Deanna Heavy Runner was standing by the filing cabinet, a coffee cup in her hand.
“You got any idea how to make coffee in this antique spittoon?”
“You put coffee in the basket.”
“I did that,” said Deanna.
“Water in the pot.”
“Duh.” Deanna rolled her eyes. “And I plugged it in.”
“Wiggle the plug. Bang it on the table.”
There was a tower of wood blocks on Duke’s desk that hadn’t been there the day before.
“How about I just shoot it? Throw the body in Deep House. Leave a suicide note.”
There was a soft hissing sound, and the percolator began its smeltering bubble.
“It’s alive.” Deanna held her arms out, staggered around in a circle. “It’s alive.”
“When Duke comes back to work,” said Thumps, “it’s the first thing he’ll check.”
“So, don’t hurt it?”
“Don’t hurt it.” Thumps picked up a pile of messages. “These the overnights?”
“They are.”
“Another stolen car?”
“Number six,” said Deanna. “Five have been recovered.”
“Repaired and detailed?”
“Yeah,” said Deanna. “It’s a little weird. Who steals a car and fixes it? Oil change, tune-up, vacuum, shampoo, wash and wax, and then returns it?”
“Cooley around?”
“Probationary Deputy Cooley Small Elk is interviewing the latest victim. Although ‘victim’ is probably the wrong word.”
“Stealing cars is still a crime.”
“I got a Chevy with a wonky air conditioner and an interior that looks like a landfill. Tempted to just leave the keys on the dash and hope White Quiver grabs it.”
“White Quiver?”
“I forget. You’re Cherokee.”
Thumps waited.
“If you were Blackfeet, you’d know who White Quiver was.” Deanna gestured to the filing cabinet. “And the doughnuts in the sympathy box that Fancy dropped off ? They’re all gone.”
“Any other good news?”
“Oh, and I’m to remind you that we need to hire another deputy,” said Deanna. “ASAP.”
“Duke’ll take care of that when he returns.”
“You sure he’s coming back?”
Thumps went to the filing cabinet, checked the box.
“Not being mean,” said Deanna. “My dad took me to a rodeo over in Great Falls when I was ten. Saw a cowboy get trampled by a bull.”
“You’re going to tell me that Duke looks worse.”
“Duke looks worse.”
“He’ll be fine.”
Deanna slid one of the blocks out from the centre of the tower.
“You want a turn?”
“What is it?”
“Jenga.” Deanna cocked her head. “You never played Jenga? I found it when I was cleaning out a closet.”
“And you brought it here because?”
“Sitting around, waiting for crime to happen can be boring. A game of skill will keep us sharp.”
“Okay.”
“You stack the blocks up into a tower, and then you remove a block, one at a time. Each block you remove, you place on top of the structure.”
“And you do this until . . . ?”
“Until someone pulls out the wrong block, and the whole thing collapses.”
“That’s it?”
“It’s a lot of fun.” Deanna grabbed her hat, headed for the door. “When Probationary Deputy Small Elk gets back, make sure he takes out the garbage.”
THERE WAS LITTLE Thumps remembered of high-school Latin. Tempus fugit. Carpe diem. Veni, vidi, vici. Carthago delenda est. Morior Invictus.
Along with annus horribilis and annus mirabilis.
Which neatly summed up the last year.
On the horribilis side, Moses Blood had gotten sick, had nearly died. Claire had almost lost custody of Ivory. Macy Hockney had succumbed to Alzheimer’s, and the domino effect had thrown Duke into a dark place. Whether he would survive intact was in question.
On the mirabilis side, Cooley had decided to become a cop, had taken the twelve-week Law Enforcement Officer Basic Course through the Montana Law Enforcement Academy and was now on probation with the sheriff’s office. Even better, he and Scoop Macleod had gotten together, were living with Moses, looking after the old man. Archie’s restaurant was a big hit, and Beth Mooney and Gabby Santucci had gotten married.
But maybe all years were like that. Bad. Good. Rain and sunshine. Maybe life and the weather had much in common. Maybe what mattered was where you were standing when the storm broke.
THUMPS PICKED UP the phone, listened as it rang, but he didn’t think Duke was going to answer. Thumps had tried several times in the last few days and each call had gone to voice mail. He knew the sheriff was back in town, pictured the man in an empty house, sitting in a dark room, staring at a wall.
Thumps knew that room all too well. He had sat in that room after Anna and Callie had been murdered, had stared at that same wall.
He could just drop by. Someone on your porch, knocking on the door, was harder to ignore than a phone. That’s what a friend would do.
Or just leave him alone. Let Duke find his own way back. Thumps had tried that. Without much success. When Anna and Callie had been murdered, he had pulled back into himself, shut everyone out. He couldn’t remember much of those first weeks, the first months. And then one day he quit, packed what he needed in his car, and headed east.
He made it as far as a small town in Montana, where his car broke down. The fuel pump had to be ordered, was slow in arriving, and by the time the car was repaired, Thumps realized there was nowhere he could go to outrun the exhaustion and the sorrow.
He hadn’t chosen Chinook. The town had simply been at the bottom of a long fall.
THUMPS WAS STILL falling when Cooley banged in through the door.
“Hey, chief.”
“Temporary.”
“Right. Temporary chief.”Cooley held up a box. “Guess what.”
“Doughnuts.”
Cooley smiled. “The logo on the side gave it away, right?”
Cooley Small Elk was one of the largest men Thumps had ever known. And one of the gentlest.
“Hey, Jenga.” Cooley carefully slid a block out and placed it on top of the tower. “Where’d you get this?”
“There any old-fashioned plain in there?”
Cooley set the box on the filing cabinet and raised the lid.
“Appears that there are four. The rest are chocolate-coated cake.”
“In case Duke shows up.”
“Semper fidelis,” said Cooley. “Always prepared. Boy Scout motto.”
“Semper fidelis is the Marine Corps motto,” said Thumps. “ ‘Be prepared’ is the Boy Scout motto.”
“Mottos sound better in Latin.” Cooley took a doughnut out of the box and placed it on a napkin in front of Thumps. “Do we have a motto?”
“For the sheriff’s department?”
“I mean, there’s the ‘Serve and Protect’ on the side of the cruiser, but that’s kinda lame.”
Thumps tried the doughnut. Delicious. Easy to ignore that you were eating flour and sugar, salt and eggs, boiled up in fat.
“Latin is a dead language.” Cooley helped himself to a chocolate- coated doughnut. “We should do the motto in a living language. Like Blackfoot.”
Thumps leaned back in the chair. “In the meantime, how about bringing me up to speed on our car thief.”
Cooley took out his notebook. “We got seven cars that have been stolen.”
“I thought it was six.”
“It was six last night,” said Cooley. “It’s seven this morning.”
“But some have been returned.”
“Five,” said Cooley. “If the pattern holds, I expect that the rest will show up soon enough.”
“Serviced and cleaned.”
“Got to admit it’s a little weird.” Cooley flipped a page in his notebook. “What do you want me to do?”
“You’ve interviewed the owners?”
“Have.”
“Before and after their cars were returned?”
“Bunch of happy people,” said Cooley.
Thumps could feel the doughnut begin to screw with his blood sugars, making him sleepy.
“People who got their cars back don’t want to file a complaint.” Cooley smiled. “Deanna wants to leave her Chevy out with the keys on the dash, but that might be seen as aiding and abetting.”
Thumps pushed himself out of the chair, took his hat off the hook. “I’ve been meaning to ask, how was the academy?”
“Fine,” said Cooley. “Lot of physical stuff, lectures, stuff to memorize, bunch of tests, filling out forms. Long hours. Hardest thing was staying awake.”
Thumps chuckled. “So, how you like being a cop?”
Cooley took a moment. “I like helping people. Paperwork is boring. And if I’m careful, I won’t have to shoot anyone.”
“Don’t forget the doughnuts.”
“One of the requirements of the job,” said Cooley.
Thumps bumped knuckles with the big man. “How about you hold the office down for the next while?”
“You going to see Duke?” Cooley put four doughnuts in an evidence bag. “Tell him Scoop and me said hi.”
“Probably give him space. Probably just leave the doughnuts on the porch.”
Cooley handed Thumps the bag. “Tough being sad. Only thing worse is having to watch.”
Cooley went to the tower. “You bring this in?”
“Deanna,” said Thumps. “Thinks it will help keep us sharp.”
Cooley pushed on a block. “You want to give it a try?”
“I can take out any block I want?”
“You can,” said Cooley. “But if you take out the wrong block, the whole thing collapses.”
Thumps smiled. “This supposed to be a commentary on life?”
“Don’t think so,” said Cooley. “With Jenga, no matter how many times the tower falls apart, you can always put it back together.”