“Strong swing,” Tom said.

  He had spoken quietly, but Hannah must have heard him anyway. She turned in their direction and, seeing them, slung the club over her shoulder like a flintlock rifle and ambled to the deck where they waited, looking not particularly pleased to see them.

  “Shot anybody lately?” she asked Stanley, her tone catty.

  He ignored the sarcasm. “No gun,” he said with an over bright smile, flipping his jacket open to demonstrate the fact.

  Tom must have noted the sarcasm too. “Stanley’s not that kind of detective,” he said quickly.

  “I didn’t know there was more than one kind.”

  “We’re partners. Stanley’s the brains. I’m the shooter half.”

  Which rather caught Stanley by surprise, but he was not about to show it.

  “I see,” Hannah said and, in a quick change of subject, “am I to suppose you’ve come with news?”

  “Actually,” Stanley said, “It’s your mother. She keeps calling, leaving her number on my phone.”

  “Ignore her, is my advice,” Hannah said. Stanley looked surprise at her. “She’s just bugging you, believe me, wanting to hear everything you’ve done, the littlest detail. You’ll find yourself telling her about your potty breaks, if she can’t pry anything else out of you. When you’re chair bound, as she is, the most astonishing bits of trivia suddenly seem to be important.”

  “Maybe she’s thought of something she wanted to tell us,”

  Tom said. “Something about our case.”

  “I don’t know what that could be.” Whatever deference Hannah had shown Tom in the past had vanished. She was as cool with him now as she was with Stanley. Unlike before, she DEADLY WRONG 179

  did not invite them inside this time, but remained on the deck with them. Josephine went to the door, looked over her shoulder at Hannah, and danced around a bit, trying to get her attention, obviously intent on going inside. Hannah rather pointedly ignored her.

  “And, believe me,” Hannah added for emphasis, “if she had thought of anything even vaguely important, I’d have heard about it. Ad nauseum. Mother’s not real big on keeping her thoughts to herself.”

  Which Stanley thought was almost certainly true: if he was any judge, Penelope Hunter was probably the patron saint of The Big Mouth. Still… “Maybe I should talk to her anyway,” he insisted.

  Hannah’s dark eyes were stony, unreadable. “She’s sleeping.” She saw his quick glance in the direction of the bedroom window. “I gave her one of her pills before I went out. She’s been keyed up something awful the last few days, all at sixes and sevens. If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not have her disturbed any more today. Her health is not good, you know.”

  Which was something of a reversal, wasn’t it? Hadn’t she just a day or two earlier pooh-poohed all questions regarding her mother’s illness? Or had that been Libby?

  What could he do, though? “Well, when she wakes up, if there’s anything she wants to tell me…”

  “There isn’t,” Hannah said firmly, the subject obviously closed. “Nothing of any consequence. Unless you’d like to hear about her potty breaks.” She cocked a sardonic eye.

  “I’ll pass,” Stanley said.

  After which, there wasn’t much for them to do but leave.

  Glancing back, Stanley saw that she waited on the deck, Josephine growing ever more impatient, until they had vanished around the corner of the house.

  Clearly, Hannah hadn’t wanted their company. He was surprised, though, to realize how little he cared for hers. The relief he felt when they were out of her sight was intense. What was it about Hannah that made him so uncomfortable with her?

  Not, surely, her fleeting interest in Tom; that, Tom had clearly 180 Victor Banis

  not returned. And not altogether homophobia, either, though he thought there might be more of that under the surface than even Libby realized.

  Or was it just her strained relationship with her mother?

  Because it was strained, wasn’t it? He could see that it was very generous of Hannah to take care of her mother as she did. That was never less than a burdensome role to play, a difficult gift for any child to give. But, was anything really a gift when it was given with such obvious displeasure?

  And the way she regarded him with those large, dark eyes invariably made him feel that he had been tested and found wanting. Certainly, her behavior just now had fallen far short of hospitable.

  As if reading Stanley’s thoughts, Tom said, “You wouldn’t exactly say she welcomed us with open arms.”

  “Hannah’s not the welcoming sort.” And did not add, although he thought it and was sure of it, ‘She’d have welcomed you plenty warmly, if you’d played the right cards.’

  No sense in giving Tom ideas he didn’t have on his own.

  § § § § §

  Still, thinking about Hannah’s frustrations reminded him.

  “So, I was thinking,” Stanley said, and paused to clear his throat. They were on the two lane road that skirted the lake, halfway to Libby’s cabin. “Like, maybe when we get back…”

  Tom suddenly veered his truck to the right, onto the shoulder of the road, so suddenly that Stanley was thrown sideways and would have ended up on Tom’s lap if his seat belt hadn’t held him firmly in place.

  As suddenly as he swerved right, Tom threw the truck violently to the left, across the road, and stopped, blocking their lane. The car behind them came to a halt with a screech of tires on pavement, skidding to a stop just inches away from the Ram’s fender.

  “Stay,” Tom barked, pointing a finger in Stanley’s direction, and before the Ram had quite stopped swaying from the daredevil driving, Tom was out the door and on the run, drawing his gun as he went. By the time the car behind them DEADLY WRONG 181

  had come to a full stop, Tom had reached it and flung the driver’s door open. He grabbed at the man behind the wheel to drag him out—and froze.

  Stanley, meanwhile, had managed to free himself from seatbelts and leaned across to the driver side, sticking his head out the open window to see what was going on. What he saw was Sergeant Wooster of the Bear Mountain police force struggling to get out of the car and to get free of Tom’s grip.

  “Take your goddamn hands off me,” Stanley heard Wooster say, “and put that gun back in its holster.”

  Tom did both, taking a step back from the car. “Okay,” he said, “but suppose you tell me what you’re doing tailing us. And while you’re at it, maybe you could explain shooting at us in the woods.”

  The traffic in their lane, blocked by the stopped car and the pickup across the road, was prevented from passing by the oncoming traffic, and a line of cars quickly formed behind them. Someone honked a horn impatiently and someone shouted, “Hey, how about taking it off the road?” Cars still passed in the other direction, crawling by, occupants gawking in undisguised curiosity.

  “Pull that truck over to the side of the road,” Wooster said, in an obvious attempt to reestablish his authority. “And don’t be driving off, either.”

  “Believe me, I wouldn’t think of it,” Tom said. He strode back to his truck, straightened it around, and pulled up thirty yards or so onto the shoulder. Wooster pulled in behind him and got out of his dark blue Chevy, strolling up with an exaggerated swagger. Tom got out again. This time Stanley jumped out too.

  “Now then,” Wooster said, addressing Tom and ignoring Stanley, “as for my tailing you, that’s police privilege. You boys have been up to some suspicious activity. I’ve been keeping an eye on you. Maybe things are different in the big city, but that’s what we do here in Bear Mountain.”

  “Suspicious activity? What kind of suspicious activity?” Tom demanded.

  182 Victor Banis

  “Questioning people, like they was some kind of suspects.

  Your boyfriend here, he worried Amanda McIntosh half to death, so she tells me, said she felt like she was wrestling with the devil himself, the way he cross examined her.”

  “The only devil Amanda McIntosh has to wrestle with is her gin bottle,” Stanley said.

  Wooster seemed not to have heard him. “To say nothing of illegal search on government property. That was a national forest you were traipsing around in. Destruction of evidence. I reckon I could come up with a few more if I thought about it.

  If I wanted to press some charges.”

  “And you think that gives you an excuse to shoot at us? If I wanted to press some charges myself.”

  Wooster looked a little flustered by that, but he was quick to recover. “That’s bull. I never shot at no one. Fired off my gun, is all. Thought I saw a puma up in the woods there, wanted to scare him off.” He looked hard at Tom, and then, finally, at Stanley. “Nobody hit, was they? Not even close to it, wouldn’t seem to me. Believe me, Mister Big Shot San Francisco Inspector, if I was shooting at someone, they’d be walking in a sling—or not at all. Up here, we know how to use our guns.”

  “Where we come from, we know how to use our brains,”

  Stanley said. He and Wooster glowered at one another.

  Probably, Stanley thought, he was trying to think of a good reply—and coming up empty handed.

  “Well, you ain’t where you come from, are you?” was the best he could do.

  “Maybe I ought to talk to your chief,” Tom said.

  Wooster smirked. “Maybe you ought.”

  It seemed they were at an impasse. It was obvious that Wooster hadn’t meant to hit anyone when he’d fired his gun in the woods; even Tom, at the time, had noted how off his aim was. No doubt it had only been intended to give them a scare, and probably to discourage them from continuing with an investigation that clearly wasn’t approved by the local authorities. An investigation which, if anything came of it, could only make them look bad. They had staked their reputations on DEADLY WRONG 183

  their version of Donnie McIntosh’s death; they wouldn’t like being proved wrong.

  But, who were Tom and Stanley going to complain to?

  Wooster’s smug expression said clearly that, if he hadn’t been acting on his Chief’s instructions when he fired his gun in the woods, it would certainly prove to be with his approval.

  As for Wooster’s tailing them, he was right, that was well within his authority. It was his town, so to speak. They were the outsiders. They hadn’t a shred of authority here, beyond what any ordinary citizen of Bear Mountain possessed. Maybe, truth be told, even less. And not a shred of evidence either.

  Wooster read their silence as defeat. “Welcome to Bear Mountain,” he said, giving them a toothy grin. He spat a stream of tobacco juice onto the roadside.

  “You’ve got a funny kind of way of welcoming people,”

  Stanley said.

  “We don’t like flatlanders messing in our business.” He nodded in the direction of Tom’s truck. “That’s not supposed to be parked there, either. Maybe you better be on your way.”

  Tom bit back a reply and, turning on his heels, stormed back to the truck. Stanley ran to the passenger side.

  “And watch your step,” Wooster called after them, plainly feeling that he had come out on top in their little encounter.

  “Fuck you,” Tom called back. He slammed his door, shoved the truck into gear, and drove off, showering gravel in his wake.

  Glancing back, Stanley was glad to see Wooster dodging a few pebbles.

  “Asshole,” Tom muttered, not condescending to look back.

  “What are we going to do?’ Stanley asked.

  “We’re going to find out who murdered Donnie McIntosh.

  And I am personally going to shove his head up that fucker’s ass.”

  “Personally, I’d like to see that.”

  § § § § §

  They rode in silence for a few minutes. Finally, Stanley said,

  “Can I ask a question?”

  184 Victor Banis

  “If it’s about that asshole policeman…”

  “It isn’t, not at all. I promise.”

  “Okay. Shoot.”

  Stanley cleared his throat again, loudly. “I was thinking about, well, you know, the other day, when you got here, you were, uh, you know, you and I, we, like…”

  “We fucked? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

  “Yes. Yes, that’s it exactly, we, uh, we had sexual relations, and, see, I was wondering… I mean, maybe that was just a one time thing, or did you think… would you want…?”

  “To go again? Is that what you’re hemming and hawing about?”

  “Sort of,” Stanley said, and then, more decisively, “Yes.

  Exactly.”

  “Jesus, Stanley, I was planning on waiting till we got back to the cabin. You know, a bed and a shower and stuff. But, fuck, if you’re in a really big hurry, you can blow me here, I can drive while I get my knob oiled.”

  “Well, that’s certainly romantic,” Stanley said in an icy voice.

  “Romantic? Shit, Stanley, I’m still trying to get my head around the idea of you and me fucking, and you want romantic?

  I can’t do romantic, I’m not a hearts and flowers kind of guy.

  You know what I am.”

  “Yes. I certainly do,” Stanley agreed, and thought it safer not to embellish that statement. Not if he planned to get anything going when they got back to the cabin.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Except, when they got back to the cabin, it did not look as if they were going to get anything going.

  It was dark by then, no lights showing anywhere. Stanley had been thinking about what was coming, excitement overruling his irritation, and thinking how they were tactfully going to get Carl, who was almost certain to be back by now, out of the way.

  They couldn’t keep shooing him out to the front porch.

  Now, though, seeing the cabin’s dark windows, he felt a twinge of misgiving. Carl wasn’t here for them to get rid of.

  And he should have been, should have been back by now. It was no more than a fifteen minute walk, probably less, from Safeway to here. Allow another fifteen minutes for shopping.

  But, it was an hour now, more like an hour and a half, since they had dropped him off. The misgiving mushroomed to a certainty: something was wrong.

  “I wonder where,” he started to say, when his phone did its Can-Can thing.

  “Carl’s been arrested again,” Libby said without preamble, sounding frantic.

  “What? What’d he do?” Stanley asked, cursing himself silently for not keeping closer tabs on her brother.

  “He attacked that therapist, that Miller. In his office. He barged in there, stormed past the receptionist, and started whaling on him. The receptionist called the cops, and they picked him up.”

  Stanley groaned aloud. “Where are you?”

  “I’m just on my way to the station now, to see if I can get him out.”

  “We’ll meet you there,” Stanley said. Tom was already unbuttoning his shirt. He paused, looking a question in Stanley’s direction.

  “We have to go,” Stanley said with a disappointed sigh. “I’ll explain on the way.”

  186 Victor Banis

  § § § § §

  Only, when they arrived at the station, pulling into the parking lot just a minute or two behind Libby, they found that Carl was not under arrest. He was sitting in one of the wooden chairs in the waiting area. The Chief was there too, obviously awaiting their arrival.

  “You okay?” Libby asked Carl. He only made a face and looked at the Chief, and down at the floor. “Is he under arrest?”

  she asked the Chief.

  “No charges,” Chief Burger said, sounding altogether disappointed. “Miller says it was all a mistake. Said his receptionist had misinterpreted what she saw.” His expression said he didn’t believe it. “No explanation for how Miller got his split lip, or the bruises. Still, if the man doesn’t want to press charges…”

  He shrugged his disapproval, and turned to Carl. “‘Course, I could hold you for breaking the conditions of your bond. You were supposed to be in the custody of a family member.”

  “Except,” Libby said quickly, “when he is at his therapist’s.

  That was a condition of his bond, too.”

  “You’re saying this was just a regular visit?”

  She gave the Chief an innocent smile. “I dropped him there an hour or so ago for a session.” Stanley smiled too. He admired a good liar.

  The Chief did not smile. “Must have been a pretty physical session.”

  “Maybe they were acting out,” Stanley said. “That’s very much in fashion these days. In therapy. In the big city.

  Probably, things just got a little rougher than they had intended.”

  The Chief looked unconvinced. “Get him out of here,” he said in a frustrated voice, and turned to go back into his office.

  “Before I change my mind and think of something to hold him on.”

  § § § § §

  DEADLY WRONG 187

  Outside, in the parking lot, Tom turned on a still silent Carl.

  “That wasn’t a smart thing to do, Junior,” he said.

  “The man’s a prick.” Sullen, Carl refused to meet anyone’s eyes.

  “Maybe so. But attacking your therapist shows a violent temper and a destructive streak. Think how that looks, especially if you go to trial. What’s a jury going to think? You settle things with your fists? They’ll wonder what kind of quarrel you had with Donnie.”

  “That’s different. Miller had it coming. Besides, you heard the chief. The dickhead isn’t going to press charges.”

  They waited, but that seemed to be all the explanation they were going to get out of him. “Go wait in the truck,” Tom told him. Carl gave him a sheepish look. “Go on, the truck,” Tom said in the Big Daddy tone of voice that even Stanley was reluctant to challenge when it was directed at him.

  Carl didn’t challenge it either. He walked obediently over to the Ram, climbed in, slammed the door rather noisily. He sat in the front passenger’s seat, staking his claim to it, and looked stonily out through the windshield, ignoring them.

  “So, what do you think that was all about?” Tom asked.