“Too bad, so he settled for Kidwell’s wife. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that Jesse was the wife. She collected quite a piece of change. Like half a million bucks in insurance. Doesn’t it tweak your curiosity, the way Jesse Deucette’s husbands are prone to death by gunshot wound?”
Hakala’s robust face clouded. “The bullet that passed 264 / CHUCK LOGAN
through Bud Maston’s body came from Chris Deucette’s rifle. I have the forensic report right here.”
“Let’s see it.”
“Listen, fella,” Hakala cautioned. “I been going out of my way to be civil with you.” He rose out of his chair and walked back and forth behind his desk. “I realize you’ve been through a lot. I thought we had a working agreement. Get Bud some help and let it lie. Word of advice. After what you did at the funeral, Emery would like to nail your balls to a stump and push you over backwards. Don’t crowd him, Griffin.”
“Why is Becky Deucette a missing person? Could it be she knows something about her dead brother and her dad? Something you overlooked? I didn’t tell you when it happened, but I think I saw her out there that day.”
Hakala picked up some papers and threw them down on his desk.
“You’re paranoid, fella. You’re starting to look like a loose cannon.”
Harry stood up. “Your loose cannon is wearing a badge. And that’s not all. Bud’s checked himself out of the hospital and is headed this way with a pillowcase full of money to cash out Jesse.”
“Not good,” Hakala breathed.
Harry pointed an accusing finger. “There were flags on Chris starting back last summer. And last month you let him slide on a stolen gun offense. That kid needed help or he should have been put away and you let Emery put a rifle in his hand. You let him be turned into a weapon.”
“Wait a goddamn minute. You can piss in the wind. I have to operate within the constraints of the law.”
“Oh yeah? So what happens if Bud cruises into town to file his separation papers and some overeager deer hunter shoots him between the eyes, say, in front of the police station? One of those accidental deaths like what happened to Kidwell in Duluth?”
Hakala watched him closely. “So what’s your point?”
“What happens to his estate?”
“Arggh,” Hakala growled dubiously. “Bud has no children.
HUNTER’S MOON / 265
As far as I know he’s the last of the Maston line. And a decree of separation, which does not terminate a husband and a wife’s legal connection, is not a final judgment of divorce—”
“In other words?”
“The surviving spouse could go after the whole thing,” Hakala said. “Not only that, but the estate would be disposed in the domicile of the deceased. And since Bud has resided here for a year, has voted in a local election, banks here, has attended Don Karson’s church, and since he has assets here, the land, the lodge…” Hakala clicked his teeth. “They’d carve it up right here in the probate division of the Maston County court system. My Uncle Toyvo presiding.”
“No grand jury. That was a slick move, Hakala. Fuck!”
“Hey,” Hakala opened his hands reasonably. “I was trying to help the guy out, for Chrissake.”
“Let me help you out,” said Harry. He held up his hands and framed a rectangle of air. “Lightning strikes twice in Maston County.
Helpless widow inherits millions. Then it comes out. Helpless widow has fucked sheriff. Fucked sheriff sired her bastard kids and has a habit of shooting widow’s husbands.”
Harry turned his back on Hakala and was going through the door when the district attorney went into a conniption:
“You’ve been drinking and picking fights! Now you’re hallucinat-ing spurious allegations! You’re way out of line, Griffin!”
Harry passed Mitch Hakala standing at the dispatcher’s desk in the company of a deputy with black sideburns. Morris, the tobacco-chewer, from the morning of the shooting. Mitch leaked blood from his gauze-bandaged right hand and his face was a mask of perma-frost. He stepped in Harry’s path. “Need to talk to you,” he said.
Harry pushed by. “Later, you’re busy.”
Mitch pulled Harry aside with surprising trained strength in his hands. “Be at the lodge. A couple hours from now. Four-thirty.”
“Take it easy, Mitch,” said the deputy.
266 / CHUCK LOGAN
Ginny Hakala was on the sidewalk in front of the sheriff’s office.
Warily she watched Harry approach. “Okay, I’m busted,” she said.
“I combined a little business with pleasure. Actually, it was Jerry who wanted me to get next to you and I saw a way to make Jay jealous.” She shrugged sadly. “And it worked. We’re back together.”
“You don’t look very happy about it.”
Ginny grimaced. “Larry’s pushing for a grand jury. He wants to subpeona everybody, including me.”
“Why you?”
“Because he’s after Jay.” Ginny Hakala had tears in her eyes as she turned and went back into the county offices.
Jay my ass.
Harry let it all float, words and faces. He stood on a lip of granite overlooking Glacier Lake as the sun dipped into the tree line. But tonight he was drinking reheated black coffee from a stout stoneware cup.
Almost time for Mitch to show up. Flashlights swung in the woods at the far end of the lake. Emery’s search party.
The cry slid on sheets of crystalline air, eerie, echoing along the shore.
Wolf.
Out there hunting.
He had to find Becky before Emery did.
43
Mitch Hakala steered his scrupulously waxed, olive-green Jeep Wrangler through the wreckage of the Battle of the Snowmobiles and parked, out of sight, behind the pole barn. Harry met him at the door. Mitch’s steely blue eyes bored straight ahead and beneath his blank, manfully contained adolescent fury, he looked like a very shook-up young man.
HUNTER’S MOON / 267
“So Ginny’s your cousin?” Harry started slowly.
Mitch nodded stiffly. “Look at the phone book. There’s forty of us.” Inside, Mitch
