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shielded by trees and other foliage across the bay. Three preteen girls were trying to place a blanket on the grass, turning it this way and that like firefighters positioning a net under a potential jumper.
    I turned to Paine. “This will be tough to beat.”
    “Other room’s on the street side. Noisier and no …” He moved his hand toward the window.
    Conscious of Lacouture’s client, I said, “Same price?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Then this one’s fine.”
    A nod. “Settle yourself in. Gil said I was to call the sheriff for you.”
    “Right.”
    “Jail’s only a short drive, shouldn’t be too long.”
    “Mr. Paine—”
    “Huh, Ralph’s more like it.”
    “Ralph, you know I’m here about the killings at the Shea house?”
    He scratched his chin. “No, but I figured you might be. You have a key to Steve’s camp?”
    “No. I assumed the sheriff would.”
    “Probably does. If not, Steve keeps a spare on a nail under the third step of the back stairs to his kitchen.”
    I stared at him. “How many other people knew that?”
    “Couldn’t say, but probably quite a few. Summer folks have to leave a way for workmen and such to get in when they might not be there.”
    I filed that. “The night of the killings, I understand Steven Shea came to the country store to buy some things.”
    Paine seemed to get slower and more careful. “That’s what the wife tells me.”
    “She was working there that night?”
    “We both work there every day and every night till nine, Sundays till seven. We own the store and the inn.”
    “I’d like to speak to her about seeing Shea that night.”
    “Okay.” He turned to go, taking something out of his pocket. “I’ll leave you the key to the room. Lock up if you like, but if you’re here more than two nights, don’t be surprised you start forgetting to.”
    “Thanks, Ralph.”
    “I’ll let you know when Patsy comes by.”
    “It can wait.”
    Paine stopped and turned in the doorway. “Huh?”
    “My speaking to your wife about Shea. I can wait till it’s convenient for her.”
    Paine seemed to laugh to himself. “Patsy’s not the wife. Ramona’s the wife. Patsy, she’s the sheriff.”
    The innkeeper closed my door behind him.

3
    “S ORRY TO TAKE SO long, but I had to gas the truck.”
    The big Chevy Blazer bounced over another rock in a rut on the dirt road from Marseilles around the lake. Sheriff P. W. “Patsy” Willis was behind the wheel, swinging it enthusiastically left and right to avoid the worst parts of the road. We’d left the paved section about half a mile from the village.
    “Sheriff, how far is it from the village to the Shea house?” She looked over at me, then back to the driving. “From the country store to his gravel car park, three point four mile.” Gil Lacouture had said that Willis was the first officer on the scene. My guess was that she’d since measured the distance at least twice each way, just to be sure. Her hands on the wheel looked raw and knuckly, but the skin was soft when she shook hands with me outside the inn. About five-foot-seven, Willis was solidly built, with a sandy ponytail drawn back and worn under her Stetson and inside her brown uniform shirt. The pants were beige with brown piping, the shoes black Corfam, like parade shoes from the Army. The eyes were hazel and hadn’t blinked since we’d started talking.
    We passed a paved driveway on the right with a chain across it. Faded orange telltales were tied to the chain, fluttering in the breeze.
    I said, “How’d you get into police work?”
    “Grew up maybe ten mile from here. Career opportunities for young ladies weren’t what you’d call wicked good. Saw a recruitment ad down to Augusta for the Army, thought I might give it a try, ended up in the Military Police.”
    “Me, too.”
    Her eyes left the road again. “That right?”
    “Fort Gordon.”
    “Augusta, Georgia. Thought it was some funny at the time, trading one Augusta for another, fifteen