The Poet by Michael Connelly Page B

reports he had to sign, or in the newspaper. Its pronunciation-Mac-a-voy-didn’t jibe with its spelling.
    “My brother … he was the one you found a couple weeks ago.”
    I pointed toward the lot.
    “Oh,” he said, understanding. “In the car. The officer.”
    “Uh, I’ve been with the police all day, looking at the reports and stuff. I just wanted to come out and take a look. It’s hard, you know … to accept it.”
    He nodded and tried to hide a quick glance at his watch.
    “I just have a few quick questions. You were inside there when you heard it? The shot?”
    I spoke quickly, not giving him the chance to stop me.
    “Yes,” he said. He looked like he was trying to decide something and then he did. He continued. “I was locking up just like tonight, ‘bout to go home. I heard it. It was one of those things, I kinda knew what it was. I don’t know why. Really what I thought was that it might be poachers after the deer. I came out pretty quick and the first place I looked was the lot. I saw his car. Could see him in there. All the windows were fogged up pretty good but I could see him. He was behind the wheel. Something about the way he was leaning back, I knew what happened … Sorry it was your brother.”
    I nodded and studied the ranger’s shack. Just a small office and storage room. I realized that five seconds was probably a long estimate from the time Pena heard the shot until he saw the lot.
    “There was no pain,” Pena said.
    “What?”
    “If it’s something you want to know. There was no physical pain, I don’t think. I ran to the car. He was dead. It was instant.”
    “The police reports said you couldn’t get to him. The doors were locked.”
    “Yeah, I tried the door. But I could tell he was gone. I came back up here to make the calls.”
    “How long do you think he was parked there before he did it?”
    “I don’t know. Like I told the police, I don’t have a view of the lot. I’d been in the shed-I got a heater in there-oh, I’d say at least a half hour before I heard the shot. He could have been parked there the whole time. Thinking about it, I guess.”
    I nodded.
    “You didn’t see him out on the lake, did you? You know, before the shot.”
    “On the lake? No. Nobody was on the lake.”
    I stood there trying to think of something else.
    “Did they come up with any reason why?” Pena asked. “Like I said, I know he was an officer.”
    I shook my head no. I didn’t want to get into it with this stranger. I thanked him and started back to the lot while he locked the shack door. The Tempo was the only car in the plowed lot. I thought of something and turned back.
    “How often do they plow?”
    Pena stepped away from the door.
    “After every snow.”
    I nodded and thought of something else.
    “Where do you park?”
    “We’ve got an equipment yard a half mile down the road. I park there and walk up the trail in the morning, down at quitting time.”
    “You want a ride?”
    “Nah. Thanks, though. The trail will get me there quicker.”
    The whole way back to Boulder I thought of the last time I had been to Bear Lake. It was also winter then. But the lake wasn’t frozen, not all the way. And when I left that time, I felt just as cold and alone. And guilty.
    Riley looked as if she had aged ten years since I had seen her at the funeral. Even so, I was immediately struck when she opened the door by what I hadn’t realized before. Theresa Lofton looked like a nineteen-year-old Riley McEvoy. I wondered if Scalari or anybody else had asked the shrinks about that.
    She asked me in. She knew she looked bad. After she opened the door she casually raised her hand to the side of her face to hide it. She tried a feeble smile. We went into the kitchen and she asked if I wanted her to make coffee but I said I wasn’t staying long. I sat down at the kitchen table. It seemed that whenever I visited we would gather around the kitchen table. Even with Sean gone that hadn’t