The window fan whirred loudly. Behind it the birds had just begun to sing. She would try to hold her bladder for an hour, all the way to La Crosse.

“I’m up anyway. I’m going to run to the Pronto and see if they have ice cream. If they don’t, I’ll find some somewhere.”

“Heidi… what?”

“Milkshakes for breakfast.”

She checked her Blackbox email for Oppo as the minivan rolled through ground fog on Pederson Road. Nothing new yet, probably not until she got better reception on the ridge. For now, the suggestion that Barry Rickreiner had fed Killex to his pregnant drug buddy, to protect his new marriage and keep the shine on his redemption story, and that he had then talked his way onto the EMS ride to make sure Kim Maybee didn’t survive—this felt too toxic to touch. But did she believe these accusations fell within BARRY HER’s potential? Under Babette’s influence? Yes, she did. Did she find it plausible that the previous sheriff and his chief deputy could have made such a mess of the Kim Maybee investigation? Yes. Like two monkeys fucking a football. Wasn’t she obliged to pull the string that Oppo had been dangling? Election campaign or not?

Goddamn, she had to pee.

And she needed advice.

“Call Leroy Fanta’s cell,” she told her phone.

But once more the call rang to his message service. Odd, she thought again, that a die-hard newspaper guy wouldn’t pick up for the sheriff. Fanta always had, day or night. Again she asked him to call her back, hit END, and yanked the van into the Coon Valley Kwik Trip, where she hustled to the restroom. She would still buy a test, but as for hormones in her urine she had blown her morning chemistry and the results would have to wait until tomorrow.

In La Crosse, the Walgreens parking lot was nearly deserted. Not that anyone should know her this far from the Bad Axe, but good. She rushed in, then had to wander a bit, searching. When at last she found the tests there were four kinds on the shelf. She studied the box that said 99% accurate, 5 days sooner. That was the one.

She brought her purchase to the counter, where a broad-beamed middle-aged woman bent over a box of vaping cartridges, muttering as she unpacked them and stocked them on a low shelf beneath the chewing tobacco and cigarettes.

“Hello?”

The woman rose and turned—and, after all, the Bad Axe County sheriff wasn’t far enough from home. Sizing up the situation, Harley’s high school prom date, Kiersten Kindergaard, eased into a little grin.

“Did you find everything you were looking for?”

“I did. Thank you.”

“Do you have our Balance Rewards card?”

“No, thanks.”

“For each purchase, you get points that you can redeem—”

“No, thank you.”