Snow was falling from the high boughs of the evergreens as Pulsifer and I walked back down the road toward his truck. I could hear the clumps dropping in the woods around us. The crossbills were still up there in the treetops, chittering at one another and feeding on cones, although I could no longer see the birds.
Glancing through the barred shadows of the trunks, I saw the Ford Explorer Interceptor parked beside Pulsifer’s Sierra. Officer Russo was down on one knee in the snow, examining something amid the litter of fallen needles. Instead of the uniform he had worn at Widowmaker, he was wearing a midnight-blue snowmobile suit, but he had pinned his badge to the front and had his gun belt strapped around his waist. The snowsuit made him look inflated, and he was already a large man.
He straightened up when he heard the crunching of our boots and wiped the snow from his gloves.
“Russo,” said Pulsifer.
“Hey, Gary.” The man’s smile, like all of his other features, was so mild as to be unmemorable.
“What are you doing up here?”
“Saw you guys pass by before and thought I’d come up and see if you all needed help.”
In addition to being a security guard at the resort, Russo was a sheriff’s deputy, so it was possible he had heard about Langstrom’s truck and knew that Clegg was planning to pay Foss a visit this morning. The detective wouldn’t necessarily have kept the plans secret. Still, I found his presence on the scene to be suspiciously coincidental.
“Do you remember Warden Bowditch?” Pulsifer asked.
“I am afraid Mike and I got off on the wrong foot. My apologies.” He said this without a hint of contrition in his voice.
“What were you looking at?” I asked.
“Just some animal tracks, trying to figure out what they are.”
Pulsifer stepped over and gave the ground a quick glance. “Those are from a mink.”
In fact, the prints had been left by an ermine—a long-tailed weasel—but I decided not to correct Pulsifer, knowing the foul mood he was in.
“So we saw you parked outside Logan Dyer’s house before,” I said.
“I wanted to see how he was doing.”
The thing about Russo’s face, I realized, was that it had the artificial softness of a sculpture, as if Madame Tussaud had tried and failed to fashion his likeness from wax.
“Is Dyer sick?” I asked.
“That’s what I wanted to know. He’s missed a lot of work lately, called in sick, but Elderoy doesn’t want to terminate him without cause.”
“So you came out here to see if he was faking?” I said.
“You know how the job is,” he said, meaning police work. “You never know what the day will bring.”
My work had never involved checking up on employees who had claimed to be ill.
“So is he faking?”
“He says he’s been getting migraines. That’s hard to double-check. He told me he thinks he might have a brain tumor. He is certain he is dying.” The security guard shook his head in a robotic gesture that was supposed to suggest sadness. “I told him to see a doctor if he was so concerned. I tried to talk some sense into him, but there is a limit to Logan’s ability to understand things.”
I remembered Pulsifer asserting that Dyer wasn’t dumb but that his speech impediment made people assume he lacked intelligence. I thought he might jump in to defend Logan. Instead, Pulsifer changed the subject. “How did you do in Florida? I never heard.”
“Fifth place,” said Russo. “I had an off day. I should have finished in the top three.”
“World Speed Shooting Championships,” explained Pulsifer. He waggled his thumb at me in typical mocking fashion. “Bowditch is always the slowest draw on the course.”
Russo turned his doll-like eyes on me. “You need to stop thinking before you shoot.”
I had heard that advice before—in many contexts.
“Your brain is your enemy in competition,” Russo continued. “You need to make every move automatic.”
“Thanks for the tips.”
The security guard pointed into the woods, in the direction of the dining hall. “How’s it going up there? Clegg getting anything useful?”
“Foss kicked us out,” said Pulsifer. “He’s only allowing Clegg and Hawken to interview his workers. You’d better not let Foss see your vehicle, or he’ll go full volcano.”
“Too bad,” said Russo. “I’d love to poke around this place. I’ve never been past the gate.”
“No?” said Pulsifer with a perplexed expression. “What about when that Lovejoy guy got crushed?”
“That’s right,” said Russo, “but that was in the woods. I never got a tour of the compound.”
“Maybe someday,” I said.
“How long are you sticking around?” Russo asked me.
“Undecided.”
“Enjoy your stay.”
No one could be this banal unintentionally, I thought.
*
Pulsifer waited for Russo to leave first; he didn’t explain why. Then we started back down the slippery slope.
Logan Dyer was in his open garage, tinkering with his snowmobile as we drove by. I was surprised to see him outside, since Russo had claimed he’d called in sick.