find that hard to believe,” Harry said.
“It’s true,” Ryan said. “The company that makes it says it’s a secret recipe. Like they’re Colonel Sanders or something.”
“And hydraulic fracking causes earthquakes,” the girl said, while bouncing in front of Harry, “and it’s illegal in France and Pittsburgh.”
“Wow,” Harry said, “who’d have thought that the French and the Pittsburghians would ever have anything in common?”
“Hey,” the girl said, poking Harry in the chest. “This isn’t funny.”
“I can see that.”
“So how did you find out they are going to do it here?” Harry asked.
“Big Bill told me the night before he died.”
“Where?”
“Right here. He stopped in on our party, had a beer, told us that the powers that be were trying to buy this land for fracking and we’d better enjoy it while it was still here.”
“What else did Bill say?”
“He said he was gonna try and stop it if he could, ’cause of what he saw at the Jeric farm.”
“Old man Jeric out near the stone quarry?” Cirba said.
“Yeah, Big Bill told me he did some work for Mr Jeric at harvest time this year, and he and Mrs Jeric were in a bad way because of all of the chemical crap coming out of the fracking site.”
“Anything else?”
“Na, but he was bummed about it. Said it was causing him strife.”
“So what are you kids gonna do?” Cirba asked.
“Protest, man,” the girl said, pumping her fist in the air. “We’re gonna stop it. I’ll tree-sit if I have to,” she announced.
“Well, keep it legal,” Cirba said.
“We’ll do what we have to do, man.”
“Yeah I guess you will. So did Big Bill say anything else?”
“No.”
“Did he seem upset?” Harry asked.
“No,” Ryan said. “He said that life was good.”
The old guys threw their cups into the fire. “Thanks for the beer,” Cirba said.
“You know,” Harry said, “if you are going to try and save this place you should start by cleaning it up. Nobody’s gonna want to save a dump.”
“We’re on it tomorrow,” the girl said but she seemed more enthusiastic about it than Ryan.
Harry patted Ryan on the shoulder. “Environmentalism is a bitch. You go easy on yourself, OK?”
Ryan shook his hand and then came in for a quick manly hug. “Thanks.”
* * *
“What did you and Ryan chat about in the woods there,” Cirba asked as they pulled out onto the Five Mile Road.
“Just a little emergency psychology. The boy is freaked. I just helped him off the ledge a little bit.”
“Did you learn anything new?”
“Nothing, except what you heard about Bill knowing about this fracking stuff. Did you know about it?”
“No, and how come Bill knew before me?” Cirba said in a faraway voice that denoted he was thinking. After a while he said: “You can sleep in tomorrow. I’m going to check with land registry in the morning and see who owns the Horseshoe.”
“On Saturday?”
“Hey, this is a murder investigation.”
* * *
Harry had a look over at MK’s house as he put the key in the lock to see if any lights were on. They weren’t and he sighed knowing that he wouldn’t have done anything if they were. Inside, he kicked off his shoes and made himself a cup of tea. Then, as always, he logged on to the FBI’s Lost and Found Child Database but couldn’t keep his eyes open even for that. He brushed his teeth, threw off his clothes and squeaked into bed. He was asleep instantly and dreamt he was back in the strip club. This time he got that private dance.
Harry sat on the sofa, still wrapped in his quilt, and drank tea while staring out at the morning through the glass wall. Underneath a rising mist, Ice Lake was a mirror. Harry fantasized that it was a giant portal to another world, a world where this was his house and his son was sitting beside him snuggled up under the quilt… But he had learned long ago that thinking like that was the route to madness.
He used the quiet and the picturesque view to attempt a meditative state of mindlessness that one of his old hippy girlfriends had tried so hard to get him to obtain. Harry had only ever achieved leg cramps. Although he never got to the desired mindlessness, he often found that thinking about thinking cleared his mind and allowed him to organize the problem at hand. But he just didn’t have enough information about the problem of who killed Big Bill to even theorize anything.
Since it seemed like a sacrilege to allow the screech of a TV to disturb the calm, he slipped on a tracksuit and running shoes. With a circumference of just over a mile and a half, Ice Lake was a perfect morning jog. Harry decided on a counterclockwise route and even at this early hour he found himself nodding hello to half a dozen pedestrians, joggers, and dog walkers. At three-quarters of the way around Harry was looking for an excuse to rest and found it when he saw the bakery truck pulling out of old Todd’s Ice Lake Café.
* * *
This time old Todd was behind his counter to greet Harry – if not in the friendliest way.
“You still around?”
“I was lured by the scent of fresh donuts.”
“Yeah, happens all the time. I think they put the same addictive drugs in them that they put in cat food.”
Harry tossed a couple of bucks in the chamber pot and was surprised when Todd waited on him. He poured a cup of coffee and plopped a donut on a paper plate.
“So you’re a conspiracy theory fan?”
“I bought a bunch of that gourmet shit for my cat and now she won’t eat anything else.” Todd licked the glaze off his fingers. “I like a good theory if it fits.”
“Maybe she just has expensive tastes.”
“She’s a fucking cat.”
The donut was
