The radio in the cruiser bleated something unintelligible, like a message from a space alien.

"You can report all these things, you know," Vigue said. "There's laws. Criminal threatening. Intimidating a witness. Assault. That's why they have laws."

"Yeah, and one of them says you can't kill mild-mannered photographers. I'm going to write something about that one. Nothing personal. Directed at the state people more than you."

"Ballsy bastard, aren't ya," Vigue said.

"Not particularly."

"No," Vigue said. "Not at all. Well, let me tell you a couple of things, chief. I may not be the smartest guy in the world, but I've been doing this job a hell of a long time, and I've learned a few things. The hard way sometimes. Like I know when somebody says 'Nothin' personal,' it's time to bend over, 'cause they're gonna stick it to you good. And you're gonna say I'm not doing my job on this Bertin thing. Well, look at yourself. You write your little stories, but when it's time to come forward and testify, it's 'Oh, he's gonna leave town anyway.' Well, mister, don't tell me I ain't doing my job, because I can't do it alone. Nobody's coming in to tell me about what happened to Bertin. I got nothing. I can't make it up, like you. I got to have something to go on, and right now I've got a guy in a canal. That's it. And the guy was a fruitcake. You know it and I know it, so let's not kid ourselves. He was a few cards short of a deck, and he turned up dead, and if you've got any suggestion as to why, I'd be glad to listen."

"What do I know about it?" I said. "Go out and talk to people. Talk to cab drivers. See if somebody dropped him off. See if the people in those pictures might have wanted him dead. Talk to Mrs. Wiggins, for God's sake. She hated the guy's guts. And she almost killed me without even trying. I don't know. Don't you think somebody ought to be doing something?"

"Yeah, and if I did all those things you're coming up with, I'd be right back where I started. Nowhere. Because Pauline Wiggins don't know nothing about nothing. You try ID'ing the people in those pictures. And I go up and I say, 'Hey, this guy is dead, and he took your picture, even though you might not know it. So did you kill him or what?' Only place that works is in the movies."

"Nothing works if you don't try it at all," I said.

"Jesus," Vigue said.

He opened the cruiser door and the heat rushed out.

"Hey, that's the way I feel," I said. "It really isn't anything personal."

"Hell, it isn't. Make me look bad, make the department look bad. Run our asses all day and night, trying to keep people happy, and then we get this crap in the paper."

"But a guy died," I said. "This is serious."

"He was friggin' nuts," Vigue snapped. "He could have been down there taking pictures of the moon. He could have been barking at the moon. Maybe he was looking at waitresses and he had to go jerk off. Maybe he got sick of jerking off and jumped. What I'm telling you is, sometimes you don't know. You can ask all the questions in the world and you still won't know, because nobody does. Except the deceased, and they ain't talkin'."

Vigue got in the cruiser. The radio was squawking and snapping.

"The reason I was here was to tell you we need that complaint right away if the case isn't gonna get tossed out. But you don't need to know that now, right? No, you just have to write your stories. Must be nice."

Well, not really.

No. It wasn't nice-not when you had to take all this insane stuff, and then you had to come back and write some news stories. Not when you spent half the day being kicked around and screamed at and beaten up, and then you had to come back and fill the paper. Then it was not nice at all. Then it was so far from nice that I didn't want to think about it.

With two days left, I'd written an editorial and Arthur's obituary. The rest of the news pages would be blank unless I filled them. I stood on the sidewalk in the cold, with my raw hands in my pockets, and watched until Vigue's taillights swung left at the end of the street. It must be nice, I thought, and then turned and walked into the office, emotionally drained and physically exhausted, and ready to write about a girl who had been nearly killed by a drunk driver.

A nice change of pace.

Actually, it was pretty mechanical. I called the hospital and got transferred from one person to another until a nursing supervisor grudgingly told me that Lori Gamache was out of intensive care and in stable condition. I called the police station and asked for LeMaire, J., and they said he was off until Wednesday. I asked if they knew what Tansey had been charged with and they said I'd have to talk to LeMaire, J. or Vigue. I said I'd call back.

At six-thirty I started calling Roxanne, at the office and at home. No one answered at either number. I called every half-hour until nine o'clock, and in between, I called LeMaire, J. at home, where he said nothing had changed. I also called the girl's father at the hospital, asking for him by name and then waiting while they dragged him from some grim waiting room, or worse yet, from beside his daughter's hospital bed.

"Yeah," he said.

The voice was lifeless, like it was a flower and the hope had been pressed out of it.

"Mr. Gamache, this is Jack McMorrow. From the Androscoggin Review. I'm sorry about your daughter, and I'm sorry to bother you. I just wanted to see how your daughter was doing. I was at the accident and-"

"You writin' a story?" he said.

"Yes, I am."

"What do you want from me?"

"I want to know how your daughter is," I said.

"You wanna know? I'll tell you. My daughter is hooked up to machines. A whole wall of machines. She got tubes up her nose and in her arms and coming out of her belly. They say she's doin' okay considering her insides were crushed. I got no way of knowing. But I do know one thing. What'd you say your name is?"

"Jack McMorrow."

"Well, Mr. McMorrow, this I know. That son of a bitch better pray for twenty years, because if he gets out, I'm gonna kill him. Put that in your goddamn story. He gets out, he's dead. He should have been dead a long time ago, 'cause he wouldn't stop until he hurt somebody, and now he's hurt my girl, and he isn't worth shit. If I could get my hands on him, I'd kill him right now. 'Cause my little girl never hurt nobody. She comes up to visit me and her mother. I don't dare to bring her mother in here 'cause she'd have a heart attack and die. I told her she could come tomorrow and she might die then. So put that in the story. I got nothin' more to say."

I started to say I was sorry, but he had already hung up. I hung up, too, then went through my notes line by line, filling in the missing words, going over the words that were in shorthand. A relatively routine accident story had just become the lead of the paper. Right across the top of page one, a quote broken out next to the photo. The "tubes in her nose" quote? Or could I get away with the threats? Probably in the body of the story, but not in the head or in a break-out. The guy hadn't been convicted, after all. But I'd move it up high, get Gamache in the lead, and then use the quotes by the third or fourth graf. The human side of a drunk-driving accident. The raw agony of seeing a loved one injured. The senseless waste of drunk driving.

Next time I wanted to go for a drive with a beer, maybe I should think of Mr. Gamache.

But the story was good stuff, and I could feel my heart pounding, that eager bit-champing feeling that reminded me why I was in the business. New York. Boston. Androscoggin, Maine. It didn't matter where you were. A good story, a gut-kicking, hard-driving, knock-their-socks-off story, was the same no matter where you wrote it. The readers would not put this one down. They would not turn the page. They would read every word and still want more. They would feel for the father, feel for the girl. They would hate the kid and call for his head. And the newspaper would be the catalyst for all of it, rubbing their noses in reality, forcing them to confront this tragedy.

That was our job. That was the true power of the press, and it felt good to be a part of it-so good, in fact, that for a moment, I forgot about my own troubles. I almost forgot about Roxanne.

With a twinge of guilt, I called her at the apartment. No answer. I called her at the office and got the answering service. I called her at home again. Still nothing. With the Gamache notes still in front of me, worry began to push aside euphoria. Would she go out alone? Maybe I should drive down ... but how could I? Getting the paper out already was going to take a miracle. And I just couldn't. Physically, emotionally, I just couldn't. I should, but I couldn't.

I grabbed my parka and left, telling the room that I'd be back. It was cold on the ride home with the wind rushing through the broken window. I trudged up the stairs, exhausted and sore and numb. All I wanted was sleep. A hot shower and then into the sleeping bag. I opened the door and closed it behind me as I groped for the light switch, found it, and flicked it on.

And stopped.

I tried to speak but I couldn't. I walked to the living room. Touched her back. Her hair. I pulled the hair from her face.

"Baby," I said. "Baby."

21.

Roxanne was wearing a black slip. Her dress was on the floor. One leg was bent.

"Oh, my God," I said.

"What's the matter?" she said sleepily. "Is everything okay?"

I sagged.

"Yeah, everything's ... Oh, God."

She had fallen asleep. She had been waiting for me and she'd fallen asleep.

"I thought-I don't know, I thought something had happened," I said, still standing over her chair.

"Jack," she said. "Jack, take it easy. It's okay, baby, it's okay."

Roxanne reached out and took my wrist. I flinched.

"What the-," she said.

"I think we've got to talk," I said. "I think we really should."

It took a while. Three beers just for the briefing. Roxanne put on my bathrobe and we sat on the couch. She sat close to me, nestled against my side with her legs drawn up underneath her. As I talked, telling her about the coyote, Cormier's buddy, Cormier and his girls, she stroked my hand. When I finished, she took my hand in hers and squeezed.

"Jack, this isn't right," she said softly. "It really isn't. I know police in Portland and South Portland. From work, I mean. And I never hear of anything like this."

"They don't want to worry you," I said.

"I'm serious," Roxanne said, leaning toward me. "This is crazy. I'm afraid of what's going to happen. My God, Jack. Think about it."

"I'm trying not to."

"Well, you have to. People beating you up. Taking pictures of me. My God!"

"I think you're taking his name in vain," I said.

"Jack, come on. It's not something to joke about. Those guys could have killed you today. Or left you to freeze to death or lose your fingers and toes, even. Is a story worth that?"

"Could be my Pulitzer," I said.

I grinned but Roxanne didn't. She didn't answer, either, and I watched her for a minute, saw her eyelashes go up and down as she blinked. She was a very good person for such a good-looking person.

"What are you thinking?" I said, finally.

She blinked a couple of times before answering.

"That you should come and live with me," Roxanne said. "Write to the owner guy in Florida and tell him you're done. Give him two weeks' notice and come to live with me. You could work in Portland. They have a newspaper. You could get a job there. The Press Herald. Get a job as an editor or something. God, Jack, wouldn't it be nice? We could make love every night and go places. Out to dinner. Skiing."

"I fall down a lot," I said.

"Jack, come on. We would never have to see this awful place again. Oh, this damned place."

She blinked but it was to blink back tears.

"Jack, I hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it, I hate it."

I put my arm around her and she seemed very small.

"I know," I said.

"I know. And you don't have to be here. I'm the one who got you into this."

"Then get me out," Roxanne said. "And get yourself out, too."

I sighed.

"It isn't that easy, Rox," I said. "The paper has to come out and-"

"The paper! Damn the paper; Jack, you aren't the only one who can put out a paper. It isn't worth it. Getting beat up and spied on and who knows what else, just to put out this paper in this hick town? Oh, God, I'm sick of even talking about it. I'm going to bed."

And she did. I sat on the couch with a warm beer and listened to her turn the pages of a magazine for a few minutes. After a few more minutes, the light clicked off. I sat and wondered if she wasn't right.

A paper in a small town. A paper read by high-school sports nuts and little old ladies. Was it worth risking your life for? But then, what kind of a threat could it be? Could anything I wrote be enough to get somebody to kidnap me and beat me up? The mill story? I just couldn't believe that would happen, not millworkers. Not even a bunch of drunk rednecks who didn't like my looks. This wasn't bar-fight stuff. This was the real thing. What could the Androscoggin Review do to make somebody take these kinds of chances?

I wouldn't tie somebody up in a cabin over a story about a paper mill. I would if I'd killed somebody and didn't want any more said about it. If the guy at that paper wouldn't let it die, I might do a lot of things to make him change his mind. But had I pushed enough to get somebody's back against the wall? Only if whatever, whoever it was, was close to being exposed. If that was the case, I could be in danger of more than being hauled off to a camp for the evening. And so could Roxanne.

That night I slept with my arm around Roxanne's waist. When I woke up, it was still dark and I could feel her breasts moving up and down as she breathed. She was warm and soft, and my knees fit into the backs of her knees. Her thighs rested against mine.

I lay there and held her for a few minutes and then hoisted myself out of bed. From the closet, I grabbed a warm shirt, holding the hanger to keep it from jangling. I grabbed my pants, boots, and socks off the floor and carried them to the kitchen. The clock on the stove said three thirty-five. I wrote Roxanne a note by the stove light and hoped she wouldn't wake up before I got back.

The heat began to seep into the car as I drove out Route 2 and I took my gloves off and held my hands over the warmth of the defroster vent. Three miles out, I veered to the right and drove slowly past Arthur's studio. It was dark. I pulled into the service station lot between two snow-covered cars and shut off the motor.

Silence.

I could see the front of the studio building and the driveway behind the pool supply store. The street was dark except for the streetlights. No cars. No lights in the houses. I thought of all those people snug in their beds as I burrowed my hands deeper into my pockets, then stuck them under my arms. The chill was setting in.

I was here, sitting in the brutal cold in the middle of the night, because the studio was the only place where anything actually had happened. The pictures of Roxanne had been taken after Arthur had died; the prints had been made here. The studio was being used. And if I didn't budge, didn't move to Portland to sit in hip little bars and write about rich people, then the photographer had to do something more. Maybe more pictures. Sent to more people.

After fifteen minutes, I turned the radio on. The one station I could find was doing a late-night country-western music call-in show. The callers all had southern accents. I wondered what they were doing up so early. Nothing moved until quarter to five when a pickup truck drove by. The driver looked straight ahead as he went past. I felt the lump on my head and picked at the scabs on my wrists.

At five-twelve, a light went on in a small house a couple of hundred yards up the road. After a couple of minutes, it went out. I flexed my frozen toes inside my boots and began to wonder if I was cracking up.

If the photographer had a stack of prints already made, I was freezing for nothing. But that wasn't the way I pictured it. What I pictured was him, or her, slipping in and out as fast as possible. Two or three prints and get out. One for Roxanne and one for the newspaperman. Knock them off and clear out. Take as few chances as possible.

It seemed like this would be the best time to do it. It was early enough that most people would be asleep, but not so early that there weren't a few other cars moving. Driving around at three a.m. left the chance that you'd be pulled over by a cop with nothing to do. By five, the day had begun.

As I rubbed my wrists, I thought of the cabin. What if they had a few beers and decided to pay me a visit; what if Cormier hadn't talked to them? What if he had and told them to try again? If they found Roxanne in bed, alone in the house... .

I turned the key in the ignition and the oil-pressure light glowed red. I hesitated. Hesitated some more. Then turned the key off.

A car passed, headed toward town. A woman driving. She was smoking a cigarette. The studio looked like it had been vacant for ten years. My toes were going numb as my brain sucked the blood back from my extremities. That was the way they explained hypothermia.

The body protects its core by sacrificing the extremities. Toes and fingers first. Next, the feet and hands. For Arthur, the extremities had probably gone all at once.

Numb. Frozen solid. Blue and bloodless.

I untied my boots and moved my toes some more. Every few minutes. I took the plastic windshield scraper and shaved the frozen film of condensation from the inside of the windshield. The shavings fell in a white pile on the inside of the dashboard. They looked like fake snow.