34

MIKE SAT AT THE kitchen table helping Sharon prepare dinner. It was the first night they had managed to leave work at a reasonable hour since before the Crosker murder, and they decided to celebrate by broiling a couple of steaks. Or, more accurately, Sharon broiled the steaks—as well as peeled the potatoes and steamed the vegetables—while Mike contributed to the effort by enjoying her figure in her jeans and sweatshirt and admiring her effortless grace in the kitchen.

“How’d you get to be such a great chef?” he asked, amazed at her seemingly innate sense of timing, cooking everything perfectly even though she used no timer that Mike could see.

She laughed. The sound reminded Mike of birds singing on a sunny spring morning. “How do you know I’m a good cook, when you haven’t tasted anything yet? Maybe it’s all going to taste like pig slop.”

“Oh, I’ve tasted plenty,” he reminded her. “It’s just that none of it has been food yet.”

Sharon blushed, then jumped in surprise as Mike’s cell phone chirped. “Dammit. I should have turned that thing off,” he said, despite knowing he would never consider doing that.

He answered the call and was surprised to hear Professor Ken Dye’s voice on the other end of the receiver, scratchy and weak. He sounded like he had fled to the other side of the world. “Hello, Chief McMahon?” Dye said. “I’m in the middle of Paskagankee, right in front of the police station and town hall, and I have no idea where to go now. Could you give me some directions?”

“Of course, professor,” Mike answered, “but I thought you were going to get a good night’s sleep and drive up tomorrow. The weather is forecasted to break finally and warm up considerably.”

“Yes, I know,” Dye replied. “But the more I thought about it, the more I felt we just could not afford to waste another eighteen hours before trying to get control of this situation, so here I am.”

Mike said, “Stay right where you are. Park your car in the police station lot and I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

He hung up and apologized to Sharon. “I’ve got to pick up Professor Dye. He decided to drive up tonight. The guy is really concerned, and his concern is making me very worried. Is there any chance we can make it a meal for three instead of two?”

“Of course,” she said. “I’ll throw in a couple more potatoes and some more veggies, and you’ll have to make do with a normal-sized portion of steak instead of the Fred Flintstone caveman platter you bought. We’ll share our steak with the professor and everyone will still have plenty to eat.”

Mike grabbed her around the waist and drew her into his arms, kissing her on the lips, hard. “No drinking while I’m gone either,” he said.

Sharon smiled easily. “It’s funny, but since we’ve gotten together, I haven’t thought once about getting drunk. I guess I’m busy with more important things,” she said, training her blue eyes on Mike’s and squeezing his butt. It was his turn to jump; that was the last thing he had expected out of her.

He walked out the front door and into the icy mess as Sharon pulled more potatoes out of the cloth sack in her pantry, whistling a tune he did not recognize.