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

Bud about the settlement. He said okay, if we can counteroffer the money minus the amount she cleaned out of his account. She forfeits the property.”

“I figured he’d go for it.”

“Harry. I talked to him. In my office. He’s out. He left the hospital.”

“Aw shit.”

“He wants me to get on the calendar in Maston County court. Finalize the terms of the separation. I have a call in to them right now—”

“Don’t let him come up here.”

“Harry, I’m an attorney; he’s my client. He wants to settle the money part of this fast. As a private person, I share Bud’s concern that you’re playing unguided missile—”

“The guy should be committed. He’s not responsible—”

“He says you’re the one who should be committed. It’s a wash.

If I didn’t know you both I wouldn’t go near it. Screw the fee and travel time.”

“Travel time?”

“I have to go to court with him.”

HUNTER’S MOON / 261

“Linda. I gotta go.”

Harry was exhilarated and wary, climbing a scaffold of toothpicks he was building as he went. But damnit, there was something here!

So they left Duluth with a pile of loot. Dirty money, Miss Loretta called it. Wonder where they put it? He dug through the local phone directory and found the listing for Lawrence Emery. Then he placed the address as best he could on the township map in the front of the phone book. He tore the page out, threw on his coat, and jumped in the Jeep.

To get to the county road Emery lived on, Harry had to drive around Bud’s property. The road was a boundary between two different countries. On one side, the timber was thick and towering.

On the other, the land was bog and spindly jack pine. Hunters dotted the sparse swamps. Probably all the deer headed for the thick cover of the Maston acres.

His stomach growled. Nothing in it but black coffee over mas-sacred digestive juices. He lit another cigarette and ran his fingers across the sweaty stubble on his chin.

Emery lived on quite a piece of land. The acres of rolling, fenced pasture were divided by a fishing stream, the house was cedar, modern Tudor. But desolate. A hay feeder sat barren in the pasture.

The barn looked empty. No horses in sight. No tracks in the windswept snow.

He could see Jesse’s lethal ass poised in an English saddle, putting a thoroughbred through its paces in a paddock. Looking over the spread.

Nice. But no lake. And just a sheriff’s salary.

A house like that, new, might go for around 250,000 bucks. With the barn, the land, and the horses, it would eat up Jesse’s insurance settlement from Duluth.

His eyes traveled the landscaped drive and stopped at the three-car garage. There was a basketball hoop, the net stiff with ice. He couldn’t picture Chris shooting baskets. Becky, maybe.

What does a sheriff in a depressed county make a year?

262 / CHUCK LOGAN

Harry drew stares as he marched down the hall toward Mike Hakala’s office. He yanked off his wool cap and swatches of hair stuck at wild angles. The scabs on his face didn’t help.

One of Hakala’s brothers and a woman sat in the easy chairs in front of Hakala’s desk. They viewed Harry with mild alarm when he appeared in the doorway. The woman stood up in a businesslike skirt and sweater. Her long legs didn’t flash so much, muted by nylons. She clutched a yellow legal pad in her hands and her face turned crimson in contrast to her long blond hair.

Harry grinned. “The Hakala politburo I presume. Ginny. Didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.”

The Hakala brother rolled his eyes toward the sheriff’s office down the hall, Should I get someone?

Hakala pursed his lips and discreetly shook his head. No.

“Harry,” said Hakala, rising from his desk. “What can I do for you?”

“Like to talk, you and me,” said Harry.

“Sure. Uh,” he turned to Ginny and the brother. “Take a break.

Say fifteen minutes.”

Ginny’s heels clicked past him. She did not meet his eyes.

“Close the door, Harry. Sit down. Coffee?” said Hakala.

Harry looked down the hall at Ginny. “She cleans up well, your niece.”

“Ginny picks up a few hours a week with the county, when she isn’t managing the diner.”

“Right,” said Harry, sitting down.

Hakala passed him a cup of coffee, leaning over his desk far enough to make a production of recoiling from Harry’s breath and his appearance. “Any more trouble at Maston’s? We’ve been keeping an eye out. We checked out the serial number on that snowmobile that got…left behind when those hooligans came through. Guy it’s registered to said it was stolen that night.”

HUNTER’S MOON / 263

“Uh-huh. Who hired Larry Emery to fill out the old sheriff’s term?”

“Why, the County Board, on my recommendation,” said Hakala.

“What’s a county sheriff make a year?”

Hakala shrugged. “Low forties. Somewhere in there.”

“How much you figure that house he’s got is worth? Looks pretty pricy for a sheriff’s salary.”

Hakala smiled. “You, uh, recall a conversation we had in this office? About how civilians shouldn’t try to do the system’s work?”

“Absolutely. Which part of the system checked out Emery’s resume?” Harry tossed the newspaper page on Hakala’s desk. “You recognize the lady circled in red?”

Hakala studied it for a moment and rolled his eyes. “Don Karson’s already been through here with that. What else is new?” He sighed.

“He’s dropping big hints that Emery had something to do with Chris. Then, to be fair, Emery is making sounds like Karson is the local pederast. Yeah, I went round the bases. I been to the high school and seen the writing on the wall.”

Hakala’s desk phone buzzed. “Hold my calls,” he said brusquely, then paused, “What? When?” He tightened his eyes shut, listening.

“Well, give them a good talking to. No. I’m staying out of it.” He slammed down the receiver and sighed. “Fight at the high school, my kid just beat the dog shit out of one of the guys on the hockey team. I swear, this whole damn town is going batty. Where were