The name made her think Denise was setting up another joke. What did the other Beatles say when John got married again? Oh no!

“I’m not kidding,” Denise clarified. “The priest from La Crosse, his name is Father Paul McCartney. He wanted information about our homicide that I wouldn’t release without your OK first. He got salty with me. Our Lady of the River is a homeless shelter. He runs it.”

“What does he want?”

“He thinks he can ID the body.”

“Send him Dr. Kleekamp’s photograph. Let’s start there.”

“I knew you’d say that. So I offered. But he insisted on seeing you in person.”

Denise made the sign of the cross.

“He’s here, Sheriff. When he called, he was already on his way. Father Paul McCartney is out there with his hair on fire.”

CHAPTER 14

After delivering her recorded message from the pay phone in Mastodon, the woman navigated her old white pickup widely around the municipality of Farmstead and into the northeastern corner of the Bad Axe, turning eventually onto Liberty Hill Road and passing the ditch where hours ago at dawn Fanta had observed the dead man.

Nipping his Walker steadily, with Blind Faith taking over as his melancholy soundtrack, Fanta followed her through fading light along Liberty Hill Road to Skull Rock Road to Leavings Road to Muchlander Road, circumscribing a wide half circle around Liberty Hill itself and entering what to Fanta’s way of thinking represented the beyond-here-be-dragons wilderness of the Bad Axe. With no traffic anywhere, he had been stealing glances at FROM HELL HOLLOW’s letter.

To survive to my end, I have undertaken a profoundly spiritual therapy, a sharing of souls, from many, One. Today, I partake of the Body of Chris…

Fanta reached across and nudged the bent page, still getting its breath outside the envelope. So interesting how the t in Christ was missing, and then it showed up below the fold as the crucifixiate extra t in the continuing phrase:… so that I may sustain my appointment with marttyrdom.

Or was that a fanciful reading?

Fanta stayed on the tail of the truck. Few ever came this way, he guessed, mostly hunters intending to trespass. The land had always been private, the roads always ill-used, and the few misguided attempts at farming had long been abandoned. Elmo Quarry Pond, a mile or two away, was the only destination Fanta knew of. He had skinny-dipped there in high school. Local legend told of ten-pound ex-carnival goldfish lurking in the pond’s turquoise depths.

To the bittersweet wail of Stevie Winwood, Fanta trailed through the rugged landscape.

Well, I’m near the end, and I just ain’t got the time…

He put his windows down, sensing slightly cooler air. Natural karst geology had sequestered this whole region in steep and tangled forests, flood-scoured coulees, obscure caves, and churlish swamps.

… I’m wasted, and I can’t find my way back home…