I shrugged. “It’s like the saying goes: I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor, and rich is better.”

Stonetree smiled. “It is preferable to a poke in the eye from a sharp stick, I must agree.”

“Which brings us back to King and Michael,” I said.

“I will pay you quite well if you can determine for me with all accuracy that King Koehn is a silent partner in The Harbor,” Stonetree said.

“I already have a client,” I reminded him.

“I am not asking you to compromise your client,” he assured me. “I just want to acquire that one little piece of information. Before next Thursday.”

“What happens Thursday?” I asked.

“On Thursday we go before the Kreel County Board of Commissioners and make a formal offer to purchase the civic center.”

“I understand,” I told him.

“No, Mr. Taylor, you don’t.”

And by the way he rose to his feet and lifted his glass, it was obvious he wasn’t about to enlighten me. “Thank you for your time,” Stonetree said. “Please keep in touch.”

“Thank you for the drink and the interesting conversation,” I told him.

“I hope your woman recovers soon,” he said.

My woman? He thought Michael—I mean Alison—was my woman?

“Thank you,” I said again. I mimed a toast to the photograph of the USS Johnston.

Stonetree raised his glass to me. “H’gun.”

twenty-three

The wind up alarm clock that The Wheel Inn provided read 5:45. I didn’t like the clock. I didn’t like the way it rang until I lurched out of bed and beat it into submission. I didn’t like the sun, either. It was shining. And the birds were singing. Didn’t they know it was 5:45 in the fucking morning?!

The lights in the bathroom were too bright, the towels were too rough, the soap bar was too small, the floor was too cold, and so was the water that flowed from the faucet labeled H. I forgot about my bruises and stretched, then remembered every one. They were now turning an ugly yellow-rust color. I looked diseased.

I cut myself shaving three times. After years of using an electric razor I had lost the knack—at least that’s my story, and I’m sticking with it. My new sports coat and shirt were stained from the champagne, so I wore my other jacket and dirty shirt, instead. I packed the rest of my belongings in a paper bag with King’s One-Stop printed on both sides and escaped to my car.

There was a lot of traffic on the county roads, and it infuriated me. Where were all these people going so early in the morning? Turned out many of them were going to the same place I was: Annie’s Parlor, the café in Saginau where I had promised to meet Deputy Gary Loushine. The café was located on the town’s main drag between two bars. Across the street was an everything-for-everyone hardware store flanked by a bank and a gift shop. I parked farther down the street in the parking lot of the Kreel County Court Building, where the sheriff’s department was located, and walked back.

Annie’s Parlor was doing good business. A small crowd had gathered at the PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED sign, including two older women who smiled benignly at me and said in unison, “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?” The women were actually wearing skirts. Everyone else was dressed like they were going to cut the lawn right after breakfast—the dressing-down of America. When was the last time you were confronted with a dress code that exceeded “No shoes, no shirt, no service”?

At 7:05 Annie—who also wore a skirt—welcomed me to her parlor and led me to a window booth with a good view of the hardware store. She offered coffee while I waited for my companion, and I accepted. It was good coffee. I sipped it and wondered vaguely if Deputy Loushine had as much trouble with early mornings as I did. I passed the time by watching the traffic move up and down Saginau’s main drag and listed all the reasons why I could never reside in such a small town. The list was short and featured mostly social items: no jazz clubs, no movie theaters, no professional baseball.

Deputy Loushine abruptly slid into the booth across from me; somehow he had entered the café without my seeing him. Before I could even say “Good morning,” Annie was by his side.

“Coffee, Gary?”

“Thanks, Annie,” Loushine said. Apparently he and the woman were old friends.

But as Annie was pouring a steaming mug, the radio Loushine wore on his belt suddenly crackled and squawked. He responded with his personal code, and a woman’s voice told him to proceed to an old logging road off County Road T, three-quarters of a mile south of Road 34.

“What do we have?” Loushine asked the voice.

“It’s Chip Thilgen. We found him.”

Sheriff Bobby Orman was not happy. Not one damn bit. His face was bloodless, his mouth stretched downward into a long, hard frown, and his eyes fairly glistened with fury as he carefully picked his way along the logging trail toward the white Buick. Orman arrived a full forty minutes after Loushine and I did, although he had been summoned at the same time. What took him so long I couldn’t say—he certainly hadn’t stopped to shave. On the other hand, he had returned from Duluth at three that morning, which meant that he was operating on less than four hours’ sleep.

Orman joined the knot of deputies waiting for him at the open driver’s door. The deputies muttered an unenthusiastic “Good morning” but didn’t look at him—or at each other, for that matter. Instead they gazed at the thick growth that surrounded them, their boots, the sky—anywhere but inside the car, where the body of Chip Thilgen was folded neatly across the steering wheel. Orman probably didn’t want to look either, but he did as the deputies drifted away from the Buick and down the logging trail to their own vehicles to silently await orders.

In contrast, Loushine was excited and spoke rapidly. Only TV cops get a steady dose of dead bodies and high-speed heroics, and he was not a TV cop. How many shootings, how many murders, will a cop in a rural community like Kreel County catch in a career? Counting Alison’s shooting, this was Loushine’s fourth. I figured he had already exceeded his quota, and the stress was telling.

Still, he was well trained; someone had beaten discipline into him early on. Disregard the speed in which he gave it, and Loushine’s report was concise and thorough. He faltered only once. That was while informing the sheriff that Thilgen had been shot in the head at close range, as was evident by the contact burns on his temple. I was relieved when I’d noted the burned flesh earlier. It meant I hadn’t killed him when I shot out the back window of the car. It meant I didn’t have to burden my conscience with still another dead man.

“Suicide?” Orman asked hopefully. If this was Loushine’s fourth homicide, it was Orman’s first.

“We found a .38 on the seat next to him,” Loushine answered.

“Then it could have been.”

Loushine clearly didn’t think so, only he didn’t say it. Instead he told the sheriff, “The .38 still had a full load; it hadn’t been fired. But we have a bunch of these.” He held up a plastic bag filled with copper shells. “.41 AEs.”

The sheriff took the bag of shell casings and stepped away to collect himself. Loushine watched him intently. After a moment the sheriff said in a quiet voice, “He looks like he’s been dead for a long time.”

“Three days,” I told him. “I’m betting he was popped right after the shooting.”

Orman didn’t respond to me. Instead he told Loushine, “Dust the car inside and out; process the latents fast. Send copies to the Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigation. Also, see if you can get a quick grouping on the blood.…” We all glanced impulsively at the dark stains on the seat and floor around Thilgen’s body. “Some of it might not be his. And I want casts made of the three boot impressions outside the passenger door.”