Midnight come again by Dana Stabenow Read Free Book Online Page B

hell that night--breakup, you know how it gets around then--so by the time I got over to her table she wasn't there anymore. Weird."

    "What's weird?"

    Bernie shrugged, brow creased. "She always sits at the bar. This time she was at that table." He pointed at the small circular table tucked into the corner farthest from the bar. He frowned, and began scrubbing the bar again. "First time she's ever been in here that she hasn't even bothered to say hello." Take a number, Jim thought. "She meet anybody?"

    "Not that I saw."

    "Who was in that night?"

    "Oh, hell." Bernie abandoned the rag. "Everybody. Old Sam, Demetri Totemoff--he's moving around pretty good, now--the Grosdidier brothers drinking down their weekly case of Michelob. Vi and Joy were having their quilting bee, knocking back the Irish coffees like Brazil was running out of beans the next day. The belly dancers were in the back room, the Presbyterian congregation had the big table. Mac Devlin was hustling for mining leases, like usual, making one Oly last all night.

    Ben and Cindy Bingley."
    Jim raised an eyebrow. "Cindy come unarmed?" Bernie smiled. "They're behaving themselves nowadays. Couple of beers, couple of dances and they're outta here. Whatever Kate said to them last spring must have took."

    "Who else?"
    "Dandy Mike and Dan O'Brian." Bemie grinned. "Both of them chasing Cheryl Jeppsen, I might add."
    Jim stared. "Cheryl Jeppsen? Cheryl Jeppsen of the Kanuyaq River Little Chapel? Cheryl Jeppsen the I-beensavednowhowabout-you? Cheryl Jeppsen, the self appointed moral arbiter of all things godly in the Park? Dan and Dandy are chasing that Cheryl Jeppsen?"

    Bernie chuckled. "Cheryl's fallen off the born-again wagon. She walked out on her husband and got a job changing sheets at Vi's bed and breakfast. In her off time, she's catching up on what she'd been missing, and from all I hear tell, she'd been missing it a lot." "I'll just bet she had," Jim said. A reminiscent smile crossed his face.

    "I remember her before she ate the apple." "So do I," Bernie said, and looked around hastily to see if Enid had come in without him noticing.
    His wife had an unnerving habit of sneaking up behind him when he was in the middle of conversations just like this one, and hearing all the wrong parts out of context, too.

    "So? Who else?"
    "God, Jim, I don't know, everybody. The Moonins, the Bartletts, the Kvasnikofs. George Perry. Billy Mike. Everybody." Great, Jim thought.
    Too many people to talk to tonight, even if he could track them down in the middle of fishing season. Well, it had been a forlorn hope at best.
    He rose. "Thanks, Bernie. I better be going while I've still got light to fly."

    "Why are you looking for her? There isn't something going wrong with the trial, is there? Nobody trying to beg off on a technicality?" Bernie's words were light. His tone wasn't.

    Jim shook his head. "Nope. They're up for murder times six, attempted murder times four, assault and accessory to attempted rape. If they were found guilty on only one charge, they'd still be going down."
    "Christ." The bar rag swiped slowly down the gleaming surface of the bar, and back up again. "I didn't know about the attempted rape." The rag stilled, and Bernie looked up, all levity gone. "What the hell happened out there, Jim?"

    "What have you heard?"
    "Only what Old Sam and Demetri have said, which isn't much, because they're both witnesses and can't talk about it, or that's what they say.
    Myself, I think they'd just rather not, which tells me a whole lot right there." He paused, hopeful, but Jim said nothing, and he sighed and continued. "The word is that George organized one of his back-to-the-basics big-game hunts for a bunch of rich Euro cowboys, and Kate, Demetri, Old Sam and Jack signed on to guide for him. Next thing we know, Old Sam's home with his leg broke and his arm shot up, Demetri's in the hospital with a perforated lung, and Kate's back on her homestead with the ' Visitors' sign up