Now there’s a threat, I thought.

“Look, I’ve got one more stop, and then we can hit the road. Seriously. We’ll be home in two hours, tops. I’ve got a treat for you, too, when we get there.”

It was a top round roast that had reached its expiration date and should have been yanked from the butcher’s case the day before. I’d been planning on saving it for his Christmas dinner. But I owed the wolf something for boxing him up all day.

He snapped his fangs again, showing me he would not be won over so easily.

My phone rang as I was standing there. The cell tower beyond the trailer park guaranteed that Pill Hill’s residents had excellent coverage at least. I glanced at the screen and cringed.

The wind was loud enough that I had to cover my other ear to hear.

“Well?” Marc Rivard said.

“Well, what?”

“What did Mrs. Chamberlain say about me?”

“You gave me the impression that you considered this water under the bridge.”

“It is!”

“So why do you care about Mariëtte Chamberlain?”

The question seemed to stump him. “I don’t like having my name dragged through the mud. I didn’t tell you she sent a complaint to the governor after I filed my report. Professor Chamberlain had been a big-money donor to his first campaign. Malcomb defended my investigation, but that was the beginning of the end. They were already looking for a reason to take away my bars. I hope you stood up for me at least. I think I deserve your support given everything I did for you.”

Among the things Rivard had done for me, as my sergeant, was to release a live skunk in the trailer in which I was then living. He’d considered it a splendid prank. Even after months of scrubbing and shampooing, I had never been able to get the odor out.

“I told Mrs. Chamberlain that the investigation had been thorough.”

“It was fucking bulletproof. We didn’t miss a thing. Not one thing.”

“Actually, Marc, you did.”

“For fuck’s sake.”

“Your witness, Burch—there’s a problem with his account. He told me that he glimpsed the professor from a distance of three hundred yards.”

“You spoke with him?”

“I’m standing outside his trailer now. It’s quite a lavish place.”

“What are you talking about? It’s a shithole.”

Like many people who had been born into humble circumstances, Rivard had become a snob the moment he received a paycheck bigger than his father’s. He viewed every mobile home as a twenty-first-century hovel.

“You told me you were just going to humor the old lady,” he said. “Now you’re reinterviewing my witnesses? It’s a closed case, asshole.”