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managed a genuine smile that warmed him. ‘Yes. But don’t leave Lawton without telling us. I’ll need you to answer some more questions.’
    ‘In the meantime?’
    ‘In the meantime, research your film and fish,’ she said.

CHAPTER FIVE
    P AULA POTTER LEANED AGAINST the doorway to the barn, face into the coarse northwest wind that roared down off the ridge of Lawton Mountain, where winter still ruled and the hardwood trees remained barren of buds. She gaped at a pewter sky tattooed with a stream of purple oval clouds.
    Ordinarily, the reedy brunette was talkative, vivacious in gesture, smart and opinionated. Now she rested mute with curled hands jammed into the pockets of the gray wool jacket she wore over a denim dress, knee socks and blue wool clogs. She was blinking and had been blinking for nearly three minutes, ever since Andie Nightingale had told her that her husband’s body had been found in the Bluekill.
    At last Paula broke the silence. ‘Lenticular clouds,’ she said.
    ‘Excuse me?’ Nightingale said.
    ‘Those tiny purple clouds are called lenticular,’ Paula explained. ‘Hank was a weather freak. Vermont and all the hunting he did, you know? He used to say lenticular clouds came in on turbulence a mile high in the atmosphere. Lenticular clouds are like omens riding before storms. But the storm’s already here, isn’t it?’
    With that, whatever control Paula Potter possessed escaped her. Her jaw stretched wide to the impossibility of her loss and she tried to cover her mouth with her right hand even as she lurched wide-eyed across the uneven barn floor. Nightingale caught the woman and pulled her close. Over Paula’s heaving shoulders, she watched the lenticular clouds arcing at the horizon.
    Now a red Jeep Cherokee roared into the driveway and halted under the naked limbs of the gnarled elm that dominated the Potters’ front yard. An older version of Paula jumped from the driver’s seat. Ellen LaVacque hurried, ashen-faced, to her sister.
    Ten minutes later Paula said, ‘I should go inside and tell my boys now.’
    ‘It’s going to be hard,’ Ellen said. ‘They’ll think their lives are over.’
    ‘I won’t let them think that,’ Paula said resolutely. ‘He’ll always be with us. Won’t he?’
    The question hung in the air for so long that Nightingale winced. ‘Paula, I have to ask you some hard questions.’
    Paula snuffled, but nodded. ‘I figured you would.’
    ‘Did Hank have any enemies?’
    ‘Enemies!’ Ellen cried.
    ‘He had no enemies,’ Paula said firmly. Then she faltered and began to sob. ‘That I knew of anyway.’
    Nightingale took a deep breath. ‘I’m sorry to ask this, but did you have any suspicion he might have led a secret life?’
    ‘No!’ Paula cried.
    Her sister piped up. ‘Hank was the hardest-working, truest man I’ve ever known.’
    There was silence following her outburst. Paula worked the handkerchief in her hand, then asked meekly, ‘What kind of secret life?’
    ‘Financial, sexual, emotional, anything you can think of,’ Nightingale said.
    Paula looked at her sister, then shook her head. ‘When he wasn’t working, he was either working in the yard, playing with our boys or out hunting and fishing.’
    The sergeant nodded. ‘What would Hank’s routine have been this morning?’
    ‘He would’ve followed his plan,’ Paula said. ‘He always had a hunt plan, where he’d go and what he’d do first thing in the morning.’
    ‘And this morning?’
    ‘With the weather like this, he decided to hunt close to home, up Lawton Mountain on the other side of the river,’ she said, gesturing vaguely to the west.
    ‘Okay,’ Nightingale said encouragingly. ‘Beyond the plan, what would he have done this morning, first thing?’
    Paula thought about it, then said, ‘Up at three-thirty. Dress in long underwear and socks. Eat. Then come straight out here to his hunting locker. Get his clothes, gun, turkey vest, decoys and his pack. If he