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“Who’s Tim?” interjected Jamison.
“Our other brother-in-law,” replied Baker. “He’s married to Amos’s sister Diane.”
“What about Tim?” said Decker.
“He got canned and last I heard drives an Uber and does some accounting for small businesses. And then my position got cut, too. I wanted a fresh start. This place is booming. They needed experienced field hands. Been here over a year now. And you can’t beat the money.”
“And your kids?” said Decker again.
“I Skype with them most every day,” Baker said defensively.
“You can’t Skype a hug or teach your son to swing a bat from thousands of miles away. You were in the Army when the first two were born. You were gone a lot.”
“I was fighting for my country, Amos!”
“I’m just saying kids need their dad.”
Baker said in an annoyed tone, “Yeah, well, it’s the way it is for me. I mean peopledoget divorced. And we did try to work it out. Counseling and all that.”
“Maybe you could have worked harder,” said Decker. “It’s family, Stan. They’re not supposed to be disposable.”
Now Baker’s green eyes flashed angrily. “Look, I know what you’re getting at. We all know what happened to Cassie and her brother, and . . . Molly. It was awful. Never cried that hard in my life as when I was at their funerals. But . . . but that’s you, not me. It’s way different. And I wasn’t looking for this to happen, neither of us was, but it just did. That’s life.”
Decker glanced at Jamison and then looked down. “Yeah, okay. I . . . I guess I should call Renee. I . . . I haven’t been all that good about keeping in touch.”
“Well, if you didn’t know your sister was getting divorced or your other brother-in-law lost his job, I’d say you’re spot-on with that observation,” chimed in a disbelieving Jamison.
“So what are you doing here?” asked Baker.
“Investigating a murder.”
“A murder!?”
“You have murders up here, don’t you?” said Decker sullenly.
“Yeah, it’s usually two drunk knuckleheads going at it, or some gang boys fighting over drug turf. Meth, coke, and heroin are like candy up here. Who got killed?”
“We can’t go into that with you,” said Jamison quickly. “But you’ll probably hear about it on the news.”
“Damn. And the FBI got called in for it? Why can’t the locals handle it?”
Decker said, “We just go where we’re told to go, Stan.”
“Would you like to join us for dinner?” asked Jamison.
Baker blanched and took a step back, glancing at Decker. “What? No. I, um, I already ate my dinner.”
“What are you doing here, then?” asked Decker, who was now clearly curious about Baker’s discomfort. “If you’ve been here over a year, surely you’re not staying here.”
“No, I got my own place. I’m here to meet, uh . . .” he mumbled.
“Meetwho?” said Decker sharply.
“Stan?”
They all turned to see a woman in her early thirties saunter into the room. At leastsaunterwas the verb that came to Decker’s mind as he watched her move. She was quite beautiful, and he could see many of the men in the room, even those there with other women, turn to stare at her.
“Caroline, hey,” said Baker rigidly, glancing nervously at Decker. “This is Caroline Dawson,” he said to Decker.
