“A little of both,” Hodges says. He has no time for conversation—back in the city kids may be jumping out of apartment-building windows and swallowing pills—but it’s how the job is done. “Would you be Mr. Thurston?”
“In the flesh. Since you didn’t pull up at the pumps, I’d almost wonder if you came to rob me, but you look a little too prosperous for that. City fella?”
“I am,” Hodges says, “and in kind of a hurry.”
“City fellas usually are.” Thurston puts down the Field & Stream he’s been reading. “What is it, then? Directions? Man, I hope it’s somewhere close, the way this one’s shaping up.”
“I think it is. A hunting camp called Heads and Skins. Ring a bell?”
“Oh, sure,” Thurston says. “The doctors’ place, right near Big Bob’s Bear Camp. Those fellas usually gas up their Jags and Porsches here, either on their way out or their way back.” He pronounces Porsches as if he’s talking about the things old folks sit on in the evening to watch the sun go down. “Wouldn’t be nobody out there now, though. Hunting season ends December ninth, and I’m talking bow hunting. Gun hunting ends the last day of November, and all those docs use rifles. Big ones. I think they like to pretend they’re in Africa.”
“Nobody stopped earlier today? Would have been driving an old car with a lot of primer on it?”
“Nope.”
A young man comes out of the garage bay, wiping his hands on a rag. “I saw that car, Granddad. A Chev’alay. I was out front, talking with Spider Willis, when it went by.” He turns his attention to Hodges. “I only noticed because there’s not much the way he was headed, and that car was no snowdog like the one you’ve got out there.”
“Can you give me directions to the camp?”
“Easiest thing in the world,” Thurston says. “Or would be on a fair day. You keep on going the way you were heading, about . . .” He turns his attention to the younger man. “What would you say, Duane? Three miles?”
“More like four,” Duane says.
“Well, split the difference and call it three and a half,” Thurston says. “You’ll be looking for two red posts on your left. They’re tall, six feet or so, but the state plow’s been by twice already, so you want to keep a sharp eye, because there won’t be much of em to see. You’ll have to bull your way through the snowbank, you know. Unless you brought a shovel.”
“I think what I’m driving will do it,” Hodges says.
“Yeah, most likely, and no harm to your SUV, since the snow hasn’t had a chance to pack down. Anyway, you go in a mile, or maybe two, and the road splits. One fork goes to Big Bob’s, the other to Heads and Skins. I can’t remember which one is which, but there used to be arrow signs.”
“Still are,” Duane says. “Big Bob’s is on the right, Heads and Skins on the left. I ought to know, I reshingled Big Bob Rowan’s roof last October. This must be pretty important, mister. To get you out on a day like this.”
“Will my SUV make it on that road, do you think?”
“Sure,” Duane says. “Trees’ll still be holding up most of the snow, and the road runs downhill to the lake. Making it out might be a little trickier.”
Hodges takes his wallet from his back pocket—Christ, even that hurts—and fishes out his police ID with RETIRED stamped on it. To it he adds one of his Finders Keepers business cards, and lays them both on the counter. “Can you gentlemen keep a secret?”
They nod, faces bright with curiosity.
“I’ve got a subpoena to serve, right? It’s a civil case, and the money at stake runs to seven figures. The man you saw go by, the one in the primered-up Chevy, is a doctor named Babineau.”
“See him every November,” the elder Thurston says. “Got an attitude about him, you know? Like he’s always seein you from under the end of his nose. But he drives a Beemer.”
“Today he’s driving whatever he could get his hands on,” Hodges says, “and if I don’t serve these papers by midnight, the case goes bye-bye, and an old lady who doesn’t have much won’t get her payday.”
“Malpractice?” Duane asks.
“Don’t like to say, but I’m going in.”
Which you will remember, Hodges thinks. That, and Babineau’s name.
The old man says, “There are a couple of snowmobiles out back. I could let you have one, if you want, and the Arctic Cat has a high windshield. It’d still be a chilly ride, but you’d be guaranteed getting back.”
Hodges is touched by the offer, coming as it does to a complete stranger, but shakes his head. Snowmobiles are noisy beasts. He has an idea that the man now in residence at Heads and Skins—be he Brady or Babineau or a weird mixture of the two—knows he’s coming. What Hodges has on his side is that his quarry doesn’t know when.
“My partner and I will get in,” he says, “and worry about getting out later.”
“Nice and quiet, huh?” Duane says, and puts a finger to his lips, which are curved in a smile.