She was already twenty minutes late and it was making him totally crazy. The snow was coming down so heavily that he was starting to wonder if she was going to show up at all. Eighteen inches were expected by nightfall. The schools were closed. Again. The state government offices were closed. Again. The governor was ordering people to stay off of the highways. Again. It was the state’s fourth shutdown blizzard in the past two weeks. Epic stuff. But she’d promised him she’d show up. He checked his cell phone one more time. No messages from her. So he just sat here in the deserted parking lot and waited, growing more and more desperate.

When he’d opened his eyes that morning and seen all of the snow he’d been plunged into total despair, thinking she would bail on him. But she’d called him to say she’d definitely be here, snow be damned, because she really, really needed to feel his arms around her. She needed him. Which he was okay with. Hell, more than okay. She was everything to him. Even though they were only able to meet like this maybe twice a week-just the two of them alone together-she was pretty much all that he lived for.

“What am I going to do about you?”

Those were the first words she said to him. This was back in October at the free flu-shot clinic at the Congregational Church. It was she who approached him. Was waiting outside on the steps for him after he got his shot.

“I–I don’t know what you mean,” he stammered. Because he was kind of shy around women. Especially such pretty ones.

“Yes, you do,” she said with that bold self-assurance of hers. “You keep looking at me everywhere I go but you never talk to me. How do I get you to talk to me?”

“Seems to me we are talking.”

She smiled at him, her eyes twinkling mischievously. “Hey, you’re right. We are.”

And, somehow, they ended up together here.

Honestly? He couldn’t believe his luck, although he was a creature of luck and always had been. Pretty much everything that had ever happened to him in his whole life was about luck. But most of it had been bad luck-until she came along.

The first time they’d arranged to get together she arrived before he did, and when he walked in the door and saw the way she was looking at him he experienced such a powerful sexual rush that he thought his entire body was going to explode right there in the middle of the room. He’d never experienced anything like it before. Had never met anyone else like her. He couldn’t believe how calm she was about sex. How completely free and easy she was about her body. She acted like it was the most normal thing in the world to walk around naked in front of him. Of course it helped that she was so beautiful, with smooth, flawless skin and abundant curves in all of the right places. Even more lushly built than he’d dared to imagine. She was vital, alive and gorgeous. Naturally she felt comfortable in her own skin.

He didn’t. Naked, he felt exposed and vulnerable. He cringed at the sight of himself in the mirror. Always had. He wasn’t someone who’d ever been lean, hard-bodied or tanned. Hadn’t been one of those guys back in high school who liked to hang at the beach all summer long, playing volleyball with his muscular buds and their slim, bikini-clad girlfriends. Running into the surf, laughing and frolicking. Zipping around town in an open-topped Jeep with no shirt on. Those guys had been proud of their bodies. Not him, with his concave chest, soft tummy and that terrible acne all over his shoulders and back. He’d hated team sports. Hated anything that called for him to undress in front of the other guys. They called him Pizza Man because his zit-encrusted back looked so alarmingly like a bubbling hot pepperoni pie.

And you don’t just forget something like that.

The stigma had stayed with him, same as those scars on his back had. He’d had his share of women over the years but he was never at ease when he was naked with them. And so they were never at ease around him. Not once, to the best of his knowledge, had he completely satisfied a woman. Whatever it was that made them gasp and moan and scream-they never, ever did that with him. Except for that one time in Atlantic City, and he was fairly certain that Ambrosia was faking it. She was a pro, after all. Honestly? He considered himself to be a total dud as a lover. Same as he was at everything else in life. Nothing more than a waste of skin. Pitted skin at that. That day he’d gone for his flu shot he was feeling about as low as he ever had. He could see no reason to get out of bed in the morning. No reason to do much of anything.

Until he met her. She changed everything. She took an interest in him. She liked him. And, from that first moment when she came walking out of the bathroom naked, she made it clear that she wanted him. Even though he could not imagine why.

He got so incredibly nervous when she started to undress him. If she’d made fun of him or put him down he would have gone straight home and killed himself. But it hadn’t been like that at all. It had been wonderful. She was so gentle and kind. Her touch excited him beyond belief. She was delighted by how he responded to her. “Flattered” was the word she used. And then they were together right there on the sofa and she was alive under his touch, gasping and crying out his name and it was … incredible. He was incredible. Potent. Confident. In charge. He had no idea why it was so different with her, but it was.

For the very first time in his whole life he was the man he’d always wanted to be.

After their first time together, she was pretty much all he thought about, day and night. The scent of her. The way she felt in his arms, so silky smooth, supple and strong. The way he felt. He was a brand-new man when he was with her. A bold, strong man who could take on any situation and not feel overwhelmed. Not feel the need to drink or get high to keep it together. He was together, thanks to her.

He wasn’t someone who had ever set long-term goals for himself. He’d just lived his life day to day, making his share of blunders along the way. But because of her, he was now thinking about tomorrow. Making plans. Making things happen. That’s what a man did. Thought big and acted big. He still wasn’t entirely certain where their relationship was heading. They hadn’t talked about that yet. And she did have someone else in her life. But he knew exactly where he wanted it to go:

Hawaii.

He was going to surprise her with two plane tickets to Honolulu just as soon as he had enough money stashed away. Enough so that they could stay there in the warm sun together for as long as they wanted. Forever, if he had anything to say about it. And to hell with everyone else.

Hawaii.

Just the two of them on a deserted beach somewhere. Sipping tall, cool drinks. Making long, slow love whenever, wherever they felt like it. It was like a dream. Except this was no dream.

I am making it happen.

That’s what he said to himself as he sat in the empty parking lot waiting for her, his heater blasting, wipers barely keeping up with the snow that was falling in heaps on his windshield. A big orange town plow truck went rumbling by, the ground shaking as its blade scraped hard against the pavement.

And then he saw her car coming toward him through the snow. She parked next to him and got out. He could tell right away that she was upset about something. Although she insisted it was nothing.

“Are you sure? You look like you’ve been crying.”

“I’m fine. I’m just so sick of all of this snow.”

“Me, too,” he said, picturing the two of them on a beach together in the sun. Her in a bikini. Him in a pair of trunks and nothing else, just like one of those tanned, muscular guys he knew back in high school.

The room was ice cold. She turned up the heat before they took off their hooded parkas. He wore a new plaid wool shirt and corduroy slacks. He never used to pay much attention to what he had on. Now he did.

“I’d like to play a game today,” she said. “Is that okay?”

“Sure thing.” He loved her games. “What kind?”

“I want you to punish me.”

“Punish you?” This was something entirely new. “Why would I want to punish you?”

“Because I’ve been a bad girl.”

“You have? What did you do?”

She shook her head. “That’s not part of the game.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do?”

“Whatever you feel like. I’ll do whatever you say. Just make me pay, okay?”

“I don’t understand.”

She sighed impatiently. “Then I’ll make it simple for you. Just this once pretend that I’m the ’fraidy cat.”

“I’m not a ’fraidy cat,” he shot back.

“It’s just an expression.” She studied him curiously. “You’re awfully thin-skinned sometimes.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for yourself. I don’t want you to be a yutz. I want you to make me pay, damn it!”

“Okay, here goes…” He felt himself growing taller, his chest puffing out a bit. “Stand there and close your eyes.”

She obeyed him.

“And don’t move. Not a single muscle.” It was he who moved toward her. First, he unzipped her jeans and yanked them down so roughly that she let out a yelp. Then he put his hands up underneath her turtleneck sweater, grabbed hold of the sleeveless cotton thingy that she wore instead of a bra and ripped it from her body, tossing it aside.

She started breathing heavily, her breasts rising and falling. “Don’t stop!” she whispered urgently. She was actually into this. Liked what he was doing. “Keep going!”

And so he did. He shoved her down onto the sofa so hard that she bounced a foot up into the air. Pulled off her slip-on snow boots. Yanked her jeans all of the way off and hurled them aside. His own chest was heaving now, and he was aroused beyond belief. Couldn’t get out of his clothes fast enough. Naked, he took hold of her panties and tore them from her body, too. All she had on now was her turtleneck sweater. He pulled that over her head-only he was so rough about it that his knuckles struck her left eye, which instantly began to twitch and water.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize! How many times do I have to tell you?”

“But I–I think I just gave you a black eye.”

“It’s okay. Really, it is.”

Except it wasn’t. Because she was crying now. Hell, she was sobbing uncontrollably. Something was really bothering her, he realized as he heard a siren off in the distance. Another car accident, no doubt. There’d been so many on these snowy roads.

“Maybe we’d better stop.”

“No!” she pleaded, clutching at him with great urgency. “Just make me pay, will you?”

He kissed her hungrily. She kissed him back. And then they were together in each other’s arms and he was buried deep inside of her. Never had he been so deep.

“Is this what you wanted from me?” she gasped in his ear.

“Yes,” he groaned. “Oh, yes…” He’d never wanted anything or anyone as much as he wanted her right now. In fact, he was so consumed by pure animal desire that he was barely even aware that the siren kept getting louder and louder.

Not until he heard the screech outside.

Not until his whole world came crashing down upon him.

“Master Sergeant, have I told you how incredibly hot you look tonight?”

“Exactly eight times so far,” Des responded as she and the unlikely man in her life strolled arm in arm through the Dorset Street Historic District, taking in the wondrous sights.

Truly, there was no lovelier time of year in the historic New England village of Dorset than the Christmas season. Especially if enough snow had fallen for it to qualify as a genuine white Christmas. And this December had delivered an epic amount of snow. Three monster blizzards had already blanketed the village in forty inches of the white stuff, and Christmas day was still a whole week away. The gem of Connecticut’s Gold Coast had been transformed into an idyllic winter wonderland, one part theme park, two parts Currier and Ives print. Giggling kids were riding their sleds right down the middle of Dorset Street. Families were out building giant snowmen in their front yards. Red-cheeked carolers went from door to door spreading Yuletide cheer as the eggnog flowed at house parties throughout the village. Horse-drawn sleighs took giddy revelers to and fro. Candles burned in the windows of the Historic District’s colonial mansions to welcome them.

Yet another nor’easter was due to blow in by tomorrow morning. But tonight was frosty and clear, with a bright half-moon and stars twinkling in the sky. And so they strolled, swaddled in their winter coats, scarves and hats. Des Mitry, the Connecticut state resident trooper, a lithe, long-limbed, six-feet-one-inch woman of color. And Mitch Berger, the weight-challenged Jewish film critic from New York City whose only experience with violence before he’d met Des had consisted of the films of Mr. Sam Peckinpah.

“Well, I just may have to mention it a ninth time,” he said. “I’m still in a state of awe.”

“Mitch, I’m just wearing my new jeans.”

“Your new skinny jeans. Do you have any idea how spectacular a double-bill this is-your booty and a pair of skinny jeans? Hell, you’re lucky I don’t throw you down in that snow bank over there.”

“Yeah, good luck with that, wild man.”

“Don’t you know what a hottie you are?”

“I know I’ve never worn pants this tight in my life. They feel like dark-washed Saran Wrap. Are you sure they don’t make me look like a skanky teenager?”

“Yeah,” he said dreamily.

“Yeah what?” She came to a halt, shoving her heavy horn-rimmed glasses up her nose. “You’d tell me straight up if I looked silly, right?”

“Of course. But how can you even think that?”

“Because I’m not fifteen years old anymore.”

“And I for one am glad. If you were we’d have zero to talk about plus I’d be a felon and … hold on a sec, you’ve got something on your face.”

“What is it?”

He took her in his arms and kissed her. “Just me.”

She touched his beaming face with her fingers. Never before had a man made her feel this happy. “Doughboy, are you ever going to act your age?”

“I wouldn’t count on it.”

“Good.”

They were on their way to an eggnog party at old Rut Peck’s house. Rut had served as Dorset’s postmaster for thirty-seven years and seemed to be related to everybody in town. He definitely knew everybody. And he’d lived across from the firehouse in the same upended shoebox of a farmhouse on the corner of Dorset Street and Maple Lane ever since he was born. Until last summer, that is, when the eighty-two-year-old widower got lost driving to his dentist across the Connecticut River in Old Saybrook. When the police stopped him for running a red light two hours later he was sixty miles away in Bridgeport and not sure how he’d gotten there. A small stroke, his doctor determined. Rut wasn’t allowed to drive after that. Nor did it seem like a good idea for him to be living alone. His cousins, Marge and Mary Jewett, the no-nonsense fifty-something sisters who ran Dorset’s volunteer ambulance service, had moved him into a unit at Essex Meadows, an assisted-living facility, and put his house on the market. But because of the Great Recession he still hadn’t gotten a single decent offer. When Marge and Mary asked the old postmaster what he wanted for Christmas this year, he told them he wanted to come home for an old-time eggnog party. And so they’d obliged him. His cleaning lady, Tina Champlain, who continued to keep the place tidy for prospective buyers, had set up a tree in the parlor and decorated it. There was a wreath on the front door and electric candles in every window. Tina’s husband, Lem, had cleared all of the snow from the driveway and front walk.

Rut was waiting right there at the door to greet them, happy to be home again with so many friends. He was a short, stocky old fellow with tufty white hair and a nose that looked remarkably like a potato. His eyes were an impish blue behind his thick black-framed glasses. He wore hearing aids in both ears and a big red Christmas sweater that one of his many widowed lady friends must have knitted for him.

Inside, the parlor smelled of nutmeg and fresh spruce. A fire crackled in the potbellied wood stove. Dozens of bright-eyed people were chattering excitedly as they sipped eggnog and nibbled at the high-cholesterol circa-1957 hors d’oevres that Dorseteers seemed to love. Mitch could not get enough of them. After he’d shed his coat he headed right for them, salivating with fat-boy delight over the array of deviled eggs, cocktail weenies, and chicken livers wrapped in bacon. There was an entire sliced ham, cheeses, a basket of bread and rolls. There was wine and assorted soft drinks to go along with the eggnog which, judging by the decibel level of the revelers, was spiked with bourbon but good.

Rut was one of those rare people whose friendships cut across Dorset’s class lines. Bob Paffin, the blue-blooded first selectman, was standing right there sipping eggnog alongside a full-blooded Swamp Yankee like Paulette Zander, Dorset’s current postmaster, whose father, Gary, had maintained the village’s septic tanks. Paulette was there with her live-in boyfriend, Hank Merrill, who was a postal carrier as well as assistant chief of Dorset’s volunteer fire department. Actually, it looked as if half of the fire department was there.

Des was also happy to spot Bella Tillis, who until very recently had been her housemate and now lived practically next door to Rut’s place at the Captain Chadwick House, the Historic District’s choicest condominium colony. She’d moved in two weeks ago along with three of the six feral kittens she and Des had rescued from behind Laysville Hardware. Bella, a feisty seventy-eight-year-old bowling ball of a Jewish grandmother from Brooklyn, was Des’s next door neighbor in Woodbridge when Des’s ex-husband, Brandon, had dumped her for another woman. Des wouldn’t have survived without Bella. And part of her missed having Bella around. Although it was awfully nice to have the bungalow overlooking Uncas Lake to herself again. Des’s studio was spread out all over the living room. Her heart-wrenching drawings of the murder victims she’d encountered were tacked up here, there, everywhere. She drew them in the early light of dawn, deconstructing the haunting memories line by line, shadow by shadow. It was how she dealt.

“How are you, girl?” Des asked, hugging Bella warmly.

“I’ve been groped by three different old coots already. I don’t know if it’s the eggnog or what. I do know that not one of them can finish what they started. But enough about me. Those jeans you’re wearing…” Bella eyed her up and down. “Are they new?”

“Why are you asking?”

“Because they make you look like a runway model, that’s why.” Bella glanced over at Mitch, who was shoving a deviled egg into his pie hole as he stood chatting with Lew the Plumber. “Does that man know how lucky he is?”

“I try to remind him from time to time.” Des reached over and squeezed her hand. “I miss you, Bella.”

“Tie that bull outside, as we used to say on Nostrand Avenue. You two need the house to yourselves. Now you can cavort around naked whenever, wherever you feel like it.”

Des smiled at her. “And, God knows, we cavort a lot.” Usually, two or three nights a week at Mitch’s antique caretaker’s cottage out on Big Sister Island. And another two nights a week at her place. They had no particular schedule. They were comfortable with where they were. Or weren’t-which was ready to live together full time. Plus he had to be in New York a lot for screenings and still had his apartment there. It wasn’t a conventional arrangement, but nothing about them was conventional.

Tina Champlain came over to them toting platters of deviled eggs and cocktail weenies.

“You’re Rut’s guest tonight,” Des reminded her. “You don’t have to serve.”

“Yeah, I do,” Tina responded. “If I don’t, your boy will eat all of them.”

It wasn’t just Mitch. Deviled eggs and cocktail weenies were catnip to the male of the species. Tina’s husband, Lem, was already hovering close to her.

Tina and Lem made for one of Dorset’s odder couples. She was a tiny, high-strung Chihuahua of a woman in her thirties with frizzy black hair and slightly protruding dark eyes. Nice little figure, although she hid it underneath a baggy fleece top and loose-fitting jeans. Lem was a gruff bear who reveled in looking menacing. It was how he got a measure of respect from the blue bloods. The man was not only mammoth but he shaved his head and wore a ZZ Top beard halfway down his chest. He also carried a large knife in a sheath on his belt, just in case he needed a blade at an eggnog party. Lem owned Champlain Landscaping. During the warm months he and his crew of mow boys tended the lawns in Dorset. This time of year they plowed driveways and delivered firewood. Between Lem’s business and the money Tina made cleaning houses, they made out pretty well for a couple of teen sweethearts who’d barely finished high school. Tina was already pregnant with their daughter, Kylie, by then. Kylie was eighteen now and when you saw her and Tina around town together you’d swear they were sisters. Kylie was tiny like she was.

“How’s Kylie doing?” Des asked them.

“Don’t get me started,” Lem growled.

“She’s fine,” Tina said, shooting a look at him-and then at Mitch, who had inched his way over by her side. “No more weenies for you.”

“Does that mean I can have a deviled egg?”

“One,” she allowed.

“I love you, Tina,” Mitch said, popping it into his mouth.

“Kylie’s not fine,” Lem muttered at her.

“We want her to go to nursing school,” Tina said with a weary sigh. “All she wants to do is party and shop.”

“That girl can’t be trusted with a credit card,” Lem said. “I had to take hers away and tear ’em up.”

Tina’s cell phone vibrated in the pocket of her fleece top. “Hold these for a sec, will you, Lemmy?”

He took the platters from her so she could read the text message on her phone’s screen. “You’re as bad as Kylie,” he complained as she thumbed out a response. “On that damned thing every second.”

“It’s my mom, will ya? She moved in with her cousin in Philly last month,” Tina explained, her eyes never leaving the screen. “And now she texts me a hundred times a day. There, all done, okay?” She tucked the phone back in her pocket and took the platters back from him. “What were we talking about?”

“Kylie.” Des couldn’t help notice the chippy vibe Tina and Lem gave off. “Is she seeing anyone special these days?”

“She’s been spending a little time with Pat Faulstich,” Lem replied.

“Well, that won’t last,” Tina assured him. “I don’t want her mixed up with one of your plow monkeys.”

“Pat’s a good kid. He works hard.”

“He’s a no-good cheesehead.”

“Hey, I have a great idea,” Hank Merrill put in as he snatched a cocktail weenie from Tina’s platter. “Why don’t we fix her up with Casey?”

Lem let out a huge laugh. “Brilliant idea.”

“Isn’t it? What do you think, hon?” Hank asked Paulette as she joined them. “Kylie Champlain and your bouncing baby boy?”

Dorset’s postmaster considered her response carefully before she said, “I think that you’d better slow down on that eggnog. And don’t be nasty.” Paulette was Hank’s boss, if anyone cared to get technical. She’d gone to work as a carrier for Rut Peck back when she was in her twenties. She was in her early fifties now. A tall, taut, good-looking woman with a strong jaw and long, beautiful black hair streaked with silver. Also a tight-lipped, controlled woman who seemed to be under a great deal of strain. Worry lines furrowed her brow. Casey was her twenty-eight-year-old son from a marriage that had ended in divorce long ago. Paulette had wangled him a part-time job as a weekend carrier. He lived in the basement of the house she shared with Hank.

“I’m not being nasty,” insisted Hank, who was evidently well into the high-octane eggnog. “Just saying Casey and Kylie would make a nice couple. Am I right or am I right?” he asked Lem.

“Totally right,” Lem assured him with a big grin.

Lem liked Hank. Everyone liked Hank. He was a goofy, amiable and extremely active fellow around Dorset. In addition to his duties on the fire department, he coached the girls’ high school basketball team and played tuba in the Dorset town band. Most Saturdays, he could be found working the second chair for John the Barber. Hank was lanky and splay footed with thinning sandy-colored hair and an extremely large, busy Adam’s apple. He had the wheezy laugh of a longtime smoker. He also had a habit of sucking on his teeth, which were crooked and rather horsy.

“Casey ought to find himself a nice girl,” Hank went on, pausing to take another gulp of his eggnog. “Not to mention a full-time job and his own place to live. He spends all day in our basement stuffing his face and watching TV. And all night at the Rustic drinking beer and watching TV. That kid must spend eighteen hours a day in front of the TV.”

“Sounds good to me,” Mitch said. “I’d take that deal.”

“So would I,” Hank agreed. “I’d like to know how he got so lucky.”

“Casey has issues,” Paulette said to him in a distinctly cool voice.

“He’s not the only one,” Bella interjected, wagging a stubby finger at Hank. “I have an issue with you. I have gotten no mail for the past two days, mister. Not so much as a single Chanukah card. And I still haven’t received my three-month supply of Lipitor. My online pharmacy mailed it to me from Dayton, Ohio, ten days ago.”

“It’s the snow, Mrs. Tillis,” Paulette explained. “Our out-of-state-mail isn’t coming in at Bradley Airport because the planes can’t land. And our trucks can’t make it here from Norwich because the governor keeps closing the highways.”

“That part I understand.” Bella turned her piercing gaze back at Hank. “But how come you didn’t say one word about the marble cake I left in my box for you? I baked it for you special.”

Hank’s mouth opened but no sound came out. He looked totally thrown.

Paulette stepped into the awkward silence. “Lem, all of this snow must be good for your business.”

“You’d think so,” he acknowledged, scratching at his beard with a thumbnail the size of a clamshell. It wasn’t a very clean-looking thumbnail. It wasn’t a very clean-looking beard either. “Only, I’ve been working harder than I ever have, plowing day and night, and I’m practically going broke. They keep jacking up the price of road salt for one thing. And, well, this is Dorset. People don’t pay their bills.” He glanced over in the direction of First Selectman Paffin. “Especially the rich ones. Keep telling me they left my money out in their mailbox. Except, guess what? The money’s not there.”

“How do you explain that?” Des asked.

He shrugged his big shoulders. “Easy. They got no problem lying to people like me.”

“Get out, my next door neighbors decided to show,” Mitch exclaimed as Bryce Peck and Josie Cantro started across the parlor toward them.

Bryce Peck was the black sheep of Dorset’s blue-blooded founding family. An aging wild child who’d spent his entire adult life running away from his life of privilege only to return home this past August as a gaunt, weathered burnout case. Bryce’s extremely tight-assed older brother, Preston, was allowing him to winter over in the family’s prized eight-bedroom summer house out on Big Sister in exchange for Bryce serving as the island’s caretaker. Des imagined that Bryce had been quite dashing in his youth. He was tall and broad shouldered, with deep-set dark eyes and high, hard cheekbones. But now, at age forty-six, he was a haunted shell of a man, his face ravaged by decades of hard living. Word was he’d been a heavy drinker. Heavy into any drugs, legal and illegal, that made you numb. Those deep-set eyes of his had a frightened look in them. And his work-roughened hands never stopped trembling. Mitch got along well with him. Mitch was gifted that way. But Bryce stayed away from most people. He was a moody, withdrawn man who was uneasy in social settings.

Especially now that he was clean and sober thanks to Josie Cantro, a blonde who was fifteen years younger than Bryce. Josie didn’t come from money. Didn’t come from Dorset. She was from somewhere up in Maine. But she’d built herself a thriving little business as Dorset’s resident life coach. Josie was one of those relentlessly upbeat women who helped other people do things like lose weight. She’d helped Bryce wean himself off of booze and pills. And in the process they’d fallen in love. She’d moved in with him just before Thanksgiving. Josie was always perky, always smiling that sunny smile of hers. She practically glowed. Not exactly a beauty. Her face was too round. And she had a turned-up little pug nose. But she was definitely a honey, with big blue eyes, a long mane of creamy blond hair and a slammin’ bod. A health food junkie and fitness freak who’d taken to dragging neighbor Mitch out for morning beach runs in the snow. Also to rummaging through his kitchen for evil junk food. Josie’s heart was in the right place. Des had no doubt it was because of her that Bryce had shown up here to pay his respects to his cousin Rut. She also had no doubt that Josie had done many people around Dorset a lot of good. And yet, Des couldn’t shake the feeling that something about the woman was wrong. It was not, repeat not, a jealousy thing. Des didn’t worry about Mitch. But her cop instincts kept telling her that nobody was as unfailingly smiley faced as Josie Cantro was-not unless they were fronting.

“Hey, naybs, are you up for a snow run tomorrow morning?” Josie asked Mitch brightly when she and Bryce reached them.

“Absolutely, naybs,” Mitch answered just as brightly.

Or maybe I’m just being bitchy because I hate the stupid nickname that he and his vanilla blonde neighbor have for each other.

Bryce, meanwhile, stood there looking as if he wanted to flee through the nearest exit. When Mitch put a hand on his shoulder the poor man practically jumped out of his skin.

“Easy there, pardner,” Mitch said. “You’re among friends.”

Bryce nodded his head, shuddering. “For a second I–I just couldn’t…”

“Couldn’t what, Bryce?”

“Remember what I was doing here.”

Josie turned her attention to Hank. “Dude, how are you doing?”

“Doing great.” Hank patted his shirt pocket. “Got my nicotine gum right here if I need it. So far I haven’t.”

“And he hasn’t had a cigarette in two months,” Paulette put in proudly. “All thanks to you, Josie.”

“It wasn’t me. It was all Hank. Hank’s the man.” Now Josie’s blue-eyed gaze fell on Des. “I am so totally hating you right this second.”

“And this would be because?…”

She was staring longingly at Des’s skinny jeans. “I exercise two hours a day. I subsist on wild greens and tree bark. And when I tried on a pair of those I looked like I ought to be playing left tackle for the New England Patriots.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Believe, Trooper Des. These thighs are seriously chunky. And we won’t even discuss my butt.”

Old Rut waddled his way over toward them, his face aglow. “Thanks again, young lady,” he said to Tina. “This is a wonderful evening.”

“My pleasure, Mr. Peck.”

“Everybody enjoying that eggnog?”

“You bet,” Lem said.

Rut raised an eyebrow at Mitch. “There’s, um, something I want to show you down in the cellar, young fella.”

“Are we talking about what I think we’re talking about?”

Rut nodded. “I saved one last case for a special occasion. And this here is it.” Clearly, they were talking about a case of the old postmaster’s home-brewed stout. “Would you mind lugging it upstairs for me?”

“You are on,” Mitch assured him.

“Fine and dandy. I’ll meet you down there in half a tick. Just have to stop off and take a pee. Or try. I may be a while, if you catch my drift.”

Nonetheless, Mitch headed off toward the kitchen with him.

Des watched them go, then turned to discover Josie was smiling at her. “You and Mitch are so fortunate that you found each other,” she said.

“Yes, we are,” Des said politely, all the while thinking: I really don’t like Josie Cantro.

I really like Josie Cantro, Mitch reflected as he made his way down the steep stairs into Rut Peck’s dimly lit cellar. True, his new neighbor could get a bit overzealous when it came to dietary matters. She’d uncovered his secret caches of Cocoa Puffs three times so far and hurled them into the trash. But in the world of positive energy Josie was what’s known as a carrier. Ever since Mitch had lost his beloved wife, Maisie, to ovarian cancer he’d had very little use for the company of his fellow New York critics, a blase breed who were unremittingly sarcastic, sour and smug. Mitch vastly preferred people like Josie, enthusiastic people who embraced the joy of being alive.

And she’d sure worked miracles with Bryce. The man who’d shown up next door to Mitch at summer’s end had been a lost soul who had nowhere else to go. Mitch had been glad when Bryce’s older brother, Preston, an uber-rich Chicago commodities trader, permitted him to stay on as Big Sister’s winter caretaker. Winters were rugged out on Big Sister, the forty acres of Yankee paradise that Mitch was lucky enough to call home. There were five precious old Peck family houses on the island, not counting Mitch’s two hundred-year-old post-and-beam caretaker’s cottage and the decommissioned lighthouse that was the second tallest in New England. Last winter there’d been a ton of storm damage to the rickety wooden causeway that connected the private island to the Peck’s Point Nature Preserve. Also to the Peck family houses. But until Josie came along, Bryce had to qualify as New England’s most hands-off caretaker. All he did was drink beer, pop Vicodin and watch the Cartoon Network. Did no chores. Rarely left the island. Spoke to no one. It was the Peck family’s attorney, Glynis Fairchild-Forniaux, who’d gently urged him to contact Josie. Unexpectedly, the two of them had fallen in love. Once she moved in, Bryce was transformed into a dutiful caretaker from dawn until dusk. He took a chainsaw to the trees that had come down when Tropical Storm Gail brushed past them in October. Replaced several rotting planks and railings in the causeway. And when the blizzards started coming, one after another, he kept the causeway clear with the Pecks’ mammoth John Deere snow thrower. Mitch liked having Bryce and Josie around. They’d invited him over a few times for her three-alarm Thai vegan dinners. Josie would chatter away gaily. Sometimes Bryce would even stir from his remote silence and join the conversation. She was working wonders with the guy.

Rut Peck’s cellar reeked of damp concrete, mold and something else that smelled vaguely like decaying potatoes. There wasn’t much headroom down there. Mitch’s curly hair very nearly brushed the floor joists over his head. Cardboard boxes, suitcases and old steamer trunks were piled everywhere. There was a workbench against one wall, built-in cupboards against another. The only light came from one naked bulb in the stairwell.

Mitch heard footsteps on the stairs behind him almost as soon as he got down there. “That didn’t take you long at all,” he said. Only it wasn’t the old postmaster. “Oh, hey, I thought you were Rut.”

“Nope, still me,” Bryce Peck said, dragging deeply on a cigarette. “For now, anyhow. Just an awkward stage.” Bryce had a strange, elliptical way of talking. He often seemed to be not all there-not all there as in part of him was somewhere else that was far away and incredibly scary. “If Josie catches me smoking she’ll skin me alive. But I’m desperate, man. Cigarettes are the only vice I have left.” His eyes flicked warily into the cellar’s darkened corners. “Damn, I haven’t been down in a basement this small since I left Bozeman.”

“What were you doing there?” Mitch asked. Bryce had never mentioned Bozeman before.

“Working construction,” he replied. “Until I fell off a roof. Broke my collarbone. Learned a valuable lesson though.”

“What was that, Bryce?”

“Stay off of roofs.”

Mitch knew that Bryce had cracked up a motorcycle in his youth and that it still caused him a lot of back pain. Hence the Vicodin. He hadn’t known about the roofing accident. Bryce never talked about his past-until he suddenly chose to.

Upstairs, the partygoers erupted into raucous laughter.

Bryce shot a worried glance at the stairway. “I hate parties. Hate having to pretend. Especially clean and sober. It ain’t easy, man.” He stubbed out his cigarette and immediately lit another one. “I have to remember to breathe. That’s what Josie’s always telling me.”

“I know,” said Mitch, who’d suffered from panic attacks after Maisie died. The attacks didn’t go away until he rented his cottage on Big Sister and met Des. “Parties have always given me the jim-jams.”

“Other people seem to enjoy them.”

“Don’t kid yourself. They’re just here for Rut,” Mitch said, hearing footsteps on the cellar stairs again.

This time it was Rut, puffing and wheezing as he came slowly down. “Have you taken up smoking cigareets, Mitch?”

“That would be me, sir,” Bryce said.

The old man smiled at him genially. “How are you, young fella?”

“Doing okay, sir.”

“Sure you are. We’re all doing okay. And you don’t have to ‘sir’ me. Your dad was my second cousin. And a Peck is a Peck. Good to have you back in town, son. You belong here.”

Bryce looked at him curiously. “Do I?”

“Yes, you do. My young friend and I are about to tear into the last of my home-brewed stout. Can I interest you in a bottle?”

“None for me, thanks. I’d better head back up. Josie worries about me.”

“Treat her right, son. That one’s a keeper.”

Bryce smiled faintly. “Yes, she is.” He stubbed his cigarette out under his heel, carefully picked up both butts and carried them upstairs with him.

Rut watched him go, shaking his head sadly. “That boy could have done anything he wanted to-if he’d just learned how to like himself a little bit. But he never figured out how.”

“Any idea why?”

Rut peered at him through his thick glasses. “You don’t know the story?”

“I know he has a rich older brother.”

“Preston’s his half-brother, actually.”

“Beyond that he doesn’t talk much.”

“Me, I like to talk. Makes me awful thirsty though. You’ll find what we’re looking for in that jelly cupboard over there.”

Mitch opened the cupboard and pulled out a heavy, old-fashioned wooden case that held twenty-four brown bottles of Rut’s prized stout. He set it down gently on the workbench.

Rut opened two bottles and handed Mitch one. Then he settled himself down on a steamer trunk with his and took a long gulp. “Ahh, that’s the good stuff. Just the right temperature, too. If it’s too cold you can’t taste it.” He took another gulp before he said, “Bryce never had a chance. Wasn’t his fault. That’s why I feel so sorry for him. His father, old Lucas, must have been close to sixty when Bryce was born. Lucas was an investment banker in the city. He and his wife, Libby, had themselves a big apartment on Park Avenue. Their boy Preston was in his senior year at Cornell when Lucas fell head over you-know-what for a twenty-three-year-old lingerie model. He divorced Libby, married the girl and had Bryce with her. Less than a year after Bryce was born she took off with some tennis player. Abandoned Lucas and her baby.”

Mitch leaned against the workbench and drank his stout, which was even tastier than he remembered. “What happened to her after that?”

“She died in a car crash down in Mexico a few months later. Left Lucas with a baby boy he really didn’t want. Libby sure didn’t want anything to do with Bryce. Neither did Preston, who considered him a bastard child. So the boy ended up being raised in the house out on Big Sister by an elderly governess. He went to school here in town. Made friends here. Dorset was his home. He was a nice boy, too. Not a mean bone in his body. He was just unloved, I guess you’d say. Lucas died when Bryce was twelve or so. Libby was dead by then herself. Bryce was pretty much on his own after that. Lucas did leave him a small trust fund but it was Preston who controlled the purse strings. He still does. And Preston is a coldhearted SOB. First thing he did after he took over his father’s financial affairs was kick Bryce out of the only home he knew. Shipped him off to a military academy. The boy came home to Dorset every summer. But Preston, who had a wife and family of his own by now, didn’t want him with them on Big Sister. Bryce had to bunk with childhood friends. Until one day he took off and never came back. Boy’s been roaming the world ever since, working odd jobs, living hard. This is his home. He belongs here. I hope he can find himself some happiness with that nice blonde.” Rut drank down the last of his stout, smacking his lips contentedly. “Ready for another?”

“You talked me into it.” Mitch opened two more bottles and handed one to Rut, who seemed to be in no hurry to go back upstairs to his own party.

“Mitch, there’s … something I need to talk to you about,” he said, clearing his throat. “This is on the quiet. Don’t want anyone else to hear about it-except for one special person.”

“Would that one special person be our resident trooper?”

“Correct. But she isn’t hearing this through official channels. It’s strictly the man in her life passing along a little something he heard about, okay?”

“Okay, Rut. What is it?”

The old postmaster took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “We have us a grinch working the Historic District again. This happened once before when times were hard, back when Bush One was president.”

“I’m going to need you to translate that for me, Rut.”

“Somebody’s been stealing the mail from the curbside boxes on Hank Merrill’s route.”

“So the snow’s not to blame for why people like Bella Tillis haven’t been getting their mail?”

“That’s correct. It’s a grinch. And Paulette’s real upset about it. I’ve never seen her so upset.”

“Does she know you’re talking to me about it?”

“Well, sir, she does and she doesn’t. I told her I might have a quiet way of tiptoeing the matter in through the back door. The key word is ‘quiet.’”

Mitch looked at him curiously. “Forgive me for being dense, but why does this have to be such a deep, dark secret?”

“Because stealing the U.S. Mail is a serious federal crime, my young friend. Any sort of official inquiry would have to be conducted by the postal inspectors. That’d mean strangers who don’t understand our local customs swooping in from God knows where and making a mess of things. Not to mention leaving a black mark on Paulette’s record. That wouldn’t be fair to her. I mean, hell, it’s not as if the grinch is actually going after the U.S. Mail.”

“What is he going after?”

Rut lowered his voice to a whisper. “Hank’s Christmas tips.”

“Oh, I see…”

The tipping of mail carriers at Christmas time violated the rules of the U.S. Postal Service. Members of the public weren’t supposed to put money or gifts out for carriers. And carriers weren’t supposed to accept them. But it was a time-honored tradition in Dorset to leave a little something out for a popular carrier like Hank. An envelope with twenty dollars in it. A plate of home-baked Christmas cookies. Or a marble cake like the one Bella had told Hank she’d made him. Pretty much everyone in the Historic District left something out for Hank. The cash he donated to the Food Pantry. The cookies got passed around at the Post Office. And the higher-ups at the U.S. Postal Service were none the wiser.

“And Hank’s tips aren’t all that this grinch is after,” Rut confided. “Quite a few of Lem Champlain’s customers transact business with Lem by way of their mailboxes. I don’t have to tell you Lem’s been a busy man this month. I also don’t have to tell you that those mailboxes aren’t supposed to be used for anything except officially stamped and posted U.S. Mail.”

Mitch sipped his stout, nodding. “How much money is Lem out?”

“Tina told me he’s short nearly two grand that his customers swear they put out for him. Mitch, I’d sure hate to see Paulette get in any kind of trouble with the Postal Service over this. I’m the one who hired her, you know-thirty years ago this past November. I’m real fond of that young lady.” He shifted his weight around on the trunk uncomfortably. “More than fond. I’ve been madly in love with that gorgeous, leggy creature from the first moment I set eyes on her.”

“Are we talking about Paulette Zander?”

“We are. All you see upstairs right now is a tired middle-aged lady. You should have seen her back in the day. My God, what a willowy thing of beauty she was.”

“Did you two ever?…”

“No, sir. I was a married man. Also old enough to be her father. She’s never once thought about me that way. But I used to dream about her and me together. Still do when I’m lying in bed all by myself at night. That’s what you do when you get to be my age. You lie in your bed at night thinking about the women who you wish you’d slept with but never did. It’s pretty much all you think about. Just you wait and see.” He let out a sigh of regret. “That ex-husband of hers, Clint, didn’t know what a treasure she was. Took off for Florida back when Casey was a young’un and left her to raise him on her own. She was single for a long, long time before she took up with Hank.”

“Hank seems like a decent guy.”

“People seem to think so,” Rut responded with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “Tina’s been cleaning for me for a lot of years. She keeps Lem’s books, too. And she tells me things.”

“What kind of things, Rut?”

“Lem hasn’t been able to pay his men this month. It seems he’s been blowing a whole lot of money in Mystic.”

“What’s in Mystic?”

“Not what-who. Debbie Leto, his old high school flame. Lem dated Debbie before he got Tina pregnant with Kylie. A lot of folks believe Lem never got over Debbie, and Debbie’s rich dentist husband just dumped her for his young hygienist. Tina thinks Lem’s wining and dining her. They aren’t exactly happy together anymore, truth be told. Tina’s got herself someone, too.”

“Anyone we know?”

“He’s not local or I would have heard. But she’s got someone. I know that girl. She’s got a new spring in her step.”

Mitch sorted his way through the choice morsels of gossip that Rut had fed him, moving them around this way and that way. “Rut, are you suggesting that Lem Champlain is our grinch?”

Rut lowered his gaze. “Lem would give you the shirt off of his back if you needed it. But he’s also a horse thief, same as his father was. Let’s say he wanted to hide a nice chunk of change from Tina and spend it on Debbie. He could claim that a grinch has been stealing it from those mailboxes right along with Hank’s tips and no one would be the wiser.”

“Is Lem that crafty?”

“Lem’s twice that crafty. And he’s crazy in love with Debbie. Or so Tina says.” Rut drank down the last of his beer, sighing. “A man in love is liable to do some mighty stupid things.”

Mitch studied the old man carefully. He kept sensing that there was more to this that Rut wasn’t telling him. Rut seemed unsettled. And he couldn’t quite look him in the eye. “Rut, what’s really going on here?”

The old postmaster stayed silent for a long moment, his eyes fastened on the concrete floor. “Mitch, that’s what I’d like your lady friend to find out.”

At least four inches of fresh snow had fallen since Des drove home from Mitch’s place to put in some time on her portrait of Titus Smart, age nine, whose aunt Marcella, age sixteen, had smashed him in the face with a crowbar approximately twenty-seven times. When Des had asked the blood-spattered Marcella why she’d done it she calmly replied, “I didn’t care for the way he was looking at me.” And so Des not-so-calmly drew and drew. Sleep was not an option, she reflected as she drove her way back out to Big Sister, the Crown Vic’s wipers shoving the flakes aside. It was not quite 8:00 A.M. But, happily, the town plowman had made an early pass through the Peck Point Nature Preserve. She used her key card to raise the barricade and inched her way out onto the narrow wooden causeway, following the Jewett girls’ tire tracks through the deepening snow with great care. It was easy to fishtail on the causeway and sideswipe the railing. Easy to go through the railing and right down into the angry surf below.

Mitch’s bulbous 1956 kidney-colored Studebaker pickup was sitting in his driveway under the fresh blanket of snow. Des drove on past it to Preston Peck’s mammoth, natural-shingled beach house and pulled up next to the Jewett girls’ volunteer ambulance van, which they’d parked outside of the house’s attached four-car garage. Both double-wide garage doors were up. Bryce’s Jeep Wrangler and Josie’s Subaru Forester were parked inside along with a rider mower and a snow thrower. There was a cluttered handyman’s workbench. A chainsaw, weed whacker and other assorted power-driven yard gear hung from hooks on the walls. Lawn furniture and window screens had been stored in the rafters along with the net from the island’s tennis court.

Des squared her big Smokey hat on her head and got out. Headed through the garage past two stacks of firewood and into the house’s mudroom, stamping the snow from her black lace-up boots. The kitchen was spotless and smelled of fresh brewed coffee. It was eerily quiet. Her footsteps resounded like a kettle drum as she strode down the hall into the den, where it didn’t look so much like Christmas in Connecticut as it did Christmas in Miami Beach. The sofa where Josie Cantro sat slumped next to Mitch, huge-eyed with grief, was white wicker with pale blue cushions. Same as the armchairs. The coffee table was white wicker, too. There were no rugs. Just a bare wooden floor that had been painted blue ages ago and become gently worn by thousands of sandy footprints. The summery decor clashed sharply with the snow that was falling outside of the windows that looked out over the sound. Also with the spindly little Christmas tree that stood there in the corner. There was a fireplace but no fire was going. There was a flat screen TV. There was a bookcase that was stocked with old-time rainy day diversions like jigsaw puzzles and Monopoly.

Mitch wore a pair of jeans and a heavy turtleneck sweater. Josie was still dressed in snow-dampened running clothes. Mitch was talking to her in a soft, comforting voice. She barely seemed to hear him.

He glanced up at Des and said, “I made coffee. Want some?”

She shook her head. “Where is he?”

“Through there.” He gestured toward a doorway next to the bookcase.

It led to a bedroom that was right off of the den. A bedroom that was so tiny that Des guessed it was a converted sunporch. There was barely enough room for a chest of drawers, a pair of nightstands and the double bed where the late Bryce Peck lay propped up against a couple of pillows, his head flopped over to one side like a Raggedy Andy doll. His eyes were closed, his complexion already faintly bluish. The Jewett girls were attending to him in their usual quiet, efficient manner. Bryce’s stringy hair was uncombed, his gaunt, weathered face unshaven. He wore a ratty old tie-dyed T-shirt over a long-sleeved thermal undershirt. His hands lay open on the bed, palms up. Next to his right hand there were three empty prescription pill bottles. Next to his left lay an empty fifth of Jose Cuervo Gold tequila.

A hand-scrawled note on a yellow Post-it was affixed to Bryce’s chest. Des read it, frowning, before she said, “Good morning, girls.”

“Oh, it’s a lovely one,” Marge responded.

“What did he take?”

“Quite some cocktail,” Mary said. “We’re looking at twenty-four Xanax, thirty Vicodin and another thirty Ambien sleep aids.”

“Were they his pills?”

Mary nodded. “Prescribed by Ed Swibold, that country club shrink up in Essex. The prescriptions were filled in November.”

“Mind you, we have no way of knowing if all three pill bottles were full,” Marge pointed out. “But Josie swears that they were. Also that the fifth of Cuervo had never been opened. She told us Bryce was alive when she left to go running with Mitch. She was gone for an hour and change. By the time she got back here, he was dead.”

“Say those pill bottles were full. Would they be enough to kill him within the time frame we’re talking about?”

“Him and a good-sized herd of elephants,” Marge affirmed.

Des glanced around the room. No furniture was overturned, no lamps or windows broken. She moved in more closely and examined Bryce’s skull, throat and hands. Saw no head wounds. No bruising around his throat. No fresh scratches on his hands. No skin, blood or other foreign matter under his nails. There was no reason to think that Bryce’s death was anything other than what it appeared to be-a straight suicide by a man who had a long history of emotional problems and drug dependency. As resident trooper her job now was to report her preliminary observations to the Troop F barracks in Westbrook and obtain contact information for the victim’s next of kin. A detective would take over from there. And a death investigator from the Medical Examiner’s office in Farmington would slog his way down to photograph the body and take Josie’s statement. After that, Bryce’s body would be delivered by hearse to Farmington for an autopsy. The M.E.’s people no longer transported bodies in their own fleet of vans. The job had been outsourced to undertakers.

Des studied that hand-scrawled Post-it on Bryce’s chest again, which read: Just an awkward stage. “What do you suppose that means?” she wondered aloud.

“Bryce used to say that to me whenever he went off into one of his dark places,” Josie answered softly, standing there in the doorway with Mitch. “He’d shrug his shoulders and say ‘It’s just an awkward stage.’ I ought to have those words carved on his headstone except…”

“Except what, Josie?”

“He told me he wanted to be cremated.”

“So his death was something that you two had talked about?”

“He talked about it all of the time. I kept telling the gnarly doofus that I intended to keep him around for a good thirty years. But he … he didn’t expect to be around for long.”

Des nodded, glancing around at the cramped little room.

“We’ve been sleeping down here to save on the fuel bill,” Josie explained. “It costs a fortune to heat this big old place. We don’t go upstairs at all.”

“About those pill bottles,” Des said. “You’re sure they were full?”

“Positive. I count them every morning to make sure. He wasn’t taking any of that stuff anymore. Their presence in our medicine chest was entirely totemic.”

“Entirely what?”

“They were symbolic. They represented what he didn’t need anymore.”

“Was that your idea or Bryce’s?”

“It was something we both agreed to.”

The tiny room fell silent as all of them stood there trying not to look at her dead boyfriend.

“Josie, why don’t we continue this conversation in the kitchen?”

Mitch joined them, topping off Josie’s coffee mug and his own before he sat with them at the round oak table.

“I don’t happen to believe in pills,” Josie stated firmly. “I don’t think they make you healthy-just drug dependent. I’m strictly about self-healing that utilizes energy-based modalities and mind-body practices.”

“Forgive me, but I don’t understand what you just said.”

“I’m saying that we concentrated on harnessing the vast power of Bryce’s mind to return his body to its natural state of being. We detoxified his system of artificial chemicals. We reduced his stress levels. We placed him on a…” She trailed off, staring at Des accusingly. “You think I’m full of crap, don’t you?”

“That’s not true at all, Josie,” Des said.

“Yes, it is. I can see it in your eyes. I happen to be a fully accredited life coach, you know. People value what I do. You would, too, if you needed me. You don’t. You’re someone who has tremendous personal discipline. You exercise, eat right, don’t smoke or do drugs. You’ve got it together.”

Des glanced down at the graphite stick residue that was always there underneath the middle fingernail of her right hand. Yeah, I’ve got it together. I just see dead people is all.

“But most people aren’t like you, Des. They’re weak. And an amazing number of them don’t like themselves very much. I have one client who pays me seventy-five dollars an hour just to go grocery shopping with her twice a week. She says she’d be lost without me. This is an affluent, well-educated career woman. You wouldn’t think she’d need me, but she does. Most of my clients do.”

“Bryce was more than a client to you.”

“Much more,” Josie acknowledged, lowering her blue eyes. “That … never happened before. I’ve never fallen in love with a client. I can’t explain it.”

“You don’t have to.”

The Jewett girls were done in the bedroom. They said their good-byes and headed back out by way of the mudroom. Des heard their van start up and pull away.

Josie gazed out the kitchen window at the snow, which was now coming down so hard that you could barely see across the beach to the water. “I could never, ever convince him that he deserved to be loved. And he was so depressed this morning that I decided he ought to see Dr. Swibold again. Mitch and I were talking about it while we were running.”

“It’s true, we were,” he confirmed.

“Josie, is there any chance Bryce was self-medicating without your knowledge? Scoring drugs on his own?”

“I don’t believe so. He hardly ever left the island. Didn’t hang out with anyone. Plus he was flat broke. The monthly check from his trust fund barely covered a week’s worth of groceries.”

“If that’s the case then how did he pay you? When he was seeing you professionally, I mean. You say you charge seventy-five dollars an hour. Where was the money coming from?”

“Why is that important?” Josie asked, sipping her coffee.

“It may not be. I’m just wondering.”

“Preston paid for it. Also for Bryce’s sessions with Dr. Swibold. Preston and Bryce had a-a strained relationship. When Bryce showed up last summer it hit Preston really hard. He told me he felt awful about the way he’d treated Bryce. Preston is in his sixties now, and he’s had two heart attacks. I got the impression that he didn’t want Bryce sitting on his conscience.”

“So you’ve been in personal contact with Preston?”

“By phone and e-mail. And he sent me checks from Chicago when I was coaching Bryce.”

“I’ll need a phone number for him.”

Josie fetched her Blackberry from the counter and gave Des Preston’s home and office numbers. “Bryce was a real hard case at first,” she recalled sadly. “He hated the idea of seeing someone like me. Many of my male clients do. Men flat-out hate to ask for help.”

Des was already well aware of this. It explained why most of the suicides she’d caught in her career were men-going all of the way back to her rookie year, second week on the job, when one of them decided to throw his gray flannel self in front of the 7:32 Metro-North train out of Stamford. Women create support groups for each other. They share their feelings with their friends. Talk. Confide. Depend on each other. Men are taught to be self-reliant. When things go bad they don’t reach out, just retreat into gloomy, lonely isolation. The holiday season, with its feel-goody emphasis on family and loved ones, can be particularly hard for them.

“I can’t imagine what I’ll do now,” Josie said, staring down into her coffee mug. “Bryce was such a big part of my life.”

“I’m sure Preston won’t mind if you stay here for a while,” Mitch said. “Under the circumstances, I mean.”

Josie looked at him narrowly “It’s not up to Preston to mind or not mind. This house doesn’t belong to him.”

Mitch glanced at Des curiously before he turned back to Josie. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that Bryce wasn’t the caretaker of this place,” she replied. “He owned it. Lucas left it to him. Ask the family lawyer if you don’t believe me. Ask Glynis. She’ll tell you. Preston held the purse strings to Bryce’s trust fund, but Bryce has owned this house since the day he turned twenty-one. Preston wasn’t ‘allowing’ Bryce to stay here. It was Bryce who was ‘allowing’ Preston and his family to spend their summers here. Bryce knew how much it meant to Preston’s kids to return to Big Sister every summer. They have happy memories of this place. Bryce had happy childhood memories himself. This had been his home until Preston kicked him the hell out. But it’s not Preston’s house. It was Bryce’s and he-he…” Josie broke off, breathing deeply in and out. “I hardly ever drink coffee. It’s making me all buzzy and I’m rattling on.”

“You’re not,” Des assured her.

“Bryce really loved this island,” she said, her eyes growing shiny. “He’d gotten so tired of being rootless. Wanted to settle down here and stay put. Maybe even start a family of his own. Everyone in town thought he was the caretaker. He went ahead and let them think it. That was Bryce’s way. He liked for people to think he was a cheese head, but he wasn’t. Did you know he had a Master’s degree in literature from the University of Montana? He was incredibly well-read and insightful.”

“He told me he worked construction in Bozeman,” Mitch said.

“To put himself through school,” Josie said, nodding. “Des, what happens now?”

“There’s a process. Another officer will come and ask you more questions. So will someone from the Medical Examiner’s office.”

“What’s the point? It’s obvious what happened.” She puffed out her cheeks. “Sorry, there’s a ‘process.’ I get it. Will I need to be here all day? Because I have clients to see.”

“I’m sure they’ll understand if you have to reschedule.”

“No, they won’t understand,” Josie said emphatically. “They rely on me.”

“Then do what you got to do,” Des responded. People coped with grief in their own ways. If Josie needed to be there for her clients then so be it.

She was gazing out the window again at the snow. “He really did want to be cremated. But I guess I won’t have any say in that, will I?”

“That’s a family matter,” Des said. “All I can tell you is that those arrangements will be on hold until the Medical Examiner completes the autopsy.”

Josie’s eyes widened. “They have to do an autopsy?”

“I’m afraid so. This type of situation is what we call an untimely death. Autopsy’s pretty much automatic. Bryce’s blood will have to be tested. It may be several days before they have the preliminary toxicology findings, though it usually goes faster if they have a specific idea of what to look for.”

Josie cocked her head at Des curiously. “Why do I get the feeling that you’ve been through this ‘process’ before?”

“Only because I have.”

Too damned many times.

Ordinarily, the historic district was one of the most splendid sights on earth when snow was coming down. And there had to be a blanket of eight inches of it by now, Mitch figured as he drove past the fork to Johnny Cake Hill Road. Dozens of neighborhood kids were sledding down the steep hill that was, in warmer months, the third fairway of the country club. He took it slow and easy when he rounded the bend by the steepled white Congregational Church. He had snow tires on his old Studey pickup, not to mention two sixty-pound sand bags positioned over each rear wheel. But it still didn’t handle well in heavy snow like this, which clung to the majestic old maples and the beautiful colonial mansions that were all decorated for the holidays.

Ordinarily, it warmed Mitch’s insides to make this drive on such a morning. The frantic modern world was forced to surrender to a kinder, gentler pace from out of another era. It was all so peacefully unreal that he half-expected to hear a director, most likely Frank Capra, holler, “And … action!” But Dorset Street was no movie set. And this was no movie. And today Mitch’s insides weren’t feeling warm at all. Because Bryce Peck’s very real life had abruptly ended this morning. What Mitch felt inside was a hollow emptiness. The quiet that enveloped him as he drove along wasn’t serene. It was ominous. Because Mitch had been there himself. Wrestled with his own demons after Maisie died. For months he’d seen no point in going on. Only his own pain. He couldn’t imagine that the pain would ever end. Didn’t believe it ever would. He remembered quite clearly the words he’d said to himself that first rainy night he’d arrived in this little gem of a town on a Weekend Getaway assignment for the newspaper’s travel section. He’d checked into his room at the Frederick House Inn. Taken a bath in the claw-footed tub. Then burrowed into his canopied bed and, lying there grief-stricken and alone, had thought: I am so glad I do not own a gun for my personal protection. Because if I had one I would shoot myself.

Bryce had been clean and sober. A terrific woman loved him and believed in him. He was home again. Hell, he even owned that beautiful home, according to Josie, who had both a professional and personal stake in him. And now he had nothing and no one. Bryce had had every reason to stare down his demons and keep on going. And yet he’d chosen death. Why? “Just an awkward stage,” he’d scrawled on that stupid Post-it. As if that explained a goddamned thing.

It would be a white Christmas this year. No doubt about that. But it would not be a merry one.

When Mitch reached Maple Lane he pulled up outside of Rut’s little farmhouse and got out, surrounded by the snowy silence as he tromped his way to the front door. Last night’s party hadn’t been the old postmaster’s only Christmas gift. Madge and Mary had also granted his deepest wish, which was to spend a night in his own bed instead of returning to Essex Meadows. Thanks to the blizzard, he wasn’t going anywhere now. The sisters were looking in on him regularly to make sure he was okay.

Rut answered the door wearing a navy blue wool bathrobe over a flannel shirt, baggy slacks and carpet slippers. “Good morning, young fella,” he said, turning up both of his hearing aids. “I can see from your long face that you’ve come to bring me some sad news. I’ll spare you the discomfort. I already heard about him from the Jewett girls. So let’s you and me crack open a couple of bottles of stout and drink to the poor son of a bitch. Somebody ought to.”

“All right, Rut,” Mitch said, unzipping his coat.

“Nice to be back in my own place, let me tell you,” Rut chattered as he led him into the parlor, where a fire was going in the potbelly stove. “Not that I’ve had more than two minutes to myself. Mary insisted on tucking me into bed last night at ten o’clock sharp. Made sure I took my pills. And when I opened my eyes at six this morning Madge was already here to feed me my breakfast and more pills. And then Tina showed up to clean up from last night. She just left. I’ll let you in on a little secret-the timing of this here snowstorm suits me just fine. I’d much rather be here than at some halfway house for the soon-to-be departed. But the doctors won’t allow me to be on my own anymore. It seems I get to thinking on things and forget where I am.”

“That happens to me with great regularity.”

“At your age it’s okay. But when you get to be my age people take a mighty dim view of it-especially when you’re behind the wheel of a moving automobile at the time.” Rut tottered into the kitchen and returned a moment later carrying two glasses of foamy stout on a serving tray along with a plate of leftover deviled eggs and ham sandwiches. He set the tray on the coffee table. They raised their glasses in the air. “Here’s to Bryce, who never had a happy day in his life,” the old fellow declared. “I hope he’s found himself some peace.”

They drank. Then Rut eased himself slowly down into his favorite overstuffed chair, his slippered feet up on the ottoman.

Mitch sat in a chair across the coffee table from him, helping himself to a deviled egg. “Is it true that he owned the house on Big Sister?”

“He did indeed,” Rut confirmed. “Lucas left it to him, which riled Preston to no end, let me tell you.”

“Why didn’t Bryce want anyone to know about it?”

Rut shrugged his soft shoulders. “That was Bryce. He had a renegade streak a mile wide. A tough one to get to know, too. Talked to hardly a soul here in town except for Glynis.”

“The family’s lawyer?”

Rut nodded his head. “I hear he paid a call on her last week.”

“How did you hear that?”

“Her secretary happens to be a cousin of mine.”

“Rut, is there anyone in Dorset who isn’t a cousin of yours?”

“Bryce and Glynis were childhood friends, you know. Back before Lucas died and Preston gave Bryce the boot.”

“Was Bryce visiting her as his friend or his lawyer?”

“That sort of information my cousin can’t share with me. She’d lose her job.” Rut sipped his stout. “The house will pass to Preston now. He’ll be mighty pleased about that.”

“You’re not the first person who’s said that to me today.”

Rut peered at Mitch over the rim of his glass. “Josie’s a fine looking girl. High-spirited, too. She’ll find herself another fellow pretty fast. Or one will find her.”

“I suppose so.”

Rut continued to peer at him. “Anything you want to get off your chest?”

“Such as?…”

“I had my eye on Josie last night. Something about the way she kept watching one of the other fellas at the party gave me the impression she wasn’t entirely content with Bryce. We’re both men here, so there’s no point in tiptoeing around-it was you who she was looking at. And it’s been you sharing that island with them these past months. Bryce was quite a bit older than Josie. Also plenty frayed around the edges. Everybody knows that you and Josie are friends. Wouldn’t surprise me one bit if you were a little something more than that. Can’t say I’d blame you-a healthy young cocksman such as yourself.”

“Rut, I’m the Jewish film critic from New York, remember? I think you’re confusing me with someone else.”

“It isn’t someone else who keeps Dorset’s resident trooper glowing. That there is one contented woman, let me tell you. Always a smile on her face. Any man who can satisfy a gorgeous handful like Miss Desiree Mitry, well, the fellows at the firehouse have nothing but admiration for you, Mitch. Fact is, you’re something of a hero to them.”

“This is an actual topic of conversation at the firehouse?”

“Heck yeah. What do you think they talk about-fire safety procedures? And that’s just the fellas. Imagine what the gals over at the Town and Country beauty salon are saying.”

“I’d rather not, if you don’t mind,” Mitch said unhappily. This was the downside to living in a small town. Everyone thought they owned a front-row seat to your private life. “Rut, there’s nothing going on between Josie and me. Des is the only woman in my life.”

“Glad to hear it. I felt the same way myself about my Enid, God rest her soul.”

“You told me last night that you lusted after Paulette Zander for years.”

“Still do, truth be told,” Rut conceded. “But thinking about it and doing it are two entirely different things. I always figured a man’s free to dream about any woman he chooses just so long as he doesn’t cross the Mendoza Line.”

“I think you mean the Maginot Line.”

The old fellow frowned at him. “I do?”

“The Mendoza Line refers to Mario Mendoza, the famously light-hitting major league shortstop of the seventies. He was so deficient with a bat in his hands that cracking.200 came to be known as the Mendoza Line.”

“I think you’re wrong about that one, young fella.”

“I could be,” said Mitch, who’d learned never to argue with anyone who was over the age of eighty. There was no point. He reached for a ham sandwich and took a bite, chewing on it thoughtfully. “What do the guys at the firehouse say about Hank Merrill?”

“Hank’s an affable fella. Everybody likes Hank.”

“Everybody except for you, you mean.”

“Don’t think I follow you.”

“I got the distinct impression last night that you don’t care for him.”

“Naw, Hank’s okay,” the old postmaster said grudgingly. “You just need to understand the background of the situation. Paulette fell to pieces when that husband of hers, Clint, ran off. Just sat there in her house day and night drinking cheap white wine and chain-smoking cigarettes. Stopped showing up for work. Any other postmaster would have canned her. But I covered for her. And she got through it eventually. Sobered up, quit smoking. Only, it was like a part of her died inside. She was never the same person again. When I first met Paulette she was a lighthearted gal, quick to laugh, with a smile that’d make you melt. Want to know something? I can’t remember the last time I saw Paulette smile.” He shook his tufty white head. “When she took up with Hank it had been a lot of years since she’d had a man friend. And, well, Hank was still a married man at the time. Cheating on his wife Mary Ann, to put it plain and simple. He and Paulette used to sneak off to the Yankee Doodle for hot-sheet matinees. I didn’t approve. Figured he was using that beautiful, lonely woman strictly for the sex. Turned out I was wrong about that. Hank did leave Mary Ann for her.”

“But you still don’t approve.”

Rut shifted uneasily in the chair. “I don’t think he’s good enough for her. It’s nothing personal. I’d feel that way about any man who came into her life.”

“So that’s all there is to it?”

Rut studied him suspiciously. “What are you getting at?”

Mitch drank down the last of his stout. “Does Hank have money troubles?”

“You know anyone these days who doesn’t? But now that you mention it, he is trying to dig himself out of a deep hole. Believe me, a fella doesn’t work second chair for John the Barber every Saturday unless he’s seriously short of cash.” Rut gazed at Mitch’s empty glass. “You ready for another?”

“Sure thing.”

The old man bustled out to the kitchen with their empty glasses, refilled them and returned. “It didn’t take long for Mary Ann to find out that Hank was cheating on her with Paulette,” he recalled, settling back down in his chair. “She was mad as hell-especially when he asked her for a divorce. Paulette felt terrible about breaking up Hank’s marriage. But I’ve always figured you can’t bust up a marriage unless it’s already broken. Mary Ann’s lawyer saw to it that their assets were divided in a way that was highly favorable to her, on top of which he has to pay her monthly alimony.”

“Is she still living in Dorset?”

“She moved to Farmington. Works at a day care center up there for a whopping nine bucks an hour. Mary Ann is one bitter woman. Or so I hear. Anyhow, about a year after the divorce was finalized, Hank’s mother passed away in Rochester, New York. That’s where he’s from originally. She was by no means wealthy, but she did own her own home free and clear. Hank sold it and cleared enough to make a down payment on a fixer-upper cottage up by Uncas Lake. Hank’s good with his hands. He renovated the place himself, sold it for a tidy profit and bought himself another fixer-upper. Mary Ann eventually heard about this from one of her girlfriends in town and, well, it turns out that either Hank’s lawyer didn’t explain the terms of the divorce settlement to him or Hank didn’t listen. Because Mary Ann was entitled not only to her share of their assets at the time they split up but also to any assets he might come into in the future-namely his mother’s house in Rochester and the net proceeds from the fixer-upper he sold. Hank hired himself a new lawyer and tried to contest it but he lost. Now he owes Mary Ann close to seventy grand. Hasn’t got a nickel of it. The money’s all tied up in the other fixer-upper. The only way he can pay her is to sell it, except nobody’s buying a damned thing these days. This house right here has been on the market for nearly a year and I haven’t had one single offer. Until Hank is able to sell his cottage and lay a lump sum on Mary Ann, he has to scramble to make a structured monthly payment that the lawyers drew up. This is on top of the alimony he’s already paying her. Hank’s in deep. And he can’t very well ask Paulette for help. That wouldn’t be right.” He looked at Mitch shrewdly. “Why are you asking me about Hank’s money troubles?”

“Just curious,” said Mitch, who was much more than curious. He was keenly interested. Because a grinch was stealing from the mailboxes on Hank’s route. Because Hank owed his ex-wife a fortune. And because if there was one thing he’d learned from Des it was that the solution to a case is often the obvious one that’s staring you right smack-dab in the face.

Meaning that the grinch was none other than Hank himself.

Des was just pulling into the shopping plaza directly across from the A amp;P when little Kylie Champlain came sprinting out the door of the Village Bootery with a pair of Ugg boots clutched under one arm and a look of total panic on her young face. Kylie jumped into a silver Honda Civic with the boots, started up the engine and took off. Or tried to-her wheels just kept spinning. The blizzard had dumped ten inches of the white stuff on the pavement by now and her daddy’s plowboys hadn’t hit the parking lot for a while. Then Des saw Joanie Tooker, who owned Village Bootery, come staggering out the door, clutching her elbow in pain. Des found out later that as soon as Kylie spotted Des’s cruiser she’d shoved Joanie, age sixty-one, roughly to the floor and escaped out the door. Joanie, who’d known Kylie for the girl’s entire life, suffered a dislocated elbow.

Des climbed out of her cruiser and motioned Kylie to get out of her Honda. “Come on, Kylie, let’s talk this out!”

Kylie floored it, the Honda’s wheels spinning and spinning. She was absolutely determined to rabbit on Des.

“Kylie, stop this, will you?”

No use. Kylie’s wheels caught hold and she went skidding out of the lot onto Big Branch heading way too fast in the direction of Old Boston Post Road. Des considered letting her go. Simply putting out a BOLO alert. She had Kylie’s license plate number. Knew where the girl lived. But she was concerned. Kylie was so panicky that she might crash into somebody. And so, reluctantly, Des took off after her, hoping that the reality of seeing flashing lights in her rearview mirror would jolt some sense into the little fool.

It was the most pathetic high-speed chase Des had ever been involved in. Not that it qualified as a high-speed chase, since neither of them could do more than twenty in the dense snow. And Des wasn’t even trying to gain ground. She didn’t want to make Kylie drive faster in these blizzard conditions. Just wanted her to know that it was pointless to keep going and that she ought to do the sane, adult thing and pull over.

Good luck with that.

At the intersection with Old Boston Post Road Kylie ran the red light, which ranked as the least of her worries right now, and attempted a sharp left turn. Instead, she made a full 360-degree doughnut in the deep snow before she came to a complete stop right in the middle of the intersection. Thankfully, there were no other cars around. Des came to a halt twenty feet away and gestured for Kylie to get out of the Honda.

And good luck with that.

Kylie floored it again and went slip-sliding her way north on Old Boston Post Road in the direction of Uncas Lake. Again, Des thought about leaving her be. But the girl presented a clear danger to herself and others. Des couldn’t just let her go.

The Post Road had been plowed within the past few minutes. Or at least a single lane had. Kylie powered her Honda all of the way up to thirty as she headed north in the center of the plowed lane. Des continued to give her plenty of room, praying that they didn’t encounter any oncoming traffic. As she went past the turnoff for Frederick Lane Kylie caught up with the town’s big orange plow truck and began to overtake it. Reality alert: Only a total nutso tries to pass a snowplow in the middle of a blizzard. Kylie Champlain had gone total nutso. Actually veered around the plow truck and started to pass it. Until, that is, she practically drove head-on into the oncoming Dodge Ram that was inching its way down the Post Road. The Dodge Ram had to slam into a snowbank to avoid her as Kylie hit her brakes and spun out in the middle of the road. The plow truck driver had no chance to stop. Roared right on past her-missing her Honda by no more than six inches. Des brought her cruiser to a stop as Kylie sat there behind the wheel, eyes bulging with fright. The Dodge Ram’s driver climbed out, waving his arms and cursing.

Des got out of her cruiser. “Please stop this, Kylie! Someone’s going to get hurt!”

The girl was busy reaching for something now. Rolling down her window and throwing something out of the window into the road-the Ugg boots that she’d stolen.

“That’s a good start, Kylie! Now why don’t you get out of the car, too?”

But the little fool floored it again. Skidded around Des and started her way back down Old Boston Post Road in the direction they’d just come from. Des made sure that the Ram’s driver was unhurt and had a working cell phone. Then she tossed the damned Ugg boots in her cruiser and took off after Kylie.

Now she had her siren on. Now she was pissed.

Back down at the intersection with Big Branch, Kylie tried to make a right turn and spun out again-only this time she caromed hard off of a Lexus that was waiting at the stoplight. But Kylie didn’t stop, wouldn’t stop. Just revved her engine until her wheels caught hold and slid her way back toward the shopping district, picking up speed as she went along. She was going way too fast when she arrived at the intersection where Big Branch dead-ended at Route 156. Directly across from the stoplight sat an old wood-framed house that had been converted into commercial office suites.

Now the girl had a choice to make. If she turned right she’d be heading north alongside the Connecticut River toward Dorset’s bucolic farm country. If she turned left she’d be on her way down to the beach.

Left. She decided to go left.

She never made it.

Her Honda went into an uncontrolled spin and barreled head-on into the ground-floor suite of the office building. The sound of the crash was like a bomb going off in the snowy quiet.

Des radioed for emergency backup, then jumped out and ran to the Honda, which had hit the wooden building so hard that it ripped through the exterior and interior walls. The car’s front end was inside the front office.

Kylie’s door had popped open and her air bag had deployed. “My ankle!” she howled in pain. “My ankle!”

“Just try to relax and breathe, Kylie. Help is on its way.”

“I’m sorry, Trooper Des! I’m so sorry!”

“It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

“No, I’m not! My mom’s gonna kill me!”

“Just keep breathing in and out, okay? I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t leave me!”

“I’m not. I’m right here, I promise.”

Des rushed inside the building. The ground floor front office belonged to Josie Cantro. The life coach’s office door was locked but the frame had been knocked off-kilter by the crash, as if an earthquake had struck. Des shoved the door open with her shoulder and found, well, what she found was Josie groping around on the floor next to the office sofa for her jeans. Josie was naked. So was Casey Zander, who’d been getting busy with Josie on the sofa before Kylie and her Honda had so rudely interrupted them. Josie’s camisole and panties were on the floor next to her jeans-ripped to shreds. Her left eye was swollen half-shut. She looked as if she’d been punched. Looked plenty dazed, too. So did Casey, whose forehead was bleeding. Fallen ceiling tiles were everywhere. Apparently, one of them had hit Casey, who was someone Des could happily have gone her entire life without ever seeing naked. Paulette’s son didn’t seem to be constructed out of muscle, bone or sinew. Just jiggly, moon-white blubber. He reminded Des of one of those grubs she sometimes dug up in the garden and had to squash.

She stood there in stunned silence, listening to the old building creak and groan around her. Steam hissed from the Honda’s blown radiator. The baseboard heating pipes had ruptured and water was streaming from them onto the floor. Sheetrock powder wafted down from up above. Off in the distance, she could hear the sirens of the emergency responders.

“I–I thought the roof had collapsed,” Josie stammered finally. “From the weight of so much snow.”

“It may just do that. You’re not safe in here. Get your clothes on and get out of here.”

Neither of them moved. Just stared at her, blown away.

“Listen to me, if you folks don’t get your clothes on now the firemen are going to find you this way. Everyone in town will talk. Do you understand?”

Josie nodded her head, blinking.

“Good. Now hurry up and get out. I have to search the rest of the building.” Des darted back out into the hall. Josie’s downstairs neighbor, a seamstress who did alterations and tailoring, was closed due to the storm. So were the accountant and home computer consultant upstairs. Josie and Casey were the only ones in the building. They were dressed by the time Des made it back down. Josie was rummaging through her desk drawers.

“Josie, what do you think you’re doing?”

“I have to collect my files,” she explained, her swollen eye twitching.

“No way. Not until the building inspector says it’s okay. Let’s go!”

The Jewett girls and two of Dorset’s fire trucks had already made it to the scene. The volunteer firemen were attempting to extract Kylie Champlain from behind the wheel of her car. But Kylie was so freaked out that she was fighting them. Madge had to subdue her with an injection before they could wrestle her out of the car and stabilize her ankle. It was a bad break. Des could see bone sticking out of skin.

The rest of the men were preparing to search the building. Des assured them it was unoccupied. She also ordered them to stay out of Josie’s office-which, as of right now, she was regarding as a potential crime scene. Though she saw no need to tell them that.

A second EMT van arrived now from Old Saybrook and took charge of transporting Kylie to the nearest emergency hospital, which was Lawrence and Memorial in New London. Highway I-95 was closed right now to all but emergency vehicles. If the plows were keeping up they might get her there in a half hour. On a normal day it would take ten minutes.

Des watched the EMT van take off, knowing she would have to prepare a detailed incident report for her troop commander. And this whole stupid mess would have to be reviewed by Internal Affairs. With the benefit of twenty-twenty hindsight they would demand to know why she hadn’t just put out a BOLO and let Kylie go. But Des stood by what she’d done.

In the back of their van, The Jewett sisters tended to Casey’s head wound and Josie’s eye. While they did that Des called Tina Champlain to notify her that her daughter had just been injured in a one-vehicle accident while fleeing the scene of a crime. Tina took the news surprisingly calmly. She even thanked Des for calling before she rang off.

By now Josie was standing there in the snow with a cold pack pressed to her swollen eye.

Des showed her a smile. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” she answered shortly. “But I need my files.”

“I know you do. But you can’t go back inside until we know it’s safe. Sit with me for a minute, okay?”

They got into the front seat of her Crown Vic. Des cranked up the heater.

“Not my best morning ever,” Josie said with a rueful shake of her blond head. “First my boyfriend kills himself. Now my office is toast. Who was that behind the wheel of the car?”

“Kylie Champlain.”

“Is she going to be okay?”

“I’d rather talk about you, Josie. Want to tell me what was going on in there?”

“It … wasn’t what it looked like,” she responded quietly.

“Does that mean you don’t want to swear out a criminal complaint?”

Josie looked at her, mystified. “A criminal complaint for what?”

“When I walked in that door your left eye was swollen and your underwear was in shreds on the floor. Was Casey sexually assaulting you?”

Josie let out a laugh. “No! Casey’s been a client of mine for the past two months. No sexual assault of any kind was taking place.”

“So what was?”

“A role-playing exercise.”

“Does this type of exercise usually result in you getting a black eye?”

“He didn’t mean to do it. He just got carried away.”

“By what?”

“Casey lacks confidence when it comes to women. I’m doing what I can to empower him.”

“So the sex was consensual.”

“It was an exercise.”

“Josie, are you romantically involved with Casey?”

She heaved an exasperated sigh. “I just told you-he’s a client.”

“I’m old-school when it comes to this life-coaching thing, so please forgive me if I come off as a bit dense. Are you telling me that consensual sex-consensual rough sex-is some kind of a teaching tool?”

“That’s exactly right,” Josie affirmed. “Sometimes the healing process calls for an unconventional approach on my part. But I’m willing to go there for my clients.”

“I see. Just out of curiosity, how many other men with confidence issues count on you to ‘go there’ for them?”

Josie lowered the cold pack from her swollen eye, glaring at her. “I can’t believe you’d ask me that.”

“You’d believe it if you saw what I just saw. How many, Josie?”

Josie gazed out of her window at the snow coming down. “Any information regarding my clients is strictly confidential.”

“Girl, you’re not a medical practitioner. You aren’t shielded by doctor-patient confidentiality.”

“Look, what you walked in on was something that you can’t comprehend,” she said, her cheeks mottling with anger. “And you-you immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion because that’s how your mind works. You make judgments about people. You sit there in your uniform and you decide who’s good and who’s bad.”

“This isn’t about me, Josie.”

“Yes, it is. You’re trying to make me out to be some kind of a hooker!”

“I’m trying to understand you.”

“Nothing bad was going on in there! I’m trying to help that poor slob, okay? He needs to feel better about himself if he’s ever going to have a productive, rewarding life.”

“Did Bryce know about these role-playing exercises of yours?”

“I never discussed my clients with him,” she answered quietly.

“Bryce had been a client himself. Were exercises part of his treatment?”

“I have nothing more to say to you,” Josie replied. “We’re done.”

“Okay. Please stay here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Des got out of her cruiser and hopped into the back of the EMT van, where the Jewett girls were bandaging the wound on Casey’s forehead.

“How are you feeling, Casey?”

“I’m fine,” he grunted.

“It’s just a superficial wound,” Madge informed her. “His pupils are normal and responsive to light. He has no dizziness or nausea.”

“I’m fine,” he repeated, this time with a whiny, hostile edge to his voice.

Casey Zander happened to be a whiny, hostile guy. Also an immature one. He was twenty-eight going on fourteen, a petulant, overgrown fat boy with a jowly face, a weak chin and a sulky, almost girlish rosebud mouth. He dyed his hair a garish henna color and wore it in a peculiarly retro Meet the Beatles mop top, complete with bangs that he combed down almost to his close-set eyes. The dye job contrasted starkly with his dark brown sideburns. He was dressed in a he-guy plaid wool shirt and corduroy pants. The shirt didn’t flatter him. Fat boys should never do plaid. It also didn’t go along with his transgendery do. Des really, really didn’t know what was up with that hair.

“Would you like me to notify your next of kin for you?” Des asked him. “That would be your mom, right?”

Casey tensed visibly. “Why do you need to call her?”

“You’ve suffered a head wound. Maybe you shouldn’t be driving home.”

“I’m not a kid.…”

“Didn’t say you were.”

“And I don’t want you calling my mom, bitch.”

Des raised an eyebrow at Madge and Mary. “What did he just call me?”

“I believe he called you a bitch,” Mary replied tartly.

“He is one fierce customer,” Madge chimed in. “Better watch out.”

“Would you ladies excuse us for a sec?” Des asked them.

The sisters left them alone in the back of the ambulance.

“Want to tell me what was going on in there, Casey?”

“What did Josie say?” he demanded, fingering his bandaged forehead.

“I’m more interested in what you have to say.”

He shrugged, his girlish mouth tightening. “We were having our regular weekly session. She’s been trying to help me with-with…”

“With what, Casey?”

“I don’t want to talk about it!”

“Has anybody ever told you that whiny never scores cool points? Women don’t like to be around whiners-unless you’re paying them to be with you.”

“Look, you just shut up,” Casey shot back. “You don’t know anything about Josie and me.”

“So school me.”

“It’s none of your damned business.”

“Actually, it is my business, Casey. Bryce Peck took his own life this morning, but Josie wouldn’t stay home to mourn his loss. She told me she had a client who needed her. That client would seem to be you.”

He blinked at her in shock. “I–I didn’t know. She didn’t say a word.”

“Pretty good deal for you. The field’s clear now.”

“Field?” He shook his mop top at her. “What field?”

“We’re all adults here. If you and Josie have been getting busy behind Bryce’s back that’s your business. And if you two like it rough, well, so be it. Not my thing at all, let me tell you. Any man used his fists on me he’d be picking his teeth up out of the carpet for a week. Josie’s had a real bad morning. She’s upset. She’s vulnerable. I’m wondering if I should be worried about her. You know her a lot better than I do. What do you think?”

Casey considered his answer carefully. “I think she’ll be fine. I’ll take care of her. I–I love her.”

“Have you told her that?”

“Not exactly, but she knows how I feel. I mean, she must know.”

“And what about Gigi Garanski? I hear you date her.”

He let out a derisive snort. “You don’t ‘date’ Gigi.”

“Just use her for sex, you mean?”

“I’m not the only one who does,” he said defensively. “But it’s Josie who I want to be with. Josie’s … She’s wonderful.”

Des studied this man-boy curiously. He was definitely bizarre, but what flavor of bizarre? Harmless or the other kind? “Okay, Casey. Thanks for your insight. I appreciate it.” She hopped out and found Madge and Mary jawing in the snow with a couple of firefighters. “Is he okay to drive home?”

“I don’t see why not,” Madge replied. “Assuming he can dig out his car.”

“Casey’s a real catch, isn’t he?” Mary said. “It’s a shame he doesn’t find himself a nice girl.”

Des looked over at Josie Cantro, who was still sitting in the front seat of the Crown Vic nursing her swollen eye. “The boy’s way ahead of you, Mary. He thinks he has.”

Add this to the list of 297 things that Mitch Berger, proud child of the streets of New York City, never thought he’d find himself doing: standing out on a rickety wooden causeway over the freezing waters of Long Island Sound in the middle of a blizzard pushing around a John Deere professional-grade snow thrower. The damned thing was a monster that had a fourteen-inch steel augur and a whopping thirty-eight-inch clearing width. Six forward speeds, two rear speeds, dual halogen headlights and a dash-mounted electric chute-rotation control. It even had heated handgrips. He could feel the warmth through his work gloves as he cut a swath across the causeway with grim determination. Mitch was dressed for outdoor labor. He wore his arctic-weight Eddie Bauer goose down parka over a wool fisherman’s sweater, twenty-four-ounce wool field pants, merino wool long johns, insulated snow boots and his festive C.C. Filson red-and-black checked mackinaw wool hat with sheepskin earflaps, the one that made him look like a Jewish version of Percy Kilbride in a Ma and Pa Kettle movie. But, hey, he needed every layer. Not only was it snowing like crazy but it was starting to get really, really windy out there on that narrow causeway.

Mitch was a screening-room rat. A man who got paid to sit on his butt in the dark. Working a snow thrower? Not part of his normal job description. But this wasn’t a normal day. His neighbor, Bryce Peck, was dead. A foot of snow had fallen. And someone had to get the causeway cleared so that the damned hearse from Dousson Mortuary in New London could pick up Bryce and deliver him to the Medical Examiner in Farmington. The hearse was hours late because of the storm and the poor guy was still lying there in his bed. It would have been comical if it weren’t so ghastly.

Just an awkward stage.

Mitch had stayed there with a shaken Josie while a detective from the Troop F barracks conducted a follow-up interview with her about Bryce’s state of mind and history of drug and alcohol abuse. Then a death investigator from the M.E.’s office had shown up to ask her pretty much the same questions all over again. It had been painful and tedious for Josie, but she’d remained calm and composed-despite the fact that the bald, middle-aged death investigator could not stop undressing her with his eyes. No wonder Des didn’t get along with most of the men on her job.

Supposedly the hearse would be along shortly to pick up Bryce. Mitch told Josie he’d be happy to wait there if she wanted to attend to her clients. He thought it would be good for her to get out of that house.

“Mitch, I can’t ask you to stay here with him.”

“You’re not asking me. Besides, I’m your naybs. This is what naybs do.”

She’d gone into the bedroom to say good-bye to Bryce. Mitch heard her murmur some words to him before she came out of there, wiping tears from her eyes, and headed on out to meet her clients.

As soon as she left Mitch got right the hell out of there. No freaking way he was staying in that house by himself with a dead body. When the hearse arrived at the foot of the causeway he’d see it through his window and raise the barricade. Besides, he was on deadline and still hadn’t posted his column on unheralded movie scores. By the time he’d sent it off the hearse still hadn’t shown up-and Mitch was quite certain that the causeway was no longer passable. So he fired up the snow thrower and went to work out there. For company he had Leonard Cohen’s haunting voice singing “The Stranger Song” from the opening credits of Robert Altman’s McCabe and Mrs. Miller, which happened to be one of Mitch’s favorite movies. Every single time he saw it he rooted for Warren Beatty to get up out of that deep snow and keep walking, gut shot or not. Every single time he was devastated when Beatty succumbed to the inevitable and settled down into the snow to die.

Just an awkward stage.

Mitch had nearly completed his third full swath when he saw a vehicle pull slowly up to the barricade. But it wasn’t the hearse. It was Josie’s Subaru. She didn’t try to drive out. Just parked there and started toward him on foot in her ski parka and stocking cap. She looked pale. She looked terrible. Her left eye was swollen almost completely shut.

He set the snow thrower to idle, rushing to her. “Josie, what happened to your eye?”

“You didn’t hear?” Her voice was low and morose. He’d never known her to sound that way before. “I figured Des would phone you.”

He shook his head. “Not when she gets busy.”

“Kylie Champlain lost control of her car and slammed into my building. It was … unreal. I was sitting there with a client and suddenly the front end of her car was inside my office.”

“And what happened to your eye?”

“A ceiling tile fell and hit me. It looks a lot worse than it is.”

“How about your client?”

“Just a scratch on the head. We were both lucky. The building inspector thinks the whole building may collapse. I had to beg him to let me back in for my files. He went in with me. Then he declared it off-limits-so I no longer have an office.” She let out a hollow laugh. “When I decide to have a shitty day I don’t mess around, do I?”

Now another vehicle was making its way through the Nature Preserve to the foot of the causeway. Again, not the hearse. It was a blue Toyota Tacoma pickup.

Josie let out a low groan. “Oh, God, I don’t believe this.”

The Tacoma pulled up next to her Subaru and Paulette Zander’s son, Casey, climbed out and approached them, hands buried deep in the pockets of his jacket, a Red Sox cap pulled low over his close-set eyes. Casey wore a pouty expression on his chubby face. Not a brooding, sensitive sort of pouty. He looked more like he was pissed off because Dada was too busy to play catch with him. “I need to talk to you, Josie!” he called out.

“Casey, now is not a good time,” she responded, politely but firmly.

He ducked under the barricade and started out onto the causeway anyway. “But we have to talk.”

“Casey, I have a personal situation to deal with right now. I’ll call you later, okay?”

“What time?”

“As soon as I can. I don’t know when it’ll be.”

“I just want to talk. Why are you being such a bitch?”

“Casey, this isn’t appropriate behavior. There are boundaries to our relationship.”

“Boundaries? What does that mean?”

“You know perfectly well what it means,” she said, maintaining that same polite, firm voice. “Now please leave.”

Casey didn’t budge. Just gaped at her in disbelief.

“Why don’t you take off?” Mitch suggested. “Josie’s had a hard morning.”

“You shut up,” Casey snarled in response.

“Mitch, please stay out of this.”

“Yeah, Mitch, mind your own business.”

“Actually, this is my business. You’re trespassing on private property. My private property. There’s a great big sign posted right over there, see it? Josie asked you to leave. Now I’m telling you to leave.”

“But I want to talk to her!”

“She doesn’t want to talk to you. That’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?”

Casey curled his lip at him. “Oh, sure, I get it now. You want to do her, don’t you? Or are you already doing her?”

Josie let out a gasp. “Casey, you are way out of line.”

Mitch started toward him. “What did you just say?”

“You heard me,” he jeered.

“No, I’m not sure that I did. Would you like to repeat that?”

“Mitch, don’t do this,” Josie said pleadingly.

“I bet your girlfriend the trooper doesn’t know about you two. She was asking me a million stupid questions in the ambulance. She’s a total bitch.”

“You really like that word, don’t you?” Mitch stood face-to-face with Casey now. “You’re on private property. Leave.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” Casey warned him.

“Leave.”

Casey shoved him. It wasn’t much of a shove. He was all blubber. Mitch wasn’t. He shoved Casey back and sent him tumbling onto his butt. Casey got right back up and came rushing at him. Mitch sidestepped him and shoved him to the causeway again, this time planting his work boot on Casey’s neck and plastering his fat face to the snow-crusted wooden planks.

“Are you going to behave yourself or do I have to throw you in the water?”

Casey started squirming and whimpering like a little school-kid. “Let me up, will ya?”

“Not until you promise to behave yourself.”

Josie put her hand on Mitch’s arm. “Mitch, his face is going to freeze to the causeway.”

“Good, it’ll be a vast improvement. Say you’ll behave yourself!”

“Okay, okay. I’ll … behave myself.”

Mitch removed his foot from Casey’s neck and helped him up. “Now get back in your truck and get the hell out of here.”

“You’ll be sorry you did that,” Casey vowed, shaking his fist at him.

“Look at me-I’m quaking with fear.”

Casey slunk back to his truck and drove off, his wheels spinning in the deep snow.

“Mitch, that wasn’t necessary,” Josie said scoldingly.

“I know, but it was fun.”

“This is a side of you I’ve never seen before. You have anger issues.”

“No, I don’t. I wasn’t the least bit angry.” He looked at her curiously. “He’s the client who you were with when Kylie went boom?”

“Yes.”

“He seems to have a major crush on you.”

“It happens. Some of my male clients, especially the younger ones, can get emotionally involved. Casey’s lonely. He needs a girlfriend.”

“He needs a new personality, too.”

Another vehicle was approaching the causeway now. This one was the black Cadillac hearse from Dousson Mortuary.

“Oh, good, they’re finally here.” Mitch inserted his coded plastic card in the security slot to raise the barricade.

The driver, a young black guy, rolled down his window and said, “Sorry it took us so long, bro. It is some kind of a mess out there.”

Josie drew in her breath. “Mitch, is Bryce still here?”

“I’m afraid so. That’s why I’ve been clearing the causeway.”

“Where do I go, bro?”

“Just follow the pathway that I’ve cleared to the big, natural-shingled house. He’s in the downstairs bedroom. I’ll be right behind you.” Mitch stepped aside so that the hearse could start its way out to the island.

“I–I can’t believe he’s still…” Josie started to shake. Her breathing was shallow and rapid. “This whole day … it’s some kind of a nightmare. I’m going to lose it, I swear.”

“No, you’re not. You’re doing great.”

“Mitch, I’m not doing great at all. My life is a total mess.” She let out a grief-stricken sob and then threw herself into his arms.

Mitch put his arms around her as she cried and cried, hugging him tight. She was more compactly built than Des but strong for her size. It was like being hugged by a python. “I know it all seems overwhelming,” he said. “But it’ll work out. We’ll work it out together. What you need right now, more than anything else, is a nice heaping bowl of Cocoa Puffs.”

She pulled away from him, laughing through her tears. “You always know how to make me feel better. I don’t know what I’d do without you, Mitch.”

“You’d do fine. You are doing fine.”

“No, I’m not. I’m going to be awfully clingy for the next few days.”

“Be as clingy as you want.”

“I won’t send you running for the hills?”

“Not a chance. I’m your naybs, remember?”

She gazed at him with her one good eye, which was huge and shiny. Then she hugged him again, gently this time. “Mitch, you are so much more to me than the guy next door. Don’t you know that?”

W hat in the hell am I doing?

Des pulled around behind the firehouse and used her key to the back door. She went directly up the stairs to the meeting room, which had a window that offered a panoramic view of the entire Dorset Street Historic District buried under its blanket of pure white snow. The village’s highest concentration of mailboxes was situated directly across from her-the boxes for the Captain Chadwick House condo colony and the four houses that adjoined it on Maple Lane. More than a dozen mailboxes bunched together right there. The flags on three of them were raised, meaning the residents had left something for Hank to take.

Des set a folding chair in front of the window and parked herself there, testing out the zoom lens on her Nikon D80. It was so powerful that she could make out the words Approved by the Postmaster General on the boxes halfway to Town Hall. She’d brought her lunch-a container of steaming-hot clam chowder from Mitzi’s fish market. Des opened the container and helped herself to some. It was chilly in the firehouse. And the wind was starting to pick up, rattling the windows. She kept her jacket on as she settled in.

Why am I doing this?

Because this was her town. These were her people. If someone was preying on them then she wanted to be the one to handle it. True, the jurisdictional boundaries were pretty clear. If a crime involved the U.S. Postal Service then it was a job for the postal inspectors. If an illegal prescription drug ring was targeting Dorset, then that was a job for the state’s Narcotics Task Force. But Des didn’t like the idea of reaching out for help. So she was giving herself this day to see what she could see. If nothing jumped out at her then, okay, she’d play it by the book. But she needed to do this her way. If she didn’t then she’d just be an empty uniform.

She spotted Hank as soon as his white Grumman LLV turned onto Dorset Street from Big Branch. The mail truck was pretty hard to miss with those red and blue stripes and postal insignias stamped all over it. Especially when it was the only vehicle out on the road. Through her zoom lens she watched Hank nose it slowly from curbside box to curbside box. The LLV’s steering wheel was on the right-hand side. Hank used his right hand to open the mailbox, his left to grab the mail from the tray next to him. Then he reached across his body to stuff the mail in, closing the box with his right hand before he moved on. It was not an easy or natural repetitive motion. She wondered how many carriers developed rotator cuff problems from doing it hundreds of times every day. She also wondered how they dealt with the monotony of performing the same exact task the same exact way, day in and day out. Then again, she supposed that someone could say the same thing about her job or Mitch’s or a brain surgeon’s. Every job had its share of sameness. The challenge was to find a way to keep it fresh.

So what was Hank’s way?

Now he pulled up directly across from her at the Captain Chadwick House. Her zoom lens gave her a straight-on close-up view of Hank filling the mailboxes with the catalogues, junk mail and packages that had arrived on the early truck from Norwich. As he inched his way forward, box by box, Des watched his every move, snapping pictures in case she needed them. When he reached a box with a raised flag he paused to remove two unstamped envelopes. One he held on to. His Christmas tip, Des figured. The other he returned to the box. Lem’s plow money, she assumed. Maple Lane’s residents were still leaving cash out, grinch or no grinch. That was Dorset. Cranky Yankees did not, would not, change their ways.

Now Hank stopped and got out and went around to the back of the truck. He opened it and removed a carton from L.L. Bean. A big one, at least two feet square, though it didn’t weigh much judging by the way he was handling it. He locked the truck, just like he’d told Des he did, and clomped his way through the snow to Nan Sidell’s little farmhouse next door to Rut Peck’s. He set the box down on the front porch under the overhang and rang the bell. He was starting back to his truck when the front door opened and Nan, a middle-school teacher, called out to him. Hank stopped to accept a paper plate of cookies from her. They chatted there for a sec, both of them very animated.

Meanwhile, back at the Captain Chadwick House, one of its elderly residents was waddling through the deep snow down to the curb-none other than her good friend Bella Tillis, looking like Nanook of Nostrand Avenue in her hooded down jacket, fleece pants and duck boots equipped with bright orange Yaktrax snow grippers. The old girl must have been watching for Hank. Didn’t want to give that damned grinch a chance to snatch her mail. She collected it and went tromping back inside, her precious bubble-wrapped packages of meds clutched to her chest. Des couldn’t help smiling.

Hank had unlocked his truck and moved on. As he neared Town Hall a red Champlain Landscaping plow pickup turned onto Dorset Street from Big Branch and began working its way slowly along in Hank’s wake. It wasn’t there to plow-its blade was raised high up off of the ground. No, its driver was there to check out the contents of each and every mailbox, leafing carefully through the mail Hank had just delivered before returning it to the box. Sometimes all of it, sometimes not. Sometimes he held on to an envelope and took it with him back to his truck. Des sat there watching him through her zoom lens. He was incredibly calm as he stood there rummaging through other peoples’ mail. So damned calm she almost couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

She went back downstairs to her cruiser. Pulled it around to the street and caught up with the red truck, flashing her lights at him. When he came to a stop she got out, big Smokey hat planted firmly on her head, and approached him.

Pat Faulstich, the thick-necked young Swamp Yankee with the reddish see-through beard, sat there behind the wheel looking nervous. Same as he had at McGee’s Diner earlier that morning.

“How’s it going, Pat?” she asked, tipping her hat at him.

He cleared his throat, swallowing. “Was I speeding or something?”

“Nope.”

“Then why’d you pull me over?”

“You tell me. What in the heck are you doing?”

“Picking up Lem’s money.” He grabbed a dozen or more envelopes from the seat next to him and showed them to her. “Lem’s the one who usually picks ’em up but he’s at the hospital on account of Kylie so he told me to. I didn’t take anything. It’s all there, I swear. And I don’t have a thing in my pockets except my own money, which is like maybe seven dollars, okay?”

“You seem a bit defensive, Pat.” Agitated was more like it. “Why is that?”

He colored slightly. “I’m not. I just … why are you hassling me?”

“Mind if I look behind your seat?”

He shrugged his big shoulders. “Go right ahead. I got nothing to hide.”

The storage area behind his seat was a messy tangle of food wrappers, work gloves, sweatshirts, tools and jumper cables. She saw no U.S. Mail parcels back there. Nor on the floor beneath the dashboard. Nor on the seat next to him. There was a sheet of paper on the seat that appeared to be a computer printout of addresses. Several had been crossed out with a pen.

“Looking for something special, ma’am?”

Des showed him her smile. “Just looking.”

“I do what Lem tells me to. Ask him if you don’t believe me.”

“Thank you, Pat. I just may do that.”

“I got like forty-three driveways to do. Can I go now?”

“I don’t see why not. Are you planning to visit Kylie?”

Pat frowned at her. “Why would I want to do that?”

“I heard you two were tight.”

“We’ve hung out a few times. But she’s the boss’s daughter, you know? Plus Tina doesn’t like me.”

“Is Kylie tight with anyone else?”

“You’d know that better than me.”

“Would I?”

“Well, yeah. Nothing goes on around here you don’t know about, am I right?”

“Some days you are totally right, Pat. But then there are other days, days like today, when I realize that I haven’t got the faintest idea what’s happening.” She tipped her hat at him again. “Drive safe, okay?”

“I need a second opinion here, doughboy. Is Tina just playing harmless X-rated cyber-games or is she cheating on her husband?”

“It’s no game. She’s totally cheating on Lem.”

“Even though she and Matt have never actually bumped skin?”

“Tina’s emotionally and sexually involved with the guy. That means she’s having an affair with him.”

They were snuggled together on the love seat in front of a roaring fire, sipping Chianti and enjoying the aroma of Mitch’s meat loaf with pancetta and onions as it baked in the oven. He still had to mash the potatoes and sautee the chard. But he was in no hurry. He could sit here like this all night with Des, who had changed out of her uniform into the gray four-ply cashmere robe that he’d bought for her in Paris on his way home from the Cannes Film Festival. Clemmie and Quirt were nestled together in an easy chair. Des’s yellow string bikini was back up on the Chanukah bush where it belonged. Outside, the snow had turned to frozen rain. He could hear it tapping on the roof and windows. On the stereo was Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, a highly addictive vintage album from Neil Young’s Crazy Horse days.

“But, Mitch, it’s not real.”

“Beg to differ, little lady. How she feels about Matt is real. Her sexual responses are real. Therefore, the betrayal is real. We’re living in a not-so brave new world now. The line between real and virtual has gotten really blurred. There are a lot of lonely, unhappy people out there. Many of them are married people who are desperate to become someone, anyone, else. Dating sites allow them to create a whole new identity. They meet new people, get involved, get laid. They even fall in love.”

“That’s not real love. And it’s for damned sure not my idea of real sex.” Des sipped her wine, staring into the fire. “Sometimes I get the feeling that things have stopped making sense.”

“You’re not alone. I get that feeling a lot.”

“Does it scare you?”

“It can. But then I hug you and I’m not scared anymore.”

She leaned over and kissed him softly. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that. I get all gooey inside and then I’m no good for anything.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” He stroked her face, studying her with concern. “You look whipped.”

“Only because I am. After I visited the Champlains I had to log face time with my troop commander in Westbrook. Explain to him up, down and sideways why I didn’t just put out a BOLO on Kylie and let her go.”

“Are you going to get in trouble over this?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t provoke the chase. And I tried to talk her out of her car. I’ve got witnesses who’ll corroborate that. But I had to file a detailed incident report. And it’ll definitely be reviewed by Internal Affairs.”

“Sounds to me like we’d better watch Palm Beach Story after dinner.”

“Again? I’ve already watched that damned movie three times.”

“Is that all? Then we definitely need to see it. That sequence when Claudette Colbert escapes on the train with the Ale and Quail Club has to be the funniest ten minutes Preston Sturges ever filmed. Pure gold.” He got up and put another log on the fire. “You have no idea how lucky you are.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Is that right?”

“You could have gotten mixed up with a critic who’s a Danny Kaye fan. Then you’d be sorry. He’d make you sit through The Man From the Diner’s Club over and over and over again. No two ways about it-you dodged a bullet when you met me.”

Des gazed out the bay window at the lights in the windows next door. “How’s Josie holding up?”

“Amazingly well considering the day she’s had. First Bryce, then Kylie. Plus Casey Zander showed up out here and got creepy on her.”

“Creepy as in?…”

“He has a major crush on her. Josie asked him politely to go home. He refused. I had to encourage him. It got a little physical-nothing serious-before he finally left. After the funeral home people carted Bryce’s body away she started right in on her to-do list. She’s incredibly organized and take-charge. I guess it helps to be a professional life coach. When I left her she was already boxing up Bryce’s possessions. She has to call his attorney, Glynis, to find out what to do with them.” Mitch refilled their wineglasses and sat back down. “She and Casey were lucky they weren’t seriously hurt when Kylie slammed into her office. She’ll have a shiner from that ceiling tile whacking her in the eye but it could have been a lot worse.”

Des pulled in her stomach muscles ever so slightly. So slightly that most people wouldn’t have noticed it. Mitch wasn’t most people.

He sipped his wine, studying her over his glass. “There’s something you really want to avoid telling me. What is it?”

She looked at him in amazement. “I can’t hide a thing from you, can I?”

“Don’t even try.”

“Look, this is kind of awkward for me. I know that you like Josie.”

He nodded. “And I know that you don’t.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You get all stiff-necked whenever she’s around.”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Only to me. What do you want to tell me?”

“When I dashed into her office I found her having sex on the sofa with Casey. Rough sex. That’s how she got the shiner. Casey hit her in the eye. When I spoke to her about it she insisted that it was strictly a role-playing exercise. Casey has confidence issues with women and she’s been trying to help him out. I asked her point-blank if they’re romantically involved. She told me point-blank that they aren’t.”

“But you didn’t believe her.”

“Mitch, I saw what I saw.”

“She told me she got hit in the eye by a ceiling tile.”

“Casey’s the one who tangled with the ceiling tile. Josie lied to you.”

He listened to the frozen rain tapping on the roof, frowning. “I’ve been around a lot of world-class liars. I’m talking about movie producers, agents. She’s a damned good one.”

“How much has she told you about her background?”

“Josie isn’t someone who talks about her childhood. All I know is she grew up in Maine and graduated from Bates. She used to live with some guy up in Castine who liked to write sci-fi. After they broke up she moved down here and became a life coach.”

“She has a Web site. Have you ever checked it out?”

“No, I haven’t. Why?”

“Well, for starters her bio doesn’t say she graduated from Bates. It says she studied there. That’s a classic resume padder. If you audit a summer school class somewhere you can say you studied there. Her bio also boasts that she’s a fully accredited professional life coach. Remember how she mentioned that to us this morning?”

“I remember.”

“Do you have any idea what it actually means?”

“Not really.”

“It means that Josie completed an online degree program and then became officially certified by the American Life Coach Federation. Which sounds really impressive except, hello, it’s not. The American Life Coach Federation and the online degree program are one and the same entity. The outfit that enrolls you in its degree program-at a cost of around three grand-also serves as its very own certifying agency. Josie hasn’t been accredited by any official agency that’s regulated by the State of Connecticut. She bought her accreditation from a for-profit outfit.”

“So you think she’s a scam artist?”

“I think I’m not so sure how qualified she is to be doing what she’s doing. And after walking in on her and Casey getting sweaty, well, I’m not entirely sure what she’s doing.” Des trailed off into uncomfortable silence. “I’m not loving any of this. I know Josie’s your friend, and I’m fine with that.”

“Really? Because I’m not. I don’t stay friends with people who lie to my face. That’s generally a deal breaker for me.” The rain on the roof sounded quieter now. It had switched from frozen to plain old rain. “Did you get anywhere with our grinch?”

“I found out that it’s a whole lot bigger than some kids swiping Hank’s Christmas cookies. Prescription meds are disappearing. That’s serious business. I’m kicking it to the postal inspectors tomorrow. It’s their case.”

“Now that you bring it up something has occurred to me.”

“Um, okay, you brought it up. And something always occurs to you.” Des gazed at him sternly before she rolled her eyes and said, “What is it?”

“That the right answer’s often the most obvious one.”

“You mean that Hank’s been stealing the stuff himself?”

“Exactly.”

“That did occur to me,” she conceded. “It would explain why Paulette’s been acting so tense. Maybe she’s been thinking it, too. Last thing in the world she’d want to do is bring down her own boyfriend. But answer me this-why would Hank resort to stealing his own mail?”

“He has big-time money problems. According to Rut Peck he owes his ex-wife a fortune.”

“Paulette mentioned he’d had a personal setback. He even started smoking again. You do know who helped him quit, don’t you?”

“Are we back to Josie again?”

“Does Rut think that Hank’s capable of something that extreme?”

“Absolutely. Mind you, Rut’s not exactly Hank’s biggest fan.”

“Why not?”

“Because he sees him a rival for Paulette’s affections. Like I told you-Rut’s real sweet on her.”

“The only mail that’s been disappearing is the mail on Hank’s route,” she said slowly. “If Hank has serious money problems then you’d have to take a good, hard look at him. I watched him deliver packages up and down Dorset Street today. Didn’t see him do a thing that wasn’t kosher. But I’d just spoken with him at the Post Office. Maybe he was just being careful.”

“You’d have to catch him in the act, wouldn’t you?”

“I’d have to catch him with other people’s mail in his wrongful personal possession. Except it’s not going to be me. It’s the postal inspectors who’ll go at him. And they’ll go at him hard.”

“There’s no way around that?”

“If he turned himself in they might cut him a deal. He’d have to give up his buyer.”

“What buyer?”

“Someone has been gobbling up those stolen prescription meds. Hank would have to finger that individual along with whoever else he’s been doing business with. If he did that he’d have a chance. He’s a solid career employee, active in the community.”

“But he’d lose his job.”

“Hell yes, he’d lose his job. But if Hank’s our grinch then he’ll have to pay the price.” Her cell phone rang. Des reached for it on the coffee table and took the call, her face tightening as she listened. Then she rang off and started toward the bathroom. Her uniform was hanging on the back of the door in there. “You’d better eat dinner without me. I’m going to be gone for a while.”

“What is it, Des?”

“Another suicide, that’s what. Hank Merrill just took his own life.”

The roads were all slushy and soupy now that so much wind-driven rain was coming down on top of all of that snow. Absolutely no one else was out as Des splish-splashed her way up Route 156, the narrow country road that twisted its way north of the village alongside of the Connecticut River into Dorset’s rural farm country.

Her destination was Kinney Road, a remote little lane that ran straight down to the river. Two immense riverfront mansions had been built there a hundred or so years ago. Both places were dark and neither driveway had been plowed. Evidently their owners were spending the holiday season somewhere warm. The road itself had been plowed very recently. She knew this because the town’s big orange plow truck was idling there in the rain when she pulled into the small parking lot at the foot of Kinney, which was a real happening place during the summer. Folks put their kayaks and canoes into the water there. This time of year no one came around.

Hank Merrill’s black VW Passat was parked facing the river. A garden hose was attached to the Passat’s tailpipe with silver duct tape. The other end of the hose was poking through the top of the driver’s side window, which had been rolled up tight enough to hold it in place. The driver’s door was open, the car’s interior lights on. Madge Jewett was crouched there in the rain having a look at Hank while Mary talked to the town plowman, Paul Fiore, who’d phoned it in. The girls’ EMT van idled next to his plow truck.

Des buttoned her rain slicker and got out, tugging her big hat tight to her head. She started with Paul, a heavyset fellow who worked for the town full-time.

“I made one pass through here this afternoon,” he informed her, running a hand over his face. The man was very upset. “It must have been about three o’clock. Nobody was here. When I came through again just now I noticed the Passat parked over there with its engine running. Didn’t pay it much mind. Figured it was a couple of kids playing grab-ass. They like these out-of-the-way places, you know?”

“Sure, I know,” Des said to him gently.

“I’ve been plowing nonstop since five o’clock this morning, so maybe I’m not as alert as I should be. I’d practically…” Paul broke off, gulping. “I did almost the whole parking lot before I noticed that hose sticking out of the tailpipe. When I realized what I was looking at I jumped right out and shut off his engine. But I knew I was too late soon as I got a good look at him. His eyes were … staring at me. And I’ve never seen anyone that color before.”

“Paul, did you touch him or move him? It’s okay if you did. I just need to know.”

“No, ma’am. Just reached in and shut off the engine.”

“Okay, thanks. We’ll need a statement from you later, but you can take off now. I know you’ve still got work to do.”

“Paul’s going to hang out with me for a few more minutes,” cautioned Mary. “He’s had a bit of a shock.”

Now Des splashed her way over to the Passat.

“Hello yet again,” groused Marge. “Is it just me or is this turning into our worst day ever?”

“We’ve had better, that’s for damned sure.”

Hank was seated behind the wheel, eyes wide open, his face a bright cherry red-carbon monoxide poisoning turns the hemoglobin bright. He wore an L.L. Bean ski jacket, jeans and snow boots. His cell phone was on the passenger seat next to him, along with a roll of silver duct tape, a box cutter and a business card.

“That’s your card,” Marge mentioned to her.

It was the one she’d given Hank that morning at the Post Office. He’d wanted to talk to her in private. Had something he wanted to tell her. Now he was dead.

“Any sign of a suicide note?”

“Didn’t see one. Maybe he left it at home before he drove out here.”

Des moved in for a closer look-and smell. Hank reeked of whiskey. The whole interior of the car did. “Is that Scotch I’m smelling?”

“Smells like bourbon to me.”

“It’s really strong. Why is it so strong?” She sniffed here, there, everywhere. And discovered that Hank had spilled it here, there, everywhere. On his chest. On his pants. On the upholstery of his seat. “So, let’s see, he drove up here and drank a whole lot. Rigged up the hose with the tape, got back in, closed the door and…” She was reaching for Hank’s cell phone-maybe he’d called someone-when she suddenly noticed something and stopped herself, her heart beating faster now.

She fetched the big Maglite and a pair of latex gloves from her cruiser and came back, aiming the flashlight’s beam at Hank’s forehead. On his right temple, there was a highly distinctive purple bruise showing through the cherry red, a perfectly cylindrical ring that was about the diameter of a nickel. She’d seen a bruise just like it once before-when a very messed up Colchester man had pressed the muzzle of a Smith and Wesson.38 Special against his distraught wife’s head and held it there for several minutes before he finally made the decision to use the gun on himself.

Des went looking farther now. Carefully, she turned down the collar of Hank’s jacket. Found more purple bruising around the left side of his neck. Finger bruising, as if someone had gripped him and held him. There was also bruising beneath his lower lip just above his chin.

She stepped back out into the rain, her eyes flicking over Hank from head to toe. “He’s not wearing a hat.”

“A guy who’s getting ready to do himself in doesn’t usually worry about a wet head,” Marge pointed out.

“But that’s just it, Marge. His hair’s dry. So are his hands and his sleeves. Look at his boots. They’re dry. So is his floor mat. He’s dry all over-except for the rain that’s blown onto his leg because we have his door open.”

“So?…”

“So the duct tape and box cutter on the passenger seat over there still have beads of water on them.” She reached across Hank’s body with her left hand. “The back of the passenger seat is damp. And, hello, the floor mat in front of the passenger seat is missing.” She waved the Maglite behind the front seat, searching the floor in back. “I don’t see a bottle. Do you see a bottle?”

“He must have tossed it.”

Des went back to her ride for her Nikon D80 and photographed the wet items on the seat, along with Hank’s dry hair and boots, the flooring, all of it. She also photographed the pavement around the car, snapping pic after pic of the puddles in the pavement. Not that the pics would reveal a damned thing. Between Paul’s plowing and all of this damned rain coming down, any shoe prints or tire tracks that might have been left behind were history now-drowned, washed away, gone. But she took the photos anyway. Because there was no doubt in her mind that this was a crime scene. Hank Merrill hadn’t been alone out here in this remote spot. Someone else had been riding in the passenger seat of the Passat. Someone who’d held that gun to his head. And gripped him by the throat. And rigged up that hose to the Passat’s tailpipe to make it look as if Hank had committed suicide.

She phoned it in before she returned to Mary Jewett and Paul Fiore. “Paul, you don’t remember seeing a whiskey bottle on the ground, do you? Or broken glass?”

“I’m afraid not,” he replied.

She gazed over at the six-foot-high snowbanks that edged the parking lot. The plow truck could have shoved the shards of a broken bourbon bottle into any one of those banks. It would take an exhaustive daylight search to find them-assuming they were even there. “How about another car? When you turned onto Kinney Road did you notice someone else leaving this parking lot?”

“Trooper Des, I didn’t see anyone else here. Just him.”

Mary cleared Paul to take off now. Two troopers in cruisers arrived from Westbrook soon after that to secure the perimeter. Next came the crime-scene techies in their blue-and-white cube vans, grumbling about the rain. Then a death investigator from the medical examiner’s office.

Lastly, a dark blue slick-top arrived from Meriden and out climbed Lt. Yolie Snipes of the Major Crime Squad, Central District, and Sgt. Toni Tedone. Yolie, who was half black, half Cuban and all pit bull, had escaped the Frog Hollow Projects to start at point guard for Coach Vivian Stringer at Rutgers before she joined the Connecticut State Police. She was street tough, street-smart and fierce. Back in Des’s glory days, when it was she who was a hotshot lieutenant working homicides out of the Headmaster’s House, Des’s sergeant had been a Mr. Potato Head named Rico Tedone. The Tedones were big-time players in the Waterbury Mafia, the clan of Brass City Italian-American men that pretty much ran the state police. When they made Rico a lieutenant, the immensely capable Yolie had been chosen as his sergeant. And when Yolie moved up-a promotion that Des felt was long overdue-Rico’s younger cousin, Toni, became her sergeant. Toni looked about thirteen but, unlike Rico, she was sharp. She was also the very first Brass City boy who happened to be a girl. Toni was a feisty, lippy little thing-seventy percent big hair, thirty percent hooters. The older detectives called her Toni the Tiger. The younger ones called her Snooki, though never, ever to her face.

Yolie smiled hugely when she saw Des standing there in the rain. “It’s been too long, Miss Thing. Good to see you again.”

“Same here, Yolie.”

“What have you got for us?”

“Please say hello to Hank Merrill,” Des said, leading them through the rain-soaked techies who surrounded the Passat. “Hank’s my second suicide of the day. Except this one stinks out loud, as my grandma used to say. See these premortem bruises here, here and here? Somebody held a gun to this man’s head and restrained him and, judging by that bruise under his lip, made him drink down a whole lot of bourbon. He reeks of it. The whole car does. But there’s no bottle. He may have tossed it out the window-in which case the village plowman may have buried it under one of those man-sized snowbanks over there. A little something for us to deal with in daylight. Right now, let’s talk about what we’re supposed to be thinking.”

Yolie frowned at her. “Which is?…”

“That Hank got himself drunk, rigged that hose to the tailpipe-in the pouring rain-got back inside his car and waited to die. Except when I got here his hair and shoes were bone-dry. So was his floor mat. The duct tape and box cutters on that seat were wet. Still are, as you can see. The passenger seat’s damp. And the floor mat over there is missing. In my opinion, somebody frog-marched him into this car while it was parked in a nice, dry garage somewhere. Drove him up here, got him drunk at gunpoint and rigged up that hose to the tailpipe. Make that two somebodys.”

“Wait, why two?” Toni asked.

“There would have to be two,” Yolie answered. “One to ride along with the victim. The other to follow in a second car.”

“There had to be a second car,” Des said, nodding her head. “That’s how they fled the scene after they staged this. They picked themselves a perfect spot. No one around to see them drive away. I’d classify them as clever but not smart. They think they know what they’re doing but they don’t.”

“A pair of real amateurs.” Yolie glanced around at the wet pavement surrounding the Passat. “Were there any shoe prints or tire tracks when you got here?”

Des shook her head. “The rain washed them all away.”

“Let’s get us the hell out of it,” Yolie said, starting back toward the shelter of their slick-top. She and Toni climbed into the front seat. Des got in back. “So talk to me, girl. Was Hank Merrill into anything stanky?”

Des was about to answer her when she felt a major sneezing fit coming on, the kind for which there was only one possible explanation. “I’m sorry, but is one of you wearing patchouli?”

“That would be me,” Toni said. “Why?”

Yolie let out a laugh. “Girl, I have tried to set her straight but she won’t listen to me. You tell her.”

“I like patchouli,” Toni said defensively. “It smells sexy.”

“Actually, it smells like the lobby of a massage parlor,” Des sniffled. “And I don’t mean the day-spa kind. Will someone please crack a window so I can breathe?”

Yolie lowered the windows enough to let some fresh, cold air in.

“Hank Merrill was a postal carrier here in town,” Des informed them as the rain beat down on the car’s roof. “He was also assistant fire chief, coached the high school girls’ basketball team and played tuba in the town band. He was divorced, no kids. Lived with the village postmaster, Paulette Zander.”

“Have you notified her yet?” Yolie asked.

“Was just about to when you showed up.”

“Why would anyone want to kill him?”

“Hank may have been mixed up in something. Stuff has been going missing on his route for the past couple of weeks. At first glance, it looked small-time. Someone swiping his Christmas cookies, tips and-”

“Wait, people in Dorset bake cookies for the mailman?” Toni shook her big hair in amazement. “Who lives here-the Keebler Elves?”

“But the deeper I got into it the more it started to smell like something for the postal inspectors. Items of real street value have been disappearing. We’re talking about retail gift cards, DVDs, iPods and-brace yourself because this is going to hurt-shipments of prescription meds.”

“Oh no, you didn’t,” Yolie groaned.

“Oh, yes, I did. Hank’s route was the Historic District. That’s the highest concentration of people in Dorset. A lot of them are older people who get all kinds of meds and those meds are being stolen.”

Yolie took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “The Narcotics Task Force broke up a black-market meds ring in Bridgeport a few months back. It’s big money stuff. You think he was into it?”

“Either that or he stumbled onto someone who is. I spoke to him at the Post Office this morning. He was very forthcoming and cooperative, but he also asked if we could speak later in private. I gave him my card. It’s sitting right there on his passenger seat. He had something more he wanted to tell me, Yolie. And now he’s dead.”

“And we’re going to be in a world-class pissing contest,” Yolie fumed. “You do not bump off a mailman. By tomorrow morning the postal inspectors will be all up in my grille. So will the FBI. And you just know they have to be in charge because they are the FBI. Our Narcotics Task Force will want in, too. Plus it’s the week before Christmas.” She glowered across the seat at Des. “Thank you large for this.”

Des smiled at her sweetly. “Yolie, I do what I can.”

“Did the victim have any money troubles?” Toni asked.

“I hear he was into his ex-wife big-time. Mitch is the one who got wind of it-by way of a friend who didn’t have much use for Hank.”

“Any chance this friend might have killed him?”

“No, he’s over eighty years old. Can barely get around.” Then again, Des reflected, if Rut Park wanted someone to take care of Hank he had dozens of loyal friends who owed him favors. Would they do him this kind of a favor?

“Something’s bothering me, Loo…,” Toni said slowly.

“Then spit it the hell out, Sergeant,” Yolie barked. She rode the kid hard. Was supposed to. Plus it amused her. “Don’t waste the resident trooper’s valuable time by telling me you’ve got something to tell me. Just say it.”

“Right, Loo. Sorry, Loo. If the victim brushed up against a black-market meds ring then we are talking about some real bad boys. The kind of boys who’d put a bullet in your head. They wouldn’t bother to stage a suicide. Someone went to a whole lot of extra trouble here. Why?”

“Good question, Sergeant,” Des said. “I wish I had an answer for you. All I know is that Hank was one of my people and I let him down.”

“You’re taking this kind of personally, aren’t you?” Toni said.

“Miss Desiree Mitry takes everything personally,” Yolie lectured her. “Miss Desiree Mitry cares. That’s why she’s good at her job. You feeling me, Sergeant?”

Toni nodded her head convulsively. “Absolutely, Loo.”

Yolie gazed at Des curiously. “Sorry, did you say this was your second suicide of the day?”

“First one was Bryce Peck, Mitch’s neighbor out on Big Sister.”

“Any chance that one wasn’t a suicide either?”

“To me it played suicide all of the way. But given what’s happened here we certainly ought to take a…” Des’s cell phone interrupted her. She glanced down at its screen. “Paulette Zander’s calling me. I’d better take this.”

“Go for it.”

“I’m so sorry to bother you, Des,” Paulette said when Des answered. “But I–I’m a bit … I’m worried about Hank.” Her voice was faint and halting. “He went out before dinner and he hasn’t come back and I–I don’t know where he is. This … isn’t like him.”

“What time did he leave, Paulette?”

“It was about 5:30, I think. But he doesn’t have band practice tonight. It was cancelled. Everything’s been cancelled. And he sent me the strangest text message. I was downstairs doing laundry and I didn’t notice it until just now.”

“What does his message say?”

“Here, I can read it to you … It says, ‘It’s all my fault. I messed up. Sorry for everything. Take care of yourself.’”

“And what time did he send this?”

“I got it at 7:13.”

About thirty minutes before Paul Fiore phoned 911 from Kinney Road.

“I’m probably overreacting,” Paulette went on. “But I just wondered if there’ve been any accidents on the road tonight or-or…” She trailed off into uneasy silence. “Have there?”

Des didn’t like to break this kind of bad news to a loved one over the phone. Doing it in person was much more humane. “Paulette, how about if I stop by and we talk about this, okay? I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Then she rang off and said, “That cell phone on the seat next to Hank just got a whole lot more interesting. He texted a suicide note to his girlfriend.”

Yolie frowned at her. “So maybe it is a suicide.”

“Or maybe he texted her at gunpoint. Then again, maybe he didn’t text her. Maybe one of his killers did.”

“We don’t usually have much luck getting developed prints off of those teeny-tiny buttons. But we might get one off of the phone itself.” Yolie sat there in brooding silence for a moment. “Damn, where were we?…”

“Today’s first suicide, Loo,” Toni reminded her.

“For breakfast in bed this morning Bryce Peck washed down a boatload of Vicodin, Xanax and Ambien with a fifth of Cuervo Gold. I saw no sign of a struggle. No bruises. No scratches. Nothing in the room was disturbed. Bryce had a long history of depression and substance abuse. He left a handwritten note. And he died out on Big Sister. It’s a private island. No one else was out there this morning besides Bryce, Mitch and Bryce’s live-in girlfriend, Josie Cantro. Josie and Mitch went out running together for about an hour. She found Bryce when she got home. Like I said, to me it played suicide. But I could have missed something. You may want to fast track his autopsy. The M.E. doesn’t usually get around to suicides for days.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Yolie said, shoving her lower lip in and out. “Bryce Peck OD’d on prescription meds. Any chance he was mixed up in stealing the meds from Hank Merrill’s route?”

“Anything’s possible, but I kind of doubt it. Bryce was a loner.”

“Well, is there any connection at all between the two men?”

“Josie Cantro. Both men were clients of hers. She’s a life coach.”

Yolie raised her eyebrows. “She’s a what?”

“Life coach. One of those gung-ho types who help you to lose weight or whatever.”

“Oh, is that what those bitches are calling themselves now?”

“Before Josie moved in with Bryce she was helping him get off of the Vicodin and Xanax. She helped Hank quit smoking. It so happens she’s also treating Paulette’s twenty-eight-year-old son, Casey.”

“Wheels within wheels,” Yolie said with a shake of her head. “Next I suppose you’re going to tell us Casey’s a mail carrier, too.”

Des nodded. “Part-time.”

“Shut up!” Toni exclaimed.

“And I haven’t even brought out the real funk. I walked in on Casey and Josie getting busy on her office sofa this morning. They like it rough.”

“Shut up!”

“Would you stop that?” Yolie roared at Toni. “This is a murder investigation, not a slumber party!”

“Mind you, Josie assured me that it absolutely, positively wasn’t what it looked like. That she was simply helping Casey with his self-esteem issues. All I know is I found them buck naked together not two hours after her boyfriend did himself in.”

“She sounds like a real slice,” Yolie said.

“She’s a real something.”

Yolie peered at her curiously. “Have you got more on her?”

“Nothing solid, but something about her feels wrong.”

“I hear you. She one of those perky girl types?”

“Real perky.”

“I hate perky. Always want to punch perky. Why else don’t you like her? Aside from the fact that she’s a blonde, I mean.”

“I don’t recall saying she was a blonde.”

“You didn’t have to. Your neck muscles gave you away.”

“Okay, that’s it. I have to start working on my body language.”

“Is Josie hot?” Toni asked.

“Plenty hot. Although her butt’s kind of big.”

“I thought black people liked big butts.”

“She ain’t black,” Yolie pointed out gruffly.

Des heard a truck pulling up behind them. She turned and looked out of the car’s rear window. “Well, lookie-lookie. This same bad penny just keeps turning up. Excuse me for a sec, will you?”

She got out and strode across the parking lot in the rain. A red Champlain Landscaping plow pickup was idling just beyond the perimeter of the crime scene with its window rolled down so that the driver could get a better look at what was going on.

“Evening, Pat,” she said, tipping her big hat at him. “Anything I can do for you?”

“No, ma’am,” Pat Faulstich said, then gulped nervously. “Just came out this way to plow the Beckman and Sherman places. Saw all of these lights and everything. What’s going on?”

“Someone did himself in, it appears.”

Pat’s eyes widened. “Another suicide? Who is it?”

“Can’t share that information with you, Pat. I haven’t informed the next of kin yet. Did you see that black Passat parked here when you came through earlier?”

“This is my first pass. I don’t usually do Kinney Road at all. Lem does. He asked me to on account of he’s still at the hospital with Kylie.”

“How is Kylie doing?”

“She’s out of surgery but she’ll have to stay there for a couple of days.”

“Take her some flowers. She’ll really appreciate it.”

He considered this, his brow furrowing. “You think?”

“I know. I’m a woman, remember? Are the Beckmans in town?”

“No, they winter over in Bermuda. When I cleared their leaves last month they were getting ready to take off.”

“Do they have a housekeeper or caretaker? Anyone staying there?”

“No, ma’am. They shut off the water, bleed their pipes, all of that. So do the Shermans, who’ve got like five, six other houses around the world. But these rich types still want their driveways plowed regular even when they aren’t around. Well, I’d better get to it,” he said wearily. “Still got seventeen more driveways to do before I can hit the Rustic. I need a beerski so bad I can practically taste it.”

Des watched Pat back up his truck and angle it around so that he was facing the Beckmans’ driveway. Then she started her way back to Yolie and Toni, who were over by the Passat now, getting wet and cold with the techies.

“Who was that?” Yolie asked her.

“Plow boy named Pat Faulstich. I spotted him rummaging through Hank’s mailboxes this afternoon. Thought maybe I had me something until I checked with his boss, Lem Champlain, who confirmed that he’d asked Pat to check the mailboxes.”

“Check them for what?” asked Toni.

“People leave Lem’s money out in their boxes for him. It’s been disappearing along with everything else.”

“They leave money in their mailboxes? Seriously, do they know what century this is?”

Yolie watched the lights of Pat’s truck as he plowed his way up the driveway, powering back and forth, back and forth. “I’m thinking it’s funny him turning up here right now.”

Des nodded her head. “Downright hilarious.”

Those gleefully madcap P alm Beach Story opening credits were just starting to roll when she knocked on his door.

“Come on in, naybs!” Mitch called out, his mouth stuffed full of meat loaf and mashed potatoes.

Josie came in out of the rain wearing a bright yellow hooded slicker and matching yellow rain boots, a plastic bag tucked under one arm. She looked tired and defeated, which wasn’t at all typical of the Josie Cantro Mitch knew. But Josie hadn’t exactly had a typical day. Plus that swollen left eye of hers was turning into a real shiner.

Mitch set his dinner plate down on the coffee table and hit the pause button on his DVD remote. “How’s your eye doing?”

“It’s fine,” she said quietly. “It’s nothing.”

“Still, those ceiling tiles can do a lot of damage. You’re lucky you weren’t blinded.”

She studied him a bit curiously. “I guess.”

“Have you eaten? I made lots.”

“I’m not hungry, thanks. But, please, you go right ahead.”

“Okay, you talked me into it. Have you ever seen Palm Beach Story?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then you absolutely must. Have a seat.”

Josie just stood there, swallowing uneasily. Which, again, wasn’t at all typical of her. “Mitch, could we talk instead?”

He flicked off the TV and said, “Sure thing. How about a glass of wine?”

“A glass of wine would be great.”

He went into the kitchen to fetch it for her. By the time he returned she’d taken off her wet slicker and boots and settled herself on the loveseat next to Clemmie and Quirt. She wore an oversized charcoal-gray sweater of Bryce’s, jeans and thick wool socks. Her long, shiny mane of blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Mitch put another log on the fire, then sat back down with his dinner and resumed shoveling.

Josie sipped her wine. “Are you sure I’m not interrupting anything?”

“Positive. Des had to duck out on an emergency call.”

“I noticed that her car was gone. Otherwise I wouldn’t have barged in on you like this. Was it anything serious?”

“I’m afraid it was. Hank Merrill committed suicide tonight. Attached a hose to the tailpipe of his car.”

She gaped at him in shock. “God, I can’t believe it. Hank was such a nice man. And he seemed so happy at Rut’s party. Do they have any idea why he?…”

“You know as much as I do.”

“Damn…” Josie slumped against the back of the sofa. “I guess this makes it official-I totally and completely suck at my job.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Mitch, two of my clients have committed suicide in the same day. That’s not exactly something I’ll be posting on my Web site.” She shook herself and reached for the plastic bag she’d brought. “I wanted to return the Randolph Scott movies you loaned us. Also your collection of Manny Farber essays.”

“Okay…” Mitch cleaned his plate and sat back on the loveseat. The cats rearranged themselves around him for warmth. “Talk to me, naybs. Is returning my stuff item sixteen on your to-do list or is something else going on?”

Josie took another sip of wine, gazing down into her glass. “I had it on my list to call Bryce’s lawyer, Glynis, but she beat me to it. I just got off the phone with her.”

“What did she have to say?”

“Something kind of … stunning. It seems that Bryce paid her a visit last week.”

This much Mitch already knew. Rut had told him. “Any particular reason?”

“He wanted her to draw up his will for him.”

“Bryce didn’t have a will?”

“Not until last week, according to Glynis.”

“I wonder if that means he was, you know, planning to do what he did.”

“I wondered about that, too,” Josie said.

“Why did Glynis call you tonight?”

“To let me know that Bryce left the house on Big Sister to me. It’s mine, Mitch, free and clear. Or it will be as soon as his estate clears probate. She also wanted to warn me that I’m going to have a nasty fight on my hands.”

“What kind of a nasty fight?”

“Apparently, as soon as Des notified Preston Peck that Bryce was dead Preston phoned Glynis to inform her he’d be on the next plane out of Chicago to come here and kick me the hell out. She had to tell him not so fast, cowboy. And Preston went absolutely ballistic. As far as he’s concerned the Big Sister house belongs to the Peck family and it’s going to stay in the Peck family. Glynis thinks he’ll contest the will. Fight me in court over it, knowing that I’m not someone who can afford a long, drawn-out legal battle.”

“That sounds really pleasant.”

“Doesn’t it? Glynis wants me to stand my ground. She gave me the names of two lawyers who she said are very good.”

Mitch sipped his wine, peering at her. “You didn’t know anything about this?”

“I had no idea.”

“Bryce didn’t tell you that he’d drawn up his will?”

“No.”

“Did he tell you that he’d been to see Glynis?”

“No. And please stop interrogating me, will you?”

“Sorry, I guess I’ve been around Des too long.” Mitch listened to the rain pounding on the roof. “I wonder why he didn’t tell you.”

“It doesn’t surprise me in the least. Bryce could be very secretive. The weird thing is I don’t even want the damned house.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not mine. It’ll never feel like mine.”

“If that’s the case then your lawyer can probably make a deal with the Peck family.”

Josie stared into the fire. “Glynis did mention something like that. Reaching a financial settlement, I mean. It just … It seems so crass and disgusting to be talking about money while Bryce is still lying in a body bag somewhere. As far as I’m concerned Preston can just take the damned place. I don’t belong out here. And I for damned sure have no business being a life coach. I’ve messed up everyone who I’ve come in contact with. Bryce chose death over sharing his life with me. Casey is a clinging nutso. And now Hank is gone, too. I’m no good at what I do, Mitch. I’m no good, period.”

“That’s not true, Josie. You’ve helped a lot of people. They count on you. I know I do. I’d miss you if you weren’t around.”

She looked at him searchingly. “Do you really mean that?”

“I really do. Who’ll run with me every morning if you leave?”

She was still looking at him. “Des told you, didn’t she? About finding me on the sofa with Casey. I can see it in your eyes.”

Mitch reached over and stroked Clemmie, who stirred from her nap and began to make small motorboat noises. “See what, Josie?”

“That you’re wondering about me now. Trying to figure out if I’m a scheming, money-grubbing slut. I’m not, Mitch. And I’m sorry I lied to you about what happened. Friends shouldn’t do that to each other.”

“You’re right, they shouldn’t. So why did you?”

“Because I didn’t want you to think less of me. You have no idea how much I look up to you. Mitch, if I lose you I’ll never make it through this. Are you still my friend?”

“Sure, I am,” he said, because it was what she needed to hear. “Don’t sweat it. You’ve got enough to worry about. Seriously, are you thinking about leaving town?”

She nodded her head. “It’s time for me to move on.”

“Will you go back to Maine?”

She glanced at him sharply. “Why would I want to do that?”

“It’s where you’re from, isn’t it?”

“Why are you suddenly asking me about Maine?”

“Just curious. You don’t talk much about your childhood.”

“So?”

“So most people do. Have you got any brothers or sisters?”

“I had a father,” she said quietly. “He was a logger and a mean drunk. Used to beat the crap out of my mother and me every Saturday night. He took off for good when I was twelve. After that, it was just mom and me freezing our asses off in a drafty trailer. I’m trailer-park trash through and through, Mitch. I ran away when I was sixteen. I’ve been on my own ever since. I put myself through school. I’ve never had anyone to look after me-especially a big brother.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning you’re the first male friend I’ve ever had who hasn’t tried to get in my pants. You don’t even joke about it.”

“I’m in a committed relationship, remember?”

“Yeah, like that’s ever stopped any of you.”

“You haven’t met many nice Jewish boys, have you?”

“I haven’t met many nice boys, period.”

“So how do you like it? Having a big brother, I mean.”

“I’m not sure. I still can’t decide whether I should be insulted or flattered.”

“Try flattered. I’ve never had a kid sister. And I don’t want you to leave. Please stay, Josie. If you go away then I’ll have Preston Peck for a neighbor and that would be too heinous to contemplate. Promise me you’ll think about staying, okay?”

“Okay,” she conceded reluctantly. “I’ll think about it.”

“Good. Now how about watching Palm Beach Story with me? I promise that you’ll laugh nonstop.”

“No, thanks. I have a ton of stuff to do.” She got up and retrieved her rain slicker and boots, smiling that great big smile of hers. “But thanks, naybs. For everything.”

“Any time, naybs,” he said, thinking that she seemed much more like her usual sunny, upbeat self again.

Unless, of course, it was all an act. Which he had to admit was entirely possible. Because it was becoming more and more obvious to Mitch with each passing hour that he really didn’t know Josie Cantro at all.

Paulette Zander’s house was a dreary little raised ranch, just like a lot of the other houses on Grassy Hill Road, a blue-collar enclave up near Uncas Lake. The door of her two-car garage was open. Her Nissan Pathfinder was parked in one space. The other space was empty. No cars were parked in the driveway.

Des rang the doorbell and stood in the rain listening to the thudding of footsteps as Paulette came to the door. She did not relish this. Delivering bad news to loved ones was the hardest thing she had to do-especially when the circumstances called for her to be less than completely candid. At this stage of the investigation she had to paint Hank’s death as the suicide that it was meant to look like. She couldn’t let on that they felt sure he’d been murdered. Not when there was a chance, however remote, that Paulette was mixed up in it herself.

When Paulette opened the door she had on the same sweater and slacks that she’d been wearing at the Post Office that morning. “He still hasn’t shown up,” she told Des warily. “Have you heard anything?”

“May I come in, Paulette?”

The house was even drearier on the inside-the ceilings low, the harvest gold shag carpeting worn and dingy. The stale, overheated air smelled like dirty laundry. Des removed her wet slicker and hat and hung them on a peg rack by the front door. The living room, which was right off of the entry hall, was crowded full of Hank’s tubas-three of them, to be exact-a Christmas tree and an elaborate electric train set that looked as if it dated back to the 1950s. Paulette led Des down a short hallway to the dining room, which had been converted into a TV room. A matched pair of huge plush recliners sat parked in front of a sixty-inch flat-screen TV. Paulette seemed to be watching a reality show about hoarders. Des had always wondered who watched such shows. Now she knew. On an end table between the giant recliners there was a gallon jug of Carlo Rossi Chablis, a half-empty wineglass, an ashtray and a pack of Marlboros. Des could smell spaghetti sauce simmering through the open kitchen doorway. And see that the kitchen table was set for two. The lady was still waiting for her man to come home for dinner.

Paulette flicked off the TV and flopped down in one of the recliners, motioning Des toward the other one. “Can I get you anything?”

“I’m all set, thanks.” Des perched on the edge of the recliner while Paulette took a big gulp of wine, then lit a cigarette, pulling on it deeply. “I don’t recall seeing you smoke before.”

“I quit two years ago,” she said with a casual wave of her hand. The lady was more than a bit tipsy, Des realized. “Found these down in Casey’s room. Not my old brand, but who gives a crap. You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?”

“It’s your house, Paulette. Where is Casey?”

“At the Rustic, same as every night. He and all of the other boys. It’s their little clubhouse.”

“When did he leave?”

“After dinner, same as always.”

“You were saying on the phone that Hank didn’t come home from work?”

“No, he came straight home.” She flicked her cigarette ash in the general direction of the ashtray. “Fiddled around with his train set for a while. He drags the silly thing out of the attic every Christmas and sets it up and watches it go around and around. He’s had it ever since he was a little boy. You wouldn’t believe how happy it makes him. Then he put on his coat and told me he had to check on something at the firehouse before dinner.”

“Such as what?”

Paulette let out a hollow laugh. “How would I know? He’s in and out of there all of the time. They all are. The firehouse is their little clubhouse. It’s where they go when they want to get away from us. That’s how men are. But Hank’s Mr. Reliable. He’s always back in time for dinner. You can set your watch by Hank.” She stubbed out her cigarette, her face tightening. “I gave Casey his dinner at 6:30 so he could take off for the Rustic. When Hank still wasn’t back by 7:00, I started to get ticked off. It’s a rotten night out there and I’m sitting here all by myself. I tried his cell phone, but it was turned off.”

“Did you leave him a voice message?”

“I sure did. And when he didn’t call me back I started getting worried. I was going to try him again when I noticed the text message that he’d sent me. It sounded so unlike him. Also kind of … scary. That’s why I called you. Maybe I’m making something out of nothing. If I am I’m sorry to drag you out like this.”

Des cleared her throat. “Actually, you didn’t. I was already out. There’s no easy way to say this, Paulette, but we’ve found Hank’s Passat by the boat launch at the end of Kinney Road. He hooked up one end of a garden hose to the tailpipe, stuck the other end through his window and-”

“Oh, no…” Paulette’s eyes bulged with fright. “Are you telling me he’s dead?”

“I’m afraid so. I’m sorry.”

Paulette groped for another cigarette and lit it, her hands trembling. “That’s why you didn’t say anything on the phone, isn’t it? I knew it. As soon as you told me you were coming by I knew it was going to be bad news. I–I thought maybe he’d been in an accident. The roads being so bad and all. But not something like-like this.” She shook her head slowly from side to side. “That text message … that was his suicide note, wasn’t it?”

“It certainly appears that way. Shall I call Casey for you at the Rustic? Have him come home?”

“No, I’m fine,” Paulette said softly, reaching for her wineglass.

“Was Hank acting unusual this evening? Did he seem depressed?”

“He’s been upset about those thefts on his route. I wouldn’t say he was depressed. Hank doesn’t … didn’t get depressed. He was real even tempered.”

“And how were things going between you two? Were you happy?”

Paulette stared at her blankly. “Happy? You’re kidding me, right? I haven’t met anyone who’s happy in a really, really long time. But I thought we were doing okay. We enjoyed each other’s company. Laughed a little. Made love a little. Not as much as we used to but that’s to be expected, right?”

“Was Hank a big drinker?”

“He liked his beer.”

“How about bourbon?”

“Not real often. Why?”

“He smelled strongly of it when we found him.”

Paulette furrowed her brow. “There’s a half-bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the kitchen cupboard, I think. It’s been in there for at least a year.”

“Would you mind checking to see if it’s still there?”

Paulette got up out of her recliner and went into the kitchen. “Still here,” she called out, returning with it. “I guess … he must have bought a bottle somewhere.”

“Must have.”

Paulette put the bottle of Jack Daniel’s down on the kitchen table and retrieved her wineglass, swaying slightly as she stood there. “Hank was the grinch, wasn’t he? That’s why he did himself in-because you were closing in on him. That text he sent me, when he said, ‘It’s all my fault. I messed up.’ That was him confessing.”

“It’s too soon to know at this point. Anything I say would be speculation, and I don’t like to speculate. May I see the text message?”

Paulette fetched her cell from the arm of her recliner, found Hank’s text message and held it out to her. Des studied it carefully. It was just as Paulette had reported it, word for word. “It’s all my fault. I messed up. Sorry for everything. Take care of yourself.” All very neat and correct. No typos. No text speak. And she’d received it when she’d said she had-at 7:13.

“You said you left him a voice message?”

Paulette nodded. “It should be on my call log. There it is, see? I called him at 7:07.”

“Paulette, I’m going to need to borrow your phone for a day or two.”

“Fine.” She sat back down in her recliner, sighing morosely. “It’s not much to grab on to, is it? He didn’t say he loved me or he’d miss me. He just said ‘Take care.’ Like I was one of his firehouse buddies.” Paulette gulped down some more wine. “What happens now?”

“The postal inspectors will be contacting you in the morning, I imagine. They’ll no doubt want to look into what’s been happening on Hank’s route. Try to determine if, say, he had money troubles.”

“Tell them to talk to his bitch of an ex-wife,” Paulette said angrily. “Her and that lawyer of hers. They tormented the poor man constantly about money. All because his mother committed the cardinal sin of dying. He sold her house and made a few dollars. Worked day and night and made a few dollars more. And for that they hounded him and hounded him.…”

“Paulette, do you think Hank was stealing his own mail?”

Dorset’s postmaster considered her reply for a long moment. “It wasn’t like him to pull something sneaky. Hank was the ultimate Boy Scout. His friends and neighbors felt safe having him coach their teenaged daughters. That’s saying something, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“But it sure looks like he was up to no good,” Paulette admitted. “I’d have to be an idiot not to see that. I just find it hard to believe, that’s all.”

“If Hank was stealing prescription meds then he must have had a buyer. Do you have any idea who he might have been dealing with? Did he make regular trips to New Haven or New London during the course of the week? Mention a friend who he visited? Anything like that?”

Paulette shook her head. “Nothing like that. But he did know a lot of people here in town. Maybe one of his firehouse or marching-band buddies put him in touch with someone. And he worked at John’s barber shop every Saturday. God only knows what sort of riffraff slithers in and out of there.” She heaved a pained sigh. “We could have licked it together. Taken out a second mortgage on this place. Sold one of our cars. Who cares? It’s only money. But Hank wouldn’t let me help him. He just kept saying, ‘It’s my baggage, not yours.’ He was a stubborn bastard. They’re all stubborn bastards.”

“Paulette, are you positive you don’t want me to call Casey for you? I’m sure he’ll want to come straight home.”

“The Rustic is his home. This is just where he sleeps.”

“Is there anybody I can call for you?”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“So someone can be with you. You shouldn’t be alone at a time like this.”

“I am alone,” she said, reaching for her wineglass. “I’m going to be alone for the whole rest of my life. I may as well start getting used to it.”

“Awfully darned nice of you to do this, Mitch.”

“My pleasure, Rut. Well, not a pleasure. But I’m happy to do it.”

The old postmaster was riding next to him in the Studey. Rut had spent another night in his house on Maple Lane, what with the torrents of rain falling on top of all of that snow. Mitch was driving him back to his room at Essex Meadows, with a stopover to pay a call on Paulette, his grieving protege.

“Don’t know what to say to her,” Rut grumbled. “I never know what to say after somebody’s gone.”

“You don’t have to say a thing. It’s enough that you’re showing up.”

It was a bright, beautiful morning. The air was incredibly fresh. But it was also chilly enough that last night’s rain had frozen over in the hours before dawn, leaving a gleaming coat of ice behind. Mitch had to take a scraper to his pickup’s windshield and spray its door handles with WD-40 before he could pry the doors open. Frozen puddles remained here and there on the plowed road surfaces, although those would be thawing soon. It was supposed to climb into the toasty upper thirties by the afternoon.

He’d expected to find many cars parked outside of Paulette’s raised ranch on Grassy Hill Road. This was Dorset. Friends and neighbors always showed up when you were hurting. Yet only Casey’s blue Toyota Tacoma was parked in the driveway.

Rut sat in his heavy wool coat staring at the house. “She doesn’t have any family to be with her. Her parents are dead. And the folks at the Post Office need to get their work done. They’ll stop by later to pay their respects, I imagine. Paulette isn’t the sort who makes a lot of friends. But Hank had a million of them.” The old man heaved a reluctant sigh. “Guess we’d better go on in. It’s not getting any warmer in this here truck. You should have the heater looked at, young fella.”

“Rut, there is no heater.”

“Well then, that explains it.”

Paulette’s front walk and steps hadn’t been salted or sanded. The brick pavers were perilously slick.

“You’d better hold on to me, Rut. I don’t want you to fall.”

“I don’t want me to fall either,” Rut said, grabbing hold of Mitch’s arm with a grip of iron.

They made it up the steps to the frozen welcome mat. Mitch rang the bell.

Paulette opened the door, smelling strongly of wine and cigarettes. Her face softened when she saw Rut standing there. “Hello, Rutherford,” she murmured, blinking back tears.

“Hey there, young lady,” he said gently, stepping inside to give her a hug. “Anybody else here?”

“Not right now. A bunch of neighbors came by with casserole dishes but I sent them packing. Why do people always bring casserole dishes when somebody dies? Hank’s dead and so, what, I’m suddenly supposed to be in the mood for ham and scalloped potatoes?”

Mitch stood there salivating. Maybe she wasn’t, but he sure was. He had a nice big hunk of Harrington’s ham in the fridge, too. Plenty of Yukon Golds. Assorted bits of stinky Cato Corner Farm cheeses. Yummy.

“I didn’t feel like talking to anyone,” Paulette added, leading them inside past her cluttered living room, which Mitch noticed had a really cool vintage Lionel train set all laid out and ready to go. “Besides, a postal inspector from New York City showed up here at the crack of dawn and grilled me for a solid hour. Get this, will you? They’re bringing in a temporary supervisor from Norwich. I have to stay home for a few days.”

“That’s because you’re grieving,” Rut said to her. “You should take some time off. And I’m sure he wasn’t grilling you. Just following procedure.”

“No, he was definitely grilling me. Treated me like I don’t know how to do my job. He was a nasty little man. I didn’t care for his tone at all.”

There were two big recliners in the TV room, which smelled of cigarette smoke and dirty laundry. The television was turned off but Mitch could hear a TV blaring from somewhere else in the house. Paulette sat down in one of the recliners and lit a cigarette. A half-empty gallon jug of cheap Chablis and a wineglass were on the end table next to her.

She poured some wine into the glass. “Care for any?”

Rut said, “Kind of early in the day, isn’t it?”

“I’m taking a personal day. That means I can do anything I personally feel like doing, which happens to be getting slightly blitzed.” She gazed up at the old man, her eyes crinkling. “Why did he do it, Rutherford?”

“I don’t know the answer to that, hon.”

“I would have helped him. I would have done anything for him. He didn’t have to steal.”

“Slow yourself down. You don’t know for a fact that Hank was stealing.”

“He texted me. He said it was all his fault.”

“The man was preparing to take his own life. There’s no telling what he meant by that. He could have been referring to how unhappy he was. Trying to let you know that it was his own doing, as opposed to something you might have said or done. That makes sense, doesn’t it, Mitch?”

“Yes, it does.”

“Sure it does. So don’t get out ahead of yourself, okay?”

“I just wish … If Hank felt cornered and desperate he should have told me.”

“You’re right, he should have. But fellas aren’t made that way. We don’t go crying to mommy.”

Mitch nodded. “We’re taught from a very early age that it’s a sign of weakness.”

“Is that right?” Paulette shot back. “Tell me, what’s weaker than killing yourself?”

Mitch had no answer for that. “Do you mind if I get a glass of water?”

“Go right ahead.”

He went into the kitchen, where the counter was crowded with those casserole dishes from Paulette’s neighbors. He could hear the TV louder from in here-it was coming from down in the basement. The door to the basement stairs was open. A plastic laundry basket heaped with dirty clothes was parked there, which explained the ripe aroma. Mitch nudged the basket aside with his foot and started down the steep wooden stairs.

A lot of people who owned raised ranches made an effort to convert the basement into an extra room. They installed paneling and flooring. Dropped a ceiling to cover the electrical conduits and copper pipes that ran along the joists overhead. Not Paulette and Hank. Theirs was strictly a bare-bones, cement-floored basement. For decor there was a Kenmore washer-dryer and a clothesline with sheets and towels hanging from it. An electric space heater was doing what it could to fight the chill down there, and a towel had been shoved under the door to the garage to keep the draft out. But it was cold in the basement that Casey Zander called home. Also messy. There was a Ping-Pong table heaped with sports magazines and newspapers. A convertible sofa bed, which was open and unmade. Dirty clothes were heaped everywhere. A sprung easy chair was set before the TV in the corner.

Here Paulette’s pale, jiggly son sat in a flannel bathrobe watching last night’s NBA highlights on ESPN and eating a bowl of what appeared to be Cocoa Puffs. At least he had good taste in breakfast cereals. What he didn’t have was good taste in hair. His henna-tinted mop top made him look like a colorized member of The Three Stooges. He still had a bandage on his forehead from his unfortunate encounter yesterday with Kylie Champlain’s Honda Civic. There was a card table next to the TV that had a computer and printer on it. Stacked on the floor next to Casey’s chair were computer printouts of NFL game stats. Team stats, individual player stats. Mitch had never seen so many stats in his life. Many of the pages had been circled or flagged with Post-its.

“You sure are into stats,” Mitch observed. “Are you in a fantasy football league?”

“Fantasy football leagues are for assholes,” Casey replied coldly.

“I’m in a fantasy football league.”

“Gee, there’s a surprise.” He glanced up at Mitch, his surly gaze narrowing. “What do you want?”

“I brought Rut by to visit your mom.”

“No, I mean what do you want from me?”

“To tell you that I was sorry about Hank.”

“Okay, you told me,” he said, turning back to the TV.

“Also sorry about what happened yesterday on the causeway.”

Casey didn’t respond. Just sat there eating his cereal and watching the succession of slam dunks that passed for highlights.

“This is the part where you say you’re sorry, too, and then we shake hands.”

Casey heaved a sigh of annoyance. “Why don’t you go back upstairs and leave me alone?”

“Your mom’s pretty deep into the Chablis this morning. Is she okay?”

“How the hell would I know?”

“You two are tight, aren’t you?”

“She’s my mom. It’s not like we hang together.”

“Did you hang with Hank?”

He let out a derisive snort. “Hank played the tuba.”

“Meaning what, he flunked your coolness test?”

“We lived in the same house-period.”

“You also worked together, didn’t you?”

“We didn’t work together. I’m only there on Saturdays or if somebody’s sick or on vacation.”

“Are you hoping to become a full-time carrier?”

“I’m hoping you’ll go back upstairs and leave me the hell alone.”

“Suit yourself. Nice talking to you. Actually, I lied. No, it wasn’t.” Mitch started back toward the stairs.

“Wait a sec,” Casey said, allowing a tiny trace of hopefulness to creep into his voice. “Did Josie give you a message for me?”

“No, she didn’t. But I haven’t spoken to her today.”

“Yeah, you have.”

“So now you’re calling me a liar?”

“I’m betting a million bucks she asked you to tell me something. And that’s why you came down here.”

“Don’t ever bet with real money, Casey. You suck as a gambler.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know.” He peered at Mitch with those nonpenetrating eyes of his. “Are you two getting it on?”

“Josie and I are nothing more than friends. I told you that yesterday.”

“I didn’t believe you yesterday. Still don’t.”

“That’s fine. I won’t bother to set you straight. There’s no point, since you’ve already got life all figured out. Hell, you’re sitting here in your mom’s basement watching TV in your jammies and you’re, what, twenty-six?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“When I was twenty-eight I was freelancing for two different magazines, teaching a class at NYU and finishing up my first movie encyclopedia.”

“Goodie for you, asshole.”

“I’m not bragging. I’m just saying that there was so much I wanted to do every single hour of every single day. Isn’t there anything you’d like to do?”

“Yeah, there is. I’d like to sit here without you hassling me. Jesus, you’re as bad as Hank. He was always on me about how I should be applying myself. Like I’d take advice from that clown.”

“You take advice from Josie, don’t you? What does she tell you to do?”

Casey reached for a pack of Marlboros and found it empty. Crumpled it and tossed it aside. “She doesn’t tell me to do anything. She encourages me.”

“To do what?”

He shrugged. “Be more assertive.”

“Is that why you gave her a black eye?”

“That was an accident. And I can’t believe she told you about it.”

“She didn’t.”

“Who did?”

“You did,” Mitch replied. “Just now.”

For a second, Casey looked as if he wanted to tear Mitch’s head off. But he’d already tried that yesterday and ended up with his face frozen to the causeway. So instead he stuck out his chin and said, “I guess you think you’re pretty smart. Trust me, you don’t know shit.”

“I know that you’re in love with Josie.”

“I don’t want to talk about Josie!”

“Then why did you ask me about her?”

Casey said nothing to that. Just sat there in petulant silence.

Mitch glanced back down at the pile of NFL stats next to his chair. “Are you into the Patriots or the Giants?” Since Dorset was situated halfway between Boston and New York, its residents’ team loyalties were divided right down the middle.

“Patriots,” Casey grunted. “The Giants play down to the level of their competition. Hardly ever cover the spread.”

“It sounds like you’re in an office betting pool. Am I right?”

Casey had had enough. He got up out of the sagging chair and took off his robe. He wore an ancient Metallica T-shirt and long johns under it. He dug a Patriots hoodie and a pair of sweatpants out of a rumpled pile of clothing on the floor and put them on. Then he made his way upstairs to the TV room, where Paulette and Rut sat talking quietly. Mitch followed him.

“I’m going out for a while, Mom.”

Paulette frowned at him. “Where to?”

“Got some errands to run. I’m out of smokes, for one thing.”

“Okay, son. Would you mind getting me two packs of Merits?”

“Are you going to give me some money?”

Paulette fetched her wallet from the kitchen table and removed a twenty-dollar bill from it. “Just do me one small favor, will you?”

He rolled his eyes. “What is it?”

“Don’t spend the whole afternoon at the Rustic. I need you here, okay?”

“Whatever.” He snatched the money from her and stormed out of the house.

Paulette sat back down, a distraught expression on her face as she listened to Casey start up his pickup and go roaring off.

Rut reached over from the recliner next to hers and patted her hand. “Hank was a real fine fellow. Try to remember the good times you two had together.”

She glanced at him curiously. “I always thought you didn’t approve of Hank.”

“That’s not true at all. Hank was okay. I was just jealous. I’d be jealous of any man who’s lucky enough to wake up and see your shining face right there next to him every morning.”

“You’re a silly old man, Rutherford.”

Rut smiled faintly, his eighty-two-year-old heart overflowing with the hopeless, unrequited love that he’d kept to himself for all of these years. Briefly, Mitch thought he might tell Paulette how he genuinely felt. But Rut didn’t, couldn’t. Just nodded his tufty white head and said, “That’s me, all right-silly.”

The world-class pissing contest-more commonly known as a team meeting-was held in the auxiliary conference room of Dorset’s Town Hall, a stately white-columned edifice that smelled all year round of mothballs, musty carpeting and Ben-Gay. Everyone was there at nine o’clock sharp with the noticeable exception of the agent from the FBI, who Des had no doubt would start throwing his weight around as soon as he walked in. The bureau was incredibly dependable that way.

Four members of the Connecticut State Police were in attendance: Des, Yolie, Toni and Capt. Joey Amalfitano, a rumpled old-timer who was with the Narcotics Task Force. Des had worked a drug case with Amalfitano on Sour Cherry Lane last spring. Everyone called him The Aardvark due to his huge, down-turned snout of a nose. Des thought of him more as a weasel.

The U.S. Postal Service had sent Inspector Sam Questa from New York City. Questa was in his late forties and bore a startling resemblance to Fred Flintstone. His huge, blunt featured head was set directly atop a massive torso with almost a complete absence of anything resembling a neck. Seated there at the conference table, Questa gave the impression of being a large man. Yet Des doubted he stood much taller than five-feet-four. He had the stubbiest little arms and legs she’d ever seen. She could not imagine how the man found clothing to fit him. He wore a plain gray suit, white shirt and muted tie. Kept his gleaming black hair combed carefully in place, but didn’t do nearly as good a job of keeping his emotions in check. He glanced repeatedly at his watch, growing more and more pissed as the minutes ticked by. The man didn’t like to be kept waiting by the FBI. The man was feeling disrespected.

And, at precisely 9:17, the man decided he’d had enough. “What do you say we get started here?” he growled. “I got a full plate and I can’t sit around all morning waiting for the goddamned bureau to grace us with its presence.”

“Okay by me,” said The Aardark, slurping loudly from his container of coffee.

Yolie nodded her head in agreement.

Questa glanced down at a yellow legal pad. “Fine, then let’s get down to business here.…”

That was when the conference room door burst open and in strutted a twenty-something testosterone jarhead wearing a pair of aviator shades and a snug-fitting red ski jacket. He whipped off his shades, then off came the jacket, too. Underneath it he had on a white merino wool turtleneck that was stretched so tight across his pumped-up muscles that Des swore she could make out his entire six-pack of abs as he stood there styling self-importantly for everyone’s benefit, his granite jaw working on a piece of chewing gum.

“Lord help us, they’ve stuck us with Maverick again,” Yolie groaned under her breath. “Did we piss somebody off?”

“Possibly in a previous life,” Des murmured unhappily.

“You know him?” whispered Toni, who was positively goggle-eyed.

Yolie looked at her, aghast. “Don’t tell me you want that,” she whispered in response.

“Loo, I swear I’ve just laid eyes on the father of my children.”

“Trust me, you won’t feel that way once it opens its mouth.”

Toni continued to gape at him. “Oh, it doesn’t have to talk.”

“Oh, yes it does. And every single word that comes out of its mouth rhymes with ‘asshole.’”

“Sorry I’m late, people,” he declared in a booming, authoritative voice. “They closed I-95 because of a jackknifed tractor trailor and I had to make it out here on Route 1. I’ve never seen so many muffler shops in my life. Seriously, how do folks out here afford to eat three meals a day if they’re always buying so many mufflers? Am I right or am I right?” He went around the table and shook hands. First with Sam Questa. “Grisky, FBI, how are you? Then with Joey Amalfitano. “It’s Grisky.”

“We’ve already met, Agent Grisky,” The Aardvark pointed out. “We worked the Sour Cherry Lane case last spring.”

“Sure, we did.” Grisky’s eyes said he didn’t remember The Aardvark at all.

But he did remember Des. “Hey there, girlfriend,” he exclaimed, grinning at her wolfishly. “Sure never thought I’d find myself back in your sleepy little hamlet again.”

“It’s not sleepy and I’m still not your girlfriend,” Des said. “You remember Yolie Snipes of the Major Crime Squad, don’t you?”

“You kidding me? How could I forget a sweet-looking sister like Miss Yo-lan-da Snipes. How goes it, Sarge?”

“It’s lieutenant now,” Yolie informed him between gritted teeth.

“Moving on up, hunh? Good for you. And, whoa, look who they gave you for a sergeant-it’s Snooki. Are we on MTV right now? Seriously, am I or am I not standing in the presence of Miss … Nicole … Polizzi?”

“Actually, my name’s Toni Tedone,” she simpered breathlessly. This qualified as a major departure for Toni the Tiger. The last time someone at the Headmaster’s House dared to call her Snooki he got a knee in the cojones.

“Real glad to know you. And, hey, lovin’ the patchouli,” he said as he made his way to the other end of the conference table.

Toni gaped at him, awestruck. “I’m going to marry that man.”

Des and Yolie exchanged a horrified look before Des said, “Toni, there are two very important words you need to know about a man like Grisky.”

“What are they?”

“Premature and ejaculation.”

Toni frowned at her. “You say that like there’s some other kind.”

Grisky parked himself in a chair and said, “I just heard that the DEA’s jonesing to get in on this, too. That means they’ll be crawling up our butts if we don’t nail it in the next thirty-six hours-which I’ve assured my boss we will. We have to. I’m flying to Cancun late tomorrow night to hook up with my Quantico buds for a sacred ritual. We spend the week before Christmas down there every year and I cannot, will not, miss it. So let’s hit this out of the park and I mean now. So far it looks to me like we’ve got ourselves quite a little shitstorm. Possible organized drug activity, theft of the U.S. Mail, a dead mailman…”

“Postal carrier,” Questa grunted.

Grisky raised his chin at him. “Sorry?”

“They’re known as postal carriers, Agent Grisky. I thought you’d like to know since you seem to think you’re in charge of my investigation. What we’ve got here is a matter for the U.S. Postal Inspectors to deal with.”

“Well, that’s a big no,” Grisky fired back cheerfully. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t all be sitting here at this large table with you. We’re all working together on this one, Inspector. And we need to share what we know. So how about you put your dick in a box and tell us what you’ve got, okay?”

Questa shifted around unhappily in his chair. “I’ve had two teams of investigators on the ground since approximately nine o’clock last evening,” he said grudgingly. “One of my teams is presently up in Norwich working the supply chain. The other’s at the Dorset Post Office conducting interviews. I personally interviewed Postmaster Zander at her home early this morning. The victim, Hank Merrill, was her live-in lover. She’s grieving and extremely upset. I also spoke with her son, Casey, who’s a part-time carrier. I found him to be reasonably cooperative, although I did think he gave me an attitude.”

“It was nothing personal,” Des said. “He gives that to everyone.”

“At the present time,” Questa continued, “there is no reason to suspect Postmaster Zander has been complicit in any wrongdoing. But, based on my experience, the odds are good that she knows more than she was willing to admit about what’s been going on.”

“Which is what?” Grisky asked.

“High-value parcels have been disappearing from Hank Merrill’s route for the past two weeks-retail gift cards, choice little Christmas presents from the likes of Amazon and, most notably, prescription meds.”

“How much are we talking about? Can you give us a dollar figure?”

Questa shook his giant head. “We’ll have to canvass each resident on his route before we know that. Frankly, I’m still not entirely certain why Postmaster Zander didn’t contact us immediately when she became aware of the situation.”

“I may be able to help you with that,” Des said. “Dorset’s a small town with small-town traditions.”

Questa stared across the table at her. “What kind of traditions?”

“Folks put Christmas tips in their mailboxes for Hank. Some of them bake cookies, others leave him cash. Hank donated the cash to the Food Pantry.”

“I don’t care who he donated it to,” Questa blustered. “Mail carriers are prohibited from accepting holiday gratuities.”

“I know this. I also know that the boxes aren’t supposed to be used for anything other than official U.S. Mail. But in Dorset they are. Lem Champlain, our busiest private plowman, conducts his business by mailbox. That’s how he bills his customers and that’s how they pay him-mostly in cash. Lem told me he’s short about two thousand dollars this month in payments that his customers swear they put out for him, although I’m not one hundred percent sold on his credibility.”

Questa gazed at her sternly. “Sounds to me like you know an awful lot about this case. Was Postmaster Zander in contact with you?”

“Let’s just say I got wind of it, okay?”

“Homegirl keeps her ear to the ground,” Grisky said admiringly.

“When did you get wind of it?”

“Yesterday. I spoke to Hank Merrill about it at the Post Office.”

“That’s not your job,” Questa fumed. “It’s mine.”

“I’m aware of the protocol, Inspector. But Paulette was highly resistant to contacting you. She was worried about how it would look. I told her that I’d be willing to make some informal inquiries on the matter if she’d agree to contact you. I was making a concerted effort to move the investigative process your way. She promised me she’d reach out to you.”

“Well, she didn’t.”

“Well, that’s not my fault.”

“Well, it’s somebody’s fault.”

Des let out a sigh. “Inspector, do you want to throw down or do you want to figure out what happened to Hank Merrill?”

Questa didn’t respond. Just glowered at her.

“So you spoke with the victim yesterday?” Grisky asked Des.

“Informally,” Des reiterated.

“And now he’s formally dead. What do we know about this gee?”

“We know that he had financial problems stemming from his divorce,” she replied. “We know that he texted Paulette a suicide note in which he appeared to confess to stealing the mail himself. The trouble is…”

“Okay, I need for you to stop talking now,” Grisky broke in. To Questa he said, “Tell us what you’re doing about this.”

“We’ve brought in a temporary supervisor from Norwich to take over for Postmaster Zander. He’ll assign a part-time carrier to Hank Merrill’s route until this matter resolves itself. We have to keep the mail moving. That is, and always will be, job one for the USPS. Meanwhile, we work our fundies.”

Grisky peered at him curiously. “Work your what?”

“Our fundamentals,” Questa said, louder this time. “We acquaint ourselves with every aspect of the operation at this individual branch. Interview each and every carrier and clerk. Determine if anyone has recently transferred, retired or been terminated. Determine when the keypad lock in the office was most recently updated. We undertake a top-to-bottom investigation of the security procedures that are in place. Check the padlocks and deadbolts, the safe where the scanners and vehicle keys are kept. According to Postmaster Zander, only she and her senior clerk know the combination to that safe. We’ll have to see about that. We’ve encountered these types of thefts numerous times before. Maybe we’re looking at a dirty carrier. Maybe not. There are other possible scenarios. One is that the theft of these valuables occurred before they got to the carrier. A dirty clerk or clerks can divert them as soon as they come off of the truck, repackage them and send them on to a complicit third party. I’ve seen it happen.”

Des considered this, wondering if Hank had accidentally seen something going on in the back room. Wondering if this was what he’d wanted to talk to her about.

“If that’s how it went down,” Toni said, “then wouldn’t parcels have been disappearing from more than just Hank Merrill’s route?”

Grisky raised his eyebrows, impressed. “Snooki makes an excellent point.”

“Thank you, Agent,” she said, blushing. The poor girl was totally gaga. A temporary and treatable affliction, Des hoped and prayed.

“Not necessarily,” Questa responded. “Hank Merrill had the choicest route in Dorset. And if stuff from all over town started disappearing that would have set off too many alarm bells. Besides, that’s just one possible scenario. Another is the supply train, by which I mean the trucks that bring the mail to this branch from the distribution hub in Norwich. The postal service outsources the trucking to private contractors these days. We perform background checks on all of the drivers, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have ourselves a bad apple. So we work that, too. Interview each and every driver who comes in contact with the Dorset-bound mail. Review the security procedures that are in place in Norwich, then keep on backtracking from there. The Norwich hub gets its mail from Hartford and Wallingford. If mail comes into this state by air it arrives at Bradley International and is trucked to Hartford. We’ll follow it every step of the way. And if we turn up a bad apple I assure you we will prosecute him to the full extent of the law. We’re the US Postal Service. We take our responsibilities seriously. We were on the front lines in the War Against Terror from day one, in case you’ve forgotten the anthrax scare. Because we haven’t. We’re professional investigators who do a professional job. We’re not clowns.”

“It never occurred to any of us that you were,” The Aardvark assured him.

“What he said,” Yolie agreed, nodding his head.

“Kind of thin-skinned, aren’t you, Inspector?” Grisky asked.

“Maybe I’m just sick of you gung-ho frat boys from the bureau taking over our cases.”

Des found herself starting to like little Sam Questa, even if she did keep expecting him to let loose with a yabba-dabba-doo.

Grisky ratcheted down his hard-charging tone a bit. “No one here is doubting that you know how to do your job. And I’m not trying to muscle you. I just do what I’m told, same as you.”

“We all do what we’re told,” The Aarvark agreed. “So let’s just get it done, okay?”

“Fine,” Questa growled.

Grisky looked across the table at Des. “The trouble is?…”

“Excuse me, Agent?”

“You were saying that Hank Merrill had money problems stemming from his divorce. That he texted Paulette Zander a suicide note in which he appeared to confess to stealing his own mail. But that the trouble is…”

“That he didn’t commit suicide,” Yolie spoke up. “Hank Merrill was murdered last night on Kinney Road. There was a cylindrical bruise on his right temple. Early this morning our medical examiner confirmed that it matches the nose of a.38 caliber Smith and Wesson Special. The victim didn’t have a gun permit for any such weapon. We’re checking to see if any of his close friends or coworkers do. There were bruises on the left side of his neck that indicate he was physically coerced. Also bruising beneath his lower lip that suggests he was forced to drink the large quantity of the bourbon that he ingested shortly before his death. His blood alcohol level was.26-more than three times the legal limit to drive in this state. No way he drove his Passat to such a remote locale in that condition. He drank it after he got there. Had to. Yet we can’t find a bottle. If he tossed it out the window then the town plowman most likely shoved it into the snowbanks surrounding the parking lot. I’ve got eight trainees from the academy digging their way through those snowbanks as we speak. If there’s broken glass they’ll find it. We’re also canvassing Hank’s neighbors on Grassy Hill Road to determine if any of them saw him drive away last evening and if so what time. One more thing-when we searched Hank’s jacket pockets we found an unmarked prescription bottle with a half dozen pills in it. The M.E. identified them as ten-milligram doses of diazepam, better known as Valium. Hank had what they estimate to be twenty milligrams of diazepam in his bloodstream when he died. He still had traces in his stomach. We just checked with his personal physician. Hank had never been prescribed diazepam.”

“Sounds to me like he was pacified into submission,” Des said.

“I hear you,” Yolie agreed.

“Were his fingerprints on that pill bottle?” The Aardvark asked her.

Yolie shook her head. “It was wiped clean. The passenger seat floor mat was removed. The passenger seat was moist. The duct tape and box cutter on the seat were wet. Yet when Resident Trooper Mitry found Hank, his hair and shoulders were dry. So were his shoes and the floor mat under them. The man never got out of that car. Someone else duct taped the garden hose to the tailpipe. We found Hank’s fingerprints on the hose. No prints on the duct tape that was wrapped around the tailpipe. Not that we would. The car’s exhaust heated the tailpipe enough to evaporate any fingerprint residue on the tape. We’re continuing to search the car and its contents for prints. We still have to take fingerprint samples from Paulette and Casey Zander, who’ve doubtless ridden in that car a million times and probably driven it, too. We need to eliminate their prints so we can isolate any others that don’t belong. Although I’m guessing that these people were careful enough to wear gloves. And I do mean people. We believe we’re looking for a pair. One drove up there with the victim. The other followed in a getaway car.”

“That’s good work,” Grisky concluded. “Sounds like you’re right on top of this case.”

“We may be talking two cases. Resident Trooper Mitry caught another suicide earlier in the day-a man named Bryce Peck who lived out on Big Sister Island.”

“Are you telling us Bryce Peck was murdered, too?”

“I’m telling you we’re looking into it.”

“Initially, Bryce’s death played suicide all of the way,” Des explained. “He was someone who had a long history of depression and substance abuse. And I found nothing at the scene to suggest a struggle.”

“How did he die?” Questa asked her.

“By washing down a one-month supply of Vicodin, Xanax and Ambien with a bottle of Jose Cuervo Gold.”

“Prescription meds again,” The Aardvark reflected, slurping his coffee.

“Bryce had legitimate prescriptions for the pills. And his live-in girlfriend, Josie Cantro, swears that all three bottles were full last time she looked. But we only have her word for that. And we won’t know for a fact what Bryce swallowed until we get his toxicology results, which Lieutenant Snipes fast-tracked last night, right after Hank Merrill’s death.”

Grisky furrowed his brow. “Have you got reason to believe that this Josie Cantro might have been less than truthful with you?”

“Let’s say I have more information about her today than I did yesterday.”

“What kind of information?”

“Bryce Peck’s attorney drew up his will for him last week. It seems that he left Josie his house on Big Sister, which he owned free and clear. It’s worth in the neighborhood of five million.”

Sam Questa let out a low whistle. “Nice neighborhood.”

“Josie’s a life coach who has a thriving little practice around town. She had a professional relationship with Hank Merrill. And she currently has one with Paulette Zander’s son, Casey, who she also happens to be sleeping with. I know this because I walked in on them getting busy yesterday, less than two hours after Bryce Peck was pronounced dead.”

Now it was Grisky who let out a low whistle. “Josie’s a baad girl. Is she a babe?”

Des nodded. “She’s a babe.”

“Sounds to me like she’s up to her pretty eyeballs in this thing.”

“Whatever this thing is,” Des acknowledged.

Now Grisky turned to The Aardvark. “Okay, what does the Narcotics Task Force have for us?”

Joey Amalfitano took another loud slurp of his coffee before he said, “What this thing is, maybe. We’re spending more and more of our time going after dealers of stolen prescription meds. They sell them at a cut-rate price to low-wage working people who have no access to health insurance-diabetics, asthmatics, women who need birth control pills and so on. I’m not talking about a couple of skeejie characters peddling Oxy in a dark alley. These are organized, highly profitable black-market pharmacies that are operating under the protection of the Castagno crime family. Last summer we busted an operation in Bridgeport that was selling meds in broad daylight out of ice cream trucks at the playgrounds. The kids were buying Rocky Road. The grown-ups were buying Celebrex.”

“And this wasn’t counterfeit stuff from China or whatever?” Grisky asked.

“The real stuff,” The Aardvark assured him. “It’s turning into a huge problem for us. There is absolutely no way we can choke off the demand. Not when so many people are barely scraping by. So we’re attacking it from the supply end. We have an ongoing investigation into a gang that exists for the sole purpose of stealing prescription drugs for these black-market pharmacies. Some of these guys were connected with the gang we took down in Bridgeport. They’re still operating-with the blessing of the Castagnos-in places like New Haven, New London and Norwich. And they have a million different ways of getting what they need. The big-timers go after drug warehouses and delivery trucks. I’m talking armed, serious pros. Lower down on the food chain you’ve got hundreds of hustlers who gobble it up wherever they can find it. They steal it from the curbside mailboxes in wealthy rural towns like this one. And they have legions of little people who do their dirty work for them. Some of these people are pharmacy cashiers, motel chambermaids, cleaning ladies and the like. A lot of them are ordinary high school kids who’re just looking to score some pot or coke. You wouldn’t believe what these kids are lifting from their parents’ medicine chests. They swap it for their own drug of choice, legal or illegal, or for just plain old cash-which, as we know, never goes out of style. None of it’s real flashy, but it’s very profitable and it’s everywhere.” He glanced over at Questa. “If you discover that the postal service has some bad apples diverting prescription meds from the supply trucks into the hands of these guys then we may be able to bring down some major players. These are nasty boys, Inspector.”

Questa considered this for a moment. “Maybe Hank Merrill got in over his head with them.”

“If that’s the case,” Des said, “then he must have had a contact. Someone who was buying the stuff off of him.”

“And we need to have a conversation with that someone,” Yolie said. “Captain, I’d like to put some names and faces to the operation in this part of the state. Who the players are, where they hang out. We need to grab somebody and throw him in an interview room. He doesn’t have to be a big-timer. Just someone who we can pry open.”

“I’ll put my people to work on it,” The Aardvark said.

“Whoa, I feel like we’re really getting somewhere here,” Grisky exclaimed, rubbing his hands together. “You see what happens when we all pull together as a team? Okay, let’s slice this bad boy up. Inspector Questa and his people will work the postal side. Captain Amalfitano and his task force have got the prescription meds angle. The girls will run their investigation into the murder itself. Or murders, if that’s how it plays out. Resident Trooper Mitry will continue to assist as needed. Sound good?”

“All except for one small detail,” Yolie said coolly. “Sergeant Tedone and myself are homicide investigators attached to the Central District branch of the Connecticut State Police’s Major Crime Squad.”

He frowned at her. “Okay, really not following you.”

“She means we’re not ‘the girls,’” Toni explained.

“Gotcha. My bad, Snooki.”

“And my name’s not Snooki.”

“Whatever you say. Questions?”

Toni raised her chin at him. “Yeah, I have one.”

Grisky flashed her a grin. “You keep right on coming. I like that. Okay, what is it?”

“Exactly what are you going to be doing?”

He blinked at her, taken aback. “I’m sorry, you were sitting here at this large table just now, weren’t you? Paying attention to what was going on?”

Toni nodded her head slowly. “Yeah?…”

“That was me doing it.”

“Sure you don’t mind if we stop off for a quick glass of beer?”

“Young fella, you never have to talk me into a glass of beer,” Rut replied as they bounced along in Mitch’s Studey. “Quick or otherwise. Besides, I don’t care if I never make it back to Essex Meadows.”

Mitch was piloting his way up Old Boston Post Road toward Cardiff, Dorset’s landlocked neighbor to the north. If Dorset possessed what could be truly classified as a seedy side of town it was this stretch of the Post Road north of Uncas Lake. Here, a tattered strip of businesses operated out of old wood-framed houses that seemed to be sagging even more than usual under the weight of so much snow and ice. If you wanted your sofa reupholstered or your unwanted facial hair removed then this was where you came. If you wished to engage in some illicit humpage then this is where you came-Dorset’s designated hot-sheet motel, the Yankee Doodle Motor Court, was located here. So was the Rustic Inn, the beer joint that was a second home to Dorset’s indigenous population of young male Swamp Yankees.

Mitch didn’t phone Des to tell her that he was stopping off at the Rustic. He didn’t tell the woman in his life every single thing he did. Plus he knew she’d tell him not to go. But he had a hunch-a good, solid one-and when Mitch Berger had a hunch he played it all of the way. He wasn’t hamstrung by legal constraints the way Des was. He could go places she couldn’t go, do things she couldn’t do. He’d helped her on numerous cases, whether she cared to admit it or not. Mostly not. Actually, Des tended to get downright furious when Mitch played one of his hunches. But he couldn’t sit idly by when bad things were happening to people who he knew and liked. This was what it meant to live in a small town. You got involved.

“I sure do feel badly for that tall, beautiful young thing.”

“This would be Paulette?” Mitch asked Rut, who’d sat there in her TV room talking quietly with her for nearly two hours.

“She’s so angry and alone. That’s no way for a good woman to be.”

“I’m sure you were a real comfort to her, Rut.”

“You think so?” He shook his head sadly. “I don’t think she’ll even remember I was there.”

The Rustic Inn was a log cabin of a place with illuminated Bud Light and Miller beer signs in its front windows and a satellite dish perched on its roof. The afternoon sun had gotten warm enough that the snow on the roof was starting to melt and rain down from the frozen rain gutters. The slushy parking lot was filled with pickups and dented old muscle cars. A sleek new silver Cadillac Coupe de Ville was parked there, looking distinctly out of place.

Inside, a wood stove kept the Rustic warm and cozy. There was a horseshoe-shaped bar, a big-screen TV and a pool table. It was crowded in there for a workday. The dozen or so tables were all filled, mostly by bearded young guys in flannel shirts who were hunched over beers and bowls of chili. There wasn’t one woman in the place. And the mood wasn’t what Mitch would call festive. A lot of these guys were construction workers who’d been idled by the sucky weather and even suckier economy. Times were hard for them. Mitch could feel their despair as soon as he walked in the door. Rut paused on his way to the bar to pat several of them on the shoulder and say hello.

The man behind the bar was a strapping fellow in his forties who seemed to have a hard time moving around. He had a definite limp. His face was etched in a permanent grimace. There were dark bags under his eyes and his complexion was sallow. He didn’t look well.

But he brightened considerably when he spotted Rut easing himself into one of the two vacant bar stools. “Man, I haven’t seen you in ages, you old peckerwood,” he exclaimed. “How the hell are you?”

“I’m aboveground and the sun is shining. What more could I ask for? Steve Starkey, I want you to say hello to my friend Mitch Berger.”

“Glad to know you, Mitch. Any friend of Rut’s is a friend of mine. You’re the one who dates our resident trooper, right? The movie guy?”

“That’s me-the movie guy.”

“Nice lady, our resident trooper. She knows what’s what. Mostly, I keep the peace around here myself,” Steve explained, pulling a baseball bat out from under the bar. “But every once in a while I need her help. And, let me tell you, Resident Trooper Mitry is no one to mess with.”

“Believe me, I know.”

Steve turned back to Rut, his face darkening. “How’s Paulette?”

“Real broken up.”

“I was awful sorry to hear about Hank. He was a good guy.”

“He had a lot of friends,” Rut agreed. “Did he stop in here a lot?”

“Maybe once every couple of weeks with the guys from the firehouse. Not like that boy Casey of hers. He’s in here every single night.”

“He was here last night?” Mitch asked.

Steve nodded. “Came in about seven, same as always. Sat by himself on that same stool over there so he could watch the games on TV. He’s a strange one. Never talks to a soul-except for Gigi when she’s feeling, you know, charitable. What can I get you gentlemen?”

“Excellent question.” Rut smacked his lips, his eyes gleaming with anticipation. He reminded Mitch of Harold Russell ordering his first beer at Uncle Butch’s in The Best Years of Our Lives. “What’s on draft?”

“On draft I’ve got Bud and Bud Light.”

Rut’s face fell. “No real beer?”

“Not too many of these boys go for the premium stuff. I do have a few bottles of Guinness in the cooler.”

“You talked me into it. And one for my young friend here.”

“Care for anything to eat?”

“I could go for one of your world-famous chili dogs.”

“Make it two,” Mitch said.

Steve hobbled off to take care of their order.

“His daddy, Jim, was my best friend in the whole world back when I was a boy,” Rut recalled. “Jim got a degree in forestry and started a tree-cutting business when he got home from Korea. Did real well at it and passed it on to Steve, but a big oak limb broke loose on Steve when he was up in the bucket truck right after Hurricane Bob. Knocked him all of the way to the ground. Shattered his left hip, a whole bunch of ribs. He recovered but he couldn’t do that kind of work anymore, so he opened this place.”

Steve returned with their beers and went off to make their chili dogs.

Rut took a thirsty gulp, sighing contentedly. “Thanks for bringing me here, Mitch. It’s been a long time. I used to stop in pretty regular when I was still working for a living.”

“Has it changed much?”

“Not a bit.”

Mitch glanced around, noticing two guys who were drinking coffee together at a table in the corner by the window. They didn’t exactly blend in with the crowd. One was an enormous twenty-something body builder who looked as if he devoted most of his time to trying to look scary-which, in Mitch’s opinion, he succeeded at quite admirably. The other guy was older, in his fifties, and nattily attired in a yellow turtleneck sweater, gray flannel slacks and a tan Kangol cap. He had an intense, focused air about him and was on his cell phone nonstop. A customer moseyed by and murmured something to him. He nodded and the customer walked away.

“Rut, who’s that guy over there in the tan cap?”

Rut peered at him through his thick black-framed glasses. “Don’t know him. But the big gorilla’s Tommy Stratton. That one’s as mean as a snake. Used to throw raw eggs at Sheila Enman when he was a little kid.”

“Why’d he do that?”

“Well, sir, every day after school Tommy liked to beat the living daylights out of the little boy who lived next door to Sheila. One day she told him to pick on someone his own size. So he started throwing eggs at her every time she set foot outside her door. She had to call the resident trooper on him. They call him Tommy the Pinhead on account of he’s built so thick through the neck-and he’s a pinhead. Barely finished high school. Washed out of the U.S. Army. Now it looks to me like he’s hired muscle for that there shady character in the tan cap. Want me to find out who he is?”

“I wouldn’t say no.”

Steve came back with their chili dogs. “Here you go, gentlemen,” he said, setting paper plates before them.

Rut took a bite of his, munching on it appreciatively. “Steve, who’s that fellow sitting there with Tommy the Pinhead?”

Steve’s mouth tightened. “Rick Fontanella. They call him Slick Rick.”

“Bookie, isn’t he?” Rut asked him.

Steve glanced uneasily over at Mitch. “You trying to get me into trouble, Rut?”

“How long have you known me, Steve?”

“My whole life. But I’ve known your friend Mitch less than ten minutes.”

“You don’t have to worry about Mitch. He goes his way and Des goes hers. It’s the secret to a successful relationship. Isn’t that right, Mitch?”

“That’s right,” agreed Mitch, who couldn’t help thinking that a man with Rut Peck’s natural-born gifts had been wasted in the U.S. Postal Service. He was such a consummate bullshit artist that he should have gone into politics.

Rut peered over at Slick Rick again. “Is he a local fella? I don’t recognize him.”

“Rick has a condo in Mystic, I think,” Steve said.

“I’m guessing that fancy Coupe de Ville parked outside is his.”

“Yup.”

“Does he operate on his own or is he hooked up?”

Steve leaned in a bit closer, lowering his voice. “He stops in and does a little business here, okay? Who he is or isn’t hooked up with is none of my concern. Why are you so curious anyhow?”

“Because my friend Mitch and I we were both looking to place a wager on this Sunday’s Patriots-Giants game. What’s the spread?”

“Last I heard it was Pats by seven points.”

Rut gawked at Steve in disbelief. “At home against the G-men? Why, the Pats are a lock to beat that.”

Steve raised an eyebrow at the old fellow. “What kind of wager are you talking about, Rut?”

Rut took a sip of his Guinness. “A hundred on the Pats. How about you, Mitch?”

“I can’t bet against my Giants. I’ll ride them for a hundred.”

“That’s a sucker’s bet,” Rut informed him. “You’re a born pigeon.”

Steve said, “I can place your bets with Rick for you if you’d like.”

“That’d be great, Steve.” Rut took another bite of his chili dog. “What do you get out of it?”

Steve frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

“You allow the fella to operate in here. What’s in it for you?”

Steve turned cold on him. “Why would you ask me something like that?”

Rut shrugged his soft shoulders. “Just curious.”

Mitch said, “Is he into anything else?”

Steve stared across the bar at Mitch. “I don’t allow any drugs in here, if that’s what you’re asking. Your girlfriend would shut me right down. The guys like to bet on football. I figure they may as well do it here. Nobody gets hurt and it’s good for business.”

“It wasn’t,” Mitch said, munching on his chili dog.

Steve shook his head. “Wasn’t what?”

“What I was asking you. Does Slick Rick also extend credit to guys who come up a little bit short?”

“Well, yeah,” Steve allowed. “If somebody needs a few bucks until payday or whatever.”

“So he’s a loan shark?”

“To my mind he’s simply providing a service. His vig’s a little high but, hey, it’s not much higher than what the big boys nail you for when you fall behind on your credit cards. And them bastards have got the full faith and credit of the U.S. government behind them.”

The door to the Rustic opened now and in barged Casey Zander in his Patriots hoodie and sweatpants, looking frazzled and agitated. Also not particularly happy to see Mitch and Rut.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

“You had a rough night, son,” Rut responded soothingly. “You and your mom both. We’d like to buy you a beer. Have a seat.”

“Not right now,” Casey snapped, looking around the place. “Hey, Steve, where’s Gigi?”

“She was here earlier, Casey. Went out.”

“Who with?”

“No idea. Gigi goes her own way. You know that.”

“Well, when’s she coming back?”

“When she decides to come back,” Steve answered patiently, as if he were speaking to a whiny, annoying child. Which he basically was. “Here she is now,” he informed Casey as the door opened again. “Are you happy?”

Gigi Garanski looked as if she’d just wandered in from a Def Leppard video. She was an absolute vision of unloveliness in a torn denim jacket, hot pink spandex tights and snakeskin cowboy boots. Gigi had big, sticky-looking hair that was dyed a garish shade of yellow and she looked as if she’d applied her eye makeup with a trowel. She was pale and extremely skinny. Not a glam kind of skinny. A malnourished kind. Mitch doubted Gigi was more than twenty-five but she had a lot of hard miles on her.

Casey reached over and grabbed her. “Where have you been?”

“What do you care?” she answered in a raspy voice.

“I was looking all over for you.”

“I was right here, asshole. Where were you? Told me you were going to take me out for breakfast.”

“I had to hang with my mom on account of Hank.”

Gigi made a face at him. “Your mom. With other guys it’s their wife or their girlfriend. With you it’s always your mom.”

“Shut up about my mom!”

“Don’t tell me to shut up. And let go of my arm, will ya?”

“Seems like a stable, mature relationship built on mutual respect,” Mitch observed.

“And common interests,” Rut agreed, nodding his tufty white head. “Politics, religion, the theater…”

Gigi moved away from Casey now and sidled over to the corner table where Tommy the Pinhead sat with Slick Rick. She bent over, taunting Casey with a defiant gaze, and gave Tommy a wet, slurpy kiss. Casey watched the two of them, red faced. When they were done sucking face, Tommy spoke to Gigi in a quiet voice. She nodded her sticky blond head, then made her way slowly back to Casey, Tommy watching her with cool-eyed detachment.

“How about we go for a drive someplace, babe?” she asked sweetly, cradling Casey’s chubby cheeks in her pale, taloned hands.

Casey shrugged his shoulders. “Why not?”

“Hey, don’t do me any favors.”

“I’m not, Gigi. I want to go with you. Really, I do. Just give me a couple of minutes, okay? There’s something I have to take care of first.”

Gigi rolled her eyes at him. “Whatever.”

Casey started toward the door, shooting a glance over at Tommy the Pinhead and Slick Rick. As he went outside, the two of them put their heads together and conferred. Then Tommy got his huge self to his feet and went out the door, too.

Gigi parked herself at the bar next to Mitch. Steve brought her a glass of white wine. She took a small sip, looking Mitch up and down with frank curiosity.

He smiled at her and said, “How are you?”

“Compared to what?”

“Is it just me or does Casey seem kind of antsy?”

“He’s always antsy,” she sniffed. “That one was born antsy.” And with that she took her wine down to the other end of the bar.

“Nice girl,” Mitch observed.

“Trust me, she’s more popular around here than Casey is,” Steve said.

“I can believe that.” Rut drank down the last of his Guinness. “That boy is awful hard to warm up to.”

“Does he place a lot of bets with Slick Rick?” Mitch asked Steve.

“Why are you asking?”

“When I was over at his place this morning I saw a ton of NFL stats lying around. Couldn’t help wondering if he was a bit of a gambler.”

“I wouldn’t call what Casey does gambling,” Steve said in a low voice.

“What would you call it?”

“A disease.”

“He has a problem?”

“A big problem.”

“Well, now,” Rut murmured. “Ain’t that a fine how do ya do?”

“I need to get something out of my truck,” Mitch informed the old postmaster. “I’ll be back in a sec, okay?”

“Okay by me.” Rut tapped his empty Guinness bottle. “But it’ll cost you.”

“Another round, Steve. And it’s my tab, okay?”

“In that case,” Rut said, “I’ll have another chili dog, too.”

Mitch went out of the Rustic’s front door, his eyes adjusting to the sunlight in the parking lot. Casey and Tommy the Pinhead were having words over by Casey’s blue Tacoma pickup. Mitch inched his way over behind the fenced enclosure where Steve kept his firewood, snow shovel and sacks of rock salt. From there he could watch the two of them without being seen. Could even hear Casey’s whiny voice, although he couldn’t make out what he was saying.

Casey opened the door to his Tacoma and removed a pair of large, heavy shopping bags with handles. Tommy took them from him and headed over toward a beat-up old black Pontiac Trans Am. He popped the trunk and deposited the bags in there. Casey followed him, yapping all of the way. Now he was holding a fat, letter-sized envelope out to Tommy. Tommy took it and said something to Casey, smiling broadly at him. Then he punched Casey in the stomach really hard. Casey doubled over in pain, his eyes bulging, before he proceeded to gaack up his entire breakfast of Cocoa Puffs. Not a pretty sight.

Okay, that settles it. I have officially eaten my last bowl of Cocoa Puffs.

Casey fell to his knees, gasping and heaving, then toppled slowly over onto the slushy gravel, a low, animal moan coming from him.

Tommy was not without mercy. He helped Casey back up onto his feet, patting him gently on the shoulder. Then he steered him back toward the front door of the Rustic, Casey looking none too steady on his feet.

Mitch stayed where he was, safely hidden behind the woodpile as they made their way inside. He continued to stay there, waiting. Sure enough, Casey came back outside a moment later-this time with Gigi clutching him by the arm. He still wasn’t moving real well. The two of them got into his Tacoma, Gigi behind the wheel, and started out of the parking lot. Mitch wanted to see which way they turned when they pulled out of the driveway. As he stood there, waiting, a shadow fell across his face. Then he heard a flurry of movement. He started to turn around but wasn’t nearly fast enough-something had already smashed him on the back of his head.

And then everything went black.

Grisky was pacing the conference room and flexing his biceps. Pacing and flexing. The G-Man was impatient. The G-Man was amped. Partly, this had to do with his sacred Christmas travel plans. “Every damned flight out of JFK tomorrow night has been scrambled because of the damned blizzard,” he blustered. Mostly it had to do with the fact that Postal Inspector Sam Questa had failed to show up on time for Grisky’s two o’clock quarterbacks meeting.

Yolie and Toni were there. Des was there. Capt. Joey Amalfitano of the Narcotics Task Force, aka The Aardvark, was there. The sandwiches and coffee from McGee’s Diner were there. But Questa was a no-show. And would be one, Des felt certain, until precisely 2:17. Grisky would be kept waiting the same exact number of minutes that he’d kept Questa waiting earlier that morning. Boys. They could be so pissy.

“Do you realize I may actually have to spend Christmas here instead of in Cancun?” Grisky raged on, pacing and flexing.

“Boo-freaking-hoo,” Yolie growled.

Des glanced at her watch. It was 2:16.

Sam Questa came bustling through the door ten seconds later-smack-dab on pissy man-time. Questa removed his coat and sat down at the table, reaching for a sandwich and a container of coffee. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, biting into his sandwich. “Got held up in an interview.”

Grisky narrowed his gaze before he sat down, too. “Okay, let’s see where we’re at,” he said, rubbing his hands together briskly. He really liked to do that, and it was really starting to get on Des’s nerves. “Resident Trooper Mitry? The ball’s yours.”

“Pat Faulstich’s story didn’t exactly check out,” she reported. “Lem Champlain didn’t send him to plow those driveways on Kinney Road last night.”

Grisky shook his head at her. “And this is important because?…”

“Everywhere I go I keep tripping over him. He’s clean, but he has an older brother, Mickey, who’s doing a nickel at the Baskerville Correctional Center in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, for transporting three hundred pounds of marijuana. And he’s a Rustic Inn regular, same as Casey Zander.”

The Aarvark shifted uncomfortably in his chair at her mention of the Rustic, though he said nothing.

“What does all of this add up to?” Grisky demanded.

“Maybe something, maybe nothing. But I’m keeping my eye on him.”

“Fair enough. Snooki, you’re next.”

Toni the Tiger stared across the table at him in silence.

He tilted his jarhead at her curiously. “Snooki?…”

“My name is Toni,” she said to him between gritted teeth. “I also answer to Sargeant Tedone. But if you call me Snooki one more time I am going to make a bow tie out of your balls. Got it?”

Grisky held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Got it.”

“Good,” she said, slamming the door on what had to be the shortest crush on record. There truly was hope for this girl-even if she was a Tedone. “I’ve just spent several hours at the Headmaster’s House with the geek squad looking into Josie Cantro.” Toni leafed through her notepad. “Our local life coach has what I’d classify as a lively bio. For starters, her birth name isn’t Cantro. It’s Hoyt. Josie Ann Hoyt was born on August 1, 1981 in Augusta, Maine. Cantro is her mother’s maiden name. We found this out when we deepened our search into the details surrounding her father’s shooting death.”

Des blinked at her in surprise. “Josie’s father was shot to death?”

Toni nodded. “When Josie was twelve. Officially, it was closed out as a hunting accident, shooter unknown. Unofficially, the Maine State Police didn’t view it as an accident. The shooting took place in a wooded area less than a quarter mile from Hoyt’s home. No hunters admitted to being in the area at the time. And Hoyt was shot from close range.”

“How close?” Grisky asked.

“Less than ten feet.”

“Yeah, down here in the Nutmeg State we don’t generally call that a hunting accident,” Yolie said. “We call it murder.”

“They looked very hard at Josie’s mother for it,” Toni said. “It was commonly known that he’d been beating the crap out of her for years. But they had no weapon, no witness, no case. So they wrote it off and moved on. The next time Josie pops up on our radar screen is six years later in Lewiston when she applies for a Maine driver’s license as Josie Ann Cantro, age eighteen. Her life on paper officially starts here-Social Security records, credit cards and so on. She rented an apartment in Lewiston. To support herself Josie Cantro was employed at the Down East Bar and Grill and at a Snap Fitness Center. Meanwhile, under the name Adele Slade, she was also employed as a pole dancer at a club called the Matrix, where she was arrested on numerous occasions for soliciting prostitution and lewd public behavior.”

“Girl, you haven’t lost your edge,” Yolie said to Des admiringly.

“What edge?” Grisky asked.

“The Resident Trooper told us last night that Josie smelled wrong.”

“She never served any time,” Toni pointed out. “Just got slaps on the wrist. I spoke to an old-timer on the Lewiston PD who remembers her. He told me she’d been out on the streets, hooking and using drugs, ever since she was sixteen. But that she was a smart, scrappy kid who cleaned up her act. She even enrolled at Bates College. Studied there for one semester, according to her transcripts. Then she left town one day and was never heard from again. According to her Social Security records, she relocated to Castine, home to the Maine Maritime Academy, where she worked as a waitress and chambermaid at the Castine Inn. She lived on the premises until 2005 when she filed for a change of address to the home of one James Allen Miller-better known as J.A. Miller, the author of a series of bestselling science fiction novels featuring someone called Torbor the Reclaimer. Do we have any sci-fi fans in the house? No? Anyway, Josie was twenty-four at the time. Miller, age fifty-six, was a widower with two children who were both older than Josie. I spoke to someone on the local PD. It seems that Miller used to eat dinner at the Castine Inn every night. He and Josie struck up an acquaintanceship and eventually it led to something more. He taught marine systems engineering at the academy before he became a bestselling author and bought himself the historic waterfront home that he invited Josie to share with him.” Toni paused to gulp down some coffee. “James Allen Miller died of an overdose of the prescription sleep aid Ambien in 2007. A therapist had been treating him for anxiety-related depression. They closed it out as a suicide.”

“Damn, this is starting to sound familiar,” Yolie said. “Did the local PD have any reason to suspect it wasn’t suicide?”

“None. Miller was seeing a therapist, like I said. Had been increasingly despondent in the days leading up to his death, and he left a suicide note.”

“What did it say?” asked Des.

“It said, ‘Forgive me, Torbor.’ But guess what Miller did two weeks before he died: He changed his will. Left his waterfront home to Josie instead of to his two kids.”

Des shoved her heavy horn-rimmed glasses up her nose. “God, maybe she is a black widow.”

“What’s a black widow?” Sam Questa wanted to know.

“An attractive young woman who snags rich, lonely men, picks them clean and kills them before she moves on.”

“I never heard of one of those,” The Aardvark said.

“Maybe they only exist in the movies,” Des conceded.

“Maybe not,” Yolie said.

“Miller was well liked in Castine. Josie was regarded as a scheming little tramp. His children contested the will. Threatened to fight her in court if they had to. She accepted a cash settlement of $100,000 and left town.” Toni glanced down at her notes again. “She shows up briefly on our radar screen next in Portland, Maine, then in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she rented an apartment for a few months before she moved to New Haven. When she got to New Haven she enrolled in an online life-coach program. After that she rented a cottage here in Dorset, set up her practice and eventually met Bryce Peck. You know the rest.”

“That’s good work, Sergeant,” Yolie said.

“Real good,” echoed Grisky. “Aside from the fact that we don’t know the rest. Is she or isn’t she responsible for the deaths of Bryce Peck and Hank Merrill?”

“And what, if anything, does she have to do with our stolen mail?” Questa wondered.

“Maybe she and Hank were in on it together,” Des said. “The two of them had mutual interests. Hank had serious money problems. And Josie needed drugs-the drugs that she used to kill Bryce. We know that she’s a clever girl. Clever enough to cook up this grinch smoke screen. Clever enough to persuade Hank to steal for her by promising him that when she got hold of Bryce’s house she’d bail him out with his ex-wife.”

“That plays pretty sweet,” Grisky said. “Keep talking.”

“When the grinch thing started setting off alarm bells Josie went proactive. First, she took care of Bryce the same way she took care of J.A. Miller in Castine. Then, last night, she eliminated Hank because he was the one man, the only man, who could link her to Bryce’s death.”

“It was a two-person job,” Toni pointed out. “Who helped her?”

“Casey Zander, who else? That’s why she’s been sleeping with him. She’s got Casey wrapped around her little finger. He’d do anything for her-including help her do away with his own mother’s boyfriend.”

“I’m liking this more and more,” Grisky said. “We’d better make sure baad Josie doesn’t leave town.”

“She’s not going anywhere,” Des assured him. “Bryce’s half-brother, Preston, is on his way here from Chicago to contest Bryce’s will. Odds are she’ll accept a financial settlement just like she did in Castine. But she’ll stay put until then.”

Grisky turned his attention to Yolie. “Please tell me you’ve come up with some forensics that actually tie her to these deaths.”

“The M.E.’s office fast-tracked Bryce Peck’s autopsy,” she responded. “Bearing in mind that it takes them longer to find what they aren’t looking for than what they are, the toxicology so far confirms that it went down exactly as it appeared-Bryce washed down massive doses of Vicodin, Xanax and Ambien with a bottle of tequila. They’ve found no bruising. His skin and fingernails have yielded nothing. It still looks like a straight suicide.”

Grisky frowned at her. “Then how’d she do it?”

“Maybe she forced him to swallow the pills at gunpoint,” Des suggested. “There’s a.38 in the mix, remember?”

“Maybe,” Grisky allowed. “But good luck proving that. How about the Kinney Road crime scene, Lieutenant? You find the missing bourbon bottle?”

“I’ve had eight trainees digging through the snowbanks around that parking lot for six solid hours. And more men searching the woods seventy-five feet in every direction just in case Hank got out of the car and heaved it. So far we haven’t found so much as a shard of broken glass. There are no fingerprints on Hank’s cell phone. No partials or smears, no nothing. It was wiped clean. We tracked the so-called suicide text message that he sent to Paulette Zander. It did originate from that locale on Kinney Road. And when Paulette received it she was in the vicinity of her home on Grassy Hill Road.”

“She told me she was downstairs doing laundry,” Des said. “Didn’t notice she’d gotten it until a few minutes later.”

“We had troopers canvass her neighbors up and down Grassy Hill Road. A woman who lives across the street, two houses down, said she saw Hank’s Passat go out at about 5:30, which confirms what Paulette Zander told Master Sergeant Mitry. He headed off in the direction of Frederick Lane, which would be the way he’d go if his destination was Kinney Road. She also saw Casey’s Toyota Tacoma go out an hour or so later. Casey went the opposite way-toward the Old Boston Post Road, which is where the Rustic Inn is located.”

“Could the neighbor confirm that Hank was alone in his car?” Des asked.

Yolie shook her head. “Couldn’t even confirm that it was Hank behind the wheel. Just Hank’s car. Same goes for Casey’s Tacoma.”

Grisky frowned at Des. “Where the hell are you going with this?”

“Just playing out the what-ifs.”

“We can’t build a case on what-ifs,” he said pointedly.

“My bad, Agent Grisky. Next time I have a question I’ll raise my hand. Will that make you happy?”

“Results will make me happy,” he barked, swiveling his jarhead back to Yolie. “Did you get anything from Hank Merrill’s autopsy?”

She glanced down at her notepad. “The M.E. confirmed that the cylindrical bruise on his forehead is a dead-nuts match for the nose of a Smith and Wesson.38 Special. Hank didn’t have a permit for any such weapon. No handgun permit at all. But he did have a coworker who owns one. A carrier at the Dorset Post Office named Abe Monahan.”

“Monahan, Monahan…” Sam Questa leafed through his own notes. “Here we are: Abe’s been at the Dorset branch for seven years. His wife’s a Realtor with Coldwell Banker. They have two kids, ages ten and twelve. Own a home on Bittersweet Lane. Abe keeps the.38 Special on a shelf in his bedroom closet.”

“How in the hell do you know that?” Grisky asked him.

“After Lieutenant Snipes mentioned the bruise this morning, I instructed my people to ask each and every employee if they own a.38 Special.” Questa’s eyes hardened at him. “Like I told you-we’re professionals.”

“We’d better take a good look at this Abe Monahan,” Grisky said.

“He’s in Boca Raton with his family,” Questa said. “Has been for the past three days. We had to interview him by phone. It was a planned vacation. He bought the travel package two months ago.”

“His neighbor on Bittersweet has a key to the house,” Yolie reported. “She let us in so we could determine if his.38 Special was still in his bedroom closet-which it was. There’s always a chance it was removed and then put back, so we’re having our people examine it for prints and skin residue.”

“Do we know if anyone has been inside of that house since the Monahans left for Boca?” Des asked.

“Yeah, we do.” Questa stuck out his lower lip as he scanned his notes. “A lady who cleans for them once a week-Tina Champlain.”

Grisky looked at Des curiously. “Is she related to Lem Champlain?”

“She’s his wife. Hmm…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Des smiled at him sweetly. “Not a thing, Agent.”

“The.38 Special’s a common weapon,” Yolie pointed out. “Someone else who Hank knew could have purchased one illegally.”

“Or someone who he didn’t know,” Toni said.

“Could be,” Yolie acknowledged.

“Could be won’t get me to Cancun,” Grisky huffed. “That’s not good enough. The ball’s yours, Inspector Questa. What have you got?”

Questa took another bite of his sandwich, chewing on it thoughtfully. “A very well-run branch office of the U.S. Postal Service. The building security is excellent. The keypad code has been updated according to proper procedure. All keys to the deadbolts are accounted for. All vehicle keys and scanners are stored overnight in the safe. Only Postmaster Zander and her senior clerk know the combination to the safe. The U.S. Postal Service isn’t perfect. We encounter branches that are sloppily run. Branches where the employees take liberties. This isn’t one of those. Postmaster Zander’s people respect the job and they respect her. These are all first-rate employees-with the possible exception of that son of hers, Casey, who comes across like a bit of a whiner.”

“Only because he is one,” Des said.

“Bottom line? The only blemish on Postmaster Zander’s record is that she didn’t report these mailbox thefts to us in a timely fashion. But I think it’s obvious to everyone at this table why she didn’t. We’re continuing to explore every possible avenue. Delving into the bank records and spending patterns of every driver, loader and clerk in Norwich who comes in contact with the Dorset-bound trucks. My opinion? We won’t turn up a thing. It looks to me like Postmaster Zander’s boyfriend, Hank Merrill, by all accounts an otherwise decent guy, got into financial trouble with his ex-wife and resorted to stealing his own mail in order to pay her back. When he realized he was going to be subjected to the public humiliation of a criminal investigation he decided to take his own life.”

“Makes sense,” Yolie said. “Except we’re positive he didn’t take his own life.”

Questa nodded his huge head. “Which means we’re back to looking at Josie Cantro, his alleged partner in crime. She killed him and tried to make it look like a suicide. That’s the only way it makes sense to me.”

Grisky turned to The Aardvark now. “Do you have anything new? Please, God, say yes.”

“I have a name,” he answered, slurping loudly from his coffee container. “Richard Paul Fontanella, age fifty-four. Better known as Slick Rick.”

“He deals in black-market meds?” Grisky asked.

“Not exactly. He’s a bookie and loan shark.” The Aardvark passed around copies of a surveillance photo of the man getting out of a silver Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Slick Rick had gray hair and wore a Kangol cap. “He operates out of a dozen or so bars, clubs, and VFW halls in Southeastern Connecticut under the protection of the Castagnos. Not a big player, but a good, steady earner. As I mentioned this morning, the black-market meds gang that we took down in Bridgeport was operating under the protection of the Castagnos, too. There are still plenty of those bastards out there doing their thing. And, according to our contacts, there’s a direct link between them and Slick Rick.”

“What kind of a link?” Grisky asked.

“Slick Rick has a muscle man who goes everywhere with him just in case anyone needs to be persuaded to pay up. A fellow who grew up here in Dorset by the name of Thomas Burke Stratton, better known as-”

“Tommy the Pinhead,” Des said, nodding.

“You know him?” he asked her.

“We’ve tussled. He’s a local lout. Low-level muscle, like you said.”

“He also does a spot of pimping on the side,” The Aardvark said. “Runs a girl named Gigi Garanski who has herself a serious heroin habit. Tommy keeps Gigi supplied with smack in exchange for which she does guys out of a motel called the Yankee Doodle Motor Court. But it’s not just a business arrangement between these two. This is a truly heartwarming love story. They live together and everything. Most days and nights, Gigi can be found at a bar on the Old Boston Post Road called the Rustic Inn. The Rustic’s owner, Steve Starkey, lets Slick Rick set up shop there two afternoons a week in exchange for a sweet discount on his beer from the regional distributor, which happens to be owned by the Castagnos. If anyone falls behind to Slick Rick, Tommy the Pinhead takes a mighty dim view of it. We know that Tommy’s supplying Gigi with heroin. That means he has drug contacts. We also know that Hank Merrill used to drop in at the Rustic from time to time. So put two and two together. If Hank was stealing prescription meds from his postal route then it stands to reason that his local buyer was Slick Rick and/or Tommy.”

Des considered this for a moment, frowning. “Captain, how is it that you know so much about the Rustic?”

The Aardvark cleared his throat uneasily. “The Narcotics Task Force put a man in there undercover last week.”

She glared across the table at him. “You have a man operating undercover in my town and you don’t tell me?”

“It was strictly a need-to-know matter, Master Sergeant.”

“We needed to know about it this morning!”

“I wanted to touch base with my man first,” he responded calmly.

Des shook her head at him angrily. “This is the same crap that you pulled on me before on Sour Cherry Lane. You come sneaking into my town, make a mess, and then stick me with the job of cleaning up after you.”

“Look, I understand your frustration.…”

“No, I don’t think you do, Captain.”

“But we’ve had leaks on our undercover operations.”

“I don’t leak!”

“I’m not saying that you do. But I’m under strict orders, from the top, to tell no one.”

“I don’t like the way you weasels operate,” Des fumed.

“It’s not your job to like it. And don’t call me a weasel.”

“Is your man still there?”

“No.”

“Would you tell me if he was?”

“Uh, excuse me for getting in the way of this little love fest,” Grisky interjected, “but did your man have anything for us, Captain?”

“Possibly,” The Aardvark replied. “Paulette Zander’s son Casey is a heavy, heavy sports bettor. Football’s his game. He’s lousy at it. And Gigi knows how to play him like a fiddle. She eggs him on, gives him a little taste now and then. The end result, according to my man, is that Casey Zander’s into Slick Rick for a whopping twenty large.”

“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere,” Grisky said eagerly. “Let’s play this out. Casey Zander has to raise twenty large to pay off Slick Rick. He’s a part-time mail carrier. He’s involved with Josie Cantro. We know that Josie’s a naughty little girl. We know that valuable mail on Hank Merrill’s route was disappearing in the weeks prior to his death.”

“And we know that Casey can’t be the brains behind this,” Des said. “He’s not bright enough-especially if the security at the Post Office is tight.”

“It’s very tight,” Questa said. “Plus he only drives on Saturdays.”

“So what does that make him?” Grisky wondered aloud.

“The weak link in the chain,” Yolie answered. “Let’s find him and break him.”

“He’s a U.S. Postal Service employee,” Questa said. “I’ll be the one to talk to him.”

Yolie shook her head. “He’s a person of interest in our homicide investigation. We’re talking to him.”

“We’ll all talk to him, okay?” Grisky said. “Any idea where he is?”

“At home with his mother, I assume,” Des said as her cell phone rang. She peered down at the screen. It was the Rustic Inn calling. She stepped out into the hallway to take the call. “This is Resident Trooper Mitry.”

She heard heavy wheezing at the other end before a voice said, “Des, this here’s Rutherford Peck calling.”

“What can I do for you, Rut?”

“Well, it’s like this. I’m at the Rustic and I don’t have any way of getting home.”

“Not a problem. I can arrange a ride for you. How did you get up there in the first place?”

“Your friend and mine Mitch Berger brought me up here for a friendly glass of beer.”

“Did that old Studey truck of his break down again?”

“Not exactly. Although he did say that he wanted to get something out of his truck. He went out to the parking lot, oh, maybe a half hour ago or so.”

“And?…”

“And he never came back.”

Des felt her pulse quicken. “Where is he, Rut?”

“That’s just it, young lady. Nobody seems to know. His truck’s here but Mitch isn’t. And I can’t find anyone who knows what happened to him.”

“Rut, are you okay?”

“Fine and dandy. It’s Mitch who I’m worried about.”

“Stay put. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

She rang off and turned to discover Yolie and Toni standing there in the hallway with her.

“What’s going down?” Yolie wanted to know.

Des shook her head in amazement. “He did it to me again.”

“Did what?”

“Went barging into the middle of things like Robert Mitchum on a bad-hair day. I’m going to kill him, I swear. But first I have to find him. I can’t believe he…” She broke off, her stomach in knots. “Want to get in some trouble?”

“You know me, girl. I’m up for anything. Let’s roll.”

“You could end up back in a gunnysack like me,” Des cautioned her.

“Not a problem. I look hot in gray. Whatever it is, I’m in.”

“Me, too,” Toni said.

“This ain’t your fight,” Yolie told her. “Besides, I need you holding down the fort here.”

“No way, Loo. I’ve been chained to a computer all day. And if I have to spend five more minutes in a room with Grisky I’m going to shoot him. Enough with the talking thing, okay? Let’s get out of here and break bad.”

Yolie’s fierce face broke into a smile. “Good answer, Sergeant.”

The first time Mitch came to he was positive he had to be on a wild ride at Disney World. It was hurtling him along incredibly fast and was bone-jarringly bouncy and everything around him was pitch-black and really, really scary. Except Mitch had never been to Disney World, which meant he had to be dreaming. Except he wasn’t dreaming. His eyes were wide open.

Oh, God, I’m blind.

No, wait, he could see a crack of light down there by his feet. And hear the sound of tires on slushy pavement as the wild ride slowed down and came to a stop. Mitch took careful stock of himself. He seemed to be lying on his side in a fetal position. The back of his head hurt. He reached for it, fingering it. It felt sticky.… Okay, now he remembered. He’d been watching the parking lot of the Rustic when someone coldcocked him on the back of the head with a heavy object-like, say, a twelve-inch Lodge cast-iron skillet. Because he’d gotten his bell rung but good. Second time in less than a year, too. First time was that concussion he got at Astrid’s Castle when he and Des got stranded up there with that killer who kept …

Focus. Try to remember what happened.

The Rustic. He’d been standing there watching, um, watching Casey and Gigi take off in Casey’s Tacoma. Sure, that was it. And now?

Now I’m stuffed in the trunk of somebody’s car.

It was cold and super-cramped in there. Zero headroom. And it smelled like oil and burnt rubber. Had to be an old beater of a car. Its automatic transmission was bad. As they started to pick up speed again, Mitch could feel the tranny rev and rev and rev before it lurched into second gear. He smelled more burnt rubber. Smelled something else, too. An animal smell. A dead animal smell. He groped around in the darkness. His fingers found the smooth roundness of a spare tire. Then, behind him, a plastic bag. Really large one. Actually, more like a tarp than a bag. Something big and heavy was wrapped inside.

Or someone.

Mitch gulped as he fought back a strong, sudden wave of nausea. Then the car went over a bump and the back of his head smacked hard against the lid of the trunk and he was out again.

The second time Mitch came to it was with a sudden yelp, as if he were awakening from an awful nightmare. He was cold. Freezing cold. He had never been so cold in his life. Shivering and shaking, his teeth chattering so violently that he was afraid he was going to shatter them.

Where am I? Why am I so cold?

He glanced around, blinking, dazed. Well, hell, he was basking on his own beach in the late-day sun. It was a nice, breezy afternoon out on Big Sister, the surf lapping against the rocks. Must have drifted off for a few minutes as he lay there in the sand in his swim trunks. Sure, that was it. He looked around for the island’s familiar landmark, the old lighthouse, except it wasn’t there. Wait a second, he wasn’t home. This was a different beach. Someone else’s beach. And this wasn’t soft sand he was lying on. And he wasn’t wearing swim trunks. He wasn’t wearing anything at all.

I am lying stark naked in the snow.

He was still asleep. Had to be. This had to be a dream. Except it wasn’t. He was lying naked in the snow, shaking with cold. It was, what, thirty-five degrees out? That wind off of the water was howling. His fingers and toes ached, ears and nose stung.

Where am I? How in the hell did I get here?

Someone had conked him on the head outside of the Rustic and then … what? Then he’d been stuffed in the trunk of that car, right? And now he was freezing his ass off on this beach. He looked around, thinking that he knew this place.

Breezy Point.

Sure, he’d come here for bike rides with Des. Breezy Point was one of the nicest places to be on a summer afternoon. In the winter? In the winter it was known as the windchill capital of the Connecticut shoreline. They didn’t call it Breezy Point for nothing. The beach was deserted this time of year. Absolutely no one came here. It was also remote. Had to be a three-mile hike to Route One from here. Darkness was approaching fast. And Mitch was naked and all alone.

Except for his friend, that is. The fellow who was lying in the snow next to him with that shower curtain around him. Casey Zander. It was Casey. He had clothes on-a Pats hoodie sweatpants and white socks. He wasn’t shivering. Or moving. Or-Or breathing. Just staring up at the sky, his face a winter shade of pale blue …

He’s dead. There’s blood all over that shower curtain. Blood all over his sweatshirt. Casey’s dead.

The sudden realization sent Mitch scrambling to his feet to get away from Casey’s body. He promptly fell right back down into the deep snow, his bare feet so frozen that they wouldn’t support his weight. He felt dizzy, too. So dizzy he almost passed out again. He managed not to. Couldn’t, mustn’t pass out. Had to stay awake and get the hell out of here before it got dark. Because if he didn’t, he would freeze to death awfully damned fast.

How did we get out here?

Slowly, it came back to him. Being lifted out of the trunk by that behemoth Tommy the Pinhead. Being forced to walk down to the beach in the snow, even though he’d been incredibly woozy and could barely maintain his balance. But the girl, Gigi, kept poking him with a gun. She was holding a gun on him. And Tommy was carrying something. A big, heavy package. Casey. He was carrying Casey’s body. When they got here Tommy dropped Casey and ordered Mitch to turn around. Then the bastard beaned him again. Hit him with that gun, probably. Hit him so hard that he’d passed out for who knows how long. Long enough for them to take all of his clothes off. Damn, they’d even taken his Omega, the one that his grandfather, Sam Berger, bought for seven dollars at the Fort Dix PX before he shipped out to fight Hitler. Sam wore that watch all through the war. And Mitch had worn it since he was in high school. And now it was gone and he was shivering uncontrollably and had no feeling whatsoever in his hands or feet.

What do I do?

Think it out, calmly and rationally. He’d gotten out of tough situations before. He’d get out of this one. If he had a problem, he simply needed to solve it.

Problem One: I’m going to freeze to death.

Solution: Put some clothes on, dumb ass.

And add this to the list of 297 things that Mitch Berger, noted New York City film critic, never, ever thought he’d find himself doing-rolling a bloody dead guy out of a bloody shower curtain so that he could undress said dead guy and put his bloody clothes on. First, he wrestled the Pats hoodie off over Casey’s head. Or tried to. Casey wasn’t exactly cooperating and Mitch’s fingers were numb and his hands were shaking. Plus his stomach kept lurching and sending hot, sour bile up into his throat. But Mitch tugged and tugged until, gasping with exhaustion, he finally managed to yank Casey’s hooded sweatshirt off of him.

Mitch’s stomach lurched again when he saw the deep knife wounds in Casey’s abdomen. He could make out at least six of them in what was left of the afternoon sunlight. A man hadn’t done that to him. Casey had been killed by a savage animal.

Teeth chattering, he pulled the dead man’s sweatshirt on over his own head, snugging the hood down over his frozen ears, burying his hands in its kangaroo pouch. He didn’t care that the lower half of the sweatshirt was soaked with Casey’s ice-cold blood. Couldn’t afford to care. He was grateful for whatever he had. It would have been nice if there’d been something tucked inside of that kangaroo pouch. Like, say, a cell phone. But that was too much to hope for. After he’d warmed his hands for a moment he removed Casey’s socks and slid them on his own frozen feet. The socks were nothing more than thin cotton. And they were caked with snow. Barely any protection at all. But they were something.

His next challenge was Casey’s sweatpants. As he crouched over Casey, preparing to pull the pants down his legs, Mitch’s nostrils encountered some truly terrible smells. Casey’s sphincters had released when he died. One of those real-life things that they never show in the movies. And, in real life, Mitch couldn’t put those pants on no matter how cold he was.

That left the bloody shower curtain, which would at least work as a windbreaker. He rolled Casey off of it, folded it in half and wrapped it around the lower half of his body, tucking it at his waist like a bath towel.

Problem Two: I’m miles from nowhere.

Solution? Start walking.

Right. He had to make his way through that deep snow. Back across the beach to the path, then up the path to the parking lot. The lot had probably been plowed. Easy walking. Beyond it was a road that dipped under the Amtrak railroad trestle and then after a mile or so met up with Route 1. That wasn’t so far. He could make that. And maybe he’d encounter somebody before he reached Route 1. It wasn’t the middle of the night. People would be out and about. Sure, they would. He’d flag someone down and ask them to call Des on their cell phone. Not a problem. He was clothed and socked. Hands tucked inside of the kangaroo pouch. Ears covered. He could do this. All he had to do was get up and start walking.

Problem Three: I can’t actually get up.

Solution: Yes, you actually can.

Slowly, Mitch got to his feet, wavering as he stood there in the gusting wind. The setting sun now was a sliver on the western horizon. Darkness was falling. He paused to say good-bye to Casey. Promised the guy he’d be back for him as soon as he could. It wasn’t a long speech. This wasn’t the time for words. It was the time for action. He gave Casey a jaunty wave, then snugged the shower curtain tight and started his way through the deep snow one rugged step at a time. He made it three whole strides before flashbulbs started popping in front of his eyes and he fell back down, dizzy beyond belief from those blows to his head. Everything was spinning.

Don’t pass out. You can’t pass out. It’ll drop into the twenties once it gets dark and you’ll freeze to death. Don’t pass …

The roar of an engine brought him back. It was the Acela speeding its way across the trestle toward Boston, its passengers all warm and cozy inside, and wearing things like trousers, underwear and sweatshirts that weren’t caked with someone else’s blood. They were probably thinking about the hot meal they’d be having when they pulled into Boston. It would be supper time. Nothing like a scrumptious supper in Beantown on a cold, windy night. A big, hot bowl of clam chowder for starters. Then a rib eye steak, medium rare, with hash browns, creamed spinach and plenty of fresh bread slathered with sweet butter. A nice bottle of Chianti Classico. Chocolate cake for dessert. A double espresso with a jolt of Balvenie on the side. Mitch could practically taste it as the train tore past and then was gone, leaving behind the howl of the wind and the faint strumming of a guitar. Mitch recognized the tune-Leonard Cohen’s “The Stranger Song” from McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Mitch had been downloading it yesterday, back when he was a warm, sentient film maven as opposed to a dazed oaf sitting half frozen in the snow with the winter darkness closing in on him. He had to get up. Get up and keep walking-same as Beatty had to get up and keep walking after he got shot at the end of McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Beatty with his bowler hat and beard and that stupid line he kept saying to people. What was that line?

“If a frog had wings he wouldn’t bump his ass so much, follow me?”

Except no one ever did.

Mitch’s feet ached now. He willed himself back up onto them anyway. He was standing tall. Walking tall. One foot in front of the other. He was fine-until suddenly everything seemed to be tilting at a funny angle and he realized that he wasn’t walking or standing tall anymore. He’d pitched over onto his side like a mighty oak in a hurricane and lay there in the snow once again.

Get back up. Keep walking.

He wanted to. Really, he did. Except it was so hard to get up. And so easy to just settle down into the snow and stay here.

Problem Four: You’re going to die.

Solution: Accept it.

They’d left him here to die. That was why they’d taken his clothing. And he was going to die-right here next to Casey. It wouldn’t take long now. Mitch wished he could leave Des a goodbye note. But he had nothing to write with. Doubted his fingers would be able to hold a pen anyway, even though he had them tucked inside of Casey’s sweatshirt. What were the four degrees of frostbite? He’d just been watching a special about it the other night on The Weather Channel. The first degree was frost nip, which affected only the surface skin. Second degree, the skin froze and hardened but the deep tissue wasn’t affected and you were still basically okay. But once you got to degrees three and four, the blood vessels, nerves and muscles started to freeze. That was when they started talking about gangrene and amputation. And then there was the whole hypothermia thing, which occurred when your body temperature dipped below ninety-five degrees. He figured that had to be on the table soon, what with the windchill factor and all. Bottom line? If no one found him in the next twenty minutes Mitch Berger, noted film critic, would achieve the fifth degree, which also went by the name Certain Death.

I don’t want to die. I want to live. Please, God, don’t let me die. Let me live. If you let me live I–I promise you I’ll take back every bad word I’ve ever said about Danny Kaye. I’ll even watch every single one of his movies, I swear. I don’t want to die.

But he knew he was going to. This was the end. As he lay there on his side Mitch drew his knees to his chest and hugged them tightly, his teeth chattering as he waited for death to come. He didn’t welcome it. But he accepted it. He had to accept it. Death was the only choice left to him. And he was okay with that, because he was very, very lucky.

I became the man I wanted to be. Did the work I wanted to do. I loved a special woman. When I lost her I didn’t think I’d make it-until I met a woman who was even more special and I loved her even more.

That’s pretty much all a man can ask for, isn’t it? What else is there? Kids? Okay, he and Des didn’t get that chance. But he did pretty damned good for a shlub from Stuyvesant Town. True, maybe this fade-out scene right here was a tiny bit on the sad side. Maybe he was blinking as he fought back the tears that had started to come. Blinking as the flashbulbs started popping before his eyes again, bright as could be. But this would be over soon. He just had to surrender to it. And so he did. Mitch closed his eyes and he surrendered.

“If a frog had wings he wouldn’t bump his ass so much, follow me?”

They floored it tO Breezy Point, lights flashing and sirens blaring as they tore their way around the rush-hour traffic on the Post Road-Des in the lead car, Yolie on her tail with Tommy the Pinhead and Gigi Garanski handcuffed in the backseat of her cruiser. It took them ten minutes to reach the park turn-off on Route 1. When the road dipped under the Amtrak trestle, Des hit a pothole that was deep enough to rattle her spine. She slowed now as she drew nearer to the parking lot, her eyes searching the dusk for someone out walking. Someone large and Jewish who was desperately trying to find help. But she saw no one as she pulled into the deserted parking lot, her high beams sweeping the woods alongside of it.

If he’s dead then I’m dead, too. I’ll stop eating. I’ll stop caring. I’ll die. I’ll just curl up and die.

She left her engine running, jumped out and threw open the back door to Yolie’s cruiser. “Where are they?”

“On the beach,” Tommy the Pinhead answered. “Like I told you.”

“He’d better be okay. Because if he’s not I swear I will shoot you both and leave you here. The coyotes will eat your remains.”

“Tommy, she’s scaring me,” Gigi whimpered.

“Shut the hell up, will ya? The dude’s fine,” he assured Des. “I just gave him a little love pat on the head, that’s all.”

She slammed the door and zipped up her Gore-Tex storm jacket. Then she and Yolie started their way down the snowy, windblown path into the park. They needed their big Maglites to show them the way in the deepening darkness. And the walking wasn’t easy. Every time she put her foot down it kerchunked on the hard, icy surface left by last night’s rain and went plunging down into two feet of soft snow. Each footstep was serious work.

“MITCH?…!” she cried out, her ears straining for a response. She heard nothing over the wind. “Damn, I hope he didn’t wander off and get lost.”

“If he wandered anywhere it would have been back toward Route 1. We’d have seen him. Mitch ain’t dumb.”

“But he got whacked on the head, Yolie. He’s already had one concussion this year. And this is Mitch we’re talking about. For all we know he may think he’s on a lion hunt with the Ale and Quail Club.”

“The Ale and Quail who?”

“You never saw Palm Beach Story? I swear, that sequence on the train has to be the funniest ten minutes I’ve ever … Will you listen to me? I’m even starting to sound like him. I swear, if that man’s still alive I’m going to kill him.”

“Okay, here we go,” Yolie said as they reached the narrower path that snaked through the woods to the beach.

She could hear the surf washing up on the rocks as they made their way down the path. It was considerably windier out on the open beach. Blowing really, really hard. The windchill was something fierce. They waved their flashlight beams out along the water’s edge and spotted two large shapes out there in the snow. Two large, motionless shapes.

“MITCH?!.…” Des screamed over the howling wind.

Nothing. No response.

Des broke into a mad sprint through the deep snow, her legs straining, chest heaving as she gasped and gasped and gasped. “MITCH?!.…”

Still nothing.

The first person her flashlight beam found was Casey, who was curled up dead like a giant, frozen worm. Huddled a few feet away from him was Mitch, who lay on his side wearing only a Pats hoodie, a pair of white socks and a bloody shower curtain that had slid down around his knees. He was … blinking at her. Or trying to. His eyes were practically frozen shut. And he was shuddering so violently she could hear his teeth chattering. He had no pants on. Not even any underwear. The poor man’s genitals were fully exposed to the howling wind.

She whipped off her parka and fell to her knees before him, tears streaming down her cheeks as she wrapped it around him. “Oh, baby, baby…”

“D-Do you?…”

“Do I what?”

“Any c-clam chowder?”

“What’d he just say?”

“He wants some clam chowder.”

“Not a problem, big boy. We’ll get some in you right away.” Yolie took off her own jacket and put it over him.

“Can you believe they left him out here buck naked?”

“I can believe it.”

“Would have been nice if they’d mentioned it.”

“Girl, I think you need to accept that these are not nice people.”

“We’ll have to carry him back. I’ll take him by his arms. You take his legs. Be real careful with his feet. If he’s got any frostbite in those toes you don’t want to squeeze them or rub them.”

“Hey, I took the same lifesaving classes you did, remember?”

“Sorry, I’m just a tiny bit out of my mind right now.”

“No, you’re not. You’re fine. We’re all fine. Right, big boy?”

“K-Kids,” he croaked as they secured their jackets around him.

Des frowned at him. “Which kids?”

“Our kids.”

“He must be tripping.” Des shined her light on the back of his head. “Yeah, he’s been bleeding. Got whacked real good.”

Yolie worked the zipper of her parka up toward Mitch’s exposed genitals.

“N-Not sure I’m ready for our relationship to go this f-far,” he told her.

“I’ve seen a man’s tool before,” she assured him, zipping him up nice and snug. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen one so shriveled though.”

“From the c-cold. I–I don’t have frostbite there, do I?”

“Not to worry, stud. It strikes your extremities first. And, trust me, that ain’t no extremity. Girl, is it always so small?”

“We are not going to have this conversation right now. And no.”

“If you p-pop it into your mouth you’ll warm it right up.”

“He talking to me?”

“He’d better be talking to me.”

Now he was muttering something under his breath about a frog having wings.

“You following any of this?” Yolie asked her.

“Not a word. Let’s lift him on two, okay? One, two…”

They hoisted him up. Mitch was heavy, close to two hundred pounds. But not nearly as heavy as when she’d first met him. He’d taken off a good forty pounds of man-blubber since then. Which was a mighty good thing. It wasn’t easy horsing him back through that deep snow, step by step by step.

“How you doing at your end?” Yolie panted as they worked their way slowly back across the beach.

“Okay…” Her shoulders and back were already starting to scream. “But I think he’s unconscious.”

“Probably just as well. Another ten seconds and he was going to be proposing to both of us.”

They made it across the beach and started their way up the narrow, twisting path. By now every single muscle in Des’s body was in agony.

“Need a break?” Yolie asked her when they reached the main path.

“No, I’m good,” she gasped. “Let’s get him in my front seat. I’ve got blankets in my trunk. I’ll run him straight to Shoreline Clinic. Faster than waiting for an EMT.”

“Deal. I’ll secure this scene, then run those two pieces of human filth in.”

They could see their cars now. Just another fifty yards and they’d be there. Not so far. Not so far at all. Not when her man’s life depended on it. And, hell, the last twenty feet was plowed pavement. Easy-peasy. They set him down gently on the passenger side of her front seat. Des pointed all of the heater vents in his direction and got the blankets out of the trunk and wrapped them around him. He was still unconscious. Also exceedingly pale-except for his ears and nose, which were bright red. She jumped in behind the wheel and slammed the door.

He stirred, blinking at her from inside of his blanket cocoon. “Y-You found me.”

“Of course I did.” She backed the cruiser up, spun it around and took off. “Think I was going to let you freeze to death out there?”

“H-How?…”

“Rut called from the Rustic to tell me you’d vanished. We followed your trail from there to the Yankee Doodle, where we found a whole lot of blood in Bungalow Six.” She eased off of the gas as she dipped under the Amtrak trestle, not wanting to jar him, then hit the gas again. Also her siren. “I was afraid it was yours, to tell you the truth.”

“It wasn’t.”

“After that we convinced Tommy the Pinhead to tell us where you were. Two large, angry black women with semiautomatic handguns can be very persuasive-especially if one of them is Yolie.”

She made a left onto Route 1 and punched it, veering around anyone and everyone in her path.

“Why’d they take my clothes?”

“Gigi thought it would be funny.”

“She needs to work on her sense of humor.”

“She’ll have plenty of time at York Correctional.”

“They teach comedy there now?”

“That was a joke, mister.”

“Sorry, I’m not … real with it.”

In fact, he’d passed out again.

She hit ninety mph as she tore across the Baldwin Bridge and then up Route 9 to the clinic. Night was settling in as she pulled up at the ambulance entrance with a screech.

Mitch awoke with a startled yelp, his eyes wide with fright.

She put her arm around him. “You okay?”

“I–I thought I was back in that trunk again with Casey. It was like that scene in Out of Sight with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. After he escaped from prison, remember? Except it was pitch-black and he was dead. And I’d much rather have been stuffed in there with J-Lo. She was hot in that movie. Not Yvette Mimieux hot, but plenty hot.”

She smiled at him. “You’re jabbering. Have I told you recently how much I love it when you jabber?”

“Des, my head hurts.”

“I know.”

“And my toes really, really ache.”

“Good. That means the nerves are still working. You won’t lose them.”

“Lose them?”

She got out, charged through the double doors to the ER and hollered, “Get some help here!”

A doctor and a nurse started toward her at once. Des had been in and out of the clinic a million times and was acquainted with the doctor, a brisk, efficient Asian woman named Cindie Tashima.

“What have we got here?” Dr. Cindie asked as Des and the nurse hoisted Mitch into a wheelchair, his eyes blinking from the entrance’s bright lights.

“This man’s suffered a head wound and is in and out of consciousness. He was left for dead out at Breezy Point with no clothes on. We’re talking possible frostbite, especially to his feet.”

“Take him into room four and start re-warming him,” Dr. Cindie ordered the nurse, who promptly wheeled Mitch away. “Since they took his clothes I’m assuming he had no ID on him.”

“Probably threw his wallet in a Dumpster somewhere.”

“So he’s a John Doe?”

“No, he’s a Mitchell Berger.”

Des provided an administrative aide with Mitch’s address, date of birth and the name of his insurance provider. Dr. Cindie checked his body temperature and blood pressure while the nurse and an orderly unzipped the parkas Des and Yolie had covered him with and peeled off the bloody sweatshirt and shower curtain. Des watched them through the open doorway as they started re-warming his hands and feet in disposable basins filled with warm water. Not hot. Hot water could be such a shock to the system that it caused heart damage.

When the nurse handed Des the parkas Des said, “I’ll need the sweatshirt and shower curtain, too. How is he?”

“Conscious. And real anxious to talk to you about something.”

Des went into the room and said, “What is it, baby?”

“I–I forgot to tell you,” he murmured as Dr. Cindie examined his head wound. “When I was in Tommy the Pinhead’s trunk with Casey…”

“Is this about J-Lo again?”

“No, the tranny.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Which tranny?”

“Tommy drives a beat-up old black Trans Am, okay? And if you’re trying to find it here’s what to look for-he needs a new tranny real badly.”

“And you know this because?…”

“It kept revving and revving before it shifted into second with a real lurch. I smelled burnt rubber, too.”

Des didn’t bother to tell him they’d already located Tommy’s Trans Am. Just nodded and said, “A beat-up old black Trans Am with a bad tranny. Got it.”

“His Trans Am is toast, you know. When that tranny goes it’ll cost more to replace it than the whole car’s worth.”

She stared at him in disbelief, her pulse quickening. “I swear, sometimes you terrify me. You’ve got frostbite and a possible concussion.…”

“Definite concussion,” Dr. Cindie interjected.

“And yet you did it again.”

He frowned at her, his gaze slightly out of focus. “Did what?”

“Cracked my case.”

“I think I cracked a tooth. They were chattering so hard.”

“I’ll have a look at it in a second,” Dr. Cindie promised him.

Des bent down and kissed him. “I have to leave you for a little while. I’ll be back soon, okay?”

He didn’t answer her. Couldn’t. He was unconscious again.

The world-class pissing contest didn’t stop after Paulette’s arrest for the murder of Hank Merrill. Since Hank was an employee of the U.S. Postal Service his murder constituted a federal crime and the Department of Justice wanted to take the case away from Connecticut’s prosecutors and try it in a U.S. Court. What with Casey Zander being a postal service employee, too, the feds also wanted their hands on Tommy the Pinhead, hoping they could persuade him to flip on Slick Rick Fontanella and the Castagno crime family.

The case got a lot of media attention in the days leading up to Christmas. Mitch followed it online when he was feeling well enough. Mostly, he stayed in bed with his two cats and his ten toes that ached beyond belief. His fingers weren’t so terrific either. He also had a wicked headache, blurry vision and got so dizzy whenever he tried to stand up that he had to lean against the nearest piece of large furniture. But Dr. Cindie had assured him his head would feel a little bit better every day. Also that he’d suffered no permanent nerve damage to his fingers or toes. He just had to take it easy for a while.

Des stopped by regularly to fuss over him and to remove her yellow string bikini from his Chanukah bush. Much to Mitch’s delight, she’d found his wallet and his grandfather’s Omega in the trunk of Tommy’s Trans Am. Tommy hadn’t bothered to dispose of the stuff after he and Gigi left Mitch on the beach with Casey to die. Apparently, he’d been more interested in scoring a pizza and boinking Gigi.

They didn’t call him Tommy the Pinhead for nothing.

When Mitch started to feel a bit more alert he logged on to the NOAA Web site and computed the temperature, wind velocity and windchill factor out on Breezy Point when the sun was falling that day, to determine just how long he could have survived out there. Near as he could tell, if it had taken Des and Yolie longer than twenty more minutes to find him he’d now be hobbling around with no toes-if he was lucky enough to be hobbling around at all. If being the operative word. If Rut Peck hadn’t called Des from the Rustic when he had. If she and Yolie hadn’t made a beeline to the Rustic, then the Yankee Doodle, then Tommy the Pinhead’s apartment. If Tommy the Pinhead and Gigi hadn’t been home in bed. If …

He was stretched out on the loveseat in front of a roaring fire when he got a phone call from Rut Peck, who was back in residence at Essex Meadows.

“Glad to hear that you’re on the mend, young fella.”

“Rut, I sure do apologize for abandoning you that way at the Rustic.”

“No apology necessary. Liveliest afternoon I’ve had in ages.”

“I also want you to know how sorry I am about Paulette.”

The old postmaster fell silent, breathing heavily in and out. “Me, too.”

“Did you have any idea what she was up to?” Mitch asked, recalling how uneasy the old fellow had seemed that night in his cellar, when he first told Mitch about the grinch.

“I knew that Casey was no good. I figured if things were going missing he had to be mixed up in it somehow. But I never imagined that Paulette was in on it with him. That she’d betray the job and do something so awful to Hank. No sir, not in a million years. But you never think that way about the people who you’re fond of-no matter how old and wise you get. Not that I feel very wise right now. Just kind of sad.”

“I guess Paulette felt she had no choice.”

“We always have a choice, young fella,” Rut said. “Always.”

Josie stopped by a few minutes after that toting a blender full of something that looked a lot like purple diarrhea. “I’m so happy that you’re up and about, naybs,” she exclaimed, all bright eyed and pink cheeked. “I made you one of my smoothies. It’s got bananas, raw kale and a bunch of Big Sister wild blackberries that I found in the freezer. Just what you need right now. Go ahead, taste it.”

Mitch forced himself to take a small sip, swallowing hard. “Yum, it’s as good as it looks. I’ll have the rest of it later. I’m kind of full right now.”

Josie tilted her blond head at him. “I’m not going to find another stash of Cocoa Puffs in your fridge am I?”

Right away, Mitch flashed back to Casey hurling his Cocoa Puffs in the parking lot of the Rustic after Tommy the Pinhead punched him in the stomach. It was one of the last things Mitch remembered before Tommy K.O.’d him with that snow shovel. “Naybs, I won’t ever eat Cocoa Puffs again.”

“Wow, I actually believe you.” Josie perched on the edge of an overstuffed chair, clearing her throat. “So now you know everything sordid and awful about me, don’t you? Des must have told you.”

“She told me a bit,” he acknowledged. Actually, she’d told him all about the life that Josie had led before she arrived in Dorset. Des had done so in a flat, emotionless voice. Had taken no pleasure in the telling. Des Mitry wasn’t wired that way. “For starters, that your father didn’t abandon you and your mother when you were twelve. He was killed in some kind of a hunting accident.”

“It was no hunting accident,” Josie said quietly. “My mother shot him. The police gave her a pass because they knew he’d been beating the crap out of her for years. Also that if they put her away there’d be no one to take care of me. Not that she was much good at the mothering thing. All she ever did was get loaded every night. I told you the truth, Mitch. I’ve been on my own since I was sixteen. I’ve done whatever I had to do to survive. Plenty of things that I’m not particularly proud of. But I’m not any kind of evil, scheming bitch. Just someone who’s been trying to make my own way.” Her big blue eyes locked on to his pleadingly. “Is that so horrible?”

“No, it’s not.”

She gazed into the fire now. “I know how it looks. I’ve lived with two older men, James and Bryce. They both killed themselves. And they both made sure I wouldn’t get kicked out of the house after they died. I didn’t ask either of them to do that for me. I didn’t even know that they had. James and Bryce were messed up. They needed help badly. I tried to help. I failed them. I failed Casey, too. That doesn’t make me a rotten person. But now everyone in Dorset thinks I am, just like they did in Castine. Because I’m an outsider. Because I’m different. I had to leave Castine, you know. People started spray painting the word whore on my car. They drove me out of there and now they’ll drive me out of Dorset. Preston Peck will see to that. Glynis told me he’s prepared to offer me a ‘generous’ cash settlement if I’ll clear out. That’s pretty much what I’ve decided to do. I’m just waiting for the medical examiner’s office to release Bryce’s body. I promised Bryce I’d cremate him and scatter his ashes on the beach here. I intend to keep that promise. And I don’t give a damn what Preston thinks.”

“I’d like to be there when you do it, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind. I’d like you to be there.”

“I’d also like you to reconsider your decision. Don’t let him drive you away. Stay here and slug it out.”

Josie looked at him curiously. “Are you serious?”

“Absolutely. I’ve gotten used to having you around. I’ll miss you. You’re not the only person in the world who’s different, you know. I’ve been different my whole life. My idea of a good time is sitting in a dark room staring at a wall. Normal people think I’m completely crazy. But normal people are total bores. They’re also the ones who’re responsible for pretty much everything that goes wrong in this world. I think you should stay, Josie. You’ve made a home for yourself here. You have clients who need you. Don’t go.”

“A certain resident trooper wouldn’t like it very much if I stayed.”

“Who, Des? She’ll be fine with it. Lots of people will. Dorset is changing fast. This isn’t the same place it used to be. She’s living proof of that. We’re living proof of that. Besides, you can’t keep running away your whole life. You have to put down roots.”

Josie shook her head at him. “No, you don’t.”

“Where will you go?”

“Somewhere warm. Anywhere warm.” Josie let out a mournful sigh. “Anywhere but here.”