“The iceman cometh …” I muttered under my breath, meaning the messenger of death, as Deputy Dolly Wakowski, in her rickety squad car, turned in the sloping driveway behind me.

I grabbed for Sorrow’s collar and missed. If I’d been a little faster, I told myself, I could have gotten back to my house. I could have escaped down into the crawl space, dragged Sorrow in behind me, slammed the trap door behind us, and hid long enough to avoid her.

Sadly, even hiding wouldn’t shake her when she was on my trail. Being rude wouldn’t get her off my back. Saying I was busy and had work to do, or “just don’t have the time”—all polite excuses from my Ann Arbor days—didn’t penetrate Dolly’s head. Like a bloodhound, Dolly stomped straight on whether it was with phone calls, pounding at my door, or pulling in behind me and tooting her horn when I tried to ignore her. I was Dolly’s special project, like it or not. She was single-handedly going to see to it that I didn’t starve to death in her territory. And she was determined to have a friendly journalist covering her police stories so when it came to filling Chief Lucky Barnard’s post as head of Leetsville’s police force, she’d be the first in line.

Sorrow, indiscriminate greeter that he was, went bounding back up the drive as her car door opened with the squeal of metal on metal. Dolly stuck her heavy black shoes out toward the gravel then pushed her square body, in summer blues, off the seat to stand, frowning, next to the car, under what should have been a shady maple but was instead a mass of bare sticks. I thought of the falling tent worm poop she was going to get on her hat and smiled, then waved.

I was stuck. Dolly didn’t drive all the way out from Leetsville, wasting taxpayer’s gas, unless she had an urgent and significant reason for doing so. Lately, the urgent and significant reasons always had to do with murder.

She put one pudgy hand squarely on top of Sorrow’s head, keeping him away from her. “Told you, gotta get him trained” were her first, squeaky-voiced words. When he sat quietly, tail beating small puffs from the gravel, she folded her arms across her bountiful chest, and muttered, “No such thing as bad dogs, only bad owners.”

“Thanks,” I said ungraciously, giving her my best tight-lipped smile. “And ‘hello’ to you too.”

“I got something for you. Tried to call,” she groused, then bent to pull her cop pant legs down over her big shoes. Dark sweat circles stained her blue short-sleeved shirt. “Guess you bought one of those machines that warn you who’s calling. Dumb. Especially if it’s me, with news you need to hear.”

“Check your paranoia, Dolly. Sorrow and I were out walking.” I sighed, then watched as tent worm pellets fell on her blue hat, bounced a couple of times, and stayed there.

“Thought maybe you was ignoring the phone again. You know, like you do sometimes.”

“When I’m writing,” I said. “Can’t write and talk on the phone.”

“Yeah, well, hope it all comes to something—your books. Not that I want you mentioning me in any of them.”

“I’ll change your name.”

“To what? Do I get to choose?”

“How about ‘Millicent.’ I think it means ‘mouthy’ in Latin.”

“What the hell kind of name is that?” Her pale blue, red-rimmed eyes went wide. The left eye wandered off a little, as if it had a mind of its own.

Another poop skittered across her hat. I knew I should tell her to move, or I could just count the drops gently raining down on her.

I shrugged. Maybe I even rolled my eyes. “What have you got for me? I’ll call Bill, see if it’s anything he …”

“Yeah, sure. Like he don’t want a murder.”

I shook my head and worked my feet from under Sorrow’s large, warm butt, where he’d decided to plant his body. “If your person is really dead and … well … was murdered, sure I’ll go with you.”

“What do you mean ‘if’? Unless she shot herself in the back of the head, dragged her body through high weeds with her hands and feet tied, broke down the locked door to that abandoned house over on Old Farm Road, and laid herself out inside—I’d say it’s a safe bet she’s dead, and was murdered.”

I’d already had enough of Deputy Dolly Wakowski, who, when she finally glanced up at me, looked worse than I’d ever seen her: eyes sunken with dark half moons beneath them. She blinked hard against the bright light.

“Guys from Grayling still there, doing their thing. I’m the officer in charge but the chief’s covering for me. I said I’d be right back. I’ll get you in—but no pictures of the body, ya hear?”

I nodded. No pictures of the body.

“Drive your own car,” she ordered. “I don’t wanna be stuck having to bring you back.”

I looked longingly toward my tiny studio halfway down the hill. Any ideas of writing shifted to a far back burner.

“And Emily …” Dolly sniffed, glanced up at me, and quickly away. “Maybe later … well … I got something I need to talk about to somebody.”

“Somebody like me?”

“Guess you’re my friend.” She thought awhile. “Yeah, like you. But later. Or maybe I’ll change my mind …”

“Whatever, Dolly. Give me a minute.” I reached out toward her hat, making her duck. Dolly didn’t take her hat off much since she’d shaved her head to join a cult and catch a killer. The hair was still short, like a little boy’s, with thin, pink scalp showing through.

“Tent worm shit,” I explained, brushing off the top of her hat.

“You could’ve said.” She frowned hard, then shuddered, pulling her hat off and striking it against her knee. “Just let me stand here like that …”

“Be right back,” I called over my shoulder as I turned and hurried off toward my house.

I set Sorrow up on the screened-in porch with dog bones and water, which wouldn’t keep him busy long—he’d be out the newly repaired screen and running around the lake before I got to the top of the drive. But hope does, after all, spring eternal. Some day he’d be nicely trained. He’d be dependable. He’d be a really good dog. Just not yet.

I stopped to call Bill Corcoran at the paper. I told him I was heading over to where a dead body had been found—so he didn’t send another reporter.

“Try to get something to me as soon as you can. Tomorrow’s paper, okay?” he said, probably leaning back in his crooked desk chair and running his hand through his thick, uncombed hair the way he did, and then pushing his dark, heavy glasses up with that middle finger he sometimes left leaning against his large nose—as if to emphasize the comment.

I grabbed my camera, notebook, keys, and purse. I was out of there, backing up the drive to where Dolly waited. We took off in a shower of gravel. Me, in my aging yellow Jeep, following behind Dolly’s patrol car with a big dent in the trunk and a wobbling back tire.