” I said, and my face probably showed it.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” Ginger said and laughed. “Okay, here’s the story. There’s this resort called The Harbor. Mostly it’s a restaurant, but they have plenty of space for campers and such, and you can dock your boat, okay? Anyway, it went broke. The lake it’s on, Lake Peterson, had winter kill some years back and lost all its fish. The DNR restocked it, but rebuilding a fish population takes years. Besides, it’s way out on the highway, and hardly anyone went there. Somehow King Koehn got stuck with it—The Harbor, not the lake—and he’s been trying to unload it for years. Now, along comes Michael, and she buys it for—I don’t know—ten cents on the dollar. People tell her it’s a bad investment, but she buys it anyway.”

I took a long pull of my beer as Ginger continued.

“Now, the next day—I mean like the very next day after the deal is done—word leaks out that the local band of Ojibwa is, like, ultrasecretly trying to buy the old civic center from the Kreel County Board of Commissioners—I guess to revamp into an off-reservation gambling casino.”

“You guess?”

“Well, they haven’t actually come out and said it, the Ojibwa I mean, but that’s what everyone thinks. Why else would they want it?”

“What does the civic center have to do with Alison?”

“Huh?”

“I mean Michael.”

“The Harbor?” Ginger asked. “Because it’s … Okay, here’s the rest of the story. When the county decided to build the civic center as a way to generate convention business, there was a big fight over where it should be located, in Saginau or Deer Lake. The board settled on a compromise. They decided to build the civic center on a lake midway between the two towns.”

“Lake Peterson,” I volunteered.

“There you go,” said Ginger. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. Only it didn’t do any better than The Harbor.”

“How close is the civic center to The Harbor?”

“Directly across the highway.”

“My, my, my, my, my.”

“Get it now?”

“Uh-uh.”

Ginger sighed, exasperated.

“You don’t think having a casino across the way isn’t going to be good for business?” she asked. “That’s why Michael is keeping a low profile. ’Cuz everyone is mad at her.”

“Who? Why?”

Again Ginger sighed. “Okay, let me count the ways,” she said. “You’ve got your King Koehn, who figures Michael stole The Harbor out from under him, like, unethically, using inside information—”

“Did she?”

“You got Charlie Otterness,” Ginger continued as if she didn’t want to be interrupted. “Charlie owns a bait-and-tackle store outside of town. Big place; you want minnows and stuff, you go to Charlie’s. Charlie is also a Kreel County commissioner. And he’s a widower who rumor has it—now, I’m not one to gossip, but rumor has it he was keeping time with Michael until the day she bought The Harbor and now has nothing nice to say about her.”

“Charlie told Michael about the impending sale,” I guessed.

“It’s amazing what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms. Oops,” Ginger added, making a dramatic gesture out of putting her hand over her mouth. “Did I say that?”

She laughed and I smiled, but I wasn’t feeling particularly happy. Alison sleeping with a county commissioner to get inside information? I didn’t want to hear that.

“Stupid! People are stupid!”

Ginger and I both turned toward the door. A tall, thin, bearded man dressed in jeans, a flannel shirt, and an ANIMALS ’R US button, glanced at us and then looked away.

“Hello, Mr. Thilgen,” Ginger said.

“Do you know how stupid people are?” Thilgen asked loudly. Ginger went along, playing straight man.

“How stupid are they?”

“They’re so stupid, they’re out there arguing about gambling, about gambling casinos, but they refuse to see the big picture.”

“The big picture?”

“The environment.”

“Ahh, yes. The environment.”

“Don’t you care about the environment? Are you stupid, too? Are you one of the stupid people?”

Ginger took a deep breath and did not reply. Thilgen seated himself in the restaurant section. Ingrid smiled at him, gathered her materials, and disappeared behind a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.

Thilgen was obviously well-known and not particularly popular. The waitresses flipped a coin to determine who would serve him; the loser demanded two out of three.

“Nobody cares about the animals,” Thilgen continued. “They’re going to widen the roads and cut down the trees to make room for parking lots and bring their foul-smelling cars in here and their human pollution. Well, what about the animals, is what I want to know. What about the deer and the woodchucks? Nobody asked them if they want a gambling casino. Oh, no! They’re expendable. So what if we destroy the wetlands, the habitats. So what if we turn Lake Peterson into a landfill. Just as long as everyone makes, a buck, screw the animals, forget the environment.”

A waitress handed Thilgen a menu and hurried off, not bothering to list the daily specials, not taking a drink order.

“Damn Indians,” he continued. “Indians, not Native-Americans! Indians and their damn dirty money. They’re supposed to be protecting the environment. Noble savages—yeah, sure! General Sheridan was right. The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”

Ingrid, coming back through the door, had obviously heard him. She was visibly upset.

“I won’t have that kind of talk in my place,” she told Thilgen, her eyes flashing. “Do you understand?”

“Kill the Indians, and kill that Bettich bitch who’s ruining Lake Peterson!” he replied even more loudly, as if daring her to do something about it.

“Get out, Chip,” Ingrid said, moving to his table.

“People are so stupid,” he added.

“So I’ve been told,” Ingrid replied, pushing a chair out of her way, nearly knocking it over. “Get out.”

Chip Thilgen refused to leave his chair. He looked at her across the table and smiled like he owned the place and she was the intruder.

“Make me,” he said.

I figured that was my cue. I left the bar with every intention of offering aid and assistance, but before I had taken three steps, Ingrid was leaning over the table, her arms supporting her weight, and speaking to Thilgen in a voice too low for me to hear. But Thilgen heard her—oh, man, did he. The blood ran out of his face, and his eyes became large and still. Ingrid stepped back, and Thilgen rose on shaky legs. His fists were clenched, yet he seemed more frightened than angry.

“You can’t talk to me like that,” he said softly.

“Put a sock in it,” Ingrid told him.

Thilgen headed to the door, moving slowly enough to prove he wasn’t running but quickly enough to get the job done.

“You’ll see,” he called over his shoulder as he left. “I’m not someone to mess with.”

“Neither am I,” Ingrid said softly before she disappeared back behind the EMPLOYEES ONLY door.

I returned to my table and looked over at Ginger.

“That’s three people who are upset with Michael,” I said. “Who is he?” I asked.

“Mr. Chips?” Ginger asked. “Thinks of himself as an animal-rights activist. They say he sometimes liberates farm animals— cows and hens and horses. That’s what the activists call it when they sneak onto someone’s farm at night and let the livestock go free. Liberations. Only no one has caught him at it yet. I know some farmers, they say if they do catch him, they’re gonna shoot him.”