credentials.â
âEngineering?â
âZoology,â Adams said, glancing at his watch.
Service said, âYou said no problems book-wise. Were there other kinds of problems?â
âStandard stuffâbooze in his dorm room, fake IDânothing major. The kids here hit the books hard and the competition is tough. Some students play hard to offset the pressure. Is there anything else?â
âNo, sir,â Pyykkonen said. âWe appreciate your help.â
âYou need anything else, you be sure to give a shout, eh?â
âYooper?â Pyykkonen asked.
Adams looked embarrassed as he turned back to face her. âSlips out, ya know? Yah sure, born and raised over to Rock.â
Pyykkonenâs question didnât surprise Service. Yoopers had a tendency to try to identify each other, as if place of birth conferred a certain level of verisimilitude.
When the professor was gone, Pyykkonen and the sheriff exchanged glances. âNot all that broken up,â Pyykkonen said.
âLetâs get on inside,â the chief said.
The foyer was standard western, with a closet and a high ceiling. From the foyer they moved into a long room with a rough-hewn wood floor.
Pyykkonen said to nobody in particular, âShould we take off our shoes?â
âNobody to bitch if we donât,â Chief Macofome said.
The first room was huge, perhaps twenty by forty feet, with a squat black enameled table in the center. The table was surrounded by embroidered black satin pillows. There was a huge digital TV in one corner. No books, no flowers. The ceiling was covered with jade green colored paper. There was a sliding glass door at the end of the room, looking out on a garden that seemed to be a collection of small twisted trees, plots of raked sand, and boulders of various sizes, shapes, and colors. The base of the walls on both sides of the room was lined with low chests of drawers. Some of the chests had pillows on them.
âNot my idea of cozy,â Service said, the barren interior reminding him vaguely of how he had lived in his own place before he had fallen in love with Maridly Nantz and moved in with her. Nantz had brought a distinctly positive change to his life. What effect his son would have remained up for grabs.
There was a bedroom that was barren except for a wide low bed with nightstands and bulbous brown lamps on them. The bed was centered on a mat that looked to Service like varnished paper. Behind the bed there was a large, stark painting of a creature that had a lionâs mane and a longish snout, like a combination of a lion and wolf, but it was not so much a wolf as something else, which Service couldnât place. He studied the painting for a few moments and gave up. As in the main room, there were cumbersome wooden chests along one wall.
âHomey,â Pyykkonen said, wrinkling her nose.
Service was disturbed by the place. Heâd always prided himself on not accumulating stuff when he lived in his cabin on Slippery Creek, but this looked barren and sterile, and he wondered if this was what people had seen when they came to his cabin. It was not a reassuring thought. There was nothing here but bare necessitiesâno personality, no decorations, no joyâjust that peculiar painting.
The kitchen was small and equipped with all the conveniences, but it was so clean that it looked hardly used. Like the rest of the house it was virtually empty save a package of chocolate-covered figs and an untouched six-pack of OB Lager Beer in the fridge. Service looked at the bottles with the blue labels: Bottled by Oriental Brewery Co. Ltd. Seoul, Korea. âNever seen this brand before,â he said.
The figs were in separate compartments like chocolates, and three compartments were empty. The fruits were each wrapped in gold foil.
She said, âTough to be overweight when thereâs no food.â
âMaybe he ate out a lot,â Service said.