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edges needed to be knitted together. He had a lot of questions. But they could wait.

“How about we get cleaned up and all go out to eat,” he said.

“You know,” Nina said, fingering the binder from her sweaty hair, “let’s hold off till tomorrow. I’d kinda like to get out the phone book, see if this burg’s got a beauty shop-”

“Beauty shop?” Like a foreign language coming out of her mouth.

“Yeah, you know; get this rat’s nest fixed up,” she said, tossing her hair, combing her fingers through the tangles. Then she put out her hand and placed it, open palm, on his chest, feeling the slow steady chug of his heart through his shirt. She raised her eyes and said, “You should smile more, Broker; does wonders for your face.”

Her eyes were wise, deep, and deadly. Athena climbing back on her pedestal. Whatever. Or as Griffin put it, his crazy sexy wife…

…was back in play.

Chapter Thirty

Griffin wheeled into the parking lot of Skeet’s Bar and parked his Jeep next to Teedo’s truck. Two drinking establishments in town stayed open in the off season; the Anglers, where you could take a family out to eat and which Keith and his deputy did not keep an eye on, and Skeet’s, a strictly beer and bar whiskey hangout, where they patrolled on Friday and Saturday nights.

Griffin walked through the front door. Just a long room, bar on the right, tables on the left, pool table, two booths, and the johns in the back. Five guys sat at the bar, watching boxing on the satellite TV hookup.

Teedo leaned over the pool table, shooting a solitary game of eight ball.

Griffin ordered a ginger ale, asked Willie Skeets what Teedo was drinking. Willie opened a bottle of Linnies. Griffin paid for the drinks and took the bottles back to the rear of the bar, set them on a table. Took off his coat. Teedo, intent on lining up a shot, did not look up.

Griffin selected a cue, acknowledging with a nod that the shattered cue from that night years back, when he helped Keith break up a fight, was still gathering dust at the end of the rack; it had become part of the local lore. He flipped a quarter on the table. Teedo pocketed the balls, inserted the coin, and started racking. Still not saying a word, Teedo broke.

Stripes. He sunk three balls and missed. Griffin lined up on the cue ball, eased back the stick. Teedo’s square hand closed over the white cue. They locked eyes.

“So you gonna buy me a beer?” Teedo said with a trickster glint in his brown eyes.

Griffin reached back, picked up the Linnies, and placed the bottle on the green felt with an emphatic thump. Teedo picked up the bottle and nodded at the rear booth. They put their cues back in the wall rack and sat down.

“Thought you might come. Wasn’t sure you’d buy the beer,” Teedo said.

“So you gonna tell me what you meant about Gator not being ‘true’?” Griffin said.

“You ever been out to his place?” Teedo asked.

“Drove by it a few times, during deer season.”

“So think about it-he’s out there all alone now, huh?”

“Yeah”-Griffin narrowed his eyes-“since his cousins got burned out.”

Teedo tipped the bottle to his lips. “Kind of convenient. Them not being around. Kind of people who snoop, steal stuff. Could pry into your business, big-time.”

“C’mon. What are you getting at?”

“Kinda storybook, don’t you think?” Teedo said. “The way everybody gives Gator plenty of room, since the meth house burned? Made him into a local hero, their avenging angel, for Marci Sweitz. It’s an open secret Gator’s snitching for Keith. They busted those Mexicans. Fact is, in the last year, Gator’s run all the nickel-dime meth dealers out of the county, especially anybody setting up shop in those empty houses north of Z.”

Griffin nodded-it was common knowledge. “The way people tell the story, Gator’s trying for a fresh start up here.” Hearing the words come from his mouth in the context of this conversation, they sounded too good to be true.

“Yeah, right, he’s fuckin’ Robin Hood. Or maybe”-again, the sly smile-“he’s knocking off the competition, huh?” Teedo said it quietly, raising his eyebrows slightly, conjuring a depth of hard-knocks insight into the backwoods drug scene. He’d done six months in Beltrami County for selling grass couple years back before he cleaned up his act. Knew the players.

Griffin leaned back, mulling over it. “Teedo, you got a suspicious mind.”

“No,” Teedo said, “I got a cousin, Jerry, who brews that poison. Remember that cold snap last month, hit twenty below?”

Griffin nodded.

“Yeah, well, Jerry figured nobody’d be out in that weather, so he snuck into one of those old houses to cook. And Gator shows up, knocks him around, and chases him off at gunpoint. Jerry didn’t run far-he pulled off into the trees to watch what Gator would do. See, Jerry didn’t have a shopping bag from Fleet Farm and a few cans of solvent. He had a whole truckload of supplies, two big boxes of pseudoephedrine he smuggled in from Canada. Jerry was looking to cook a couple pounds of that shit.

“So Jerry waits, freezing his ass, for the sheriff to show up. No sheriff. Instead, Gator loads all the chemicals and stuff in his truck and drives it north on Twelve, toward his place.” Teedo leaned forward and pointed his beer bottle at Griffin. “One of the ways you catch meth heads, is you follow them when they run their trapline, picking up supplies, huh? But if you’re fucking Robin Hood, you just steal from the meth heads and give to yourself.”

“So-no exposure.” Griffin thought about it.

“Plus, he’s got what amounts to police protection. Way Jerry tells it, Gator brings Keith in on the little fish, but if he finds a big stash, he keeps it for himself.”

“So, say something. Anonymous tip, 911,” Griffin said.

“Oh, right,” Teedo shook his head. “Uh-uh, not me, man, word’d get out. I believe those stories about Gator. He kills people and gets away with it, going way back. Some people even think the way his folks died was no accident.”

Teedo drank a few swallows of beer in silence, smacked his lips. “But I did go out there to Gator’s and take a look.”

“Hey,” Griffin said, “you’re the one blowing smoke about staying clear.”

Teedo lifted a hand. “I had an excuse. This time of year, I go back in the woods near his farm. ’Bout two hundred yards in from one of the fields, there’s this grove of birches. Put in some test taps. Been so warm, I figured the sap might be early. Not as good as sugar maples, but you can still make syrup. Not bad if you cook it twice.”

“For Christ’s sake, Teedo…”

Teedo took another pull on his beer, stretching it out. “You know how to find Camp’s Last Stand?”

Griffin nodded. “Turn off Twelve east on County Z. Go in on the old logging road.” It was a local landmark set back in the woods.

“Two miles past the crossroads. Clock it on your odometer, ’cause it’s grown over, hard to find. When you get to the stand, take the trail that forks to the left, that’ll bring you up to the grove, you’ll see some tin buckets I put out.”

“Yeah?” Griffin hearing Teedo give him directions…like he’s sure I’m going out there…

“You’ll be a couple hundred yards from his house. That’s where I was two weeks ago when I smelled it.”

“Smelled what?” Griffin asked.

“A smell like a big litter box full of cat piss and shit. This real stink. I went in closer and heard the generator running…”

“Generator?”