I looked at the woman, listening to her, not talking. I was going to call somebody else in to write up a complaint we could toss in the waste bucket when she left. She licked her lips so many times I found myself licking my own lips. I found myself looking at the crack in the doorjamb when she wiped her eyes. I wanted to tell her how sorry she looked loving a man like Yellow Knife when someone like Louise was first in line. Someone beautiful and wild and tough as Louise. I wanted to tell her to give it up. Go back where she came from. Yellow Knife was gone for good. A woman like her could never hold him. But I felt like I was hearing a part of an old story that was my own, the story of liking Louise too much, of wishing for attention that was never going to come my way, of that old desire, the want to hold somebody down because you want what you know they can’t give you or never want to give you. You can’t make somebody love you, my mother used to say. I learned that lesson the hard way, over and over again. And even knowing Louise was hidden safe at my house didn’t make it any easier.

I tapped my pencil on my leg and then I began to hear what she was saying. Here I’d been listening to my own problems and she was telling something to me as an officer of the law. I sat up, not sure I was hearing right.

“Come see for yourself,” she said, “if you don’t believe me. Just have a look yourself. I went up to Lake County, and once I said ‘Baptiste Yellow Knife,’ they wouldn’t even talk to me.” I could believe this. She stood up and gestured for me to come outside. I followed her.

“Just look,” she said. “Now, I’m not making this up.”

The wind was blowing hard. It snapped her coat up. I wanted to go back in and pick up my coat but felt guilty for not listening earlier to what the woman had been trying to tell me. There was something in her voice, a dryness, like resignation. She wasn’t fooling herself.

“The night before last, Baptiste took the car or I thought he took the car. I’ve been drunk,” she said, “I don’t remember. The next morning the car’s back without Baptiste.” She looked at me then, hoping, I guess, that I could tell her why, that somehow I was the man to solve her problems with Baptiste Yellow Knife. She was lucky to get her car back at all. I was lucky I didn’t have to be looking for a vehicle.