This is the first day of the rest of your life. Live it Safely.
   —Entrance sign, Sunshine Mine, Idaho

SNOW BLOCKED Fourth of July Pass for only nine days that winter. By March, the foot-thick ice had melted all across the southern end of the lake. The snow was gone and the first green shoots were breaking out of the ground before the days lengthened. Spring had come early to Lake Coeur d’Alene.

Every day of the week now, Matt woke early. On weekdays, he rowed, and on Saturdays, Sall and he cooked breakfast together. For five years or more, they’d tried to avoid each other. Now he found himself seeking her out. Breakfast together was something he’d missed for a long time, and when he finally mentioned it to Sall, he was surprised to discover that she’d missed it too.

Awaking before first light, he looked out at the darkness. A white frost traced the edge of the lake. It felt like the middle of the night, it felt too early to get out of bed. Summer couldn’t come quick enough for him. But soon enough, he put on his jeans and a sweatshirt.

Sall already had coffee brewing, the scent had seeped into his dreams. When she woke him, she had a serious expression on her face, and for a moment, Matt thought something else was wrong.

“This morning,” she said. “I’m going to remind you of your lost art.”

“My lost art? What’s that?”

“Cheddar cheese muffins. You used to make a pretty mean one.”

“All right.” He grinned hopefully. “But I’ve got to have my coffee first. You sure I can still do this?” Matt held out his open hands, the palms thick with calluses, the tips of his fingers scarred from chopping wood and wrenching bolts out of engines. He looked down at the heap of shredded cheese, the measured cups of sour cream and flour, brown sugar and dill. Everything was blurry in the half-light before dawn.

“Of course you can!” Sall set a steaming cup of coffee next to him. She reached in the bag and carefully scattered white flour over his hands and the cutting board. The sensation of the flour falling tickled, it made him want to sneeze. He gulped a breath.

“No, no, don’t sneeze!” laughed Sall. He turned his head toward the window.

The lake was deeply black around the dock. Across the water, he could see fingers of light beginning to touch the dark surface, a glimmering of dawn across the water. Winter was almost over, the year was turning toward the sun.

“Okay,” said Sall. “Now what you’ve got to do is put all of it in the bowl, and then mix it up with your hands until the consistency is like, um, oatmeal, and then—voilà!”

“Wall-la?”

“Well, then you put it in the oven, and we’ve got cheddar cheese muffins for breakfast.” Sall laughed. “C’mon, Matt, you act like you never made these before. It’s only been a few years since you did it. Ah, honey, I know it’s early. You’ll wake up.”

“Thanks,” he said. “So, you still think I can do this . . .” He took a swallow of black coffee. Then, gently, he began to knead the cheese into the flour and milk.

Sall cracked a pair of eggs into a bowl and began to whip them together. “Hey,” she said. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, what did they get from the little girl?”

“Karyn, you mean? The Bowman girl?”

Sall nodded.

“She’s a waterfall of information now. It won’t be admissible in court though.”

“Why not?”

“I guess because of how long she took to talk,” Matt pushed down hard on the dough. “Nancy says the lawyers can argue that I set her up—that we’re prompting her or something, after all this time.”

Sall took a drink of her coffee. “Did she see—”

“See who left the station with her father? Oh yes she did.” Matt paused to pour cream in his cup. “Curtis Siwood is definitely the one who abducted her. He’s also definitely the one who took Arlen. I mean, Karyn nailed him out of a group of composites. Positive ID.”

Sall turned the onions and peppers into the pan. A slow sizzle rose, as she stirred them. “A couple of national reporters have called here about him, you know. Once the Spokane papers published what you said at the funeral, the floodgates were open.”

“Yeah, but who would have thought Time magazine would care? I thought those talking heads were on short leashes on the coasts, didn’t know they’d give a damn about Idaho. I guess they do. Someone does.”

Matt pushed balls of dough into the muffin tin, patting them down. “There, I think they’re ready to be baked. Just sprinkle the dill on top, eh?” He paused and took a gulp of coffee before passing the tin to Sall.

Sall closed the oven door and clicked the timer on. “So you can prove that you didn’t do anything—and that Kevin was innocent.” said Sall. The scent of the sautéed onions and peppers filled the kitchen. There was a hiss and a sizzle as she slowly poured her eggs into the saucepan.

“Looks like it.” Matt dried his hands slowly, his face shifting to something else, sadness and disbelief. “All along, I guess I was right after all.”

“Of course you were. You were right.” Sall stirred the eggs. She took a cloth and wiped the flour off the counter. “Almost done,” she said.

When they sat down, the muffins were steaming hot, the cheese inside soft as warm butter. Matt chewed slowly. “Just enough salt on the eggs,” he mumbled.

Sall smiled.

“Hey, I almost forgot to tell you,” he said. “Richard Stanford called again.”

Sall shook her head. “Trying to get you to head up Tri-State Security again?”

“No,” said Matt slowly. “Something else. I already turned him down on Tri-State.”

“Right. I think that was mostly courtesy anyway.” Sall wiped her mouth with her napkin. “So what was it, Matt?”

Matt stood and went to the refrigerator. He took out a bottle of orange juice and squinted at the lake. Outside, the sky was brilliant with sunrise. Brown specks were winging into the beach. The birds moved awkwardly up from the sand, into the sky, and back down, bits of rag in a current of air. Beyond the birds, the lake shivered under a gust of wind. It shone in sudden glints of light.

“This time he was calling on behalf of the County Commissioners. He wanted to ask me to take over as interim sheriff.”

“Are you going to accept?”

Outside the window, a bird with feathers like frail brown leaves came through the air toward the windowsill and landed there. It stood there for less than a second. He could see its wings tense a moment before it turned and pecked blindly at a spot on the inside of the glass. Its head turned toward him like a flicker of mica. When it gathered itself and flew away, back toward the beach, Matt spoke again.

“Yeah,” he said, and turned toward Sall. “I think I am.”

“But what about Andy Merrill?” said Sall. “Isn’t he still technically sheriff?” “Yes, but he was already on administrative leave, because of the corruption charges. Now they’ve just extended his leave until they can figure out what to do. I think the Board of Commissioners may just ask for an early resignation— once the inquest into Russ’s death finishes, that is.”

Matt closed the refrigerator, but still he stood at the window, gazing out. The window seemed to vibrate with light off the water. The breeze caught the water, sounds came to him from far away.

Matt shook his head slowly. “Will Herrick has failed to release anything, and the prosecutor is making no headway in getting new information. I think the investigation is basically over. There are just a lot of questions left behind. Questions that will never be answered.” Matt brought his coffee back to the table and sat down with Sall as the light from the lake filled the room.

Matt picked up a slim file folder from the kitchen counter and opened it. Inside was a copy of Time magazine, folded back to Siwood’s picture. “See,” said Matt. “Here he is. And we still don’t really know why he came back here. Was it really to collect on the favor he’d done—or was it for some other reason? If Russ was alive, I could ask him, but . . .”

Sall looked at the magazine in his hands. “But you’re sure Curtis Siwood killed Arlen? Somehow to get back at Herricks, or under Will Herrick’s direction? Which is it?”

Matt shook his head. “We’ll never be able to prove it. We do know that Will Herrick and Curtis were connected. None of it admissible in court, but we know. For sure, in April of ’72, Curtis and Pop were following Herrick’s direction by burying the files. Now we have Karl Avery saying that Curtis said he caused the Sunshine disaster with his accidental fire, and Will Herrick claimed to me—privately—that Curtis helped Pop cover that up. But that’s hardly proof. Who’s going to believe the village idiot and some off-the-record hearsay?”

“But what was in those files—the ones they were supposed to bury?”

“There’s the rub.” Matt sighed. “Curtis and Pop did their jobs too well. We’ll never find out what was burned that day. What kind of incriminating evidence was there? Toxins released, laws broken, under-the-table deals? We’ll never know the extent of the damage.”

“So, try to find out. Open the case back up!”

Matt shook his head wistfully. “Oh, I’ll try, but with Russ dead and Valerie Herrick keeping her mouth shut, there’s precious little the grand jury can do. Will Herrick will probably weather this one. He manages to weather everything else.”

Sall finished her eggs. Then she glanced at her watch. “Are you sure Doug wasn’t going to be here for breakfast? He said—”

Matt held up his fork in gentle admonishment. “No, he said he might come. I think he’s still figuring some stuff out. At least he’s doing some good in the world.”

Sall wrinkled her brow. “How do you know?”

Matt broke a muffin apart, and handed half to her. “I talked to the Bowmans.”

“The Bowmans?”

“Yeah, Betty and her daughter—you know, the little girl. They told me Doug’s been over there near every day since he got back, talking to Karyn. I don’t know what he says, but he’s definitely not on drugs. And a time or two, he’s had dinner with them. Told them he’s been fixing up the cabin. And he’s been sleeping at Pop’s old place.”

Sall sucked air through her teeth, a low whistling sound, as if she’d found something worth breathing. “Is he going to stay in the Valley then?”

Matt gulped at his coffee. “Yes, he did take the ’Cuda up to the cabin too—said he was going to finish the job Kevin started. But then he’s going to leave again. Said he was going to take the car to Seattle, on his way back to California.”

Matt chewed and pointed his fork at Sall. “I asked him why he came back. And it was just for the funeral. He just said he had to be here with us, at a time like this.”

Sall nodded in disappointment. “So he has his own life. What did I tell you?”

Matt opened his eyes. He could see the clouds hanging low over Lake Coeur d’Alene, as if drawn to the water. Their shadows covered it immensely, the last faint traces of their light limning the current as the river flowed endlessly away.