Investigation (BASD files): Remains of buttermilk in a glass found inside home of KM contained pesticide 2,4-D (brand name Killex). Investigators also found opiates and opiate-delivery devices and diary with writings expressing thoughts of self-harm. From interviews, investigators determined KM was in suicidal frame of mind. No indications of foul play recorded.

Autopsy (coroner): Signs of alcohol/drug use. Massive organ failure. Deep bruises on chest, back, and legs. Oh, and by the way: she was four months pregnant.

Cause of Death (coroner): Suicide by Acute Self-Intoxication.

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CHAPTER 7

The railroad cop who catches Sammy Squirrel trying to hop out from the Burlington Northern yard in La Crosse is an ornery man in a rumpled gray jumpsuit, with a heavy black pistol on his hip, a rifle in the window behind him, and an artificial right arm.

“Get in.”

He drives slowly around in his heavy Ram utility truck, making threats.

“You wanna know what I could do to you?”

His ID badge reads Railroad Special Agent Ruben Cobb. He seems sixtyish, a small man but tightly bloated, with fresh shaving cuts and a gooey crumb of sandwich stuck in the corner of his mouth. Half a Cousins sub broils between his dash and windshield.

“You ain’t gonna talk? Well, then, I’ll talk, and I’ll tell you what. If we have to stop a train to remove one of you dirty bastards, federal law allows us to bill you for the costs.”

Sammy Squirrel looks past the sandwich out the window. It’s so hot that the tree leaves are limp. At least they’re green, though. They won’t burn. It’s so hot that the truck tires rip the asphalt.

“You know how much it costs for a loser like you to stop a whole damn freight train and throw the schedule off?”

By now he knows that in the presence of someone like Ruben Cobb, the voice puts up its feet and takes a break. The backpack rides on the truck floor between his scabby knees: his tattered bedspread, his dead phone, his rock, his railroad spike, his fork and shattered reflector, his case of colored chalk. He sits still and grins.

“It costs a million bucks an hour. You think that’s funny? You got a million bucks? You even got a million brain cells? A cockroach has a million brain cells. You’re wacko, huh? You’re some kind of loon?”

Special Agent Cobb pilots his truck down a private road between the tracks and a mighty river, brown and flowing invisibly. His rubber hand, stiff and gray, detaches from the steering wheel and lands on the seat between them. It’s so hot that the weeds have fallen over in the ditch, so hot that blue-green scum bubbles atop the backwaters of the river. The sandwich on the dash gives off a smell that Sammy Squirrel can chew.