The first hunter said, “You get hold of the police?”
Just as the second hunter was about to speak, the sound of the siren could be heard heading out of town.
“Wonder if Richie’s down there now,” somebody said.
“Oh, he’s down there all right,” said the second hunter. “I pounded on his door a good five minutes. Saw him sleeping in there but I couldn’t wake him up.”
“Sleeping one off,” said another hunter.
“Hell, yes, sleeping one off,” said the first hunter. “That’s all he ever does anymore.”
“You really think he could kill somebody?” said the second hunter.
The first hunter snorted and looked at the other men for support. “That temper of his? You kidding?”
The second hunter stared down the hill again. He looked sad, as if his mind was filled with a terrible memory. “Man, ten years ago Richie had it by the balls.”
“He sure did,” the first hunter said, and now even his voice was touched with a certain sentimentality. A small town like this needed heroes. And at one point, Richie McGuire had been the biggest hero this town had ever known.
Ten
1
The Chief knew enough to defer to Sam Bowers.
This was the kind of crazy shit that Sam had gone to college to learn.
In the old days, before there had even been a State Bureau of Investigation, before the legislature required all chiefs to take additional schooling each summer, before you practically had to know chemistry to conduct a murder investigation... in the old days, you drove out to the crime scene, you and your men scoured the area, you drove back to town and started asking questions, and then in a day or so, you nabbed your man. Small-town murders were generally pretty easy to solve. They almost always involved one of two things — sex or money. Every once in a while, you’d get a really wild one (a case that involved both sex and money, like when that Philips gal and the farmhand murdered her husband so they could inherit the farm and then get married to each other), but for the most part, you just started asking questions and soon enough you’d get your answer.
The way the Chief figured it, he could wrap this puppy up in less than eight hours if Sam Bowers hadn’t already called in the state boys.
The Chief had already heard what happened at Riley’s Pub last night. Given where the body was found, it didn’t exactly take a Nobel Prize winner to look down the hill at Richie McGuire’s cottage and figure out who the killer was.
But, no, he’d had to defer to Sam because if he didn’t the state boys would be all over his ass for not cooperating. Sam and the state boys (and girls; two of the people who were on their way here from Des Moines were gals).
Sam had a checklist. He carried the checklist on his clipboard. And he carried his clipboard with him at all times when he was working a crime scene.
And as he worked, he checked off the appropriate task as it was completed:
• Photograph crime scene
• Measure crime scene
• Collect and catalog evidence
• Draw crime scene
• Go over crime scene with crime lab
• Process crime scene
• Limit no. of evidence gatherers
• Keep accurate records of process
• Cellophane envelopes for small objects not organic in nature
• Paper envelopes used for organic evidence
And so on. Thirty-nine things to check off before his crime-scene investigation was complete. A lot of the locals seemed to find his approach amusing, but he didn’t care. He assumed that he would someday take over the department. He wanted everything in place by the time that moment came.
He spent the first forty-five minutes going over the area right around the body. He was assisted by a crime lab tech who’d arrived from Cedar Rapids.
By this time, at least forty people — gawkers — stood on the edge of the timberland, watching.
There wasn’t really much to see. Evidence collection was a pretty boring thing to watch.
From time to time, his gaze would inevitably stray downhill to Richie’s cabin.
At least a dozen people had come up to him this late morning and told him about the relationship between Richie and the dead girl.
He knew why he was putting off going down there.
His first waking thought this morning had been of Amy. How they were going to get back together. How they would soon enough be getting married and putting the whole business with Richie behind them.
Now he was going to have to ask Richie about the Fuller girl and he was afraid of how Amy was going to take this.
Are you accusing my brother of murder? she’d say.
The relationship that had looked so good last night was starting to look bad again. In fact, worse than it had ever been.
What if Richie really did kill the girl?
Would Amy blame Sam just for doing his job?
He went back to consulting with the crime-lab tech and kept looking down the hill.
2
Panic.
That was always the first thing Richie felt on hangover mornings.
Panic and familiar questions.
Where did I go last night? Who did I see? Did I get into any trouble.
Heat.
Hangovers always left him with a feverish feeling and with a terrible, almost unslakable thirst.
After swinging his legs off his single bed, he sat up straight for a time on the edge of the mattress, head in his hands.
The old and terrifying questions.
His mind dark.
He could remember getting to Riley’s Pub after work at the country club.
He could remember starting to get drunk and talking to the bartender and...
And then what?
If he couldn’t remember anything... didn’t that mean that nothing remarkable had happened?
Right. That was it.
He couldn’t remember anything bad... because nothing bad had happened.
Simple enough.
But he knew better.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph did he know better.
Like a couple of months ago when he’d been bopping that banker’s wife out in the country-club darkness... the woman couldn’t wait to get him inside her... such a stupid risk... his whole life in Crystal Falls could have ended right there.
But he didn’t remember any of it for some thirty-six hours afterward.
Then he was sitting in Riley’s Pub and the door opened up and here came the banker and his wife... and then Richie flashed on the whole stupid chance he’d taken in the parking lot the other night.
So he didn’t always remember things right away.
He examined himself.
Given his temper and his tendency to fight, he always examined himself for cuts and bruises. If things had really gotten out of hand, he would see it on his body.
He checked himself out.
No bruises or cuts on his fists. No bruises or cuts on his legs or feet. He felt his face and head. No lumps or bumps.
So — no fight.
He thus eliminated one of his biggest worries on mornings like these. Hadn’t he really torn into somebody?
Answer: No he hadn’t.
Feeling a little better about himself, he stood up, creaky as an old man, and staggered to the old Kelvinator refrigerator in the corner.
Inside, he found the elixir: Diet Pepsi. When he was really dehydrated, as now, he could gun two or three of them just standing at the refrigerator.
Popping the tab on a can, he staggered over to the closed bathroom. He went in and took a piss.