Hunter's Moon by Chuck Logan (the false prince series txt) 📗

passed. He dropped his hands and controlled his voice.

“We’ll get through. I owe you big time. I’ll take care of you.”

HUNTER’S MOON / 107

“Take care of yourself,” Harry said sharply. “Did you hear anything I said?”

“Don’t yell at me. You always yell at me.”

He was ducking down that open elevator shaft, into the thing Harry didn’t understand. In a softer voice, Harry said, “Take Hakala’s offer. Dry out. Get divorced. Lay low in the weeds for a while. Start over.”

Bud avoided Harry’s hard gaze.

Harry tapped him on the shoulder. “This morning your new bride was one bullet away from probate court.”

Bud’s peeked out nervously from a window in his fluffy Dilaudid cloud. “The thought crossed my mind.”

“Hakala seems to have overlooked that angle—”

“No love lost between me and the Hakalas. Family thing goes way back—”

“Get her out of your place. Get a lawyer…”

Bud pointed at the diamond ring that lay burning a hole in the bedside table. “She threw it away.”

Harry wanted to grab him and shake him till his teeth rattled.

“Goddamnit! We’re going to put you on a plane. Fly you down to Ramsey in Saint Paul. Get you in a decent hospital, out of this fucking county.”

“Okay. I can see that. When you get back, call Linda Margoles.

She’ll know what to do.” He smiled again and sailed away.

“Jesus, Bud. There’s a million lawyers out there—”

“Call her—”

“Bullshit. You call her.” Harry picked up the phone on the bedside table and handed it to Bud. Bud shook his head and looked away.

Harry placed the phone back on the cradle.

Bud said, “It really happened, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, it really did.”

Bud squeezed Harry’s hand and his eyes widened into blue sau-cers. “Harry, don’t let this morning mess with your head. Maybe you should just accept it, don’t dwell on it, huh?”

“Right. The Serenity Prayer. Accept the things we cannot change.

Gotcha, except you gotta revise the rules a little when 108 / CHUCK LOGAN

somebody brings live ammo to the therapy group,” said Harry.

Bud dropped his bearded chin to his chest and stared straight ahead. Harry said, “Randall and Dorothy are flying up. I’m going back with them.”

Bud nodded, raised a hand, and let it drop. “Talk to Hakala for me. Tell him it’s fine what he said. And thank him.” He tried to smile but all that came was a loose, watery stare.

“Hey, Bud, who drives a green Jeep Wrangler in town?”

“Huh?”

“Green Jeep Wrangler.”

“Ah, Mitch. Mike Hakala’s boy. He goes out with Becky.” The words came out softly. So many blown bubbles. Then: “Harry, you think there’s a Hell?”

“You’re stoned, man. Just crash and we’ll get you out of here.”

Harry squeezed Bud’s arm.

He stepped through the curtains into the antiseptic tile emergency room but the chill on his heart told him he was standing in the shadow of sudden violent death. Maybe not Hell, Bud…but something. Love and hate were strong enough to leap across the grave.

They canceled each other out. The last one standing walked your soul into the darkness.

17

Jerry, apparently under orders not to dis cuss anything with Harry, didn’t say a word round-trip. Turning onto the waterfront, they saw the mobile TV van double-parked in front of the county offices. And two print photographers with Nikons around their necks hunched at the door. They talked to an auburn-haired woman in a belted trench coat who had good legs and one of those quick faces.

Seeing her, Jerry broke his silence and whistled. “Sherry Rawlins from Duluth. Duck your head.”

Harry stayed low until they were in the garage and the door closed behind them. The decibel level in the sheriff’s HUNTER’S MOON / 109

office had picked up. The TV crew was clawing for information in the lobby. Phones rang. Harried deputies scurried from room to room.

Emery slouched against a pop machine in a pool of melted snow from his hunting boots and watched Harry and Hakala approach from different directions. Hakala, with shaving lather dotting his left ear, wore polished wingtips, a T-shirt, and his suit trousers trailed suspenders. He nodded at the men’s room.

Emery spit his frayed toothpick on the floor and walked away.

In the john, Harry stood over the sink and methodically cleaned the residue of crusted blood from between his knuckles and from under his fingernails. As he dried his hands, Hakala stooped to check that no one was in the toilet stalls.

“Get an air ambulance to fly him down to Ramsey in Saint Paul,”

said Harry.

“Right away,” said Hakala.

“He said to thank you.”

Hakala cleared his throat. “I’m preparing an appropriate statement to read to the press.”

Randall and Dorothy marched into Hakala’s office as primed and cocked as a matched set of dueling pistols.

Dorothy hugged Harry quickly and then appraised his face with her long, cool fingers. “You talk to my dad?” she asked. Harry nodded.

“There’s a TV crew from Duluth camped in the lobby,” said Randall. He reached over, pried the toothbrush from Harry’s fingers, and put it out of sight.

“It’s on the wire,” said Dorothy. “I heard a report before we took off.”

“Where’s your stuff?” Randall asked. Harry kicked his duffel bag.

A cloud of Old Spice preceded Hakala in a suit coat and tie, hair slicked back. Harry introduced them. Hakala stooped 110 / CHUCK LOGAN

over in manly genuflection and reconstructed his conversation with Dorothy’s father. Harry stood back while they shot the legal breeze.

Emery filled the doorway.

The sheriff’s face was puffy and loose, his caged eyes mainly inspected the floor, and his breath was a potpourri of mints and alcohol.

Harry drilled Emery with a cold look. “He get off all right? No accidents?”

“He’s en route to Saint Paul Ramsey,” said Emery tightly.

“Will you be taking this to a grand jury?” Dorothy asked.

Emery drew himself up, about to say something.

“Don’t think so,” said Hakala, warning Emery with a quick glance.

“So that’s it,” said Randall briskly.

Harry turned to Emery. “Consider Bud and Jesse separated. Get her and her kid out of that lodge.”

Emery lowered his eyes, his face reddened, and the veins of his neck bulged. “If that’s