Hunter's Moon, Chuck Logan [i am reading a book TXT] 📗

was in for a while. Need three of them Purple Hearts to join. Man, that’s extreme. Yeah, he was over there in Vietnam. Showed me this picture once from Life magazine. All these empty boots lined up after this battle. Said he was in that picture, in the back, but you couldn’t see him. That’s Larry, hee hee.”

“Morris, shut the fuck up please.”

Dawn dripped down the windows the color of sweat and Morris’s radio crackled and he spoke to the guys outside. Then he leaned over and spit tobacco juice into a copper antique wastebasket that was embossed with a Maston Mining logo. “It’s quiet,” he said.

“Three more of the boys showed up. State Patrol’s out at Cox’s trailer. Bunch of guys from Lake County are at Larry’s house. And cops on the roads thick as fleas. Be a big search come daylight.”

Harry made coffee for the cops who now sat warming themselves in their trucks in the drive. Then he called the hotel in Duluth. At first the clerk wouldn’t ring Bud’s room because of the early hour.

“This is a police emergency,” Harry said in his best storm trooper voice.

“Huh? What?” Bud’s groggy voice.

Finally. “Hey, fucker, Wake up! Where you been?”

“Harry?”

“Man, you won’t believe all the shit—”

“Where’ve you been?” Bud demanded.

“Tip Kidwell. Duluth. Larry Emery hiding in the woods. That’s where I been.”

“What?”

“Emery’s flipped out. He tried to take my head off. We got a game of tag. Cops with riot guns. The sheriff is fucking it.”

“You’re not making sense.”

“They got an all points for him. Armed and dangerous, just 326 / CHUCK LOGAN

like in the movies. Bud, he’s got Chris’s rifle down in his basement and this target of you on the wall and all these pictures—”

“Pictures?”

“Yeah, this collage. You and Nixon. A million fucking pictures.

There’s other stuff. I found this story Chris wrote. That’s really weird. It ties in with what Emery’s got in his basement but damned if I can figure how…”

“Story?”

“Karson has had Emery pegged from day one, man.”

“Harry, slow down. It’s all skewed.”

“Yeah, tell me about it. Just stay away, far away, until we drop a net over this guy.”

“Bullshit. I’m getting dressed. Give me an hour and a half. I’m getting you out of there. You at my place?”

“Christ—don’t come near here.”

“Goddamnit!” Bud shouted. “I live there! I’m going to settle this damn thing with Jesse once and for all.”

“I doubt the court is doing any normal business today. Mike Hakala has a gang of coppers watching Jesse out at Cox’s place.

And he’s bringing Becky in. With Emery flipped out there’s bound to be a grand jury into Chris now. My bet is Jesse’ll come down in price. Call Hakala at the police station. Get an escort. Stay on the main roads. This guy’s got it in for you. He’s doing the Kidwell thing all over again.”

“Call you back.” Bud hung up.

Harry paced, peering out the windows. The phone rang ten minutes later.

“Jesus Christ. What’s happening up there?” said Bud soberly.

“Hakala said he was using you as bait.”

“Now you believe me?”

“It’s six-thirty. I’ll meet you at the Timber Cruiser at ten. Calm down. Hakala said not to overreact. It’s all over cops. Some cooperative thing with other jurisdictions. Emery’s not downtown, for Chrissake. And what did you mean a story?”

“I’ll print out a copy. It’s something else.”

“Whatever.”

HUNTER’S MOON / 327

53

Ten-fifteen. Bud was late. Harry lit another cigarette and motioned to the waitress for a refill on coffee. The Cruiser was jammed with hunters and cops from all over coffeeing up before they hit the woods. Faithful Morris had followed him back down the hill and sat at the counter contemplating a mountain of blueberry pancakes. Four husky guys in black fatigues and snappy little black SWAT caps occupied one table with the air of trophy hunters out for exotic game. The lady reporter from Duluth, Sherry what’s her name, sat with them.

Ginny Hakala walked through the crowd in a mountain parka, wool pants, and beaded mukluks. She sat down. “Lookit all these guys raffling wolf tickets. What a fucking mess.”

“Where’s Jerry?”

“Uncle Mike’s got him tailing Mitch, looking for Becky.”

She lit one of Harry’s cigarettes. “Between you and me, this isn’t like Larry Emery. Uh-uh. Not one bit. I don’t care what he’s got in his basement.” She blew a plume of smoke. “You all right?”

Harry, going on sixty hours without sleep, laughed.

“I’m worried about Jay,” she said frankly.

“The guy can take care of himself. He convinced me. And there’s a million cops.”

“That’s exactly what worries me. Doesn’t all this prove that nobody can take care of themselves?”

A deputy stood up at the counter and motioned for her. She rose to her feet. “I gotta go guide in a search party.”

Two cigarettes and a cup of coffee later, Bud slowly hoisted himself out of a gray rental Isuzu Trooper. A green Honda Prelude pulled in next to him—Linda Margoles.

Deferential silence accompanied the blast of icy air as Bud pushed through the door. Cold-eyed sober and bullet-headed in a gray three-piece pinstripe suit, he filled the cafe—ponderous as an icon of power visiting from another era. An expensive silk tie was knotted at his throat and he’d already sweated a

328 / CHUCK LOGAN

ring through the collar of his shirt. His top sheet of fat had melted off.

“What the hell’s she doing here?” Harry demanded when Bud and Linda came through the crowded restaurant.

“I’m working,” said Linda, who was crisp in a tailored charcoal suit with razor creases and a fluffy silk bodice layered between her lapels. Behind a pragmatic lawyer’s smile, her face was compact with resolve.

“She’s like my lawyer. We’d hoped to file papers in court,” said Bud. He squeezed Harry’s arm in a steel grip. “Now what happened to your face?”

“Sheriff Emery and I went half a round.”

They sat down and Harry smelled him. Gray-faced, rank with nervous sweat. Linda, right next to him, pretended not to notice.

His eyes were flat as two blue buttons. Linda’s