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the road and they watched the fire grow in the mirrors. An acrid smell made her nostrils twitch and she stuck her palms under her nose. She adjusted the mirror to see herself better. She located the other source of unpleasant odor. The ends of her hair and eyebrows were curled and singed, making her look like a toddler recently acquainted with scissors. “Fuck.” She ran her palms over her face and they came back with black marks on them. “Burnt my hair.”
    “Throw like a girl, too.”
     
    MONDALE
     
    The alarm didn’t wake him. He’d been awake for more than an hour before it went off. Mondale turned toward the persistent machine and fought the urge to dash it against the wall. He would be mightily hung over in a few hours and hadn’t slept well either. The drinking was not working for him.
    He’d passed out quickly thanks to the whiskey, but it proved to be temporary paralysis more than true sleep and he’d begun to toss after a couple of hours, his mind racing the way alcohol and caffeine alike tended to cause it to.
    He went into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. He thought about Shirley because after six years, he still couldn’t not. When she’d told him about the affair and that she wanted a divorce, he’d done her a favor by popping her in the mouth, thereby absolving any guilty feelings she may have had about leaving him. That fat lip gave her the clarity and resolve to do what she’d been thinking about for years and he didn’t stand in her way. He’d never hit her before, and they were both glad he’d done it.
    Shirley’d never told anybody and he’d given her a quick divorce and custody of the children. He’d sent child support for a while, though she’d never asked for it, but he’d stopped when she’d tied a new knot with the fella she’d apparently been carrying on with, behind his back, for over a year.
     
    He arrived at the office early and put on a pot of coffee for the guests of the county. Then he got to work filing reports, perusing the state-wide bulletins and returning e-mails. The one from the State Attorney’s office included a phone number that he was encouraged to use as soon as possible.
    He got up to fetch the coffee and, making his rounds, stopped outside Earl Sutter’s cell. Pasty skin drawn too tight over his chin, cheekbones and forehead, he looked ill, but he was alert. He met Mondale’s eyes and the sheriff offered him coffee in a paper cup.
    Earl seemed about to tell the policeman to fuck off, but his better instincts rallied and he inclined his head just a bit and accepted the cup.
    “Sorry, it’s gotta be black. We’re out of cream and sugar.”
    Earl Sutter mumbled his thanks and Mondale squatted against the far wall with his own drink. “Earl, you think of anybody I could call for you, yet?”
    Earl shook his head.
    “Well, look. You’re going to be assigned a public defender, and he or she’s going to give you council on your options, which are probably not going to sound very good, any of them, but before you sign anything or make a decision, if you want to get in touch with me, I’ll give it a listen. I’ve seen about every way your situation could break from here and I’ll shoot you straight if I think it’s a good idea or not. And if it happens to be trickier than I thought, then there are a few lawyers around here that owe me a favor or two. They’d be able to walk you through any sticky particulars.”
    Earl looked skeptical.
    “Son, I’ve got no interest in seeing you over-pay for your foolishness. Call me once you’ve talked to your lawyer.”
    Jimmy got up and walked back to his office, re-filling the cup of the drunk in cell four along the way. Sitting back down, he looked at the phone number from the State’s Attorney again. He dialed.
     

 
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FIVE
     
    TERRY
     
    First light was not the gentle pinkish thing Terry remembered from fishing trips as a kid. The metal bed of the truck seemed to ignite