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there are violations of Order Seventeen, we will follow the extant process. Am I being clear?”
    Even Stone took this declaration stoically.
    â€œOne final item,” Metrovich said. “Chief Nill is stepping down, and I have been asked to deploy to Lansing for six months to serve as acting chief. In my absence Lt. Attalienti will be acting captain.”
    â€œWhy’s the chief steppin’ down?” Colt Homes asked.
    â€œHe has a health problem,” Metrovich said, not expanding.
    None of the men congratulated Metrovich on his assignment and none of them stuck around to talk. They got up en masse and quickly left the building.
    Service was walking to his vehicle to head for home when Attalienti pulled him aside.
    â€œYou know where the Beer Barrel is?”
    â€œThe bar in Rock?”
    â€œBe there tonight at seven-thirty. Wear civvies and drive your personal vehicle. Park behind the house with the barber pole out front, hoof it over to the bar, and don’t be late.”
    â€œI’m supposed to work tonight,” Service protested, his mind already back in the Mosquito Wilderness on things he needed to do there.
    â€œThis will be work,” the new acting captain said, walking away.
    Now what the hell was going on? Service wondered. Since he’d gotten into the Garden mess, nothing made sense, and he was beginning to feel frustrations that reminded him of those he thought he had left behind in Vietnam.

5
    ROCK, DECEMBER 15, 1975
    â€œI’d rather get stung in the face than in the ass.”
    Service found it mildly ironic that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a train run the railroad tracks that paralleled Rock. It was a town settled by railroad workers and known as Malton Spur and Maple Ridge before being named Rock by a long-forgotten postmaster. The area was well named: Glaciers had left a deep layer of drift rock that had to be turned over before any planting could be done, and as far as Service knew, the only reliable crop remained rocks and some small, hard potatoes and stunted sugar beets, equally hard. Rock was a town without flair, and it was appropriate that the Beer Barrel was a two-fisted drinker’s bar that made no pretense of being anything other than what it was.
    Service was dressed in jeans, a red plaid wool shirt, and a black down vest. He parked his black ten-year-old Ford pickup behind a white shotgun house with an ancient and faded barber pole out front, and walked a hundred yards over an icy gravel parking lot to the bar. The interior was dark, the floor and furniture nicked, and he and the acting captain appeared to be the only ones there. Attalienti led him upstairs to a small office, opened a small door in the floor beside an old oak desk, and said, “Sit here and keep quiet. Your job is to listen.” Service nodded and sat down, wondering if the acting captain had all his marbles.
    The meeting in the room below didn’t start for another hour, and over that time a dozen officers filtered in to be greeted by Attalienti and Sergeants Garwood and Stone.
    Service’s viewpoint was directly above tables pushed together in the main bar. Attalienti sat among the men, Stone and Garwood on either side of him. “I called you here because I think Len is right about this Garden money angle,” Attalienti began. “I think our lawyers in Lansing may get their assholes tight, but the Garden deal is about money, so we’re gonna put some bodies on this and poke the stick into the hornet’s nest.” The acting captain paused to let the words sink in, and added, “I’d rather get stung in the face than in the ass.”
    Service saw all the men grin.
    Attalienti continued, “You men are here because you’re going to be the core team, even if you’re in different districts. I don’t mean to disparage anyone, but we have some officers who’re not crazy about patrolling the Garden. You