Hunter's Moon Chuck Logan (novels to read TXT) 📖

smile was so tight it threatened to crack her face.

Bud lit a Camel straight and pushed the pack across the table. His hands were clean but the fingernails were untrimmed, grimy ribbons.

Another dose of ice water air announced Mike Hakala. He had a picture ID clipped to his parka and carried a growling police radio.

“No court today, Bud,” he said.

“What’s your situation, Mike?”

“You can see we’re knee-deep in cops. We have teams assigned to Jesse and Cox and Don Karson, and we’ll have people on you and Harry. And I’m working on getting Becky into protective custody.”

“How dirty is he?”

“Technically, all I got on him is jumping Harry. But I think I have probable cause to hold him as an accessory in the attempt on your life. Once we nail him, we’ll have a showdown investigation like this county’s never seen and the chips are going to fall where they fucking fall.”

“Do you think Jesse was involved with him?” Bud asked.

“We’re sure as hell going to ask her some questions.”

“Mike, I think I should get Harry out of here, he’s starting to look frayed around the edges.”

HUNTER’S MOON / 329

Hakala shrugged. “Fine, but as long as you’re in my county, you’ll travel under police escort until this emergency is over. Now, I’ve got to get these people moving.” He nodded and went to the SWAT

team table.

Bud turned to Harry. “Now what’s this stuff you’ve got?”

Harry took the page from the Duluth paper and Chris’s story from the manila envelope and spread them on the table. He unfolded the page and thumbed his finger on the red-circled photograph.

“For starters, you left some stuff out,” Harry said, reaching for a Camel. The .45 in his waistband clunked against the table.

Alert to the sound, Bud came across the table and pushed Harry’s parka back from his belt. “Detroit Harry’s got a gun,” Bud announced in a weary voice.

“Oh, Harry,” said Linda.

Harry glanced from Bud’s face to Linda’s and back again. He tried to find a way into Bud’s fixed eyes.

“You don’t get it, do you?” Harry insisted, stabbing his finger at the page. “They tried it again. Except this time it’s a bigger target.”

Bud smiled tightly. “It’s over. She gets a check. It all goes away.

Unless she’s implicated.”

Incensed, Harry banged his fist on the table. “You’re not going to pay her a million bucks!”

Heads turned. Hakala paused going out the door with the SWAT

guys, shook his head, moved on. Bud grimaced and drew his chin into his shoulders and Linda leaned forward, warning Harry with her eyes. “He can pay her anything he wants. Calm down. You’re making a scene.”

Conversation ceased. A waitress hovered uncomfortably. Her eyes were riveted on the butt of the .45 sticking out of Harry’s belt.

“Coffee,” said Bud in a hollow voice. The waitress retreated.

“Where’d you get this?” Bud brandished the newsprint.

“Don Karson stuck it on the door of the lodge. He’s seen All the President’s Men one too many times.”

330 / CHUCK LOGAN

“Then I’ll go talk to him,” said Bud. His hand ruffled the printed sheets. “And this?”

“Something Chris wrote.”

Bud picked it up and began to read. “Jesus, this is sick,” he said and set it aside.

“Becky’s been hiding in the woods because she knows the whole deal. Once they get her to talk…”

Bud pondered it with dreamy eyes, going back in time. He patted Harry’s arm. “You always just have to go at things, don’t you?”

Nervously, the waitress leaned across the table, putting down the coffee cups. Seeing that the menus were stacked unopened, she said diplomatically, “I’ll be back in a little while.”

Bud’s face tightened and he pursed his lips. “See how he is?” he said to Linda. “He’s obsessed and he’s armed.” Turning to Harry, Bud gathered himself and said forcefully, “You have to stop all this, right now!”

His voice was loud enough to cause the restaurant patter to miss a beat and faces turned again. Bud’s rich baritone erupted from the ashes of his life, commanding: “You get in trouble when you’re excited like this, Harry. You want to break things and kill things like a dangerous little boy.”

“What is this?”

“He told me why you left Detroit,” said Linda gravely.

Harry clicked his teeth and fatigue took his last reserves away in a slow, sad brass strut like a New Orleans funeral.

It was funny how your past was never far away. It crouched just out of eyesight, ready to bite you in the heels. Sitting there, the years rolled away, calling forth images of that night: Cherry’s—a bar where he’d hung out after the afternoon shift at Eldon Axle. Different after so many years away. The town had changed. Everybody pulled a gun. Harry had one, too. Confused shots and then…one very dead black who’d picked the wrong night to be macho. He’d hopped a Greyhound for St. Paul the next day. Thanksgiving. The Lions were playing the Minnesota Vikings, an away game in a foot of snow.

HUNTER’S MOON / 331

“You fucker,” said Harry. “What are you trying to pull?” His eyes jumped to Linda’s face. The intricate codas and grapples of the legal system revolved in her cool brown eyes. “You told… her?”

Bud’s voice deepened, absolutely steady. “She has a copy in her briefcase of the Detroit Free Press from the morning you left Detroit.”

Linda pulled her briefcase up on the table. The latches clicked under her thumbs.

Harry put out his hand. “I believe you.”

“That was your Fifth Step. Admitting to God and one other person the exact nature of your wrongs—”

“So you must be God, huh? ’Cause she’s the other person now.”

Harry said in a steady voice.

“Nobody’s saying you did this,” Linda said quickly, tapping the briefcase. We just don’t want it to…happen again.”

“Give me the gun,” said Bud, extending his hand. “Go back to Saint Paul with Linda. I’ll bring your stuff.”

Harry shook his head. “I’m staying till Emery’s in a cage.”

“You can’t use a mess in my life as an excuse to go out of control again,