Still Life With Crows

“Sure, Art.”

The sheriff had not risen, and now he simply nodded through a wash of cigarette smoke. “Smit.”

“Sheriff.”

There was a short silence. Ridder looked around, his polyester collar stretching this way and that. “Em! Coffee! And bring Mr. Ludwig some bacon and eggs.”

“I don’t eat much of a breakfast.”

“Nonsense. Today’s an important day.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because Dr. Stanton Chauncy, the professor from KSU, will be joining us in fifteen minutes. I’m going to show him the town.”

There was a short pause. Art Ridder was wearing a pink short-sleeved shirt and light gray doubleknit trousers, his white blazer thrown over the back of the chair. He was rounded, but not especially soft. All those years wrestling turkeys had put muscles on his arms that, it seemed, would never wither. He glowed with ruddy good health.

“We don’t have much time, Smitty, so I’ll be direct. You know me: Mr. Direct.” Ridder gave a little chuckle.

“Sure, Art.” Ludwig leaned back to allow the waitress to slide a greasy plate of bacon and eggs in front of him. He wondered what a real reporter would do at this point. Walk out? Politely decline?

“Okay, Smitty, here’s the deal. You know this guy, Chauncy, is looking for a place to put in an experimental cornfield for Kansas State. It’s either us or Deeper. Deeper’s got a motel, Deeper’s got two gas stations, Deeper’s twenty miles closer to the interstate. Okay? So you might ask, where’s the contest? Why us? You following me?”

Ludwig nodded.You following me? was Art Ridder’s signature phrase.

Ridder raised the coffee mug, flexed his hairy arm, took a sip.

“We’ve got something Deeper doesn’t. Now listen to me good, because this isn’t the official KSU line. We’ve gotisolation. ” He paused dramatically. “Why is isolation important? ’Cause this cornfield’s going to be used for testinggenetically—altered—corn. ” He hummed theTwilight Zone theme, then grinned. “You following me?”

“Not really.”

“We all know that genetically modified corn is harmless. But there are a bunch of ignorant city folks, liberals, enviros—you know who I’m talking about—who think there’s somethingdangerous about genetically altered corn.” He hummedTwilight Zone again. “Thereal reason Medicine Creek is in the running is because we’re isolated. No hotel. Long drive. No big mall. Closest radio and television station one hundred miles away. In short,this is the world’s lousiest place to organize a protest. Of course, Dale Estrem and the Farmer’s Co-op aren’t too pleased about it, either, but they’re just a few and I can handle them. You following me?”

Ludwig nodded.

“But now we’ve got a small problem. We’ve got a sonofabitch wacko running around. He’s killed a person, killed adog, and God knows what the hell else he’s up to, maybe he’s fucking sheep, too. Right when Stanton Chauncy, project director for the Agricultural Extension Program of Kansas State University, is in town to see if Medicine Creek is the right place to site these fields. And we want to show him itis a good place. A calm, law-and-order town. No drugs, no hippies, no protests. Sure, he’s heard about the murder, but he figures it’s just some random, one-time thing. He’s not concerned, and I want him to stay that way. So I need your help with two things.”

Ludwig waited.

“First, take a break from these goddamn articles about the killing. Okay, it happened. Now take a breather. And whatever you do, forchrissakes don’t do a story on the dead dog.”

Ludwig swallowed. There was a silence. Ridder was staring at him with a pair of red eyes, dark circles under them. He was really taking this seriously.

“That story qualifies as news,” Ludwig said, but his voice cracked when he said it.

Ridder smiled, laid a big hand on Ludwig’s shoulder. He lowered his voice. “I’masking you, Smitty, as afavor, to just take a few days off from the story. Just while the KSU guy is here. I’m not telling you to kill it, or anything like that.” He gave Ludwig’s shoulder a little squeeze. “Look, you and I both know the Gro-Bain plant isn’t exactly a sure thing. When they cut the night shift back in ’96, twenty families left town. Those were good jobs, Smitty. People got hurt, had to uproot themselves and leave homes their granddaddies built. I don’t want to live in a dying town.You don’t want to live in a dying town. This could make a real difference for our future. One or two fields is just a start, but genetic crop engineering is the coming wave, it’s where the big money’s going to be, and Medicine Creek could be part of it. There’s a lot riding on this, Smitty. A lot more than you might think. All I’m asking,all I’m asking, is a two-, three-day break. The guy’s announcing his decision on Monday. Just save it up and publish it when the guy leaves. Tuesday morning. You following me?”

“I see your point.”

“I care about this town. So do you, Smitty, I know you do. This isn’t for me. I’m just trying to do my civic duty.”

Ludwig swallowed. He noticed that his eggs were congealing on the plate and his bacon had already stiffened.

Sheriff Hazen spoke at last. “Smitty, I know we’ve had our differences. But there’s another reason not to publish anything on the dog. The forensic psychology guys in Dodge think the killer might be feeding off the publicity. His goal is to terrorize the town. People are already dredging up the old rumors about the massacre and the curse of the Forty-Fives, and those damn arrows just seemed calculated to revive the whole thing. It seems the killer might be acting out some weird fantasy about the curse. They say articles in the paper just encourage him.