“What kind of analysis?”

“That I can’t tell you yet.”

With that, Cody stood and patted her hand back. “Remember,” he said, “you didn’t hear this from me.”

After a beat, she said, “Thank you, Cody. I owe you.”

“Just no scratching this time,” he said as he turned to walk away.

As he passed under the crime-scene tape he nearly ran into Larry, who stood in the dark with his flashlight off. Cody felt the familiar grip of guilt that came with secret drinking.

“What in the hell are you doing?” Larry said in an urgent whisper. “I heard what you told her, you son of a bitch.”

Cody reached out for Larry but Larry backed away. Cody said, “I’m baiting the trap.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? What was that about special equipment and analysis?”

Cody found himself grinning maniacally, and couldn’t douse it out. He held out his hand to Larry, and said, “I’m pretty sure she bought it.”

Larry stared at him, unmoving. They faced off for over a minute with no words.

Finally, Larry said, “You found a bottle, didn’t you?”

“Yup.”

“And now you’re going to self-destruct and try to take me with you.”

Cody shrugged. “You don’t have to come, Larry.”

“You asshole. You stupid jerk.”

“I’ve been hearing that a lot tonight.”

Larry said, “What am I going to do with you?”

Cody suddenly felt sober. It happened at the weirdest times, he thought. He said, “Help me find the guy who killed Hank. I’ll take it from there.”

Larry moaned.

Cody stepped close to Larry and said, “Larry, I’m a drunk but I’m not a joke. You’ve never seen me unleashed before and believe me, it’s a sight to behold. I’ll go after this guy like nothing you’ve ever experienced. And when I find him I’ll kill his ass a million times over.”

Larry stepped back. “Man, are you okay?”

Cody said, “I’ve never been okay. But now I’ve got a purpose.” He spat the last word.

Larry’s eyes got wide and he shook his head slowly. “You’re out of control,” Larry whispered.

“Maybe.” Cody winked and walked back to his Ford for the bottle. The rest of the night he functioned in a blackout. And he woke up the next morning in his apartment covered with blood. Not his.

5

On the night he shot the coroner, Cody Hoyt was back at Hank Winters’s cabin, hiding in a copse of pine trees in the dark. Waiting.

The last twenty hours had been a dense, almost impenetrable fog. He’d called on his reserves to simply stay upright for most of it. As he sipped from the pint bottle of Evan Williams bourbon he’d brought with him to Vigilante Campground, certain disconnected scenes came up to the surface as if for air and he recalled them before they sunk again to be replaced by another. Whack-a-mole memories! he thought. Just like the bad old days.

He tried to put them in order.

Driving down from the mountains following Larry’s car, Larry pulling over twice to get out and curse at him, saying Cody nearly gave himself away when he was slurring his words to the evidence tech and EMTs as they bagged the body and collected all the evidence they’d tagged. Telling Cody that luckily, the sheriff and undersheriff were back in their vehicles at that point, bitching about Skeeter and not thinking about why one of their lead investigators had to lean on trees or the cabin to keep upright. Noting that Carrie Lowry was long gone, and Skeeter was annoyed about that. Not objecting when Larry pushed him away from the cabin in the dark so no one could hear him talk or see him trying to maintain his balance;

Cutting up the dead cow elk with Larry on their way down the mountain, quartering it with a bone saw Larry had in his gear box, all so Cody could take the meat to the battered women’s shelter even though he could barely stand and the huge chunks of raw, still-warm meat had covered his clothes with blood. Ignoring Larry as he bitched and moaned about it, saying those women had plenty to eat as it was and they’d think Cody was crazy;

Hauling the quarters into the walk-in freezer of the shelter after waking up the manager, winking at Larry when she cried and said how grateful she was, how the women and kids staying there would love the meat, offering to clean him up and make some coffee because there was something wrong with his eyes;

Climbing back into the Ford ten minutes after Larry dropped him off at his building, his promises to his partner that he’d go straight to bed and stay off the bottle ringing in his ears, then coming right back out the door when Larry was gone and starting the engine and driving away;

Pounding on the door of a man who ran a roadside liquor store, waking him up because it was four hours past closing, demanding a case of beer and two pints of bourbon, paying for them with a hundred-dollar bill and a pat on the grip of his.40 Sig Sauer to remind the owner to keep quiet about the intrusion;