But he gave himself away by bringing her a cold Mountain Dew, which she pretended to drink while he filled her in on the aftermath yesterday at Golly’s compound, as he had been calling it. The dog had been a problem, he told her remotely. She got his drift and didn’t pursue. He kept talking.

“EMS tore the muffler off the ambulance getting Faith Golly out of there.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“She didn’t make it.”

“I know.”

“I had to.”

“Yes.”

“But there will be questions.”

“There will.”

They were quiet awhile. She pretended another sip of Dew.

“People are real hurt about Grape Fanta,” Bender went on finally, his difficulty with the statement showing that he was one of them.

“I am too,” she said. “The Bad Axe will never be the same.”

“Heck…” Bender was struggling, his thin, badly shaven throat pulsing. “Heck, my birth was announced in the Broadcaster. My marriage. My wife’s passing. Janice always loved to read Grape’s…”

He had to stop.

The sheriff said, “He touched a lot of lives. In the end, I think he saved some.”

“There’s a goddamn bunch of bones in there,” Bender said in almost a moan. “Bodies same as poor Fanta’s under them vegetable gardens. He was a stone-cold killer and a goddamn cannibal until he found a better way.”

It was her turn to struggle. She would never stop seeing gas-splashed Taylor in Jim Golly’s grip, her child’s terror-stiffened face, then his pell-mell sprint toward her with madness and flames tight on his heels. She imagined the moment had been burned into the memories of the millions who by now had seen it worldwide.

Then Bender said, “You won’t be surprised that suddenly a certain kind of folks are coming forward to tell us they’ve seen Faith Golly driving Hubbard’s truck all over for the last couple months and felt something might be wrong. Or to tell us that they’ve known for years that those sod buildings were back in there and something bad might be going on. They had trespassed through there, hunting or mushrooming or joyriding on snowcats, and they had got shot at, or chased by that dog, and now they’re proud to be part of the story. Just this morning some old guy called us from Chaseburg and said Faith Golly fits the description of the woman who has been picking up his recycled newspapers for years. On the subject of tips, I went and spoke to the Amish bishop, Stoltzfus. I said you people need to talk to us. See something, say something. How he answered was, ‘Ja, that might be a good idea.’ Which in Amish I think means, We’ll keep minding our own business.”