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you.”
    Lena laughed around a swig of beer and favored Ole’s rump with an affectionate backhand as he walked past her.
    â€œIs this Walt I’m gonna call any good?” Lena asked.
    â€œHe knows his way around a jury.”
    â€œHow long has he been at it?”
    â€œHe’s been a trial lawyer for over thirty years, but he’s technically been representing defendants for even longer than that. When he was in the Marines his buddies recognized his latent talents and they’d have him represent them in the informal disciplinary proceedings that they call ‘Captain’s Masts’ on board ship.”
    â€œDid he now? Well, then, he might just do, I guess.”
    A vigorous throat clearing announced Ole Lindstrom’s reappearance in the doorway.
    â€œMr. Carlsen,” he announced with playful solemnity, “you have a caller. She’s offering to give you a ride back to Milwaukee, if you can tear yourself away. Laurel something-or-other.”
    â€œLaurel Wolf or Laurel Fox?”
    â€œI’m not sure,” Ole teased. “I’ll go ask her.”
    â€œNo!” Carlsen said as a look of sit-com panic flashed across his face. He leaped to his feet and sprinted for the door.
    â€œWhich one is it, really?” Lena asked after Carlsen had disappeared.
    â€œThe Native American, not the slut.”
    â€œThat would be Wolf.”
    â€œWell we’d better get out to the living room and tell Gary that I’ll take our lawyer back to wherever he parked his car in Appleburg so that Gary can accept the generous offer he’s receiving.”
    Without waiting for the others he set off on this mission. Rep and Lena followed him and reached the living room just as Carlsen, to his evident elation and vast relief, was getting the good news. Carlsen lifted a black-haired, sepia-skinned lass in wraparound sunglasses almost off her feet for a passionate kiss and then, with a quick wave to the Lindstroms and Rep, hurried off with her toward a Ford F150 pick-up truck parked at the curb.
    â€œLucky boy,” Ole said.
    â€œUnlucky girl,” Lena said wistfully. “Old story, I guess.”
    â€œI’ll pull the truck down the driveway so you don’t have to skate over too much ice to get to it,” Ole said.
    He exited toward the dining room. Rep was about to step toward the front door when Lena brushed his arm. Puzzled, he looked over at her. She walked a few steps to a harpsichord—
not
a piano, he realized with some surprise, but a harpsichord with yellowed keys in distressed maple that looked like it was two-hundred years old—and idly fingered a photo album.
    â€œYou said your Walt friend used to be a Marine,” she said. “We have a sort of a military problem that may be a lot more important than that silly charge they’re throwing at me.”
    Rep looked at the album. On the cover, slipped in between the blue binding and the plastic sheathing over it, was a four-by-six print. It showed the breast of a dress white uniform tunic with a nametag embossed white on black over the left pocket. The name-tag read LINDSTROM 12.
    â€œThat’s our nephew, Harald,” she said quietly. “Closest thing we have to a son. He’s a midshipman at the Naval Academy. Class of 2012.”
    â€œCongratulations.”
    â€œOle and I called in every chit we had to help him, but he really made it on his own. He’s real smart, and he’s tough enough, I guess. He wants to be a Marine officer.”
    â€œHas he gotten himself in some kind of scrape?”
    â€œLooks like it.”
    Most of the flint-hard, go-ahead-just-try-to-hurt-me tone had vanished from her voice, replaced by an aching hint of vulnerability. Rep, who had been wondering a few minutes ago whether he should write a condolence card to the Wisconsin Republican Party on the imminent loss of its testicles, now felt a surge of sympathy for her.
    â€œWhat kind