"Anything?" Lucas asked Del, as he and Letty slid into the booth.

"Ran the numbers. No such tag," Del said.

"Shit." He glanced at Letty. "Shoot."

"But it occurs to me that a guy who's gonna come up here and do something like hang two people would have to be pretty weird to do it in a small town, in his own car. He's gotta know he's gonna be somewhat noticed."

"You'd think."

"So maybe he wouldn't lie about the Minnesota part of the plates, in case the clerk might notice. Maybe he just jumbled the numbers. I got the guys in St. Paul to look for recent title transfers on older Jeep Cherokees. Turns out the new ones don't have those taillights. The motel clerk thought that it might be an older model, too."

"Maybe get lucky," Lucas said.

Letty asked, "Can you guys talk while you eat? Or is that too complicated?"

Del lifted an eyebrow at her. "My daughter is only three years younger than this kid," Lucas told him. "Do you think I could lock her in a freezer? I mean, what if she grew a mouth like this one?"

"Ha ha," Letty said. She handed a slightly greasy menu to Lucas. "You're buying."

LETTY STUFFED HERSELF. Del and Lucas went out of their way to prove that they could talk while they ate. The food struggled toward mediocrity, but, Lucas realized as he sampled the potatoes, wasn't going to make it. Half of the meatloaf was refrigerator cold; the other half, microwave hot. As they were finishing, a tall man in tan Carhartt coveralls came in, stamping his feet and snuffing with the cold. Letty called, "Hey, Bud."

The man looked around until he spotted Letty, then stepped over. He was about fifty, Lucas thought, and as thin and hard-looking as an oak rail, with a bulbous red nose and flinty white eyes.

"Hey, Letty," he said, his eyes bouncing off Lucas and Del. "Been working hard, or hardly working?"

"Doin' okay," she said. "I heard you been shootin' beaver again."

"Yeah, over to Spike. What's this about you finding those people? I heard about it at Jerry's."

"Yep." Letty puffed up a little. "They were nude. "

"All right," Lucas said dryly. "Let's finish the meatloaf."

"Bud's a trapper, like me," Letty told them. To Bud: "These guys are state agents. They're taking me around."

Bud nodded. "I thought Jane might come to a bad end," he said.

"Why was that?" Lucas asked.

"Not good people," he said. "She thought we were a bunch of hicks. She was always laughing at people behind their backs, and she used to talk about Las Vegas all the time, like that was the navel of the universe. Every time she opened her mouth she'd start off by saying, 'In Las Vegas we used to… whatever.' "

"Sounds like you knew her pretty well," Del said.

"Just to play blackjack," the trapper dude said. "She was the main dealer up at Moose Bay." He hesitated, then said, dropping his voice, "You know what you ought to do when you get up to the casino, is talk to a guy named Terry Anderson. He knew Warr real well." He leaned on real just enough.

Lucas nodded and said, "I'll do that. Thanks. Terry Anderson."

"Any relation to the sheriff?" Del asked.

The trapper was puzzled, looked at Letty and then back to Del. "Terry? Why would he be?"

"Both Andersons?" Del suggested.

The trapper cackled: "Shit, buddy, half the people up here are Andersons."

They talked for another fifteen seconds, then Bud retreated to the counter and got a menu.

"Heck of a trapper, and he's supposed to be an unbelievable hunter, too. He knows more about animals than they know themselves," Letty said. "He's been number one around here for years."

"Taught you everything you know?"

She shook her head: "He doesn't teach anything to anybody. He's got his secrets and he keeps them."

Lucas dropped his voice to match hers: "Think he might have had anything going with Jane?"

"No." Now she was almost whispering. "Don't look at him, he'll know we're talking about him. But, uh, everybody says Bud's a little… gay."

WHEN THEY'D FINISHED the meal, Lucas sent Del to Broderick, to look for dope hideouts. "We're gonna pick up Letty's mother," Lucas said. "Then, I'll see you up there."

As he and Letty were about to get in the car, he remembered Mitford. "Damnit… why don't you go look in a store window for a minute?" he suggested to Letty, and pulled out his phone.

Mitford picked up on the first ring, and Lucas gave him the bad news: "They've got pictures. I don't know how good, because they were a couple hundred yards away, but they've got something."

"Aw, man. That's terrible. Anything on the dope?"

"Not yet. My partner's on the way up to the house. If there's anything, he'll find it. What about Cash, and the jail business?"

"We're getting that now, through Rose Marie," Mitford said. "We got a summary: he's had a whole list of minor stuff, some drug-related, disorderly conduct, like that. Then this last one, he was originally charged with ag assault. He beat on some other guy with a steel coat tree in a hotel. They pled it down and he took a year in the county lockup on some lower-level assault. Served nine months."

"Doesn't sound like something you get hanged for."

"I got Missouri trying to figure that out. They said they'd get back to us this afternoon, with whatever they can find," Mitford said. "Oh, and I got two more words for you."

"What words?"

"Washington Fowler."

"You're joking." Washington Fowler was a civil rights attorney from Chicago, who'd mostly given up the law in favor of incitation to riot.

"I'm not," Mitford said. "He's having a press conference here, at the airport, in an hour, and he's flying out to Fargo in a private plane in an hour and a half. The governor invited him over to the mansion for a conference, but he told us to go fuck ourselves. You should see him up there tonight."

"Aw, jeez."

"Yeah. Lucas-we need to hit Cash hard. The woman, too. Before the news. Before that film gets down here. Before Fowler gets up there."

"We're looking."

WHEN LUCAS GOT off the phone, Letty suggested that they might find her mother at the Duck Inn, two blocks over. They ambled over, Lucas looking in the storefronts. Small towns, he'd realized a long time ago, were a little like spaceships, or ordinary ships, for that matter-they generally had to have one of everything: one McDonald's or Burger King (couldn't support one of each), a department store, a quick oil change, a hardware store, a feed store, a satellite-TV outlet, a bar or two. Everything needed for survival. Armstrong was like that, a lifeboat, one of everything necessary for life, all packaged in yellow-brick and red-brick two-story buildings. About one in four of the storefronts was empty, and the owners hadn't bothered to put "For Rent" signs in the windows.

The Duck Inn was a cliche, a plastic faux-hunter's haven smelling of beer, with a fake old-fashioned jukebox that played CDs next to the twin coin-op pool tables. A cliche, and Letty's mother wasn't there. "Cop came and got her. I think they went over to the courthouse," the bartender said.

The courthouse was just down the block, and they found Martha West leaving the Law Enforcement Center. She was a natural blond, like Letty, but her hair had been tinted an improbable rust color. She wasn't weathered like Letty, but there were explosions of tiny red veins on her cheeks, so that she would always look rosy-cheeked. She wore a parka and khaki slacks, with pointed boots, and was carrying a beaten-up guitar case. She saw Letty and Lucas, and called to Letty, "Where you been? I been looking all over for you."

"Cops have been taking me around," Letty said, jerking a thumb at Lucas. "This is Agent Davenport."

"Lucas Davenport," Lucas said.

"Martha West." West's eyes were moving slowly, and then jerking back, like a drunk drifting out of his lane, then jerking the car back straight. She was loaded, but controlling it.