Hunter’s Dance by Kathleen Hills Page B

happened?” His gaze darted from his wife to the sheriff’s uniform. “Is it Dan?” He knelt before his wife and gripped her arms. “He was old. He had a great life. You know how he’s been since your mother died.” Mrs. Morlen shrank as if she’d been struck and again struggled for air. He shook her slightly. “Bonnie, please! Stop this now! He wouldn’t want you to carry on like this.”
    She released her breath with a great outrush and a violent twist out of his grasp. “It’s not Daddy, you greedy bastard. It’s my baby!”
    In the vacuum of silence that followed, she rose to her feet and turned to the sheriff. “Please take me to my son now.”

VIII
    Her father…lived in the splendor of her glowing existence.
    The pine tree–climbing-wagon, with Pete Koski at the wheel, rolled into the yard and made an about-face that sent the Barred Rock hens scuttling for cover. McIntire dumped the dregs of his coffee into the sink and grabbed his coat and hat from the chair by the kitchen window. The sheriff stood by the open car door kneading the small of his back—if anything about Koski could be called small. As McIntire watched, he bent at the waist, first back, then to each side, and finally forward to place his hands on his knees. This posture he held for so long that McIntire wondered if he might be stuck there. At last he straightened up, completed the ritual with a few fascinating hip rotations, and stuffed himself back into the car. All this did not bode well for the constable. If investigating this death was going to involve frequent trips to the Shawanok Club, McIntire had a pretty good idea who might be doing it. He could hear it now:
You wanna take a run out to the Club, Mac? You’re a hell of a lot closer than we are
. When Koski’s back started to protest, and there were mundane errands to run, McIntire seemed to live a hell of a lot closer to the whole county. But, come to think of it, he’d much prefer making this trip on his own to going as Sheriff Koski’s silent, and considerably narrower, shadow.
    He closed the screen door behind him, careful not to let it bang shut. Leonie was still sleeping, not an unusual circumstance. His wife considered anyone who rose before ten hopelessly provincial. “I know,” she’d say, “if I wanted to avoid provincial, I’ve married the wrong man. But I do what I can to maintain some standard of gentility.”
    Nor had his aunt yet emerged from the spare bedroom—his own childhood sanctuary—where Leonie had so eagerly tucked her in with that ominous, “Now, dear, we expect you to stay as long as you like.”
    When he’d returned home the previous evening to find Siobhan stretched out on the wine-colored plush sofa with the venerable spaniel, Kelpie, warming her feet, and smoke rings dancing over her head, recognition had been immediate. She might have walked out only the day before. Except for the web of fine wrinkles that lent her forehead the patina of crazed pottery, the impish face was much as it had been when he’d last seen her, when she was nine or ten years old. She was still slim and straight and her curls were as red, if not suspiciously redder, than ever.
    He’d never known Siobhan well or thought much about her. She’d always been a bothersome, and vaguely sneaky, kid, one he did his utmost to avoid. Apparently this was not the case with Pete Koski. The sheriff eyed the dark red Lincoln convertible parked next to the barn. “Your rich uncle die?”
    â€œMight very well be. The car belongs to my aunt.” McIntire yanked in his right foot and pulled the car door shut as Koski stepped on the gas. “She’s as alive as ever though, and from the looks of all the baggage she hauled into my house last night, she plans to stay that way for quite some time.”
    â€œYour aunt, eh? Pretty flashy car for an old