5

A Dog’s Luck

“More is less” was not a byword with Mulheisen, especially when it came to information. But sometimes, he thought, what you already know can influence what you think about what you don’t yet know. Still, he felt light on information about this case. On the other hand, he’d been out of the loop long enough that he felt quite refreshed. It had been a mistake to poke around in the task force, he thought, although it was important to have heard a little from Wunney. The name M. P. Luck, for instance, that was good to know.

Mul had no intention of rejoining anybody’s force, at least not yet, despite his mother’s suggestion. At this point, his lack of official status served him as well as being on the payroll. He looked in the various telephone books he’d kept when he left the DPD and quickly found Luck. Queensleap was a little town more than two hundred miles from Detroit, up near Kalkaska, between Traverse City and Cadillac. He had some familiarity with that north woods country, from when he’d belatedly investigated the death of Jimmy Hoffa.

From what Mulheisen could find out from atlases and guides now somewhat out of date, the town had a population of five hundred or so. It had apparently been a part of the potato boom early in the twentieth century, after the great stands of white pine had been logged off. Now it was little more than a bedroom community for larger towns like Traverse City, about fifteen miles north.

He drove up there on a cool autumn day, listening to CDs of Coleman Hawkins and Benny Carter while he drove, smoking cigars. The fall foliage was spectacular, especially north of Midland, the last outpost of industrialism in the lower Michigan peninsula. This was rolling country, more pronounced as one drove north. He’d left the freeway for the blue highways, two-lane roads that led through one small town after another. It was farm country, but the corn was harvested, the vegetable stands closed and shuttered for the winter. It was orchard country too, however, and here and there were farm trucks parked at crossroads, offering fresh McIntosh for sale, with occasional bushels of rarer apples like Sweet Sixteen, Jonathan, Winesap, and Northern Spy. Mulheisen stopped to buy a peck of incredibly crisp and juicy hybrids called Jonamacs.

Deer were abundant; he had to keep his eye out for them. There were also orchards that offered something called “deer apples, all you can pick, $5.” Apparently, it was legal to bait deer with apples, an idea that struck Mul as goofy, considering that there were plenty of apples in the older orchards, just lying on the ground or still hanging, for the deer to eat. But he wasn’t a hunter. Perhaps there was an angle he didn’t know about.

An old-timer with “Charlie” embroidered on his greasy overalls pumped gas at a Sinclair station in Queensleap and wiped the windshield. He admired Mul’s old Checker. “I thought they quit making these,” he said. “What year is it? Seventy-two?”

Mulheisen informed Charlie that Checker had gone out of business in 1982, mostly because the plant was so outmoded that it would have cost millions to bring it up to a competitive state. But there were still mechanics who worked on Checkers and kept them running. This one had a sturdy old Chevrolet V-8 engine.

“I worked on a million of ‘em,” Charlie said. “The Chevy engines, anyways.”

Mul asked how the town had gotten its name. Charlie said that he’d heard it was named after some Indian woman, sort of a wise woman, or maybe even the chief—who knew? These were farmer Indians, Potawatomie, maybe. They were pretty well off, not dependent on hunting so much, or the fur trade. They’d naturally been at odds with some other tribes, or bands, who were hunters and in need of food in the winter. These hunting Indians had attacked the village. The queen, or whatever she was, had escaped being murdered by leaping across the little creek that ran through the town, Fox Creek.

“The creek must of been bigger in them days,” Charlie said. “It wouldn’t be an Olympic leap, nowadays. Anyways, the later settlers must of heard the story and liked it. They named it after her instead of old man Luckenbach, which is why it wasn’t called—thank god—Luckenbach.”

“Who is Luckenbach?” Mulheisen asked.

“Oh, he was in the timber business,” Charlie said. “He made a lot of money logging off the country and then he got into the bank racket, and a bunch of other things.”

Mulheisen asked if there were any Luckenbachs still around.

“No,” Charlie said. “They went the way of the Indians. But there’s some Lucks. They’re half-ass Luckenbachs, just shortened the name.”

“I’m looking for a Luck,” Mul said. “M. P. Luck. You know him?”

Charlie’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I know Imp. Known him all my life, so far. You a friend of his?”

“Not really,” Mul said. “I just want to talk to him.”

“He lives out quite a ways. Not so easy to find the place. Does he know you’re comin’?”

Mul admitted that he didn’t. Was that a problem?

“Could be,” Charlie said. “Imp’s gotten to be a solitary cuss. Since his old lady died, a couple years back. You a cop? Or one of these patriot fellows?”

Mulheisen replied rather cautiously that he wasn’t a cop, but while he’d always thought of himself as a patriot, that wasn’t why he wanted to talk to Luck.

That seemed to be the right answer. Charlie observed, “Seems like Imp don’t care for unannounced visitors these days. He’s got some signs and stuff, warning folks not to trespass. You might better call him.”

This wasn’t good news. Mulheisen had hoped that he could just drop in. But he went to the pay phone and called the number in the book. There was no answer.

Charlie said that he was pretty sure Luck was around, although he was often in and out of the area, traveling. He might be hunting, or maybe just out in the yard. He gave complicated instructions on how to find the place. It involved driving several miles west, past various farms that would have signs indicating who lived there or had barns one could recognize.

“Go on out past the old Grange hall,” Charlie explained, “to where the blacktop ends. The cross road is gravel. Hang a left and go about a quarter mile—you’ll see Imp’s mailbox—take that two-track that runs back into the woods. There’s a locked gate down there a ways.” He cautioned Mulheisen about wandering around in the woods out there. Luck didn’t like strangers wandering around. He had a tendency to shoot.

“Has he ever shot anyone?” Mulheisen asked.

“Not that I know of, but he’s threatened to. He’s had some problems with the law. The law don’t go in there without they tell him they’re coming.”

Mulheisen said he’d be careful and took off. He had a cell phone, just in case, but he wasn’t confident about using it. He wasn’t that familiar with it. As he drove he was surprised by the number of new houses that had been built back in these hills. They were amazingly large houses—some of them with absurd pillars, in some kind of faux neo-Greek or antebellum mode—but all with huge lawns well mowed, long drives, fancy cars or SUVs parked in the drives. This was side by side with dilapidated farmhouses, some of them occupied, with numerous dogs in elaborate kennels, pickup trucks and abandoned farm machinery standing about, enormous stacks of firewood. There were also the more prosperous old farms that Charlie had mentioned, with big barns and signs advertising various enterprises like hay or grain, apples or maple syrup.

Mulheisen followed the directions scrupulously and soon came to the graveled county road. A short way along this he spotted the large mailbox with the name M. P. LUCK painted on it. Despite a prominent sign warning that this was a private road and NO TRESPASSING, he turned onto the narrow two-track that led back in the brush toward the woods. It was at least a half mile down this road to a gate that had some kind of electric or electronic lock. That was as far as he could drive. He was surrounded by thick sumac and a mixture of mature hardwoods and dense scrub pine.

Mulheisen got out the phone and, with the aid of the instruction booklet he’d wisely remembered to bring along, he managed to dial the right number. It rang and rang. No answering machine and no one picked up the phone.

Mulheisen got: out of the car and walked along the fence that ran into the woods. The fence posts were steel, sunk in concrete with frequent bracing, the four strands of barbed wire very taut. No good place to get over. He returned to the car and sat there, eating one of his apples, which was so juicy that he had to dig out some paper toweling and wipe his sticky hands. He’d left Detroit that morning but it had been a long drive. It was getting late. He had seen school buses on the road on his way out from town. It had been a sunny day but now that the sun was going down it was cool. He tried the phone again. No answer. He decided to go back to Queensleap, find a motel, and try to contact Luck later.

There was no place to turn around. He began to back up the car, an awkward process, the road twisty and hemmed in by the brush. He looked for a little clearing, or at least a wide spot, but none offered. He was halfway back to the county road when a large, four-wheel-drive pickup truck with a massive steel brush guard came hustling up in his rear and stopped just in time. Mulheisen slammed on his brakes. The two men he could see in the cab of the pickup were bearded and wore dark baseball caps. They just sat in the vehicle and waited.

“Well, now what?” Mulheisen thought. He started to get out, but when he turned back to the wheel he realized that, unheard, another truck had come up from the other direction. It had stopped barely a couple of feet from his bumper. He was trapped, with heavy brush on either side, barely enough room to open a door. But he managed, squeezing out and deciding that the later arrival was more likely to be Luck, still sitting behind the wheel of the pickup in front of him.

It was a peculiar impasse, he thought. It appeared that the custom in these parts was to just sit in one’s vehicle and wait for the stranger to make a move. Like the other vehicle, the new arrival was one of those high-riding, monster pickups with four-wheel drive and a sturdy brush guard. It was a fairly new Dodge Ram, he noticed, a little smaller than a B-17 and covered with mud and dirt.

Mulheisen approached the truck. The window rolled down electrically and the driver peered down. He was a mild-looking fellow, clean-shaven, wearing photo-sensitive glasses that just retained a shadow of tint. He had steel-gray hair under a canvas waterproof field hat.

Mulheisen’s cop mind registered this as: handsome man, and conscious of it . . . strong, straight nose, firm mouth, prominent chin . . . late middle age but could pass for much younger . . . could be a businessman, more likely an executive in a large corporation rather than an entrepreneur.

“Having trouble reading?” the man said. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t frown either.

“Are you M. P. Luck?”

“I am, and you’re on my land. Who might you be?”

“The name is Mulheisen. I’m from Detroit. I came up here to see you.”

“Mulheisen?” The man’s calm gaze turned to a speculative frown. “Are you a cop?” he asked, not suspiciously so much as mildly curious.

“No,” Mulheisen said.

“Funny, you look like a cop,” Luck said. From his tone, he might have been teasing.

“Well, the truth is, I used to be. But I quit.”

“How come?”

“Personal problems,” Mulheisen said. “My mother was . . . injured. She needed my help.”

Luck nodded, thoughtfully. “Was? She’s better now?”

Mulheisen nodded. “She’s much improved.”

“What happened to her?”

Mulheisen glanced around. It seemed inappropriate to be having this kind of conversation out here in the woods, in this odd situation. Perhaps it didn’t seem odd to country people, although he didn’t have the impression that Luck was any kind of bucolic character. “She got blown up,” he said.

“Blown up? Your mother was blown up? What the—? You mean she was in an explosion? Was she hurt bad?”

“Pretty bad,” Mulheisen said. “She’s pretty much recovered now, after six months. But she was dazed and confused . . . it was more like a walking coma. She didn’t say anything for quite a while.”

“But now she’s all right?”

“Pretty much,” Mulheisen said. “She doesn’t remember what happened, but she appears to be okay physically.”

“Well that’s good,” Luck said. “I’m glad to hear it. And you’re Mulheisen? Where did this happen?”

“The explosion? It was in a suburb, outside of Detroit, a little town called Wards Cove.”

“I heard about that. It was a city hall, or something?”

“That’s right,” Mulheisen said, nodding. Luck seemed genuinely interested, looking at him more keenly.

“Mulheisen,” Luck said, appearing to savor the name. “That’s German. I’m from German stock myself.”

“You are? Luck—,” Mulheisen started to say.

Luck interrupted him. “It doesn’t sound German. It was originally Luckenbach—loukenbock, they pronounce it in the old country. The brook at Lucken. That’s where my people are from.”

“Is that so?” Mulheisen said. “I’ve heard of Luckenwalde. In fact, I was there once. It’s near Berlin.”

“That’s right,” Luck said. “I’ve never been to Germany myself. What’s it like?”

“Luckenwalde? Oh, I don’t recall much about it. It’s kind of flat country, I think.” Mulheisen was just guessing. His memory of Luckenwalde was dim. Was it the village with the ancient stone church? He wasn’t sure. Was there a brook? He seemed to recall an old stone bridge, but he wasn’t positive and didn’t mention it to Luck.

Mulheisen glanced about him. Evening was upon them, the darkness seemingly welling up out of the woods. He could no longer see the two men in the other truck, who in any case had not gotten out or made any sign of impatience.

“And you,” Luck said, “you’re Ironmill. Am I right?”

“Hunh? Oh, yeah. Mulheisen. I guess that’s what it means.”

“Two Germans meet in a dark woods,” Luck said. “One German says, ‘Wie gehts.’ What does the other say?”

Mulheisen struggled to recall his nato-Deutsche, from thirty years back. “Uh, I guess he says, ‘Wohin das biergarten?’”

Luck laughed. “I don’t have any beer, and I’m not about to drive into Queen to get some, but let me speak to these boys and we can go on back to the house. You can tell me about your exploded mother. Oh, I’m sorry . . . I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Not at all,” Mulheisen said. He stepped away so that Luck could dismount from the cab. The man turned out to be about Mulheisen’s height, six feet or so. He was a trim fellow, from what Mulheisen could see, wearing a loose, heavy duck barn coat, twill trousers, and heavy-soled shoes, the brim of his canvas hat rakishly tilted. He had an athletic grace, an easy movement. The coat pocket was bulging, Mulheisen noted, and caused the coat to swing heavily. Luck was armed.

“I don’t like to ask this, Mul,” Luck said, when they stood between the two vehicles, “but are you packing?”

Mulheisen shook his head. “Packing? A gun? Nah, I had to turn it in when I left the force.” He held his arms out.

Luck smiled apologetically and waved his hand. “I’ll take your word. All right. I’ll just be a minute.” Luck made his way around Mulheisen’s car to the other truck. He talked quietly to the men. They turned on their headlights and began to back out the way they had come, but shortly they merely backed into the brush, with a loud crackle of breaking branches, then turned and drove on out.

Luck returned and said, “Just a couple of neighbors. I was on my way to get my mail. If you can wait here a minute, I’ll be back in a second.”

He hopped up into the cab and with a roar drove into the brush, breaking limbs and crushing sumac as he steered around Mulheisen’s car.

Mulheisen stood in the gathering darkness. The truck had disappeared. He could hear an owl hooting from the woods. He wondered if he should light up a cigar but decided not to. He went to stand by the car. Presently, Luck’s vehicle came roaring back and pulled around the Checker, back onto the two-track, and stopped. He rolled down his window and called to Mulheisen to follow him.

Once through the gate, which Luck stopped to lock closed behind them, Mulheisen followed the truck another quarter of a mile or so, the woods getting deeper, until suddenly they broke out into a broad clearing. The house was ahead. It was a low, single-story house with a shallow-pitched roof and large stone chimney. It had a broad porch along the front, over which the roof extended.

Luck parked his truck next to another vehicle, an older-model Buick sedan. He motioned Mulheisen to park to one side of the truck.

“Kind of lonely, back in these woods,” Mulheisen ventured as he got out. “Smells good though, those pines.” There were a couple of large white pines soaring up on either side of the house, easily eighty feet tall. There was a long stack of firewood to one side, with more stacked on the porch. Beyond the house a ways were two buildings, one of them an equipment shed, the other a small barn.

“I had more of those pines once,” Luck said. “One of the last stands of virgin white pine in these parts. I don’t know how it got missed by the timber company. I had to cut them down.”

“Why is that?”

“Field of fire, Mul. Before I cut them you could have walked right up to the house without me knowing you were there. If you were careful.”

Mulheisen nodded as if he understood. He drew in a deep, hearty breath. “I wonder if there’s a word for that pine smell?” he said. “Resiny? Maybe, ‘resinance’?”

‘"Resinance’? I like that,” Luck said. “Poetic, although one would inevitably have to explain that it wasn’t ‘resonance,’ like the sound.”

Mulheisen glanced at the AK-47 that Luck had taken from the rack on the rear window of the pickup. He was carrying the gun casually in one hand, a large bundle of mail under his other arm. When they went into the house he set the gun to one side, leaning against the wall. He hung his hat on a peg set in a rail alongside the door and set the mail on the kitchen counter.

It was a pleasant, ordinary-looking house. The kitchen to one side, with standard cupboards, a work counter with stools around it. A large archway led to the living room, furnished with couches and chairs. An enameled green woodstove sat on a brick hearth, vented into what had been an attractive fireplace made of faced fieldstone. It was putting out quite a bit of heat. Luck opened the door of the stove and poked at the logs within, then made some sort of adjustment to the draft device in the chimney pipe. He turned around to face Mulheisen.

“Take your coat?” he asked. He hung Mul’s jacket and his own coat side by side on pegs by the kitchen door, where other coats hung. He looked very rustic in his wool plaid shirt and red suspenders.

“Hungry, Mul? I made a stew before I set out to get the mail. Venison. Shot it myself, a young buck.”

When Mulheisen accepted, Luck promptly said, “Great! How about a little whiskey to celebrate the end of the day, while I get the dinner together? Better than beer, eh?” He rubbed his hands together briskly and poured them each a hefty shot of George Dickel Sour Mash from a bottle that stood on the counter.

Mulheisen happily sipped the whiskey and stood about while his host tossed down his drink. The place looked like a hunting lodge, Mulheisen thought. Very masculine, but very orderly. No sign of a woman’s touch, no flowers, no polka dot curtains, just adjustable blinds. No doilies or place mats.

Luck set out the plain sturdy plates on the bare kitchen table. He hoisted a heavy iron pot off the range to set on a trivet on the table. Then he dished out very large portions of the steaming stew, full of chunks of meat and potatoes, a carrot or a rutabaga here and there, along with what looked like some parsnip and the odd mushroom. He got bread out of the bread box and sawed off large chunks on a bread board. “Baked it myself,” Luck said. “Good bread, if I say so.”

Mulheisen sat and was on the verge of digging in when Luck stopped him. “Just a minute, Mul, if you don’t mind.” He clasped his hands and bowed his head, eyes closed, to say grace. “Dear Lord, bless this simple meal which you have provided. We humbly thank thee for all your gifts and pray that you will guide us in everything we do. In Jesus’ name, amen.” He looked up and said, “All right! Let’s eat. Oops! Forgot the wine.”

He jumped up and darted into a nearby room, returning with a bottle, which was already open, and poured some out for both of them in plain, everyday wineglasses.

The stew was hot and good. The wine was Californian, quite appropriate, a dark and spicy red. “I like that Oregon pinot noir,” Luck said, “but I’d already opened this Napa cab. Hope you don’t mind.”

Mulheisen didn’t mind. It tasted fine. He ate hungrily. They didn’t speak much and were soon finished. “I usually have some pie, but I’m all out,” Luck said apologetically. “A neighbor lady makes great cherry pie. When you’re up in cherry country, that’s the specialty. But I’ve got some ice cream. No?”

Luck pushed back from the table. “I’ll clear those dishes up, just leave them for now. How about a little more of that Dickel with our coffee?”

Mulheisen was agreeable. Luck poured them each a generous amount in the glasses they’d used before. “Go on in and relax,” Luck said, waving a hand toward the living room, “while I get the coffee going. Smoke if you got ‘em,” he said grandly.

“You don’t mind cigars?” Mulheisen inquired.

“Not at all,” Luck said. “I’ll join you in a minute.”

Mulheisen lingered in the kitchen, politely, while Luck ground the coffee and put it to drip in the automatic maker. The two of them stood and sipped the whiskey and Mulheisen offered him a La Donna Detroit. Luck accepted it graciously. “I was going to offer you a Cuban,” he said. “Maybe later, eh? I’ve never seen this brand.”

“An outfit in Detroit makes them,” Mulheisen said. “I know the people. Supposedly they’re made with Cuban tobacco, but I suspect it’s Dominican. Rolled by Cuban émigrés. They’re not bad.” He clipped them and they lit up.

“Not bad,” Luck agreed. “All right.” They both puffed. “Ain’t this the life?” Luck said. “All my own provender, except for the wine and the coffee . . . and your cigars, of course. Now what’s this about your mother? What does it have to do with me, Mul? Hey, let’s go in the living room and get comfortable.”

He turned on a couple of standing reading lamps and settled into a chair near the stove. Mulheisen sat across from him on a couch. Mulheisen glanced out the window and realized that the yard was bathed in light.

“Comes on automatically,” Luck remarked. “Now, you were saying, about your mother.”

Mulheisen didn’t really know how to proceed. “Well, she was going to a meeting of the county commissioners. I don’t know what it was about, exactly, a public hearing, I think, about some kind of development project. She’s a bird-watcher, you see . . .”

“Ah. One of those radical environmentalists,” Luck said jokingly.

“Something like that,” Mulheisen said. “Anyway, she left something in the bus and went back to get it and a bomb went off. It killed the driver, but it just stunned her. Stunned her pretty badly. A few bruises, a few cuts. That healed up.” He went on, describing the situation briefly.

Luck sipped at his whiskey. “You ready for some coffee, Mul?” When Mulheisen nodded he got up and went into the kitchen, returning with a couple of mugs full of coffee. “Black all right?” he asked. “More Dickel?” He poured their whiskey glasses full.

When he was seated again, he said, “I’m glad your mother’s okay. It must have been quite an ordeal for her. Tell me, does she remember much of the, uh, event?”

Mulheisen said that so far she didn’t. She remembered going to the meeting, but as for the rest, how she got out to the bus, and so on, he’d reconstructed it from talking to the investigators.

Luck nodded sympathetically. “Maybe she’ll remember more, later on,” he said. “But where do I come in? Oh, don’t bother. I know all about it, Mul. I don’t mean to act dumb. You’ll have to forgive me. The feds came to see me. They tried to lay it on me. It was all bullshit, of course. Nothing came of it. I haven’t heard a word about it since. But how did you hear about me? I’d have thought they’d given up on that angle.”

Mulheisen sipped the coffee. “Your name came up,” he said. “Along with several others, of course. I just thought . . . well, I don’t know what I thought. None of the other suspects were available to me, but you were in Michigan . . .”

“So you thought you’d drive up here and see what I was like, what was going on? Something like that?” Luck sat back, at ease, and puffed his cigar. He looked at it. “Not bad.” Then he leaned forward and looked at Mulheisen carefully. “But tell me, Mul, you say you quit the force to look after your mother. So am I to understand that this is strictly a personal thing, unofficial?”

Mulheisen lifted his eyebrows, a gesture of apology. “I was a cop, Mr. Luck—”

“Call me Imp, Mul. Everyone always has.”

“Anyway, I quit, true. But naturally, I know some of the people who are investigating.”

Luck sat back then. “Thanks for being open about it, Mul. But let me confess . . . I recognized your name. I’ve seen your name in the papers. I was being a little paranoid, forgive me. I just wondered how far you’d take the undercover routine.”

“I’m not undercover, Imp. I’m just—as you say—up here to see what you were like, see if I couldn’t get a sense of what this is all about, as far as it involves you.”

“Well, it doesn’t involve me, at all,” Luck said, firmly. “I hope you believe that. It’s true. I don’t know anything about what happened down there. But the way it is, something like that happens anywhere I’m near and the cops come calling.” He shrugged. “I don’t like it—who would? But there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it.”

“’Anywhere near,’” Mulheisen said. “How near were you?”

“I was in Michigan. That’s near enough for the federales. As a matter of fact, I was probably, oh, about a hundred and fifty miles away. Fishing. Caught some good walleyes. Well, I guess you’ve seen my file. My dossier. You’d know all that.”

“No, I haven’t. I’m not on the force. My old associates might talk a bit, but they’re not sharing their files with me. All I know is your name. I can’t say I’d ever heard anything substantive about you, before or since.”

There was a brief silence. Luck seemed to digest this information, such as it was. Then he said, “So where are we? That it? Satisfied?”

Mulheisen just looked at him and drew on the cigar. “What’s your take on this, Luck?”

“You mean, who did it? I don’t know. Arabs, maybe. Though why they’d bomb a bunch of environmentalists, I don’t know. Maybe they were after somebody else, some other agenda.”

“Arabs doesn’t make any sense to me, either,” Mulheisen said. “But what about bombing? What do you feel about that?”

“Unofficially? I’m agin it,” Luck said. “Oh, to be frank, I’m not philosophically opposed to violent actions, not categorically. When something of importance is at stake. I don’t know what could have been at stake here. Like I say, it may not have been aimed at your mother and her group at all.”

“What about those fellows at the World Trade Center, or at Oklahoma City?” Mulheisen inquired.

“Two different things,” Luck said. “The 9–11 thing, that was an Arab thing. My understanding of this al-Qaeda group is that they’re radical Muslims, terrorists with a complicated religious and political ax to grind. They don’t like the U.S. We’re too powerful, too secular. They want us out of their world and their governments aren’t doing anything about it. Oklahoma City, now, that’s a little different. I knew some of the boys who were involved in that. If you’d read my dossier, which you say you haven’t, you’d know that I got questioned pretty thoroughly on that one, too. Pretty thoroughly.” He looked grim.

“What’s your take on it?” Mulheisen asked.

“You’ll laugh,” Luck said, “but I do believe it was the U.S. government. Clinton needed an incident, to take the heat off the Waco mess. It was supposed to be a right-wing conspiracy that the FBI would miraculously intercept at the last minute. Oh, there would be a small explosion, maybe. The trouble was, they hired the wrong guys, got it all screwed up. It was a sting, in a sense. They set up a phony front that promoted the whole thing to these guys. But the feds set up something like this and then they forget that the people who bought into the plan are in it for real, they want to do it. To them, it’s not a scheme, you see? The feds slip into the habit of regarding it as an operation, while their dupes don’t think that way.”

Mulheisen nodded. He’d had some similar problems with federal agencies, a conflict of purpose. “But were the bombers aware that it was a federal project?” he wondered aloud.

“Well, we can’t be sure, can we?” Luck said. “The other problem was that the feds didn’t realize that these guys were really capable. They knew how to build a bomb—a couple of tons of nitrates in a rental truck. McVeigh knew how to do that. I’d guess that at least one of the other guys was on to the real nature of the project. Not Terry Nichols, but the so-called Mr. X. He was an undercover agent.”

“Did you know any of these people?”

“I knew Nichols. I’d met him at some meetings of patriotic groups. The man is a patriot. I truly believe he intended to pull the plug at the last minute, only Mr. X and McVeigh jumped the gun. I can see you’re skeptical.”

“It sounds kind of complicated,” Mulheisen offered.

“These things get complicated, inevitably,” Luck said. “McVeigh wasn’t too complicated. The key is Mr. X. You start down a road, an enterprise based on deception, people working at cross purposes. It’s like Watergate: a simple little break-in that gets complicated, because of a janitor who notices some tape over the latch of a door that’s supposed to be locked. In this case, you have a guy like Mr. X, who starts out as part of a double cross, but somewhere down the line maybe he starts thinking like the others, gets caught up in their enthusiasm, or maybe he’s even converted to the cause.”

Luck laughed lightly. “If you’re a cynic, you might believe he got to thinking he’d be the star of this show, be the hero who takes down the bombers. Only, McVeigh is a little too sharp for him and he ends up getting blown to bits.”

“It’s an interesting theory,” Mulheisen said.

Luck, who had gotten more intense as he explained it, suddenly sat back and smiled. “Well, it’s just a theory. Totally speculative. Nobody can know for certain now. Mr. X got blown to pieces. Only his leg was found. Which, of course, the FBI passed off as the leg of one of the innocent victims.”

“What about McVeigh? Was he just a nut, or what?”

“McVeigh wasn’t a nut,” Luck said, sweeping that suggestion away with a contemptuous gesture of his hand. “McVeigh was a soldier. He knew what he was doing. The way he saw it, our government had taken to attacking innocent civilians, at Ruby Ridge, Waco. And not just some rogue elements in the government, but the very highest officials—the attorney general, the president. And what was the result? The Anti-terrorist Act, which directly impacts on everyone’s civil liberties. So, was he crazy? Is it okay to blow up innocent people in the pursuit of a noble cause? I don’t know. Are there innocent people?”

“There were children there,” Mulheisen said.

“Half a million children have died in Iraq because of our pursuit of oil, so Americans can drive SUVs. And that was before the war, just from the embargo. Is that a noble cause? I don’t think McVeigh thought that there would be children at the Murrah building. I’m not saying it would have deterred him if he’d known, just that he didn’t seem to have known it. But, hey! You’re running low. Let me get you another George Dickel.”

When he’d poured them another large jolt of whiskey and had sat down again, Mulheisen said, “You seem to respect these guys, McVeigh and Nichols, or their philosophy. What’s your philosophy?”

“I am . . . ,” Luck started to say, but hesitated, seemingly to gather his thoughts, “. . . let’s say I’m a libertarian anarchist.” He smiled disarmingly. “I’m a realist. I figure folks will act in what they think is their best interests. It doesn’t always seem logical to the outsider, looking on. McVeigh believed in what he was doing. He was bound to do it as well as he could, and he was quite competent. He was a patriot. He believed in America. I’m a patriot, too.”

“Would you have done that?” Mulheisen asked. “I mean, if you’d been invited in?”

“No. I’m more of a realist than McVeigh. I’m sure it would have seemed too . . . too far-fetched. I don’t think the federal government is going to be changed by blowing up the odd building. I don’t think they would get the intended message. I think you have to work in more fundamental, political ways, get people thinking your way. The public wasn’t positively influenced by that act.”

“But you said that you believed that violence was sometimes a legitimate act,” Mulheisen said.

“Well, the Boston Tea Party seemed to have an effect,” Luck said. “It wasn’t all that violent, perhaps, but a lot of valuable property was destroyed. Unions believe in strikes, and they sometimes result in pretty brutal actions.”

Mulheisen was piqued. He almost blurted out that the violence was usually enacted upon the strikers. But he didn’t respond. It wasn’t his purpose to provoke Luck. Instead, he remarked, almost offhandedly, “Quite often people don’t act in their own best interest. Don’t you agree? They do things that they know damn well they shouldn’t do, that will harm them. It’s as if they can’t help themselves.”

Luck stared at him. He seemed stunned. “You mean . . . like compulsive behavior?” Then he seemed relieved. “Well, that’s just psychology,” he said. “I was talking about something else entirely, not about abnormal states.”

“No, I didn’t mean ‘abnormal states,’” Mulheisen said mildly. “I was just thinking of the guy who, let’s say, suddenly does something erratic. He hardly knows why he did it, but it wasn’t to his advantage, maybe it even was obviously to his disadvantage, but he does it anyway. And when you confront him with it, later, he often starts by outrageously denying it, although it was well observed, but then he quickly subsides, saying ‘I don’t know why I did that. I knew it was wrong. I could have stopped, but I went straight on and did it.’ I’ve run into that phenomenon in my work fairly often.”

Luck leaned forward, obviously interested. “For instance?” he demanded.

“Oh, I don’t know. I was just musing,” Mulheisen said. “It’s difficult to think of an example, right offhand. It typically comes up in confessions.”

“Ah, it’s a kind of alibi,” Luck said, sitting back. “A way of exonerating yourself—’I don’t know what came over me. I must have been out of my head.’”

“No, it’s not that,” Mulheisen said. “Okay, here’s a classic example. Let’s say a guy steals, he embezzles from his company. But he gets away with it. Nobody knows, the lost money is accounted for in some other plausible fashion and everyone forgets about it. Five years later, he’s chatting with his boss, and all of a sudden he blurts out, ‘I stole that money.’ I’m called in, I talk to him, and after he’s given me all the details, I ask him: ‘Why did you confess?’ First he says he doesn’t know, but when pressed he’ll often say he couldn’t help himself. It suddenly occurred to him that the only way anyone would ever know is if he told. And from the moment he thought that, he felt compelled to tell. He might give hints, allusions. People don’t pay attention. Finally, he just blurts it out. ‘I did it.’”

Luck said, “That’s just compulsive behavior. If you’re suggesting that about McVeigh, he wasn’t a compulsive person. He knew what he was doing.”

Mulheisen nodded, as if conceding that point, and said, “Well, it’s not uncommon. Anyway, you’ve given me something to think about. I appreciate it. But let me ask you: what kind of thing would motivate you to act in . . . oh, let’s say, a violent way?”

“Whoa! That’s a leading question.” Luck grinned broadly. “Well, as you’re no longer a cop, I suppose it’s innocent enough. Oh, I’d say what would motivate me is about what would motivate most folks—say, the government, or someone, tried to take my land, and I found I had no legal recourse. Then, well, it’s purely hypothetical, but I might be driven to take action.”

Mulheisen nodded.

“How about another drink?” Luck said.

“No, no, I’m fine. I’ve had enough.” Mulheisen stood up. “I’ve got to drive. I’m not so sure I can find my way back to town.”

“Hey, you can stay here,” Luck said. “I’ve been enjoying this. I don’t often get interesting folks out here, not that I’m lonely, or some kind of hermit. But I’ve got a great little guest room fixed up, out in the barn. It’s not like being in a barn, believe me. All the comforts of home, running water, bath. I make a hell of a breakfast.”

“No, that’s nice of you to offer,” Mulheisen said, “but I really have to get going. I’ve taken up enough of your time. I’m sure you have stuff to take care of. I’d like to talk again, though, maybe in a day or two.”

“Oh? Still not satisfied? I’m sure you’ll find I’m pretty much what I said I am.”

“You didn’t exactly say what you were,” Mulheisen noted. “Other than an anarchist libertarian.”

“That’s just philosophically,” Luck said, “in theory, or by disposition. In reality, in practice, that is, I’ve been a carpenter, a pilot, a federal employee. I worked for one of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty programs, teaching adult literacy . . . hell, I’ve done everything. I’m also a student of history, of politics, economics, you name it.”

“A pilot? Were you in the service?”

“Not really, not the regular service. I flew for a private outfit, contracts in Southeast Asia, later in Central America. You won’t find it in the dossier but it was government work.”

“Sounds important,” Mulheisen said.

“It was important for me,” Luck said. “Kind of opened my eyes, gave me some insight into how our government really works. But it’s not something I can discuss. Yeah, I’ve done a lot of things. Worked for the Forest Service at one time. Heck, I’m even an environmentalist.”

Mulheisen smiled. He didn’t show his fangs much. “You are?”

“Well, a naturalist, of sorts, anyway. I don’t go along with most of these radical environmental groups, naturally. But, hey, I’m a bird-watcher, if not a tree hugger, exactly.”

“A bird-watcher!” Mulheisen was surprised.

“Heck, yeah,” Luck said. “I know all these birds around here, practically by their first names. Hey, you know the weirdest thing I ever saw? I was in the woods one day, out back of here, and I heard this buzzing in the ground. Really! It was amazing! Just like a giant beehive or something, a regular dynamo. I was standing on a little hill, sort of like a mound, in a clearing. So I’m looking around, trying to figure out what’s going on, and I notice all these birds flying around, silver martins. It’s a kind of swallow we have. And I’ll be damned if I don’t see one of ‘em dive right into the ground!”

“I’ll be darned,” Mulheisen said, intrigued.

“Yeah! It was crazy. So now I look a little closer and, by gosh, I see a bird fly out of the ground! It turns out there’s millions of ‘em down there, in the ground! You could put your ear next to the ground and it’s absolutely humming, like a giant dynamo, right under the ground. It’s amazing! You think of these birds as being, you know, aerial things, creatures of the air. Right? And here they are, living in the earth. It doesn’t seem right. It was toward the end of the summer, see? They’re getting ready to hibernate!”

“Birds hibernate? I thought they migrated,” Mulheisen said.

“Well, they do, most of ‘em,” Luck said. “But I looked it up and they say that some swallows hibernate. They must stock up that cave, or their burrows, or whatever they got there. I didn’t excavate, or anything, didn’t want to disturb them, see? And then they spend the winter there, feeding on what they’ve stored up, and in the spring they come out. There must have been . . . well, maybe not a million, but probably a thousand or more. Most amazing thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Did you see them come out in the spring?” Mulheisen asked.

“I meant to,” Luck said, “but I’d go out there, once in a while, and then one day they’d all be out, flying around. They evidently don’t use the hive, or whatever you’d call it, during the summer, because I didn’t see them flying in and out. I watched the next fall but I couldn’t find the hive. I figure they must only use the hive one winter, find a new one the next winter. Well, it’d be quite a mess, wouldn’t it? All that bird shit in there. And maybe they don’t want to raise the chicks in there. Or who knows? Maybe a skunk or a weasel got in there, or a coyote. There’s a lot of coyotes around here. They ought to be exterminated, but the government’s against it.”

“Well, that is amazing,” Mulheisen said. “I’ll have to tell my mother about that.”

“You do that,” Luck said. “I’m sure she knows about silver martins hibernating. If she’s a real bird-watcher.”

“Oh, she’s pretty keen on it,” Mulheisen said. “Always has been.”

Luck was standing now. “Well, I wish you’d stay. But you’re right, I’ve got stuff to do. These days, I spend my nights on the Internet. I’ve got my own Web site, www.hillmartin.net. I’ll have a ton of e-mails to answer. I’m one of those guys who has trouble sleeping. The Net has been a comfort, since my wife died.”

“Hillmartin?” Mulheisen said.

Luck smiled shyly and shrugged.

“How long ago did your wife die?”

“It’ll be three years next spring,” Luck said.

“I’m very sorry. You must miss her a lot, especially living out here by yourself. I suppose it gets kind of lonely.”

Luck nodded. “It was a loss,” he said.

“I suppose she was a fairly young woman,” Mulheisen offered.

“She was, she was. But . . . these things happen. You have to buck up and go on. It doesn’t help to mope.”

“Was it an accident, or . . .?” Mulheisen let the question hang.

Luck eyed him quietly, showing no emotion. “An illness,” he said. “Congenital. A little glitch ticking away, waiting to emerge. She didn’t suffer, thank God. Maybe,” he said, brightening, “that’s the best way. You’re healthy and happy and then one day . . . click!" He snapped his fingers. “You’re gone.”

They had moved toward the door and Mulheisen picked up his coat and pulled it on. They went out onto the porch. The night was cool. Luck took a deep breath, then sniffed the air.

“Hint of frost,” he said. “Winter is icumen in. Hey, I’ll have to go out there and unlock that gate. Wait a minute, I’ll be right with you.”

He ran back into the house, leaving the door wide open. Mulheisen wandered over to his car. He could hear the owl hooting again, not distant. He got out another cigar and clipped it, then got into the car and started it. When several minutes passed and Luck didn’t reappear, he lit the cigar and backed out, waiting in the yard.

Finally, Luck came running out, pulling on his coat, his hat on his head. To Mulheisen’s surprise, he came around and got into the passenger seat of the Checker.

“This’ll be more convenient,” he explained. “I can walk back. I enjoy the night air. You got another one of those stogies, Mul?”