breakfast. And he was immediately sorry that thought had even popped into his mind.

  “I’ll have to pass,” Libby said, “I’ve got the shop to think of, and I doubt that I could add much insight.”

  “I need to be back this afternoon,” Carl said.

  Something flashed in Stanley’s memory. “Donnie’s funeral is this afternoon.”

  Carl was embarrassed, focused on stirring the coffee in his cup. “Yeah,” he said, defensively, and added, “Were you going to go?”

  Stanley was about to decline, but Tom said, “That might be a good idea. Funerals can be very interesting.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Stanley realized that his cell phone was vibrating. He took it from his pocket and found that he had missed a call.

  “263-7540,” he read from the screen. “Whose number is that?”

  “My mom’s,” Carl said. “Call her back.”

  Stanley thought about that and decided against it. “I should take you by there anyway,” he said to Tom. “To introduce you.

  I’ll find out then what she wanted.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Carl volunteered. “I haven’t seen Mom or Hannah for a few days.”

  “Might be better if Stanley and I went on our own,” Tom said.

  “Oh,” Carl said.

  Tom must have heard the disappointment in his tone.

  “We might need to talk about you,” Tom said. “That’ll be easier for your family if you’re not there.”

  Carl nodded, though he looked none too happy about it.

  § § § § §

  They stopped at The Handle Bar, not yet open for business, to pick up Libby’s car, and at the cabin for Tom to strap on his shoulder holster and slip the Sig Sauer into it.

  “Did you bring your gun?” he asked Stanley.

  “No, I didn’t think,” Stanley said, and let it go. Tom glowered at him for a moment like he was going to say something, and thought better of it.

  “I didn’t know I was going to be looking at a murder.” Or I wouldn’t have come, he thought, but did not say aloud.

  § § § § §

  They had just gotten out of the pick up in front of Hannah’s cabin when they heard a gunshot. It was followed seconds later 148 Victor Banis

  by another shot, from in back of the cabin, not inside it, and a yelp of pain. They ran in that direction, Tom in the lead, tugging his gun from his holster as he ran.

  They found Hannah standing on the rear deck, a shotgun braced against her shoulder, the little poodle, Josephine, jumping up and down in a frantic circle at her feet and yipping shrilly. Hannah saw them round the corner of the house, and saw the gun in Tom’s hand. She carefully lowered the shotgun to the deck and waved her other hand in greeting.

  “Easy,” she said. “I was just trying to pick off a coyote.”

  She nodded in the direction of the lake. They looked. There was no sign of a coyote, only a nervous looking fisherman in a boat about forty feet out in the water, staring wide-eyed in their direction.

  “He’s long gone now,” she said, propping the gun against the back wall. “They don’t usually come this far into town.

  Most likely he was figuring on having Josephine home for dinner. I think I winged him. Anywise, I scared him off.”

  “I think you scared a couple of fishermen off, too,” Tom said, holstering his Sig.

  She glanced at the boat in the lake, heading now at a brisk speed toward the far shore, and shrugged. “I hate varmints,”

  she said, not making clear whether she meant the coyote or the fisherman. She looked Tom over. “You’re the other cop.” The straight one, her tone suggested, and her expression said she found him infinitely more interesting than she found Stanley.

  Her big dark eyes glittered.

  “Tom Danzel.”

  She gave him a firm handshake. “Hannah Hunter. Come on in, I just made some fresh coffee. Or there’s more of that wine, if you want it, Stanley. Or some cold beer. Coors. If it’s not too early.”

  “Not for me. I’ll have the wine,” Stanley said, and Tom, “A Coors sounds good.”

  “I like a drinking man,” she said, nodding her approval at Tom, and led them inside to the kitchen. Passing through the front room, Tom glanced at a bag of golf clubs, one of them DEADLY WRONG 149

  leaning against the wall beside the bag. “Looks like you play a few rounds,” he said.

  “When I get the time. Not too often anymore. Mostly I carry that iron with me when I walk Josephine. You never know what you’re going to run into.”

  “Bears?”

  She snorted. “Coyotes. Coons. There’s all kinds of varmints around here, four legged and two legged both. You play?”

  “When I can,” he said, nodding in agreement. Which Stanley hadn’t even known about him. He added that to a long list. In many ways, Tom was still a stranger. An intimate stranger, to be sure. He was fairly well acquainted now with Tom’s body, particularly his genitalia, and even had a passing acquaintance with his backside. But that left a lot of unknowns. You couldn’t marry a man knowing no more than that. Could you? Not that Tom had exactly proposed… still, it couldn’t hurt to get to know a little more about him. He put golf down on his mental list. And pancakes. Maybe Aunt Jemima packaged up some kind of golf game. You could buy anything at a supermarket these days, couldn’t you?

  Penelope Hunter was in the kitchen, her wheelchair pushed up to the kitchen table. She brightened as they came in.

  “Stanley,” she said, but her eyes were on Tom. Stanley introduced them, beginning to feel like a fifth wheel. “Two policemen,” she said with exaggerated enthusiasm. “We’ll have this whole situation straightened out in no time now. I can’t wait to hear all the news.”

  Hannah busied herself pouring wine, opening beers for herself and Tom. “Is there any? News, I mean,” she asked, without any apparent interest.

  “Not much,” Stanley said.

  Hannah seemed unsurprised, but Mrs. Hunter made a little moue of disappointment. “I still don’t believe it. I mean, Carl killing that boy, even if it was accidental.”

  “I don’t believe it either,” Tom said. “I have my own theory…”

  “Which is?” Hannah asked. She handed Tom a beer, gave Stanley a glass of wine. No ice cubes this time, not even an 150 Victor Banis

  attempt at a smile. With Tom there, he supposed he was no longer A-list.

  He remembered that Libby had more or less suggested Hannah was homophobic. Probably, he thought, she didn’t see any signs of homosexuality in Tom. He considered describing Tom’s equipment to her, just to demonstrate his familiarity with it. It was kind of difficult to think how to work that into the conversation, however. Maybe a comparison to the beer bottle?

  It occurred to him, a bit belatedly, that Hannah was finding Tom attractive. Well, he could hardly blame her for that; it was just that he had not before thought of Hannah in that way. Of course, she was a woman, and almost certainly a heterosexual one. Still, the discovery surprised him. He was more amused than jealous. Hannah was not, he thought, the sort of woman to catch a man’s fancy.

  On the other hand, there were those eyes, they could be compelling. And some men did like strong women. He frowned, and looked again from one to the other. Hannah didn’t have it in her to be coy, but he could see that she showed Tom a marked deference that he’d not seen in her before.

  It Tom was aware of any interest on her part, though, he gave no sign of it. He shrugged. “If Carl didn’t do it, there’s only one other explanation, isn’t there? Someone came along after he left, and cracked the kid’s skull open, maybe with a smaller rock. There’s plenty of them lying about around there.

  Then, whoever it was, he rolled the kid over and positioned him so it would look like he was killed when he landed on the big one.”

  Mrs. Hunter gasped and clutched at her bosom. “How, how horrible! But why would anyone do that?”

  “Did you know the kid who died?” Tom asked her.

  She shook her head. “Not at all. He was local, I guess.”

  “He was—” Tom hesitated and looked from mother to daughter. “He was queer. Homosexual.”

  Mrs. Hunter looked surprised. Stanley found himself puzzling how she could possibly not know that. Everybody else in town seemed to know. Or, maybe she hadn’t wanted to know. Some people preferred to remain in blissful ignorance.

  DEADLY WRONG 151

  “Does that explain why he was murdered?” she asked.

  “There are people who hate guys like that, automatically,”

  Tom said. “You read about stuff in the newspapers.”

  “But, if that’s what it was about, why frame my son for it?

  Carl wasn’t that way,” Mrs. Hunter said. She looked at Stanley as if he, a certified homosexual, could confirm this fact.

  He hesitated maybe a fraction of a second too long. “No, of course he isn’t,” he said.

  “If it happened the way you say,” Hannah said, “it probably didn’t have much to do with Carl. And I’m not saying I agree with you. The police think—”

  “Oh, who cares what they think?” Mrs. Hunter said, but it was more like a reflex action. Stanley could see that her thoughts were elsewhere, something turning around in her mind. Thinking about her son, in a new light?

  “I think the prosecuting attorney will,” Hannah said vehemently. “And Carl did confess.”

  “Just for the record,” Tom said, “and for my own satisfaction—you are both convinced of Carl’s innocence?”

  “One hundred percent,” Mrs. Hunter said emphatically.

  “And we want you to do everything in your power to prove it.

  If it’s a matter of money…”

  “It isn’t,” Tom said, and looked at Hannah. “You feel the same?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, but her voice sounded flat to Stanley’s ears, noncommittal, and her face was as masked as one of those Balinese dancers.

  Which made Stanley wonder, too, whose side Hannah was on. There were times he had the impression she would be just as happy to see her brother convicted, though he couldn’t think why. Libby had commented on Carl’s being the pet, the favored child. Could Hannah’s resentment run deeper than she showed?

  Ambitious people tended to resent and fear even the least likely challenge. But what could Hannah’s ambition be? To be the first in her mother’s affections? An unlikely prospect, it seemed to him, regardless of what might happen to Carl. Hannah just wasn’t the type that inspired affection, to his way of thinking—

  not, in any case, deep affection.

  152 Victor Banis

  Tom gave the two women a brief run down on what they’d been doing, told of visiting the police, checking out the crime scene. Listening, Stanley thought that none of it sounded very impressive. The look Tom slanted at him as he talked pretty much said that he thought so too.

  Apparently, Hannah agreed, or she had caught and correctly interpreted that look. “So, we’re pretty much where we were to start, is what it comes down to,” she said, in her more usual businesslike voice. “The cops say Carl did it, Carl says he didn’t, no way to tell who’s right and who’s wrong. Carl can be pretty fucked up, you know. That pot of his.”

  “He’s been pretty clean since I’ve been here,” Stanley said.

  “A joint one night, maybe, but no real binges.”

  “He can keep his nose clean, if he works at it,” she said, her voice as harsh as a saw biting into wood. “He just doesn’t work at it very hard, or very often. So, now what?” She addressed this last to Tom. Clearly, she found Stanley and his opinions of less importance.

  Tom shrugged. “I’m due back in San Francisco day after tomorrow. Unless I call and ask for emergency leave. But, the way things stand now…” He shrugged again, meaning, Stanley thought, he didn’t see much point in hanging around. And if he left, should Stanley leave with him? He couldn’t see that he was accomplishing much of anything by being here.

  “Hannah, I think,” Mrs. Hunter started to say, but Hannah interrupted her.

  “You look like you need a rest, dear,” Hannah said. “Excuse us.”

  “Oh, but I…”

  “Never mind, I can see you’re all keyed up.” Hannah took a nurse’s bossy tone. “A nice nap, and you’ll feel better.” She wheeled her mother from the kitchen despite Mrs. Hunter’s obvious reluctance to go.

  Stanley and Tom exchanged glances. “Some family,” Tom said in a low voice.

  Returning to the kitchen, Hannah said, as if she might have heard Tom’s remark, “She’s having a bad patch. She gets herself all in a dither. Your coming here…” The look she gave Stanley DEADLY WRONG 153

  was almost accusing. “She got herself in a real lather. I’ve had to keep her on her tranquilizers to calm her down. She’ll be asleep in a minute.”

  Stanley was disappointed. He’d thought the mother had been considering some idea, which maybe she would have shared with them after a moment or two of thought. Maybe nothing—still, they needed any hint they could glean.

  He and Tom left no wiser than when they had come. Which, Stanley thought, pretty much summed up the entire case. Talk about spinning your wheels.

  “So, what did you think of them?” he asked on an impulse.

  “I think the mother’s trolley has jumped the track.”

  “And the daughter? She’s attractive, isn’t she? In her own way.”

  He looked surprised by the suggestion. “Hard Hearted Hannah? I guess so, if you like the type.” He thought for a moment. “I’ll tell you one thing, in a wrestling match, I’d bet on her over the grizzly.”

  Which, Stanley thought, didn’t sound much like he was contemplating any wrestling matches himself.

  “And she doesn’t much care for you,” Tom added.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Carl was waiting for them on the front deck of Libby’s cabin when they got back. Stanley gave the backpack he was wearing a curious look. “Are we going that far?” he asked.

  “It’s water,” Carl said. “It’s getting hot, and where we’re going, it’s a pretty good climb.”

  “Do we drive or walk?” Tom asked.

  “Drive, to start. I’ll show you. Then we walk.”

  The Ram had two leather bucket seats in front and a narrow bench across the back. “Shotgun,” Stanley said, claiming the front seat. He opened the passenger side door and stood aside.

  Carl climbed into the rear, looking none too pleased.

  You don’t think I did all this groundwork for your benefit, I hope, Stanley thought, climbing in front beside Tom. Of course, it was ridiculous to be jealous of poor Carl, who needed all the sympathy he could get. Still, he couldn’t resist reaching across the seat to give Tom’s muscular thigh a proprietary pat, which earned him a frosty look from Tom. He didn’t look to see how Carl reacted.

  He didn’t want to be petty.

  § § § § §

  Carl directed them out of town, about a mile up a dirt road, and onto another, not much more than a trail, that branched off of it. They were climbing now onto the flanks of the mountains, the road burrowing its way through thick stands of pine and occasionally shaking itself free of them.

  Carl pointed to a pull-off on the right. “Park there. We’ll have to go on foot the rest of the way.”

  Tom parked, studied the rear view mirror for a minute before he turned off the ignition. He found his big Mag Lite flashlight under the seat and tucked it into his belt as he climbed out of the truck, and glanced skyward. The sunlight 156 Victor Banis

  had thickened, the air grown heavy. A sword blade of lightning rent the air.

  “We might get wet,” he said and reached behind the seat for a windbreaker, tossing it to Stanley.

  Carl in the lead, they set off up an incline leading into the woods. They met a fire road and followed that for a quarter mile or so, and then cut off it and went almost straight up a steep slope. There was no obvious trail, and Carl sometimes seemed simply to be meandering among the trees. From time to time he paused, looking around to get his bearings, and set off again.

  A jay scolded them and disappeared in a flash of blue. A fat crow took his place, flapping noisily to land on a branch and eye the intruders suspiciously. His companion settled in a tree nearby, the two of them gossiping briefly, before one and then the other, with noisy cawing, took his leave.

  Carl continued to lead them upward. The forest fell silent except for their breathing and the muted tramp of their feet in the carpet of pine needles. The smell of decaying vegetation mingled with the scent of resin and of new things growing. A gray squirrel scurried up a tree.

  “This is national forest,” Carl said after a time. “Technically, Donnie shouldn’t have been camping out up here. Not without a permit, anyway. They get touchy about stuff. People get lost, have to be rescued. Or they get careless, start fires. The Rangers like to keep track of everybody.”

  “Was he camping?” Tom asked.

  Carl hunched his shoulders. “Maybe. I think so. I don’t think he always went home. Probably he slept up here sometimes. Most likely he’d have a fire if he did. Even in summer, it can get cool out here.”

  “You think the Rangers didn’t know?” Tom asked. “Or they were just cutting him some slack?”

  “I think he was blowing one of the Rangers. Maybe more than one.”

  Tom left that pass unremarked. The crow began to squawk again, but further away this time.

  DEADLY WRONG 157

  § § § § §

  It took them half an hour of steady walking, mostly uphill.

  “Quite a ways to bring a trick, isn’t it?” Stanley commented, growing short of breath.

  “It’s longer because I’m not completely sure. I was only up here once with him, I have to kind of feel my way,” Carl said.

  “Direct, it’d probably take about half the time. Anyway, guys around here, they’re used to climbing around in the woods. It wouldn’t seem very far to a local.” He gave Stanley a look that seemed to dismiss him as a mere city boy. “Here we are.”