He ventures into a labyrinth . . . no one can behold how and
where he goes astray, is cut off from others, and is torn to
pieces limb from limb by some cave-minotaur of conscience.
   —Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

THE COEUR d’Alene Resort glowed in the early morning sun, its fine metallic sheen mirrored on the lake, turning the water of the cove a reflected gold. To the east stood another reflection—the small stylized building that on first glance was a scale model of the resort itself. William S. Herrick Jr.’s private office, the one he maintained as an irritant in the face of Valerie Herrick’s magnificent resort.

Matt waited at the solid maple registration desk of the resort. Matt hadn’t been able to find Russ anywhere in town since he had seen him at the collapsed highway. Right now, there was no one who fit Russ’s description registered as a guest. Last week, Russ had come into the resort bar and talked the bartender out of a bottle of Scotch, claiming it was for a corporate function in his wife’s office. That was the last time anyone in Coeur d’Alene had seen him.

Although his campaign roared along at full steam, claiming a new endorsement every week, Russell had effectively disappeared, making no public appearances. Yet no one seemed to have a desperate need to talk to him. Except for Matt.

When Matt left the resort, an icy gust lifted off the frozen surface of the lake, blowing him back against the buildings. He hunched over, holding his coat close, and pulled his way along the salted walkway past Will Herrick’s office. As he passed, he happened to glance up at the private office level, the one fronted by windows all the way around. Silhouetted against the blowing snow, he could see Valerie Herrick, her hands moving in some impassioned gesticulation. Matt stopped walking.

He’d never seen Valerie in her brother’s office in his life.

The vast open space of the office loomed over the lake. On the other side of the spacious room, next to a redwood filing cabinet and credenza, was a calfskin attaché, centered in the light of two Italian torchieres.

A tall, solid man with thinning gray hair, an Armani suit, and a rapacious look was staring out the giant windows while Valerie whispered frantically on the phone. The man turned at Matt’s entrance.

“Ah,” William Herrick said. “A former candidate coming in place of the current candidate. Welcome to my humble suite. I assume you’re here trying to find our errant Russell. I do hope we don’t have another fatal car accident on our hands, don’t you?”

Matt looked at the predatory face, and found that he was too tired to think of a reply to the old gibe. He felt fatigue hanging over him lately, like a disease. Back in the corner, where the shadows were, Matt could see Valerie Herrick talking furiously on the phone, her hoarse whisper whipsawing across the empty office.

“Do you know where he is?” said Matt. “I have some questions.”

“Haven’t a clue where he might be. Thing is, neither does his wife,” said William sharply. He turned back to look out the window, across the lake. His reflection in the windows showed an expression of unyielding strength. After a moment, William spoke again. “That’s where that other gentleman was found.”

“What’s that?” said Matt.

Behind him, Matt could hear Valerie, her voice rising stridently. “No, Mr. Rawlings, you are not going to run a front-page feature on that equipment collapse. No, I don’t fucking care if the Spokane papers are headlining it.”

“I saw the man whose body you found. Out there, on the lake.” William turned and walked to a bar with bottles that stood by the window. “You want a drink. Gray Goose?”

Matt shook his head numbly. “You said you saw him? Before he died?”

William shook ice cubes into a glass, poured a jigger of liquor over the top. “Sure, I saw him. About two weeks ago, I was here, by the window,” he gestured at an expensive telescope that stood erect by the window, pointing toward the middle of the lake.

“No, I’ve got a story for you,” said Valerie. “How does this grab you—Recall Effort Underway for Sheriff. Russ is going to make him just another face in the crowd by the time votes are cast. Merrill may not make it to January. Can you lead with that?”

William Herrick continued talking. “So I saw someone out there in a boat. He was yanking at a rope as the fog came over the lake. Must have been the choke. Anyway, I watched him pull on the damn thing until it broke off. Didn’t know how to run a boat. And then, as I said, the fog rolled in. I saw the boat, drifting empty, later. Poor bastard.”

William took a swallow of his drink. “Didn’t know who I was seeing, of course.” He pointed out at the open water. “Unfortunate, but there it is. He was gone.”

“Don’t write this in the article yet,” whispered Valerie. “How about you just put that the recall effort supports White? Cut all this BS about the road falling in the lake!”

William moved the ice in his glass, the sound sharp as a bell. “Truth be told, he’s someone I’ve known a long time. Good riddance to bad rubbish. He was seen near Arlen, hanging around near him, bothering him. I think he’s definitely—”

“From who? How do you know this? I’ve talked to every possible witness.”

William shook his head and looked away from Matt. He stared at Valerie. When he spoke, it was in a shout. “Get the hell off my phone—you’re done trying to fix it! Okay?”

Slowly, she put down the phone, her demeanor more fragile than Matt had ever seen in her before.

“It’s not going to work, Val!” William continued shouting. “Just sell the damned company to me and be done with it!”

Valerie sat back and folded her arms. “Will, I’ve got some things to sort out—”

William held up a finger, forestalling Val. He looked at Matt, and continued as if Val had not spoken. “The shame of it is that I recommended you. I told Andy Merrill that if he had Russell White on the case, he’d just screw it up. But you, you had some abiding interest here. I figured you could be trusted to do the right thing—”

“What right thing?” Valerie stalked forward, vaulting out of her chair. “Arresting someone for political expediency? Trying to win an election by fraud, simply so you can take my property?”

William glared back at her. “It was mine before it was yours. It’s rightfully—”

Matt swallowed, trying to get rid of the taste in his mouth. The taste seemed to come from the water, from the air, from the sky. From the room.

The sudden ring of the office phone cut across William’s voice.

“I’m going to answer that,” said Valerie.

“It’s my office phone,” said William. “Mine.”

“I told them to route all calls over here.” She picked up the receiver with authority, pushed a button on the phone. “Yes, what is it? This is Valerie Herrick.”

William Herrick stared at her for a moment. Then he picked up his drink. He spoke quietly to Matt. “Of course, you were lucky in finding him in the lake. I’d recognize those shitty tattoos anywhere. That’s your guy. I think you should point the case at Curtis Siwood, and close the damn thing. Perp found dead. The end. You can’t ID him for sure, of course, not after all this time in the water. Close the case.”

Matt demurred. “No, no, not yet. I figure we’ll know for sure soon enough. Fortunately, we managed to get fingerprints. We should have results on any hits by—”

William put his glass down hard. A faint ringing echoed through the room as it landed. Matt glanced down, surprised the glass hadn’t shattered. He noticed Valerie had hung up her phone, but she did not say anything.

Finally, William spoke again. “How the hell did you get fingerprints?”

Matt wanted to say something about Russell, to ask a Herrick something point-blank for once in his life. But instead he answered the question. He lifted his fingers, mimed his hand going in a glove. “You slide your hand inside the dead skin—press it down—see. You can still lift prints from a bloated body, if the skin isn’t gone.”

William favored Valerie and Matt with a thin smile, and mock applause. “Well, Valerie, what do you think? Pretty good work from Mister Boy Scout. Now with fingerprints, you can probably tie Curtis directly to the scene, to the resort that night—”

“He wasn’t even at the resort that night, as you well know!” Valerie’s voice was shrill.

Again, William simply ignored his sister. “My inclination, of course, would be to go with the dead guy. But truth be told, I think Andy wants to indict someone alive, make more of a public spectacle out of it—have a win just before the election, a collar he can point to, to show he’s doing his job.”

This time, Valerie’s voice carried a hard edge, a cold rage. “Like my husband, maybe?”

Matt whirled around. “What?”

“Yes, you heard right,” said William. He did not turn. “I told Val I’d bet her a million dollars, give or take, that Andy Merrill will indict that fucker she married. He’s in the shit, he’s in deep, and there’s no way he will ever dig his way out again.”

Valerie stood up from the chair so violently that it crashed to the floor. “He didn’t do it, though! He didn’t have anything to do with—”

“Shut up!” William shouted. “You shut the hell up. You married the bastard, you deserve to go down with him. At the end of the day, I’ll get the resort, I’ll get all the properties, you know I will. All of the Herrick legacy will be mine. Dad never liked you anyway, you should have died at birth. Hell, you don’t even deserve the same last name!”

Matt glanced back and forth between them as Valerie crumbled under this onslaught, her mascara running down her cheeks, her eyes dripping with tears, her jaw clenching helplessly with anger.

William did not look at her. He pointed toward the other side of the lake. “Hell, I’ll even get back the old boat cabin Dad gave to you. I’ll get it all, because you allowed yourself, once upon a time, to betray our good name. You allowed yourself to get seduced by that junior-league Lothario! Wouldn’t you agree, Worthson, he’s just a . . .”

But Matt wasn’t listening. He’d been to the boat cabin with Russ before. It was a small place, comfortable for one man to stay for a few weeks, out of the way. Russ had even invited him. Go to the boat cabin, if you need a place to stay. Yet showing up might not be enough. He needed some way of finding out the truth while he was there.

“Jesus Christ.” Valerie was shouting back now. “You wouldn’t dare to do this, Will, if Dad were alive. The least you could do is look at me like a man.”

But William did not turn around. His gaze was held by something on the lake, a small swaying dot that might be a rowboat or an abandoned Jet Ski. Out to the west, the old pilings of the Blackwell Logging Company stood high out of the water, above the place where the river joined the lake.

Matt watched William Herrick slowly put his hands on the wide sill, wondering if this was what he had looked like as he watched the man on the boat begin to die. William waited until Valerie was done talking, and then he spoke mildly, giving no response to anything she’d said.

“Well, Valerie, I think we’re done here. I no longer need the grief. I’ve supported you. I’ve given you rope. You’ve hung yourself.” William stood from the windowsill and put a large hand on Matt’s shoulder. “Worthson here will hand the damn case over to Merrill’s good graces, and he’ll walk away. C’est la vie.”

Outside, Matt could see the sun on the lake. Behind them, Valerie stood crying silently, her anger drifting across in waves. The skeleton of pilings stood black on the water. Lake birds slowed in flight, looking for fish in the shallows. They hung motionless in the air, their wings beating.

It came to him that he would have preferred to be talking to Karl Avery today, instead of the Herricks. “I’m not going to do it. Russell isn’t . . . ,” began Matt. “I’m still working the case.”

“Sure you are, sure you are,” said William patronizingly. This time he let himself smile, a thin expression, given to Matt in pity. “I’ll see you out, Lieutenant. Thank you for coming by,” he said in a tone meant to be courteous. “Let me know when you decide to throw in the towel.”

Then he gestured at the wall of glass. “Look, the weather is about to turn.”

The clouds hung down as if drawn to the land. Then, far enough out that it seemed a different world, their edges were traced with brightness. Out where the sun split the clouds with red, the clouds became separate rafts, opening out in bands of scarlet and purple. Matt looked at the empty room with its expensive furnishings, at Valerie Herrick, crying, her face streaked with thick black tears. It was not the same place that it had been. He watched from a different shore.

The state-licensed liquor store opened at 10:00 a.m. When the door was unlocked, and the sign slid from Closed to Open, Matt looked down at his hands. They were clenching the wheel of the truck so tightly they ached, the skin was slick with sweat. Matt let go and reached in his pocket. He looked over at the kid, who bent his brow and frowned back at him.

“Why did you bring me along again?” Kev said.

“Trust.” Matt breathed out slowly, steadying himself. “I don’t trust myself.”

“So get someone from your work to come along. How am I supposed to—”

“I can’t.” Matt stared straight ahead. “No one can know about this, about where I’m going today, what I’m doing there. But I need someone here. I don’t trust—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Yourself.” The kid gave an exaggerated yawn. “So now you got a plan, huh? But still, you go in there, you should know, that shit will kill you.”

“Right, that’s why you’re here. I have a job to do here, and I need you. You can help just by being here. You’re helping me right now. I’m going to go in there, and—”

“Shit, I don’t know if this is a good idea.” The kid shook his head ruefully. “What the hell am I supposed to do? I still don’t understand why you’re buying. Do you have—”

But Matt was already out of the truck. He didn’t hesitate once he got to the store.

Back in the truck, the bottle came out of the brown paper bag immediately. The color was amber, the glass heavy and cold against his perspiring palm.

He used to drain these bottles like they were made of air, he used to breathe it in, he used to swim in it. How easy it would be to slip off the lid, to taste that warmth on his tongue. This one didn’t even have a cork. He looked down at the ornate label, the familiar words. Not for the first time, he thought of how much easier the world had been when he was draining everything through the same alcohol-fogged filter. A single taste, a swallow. How long had it been?

“Put that damn thing back,” said Kev. “I mean, I’m straight-edge, I don’t get this.”

Matt looked down at the bottle. The memory came back, of his father coming to the rehab clinic the first time he’d tried to go sober, just sitting there, having nothing to say to him. He thought of Louden’s voice in the briefing room: You’re a pair of drunks.

“Yeah,” he said to the kid. “That’s why I brought you. You don’t get it. Thanks. You did what I needed you to do. I’ll drop you off at home. I got someone to meet.”

Kev just looked at him. “Yeah, well, like I said, that stuff’ll kill you.”

Matt put the bottle back in the sack. Once the glass no longer touched his skin, the yearning was easier to ignore. It just might work.

Russell White reached out automatically and broke the seal on the bottle. The strong aroma of alcohol rushed into the room, intoxicating in itself. Matt swallowed, feeling his heart leap involuntarily. Russ took a swallow and held the bottle up for Matt.

“Fuck, Matty, I don’t know how you found me, but I’m glad you did.”

Matt snapped his fingers. “Glasses.” He stood and went in the kitchen, filling his own glass with water and ice. He brought back a cup full of ice and the two glasses.

For a long hour, all Russ wanted to talk about was Valerie. He wanted to know how she was doing. He wanted to hear about how she was feeling during his absence. Once he said that they should leave immediately, drive straight back home, let Valerie know that he was all right.

But he didn’t move from the couch. Then, later in the afternoon, as his voice began to slur, Matt turned the conversation around, and something more began to come out, in a slow drip like a broken faucet.

“Look, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” began Matt. “But I got to tell you that Will Herrick thinks Merrill is going to arrest you. For something, I don’t know what. I’m out here because I figured I should warn you.”

Russ offered the bottle back to Matt, who took it momentarily. Then, as Russ rubbed a hand across his flushed face, Matt filled Russ’s glass again.

“Russ, it’s not fair, we both know it.” Matt nodded. “And I’ll stand up for you, you know I will. But damn, you disappear like this, I think he’ll make hay out of it. It just looks bad.”

Russ clinked glasses with Matt. “We’ve seen worse, haven’t we? Hell, thank you for that. Thank you for all of it. Damn, Matt, I owe you. All the time, I owe you.”

Russ took a gulp. “Jesus, I’m winning the election. For Valerie—she wanted me to do it! But she can’t protect me from this—and this was her damn thing too. Jesus, Valerie told me what to do!” Russ shook his head, the tears standing out in his eyes.

Matt sighed. “I know how you feel.” He took a sip of water and waited for Russ. Then he spoke again. “Y’know, I’ve been having some nightmares. How about you?”

Russ looked down, into the depths of his drink. “C’mon, Matty, you were there. You gotta have figured out already—maybe months ago, you did, I dunno—that Arlen was dead before he got chopped up.” Russ gave him a sideways glance, a slyly drunken look. “You knew that, right? Jesus, I’m sorry if I lied to you about that . . .”

Matt looked away, faking a moment of boredom. “Of course, I already knew that.”

“So you gotta wonder why he was killed. I mean, hell, it wasn’t because that loser Curtis Siwood had something against him. Jesus, I know you told the newspapers that, but . . .”

Matt felt himself attuned to every sound, even to the faint intakes of breath from Russ. In the kitchen at the back of the house, he could hear a fly faintly buzzing against the window.

Russell paused, and gulped hungrily at his glass. “I don’t know. That’s what plagues me still. I don’t know why he was killed. I just know where the body ended up.”

Carefully, Matt replenished the empty glass. “On the hillside, up on Tubbs Point.”

“No, in the resort!” Russ frowned petulantly. “Dammit, arentcha paying attention?”

Matt held up his own glass, the ice still melting in water. “It’s the Scotch— hit me hard. Sorry, Russ.”

“Okay.” Russ held up his glass and gave an awkward tilt, a toast to him. “That’s what keeps me up nights, y’know. Why? Why did I let—why did Arlen have to die?”

“Why?” repeated Matt gently.

“I think it was Will—he has a vendetta for Val’s resort business,” mused Russell. “And I swear—hell, I know—he had something to do with Arlen dying.”

“But how—” began Matt.

Russ kept talking, blurting out the words. “He had us over a barrel. Will knew it would hurt the tourist business, having the body there, on our premises. He needed Arlen to shut his big trap about something, that much I know, but dumping the body on us . . .”

Matt shook his head in sympathy. “It was a strategy. Business?”

“Hell if I know.” Russ waved his hand, the syllables blurring more and more together. “You know what happened. You know why Val was pissed at me.”

“The massage parlor.”

Russ nodded at him, his eyes wide and bloodshot. “Yeah, that girl.”

“Look,” said Matt. “I know that you had to do what you were told—”

“Of course I did!” Russ shook his head. “I mean, when the body’s found there, Val just details me and May to get it off the premises. So we clean it up, get him out of there, and I don’t even notice it’s Arlen. I mean, May Brewmer and me, we’re just mopping the blood off the floor—”

“You’re doing the cleanup?”

“Sure, we’re cleaning it all up when Valerie comes in. Fucks it up—fucks it up good. Goddamn Val.” Russ stared ahead. Perhaps he thought he’d said too much.

“Here,” said Matt, holding out the bowl. “I got you some ice too.”

Russ nodded in gratefulness and took another swallow. “Goddamn Val with her sharp eyes, she comes in, and when she sees who it is who’s dead, she knows immediately why it might have been dumped there—or she thinks she does. She blames it on me. Jesus, I don’t know how she knew about my little thing with . . . like a lover would be nuts enough to kill off the husband. I don’t know how she knew, but Val was the one recognizes it was Arlen Bowman in there. So because of who he is, Val is pissed immediately, she blames me . . .” Russ gulped noisily at the drink again.

Matt glanced at the heaps of clothes on the floor, at the darkened doorway. “I don’t get it, Russ, I mean—”

“She’s jealous, Matty. I mean, you ever know a jealous woman?” Russ gulped at the glass, breaking a piece of ice with his teeth. “I’m telling you, she sees it’s Arlen who’s dead, that I’m cleaning it up, she changes all the rules.”

“Russ, if there’s a death involved, I mean . . . you got a lawyer, right?”

Russ waved his hand shakily. “I gotta talk about this. Even though she blamed me, Valerie knew who done it, I would swear on my mother’s grave. It was her own fault we didn’t just dump the body. She made me do it—make it look like something else. But I shouldn’t have done that fuckin’ thing to Arlen. Every time I think about, I want to throw up.”

Russ staggered upright and stumbled to a desk in the corner. With shaking hands, he unlocked a drawer and withdrew a battered gray envelope. Inside were a set of white cards. Polaroid prints. Russ stumbled, and they spilled across the floor, a set of bloody cards scattered across the floor, a body being dismembered.

“What happened? What did she make you do?”

Russ stared off in the distance. Then his eyes tracked across the side of the room as the fly from the kitchen buzzed into the dining room and landed on the ceiling.

“You don’t get it yet? Valerie made me do it to Arlen—she made me cut up his body.”

Matt felt a dull shock settle on him, holding him to the words. Far away, he could hear the fly stop against the screen door and fly off again, moving in a wide, unsteady arc around the kitchen table.

“Valerie—that bitch made me. She made me chop him into pieces, cover something up. I don’t know what it was, but hell, there wasn’t nothing I could do. I mean, goddamn, she pays the bills, right?” Russ’s glass slopped out, his sleeve wet to the elbow. He gulped desperately at it as his hands shook.

“I didn’t want to do anything to him when I realized it was Arlen. I just wanted to put him back in the bathroom where we found ’im. See, you can see in the first picture, Arlen’s dead already, peaceful like, his throat cut. Had some cigarette burns on his arms and legs. He was tied up, but hell, a cut throat don’t take long to kill you. It didn’t hurt him long. Then she says to put the body back, an’ next thing I know, Valerie gives me an axe, says ‘Chop up the damn body. Serial killing, that’s what we’ll make this look like. Here, I got some pictures of the other dumped bodies—you make it look just like this shit.’ And I already cheated on her, so there was nothing I could say. I had to do it. And I didn’t kill ’im. I mean, that was already done for me, I just—”

“But, Russ, why—”

“I’m tellin’ you, Matty, ’cause I know you’ll keep the secret. Hell, I’ve always kept your secrets, maybe it’s your turn now. I’ve always kept the secret of what happened with you and Irene.” Matt saw something sly flicker across Russ’s face, a subterfuge that could not be fully concealed, seeping through the alcohol. Russ would keep what secrets he could.

Matt stared at him for a moment, seeing his face go blank again. How far could he push Russ without pushing himself off the cliff too? How far would his friendship with Russ take him?

“But you’re telling me, God’s truth, you didn’t kill him.”

Russ shook his head slowly, that flash of inside knowledge sparking again, as the fly buzzed through the room. In the silence, Matt could hear it turn and curl in the air.

Matt sloshed a gulp of water into his dry mouth. His thoughts ran in circles. But Russ was still talking, his story blurred together now into a sodden mass of syllables. “I thought it would be no big thing, I mean, hell, I’ve butchered deer before, but this time was different . . . I mean, every night, I see myself jus’ lifting the axe, swingin’ it over an’ over again. Damn, Matty, I wake up every night, an’ Arlen’s insides are still all over me, like I can never wash it off, like I’ll be covered in it forever.”

There was a pause. The fly buzzed into a corner and fell silent. Matt swallowed, his mouth dry once more.

Hurriedly, Russ gulped at his glass. He shook his head, and almost fell over from the motion. “And now that I done it, she’s still got me by the balls. And I can’t . . . I mean, what was I supposed to do? Let that happen? That’s why I went an’ made sure that May Brewmer would keep it quiet. That’s why I did all of this. Christ, what I did for my girl.”

Russ looked up at Matt, his eyes hollow and dark with fear. “But we didn’t do anything wrong, Matt. I mean, he was already a dead man. I mean, my God, Matt, Arlen was already dead. He was dead, his throat cut. What did I do but help bury him, huh?”

Then Russ leaned his head to the side and a thick fluid rushed out of his mouth. He lifted his glass for another drink and fell sideways onto the floor. Matt could barely hear his last mumbled plea. “I didn’t kill him. I mean, I saw him there . . . and my girl, my girl . . . I wish I just . . .” Then a stream of vomit came out, and his eyes closed.

Matt looked at the empty bottle standing on the floor, and Russ collapsed beside it. He gathered the pictures of the body in his hands and put them back in the envelope. Then he put the envelope and the photos in his pocket. He locked the desk again.

In the morning, if Matt was lucky, Russ wouldn’t remember much. A blackout. The open window reminded him, there would be bright light filling the room at dawn. He felt strangely tender toward Russ, remembering the blinding pain after a binge. Carefully, he pulled the blinds, draped a blanket over Russ’s sleeping body. He closed the door and locked it as he left.