Ploughman stopped, looking pleased. Buck waited.

“And that’s it,” Ploughman said.

“That’s what you got to buy off twenty years?”

“Hell, it’s good. It tells you who ordered the hit and that they probably sent their own man. That’s golden, for crissake.”

“Who did they send?” Buck asked.

“I don’t know. They found out I wasn’t the man, they didn’t have anything else to say to me.”

“You hear of them approaching anyone besides you?”

“No.”

“How much were they going to pay you?”

“Five.”

“Five thousand?”

“Yeah. They’re all cheap bastards,” Ploughman said. “I never saw a militia guy willing to go first class.”

“Where in the east?”

“Didn’t say. But I figure you guys know where he came from.”

Buck didn’t answer. He stood with his arms folded, leaning on the wall, admiring his boots. Then he shifted his look to Ploughman.

“Tell your lawyer to see me,” Buck said finally.

“Can you work something out?” Ploughman said.

“Have him call me,” Buck said and went and knocked on the door.

Chapter 51

Jesse was drinking scotch at the counter in his tiny kitchen when Jenn called.

“Is it later there or earlier,” Jenn asked.

“It’s eight o’clock where you are,” Jesse said, “and eleven o’clock where I am.”

“Are you drinking?”

“I’m having one scotch before bed,” Jesse said.

“Just one?”

“Funny thing, Jenn. There’s a lot of pressure here all of a sudden, and it seems like I don’t need a drink. I haven’t had more than one since the pressure began.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“There is trouble,” Jesse said. “I don’t know yet if I’m in it.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

“The trouble? Sure. The guy I replaced in this job got murdered in Wyoming. A woman got murdered and I think it’s a way of getting at me.”

“Was she close to you?”

“No, I didn’t know her. But I know who did it, and I think he did it to challenge me.”

“Are you scared?”

“Yes,” Jesse said. “It’s probably why I only have one drink.”

“So you’ll be ready?”

“Something like that.”

“Can’t you arrest the man?”

“I can’t prove anything,” Jesse said.

“Is the man in Wyoming part of this?”

“I don’t know. It’s crazy that a town like this, where there hasn’t been a killing in fifty years, suddenly has two in a month. It makes you want to think they’re connected.”

“But you don’t see a connection.”

“No. There’s some kind of militia group in town. Not like the National Guard, the other kind, and there’s something funky about them.”

“Do you like the men you work with?”

“I like them, but I don’t know who I can trust.”

“No one?”

“Well, I’m sort of forced to trust one of them. My guess is he’s okay.”

“What about that woman. Weren’t you seeing a woman?”

“Abby. She’s mad at me.”

“Have you broken up?”

“I don’t know. The last time I saw her she walked away in a huff.”

“What is she mad at?”

“I wouldn’t tell her about this.”

“ ‘This’ being the stuff you’re telling me?”

“Yes. She said it meant I didn’t trust her.”

“Does that mean you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Even though . . . ?”

“Even though,” Jesse said.

The phone line made phone line noise while both of them remained silent.

“You should come home,” Jenn said after a time.

“I don’t know where home is, Jenn.”

“Maybe it’s with me.”

“I got too much going on, Jenn. I can’t walk down that road right now.”

“Even if you don’t come home, why not get out of there? I’ve never heard you say you were scared before.”

“I can’t leave it, Jenn. You know when they hired me, I was drunk? Why would they hire a guy to be police chief who was drunk in the interview?”

“I don’t know,” Jenn said. “Maybe they didn’t know you were drunk.”

“They knew,” Jesse said.

Again the cross-country silence broken by the low-voltage sound of the circuitry.

“I’m scared, Jesse.”

Jesse didn’t say anything.

“Will you call me soon,” Jenn said.

“Yes.”

“I mean tomorrow, every day, so I’ll know you’re okay?”

“Yes.”

“I still love you, Jesse.”

“Maybe,” Jesse said.

“I do, Jesse. Do you still love me?”

“Maybe,” Jesse said.

After they had hung up he sat looking at the half-empty glass with the ice cubes melting into the whiskey. He picked it up and took a sip, and let it slide down his throat, warm and cool at the same time. His eyes felt as if they would fill with tears. He didn’t want them to, and he pushed the feeling back down.

Jenn, he thought. Jesus Christ!

Chapter 52

Michelle sat and talked with Jesse on the wall. A couple of other burnout kids sat farther down the wall pretending that they weren’t listening, and were too cool to pay any attention to the police chief if he chose to sit on the wall with them.

“You got a cigarette?” Michelle said.

“No.”

“You don’t smoke?”

“No.”

“You ever?”

“No.”

“How come?”

“I was a jock,” Jesse said. “I thought it would cut my wind.”

“That’s weird,” Michelle said.

Jesse stared at the leaves on the common, crimson now in places, and maroon, and yellow, the yellow tinged along the edges with green. It was something he’d never seen except on calendars, growing up in Arizona and California.

“I live next to your girlfriend,” Michelle said. “Abby Taylor.”

“That so?”

“Yes. Sometimes I see you come home real late with her and go in.”

“Un huh.”

“You have sex with her?”

“Why do you want to know?” Jesse said.

“I don’t, I don’t care. I just think if you’re going to be telling people what to do you shouldn’t be having sex with people.”

“Why not,” Jesse said.

“Why not?”

“Yeah, why shouldn’t I be chief of police and have sex with people?”

“I don’t care what you do, but it’s gross to do that and then be telling other people not to.”

“Have I ever told you not to?”

“You think I should?”

“There’s no should to it,” Jesse said.

“Well, that’s not what most adults think.”

“I’d be willing to bet,” Jesse said, “that you don’t know what most adults think. You know what a few of them think and you assume everyone thinks that.”

“Well, do you think it’s okay?”

“Sex? You bet.”

“For me?”

“For anyone,” Jesse said, “that knows what they’re doing, and why they’re doing it, and is smart enough not to get pregnant when they don’t want to, or get AIDS, or get a reputation.”

“I’ve had sex,” Michelle said.

Jesse nodded soberly.

“I figured you had,” Jesse said.

“I don’t think it’s such a big deal.”

“Sometimes it is,” Jesse said. “Depends, I guess, on who you have sex with and when and how you feel about them.”

Jesse paused and smiled.

“Though I gotta tell you,” he said. “I’ve never not liked it.”

Michelle glanced down at the two ratty-looking boys at the end of the wall and lowered her voice.

“If a guy, you know, shoots off, and you get some on you, can you get pregnant?”

“He needs to shoot off in you,” Jesse said.

“In . . . down there?”

“In your vagina,” Jesse said. “There may be someone who’s gotten pregnant by getting it on her thigh, but it’s not something I’d worry about.”

Michelle was silent, her feet dangling, looking at the ground between her feet.

Jesse looked across the common some more at the fall foliage. What made the leaves of the hardwoods so bright, he realized, was the undertone of evergreens behind and between them. The turning trees were made more brilliant by the trees that didn’t turn. Must be a philosophic point in there somewhere, Jesse thought. But none occurred.