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NORTH OF HUMBOLDT the landscape is broken into bumpy rectangles of pastures, separated by benign fences, a few stone walls and hedgerows. The sun was sitting on the tops of the hills to the west and shone down on the landscape, making the milk cows and sheep glow like bright, bulky lawn decorations. Every few hundred yards signs lured tourists this way or that with the promise of handmade cheeses, nut rolls and nougat, maple syrup, soft drinks and pine furniture. A vineyard offered a tour. Bry
Then, eight miles out of town, the storybook vanished, just like that. Pine and oak ganged beside the road, which shrank from four lanes to two. Hills sprouted and soon the landscape was nothing but forest. A few buds were out but the leaf-bearing trees were still largely gray and black. Most of the pines were richly green but some parcels were dead, killed by acid rain or maybe blight.
Bry
Although married to a landscaper, she hadn’t learned about local flora from her husband. That education came from her job. The rampant growth of meth labs in out-of-the-way parts of rural America meant that police officers who’d never done anything more challenging than pulling over drunk drivers now had to make drug raids out in the boondocks.
Bry
As she drove, the Glock 9mm pistol was high on her hip, and while the Sheriff’s Department Crown Victoria cruiser had plenty of room for accessories, the configuration of bucket seat and seat belt in the Honda she was now driving kept the boxy gun’s slide bridling against her hip bone. There’d be a mark come morning. She shifted again and put on the radio. NPR, then country, then talk, then weather. She shut it off.
Oncoming trucks, oncoming pickups. But fewer and fewer of them and soon she had the road to herself. It now angled upward and she saw the evening star ahead of her. Hilltops grew craggy and bald with rock and she could see evidence of the lakes nearby: cattails, bog bean and silver and reed canary grass. A heron stood in a marsh, immobile, his beak, and gaze, aimed directly at her.
She shivered. The outside temperature was in the midfifties but the scene was bleak and chilly.
Bry
“Thanks again for doing this, Bry
“Sure.”
“Had Todd check things out.” Dahl explained that he still couldn’t get through on either of the couple’s mobiles. As far as he knew the only people at the house were the Feldmans, Steven and Emma, and a woman from Chicago Emma used to work with, who was driving up with them.
“Just the three of them?”
“That’s what I heard. Now, there’s nothing odd about Feldman. He works for the city. But the wife, Emma…get this. She’s a lawyer at a big firm in Milwaukee. Seems that she might’ve uncovered some big scam as part of a case or a deal she was working on.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know the details. Just what a friend in Milwaukee PD tells me.”
“So she’s maybe a witness or whistle-blower or something?”
“Could be.”
“And the call, the nine-one-one call-what’d he say exactly?”
“Just ‘this.’”
She waited. “I missed it. What?”
A chuckle. “Who’s on first? I mean he said the word ‘this.’ T-H-I-S.”
“That’s all?”
“Yep.” Dahl then told her, “But it could be a big deal, this case. Todd’s been talking to the FBI in Milwaukee.”
“The Bureau’s involved? Well. Any threats against her?”
“None they heard of. But my father always said those that threaten usually don’t do. Those that do usually don’t threaten.”
Bry
“You watch yourself, Bry
“Sure.” Thinking: as a last resort maybe. Bry
This reminded her she was thirsty-and hungry too. But she pushed the thought aside; four of the roadside restaurants she’d passed in the last ten miles were closed. She’d check out whatever was happening at Lake Mondac, then get home to Graham’s spaghetti.
For some reason she thought of di
She pushed the accelerator down a bit harder, deciding that the difference in response between the Crown Vic and the Honda was as noticeable as that between fresh Idahos and instant potato buds out of a box.
Thinking, as she had been, about food.
“WELL, BOY, YOU got yourself shot.”
In a downstairs bedroom of the Feldman house, shades drawn, Hart was looking at the left sleeve of his brown fla
“Yep, lookit that.” Tugging his green stud earring, ski
The men had taken off their stocking masks and gloves.
“Just be careful what you touch,” Hart said, nodding at the other man’s bare hands.
Lewis pointedly ignored the comment. “That was a surprise, Hart. Bitch blindsided us. Never saw that coming. So who the hell is she?”
“I don’t really know, Lewis,” Hart said patiently, looking at his arm as the curtain of sleeve went up. “How would I know?”
“It’ll be a piece of cake, Hart. Hardly any risk at all. The other places’ll be vacant. And only the two of them up there. No rangers in the park and no cops for miles.”
“They have weapons?”
“Are you kidding? They’re city people. She’s a lawyer, he’s a social worker.”
Hart was in his early forties. He had a lengthy face. With the mask off, his hair came well below the bottom of his ears, which were close to the side of his head. He swept the black strands back but they didn’t stay put very well. He favored hats and had a collection. Hats also took attention away from you. His skin was rough, not from youthful eruptions but simply because it was that way. Had always been.
He gazed at his forearm, purple and yellow around the black hole, from which oozed a trickle of blood. The slug had gone through muscle. An inch to the left, it would have missed completely; to the right the bullet would have shattered bone. Did that make him lucky or unlucky?
Speaking to himself as much as to Lewis, Hart said of the blood, “Not pulsing out. Means it’s not a major vein.” Then: “Can you get some alcohol, a bar of soap and cloth for a bandage?”
“I guess.”
As the man loped off slowly, Hart wondered again why on earth anybody would have a bright red-and-blue tattoo of a Celtic cross tattooed on his neck.