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other more official reason, was why he was there in the first place—even if it was too late to save her.  
    He waved goodbye and thanked the officers for dropping him off, telling them he needed some time to himself. They seemed like nice enough people. Perez was too serious but a decent guy. Ms. Nikki Hamill was cute, in her late twenties, full of energy, and looked like she could rip out more pushups than Charlie on his best day. Strange to find nice people in the worst places, Charlie mused. It had been the same over in Africa and the Middle East. Of course, North Dakota was a long way from the desert, but it still felt so isolated, so far away. In the big picture, things were horrible, but one on one, there might be a smile or a gesture that kept the humanity in it all, small moments of beauty in a very ugly world. It made Charlie wonder if those moments made life in bad places better or worse.
    It made Charlie sad, as sad as he’d felt in longer than he could remember. It wasn’t that Kay was dead, since they’d been apart for so long that those bonds were practically severed anyway. Rather, it was how, why, and where she died that bothered him. It was such a bleak area, practically a dump. The vacant lot her body was found in offered no view of anything other than trailers and a few scant trees that didn’t look like they had any intention of blooming. There were discarded beer cans and fast food wrappers everywhere. Kay had died alone and dirty, and that broke Charlie’s heart. No one should have to die like that, he thought.
    Being the kind of man he was, Charlie didn’t really like the idea of sadness. He preferred to focus on the horizon and get things taken care of, and he was more than certain there would be at least a few people in town who could help him to fill that need. His first stop was the office trailer of the woman who’d told the police that Kay had been loitering around the trailer park. It was a crowded place for sure, and there were barking dogs about every other lot and a bustling of people, mostly oil workers just getting off from their shifts, looking to tie one on. There was plenty of yelling and laughing as the boys and girls blew off steam in a community sort of way that could only come from close living and high pressure. It was sort of nice in a familial sort of way, nothing like the parks Charlie had played around growing up, where everyone was at least a little suspicious of everyone, most on some kind of government assistance. All of the residents of this trailer park had jobs. They were simply living in temporary housing, like lovely Dee Dee.
    The air was still but cold, and Charlie made note to buy a jacket if he came across any funds. The trailer park itself didn’t serve to make him feel any warmer. The trailers were set in rows, like a small neighborhood with wheels. Charlie guessed the residents were a mix of income levels, because he saw singlewides, doublewides, and modulars. Some looked pretty new, with fresh siding and windows that still had installation stickers on them. Others looked a lot more worn, with ratty wooden stairs leading up to the doors and white trash-looking lawn chairs out front, strewn with beer cans and fast food wrappers. That seemed to be a running theme, wadded-up yellow hamburger wrappers floating around in the breeze like tumbleweed in old Westerns.
    Charlie knocked on the door of the trailer that had an askew “Manager” sign hanging from it. He could hear a grumbling from the inside.
    Finally, the door swung open, as if kicked. “What do you want?” snapped a middle-aged woman wearing a sleeping gown and housecoat. She held a Pabst Blue Ribbon tallboy in her hand and didn’t look all that interested in entertaining guests; she could barely keep from rocking back and forth and looked to be well into that case of tallboys.
    “I’m sorry to be calling on you so late, ma’am,” Charlie said as he took off his hat and held it between his