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forever, especially to my impatient dogs. I opened the door.
    The night was like a wall of darkness. Cold needled my lungs and pasted my nostrils shut. Yipping, the dogs bounded down the hill toward the river. That gate had to be locked, had to. The dogs stopped short, barking at bushes. I could barely make out Tally’s white plume of a tail and Sally’s white fur cape. Had I bundled up at this hour so they could corner a rabbit and then be afraid to chase it into its lair?
    A dark vehicle was parked on the trail. Nervously, I turned on my flashlight. I might have known. An ATV.
    No one stirred, and the trailside gate was locked. I had an eerie feeling that someone was watching me from inside Blueberry Cottage. Was the odor of gasoline coming from the ATV, or had someone poured gas around Blueberry Cottage? I shined my light on the structure. The door of the lean-to where I kept my canoe, lawnmower, and garden tools swung open, creaking in breezes so slight I could barely feel them on my frozen face. Last I knew, that door had been padlocked.
    Whimpering, Tally nudged my mittened hand. I looked down. He turned his head to stare at his sister. She nosed at something on the ground.
    Mike Krawbach lay sprawled on his back.

4
    M IKE GROANED. HE DIDN’T MOVE. I did. Breathlessly, I called my dogs. We flew up the hill to my apartment. I shut them in with me and dialed 911.
    The dispatcher said she’d alert the doctor, ambulance, and police, and I should stay on the line with her while I unlocked my gates and attended to the victim.
    Clamping the phone to my ear with the help of my shoulder, I shut the dogs in the apartment, went around to the front gate, and fumbled with the new padlock. My thick mittens didn’t help, but I couldn’t bear taking them off. My hands shook.
    A car door slammed. A portly gentleman walked toward me more briskly than I would have expected for someone his size and age. He carried an old-fashioned doctor bag and wore an ankle-length black wool coat. A hand-knit white scarf was wrapped around his neck and lower face so many times I couldn’t help thinking of the word “muffler.” Someone had stitched furry earflaps to his fedora, and they were folded down over his ears. I’d read in books of men tipping their hats, but this was the first time I’d seen one do it. He breathed out an icy cloud. “I’m Dr. Wrinklesides.” He reached over the gate for my phone. “You got 911 on the line?”
    Relinquishing the phone to Dr. Wrinklesides, I babbled, “Mike Krawbach is out cold by the riverside trail.” Cold? More like half frozen. “He moaned,” I added lamely, finally undoing the padlock and opening the gate.
    Dr. Wrinklesides patted my shoulder. “It will be okay,” he shouted.
    I led him to Mike.
    Dr. Wrinklesides took one look at Mike and boomed into my phone, “Where’s that danged fool with the ambulance?” He muttered, “You’d think the way this village is growing, they could park the thing less than ten miles away.”
    Uncle Allen’s police cruiser mooed and bleated its way toward us. I climbed the hill and met him at the front gate. Lights went on in apartments above The Stash, Batty About Quilts, Buttons and Bows, and Tell a Yarn.
    Its tires loud against the pavement in the otherwise still night, a dark pickup drove slowly up Lake Street from the direction of the beach, turned onto Cayuga, and went out of sight.
    “Who was that?” I asked Uncle Allen.
    “Kids. They use the beach as lovers’ lane. Is that why you called?”
    Impatiently, I shook my head and told him that Mike was lying at the foot of my yard.
    “I’ll drive down there.” He stumped to his cruiser and drove noisily down Lake Street toward the beginning of the trail. I ran back down the hill to unlock the gate nearest Mike. Uncle Allen didn’t seem to know how to turn his siren off, but why did he keep pounding on the horn? Its racket banged into my skull like a sledge hammer.
    Waiting at the trailside