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grew until the blare of sirens ripped through the air. The sheriff lowered the light and gave a resigned groan. “Oh, shit, nothing like announcing things to the world.” He turned to McIntire. “Wanna try and head off the crowd, Mac? And chase Mrs. Lindstrom out of here before she starts getting badgered for gossip. Tell her not to say a word to anybody, and let her know I’ll come over to her house later.” He hung the light and switched it on.
    The shell that was Bambi Morlen appeared to shrink with illumination—a forlorn heap slumped at the sheriff’s thighs. McIntire felt the sadness again. Here was somebody’s son, maybe somebody’s brother. A young man at the center of a circle of people; people who loved him, possibly people who disliked him, maybe even hated him; people who wouldn’t recover from his wounds any more than Bambi himself had. Koski seemed to read his thoughts.
    â€œKeep a lid on who this is ’til I get hold of the family,” he said. “Clubbers, are they? Maybe you could ride along? I’d better leave Cecil here to keep an eye on things, ’til the state guys show up, and I’m short a deputy since Billy Corbin went back to selling shoes. Besides, you probably speak Club better’n I do.”
    He reached into the dead boy’s rear pocket and extracted a brown leather wallet. He flipped through a small sheaf of bills. “Scratch robbery as a motive, anyway.”
    McIntire descended to the ground just as the ambulance screamed up to the door. He waved the driver to stay put and crossed the grass to where Inge Lindstrom sat hunched in the passenger seat of her car. McIntire’s wife was behind the wheel. At his approach, she rolled down her window and stated in a voice that showed she was leaving no room for argument, “I’m taking Inge home now, John. You tell Mr. Koski if he wants to talk to her he can come to her house.”
    McIntire waited while the sheriff finished his business and the yard steadily filled with the curious, the fearful, and those who “just happened to be driving by.” McIntire informed them each that, “Yes, there had been a death,” and “No, it wasn’t anybody from around here.”
    It was just as well that they’d come. It took a half-dozen men to lower the body, shrouded and strapped to a stretcher, to the ground.

VI
    Had conversation here conjured up this woman? One misfortune always brings another.
    Her newspaper hit the floor, and Mia stretched out, head pillowed on one of the worn davenport’s arms and feet dangling over the other. She pulled the afghan up over her head and spent the final few seconds before she closed her eyes marveling at the kaleidoscope of overlapping circles produced by light passing through the spaces in the weave.
    What should she dream about? Her drowsy contemplations of that blissful question were squelched by the sound of a car on the nearby road. Mia held her breath. The car slowed. She crossed her fingers, but fortune was not on her side. With a splatter of gravel, the vehicle turned in at the driveway. Maybe it was Nick home early…or Harry Truman out to recruit a new Secretary of State. Each was equally likely.
    With a groan, she threw back the cover. Mia and Nick weren’t on the regular Sunday afternoon visiting circuit. Still, neighbors showed up every now and then. Often enough to ensure that Mia maintain the habit of baking every Friday and keeping a supply of fresh cream on hand for the coffee.
    She pulled herself up and tried to peer inconspicuously through the lace of the curtains. Whoever it was, they didn’t
have
to know she was home. The car was unfamiliar, a convertible, not something often seen in this land of eternal winter, a deep maroon color. Mia squinted. It could be a Cadillac…classy, anyway. The top was up; she couldn’t see inside. Maybe it
was
Truman.
    She picked up the newspapers,