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ready.”
    I looked at him for a long moment, trying to figure him out. But he was a closed door to me, since he was among the living. Finally, I nodded.
    My toenails weren’t quite dry, so despite the autumn bite in the air, I stepped into his truck barefoot. He seemed tofind that amusing. Hollis Boxleitner was a husky man with a crooked nose, a broad face, and a smile full of gleaming white teeth, though at the moment he was far from smiling. His pale blond hair was smooth as glass.
    â€œYou always lived here in Sarne?” I asked, after we’d parked at the Sonic and he’d pressed the button to order two chocolate shakes.
    â€œFor ten years,” he said. “I moved here my last two years of high school, and I stayed. I had a couple years of community college, but I commuted to class after the first year.”
    â€œBeen married? Was that how Teenie was your sister-in-law?”
    â€œYes.”
    I nodded acknowledgment. “Kids?”
    â€œNo.”
    Maybe he’d known the marriage wouldn’t last.
    â€œMy wife was Monteen’s older sister,” he said. “My wife is dead.”
    That was a shocker. I sighed. While Hollis paid for the shakes, I reflected that I was going to learn about Teenie Hopkins, whether I wanted to or not.
    â€œI met Monteen when she was thirteen. I picked her up from outside a juke joint way out in the county, while I was on patrol. It was so obvious she was underage and had no business being there. She made a pass at me in the police car. She was totally out of hand. I met Sally when I took Monteen home to her mom’s house that night.” He was silent for a moment, remembering. “I liked Sally a lot, the first time I laid eyes on her. She was a regular girl, with a lot of sweetness in her. Teenie was wild as a razorback.”
    â€œSo the Teagues couldn’t have been that happy about their son dating her.”
    â€œYou could say that. Teenie got it from her mom. At that time, Helen was drinking a lot, and not too particular about who she brought home. But Helen managed to change, finally quit drinking. When Teenie’s mom settled down, Teenie did, too.”
    That wasn’t how Sybil had tried to make it appear, at our second meeting. I filed that fact for future reference.
    â€œHow do you get hired?” he asked.
    I sucked hard on the straw, thinking over the abrupt change in subject. It was a good milk shake, but it had been a mistake to get a cold drink on a brisk day when I was barefoot. I shivered.
    â€œLots of word of mouth. That’s how I got hired here; Terry Vale heard something about me at a city government conference. Law enforcement people talk to each other, at conventions and by email. And there’ve been stories in a professional magazine or two.”
    He nodded. “I guess you couldn’t advertise.”
    â€œSometimes, we do. Hard to get the wording right.”
    â€œI can see that.” He smiled reluctantly. Then he reverted to just being intense. “You just . . . feel them?”
    I nodded. “I see the last moments. Like a tiny clip of a video. Can you please turn on the heater?”
    â€œYes, we’ll ride.” A minute later, we’d left Sonic and were cruising what there was of Sarne.
    â€œHow big is the police force here?” I was trying to be polite. There was an undercurrent here, and the water in it was moving faster and faster.
    â€œFull-time, besides me? The sheriff, two other deputies right now.”
    â€œStretched pretty thin.”
    â€œNot during this season. Now, we’ve just got leaf people. Come to see the colors change. They’re pretty peaceable.” Hollis shook his head over people taking time off from life to look at a bunch of leaves. “Summer tourist season, we take on six part-time people. Traffic control and so on.”
    Hollis Boxleitner’s income would be small. He was a youngish man, and he seemed