“Brown did the city’s general maintenance. Nice guy. When Tank was new at the county, Brown helped him out quite a bit and they turned into fishing buddies. He retired just a few months ago. Beginning of the summer, I think it was.”

“Was he married? Kids?”

“Pretty sure he was married. I think he had at least a couple of kids. And at his age, probably grandkids, too.”

I thought about all the things Brown would be missing, all the things he’d assumed he’d have time to do. Spending more time with his wife. Helping his kids with their home improvement projects. Teaching his grandkids to fish. Watching their soccer games and band concerts.

“You in there?” Rafe tapped my temple. “You’re thinking about all the things Brown didn’t get to do, aren’t you?”

The man knew me well. Level five. “It’s so sad,” I murmured.

“You did everything you could do. Everything anyone could have done.”

“But he’s still dead.”

Rafe brushed my cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Yes. He is.”

For a few minutes, we listened to Eddie’s sleepy purrs and watched a half-moon rising above the trees that rimmed Janay Lake. A breeze stirred the lake’s surface and came our way, brushing across our skin like a cool, soft sheet. Mid-September was a lovely time of year in the North. The tourist crowds had thinned and the weather was still warm, but there was a hint of chill in the wind that reminded me how close we were to winter. In a few weeks Janay Lake would be frozen and Lake Michigan, just past the western tree line, would be dotted with floating chunks of ice.

“It’s getting colder,” I said.

Rafe hugged me tight. “Better?”

“Yes, but I was thinking seasonally, not immediately.”

“Farmer’s almanac says we’re in for a mild winter.”

“How nice. You do realize that even a mild winter means temperatures below freezing. Within a few weeks.”

A stone’s throw away was the house Rafe had purchased soon after I’d moved to Chilson. In its one-hundred-years-ago youth, it had been a showpiece of Shingle architecture, but over the years it had been carved up into tiny apartments. Rafe had removed all of that and was slowly restoring it to its original glory. Though he’d been living in it himself for months and was ready to have his fiancée and her cat move in with him, my sinuses didn’t like the idea of sleeping in the dust of a construction zone, and paint fumes gave me nasty headaches. Besides, Eddie didn’t care for the loud noises of power tools.

“Lots of weeks,” Rafe said. “First day it stays below freezing won’t be until November.”