Ice Lake
JOHN A LENAHAN

A division of HarperCollinsPublishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.

Killer Reads

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017

Copyright © John Lenahan 2017

John Lenahan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2017

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Ebook Edition © JULY 2017 ISBN: 9780008254353

Version: 2020-01-23

For Paul, Vince and Cirb.

Life would have been so dull without you guys.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Keep Reading …

About the Publisher

Prologue

The people who live around Pocono Township have an expression, a coda they will add to the end of a declarative sentence or when they are replying to one. They will say: “And that’s no lie.” For instance, residents living around Ice Lake, Pennsylvania, or just – the lake – as the locals call it, will tell you that the lake is beautiful and that’s no lie. They will tell you that people around here are simple and pleasant and that too would be no lie. They will also say that folks around here are honest – but if that were entirely true then one has to wonder: why do they so often mention that they’re not lying?

Maybe it’s because around Ice Lake there are just too many secrets.

* * *

Big Bill looked around the woods with dismay. It had been a long time since he had been up here in the daytime and he was disgusted at the amount of trash lying around. This was one of his favourite places in the world but the younger generation wasn’t looking after it as they should. Everywhere there were beer cans and bottles, spent shells and cartridges of all calibres. And those damn red plastic cups. He didn’t mind the kids partying up here as he and his brothers used to but, in his day, at least they picked-up afterwards. ’Course they had to. If they didn’t Grandad tanned their hides when he came up to target practice. Tonight, Bill thought, he’d have a word with the younger set and threaten to chain off the path until they cleaned it up. Or maybe he would sell.

He found a big empty plastic bag that originally contained ice and used it to start picking up bottles and cans. He was determined not to let the fact that this clearing looked like a rubbish dump change his mind but he had to laugh at the thought that it was worth millions now.

Doesn’t matter, he thought. This is Thomson land. Grandad taught me to shoot up here, and I still remember how soft Teresa Shroder’s tit was that night when she finally let me touch it. I’ll not let those bastards ruin it whatever the price.

He was so lost in thought that he didn’t hear the other car. When he saw that his appointment was walking with the double-barrel shotgun cocked and not broken like it should be he thought, the first lesson is going to be gun safety.

He didn’t get to give his first lesson.

Some people are prepared to die. The long-term ill and military bomb defusers make peace with their existence long before their demise. There are those that after miraculously surviving a parachute failure speak of calmly accepting their imminent death before they hit the ground. But for most, death is unwelcome and often a surprise.

Big Bill wasn’t ready to die.

When the shotgun blew out the back of his right knee he didn’t even notice the pain. He was more worried about the person behind him being hurt by what he assumed was an accidental discharge. Even when he saw his assailant shoot out his other knee he was confused. He couldn’t understand how the shooter could have been so careless as to have hit him twice. When he saw the spent shells hit the ground next to his face he still couldn’t imagine that the sound above him was the shotgun being reloaded. Even when he felt the barrels against his skull the last thing he thought about wasn’t his mortality. No, the last thing that went through his mind before the buckshot was, How am I going to get to my exam next week?

Chapter 1

New York and Philadelphia are America’s first and fifth largest metropoles, bastions of culture, commerce, art, and architecture. Sure there is squalor within their beltways but the cities strive to fix that – or at least hide it. Not so with the road between. The New Jersey Department of Transportation seems to go out of its way to ensure that the scenery on the NJ Turnpike is as unbecoming as possible. Apparently if you want to build something that could be viewed by a Turnpike motorist, it can only be a warehouse or a chemical refinery.

Harry drove past the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Rest Area. Although he needed a break he refused to stop as a matter of principle: the 28th President of the United States, a Nobel Peace Prize recipient, and the architect of the League of Nations, deserved better than having a toilet named after him. Harry thought he could hold out until the Thomas Edison Memorial Stop – he had read somewhere that Edison was a bit of a bastard. Harry resolved that if he ever got famous he would stipulate in his will that no one could name a New Jersey crapper after him. On second thought he decided to amend his will as soon as possible, in case his dying act was so heroic that he was awarded with posthumous fame.

“THE GARDEN STATE,” what a joke of a state slogan that is. Harry spent the rest of the journey to New York trying to think up an alternative. The best he could come up with was: “NEW JERSEY – A STATE TO GET THROUGH.”

* * *

There was a typical half hour traffic build-up at the Holland Tunnel and Harry used the free time, as he usually did, by searching the FBI missing children database. He didn’t get far before his phone rang.

“Harry Cull, can I help you?”

“Harry, this is Edward Cirba.”

“Trooper Cirba,” Harry said with glee, “the last time I saw you was… let me think, it was a Buddhist temple, wasn’t it—?”

“You promised,” interrupted the caller, “not to ever mention that again.”

Harry laughed. He had met Pennsylvania State Trooper Edward Cirba at a national state police conference in Las Vegas. Harry had been speaking on interrogation techniques – specifically on how to spot lying. In the hotel bar that night Trooper Ed had told Harry “with all due respect,” that he was full of shit. Harry had ordered two shots of Patron and proposed a bet. He would ask a handful of questions in pairs. The cop would have to lie to one question and tell the truth to the other. If Harry could figure out which was the truth and which was a lie, he would pay for the twenty-dollar tequila shots. If he got it wrong, Trooper Ed would pay. Harry drank free all night and they ended up in a strip club called Nirvana. That was the thing that Ed Cirba asked Harry never to mention again.

“What can I do you for, trooper?”

“I was wondering if you wanted to spend a couple of days on a lake in the Poconos?”

“If I hadn’t seen with my own eyes the effect that lap dancer had on you I would wonder if your proposal was homoerotic.”

“There you go mentioning that supposedly unmentionable thing again – but no, Harry, I’m not suggesting a dirty weekend. I’ve got an honest-to-goodness murder up here and I could use some help interrogating people without them thinking they’re being interrogated, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“I have a budget for it; it’s not your corporate rate but you did say you work cheap if it’s real. This is real real.”

“Murder, you say?”

“Yeah, gangland style, shot in the back of the head.”

“Suspects?”

“All of north-eastern Pennsylvania.”

“Well at least that rules me out.”

“Now that I think of it, where were you yesterday morning?”

“What if I said I was murdering somebody in the Poconos?”

“It would make my life easier.”

“Sorry, trooper, I only kill locally.”

“Worth a try; I’ll fill you in when you get here.”

“I didn’t say I was coming.”

“I know the mayor. He’s a real estate guy and I got you a house lakeside – on the Commonwealth’s tab.”

“I gotta a job today in Manhattan. How long will it take me to get there?”

“Two hours – two and a half if you stop to buy a bathing suit.”

“If I can finish this corporate thing by closing time today, I’ll be there tomorrow by ten. I’ll call you tonight. Should I really buy a bathing suit?”

“Oh yeah. It’s a little corner of paradise. I’ll text you directions.”

* * *

The corporate thing in New York was the usual. Harry would show up with his oversize polygraph machine, which he would use to intimidate whoever had embezzled the cyber-millions that had vanished from some cyber-account somewhere. It was the kind of gig that Harry could usually stretch out for two or three glorious New York expense-filled days and it annoyed him that he would have to do a rush job. Not that his rush job would be any less thorough than his usual job, it’s just that if he did it quick this time, they might be suspicious when next time it took a week.

Harry dragged his equipment into the downtown offices of Harcom, Eckart, and McCarty. They were an overseas investment firm that made sure rich Americans didn’t get their savings diluted by that pesky Internal Revenue Service.

He spotted the guilty guy within the first five minutes. A youngish junior exec with foppish hair popped his head over a cubicle divider. To Harry’s trained eyes it was almost as if he’d jumped up and down and shouted, “It was me!” He was so highly strung that Harry was amazed they had even bothered to call him. But experience had taught Harry that signals he could see as easily as a dog could smell a buried bone were invisible to the general population. Normally Harry would have spent the morning setting up his polygraph, going for a leisurely lunch, and then the rest of the day interviewing all of the office staff. But Trooper Cirba’s phone call made it hard to concentrate on or, to be honest, even care about this job.

Harry waved off the office formalities and niceties and asked where he could set up his equipment without being disturbed. He was ushered into a conference room where he laid his flight case on the table and then asked for directions to the washroom.

Walking back while still drying his hands on a paper towel, Harry stuck his head into suspect number one’s cubicle and said: “Mr?”

The young man stared at Harry like a rabbit caught in headlights.

“Your name?” Harry asked again.

“Ah… Toliph.”

“Do you have a first name, Mr Toliph?”

“Of course I do,” Toliph said with nervous laughter. “Doesn’t everybody?”

Harry laughed dutifully and said: “Could you help me set up my stuff?”

“Oh… ah, no,” he said pointing to his computer screen. “I have to monitor the Asian markets.”

“It will only take a moment; your boss said you would help me.”

“Which boss?”

“The one that hired me to…” Harry lowered his voice. “You know why I’m here, don’t you?”

“I uh… you’re investigating the Isle of Man account?”

“That’s right,” Harry said even though he hadn’t yet been told what he was investigating. “So you know how important this is. I just need a hand setting up; my assistant isn’t here today.”

* * *

In the conference room Toliph stood on the other side of the table while Harry opened the flight case that held his polygraph. It was a standard Dermograph 793, top of the range as far as polygraphs go, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at it. A standard 793 simply has a couple of ribbon-like wires coming out of a leatherette black box but Harry didn’t like his machine looking so innocuous. He had removed the leatherette box cover so that all of the internal wires were visible. In fact he had added phoney wires to make the device look even more daunting. The sleek flat cables that normally attach to the blood-pressure cuff, the respiratory band, and the dermal-response pads, had been replaced with the kind of wiring you would associate with an electric chair. Harry liked his subjects feeling ill at ease, and the more his machinery resembled something out of a Frankenstein movie, the better he liked it. He called his polygraph – “The Beast”.

“It’s Walter, right?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your first name,” Harry said, “it’s Walter.”

“No,” Toliph said, “it’s James.”

Harry looked James Toliph directly in the eyes. “Is James a family name?”

“Yes. It was my grandfather’s name.”

“Good. And what did your grandfather do?”

“What?”

“Your grandfather, what was his job?”

“He was a grocer. Why would you want to know that?”

“No reason. Now James, who do you think stole the Isle of Man money?”

The junior executive stood thinking for a moment and said: “It could be anybody.”

“OK Jim, before I unpack all of this crap, let me ask you one more question. Is the money gone?”

“How would I know?”

“’Cause you took it, James.”

“That is ridiculous.”

“No, it’s not. An innocent man would have just said, ‘No, I didn’t’. Guilty people, or to use the common term, liars, normally respond with an equivocation, like, ‘That is ridiculous’. And liars tend to not use abbreviations. Saying, ‘That is,’ instead of ‘that’s’ makes you a liar.”

“This is nonsense.”

“It isn’t, it’s neuroscience. Admittedly it only works for the mean of the general population but I have a feeling, James, you are about right in the middle of the Great American Bell Curve.”

“I don’t have to stand for this,” Toliph said as he made a move towards the door.

“I wouldn’t go out there, Jim. Out there is jail but I think I can get you out of this.”

“This is bullshit. I won’t go to jail because your bunion throbs.”

“It’s more than that. When I asked you about your grandfather you told the truth, right?”

“Of course.”

“Of course you did. Why would you lie about that? But you had to think about your grandfather’s occupation. Since long-term memories are stored in the left hemisphere of the brain, most people look to the left when accessing them. When you retrieved your grandfather’s job your eyes shifted left but when I asked you who might have stolen the money, your eyes shifted right. Now the right hemisphere is the creative side; it’s the side that you use when you want to make stuff up. Like when you contemplated who you could frame for your crime.”

“So let me get this straight: you say I’m going to go to jail because I have shifty eyes?”

“It’s not just the eyes,” Harry went on, “it’s also the stupid joke you made about everybody having a first name. You said that to avoid my question. And then there is the fact that you unconsciously put this table between us when you entered the room, and the observation that your hands have been in your pockets ever since I met you, like you think they’re dirty.”

“That doesn’t prove anything.”

“No, and neither will the results of this machine when I hook you up to it but it will give those big shots out there enough cause to go over every one of your transactions with a fine-tooth comb, and when they find something – you go to jail.”

“I still think you are full of shit.”

“Don’t, James. I am very very good at my job. Now, the money that you stole: is it spent or is it recoverable?”

“Again, I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Yes, you do. Now, is it gone or can you get most of it back? ’Cause,” Harry pointed to the door, “I know these guys. Actually, I don’t know these guys but I know the type. All they want is their money back. They don’t want to arrest you ’cause arrests mean trials and trials mean their clients get to see how easy it is for a guy like you to steal their money. If you give it back you only lose your job and the ability to ever work in the financial sector again – which is a good thing because you seem to have a tendency… how shall I say… to give in to temptation.”

This was it. They don’t call it the moment of truth for nothing. The young exec squared his shoulders but then thought better of it. He fell back against the wall and slid down, hanging his head between his knees, his foppish hair flopping into his face.

“How could they have spotted it this fast?”

“It has been my experience, James, that people with a lot of money tend to know how not to have it stolen. Is the money get-back-able?”

“Yes. Of course. When would I have had time to spend it?”

Harry reached down and helped James to his feet. He looked like a middle schooler on the way to the principal’s office. “Come on, Jimmy, let’s keep you out of jail.”

* * *

Harry assembled the senior partners and sat back with a smug self-satisfied look on his face, until he heard James confess that he had only executed his dubious transaction “yesterday afternoon”. James’s Isle of Man scam wasn’t why Harry had been called.

After security had escorted Jimmy away, Harry found out that his employers hadn’t even known about that one. They thanked him – then briefed him on why he was really there.

* * *

Harry unpacked The Beast and proceeded with his usual routine of polygraphing everybody, starting with the senior management. This was one of the conditions companies had to agree to before Harry would accept a job. He explained to the executives that it caused fewer objections from junior staff if their bosses agreed to be hooked up first. But the real reason was that, half the time, Harry found the culprit was one of the bigwigs.

He was no closer to finding out who had pocketed the loose twenty-four million out of the Dubai fund and had resolved himself to the fact that this was going to take a couple of days, when his 4.30 appointment did a runner.

“My work here is done, gentlemen,” Harry said as he looked up from a surveillance video of Mr Patel getting into his car in the employee car park and hightailing it out of there. Even a child could see he looked guilty and scared as hell.

* * *

In the elevator down to the car park, Harry sent a message to Trooper Cirba.

“NYC gig done. See you in the morning.”

Trooper Cirba replied with directions to Ice Lake.

“Take Rt 80 to exit 46. Take Rt 307 south. Turn right after the purple hitch-hiker. Ice Lake 5 miles. You can’t miss it.”

Chapter 2

Not a lot is known about St Elizabeth other than she was the mother of John the Baptist and her husband was struck dumb when he doubted her pregnancy. (That’ll teach ’im). The bible makes no mention of her having a penchant for purple robes but that is how the artist who painted the statue saw her. Outside of St Elizabeth’s Catholic Church on Route 307 stands a double life-sized cement statue of the saint wearing a purple robe, with both hands out to her sides, palms facing out. It’s a common position for saintly statues that somehow depicts piety, but if a real human were to adopt the same pose he or she would probably look like they were saying, “I guess,” with a shrug.

Years ago a young teenager started his drinking career by stealing a bottle of altar wine from St Elizabeth’s sacristy. His drinking career never slowed, and a decade later, neither did his car as it careened off Route 307 and ploughed into one of Pennsylvania’s hardy scrub oaks. The statue’s left arm seemed to have tried to stop the poor lad from merging with the local flora but only managed to get itself pulverized.

The driver fared worse. The ambulance service could have spared the county the expense of a trip to the hospital and morgue because he was back at St Elizabeth’s just a week later for his funeral.

Harry had texted back to Trooper Cirba, asking him to explain what he meant by “purple hitchhiker”.

Cirba replied: “You’ll know it when you see it.”

Harry laughed out loud when he crested the hill on Route 307 and saw the statue of the purple-robed saint with one hand at her side, palm out, looking all the world like a hippie seeking a lift to Woodstock.

Ice Lake isn’t very big. Carved out of the Pocono Mountain’s ubiquitous forest of conifers and scrub oaks, it’s short of two miles around and is circled with a line of lakeside properties, a road, and another ring of roadside properties. It is spectacularly peaceful. The Ice Lake Association allows no motorized boats on the lake – only rowboats, canoes, and sailboats. They won’t even allow those tiny five horsepower electric trolling motors that the old fishermen use on other lakes. As Leo Carter said years ago at a meeting of the Ice Lake Rod & Gun Club, “If you’re too old to row 300 yards you shouldn’t be out on the lake by yourself.”

Ice Lake began its life as the name suggests – as an ice lake. Ebenezer Dinklocker dug out the lake in 1863 to harvest ice blocks in the winter. The frozen water was then stored in special barns with double walls filled with sawdust. These Ice Houses would keep the ice frozen all summer when Dinklocker made a good living delivering blocks to the iceboxes of most of the people in the tri-county area. That was until refrigeration was invented and the ice industry melted.

Harry pulled into the only commercial enterprise on the lake. Its official name was the Ice Lake Café but the locals just called it the Store. To call it a grocery store would have been an injustice to grocery stores everywhere – including ones in blockaded war-torn communist countries. To the left of a cooler containing milk, Coke, and eggs was an almost-empty shelf peppered with bread, Spam, and Pepperidge Farm Milano Cookies. Across the room a lunch counter sported a coffee maker and a pile of donuts under a clear plastic dome. A sign said: “HELP YOURSELF AND LEAVE A DONATION (OR AN IOU) IN THE CHAMBER POT.”

“Hello?” Harry called out.

A groan and then heavy footsteps preceded the arrival of a 70-ish-year-old man wearing a wife-beater T-shirt and two-day old white stubble.

“What’s your problem?” he asked.

“Hi,” Harry offered, as lightly as he could. “You still serving breakfast?”

“Uh huh,” the old guy said pointing to the glass case. “Coffee and donuts – breakfast of champions.” He started walking back to the upstairs door. “Leave the money in the chamber pot.”

“Ah, how much?”

The old guy turned and for the first time properly looked at Harry. “What do you pay at Starbucks for your none-y fatty amaretto latte cappuccino?”

“I pay about four bucks for my regular latte.”

“How much do they charge for donuts?”

“I don’t usually eat donuts.”

“Well today will be a treat for ya. Leave five bucks in the pot.”

“You’re a trusting soul.”

“Look around you, mister. If somebody came in here and cleaned the place out – including the Mr Coffee machine – they’d get maybe a hundred and twenty bucks worth of stuff. I have better things to do than guard three dozen eggs and two gallons of milk.”

“And Spam. Don’t forget that.”

The old guy leaned one elbow on his counter. “And what is wrong with Spam?”

“Other than it’s Spam?”

“Listen you, Spam is good food. Have you ever had a fried Spam and cheese sandwich on white?”

“Sounds great,” Harry said. “Do you serve that here?”

“I have decided I don’t like you,” he said as he turned to leave.

“I have a feeling you don’t like many people.”

Just before the old guy began his clump up the stairs, Harry heard him say: “That’s no lie.”

* * *

Sitting alone at the counter Harry felt as if he had broken into a stranger’s empty house. He placed a fiver into the chamber pot and helped himself to a coffee and a donut. The donut was fresh and delicious. The old guy had been right about one thing – it was a treat.

The door opened behind him. Harry noticed that there was no bell like in most establishments but of course a bell would just disturb this proprietor. A tall man, in his mid-50s with thin but still flaming-red hair, walked up to the counter, dropped a dollar in the pot and helped himself to a coffee.

Harry looked into the pot and said: “I guess I paid tourist rates.”

“What’d he get you for?” the redhead asked.

“Five bucks for a coffee and a donut.”

The man walked to the steps and shouted, “Todd, get down here.”

They both waited for any sound to come from upstairs. Eventually the slow clump heralded the arrival of the old man. “What da you want?”

“Did you charge this man five bucks for a coffee and a donut?” the redhead asked.

“No, I asked this nice New Yorker—”

“I’m from Philadelphia,” Harry interrupted.

“Like there’s a difference. I merely asked this Philly boy what he usually pays for coffee and recommended that he donate accordingly. You see, I don’t sell things here, Mayor. If I did, you would charge me commercial taxes.”

“Did Todd inform you that the fiver was a voluntary contribution?”

Harry had no intention of getting in the middle of a local inter-governmental squabble. “Ah, he may have. I don’t rightly recall.”

The mayor took the fiver out of the pot and handed it back to Harry then opened his wallet and replaced it with a couple of bills. “Two bucks is fair; consider it a welcome gift to a newcomer.”

“Is there anything else you want?” old Todd asked the mayor.

“No.”

The old guy turned to Harry. “Do you get offended by foul language?”

“No, not usually.”

“Good,” Todd said as he shuffled back to the stairway. “Fuck you, Mayor.”

“And good morning to you, Todd,” the mayor replied.

“Are you the mayor that dabbles in real estate?” Harry asked.

“I’m the real estate agent that dabbles in being a mayor. You must be Mr Cull; Trooper Cirba told me to keep an eye out for you.”

“Harry,” Harry said extending a hand.

“Charlie Boyce,” the mayor said, shaking it. “So, you a cop?”

“No.”

“So, how do you know Cirba?”

“We’re drinking buddies.”

“Oh, right. I got it all wrong then. I thought you were up here helping with the murder investigation.”

“I heard something about a murder. Who was it?”

Charlie sighed and shook his head. “Local kid; actually, he wasn’t a kid. I just knew him for a long time. He used to work for me in winter. He was a good guy but always seemed to wind up with a bad crowd. You know?”

“What happened to him?”

“They found him in the woods. Paper says he was shot.” Charlie thought for a moment then shook off the mood. “But I wouldn’t worry about it. People ’round here are real nice, and that’s no lie.”

“Except for Todd, of course,” Harry said.

The mayor laughed. “See, you’re getting to know the place already. I’ve got a sweet little lakeside cottage for you. If you’re finished with your coffee I’ll take you over.”

On the way out the door the mayor picked up a loaf of bread, a half a dozen eggs and a pint of milk, stuffed them in a bag and handed them to Harry. “Now that’s worth a fiver.”

Harry added a tin of Spam and a bag of cookies to his shopping and dropped twenty into the pot. He didn’t want to give old Todd anymore reason to dislike him.

* * *

Harry followed the mayor on the potholed lake road that was only wide enough to let two medium-sized cars squeeze past each other. The mayor strictly obeyed the fifteen miles per hour speed limit – when you’re the mayor you have to.

The slow pace gave Harry the chance to take in his surroundings. The houses around the lake were an eclectic mix. At one end of the spectrum were the old A-frames. An A-frame house was available mail order, just four long pieces of wood stuck in the ground like a big triangle, with pitch roofing tiles nailed to the sides. It gave you one large room with sloping walls downstairs and a cosy little bedroom upstairs. Back in the fifties some families of eight would spend the entire summer in one of them and they would get to know each other – very well. These days most of them had a more modern extension tacked on.

In between there was a variety of different sized homes all the way up to proper multi-storey luxury hunting/skiing lodges built by New Yorkers who spent their Wall Street money on a mountain dream.

Harry parked his car next to Charlie’s in the driveway of one of the in-between-sized houses and went inside. It was a quaint bungalow with comfortable furnishings and an oldfashioned kitchen that could be described as clean but not gleaming.

“Now before you decide whether you like it or not,” Charlie said as he searched for the rope that operated the curtain that covered the length of the living room wall, “check this out.”

The curtain opened to reveal that the entire side of the room was glass with a doublesliding door in the middle. Beyond it was a sloping lawn ending with a small wooden dock that jutted out onto the glorious Ice Lake. It was the kind of vista that forced one to say “wow” and that’s just what Harry said.

“Ah the view always gets ’em,” Charlie said with a real estate agent’s grin. He walked back to the kitchen. “There’s a coffee maker and a little coffee, tea, and sugar in the cupboard. My number is in here,” he said lifting a folder from the counter. “Questions about the house, like the water heater and such are in here too. Please, read it before you call me. When the phone rings in the night it drives my wife loopy. Well loopier. Especially when the answer’s in here.”

“I’ll study it thoroughly.”

“Oh, if all my renters were as good as you, my life would be harmonious – and that’s no lie. I’ll leave you to your view.”

Harry walked him to the door.

As he was getting into the car he called back, “Feel free to call me if you need anything.”

“As long as it’s not in the folder,” Harry said.

Charlie touched his nose and then pointed with a smile.

* * *

Harry had a good snoop around his new abode. The bedroom was down a hallway from the living area. It was a pleasant size and featured a brass bed that was a bit softer and definitely squeakier than he liked. No matter, Harry thought with a sigh, it’s not like I’m going to be disturbing the neighbours with any extra-curricular bedspring squeaking.

In the kitchen Harry found an old teapot high on a shelf. The owners had probably only bought it as an ornament but as Harry’s old Irish mother always said: “A home’s not a home unless it has a hot teapot in it.”

He set water to boil and cleaned off the years of dust from the pot. Then just as his mother had taught him, he warmed it with boiling water and added three tea bags and just-boiled water. Then he wrapped the pot with a tea towel to keep it warm and set up a tray with a cup, a little milk pitcher, and some of old Todd’s cookies.

He carried it all outside, left it on the picnic table to brew up strong like he liked it and approached the water’s edge. It really was, as Trooper Cirba had said, “a little corner of paradise”. At less than two miles around you could almost see the whole lake from where he stood. To his right a light breeze danced on the water making the sunlight sparkle on the surface. To the left the lake thinned and dog-legged around a corner. There it was darker and less inviting, hemmed in by knurled trees and water filled with dark green lily pads. Harry could make out ducks in the distance and then a little splash at his feet brought his attention to several small fish swimming in the crystal-clear water. He couldn’t resist kicking off his shoes, rolling up his trouser legs and dipping his toes in. The water from the underground springs that fed the lake was initially freezing but it didn’t take long to get used to it. The little fish who moments before had been scared away came back to see what the white monoliths were. One even kissed at his toes like in one of those fancy fish pedicure places.

Harry returned to his tea. As he poured he asked himself the question that almost everyone who rents a house at Ice Lake asks – “Why do I live in the city?”

“Gosh, I don’t think I have ever had a neighbour who serves himself high tea,” said a voice from behind him.

Harry was initially annoyed at the intrusion on his solitude, but that was before he turned and saw the gorgeous, thirtyish, brunette standing behind him wearing a pink scrub top and white nurse’s trousers.

“Hi,” Harry said trying to free himself from the picnic table. “Can I get you a cup?”

“No, thank you.”

“How about a Milano cookie?”

She laughed and her little turned-up nose crinkled in a way that Harry thought was the cutest thing he had ever seen.

“Ah, I see you’ve been shopping at our local superstore.”

“Yes indeed. Would you like a Spam sandwich, Miss?”

She predictably shook her head, extended her hand and said: “I’m Meredith Keller but everyone calls me MK.”

“I’m Harry. Harry Cull. It is a pleasure to meet you Nurse or Doctor Keller?”

“Actually I’m a stripagram. I have an unusual midweek lunchtime bachelor party today.”

“Well, he’s a lucky groom.”

She smiled and it was very nice.

Harry’s sliding doors opened and out popped the six-and-a-half-foot form of Ed Cirba. He wore the full Pennsylvania State Police uniform: the black boots, the light grey shirt with a black tie and black epaulettes, the dark grey trousers with a black stripe running along the outside edge were held up by a black belt clipped to a four-inch-thick utility belt sporting a black holster containing a .45-calibre pistol. Also hanging from the belt were handcuffs, expandable baton, a walkie-talkie, and two leather cases, one holding a flashlight, the other pepper spray. On top of all this was his twelve-inch diameter wide-brimmed hat, just like the one Ranger Smith wore in the Yogi Bear cartoons. Cirba was an impressive human being in civvies but, in uniform, he was downright intimidating.

“There you are,” he shouted.

Cirba bounded down to the high tea in less than four strides and said: “Mr Cull, it’s good to see you again.” He shook Harry’s hand and then drew him into an all-engulfing bear hug. “And hello, MK.”

“Hiya, Ed,” she said standing on tiptoe to give him a kiss on the cheek.

“I take it you know each other?”

“MK’s an emergency room nurse at Wilkes Barrie County Hospital. We see each other often but not usually under such pleasant circumstances.”

Harry stepped back and admired the trooper and the nurse. “You know if I could find an Indian chief outfit, I’m sure we could win a Halloween competition somewhere.”

“As tempting as that sounds I have to go to work,” MK said. “But it’s just a half shift. Me and the girls are floating tonight about 5.30. We don’t usually allow boys, but I think we could make an exception for you two.”

“I can guarantee that Mrs Cirba won’t give me time off to float but I will try to get Harry back for it.”

“Good,” MK said as she walked back into the house next to Harry’s, “I’ll see you then. See ya later, Ed.”

“What’s floating?” Harry asked the trooper.

“Trust me, you’ll love it.” Ed took a cookie from the tray. “You settled in?”

“No.”

“Good, I’ll take you to the Horseshoe.”

“Is that a place for lunch?”

“No, that’s the murder scene.”

Chapter 3

If you turn right out of the lake and head east for five miles, you come to Ice Lake’s nearest town – Oaktree, PA. The Lakers call that stretch the Five Mile Road. If you go left to St Elizabeth’s, that road is called the Seven Mile Road. Collectively both roads are known as the Thirteen Mile Road. No one knows where the extra mile comes from. It’s a Pocono mystery.

Cirba drove Harry to the site of the other Pocono mystery. About two miles along the Five Mile Road they pulled left onto a gravel slip known as the Horseshoe. Its name refers to the fact that the road simply goes into the woods and comes out again in a semicircle. After five hundred yards Harry could see the police tape and another squad car in the distance. The young statie in the car was obviously asleep with his head back and his mouth open. That’s what it initially looked like but then Harry felt a horrible lurch in his stomach as the idea came to him that maybe he had been shot. The feeling didn’t last long. The young trooper snapped awake as they drew closer to the car.

The cop popped out of his vehicle and tried not to look as if he had just woken up. Cirba met him and tried to pretend he hadn’t seen him asleep. He was a cadet and had been on the overnight watch at the scene. Cirba sent him home and then started pulling the police tape off the trees.

“Is this no longer a crime scene?” Harry asked.

“We got all the information from here that we’re gonna get.”

“And what was that?”

Cirba broke the plastic tape, rolled it up and, for the want of a better place to put it, stuffed it into his pocket. The forest of scrub oaks in this part of Pennsylvania didn’t seem that dark from the road, Harry thought, but once you were in them it was hard to see more than a short way ahead. Together they walked up a dark path that opened into a glen. In the centre was a ring of stones surrounding a firepit that looked like it had been used recently. Scattered around were broken and unbroken beer bottles and empty rifle shells. A bit further up the hill was a mound of earth that looked as if it had been made by the push of a bulldozer. In front of the mound were pulverized cardboard boxes with silhouettes of deer and men, as well as years of broken bottles and perforated rusted beer cans. One of the target practice silhouettes on the ground portrayed a man in a turban.

“The vic, Bill Thomson,” Cirba said, pointing just downhill of the firepit, “was found here. He had shotgun wounds to both knees and a double-barrelled shot to the back of the head.”

“Ouch,” Harry said without trying to be funny.

“Yeah, nasty stuff. The leg wounds were pretty – close range – we found some stray shot in the dirt but not much. My theory is that the shooter was behind the vic and put a shot in the back of the knee to drop him. But instead the vic turned on him so he emptied the second barrel into his other knee from the front. The vic went down here,” Cirba said pointing to a patch of dirt just downhill of the firepit that still had dark stains on it, “then the perp reloaded and put both barrels in the back of his head.”

“Cold,” Harry said, “a pro hit?”

“It doesn’t feel like it. There were no bruises on the guy so I’m inclined to say that he knew the shooter and was walking in front of him without a care in the world. Also pros don’t usually use shotguns.”

“Effective though, wouldn’t you say? You can’t get ballistics from a shotgun, and I don’t suppose the shooter left any empty shells with his fingerprints on them?”

“This place was littered with shotgun shells when we first got here. This is the local shooting range. But there weren’t any around where the shooter must have been standing. We picked up all the empties but we won’t get anything out of them.

“Any forensics – footprints, tyre tracks?”

“This is also the big teenage party spot. The vic seemed to have been cleaning it up. We found a plastic bag of bottles and cans with his prints on ’em. Word has it that there was a shindig up here three nights ago. So there are zillions of tyre treads. The local boy that found the vic came up to target practice. He drove over any tracks that would have been there, as did the local cops when they got here.”

“When was he shot?”

“Two days ago, just before midday. He was still a little warm when the boy found him.”

“Anybody hear anything?”

“Nobody around to hear. The only building close enough is the strip club but nobody would be there before noon.”

“A strip club you say? I think we need to investigate. Wouldn’t be called Nirvana by any chance?”

Cirba shook his head, walked over to a tree and removed the last remaining bit of crowd control tape. “There will be no investigating in any strip clubs. When you see the place, you’ll see that this is not Vegas – and that’s no lie. And don’t think I didn’t notice that you mentioned Nirvana again.”

“Oops. So who was the vic?”

Cirba sat down at one of the makeshift benches by the firepit. “He was a local guy named William Thomson – everybody called him Big Bill. Just turned thirty, been in trouble all his younger years, almost flunked out of high school, got busted for selling pot and for some graffiti stuff when he was a minor. I arrested him myself for joyriding, but his dad knew the man whose car he stole, so he got off. I knew his father, he was a really good guy. I’m glad he’s gone – this would’a killed him. Actually, Bill was a good kid. He got in trouble but he had that bad kid charm that made it so you couldn’t get mad at him. You know the type?”

Harry nodded. “The mayor said he worked for him.”

“Yeah, that’s the thing. Bill hadn’t been in trouble for years. His brother, Frank, inherited his dad’s old construction company. In the summer he worked for him, and in the winter he helped out as the handyman/super at the mayor’s ski condos where he had a basement apartment. We searched the place but there wasn’t much in it – a real bachelor pad. There were a lot of the mayor’s real estate books, weights for lifting, and a laptop. The laptop and the no-contract phone he was wearing when he got shot were both password-protected. They’re with the crime lab now.” The trooper took off his hat and wiped his brow.

“So who wanted him dead?”

“Don’t know but they tell me it’s my job to find out. In his younger days he used to hang out with a character that Narco’ thinks is cooking most of the crystal meth in the area. Feel like meeting the local freelance pharmacist?”

“Sure,” Harry said. “Then can we go to the strip club?”

* * *

There is a winding stretch on the Five Mile Road that has a series of banked s-turns. Legend has it that the road was originally an Algonquin hunting path – this bunch of turns is known locally as the Drunken Indians. People from all over, especially ones with new sports cars, make a trip here to speed through the racetrack-like bends. It’s not unusual to find Dom Barowski, the local Oaktree cop, sitting in a hidden spot at the end of the Drunken Indians with his speed camera. Two hours a day there pretty much funds Dom’s full salary.

Cirba took the Drunken Indians at high speed as Harry held on to the handle above his head. He honked and waved at Dom as he shot out of the last turn.

“I see the local constabulary doesn’t mind you busting up their speed limits,” Harry said as he straightened back up in his seat.

“Professional courtesy,” Cirba said.

“Are there any other turns like that between here and Oaktree or can I throw up now?”

“Throw up in my squad car and I’ll arrest you, Harry.”

“For what?”

“For throwing up in my squad car.”

“The taxi driver in Vegas was cool when you threw up out his—”

“Seriously, will you stop talking about that night?”

They turned onto a back road before entering town and ended up in a section that wasn’t in the brochure produced by the Oaktree Chamber of Commerce. Ed slowed to a crawl while negotiating the potholes. The sides of the road were strewn with litter, bottles, and the occasional roadkill. They passed white wooden houses, one after another, all desperately needing paint jobs and lawn mowing. Behind chain-link fences in almost every yard, a large dog barked so loud that Harry had to raise his voice a bit.

“They don’t seem to like you.”

“I used to be a dog lover before I took this job,” Cirba said. “I think some of these hillbillies have actually trained their dogs to attack anyone in a state police uniform.”

“How would they do that?”

“I don’t know but listen to them.”

Cirba slowed past another house, this one in better shape than the rest. The grass was still high and there was a bumperless body of an old Chevy Impala on the lawn but the house was newly painted, with modern windows behind metal security grates. Cirba drove by and said: “How about some lunch?”

“We’re not buying crack?”

“His car’s not there. Come on, I’ll treat you to the finest potato pancakes in north-east Pennsylvania.”

They exited pothole city and swung onto Main Street. Trooper Cirba drove slowly as he texted something on his cell phone. Here the town looked every bit like the Pocono Mountain dream that real estate agents and holiday home builders put on the front of their brochures. All the buildings on Main Street were old-school wood and painted the same brick red. There was a quaint hardware store, the kind you could imagine buying nails by the pound, that outside had a display of weathervanes. There was a fruit and vegetable stand laid out so pretty that it looked like a postcard. Next to that was a sporting goods store and then a pizza shop. It all had that mid-Atlantic rustic charm that made city slickers sigh.

The Oaktree Diner was at the end of the street. Harry and Trooper Cirba entered and walked to a booth in the back. A 70-year-old guy with a grey beard and a matching grey braided ponytail said: “Uh oh, it’s the fuzz.”

Cirba reacted with a tolerant smile.

The Oaktree Diner was one of those small-town American diners with so many items on their menu it made you wonder if the cook was an eleven-armed alien.

A middle-aged, tired but friendly waitress plonked down two ice waters and filled their coffee cups while saying: “Hiya, Ed, who’s your friend?”

“Darlene, this is Harry. Harry, Dar—”

“He calls us all Darlene in here,” the waitress said cutting him off. “I’m Sue.”

“Pleased to meet you, Sue.”

“So, is Ed here buying you a last meal before he hauls you off to jail?”

“I came because I heard you have the best potato pancakes in the Commonwealth.”

“Well that’s no lie. Anything else?”

“He’ll have the meatloaf,” Cirba said.

“Apparently, I’m also having the meatloaf.”

“Now don’t let him push you around, sweetie, just ’cause he wears one of those funny hats. You have whatever you like.”

“I will have the meatloaf,” Harry said returning the menu.

“Same for me,” the trooper echoed.

“Comin’ right up.”

After she had left Harry said: “You gonna let her diss the hat like that.”

“She’ll have a parking ticket on her car in the morning.”

Harry laughed. “If you hadn’t taken me to that other part first, I would have said this place was perfect small-town America.”

“Used to be. Not anymore.”

“You grow up around here?”

“Yeah, well, about thirty miles west. Around here, that’s next door.”

“You sure you’re not just being nostalgic about your childhood?”

“Oh, no, there’s been a real demographic change. With the rise of the Internet, lots of the financial types can work mostly from home. If they have to go to Wall Street it’s only two hours away. That commute is too much for every day but once or twice a week it’s manageable. People often moved here because their children in New York and New Jersey were falling in with bad kids. Problem is that a lot of the bad kids were actually their own children. Now we have the bad kids. These days we got tons of drugs up here we never had before, and we’ve even got gangs. There are kids wearing colours at the high school in Hilltop.”

“Like Sharks and Jets?”

“More like Crips and Bloods.”

“Sounds bad.”

“It is. Maybe it’ll settle down, but at the moment people don’t know how to cope.”

Lunch arrived and even though it most certainly would not have made the American Heart Association’s recommended menu, it was awfully delicious.

As Cirba pushed away his plate with a satisfied sigh, Harry said: “I thought you were on a diet?”

“I’m on a diet when Mrs Cirba is cooking. The less I eat of her food the better.”

“So I can’t mention to your wife about Nirvana or that you eat lunch at the Oaktree Diner?”

“You wanna get found in the woods like Big Bill?” Cirba’s phone beeped. He checked the text, then opened his wallet and threw money on the table. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to Feather.”

Back in the squad car Harry asked: “Who or what is Feather?”

“Feather’s the pothead that wasn’t home before. Officer Barowski just texted me to say he was back in town.”

“Interesting name, Feather.”

“It’s short for his nickname from when he was young – Featherbrain. Strangely, he likes the moniker enough to have it tattooed on his neck.”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“You know, a lot of people live up here because they want a simple life, and that’s all well and good, but there is a minority who are here because they are just simple. Feather is part of that – more tattoos than teeth brigade. Prepare yourself.”

* * *

They parked on the street and Harry jogged three paces behind Trooper Cirba as he walked up Feather’s driveway. Inside the house, what sounded like a pack of wolves went ballistic. Venetian blinds parted enough for a peek and then closed.

“Feather,” Cirba shouted. “I don’t have a warrant. I just want to talk.”

“How come you told him you don’t have a warrant?” Harry asked quietly.

“He just saw me and is now about to flush all of his junk down the toilet. I want him to talk to me, not to be mad at me.”

The door opened a crack and half of a scrawny unshaven face appeared. “You promise, Officer Ed, you got no warrant?”

“I swear, Feather. I just want to talk.”

“’Bout what?”

“Big Bill.”

Feather’s face disappeared from the doorway. “Sheeeet, you think I killed Big Bill?”

“Did you?”

Feather’s face reappeared in the crack. “Nooooo. He was my bro’.”

“I’ll take you at your word, Feather. Can we come in and talk about it?”

“Not ’less you have a warrant. I know the law. If I let you in you can bust me for anything you see.”

“I just want to talk, Feather. I won’t see nothing. Hell, you can even smoke a joint while we talk if you like. I know we’ve had our differences but I’ve always been square with you – right?”

“That’s no lie,” Feather said, pushing the door closed and undoing the safety chain. “Not like that fuckwit Barowski. Wait here while I put the dogs away.”

They waited while Feather screamed at his baying hounds. The front door opened and Harry got his first look at the man called Feather. He was one of those guys that was probably still in his twenties but had been so tough on himself that he looked a decade older. He wore a red plaid shirt and baggy blue jeans. His hair was in the style of an unkempt Jesus, and his fingers were nicotine stains on top of home-made star tattoos.

He pushed open the screen door and said: “Entre chez Feather. Hey, can I smoke crack while we talk?”

Cirba stepped into the house and said: “Don’t push it, Feather.”

The place was neater than Harry expected.

Feather noticed the two of them looking around. “I got a cleaning lady.”

“I’m impressed,” Cirba said. “You have to give me her number.”

“You can’t afford her,” Feather said while flopping into a pink overstuffed sofa and putting his feet on the Ikea coffee table. He shrugged. “She works for dope.”

Harry and Cirba sat in matching pink armchairs.

“You’re very forthcoming.”

“Who he?” Feather said, pointing at Harry as if he had just noticed him.

“He’s with me. A trainee of sorts.”

Feather snorted out a laugh. “A troopee?”

Harry nodded.

Feather opened a drawer on one of the side tables and took out a pre-rolled joint. He looked around to see if the two cops were going to stop him. When neither did, he lit it and said: “This is fun. Well, Mr Trooper and Mr Troopee Junior, you’re obviously not here about my proclivity with controlled substances so wad’d’ya want to know?”

“Bill wasn’t a user?”

“He smoked a joint every once in a while, but who doesn’t? You’d be surprised the upstanding citizens I have dealings with.”

“So you’re saying Bill wasn’t a user?”

“If it was night-time and we were playing Cinch or somethin’, he’d smoke a joint but he’s been boring for a long time.”

“How about meth?”

“Na, he never liked that stuff. He sold a bit of weed years ago. Hey, didn’t you bust him for that?”

“Wasn’t me,” Cirba said, “but I know about it.”

“Not long after, the crystal came round and he decided he didn’t want nothin’ to do with any of it.” Feather said “crystal” with a French accent. “He wouldn’t even shift weed. When Billy got an idea in his head there was no punchin’ it out of him.”

“You known Big Bill for a long time?” Harry asked.

“Yeah, we went to Oaktree Elementary together. We hung out. In junior high we boosted a few cars together.” Feather pointed at the trooper. “That was the one you busted him for.”

Cirba nodded.

“After that, old man Thomson wouldn’t let him hang with me, but we still did. We sold a bit of weed together until his big brother found out. That time Frank and old man Thomson came round with fucking baseball bats. I thought Frankie was gonna really do my noggin’ in. Ya know? He’s a crazy fuck. The old man stopped him though.”

“So you didn’t hang out after that?” Harry asked.

“Yeah, but not much. I’d see ’um in a bar or maybe up the Horseshoe. He was friendly but our bidness days were done.”

“So you’ve had no dealings with him in how long?” Harry asked.

Feather lit another cigarette. “Not since then.”

“You haven’t sold so much as a joint to him since you were teenagers. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Absolutely.”

Harry looked to Cirba and said: “OK, I know you gave your word not to bust this clown but can we haul him in for questioning?”

“Hey,” Feather protested.

“Look, Featherbrains,” Harry said standing, “there’s a dead guy and you’re fucking lying to me. Cuff ’m, trooper, let me have him in a proper interrogation room and I’ll find out what he knows – along with the location of his meth lab if you’re interested.”

Cirba stood up and reached for his cuffs.

“Hey hey, chill. OK, OK I sold him some grass like a month ago.”

Cirba and Harry sat down again.

“What is he?” Feather said, pointing to Harry. “Some sort of fucking Jedi?”

“That just about describes him – so don’t screw with us, Feather. How much?”

“He bought an ounce.”

“Was that his usual?”

“No, I’ve been straight with you, man. He hasn’t bought nothing in years. I mean sometimes when I saw him he’d bum a joint for old times’ sake, but he wasn’t getting any shit from me.”

“So why the change?”

“He said he needed it to pay his lawyer with.”

“His lawyer?”

“That’s what the man said.”

“Why was he seeing a lawyer?”

“He wouldn’t tell me. I asked him if he was in trouble and he said on the contrary, that he was great. He said he was, ‘sorting his life out’.”

“Who was the lawyer?”

“Didn’t say. Didn’t ask.”

Cirba looked to Harry, who nodded.

“Who would know?”

“Word had it he was seeing a chick that worked down at the Dew Drop Inn.”

“A stripper?”

“That’s what I heard.”

“Name?”

“I want to say Harmony.”

“Harmony what?”

“What do you mean ‘Harmony what’? How many strippers do you know got a last name?”

“Where were you Wednesday ’bout eleven?”

“Here watching the golf.”

They both gave him a sideways look.

“What? You think I’m too much of a lowlife to dig golf?”

“Anything else?”

“No, I told you everything, and that ain’t no lie.”

“Say that to him,” Cirba said, pointing to Harry.

Feather looked him straight in the eye and said: “That’s all I know.”

Harry held up his hand like he was Obi-Wan Kenobi and said: “This isn’t the meth dealer you are looking for.”

They all stood up.

“And I ain’t no meth cooker no more neither.”

“Don’t go straight on me, Feather, you’ll put me out of work.”

“It ain’t by choice. All this shake and bake shit has ruined the crystal biz.”

“Shake and bake?”

“The fucking Internet, man. Buy some drain cleaner, some Colman fuel, and a pack of lithium batteries and you can make your own meth. Fucking whole market’s collapsed. I’m gonna move to California and open a legal grass store.”

Cirba chuckled. “You will be missed, Feather.”

* * *

Back on the Five Mile Road, Cirba asked: “Was he being straight about not cooking meth anymore?”

“I’m sure he was telling the truth about that shake and bake thing, but I’m not so sure he’s not entering the priesthood soon. So it sounds to me like we’re going to a strip club tonight.”

The trooper sighed and said: “Not a word to Mrs Cirba.”

“Aw, come on. This is in the line of duty. She can’t complain about that?”

“Not a word, you hear me.”

They stopped at the Oaktree supermarket and Harry bought bachelor-pad essentials: round beef, rolls, sliced cheese, food, chips, and diet root beer. Then they stopped into the Hillside Tavern for a six pack.

“I was gonna bring you here for dinner, but if you’re lucky, MK will cook you something after floating. I’ll pick you up at 10. Wear something strip clubby-ish.”

“Hot damn,” Harry said, rubbing his palms together. “Cirba and Cull back on the town. Watch out Oaktree.”

“When you see this strip club you’ll realize that it’s you who should watch out.”

Chapter 4

The spring-fed lake was icy and Harry wished the inflatable water lounger that he found under the deck had more air in it. After unsuccessfully trying to travel feet first in the direction of the four women floating about a hundred feet out, he turned his under-inflated vessel and paddled backwards with more steam.

“You’re about halfway there,” he heard MK call. “A little more starboard, sailor.”

Harry looked over his shoulder, almost tipping himself overboard, and adjusted his trajectory. The four women were all on identical water loungers that were far more luxurious than his. Theirs had high backs and sunken cupholders in the armrests and were tied together with rope around a central floating ice chest.

A large woman with scraggly grey hair and an orange one-piece bathing suit was unceremoniously trying to untie herself from the rest. Harry heard her saying: “Well, I object.”

“That is duly noted, Helen,” MK said.

Helen produced a cute little canoe from under her legs and began to paddle angrily back to the shore. She stopped to point at Harry. “No offence but I’m not staying if you’re here.”

“How could he possibly take offence from that?” the younger woman replied.

As he watched Helen motor back to the shore, Harry asked: “Was it something I said?”

“Don’t mind her,” the oldest woman said. “Helen has social skill problems.”

“Yeah,” the blonde one said. “She doesn’t have any.”

“Now, now, Helen’s not so bad. She just doesn’t like… well, people, but I’m working on her. See, floating’s supposed to be just us girls,” MK said.

“Should I paddle back?”

“No, I invited you and if Helen doesn’t like your company then it’s her loss. Now would you like a beer, wine, or a gin and tonic?”

“I didn’t realize there was a full bar out here. I didn’t bring any money.”

“I’ll put it on your tab.”

“Beer, please.”

MK fished a beer out of the floating cooler, twisted off the cap and handed it to Harry who again almost fell in.

“Easy there, fella.”

MK pointed to the floater next to her. She was an attractive woman in her fifties with black hair peppered through with grey. “This is my biggest sister, Eileen, and this,” she said pointing to the other woman, who looked a lot like MK except for the eyes, “is my next big sister, Vicky. Harry, these are the Keller girls.”

“Ladies,” Harry said, tipping an imaginary hat.

“So, you’re the new man next door?” Eileen said, eyeing Harry as if he was for sale. “You’ll do. How long you up fur?”

“Don’t know, really.”

“Harry’s a cop. He’s investigating the shooting,” MK said.

“I’m not a cop.”

“OK, but you’re like a cop. You’re doing cop stuff with Ed.”

“I never said that.”

“Oh, give me a break, Harry. This is like the first murder in forever. Ed doesn’t have time at the moment to take you to lunch for old times’ sake – you must be working on Big Bill’s murder.”

“I guess I must be. So, did you do it?”

MK laughed. “A floating interrogation? This must be a first.”

“I find if my suspects are in bathing suits then they often have little to hide.”

“Well in that case,” Vicky said suggestively, “I guess you would prefer if we were skinny floating.”

“Since this is my first float I think we had better keep our accoutrements on.”

“‘Accoutrements’,” Eileen sang. “MK, he’s a fancy one.”

“So, who do you think killed Big Bill?”

“Oh, don’t ask Eileen,” Vicky said, “she’ll just blame it on Frank.”

“Frank Thomson?” Harry turned to Eileen. “You think his brother shot him?”

“If there is evil in the world,” Eileen said, while somehow producing a dry cigarette and lighting it with a Zippo, “then Frank is involved.”

“Oh, don’t listen to her,” MK said. “Frank’s her ex. She’ll probably blame him for 9/11 if you ask.”

“I didn’t see him on that day. Did any of you?”

“Any other suspects you can think of?” Harry asked.

“How about Vicky?” Eileen said. “She used to sleep with him.”

“Shut up,” Vicky squealed, splashing her sister and extinguishing her cigarette.

This instigated a splashing session that threatened to once again capsize the only male of the group.

“You slept with all of the Thomson boys, didn’t you?” MK added.

“You shut up too. I never slept with Frank – yuck.”

“Stop, stop,” Harry pleaded. “Hold on – is there another Thomson boy?”

“Yeah, Jonny, he was the youngest.”

“Was?”

“Car accident – you know the purple hitch-hiker?”

Harry nodded.

“He was the driver that took the arm off.”

“Shame,” Vicky said. “He was a good kid. So was Big Bill. They were both just a bit wild – and that’s no lie – like they was raised by wolves. And we know they weren’t; they grew up next door to us.”

“Where was that?”

“Right here. You’re renting the old Thomson house. Frank’s your landlord. Didn’t you know that?”

“Ah no, I didn’t.”

“Well I’m goin’ in,” Eileen said. “Thanks to Vic’ I don’t have any dry ciggies.”

“Yeah I gotta go too. It’s clam night at the Hillside.”

“Who ya meeting?” MK asked as her sisters untied themselves from the anchor line.

“What makes you think I’m meeting anybody?” Vicky said.

“’Cause you’re you.”

The sisters produced little oars just like the one Helen had and paddled back to shore as they sing-sang in unison, “Have fun, MK.”

“So that’s the Keller Sisters?”

“We’re infamous in five states.”

“I can see why.”

“You want another beer?”

The sun was getting low in the sky and didn’t have the heat that Harry would have preferred, but the lake was so beautiful and the company so delightful, he had to say yes.

“So, do you have any theories on who killed him?”

“Oh, my god,” MK said, “this really is an interrogation.”

“No, well, sorry. It’s just I like your company and I’ll have to ask you sooner or later, so I thought I’d get it out of the way now.”

“Should I have a lawyer present?”

“Does your lawyer float?”

“Yeah that is a problem. To answer your question, no. Frank is a mean asshole but a killer – naaah.”

Harry took a swig of his beer, breathed in the pine-scented breeze and watched the sun dance on the rippling water. “You ever get tired of this?”

“No, that’s the magic of the place. It stays pretty wonderful. Sure, when I was a teenager, maybe, but that was when I hated everything. Once my brain started working again I saw this place for what it was.”

“A little corner of paradise,” Harry finished then added, “and that’s no lie.”

* * *

Back on shore MK asked Harry if he wanted to get clams at the Hillside but Harry confessed that Trooper Cirba and he had a date. He counter-proposed that if MK provided the charcoal he’d barbeque. MK offered her gas grill and Harry prepared a feast of burgers and potato chips.

MK took a bite of her cheeseburger and had to lean in over the picnic table to stop ketchup from falling down her front. She wiped her chin with a paper towel and said: “I’m not going to sleep with you, you know.”

Harry choked a little bit on his burger and had to swig some beer before he could reply. “Ah, OK.”

“Well, since you wanted to get the interrogation thing out of the way I thought I would just get that clear.”

“Right well, thank you, I think. Once again – was it something I said?”

“Oh, don’t take it personally, I just don’t sleep with renters. One of my rules.”

“It’s just as well, the bed in my room is unbelievably squeaky.”

“I know.”

“And how do you know that?”

“My sister, Vicky, has no problems sleeping with renters.” MK looked sideways at Harry and smiled. “You still have time to get to the Hillside for clam night.”

“Thank you but no. I’m very happy with the company right here.”

They clinked beer bottles.

“So is there a Mrs Cull?”

“Who is interrogating who? Should we get back out on the inflatables?”

“It’s just that now you know you have no chance with me, you can tell the truth.”

“Sounds logical. The answer is no.”

“An ex Mrs Cull?”

“Ah… yes.”

“And any little Cullettes?”

Harry paused and had to look away for a moment before answering, “No.”

“So what happened?”

Harry blew out a long sigh and said: “I didn’t live up to her expectations.”

“You cheated on her?”

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re a man; it’s the law of probability.”

“No, I didn’t cheat on her. I – I don’t do that.”

“A man that doesn’t cheat. That makes you a rare breed.”

“It’s not that I don’t cheat… it’s more basic than that. I don’t lie. Or at least I try not to… at least Monday to Friday.”

“You only lie weekends?”

“Yes, and only to strangers.”

MK put down her burger and leaned in looking straight into Harry’s eyes. “You’re serious?”

“I am. Dealing with lies is my job. I’ve seen how much misery it brings to people so I just don’t do it.”

“So you never lie?”

“That is my goal.”

“So what if I asked you if my butt looked big in this outfit.”

“I’d probably say something like, ‘I think you would look good even if you wore a plastic garbage bag’.”

“But you didn’t answer the question.”

“Hey, just because I tell the truth doesn’t mean I go up to people and say, ‘I see you are forty pounds overweight and you buy your clothes at Kmart’.”

“But if I pressed you on it?”

“If you really want my opinion on the girth of your backside I’d tell you. I wouldn’t be doing you any favours if I said you had a nice ass when the whole world could see you looked like the back of a bus.”

MK stood, turned and then craned to see her posterior. “You think my ass looks like the back of a bus?”

“I was being hypothetical. But if you like I will give you a review of your south-facing view. Since you have pointed out that I am not going to be having any intimate knowledge of any of your body parts, you can be assured the critique will be honest.”

“No. If you’re not going to lie, I don’t want to know.”

“You sure? I can tell you now it’ll probably be quite favourable.”

“But that seems to me to be a tough code to live by. I don’t think I could do it.”

“Yes,” Harry said, “it’s not easy being me.”

“But you lie to strangers on weekends?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“As I told you, truth and lies are my job. If I know I’ll never see a person again and it won’t do any harm, I like to tell whoppers to strangers just to see how far I can push it.”

“Like what?”

“Let me see, I’ve told people that I’m a Puerto Rican Major League baseball player.”

MK laughed. “And they bought it?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“So it’s Friday night and you and Ed are going out. Are we going to be telling some porkies tonight?”

“I suspect so.”

“And where are you two going?”

“Just because I told you I won’t lie doesn’t mean I’m going to answer your questions.”

As if the invocation of his name made him appear, Ed, wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt, hollered a hello from the back deck and bounded down to the picnic table.

“Well, well,” MK purred, “lookie at Trooper Cirba in his civvies. What are you two up to tonight? Ohhh, I get it. It’s a boy’s trip to the strip club.”

“Did you tell her?” Cirba said.

“No,” Harry replied, “but you did just now.”

“It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes,” she said. “Everybody knows Big Bill was a regular. You boys just be careful, I get a bad feeling from that place.”

“You’ve been there?”

“No, but about three months ago, one of the girls that works there ploughed into my mailbox so hard the pole got stuck under her car and lifted one of the front wheels off the ground. She was stuck up there at three in the morning, gunning her engine and going nowhere. When I came out it was obvious she was high on something, and then some guy came round and told me to go back to bed. When I said I should call the police, he got all huffy and said he already did. Then that idiot Oaktree cop Barowski showed up.”

“Ice Lake is out of Barowski’s jurisdiction. What was he doing here?” Cirba said.

“I don’t know but it was late and he said he’d take care of it. Next day when I came home from work there was a lovely new mailbox with a bottle of champagne in it, so no harm no foul. It’s just that the man who showed up was… creepy, and Barowski acted – I don’t know – weird around him.”

“So that means you’re not coming with us?” Harry asked.

“Tempting but no. My butt is probably too big to be a stripper anyway.”

“Who said you had a big butt?” Cirba asked as MK walked up the lawn and into her house.

“Your friend, Harry. Behave yourselves in the Dew Drop, boys.”

Chapter 5

“You told MK she had a big butt?” Cirba asked.

Harry didn’t answer right away. He was too busy squealing like a little girl. It wasn’t until after the terrifying G-forces of the Drunken Indians abated that Harry said: “No, well, I might have said her ass looked like the back of a bus but that was hypothetical.”

“’Cause if you told MK she has a big ass I’m gonna have to fire yours.”

“You’d fire me for insulting your friend?”

“No, just for poor judgement. MK’s ass is fine.”

“Shall I add that to the list of things I’m not to tell Mrs Cirba?”

“I’ve decided you’re never going to meet Mrs Cirba.”

“Wise.”

Cirba pulled his unmarked car into the parking lot of a run-down tavern and went in. He arrived back in the car with two six-packs of beer.

Harry took the beer as Cirba put the car into gear. “My place or yours, officer?”

“They’re for the strip club.”

“They don’t sell beer there?”

“No, it’s BYOB.”

“What? Why?”

“That way they don’t have to bother with a liquor license and the girls can be 18 as opposed to 21.”

“How do they make money if they’re not foisting overpriced champagne?”

“That’s a good question. The general consensus is that they don’t make as much money as they claim.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Money laundering.”

“Oh. Mob?”

“Don’t know, it’s just a theory. Places like these seem to make a lot more money than the traffic should allow. It grossed over two mill last year.”

“That’s a lot of lap dances.”

“Yeah.” Cirba pulled over. “Right, you get out here.”

“Say what?”

“Out – here – you. There’s a good chance somebody in there is going to recognize me. We can’t go in together, and when you’re in there, pretend you don’t know me.”

“That seems kinda lonely.”

“I’m sure you’ll find someone to talk to.”

* * *

A few cars passed Harry as he trudged the quarter of a mile down the side road to the club. None of them stopped. Apparently, a guy walking alone with a six-pack under his arm wasn’t an unusual sight on this country road.

About five minutes later Harry saw the lone floodlit establishment glowing off the road like a campfire. The club was an architecturally challenged white cement box with a huge furling American flag painted on the side. Along the top was the message, “GOD BLESS OUR TROOPS”. Underneath in smaller letters it read: “God Bless the First Amendment”. The entrance was below a fancy out-of-place canopy. Above the canopy a red neon sign read, “Dew Drop Inn – A Gentlemen’s Club”.

Harry opened the door and was ignored by a bored bouncer who in a previous life ate his woolly mammoth raw. A voice to his left said, “fifteen bucks.” Harry fished out a twenty and a little guy sporting a goatee with a bald spot in the middle of it handed Harry his change in ones.

He held up a stack of singles and said: “Want anymore?”

“Why?”

He leaned in and examined Harry closely. “I would’a thought that a guy who walked to a strip club would know what singles were for.”

“For tips… yeah I knew that. And I didn’t walk here. I got a lift; she dropped me off up the road. I didn’t think it was appropriate to make my mother bring me all the way to the door.”

The little guy snorted but Harry kept a straight face. It was Friday night and that meant that a weekend of fibbing had begun. Harry gave him another twenty and received a stack of bills. He resisted the temptation to count them and turned the corner into the club.

Cirba had been right – Vegas this was not – it wasn’t even Scranton. If this place had really made two million dollars last year they certainly hadn’t wasted it on décor. There were two stages with poles reaching up to a high ceiling. The small one in the centre of the room was currently unoccupied. The larger was on a catwalk that stretched into a backstage area. To the left of the catwalk, behind glass, was a bearded DJ in a shiny jacket. He was enthusiastically introducing music, encouraging the crowd to applaud and tip the dancer on stage. He was the only enthusiastic thing in the place.

There were about a dozen customers in the room. Half were sitting around the catwalk watching a remarkably straight-figured skinny girl doing a move that Harry decided should be called the “Wish I Was Elsewhere” dance. The rest of the customers were dotted around the room. Most of them were chatting intimately with a girl wearing – not much. Another bouncer, obviously a distant relative of the guy on the door, pointed to a corridor on his left and said: “The beer room is back there.” Harry didn’t know what a beer room was but did as he was told and hoped there wasn’t a third cousin lurking in there with a blackjack.

He found a room with a supermarket-style glass-fronted refrigerator. He pried one can from his six-pack and left the rest with the other gentlemen’s beer. He wondered if beer was often stolen. Is there honour among perverts?

Harry walked back into the main room and took a seat at the catwalk across from Cirba. He wanted to give the trooper one of those secret nose-touching signals like they used in the movie The Sting but Cirba never took his eyes off the naked woman before him. Harry pondered if he was staying in character or was truly enthralled. After having a long look around at the crop of girls working here at the Dew Drop he deduced that it probably wasn’t enthralment. He didn’t have a lot of experience with strip clubs. Usually it happened at a conference in Vegas and always with a bunch of guys where the emphasis was on a bit of fun and not serious sexcapades. When Harry had entered one of those other clubs he had always been struck by how outstandingly beautiful the women had been. Here… not so much. This group of women made Harry want to sit down and ask them what they really wanted to do with their lives.

The music ended as the DJ failed to get the handful of customers in the room to applaud the dancer. She made one last round of the men sitting at the catwalk and picked up the dollar bills left for her. She smiled as she bent to retrieve Harry’s tip. It didn’t require any expertise on his part to recognize the smile as not quite genuine. The DJ gave an exuberant introduction for the next dancer that ended with, “Let’s give it up big time for – Harmony.”

Cirba and Harry shot each other a furtive look when they heard the name that Feather had said was the nom de plume of Big Bill’s girlfriend. She was an attractive girl, Harry thought, or would be if she didn’t look so… hollow. She sported bleached blonde hair cut short and wore a tiny plaid skirt, a white shirt and a tie. If she was going for the whole schoolgirl look it was ruined by the clear plastic platform shoes. Whereas the previous dancer had looked as if she wanted to be somewhere else, Harmony actually was somewhere else – at least in her mind.

Although she was dancing on autopilot it wasn’t without exuberance. A running start launched her at the chrome pole in the centre of the stage. She caught it and while twirling around she spun herself upside down clinging onto the pole with only her entwined calves. Then she spread her arms out to the side in a pose that reminded Harry of the upside-down crucified St Peter, and loosened the grip of her ankles. She dropped headfirst so fast that Harry was on his feet when she stopped, her head inches from the hardwood floor.

In that upside-down state she noticed Harry and gave him an almost genuine smile before returning to her auto-dance. As she untied the knot at the front of her white Oxford shirt, Harry found himself wishing something he had never wished before while watching a stripper. He wished she would leave her clothes on. The more naked Harmony got the less erotic the dance became. She danced close to each customer at the bar who, in turn, slipped tips into a red garter on her thigh. She moved the right moves and said the right things but behind the blue eyes was a vacancy and not just the vacancy of a bored stripper but the look of someone who had lost the will to be. In some respects Harry thought it was the most honest dance he had ever seen.

Her turn ended and over the amplified whoops made by the DJ in a futile attempt to whip up enthusiasm for Harmony’s performance, Harry called her name and held up a ten dollar bill. She returned and crouched at the edge of the stage, once again offering Harry her money garter.

“Do you do private dances?”

“Sure,” she said with an automatic smile. “Have a seat in one of the chairs against the wall and I’ll be out when I freshen up.”

The rule in the club was that girls couldn’t solicit dances from customers that were sitting along the catwalk but as soon as Harry moved to a chair against the wall the spiders were drawn to the fly.

A long-haired brunette wearing a full-length sheer orange chiffon robe over a G-string walked towards Harry. Even in this era of anorexic supermodels she was painfully skinny. Harry instantly spotted the redness around her nostrils and the closed lipped smile that hid her teeth. All of it added up to substance abuse. She pointed at Harry’s crotch.

“Hi, I’m Cynthia,” she said emphasising the “sin”. “Is this lap taken?” Before Harry could answer she sat in it. “Hiya, you got a name?”

“Hamlet,” Harry said.

“Ooh, I never heard that name before.”

“You never heard of Hamlet?”

“No, funny name.”

“If you think that’s funny you should meet my sister Iago.”

“Like the bird in Aladdin?”

“There is a bird in Aladdin named Iago?”

“Yeah, in the Disney cartoon. Where have you been?”

“Obviously, watching too much Hamlet.”

“You’re funny. How ’bout a private dance?”

“Tempting, but I have an appointment with Harmony.”

The big brunette leaned in close to Harry’s ear. “You don’t want a dance with her.”

“Why not?”

“She’s all mopey. I’ll do stuff back there that you’ll remember.”

“Why’s she all mopey?”

Cynthia sat up. “Why do you care?”

Harry, with difficulty, reached into his pocket and produced a ten dollar bill while the girl giggled. He looked around her body for a place to put it. When she offered her cleavage, he slipped the money there. “’Cause I do.”

Cynthia leaned in again. “She just lost her boob ticket.”

“Her boob ticket?”

“She had a guy who was gonna buy her new boobs.”

“Lost him how?”

“That’s a weird question. What are you, like, a stalker?”

The sound of a sarcastic throat clearing behind Cynthia stopped him from answering. Harmony had changed out of her school uniform and was now wearing a low-cut white lab coat. “I’m assuming you no longer want that dance.”

“No,” Harry said attempting to stand, “Cynthia and I were just chatting.” He carefully helped Cynthia off his lap.

“I’d keep an eye out for Hammy here,” the skinny girl huffed. “He’s a strange one.”

Harmony ignored her colleague’s advice and took Harry by the hand and led him into the dark back of the establishment.

“Is that your name, Hammy?”

“No, it’s Harry,” he said, finding it difficult to lie to the girl.

She led him to a counter with a middle-aged woman behind it.

“Dances are twenty bucks.”

Harry gave the lady a twenty, and she gave Harmony a little ticket that she stuffed into the pocket of her lab coat.

“Aren’t you going to tip Denise?”

“You want me to tip her?” Harry said, pointing to the lady behind the counter who had just lit a cigarette.

“She works hard,” Harmony said.

Harry gave the woman a couple of bucks that she took without thanks, then Harmony led him to a small alcove with an armless leather chair and a tiny jukebox. She closed the curtain behind her.

“You got a fiver for the box?”

“Huh?”

“The jukebox.”

“Oh yeah,” Harry said, handing over a fiver. “What happened to quarter jukeboxes?”

If she heard the question she didn’t acknowledge it. She punched the buttons that allowed some sort of trance music to escape. “How good your dance is depends on your tip. A twentydollar tip is customary – up front.”

“A one hundred per cent tip?”

She placed her hands on her hips. “Quality costs.”

“Yes, of course,” Harry said, handing her a twenty. “I’m just getting used to this new Pocono economy.”

There was no “stripping” involved. Harmony undid the two buttons on her lab coat and dropped it to the floor. From then on Harry’s imagination went on holiday because there was nothing left for it to do. Harmony turned and touched her toes and then sat on Harry’s lap and grinded in a clockwise motion. Harry put his hands at her sides in an attempt to lift her off his lap, but she grabbed the back of his hands and pulled them up to her breasts while leaning in and blowing into his ear.

He was momentarily distracted but finally said: “Ah, Harmony, could we talk?”

She arched her back and grinded harder into Harry’s, not unresponsive, lap. “I’m a dancer.” She again fell back against Harry’s chest and got so close he could feel her wet lips against his ear, “I don’t talk.”

“Not even about Big Bill?”

The gyration stopped. Harmony reached down, picked up her lab coat and then stood holding it in front of her like it was a towel and she had just stepped from a shower. “What about Bill?”

“I’d like to ask you a few questions about him, if I may?”

“You a cop?”

“No, but I’m working with them.”

“Do you have any ID?”

“Not really, I have a driver’s license.”

“Why are you talking to me here?”

“I thought it would be easier, more relaxed.” Harry looked around the tiny cubicle and shrugged. “I think I was wrong.”

A voice came from the other side of the curtain. “You OK in there, Sara?”

Harmony stared at Harry, trying to make up her mind about him. When the guy on the other side of the curtain didn’t hear anything he pushed it open. Harry was expecting one of the neckless bouncers, but instead, standing there, was a man he hadn’t seen before. He was tall and dark, maybe Middle Eastern, with a full moustache circa 1970s porn star.

Harmony spun around and took an involuntary step back, treading on Harry’s foot and almost falling over.

“What’s going on here?” the man asked.

Harmony put on her lab coat. She was obviously intimidated by the man and was struggling to come up with a response.

“I hear you been asking about Big Bill?” the man said, stepping into the alcove that wasn’t really big enough for the three of them. “You a cop? If you’re a cop you have to say you’re a cop.”

“I’m not a cop.”

The man stepped closer and pushed Harmony behind him. “Then what the fuck are you?”

This was a hypothetical question that, at that moment, Harry was unprepared to answer.

“I want you out.”

“If you back up,” Harry said as calmly as he could, “then maybe I could stand.”

“You telling me what to do in my own club?”

There are lots of theories on how to defuse aggressive situations and Harry knew them all. In his experience, predicaments like this usually got defused when the aggressor’s fist made contact with Harry’s nose. After a split second mental game of eenie, meeny, miny, mo Harry decided on polite submissive.

“No, sir.”

The man grabbed the cloth on Harry’s shirt sleeve just below the shoulder and dragged him out to the main room. The bouncers jumped to their feet when they saw Harry and the man come out from the back of the club. The man pushed Harry into the bouncers and pointed to the door.

“Hey hey hey,” came the jovial voice of Cirba as the two men roughly grabbed Harry by his shirt and his arm. “What’s goin’ on here?”

“This is none of your business,” the man said.

Cirba reached into his back pocket and expertly flipped open a wallet displaying his badge. “How about I make it my business?”

The bouncers didn’t let go of Harry but they stopped and looked to the man for instruction.

“What has my colleague done to prompt such treatment?”

“He was hassling the girls. The management has the right—”

“Yeah yeah,” Cirba interrupted. “I read the sign on the way in. Could you unhand my friend, please? He doesn’t really look like much of a troublemaker to me.”

The bouncers looked to their boss, who nodded, and Harry was released.

“Is this the woman Mr Cull was hassling?” Cirba pointed to Harmony who was standing in the entrance to the back rooms clutching her lab coat to her chest.

“One of them.”

“Multiple hassling – my, you’ve been busy, Harry.”

Harry gave Cirba a shrug.

“We came tonight to speak to this woman about a murder investigation.”

The man turned to Harmony and said: “You don’t have to talk to him.” Then back to Cirba. “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“Surely the lady can speak for herself.”

All eyes were on Harmony as she quietly looked at the floor and said: “I don’t want to talk to anybody.”

“Now I’m assuming you don’t have a warrant, officer…”

“Cirba,” Cirba offered and shook his head no.

“So I would like to ask you and him to leave.”

“Do you want me to get a warrant, Mr… ?”

The man did not return the courtesy of offering his name. “Yes, Officer Cirba, that is exactly what I want you to do.”

“We shall meet again,” Cirba said and then to Harry, “Come, Watson.”

Harry took a step towards the door, stopped and said: “Oh, I forgot.” He took out his wallet, pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of it and took a step back into the club. The bouncers closed together like elevator doors. Harry flashed the bill and said: “I just never got to give the young lady a tip.” They let him past and he approached Harmony. She extended her hand, but Harry slid the money into one of the pockets on her lab coat and smiled at her. As he walked out of the club he said: “I’ll recommend this place to my friends.”

* * *

Outside Cirba stood next to his car staring up at the starry sky.

Harry waited by the passenger door for the trooper to unlock it. Finally, he asked: “You OK?”

Cirba look down from the firmament and said: “What part of undercover do you not understand?”

“Hey. Firstly, I’m not an undercover cop. You hired me to be subtle, not covert, and secondly – those folks in there are awfully twitchy. I asked the skinny stripper one tiny question and she went straight to the boss. At least I’m assuming he was the boss. Can I ask you a question?”

Cirba sighed, clicked his car remote. “I guess.”

As they both climbed in Harry asked: “How come you didn’t haul that guy, and the girl, back to the station? Or at least threaten to?”

Cirba started the engine but didn’t put the car in drive. “Well, it would have been an idle threat. I wasn’t prepared to haul anybody in.”

“Why not? That’s what I’m here for, isn’t it? I’ve got nothing better to do tonight and those folks really need to answer some questions.”

“Yeah it’s just… I wasn’t ready to bring you to headquarters yet.”

“Me? Why?”

“Well, you don’t have clearance… for interrogation.”

“I thought you hired me as an interrogator?”

“I did but that’s just it. I hired you.”

“What do you mean, ‘I hired you?’ I’m not hired by the PA State Police?”

“No.”

“What’s going on?”

Cirba turned off the engine and faced Harry. “Big Bill had a brother a year younger than him that got killed in a car accident.”

“I heard about that.”

“Yeah well, what you probably didn’t hear is that his trunk was filled with Oxycontin.”

“Hillbilly heroin.”

“That’s the stuff. From the toll road ‘Easy Pass’ in his car we figure the youngest Thomson boy had driven non-stop from Kentucky right before he turned the statue of St Elizabeth into a lefty. So the department thinks Big Bill’s shooting is just some backwoods drug deal gone wrong. They realize that solving it will be near impossible, and the truth is, they really don’t care if one drug dealer kills another, as long as it doesn’t happen a lot. So I’m the only manpower and expense they’ve allocated.”

“You’re paying me out of your own pocket?”

“Well, I figure if we get a result, I’ll put in an invoice for your services.”

“How come you didn’t tell me this upfront?”

Cirba smiled. “Maybe I wanted to see if I could get away with lying to you?”

Harry wanted to be mad but just couldn’t do it. His professional side told him to go home, but he had been so professional for so long it was actually fun to be flying by the seat of his pants. He matched Cirba’s smile and said: “You realize you’re going to have to repay the ninety-five bucks I spent in there?”

“Spent ninety-five bucks! How the hell did you spend ninety-five bucks?”

“I paid to get in, tipped the first dancer, tipped Cynthia, paid for a dance, tipped some grandmother, and tipped Harmony, twice.”

“Fine,” Cirba said as he started the engine and put the car into drive. “Of course, you have receipts – right?”

Harry gave Cirba a “you’ve got to be kidding” look, but the cop didn’t see it. He squinted straight ahead then drove to the end of the parking lot and turned off his headlights.

“Are we going to start making out?” Harry asked.

“Look,” Cirba said, pointing to a small light flickering deep in the woods.

Chapter 6

“Where the hell are we going?” Harry asked as they pulled off the Five Mile Road onto a dirt track.

“Don’t you recognize this? It’s the Horseshoe Road.”

They didn’t have to travel very far before Cirba pulled in behind one of a dozen cars parked on the back road. Harry started walking up the track to the footpath that led into what this morning was a crime scene.

“Not that way,” Cirba said in a loud whisper. “Let’s bushwhack.”

Harry followed the cop into the woods. The almost full moon provided almost enough light for Harry to see without braining himself on a tree branch, but without his towering companion to lead the way, Harry would have been seriously spooked being in these woods at night. As they got close to the campfire they heard the music and then saw about thirty teenagers milling around a fire and a quarter keg of beer in a galvanized tub.

At the treeline Cirba whispered, “This is the fun part. Watch.” He stepped into the clearing, reached into both of his pockets and produced a flashlight and a wallet. “POLICE,” he shouted, illuminating the badge with the light. “Everybody stay where they are.”

In a nanosecond two-thirds of the kids dropped their beers and disappeared into the forest. Cirba turned to Harry and shone the light on his face showing a huge grin.

One of the remaining teenagers who sported an orange hunting cap said: “Ow man, don’t you have anything better to do than bust up a little kegger?”

Cirba walked towards the youth and said: “Who said I was busting up your party? I just wanna talk.”

“You mean we can stay?” the kid asked.

“Are the drivers drinking?”

“No, we’re not stupid.”

“Then I got no problem. HEY,” Cirba shouted, “you in the woods. Come on back, I promise I won’t arrest you or take names or anything.”

Slowly the teenagers appeared out of the forest like elves in a fantasy movie but it wasn’t until Cirba asked if he and Harry could have a beer that the kids began to relax.

“A man was killed here this week,” Cirba said.

A kid with a backwards facing baseball cap said: “You don’t have to tell us; over there’s the guy that found him.”

Sitting alone on a log by the fire was a young man about 18. The light from the flames flickered on a face that had that vacant look Harry recognized as post-traumatic stress. If it wasn’t full blown PTSD then it was close to it. He’d seen the look before on the faces of people who had seen things too horrible to forget. Hell, he’d seen it in the mirror.

“How’s he doing?” Harry asked.

“He was freaked out by it. He was OK at first but he’s got weirder, and now he’s just holed up in his room. I convinced him to come out with us tonight but maybe it was a bad idea to bring him here.”

“You think?” Cirba said sarcastically.

“No no,” Harry said. “It wasn’t such a bad idea. Let me talk to him. What’s his name?”

The kid and cop simultaneously said: “Ryan.”

Harry walked over and pointed to a spot next to the boy. “Is this log taken?”

The boy looked up, confused, as if he hadn’t heard the question. “Huh?”

“Do you mind if I sit?” Harry asked.

“Oh, no.”

“You’re Ryan, right?”

“Yeah,” he replied like he wasn’t sure.

“I’m Harry Cull.”

Ryan looked over and saw Cirba talking to the other kids as if it was the first time he noticed. “That’s the cop I spoke to the other day. You a cop too?”

“Not really but I work with them. Can I get you a beer?”

“Na I’m OK.”

“Are you?”

Ryan didn’t answer.

“It’s all right not to be. I’ve had what happened to you happen to me.”

Ryan had his head down practically between his knees. He didn’t look up when he said: “You found a dead guy in the woods?”

“Well, not in the woods but, yes, I’ve found dead guys.”

That got the boy’s attention. “What did you do?”

“What did you do? Is more to the point.”

“I um… I told the other cop everything.”

“Yeah but now I’d like to hear what happened. Start at the beginning. What were you doing here?”

“I came to shoot. I was thinking of getting a deer license this year and… well, I’m not the best shot.”

“You had a gun with you?”

“Yeah.”

“What kind?”

“A .30-30.”

“How’d you get here?”

“I drove.”

“What car?” Harry asked to get him in the habit of naming the specifics. The more details Ryan recalled the better it would be for the investigation and for Ryan too.

“My… my mom’s Prius.”

“And you were alone?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you go anywhere before you came up here?”

“No, not with a gun in the car.”

“Sensible. So where did you park?”

“At the bottom, right in front of the footpath.”

Harry waited but Ryan wasn’t saying anything without prompting. “So then what?”

“I got out and got my gun and ammo outta the trunk and walked up to the range.”

“Did you load the gun?”

“No, sir, I walked with it pointing down and the bolt open just like Big Bill taught me.”

“Big Bill taught you to shoot?”

“Yeah, he used to take me shooting up here when I was a kid. He wasn’t supposed to, ya know? But he was always really careful about it. He was the guy that taught me my gun safety. If I ever started messing around when the guns were out – that was it – shooting was over.”

“So he was your friend?”

“He was… He was more like a big brother, ya know?” Ryan was having a hard time keeping it together. “I’m an only child. He was… he was good to me.”

“So you were walking up the path with your gun unloaded and then what?”

“He loved it here. He and the older kids used ta party up here all the time. He was the guy that told us about this place.”

Ryan was obviously trying to avoid speaking of what happened next. Harry let him go on.

“Sometimes he’d even get us beer. I wasn’t supposed to tell about that either. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore.”

There was a quiver in his voice. Harry needed to get him to the crux before he broke down altogether.

“So you were walking up the path…”

“And I saw him lying there.”

“And what did you do?”

“I called 911.”

“Did you try to revive him?”

“Look, I told the other cop all about it.”

“And now you need to tell me.”

“Why?” Ryan was shaking now.

“’Cause if you don’t… Just keep going, son.”

Ryan stood and said: “I’m not your son” and walked off into the woods.

Harry could feel he was almost there and pursued him.

“What did you do when you saw the body?”

“I told you: I called the cops.”

“What did you do before you called 911? Did you check Big Bill’s pulse to see if he was alive?”

Ryan turned back to Harry. The light was faint on his face. They were away from prying eyes and maybe that’s what Ryan needed. Even in the darkness Harry could see the boy’s face scrunch up in torment. When he spoke his voice came out like a child crying. “I didn’t even know it was Bill until the other cop told me. I went to look but half of his head was gone. It was like some horror movie.”

He was breaking down and reaching for someone to hold him but Harry stiff-armed him, keeping him away. He had to get to the next step.

“Then what did you do?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Yes, you do, tell me.”

“I… ran. I ran into the woods like a wimp. I found a big fir tree and I hid under it.”

That was it. Ryan was emotionally spent. Harry caught him as he slid to the leaf-covered ground and held him while he wept unabashedly. They stayed like that for a while until Ryan’s sobs became manageable.

Finally, Harry asked: “When did you call 911?”

“I hardly remember. I did it from under the tree. I hid there until I heard the sirens. Then walked out to the path to meet them. I didn’t want them to see me hiding.”

“So Ryan, you know what you did wrong?”

Ryan looked up and wiped his face with the bottom of his T-shirt. “You think I did something wrong?”

“No, I don’t. I think you did everything right, but you think you did something wrong. What do you think that is?”

“I shouldn’t’a run. I should’a looked around for the bastard that did it.”

“The person that shot Bill had a gun. What could you have done?”

“I had a gun too.”

“And you’re used to shooting people in the woods?”

“Well… no. But I shouldn’t have run.”

“Why not?” Harry said. “You saw the most horrible thing you have ever seen and you ran from it. Seems sensible to me. You did everything right. I’m amazed you even got around to calling 911 as fast as you did. Give yourself a break, kid. Stuff like this can haunt you, I know. Just because you ran away from danger doesn’t make you a coward – it makes you smart. This isn’t your fault and there was nothing you could have done about it.”

“It doesn’t feel like it.”

“Don’t you feel a little better now?”

Ryan stopped and took stock of himself for a moment. “Actually, I do.”

Ever since his interrogation days, Harry always carried a cheap handkerchief for just such an occasion. He gave it to Ryan. “Go ahead. Blow. It’s a gift. Can I give you a piece of advice, kid?”

Ryan nodded.

“Keeping this stuff inside is what screws with your brain. When people ask how you are, and you’re not good – say so. Tell them about how you saw your friend dead in the woods. And pretty soon you’ll be fine.”

“How do you know?”

Harry stood and brushed himself off. “’Cause where you are – I’ve been – and then some.” He reached down and helped Ryan to his feet. “Come on, have a beer. It’s time you started living again.”

As they walked back towards the fire Harry asked: “You know of anybody that would have wanted to hurt Big Bill?”

“No, that’s just it – he was real sweet. Everybody liked him. He loved it up here. Actually, last time I spoke to him he was pissed off about the fracking.”

“The what?” Harry asked.

“The fracking. Isn’t that how you found out about this party? That’s what this is all about. It’s to organize a ‘Stop the Fracking’ protest.”

“What, like drilling for natural gas?”

“Yeah, they want to do it right here.”

* * *

Back at the fire Harry refilled his cup and filled one for Ryan. Cirba turned down a second.

“Did you know about this fracking stuff?” Harry asked the cop.

“Well, I knew they were doing it out at the old stone quarry and, now that I have met this young woman, I know more than I ever thought possible.”

A young girl with blonde hair in braids, wearing a backwards cap, jumped in front of Harry. “You know they shoot sand and water into the ground, right? Well they add chemicals to that. You know what kind of chemicals they put in the ground?”

“Ah, no,” Harry said.

“Exactly,” she said almost jumping up and down. “Nobody knows; they don’t have to tell anybody.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Harry said.

“It’s true,” Ryan said. “The company that makes it says it’s a secret recipe. Like they’re Colonel Sanders or something.”

“And hydraulic fracking causes earthquakes,” the girl said, while bouncing in front of Harry, “and it’s illegal in France and Pittsburgh.”

“Wow,” Harry said, “who’d have thought that the French and the Pittsburghians would ever have anything in common?”

“Hey,” the girl said, poking Harry in the chest. “This isn’t funny.”

“I can see that.”

“So how did you find out they are going to do it here?” Harry asked.

“Big Bill told me the night before he died.”

“Where?”

“Right here. He stopped in on our party, had a beer, told us that the powers that be were trying to buy this land for fracking and we’d better enjoy it while it was still here.”

“What else did Bill say?”

“He said he was gonna try and stop it if he could, ’cause of what he saw at the Jeric farm.”

“Old man Jeric out near the stone quarry?” Cirba said.

“Yeah, Big Bill told me he did some work for Mr Jeric at harvest time this year, and he and Mrs Jeric were in a bad way because of all of the chemical crap coming out of the fracking site.”

“Anything else?”

“Na, but he was bummed about it. Said it was causing him strife.”

“So what are you kids gonna do?” Cirba asked.

“Protest, man,” the girl said, pumping her fist in the air. “We’re gonna stop it. I’ll tree-sit if I have to,” she announced.

“Well, keep it legal,” Cirba said.

“We’ll do what we have to do, man.”

“Yeah I guess you will. So did Big Bill say anything else?”

“No.”

“Did he seem upset?” Harry asked.

“No,” Ryan said. “He said that life was good.”

The old guys threw their cups into the fire. “Thanks for the beer,” Cirba said.

“You know,” Harry said, “if you are going to try and save this place you should start by cleaning it up. Nobody’s gonna want to save a dump.”

“We’re on it tomorrow,” the girl said but she seemed more enthusiastic about it than Ryan.

Harry patted Ryan on the shoulder. “Environmentalism is a bitch. You go easy on yourself, OK?”

Ryan shook his hand and then came in for a quick manly hug. “Thanks.”

* * *

“What did you and Ryan chat about in the woods there,” Cirba asked as they pulled out onto the Five Mile Road.

“Just a little emergency psychology. The boy is freaked. I just helped him off the ledge a little bit.”

“Did you learn anything new?”

“Nothing, except what you heard about Bill knowing about this fracking stuff. Did you know about it?”

“No, and how come Bill knew before me?” Cirba said in a faraway voice that denoted he was thinking. After a while he said: “You can sleep in tomorrow. I’m going to check with land registry in the morning and see who owns the Horseshoe.”

“On Saturday?”

“Hey, this is a murder investigation.”

* * *

Harry had a look over at MK’s house as he put the key in the lock to see if any lights were on. They weren’t and he sighed knowing that he wouldn’t have done anything if they were. Inside, he kicked off his shoes and made himself a cup of tea. Then, as always, he logged on to the FBI’s Lost and Found Child Database but couldn’t keep his eyes open even for that. He brushed his teeth, threw off his clothes and squeaked into bed. He was asleep instantly and dreamt he was back in the strip club. This time he got that private dance.

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