The scene made Johnny Johannson turn pale. The boy nudged the black Labrador’s body with his battered sneakers, staining the tips of them with blood. I gripped the butt of the handgun hidden inside my pocket.

“Ahh, fuck it,” Jimmy said, suddenly speaking in a monotone as he zipped the twelve-gauge into a leather case. “Dog was no good. Gun shy. Can’t hunt with no gun-shy dog.”

Jimmy went around to the front of the house; his father, visibly shakened but saying nothing, dragged his silent grandson inside the house through the back door. When Jimmy reappeared, he was carrying a spade. Without expression—without any emotion that I could observe—he began digging a shallow grave for the dog’s still-warm carcass. I waited. I don’t know why I waited. Maybe it was so I could tell Jimmy something when he had finished.

I gripped the Walther inside my pocket and asked, “What’s the only thing money can’t buy?”

“Huh?”

“What’s the only thing money can’t buy?” I repeated loudly.

“Shit, I dunno. Love?”

“The wag of a dog’s tail,” I answered.

Jimmy sneered at me. “Fuck that.”

He heaved the spade in the general direction of a large shed and walked slowly to the house. I did not take my hand out of my pocket until he was well inside.

twenty-two

The sign outside The Wheel Inn Motel read: STAY SIX NIGHTS GET YOUR 7TH NIGHT FREE. Now that was optimism. I wondered if anyone ever took the proprietor up on his offer. I meant to ask him, only I didn’t like the way he smirked when I checked in without luggage, paying cash instead of using a credit card. He looked at me like I was a talent scout for a porno magazine. Still, he showed me to my room with a certain amount of pride. I don’t know why. It looked like any other motel room you’ve ever been in except it was older and crummier. The wallpaper was faded and crumbling along the edges—large yellow flowers on a blue background. The bed and bureau were bought new in, say, 1933. And the toilet was operated by a chain. All the comforts of home. The owner told me there was no cable, and the ancient black-and-white TV took a good fifteen minutes to warm up, but the Brewers were playing on channel ten later that evening if I was interested.

I had two questions: Where could I buy a change of clothes? And where could I get something to eat? As to the former, he directed me to the combination clothing/appliance store attached to the grocery store in Deer Lake: King’s One-Stop. As for the latter, he recommended the $5.95 all-you-can-eat buffet at The Forks Restaurant and Casino, about fifteen miles down the road just this side of the county line.

Before I left, I made two phone calls. The first was to Deputy Gary Loushine, but he wasn’t in. The woman who answered the sheriff department’s telephones promised she’d deliver my message. The second call was to Cynthia. The voice on her machine promised she’d return my call, too.

King’s One-Stop was located just off the main drag in Deer Lake, not too far from Koehn’s counterfeit log cabin. It offered only a limited selection of men’s fashions. I found white athletic socks (two to a package), white briefs (three to a package), a white shirt with button-down collar, and a pair of blue jeans all in less than ten minutes. What made me linger was a gray-black silk-blend sports jacket sewn in Korea by a company I’d never heard of that was marked down to $34.95. I spent five minutes trying to determine what was wrong with it and couldn’t, except that the sleeves were about a half inch too short. But for thirty-five bucks, what’s half an inch? I bought the jacket, the other clothes, a plastic razor, a small can of shaving foam, a toothbrush and paste, and deodorant, paying with a check. The cashier looked at me like I was challenging her arithmetic when I asked for a receipt, but I figured Hunter Truman would insist. If he didn’t reimburse my expenses, I’d take my chances with the IRS.

On the way back to the motel, I listened to the music broadcast by the public station at UMD: Jane Olivor’s cover of “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows.” According to the missing person’s form I had worked with over the past few weeks, it was Alison’s favorite song. I listened to it carefully. It was peculiar, knowing so much about a stranger. I couldn’t have named Cynthia’s favorite song if my life depended on it.

When I returned to the motel, the owner said that a woman had called for me, a woman with an “underage voice” who promised she would call back. I swear to God he winked at me.

I had showered and changed—happy to know I was wearing clean underwear in case I had an accident—when the owner put Cynthia’s return call through to me. I greeted her as “counselor” in case he lingered on the line.

I was so pleased by the sound of Cynthia’s voice that I didn’t say anything after I said hello; I just wanted to listen. Was she the someone?

Cynthia said it had been a tough day, that her caseload was heavier than usual, that she was considering bringing a few more freelance attorneys on board to assist her. But she was sure she could find time for us—assuming I didn’t spend the rest of my life in northern Wisconsin.

“I’ll be home soon,” I predicted.

After a moment of silence, Cynthia said, “Irene Brown and Raymond Fleck were in the paper this morning.”

“Were they?”

“The Dakota County grand jury refused to return an indictment, and the county attorney was forced to release them. According to the paper, Irene and Raymond are leaving Minnesota. The paper said they’re getting married and moving to Oregon.”

“Happy trails,” I said.

“You’re off the hook.”

“With them, maybe.”

“How’s Alison?”

“Still critical, last I heard.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Yeah,” I said. Then just to change the subject—I didn’t want to speak of Alison anymore—I asked, “What’s your favorite song?”

“My favorite song?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know.”

“Think,” I urged her.

“I … probably … I don’t know, ‘Misty,’ I guess.”

“‘Misty’? Really? The old Erroll Garner tune?” I was expecting something by Jewel or Melissa Etheridge, somebody like that.

“No, no,” Cynthia repeated. “Not Errol Garner. The song Johnny Mathis sings.”

“Yeah, he covered it,” I said. “Garner wrote it. The music, anyway.”

“Why do you ask?”

“It’s just something I thought I should know.”

Deputy Loushine was not surprised by anything I told him concerning Jimmy Johannson.

“The sadistic sonuvabitch never drew an honest breath in his life,” he told me.

“He lied about not knowing Thilgen,” I said. “The question is, Does he have a reason for lying, or is he just doing it out of habit?”

Loushine cursed. He had information that would bring Johannson to heel—Thilgen’s canceled checks—but he couldn’t use them because some big-shot private detective didn’t know shit one about the rules of evidence.

“Hang it up for tonight,” I told the deputy. “We’ll get a fresh start in the morning.”

I could hear him yawn.

“Meet me for breakfast,” he said, naming a café in Saginau. “Seven-thirty,” he added.

“I’ll be there,” I promised without complaining how much I hate getting up that early in the morning.

My next call was to Duluth General Hospital. After a brief give-and-take, the switchboard operator directed me to the Intensive Care Unit. The nurse who answered the phone wanted to know how I was related to the patient before she would release any information. I couldn’t bring myself to lie and pretend I was a member of Michael’s family or that I was even a close personal friend. Instead, I lied and said I was Kreel County Sheriff’s Deputy Gary Loushine. The nurse put me on hold while she checked her charts. When she returned, her voice had changed considerably. It was now low and rough and filled with exhaustion. And male.