Strike Dog Read Online Free Page B

formal report to the contrary.”
    â€œNice speech. It won’t be me talking about it,” he said.
    â€œNot you talking, period,” she said.
    â€œNever been much good at it,” he said.
    â€œNantz made you better,” McKower said. “We don’t want any backsliding.”
    â€œIs that the departmental ‘we’?”
    â€œThat’s the personal we, you big hardhead—me, and all your friends.”
    It seemed like half of Michigan Tech’s hockey team trooped in the second morning, led by Walter’s girlfriend, Karylanne Pengelly. Her eyes and nose were red and swollen, but she walked with her head up in a gesture of pride and resolve that caught Service’s attention and choked him up for a moment.
    His son had been in his first year at Michigan Tech and was working out and practicing with the team. Next year he would have been on scholarship. Not now. The Tech players mumbled as they shook his hand, and he understood. Elite young hockey players were like all young jocks. They hated ­dealing with injuries and death. Athletics was about feeling invincible, and when one of their own went down, it caused most of them to pull away so that they didn’t have to face the reality or their own potential vulnerability. He ­couldn’t blame them. He had been there once, had been a player who could have signed a pro contract if he’d wanted, but he had chosen the marines and gone to Vietnam instead of the NHL. It was a decision he’d never regretted, though it had been a hard, often nasty road from then to now.
    He held Karylanne and felt her sob, but he had no words to soothe himself, much less her. All he could do was prepare to act. Why couldn’t they all understand this?
    That morning he had gotten a visit from the past.
    The silver-haired man who walked into his cabin was tall and straight-backed with a weather-beaten face, accompanied by a small, gray-haired woman who was stunningly beautiful. “Grady, Bowie Rhodes,” the man said.
    Service said, “We’re all getting gray.”
    Rhodes smiled. Service had met him when Rhodes was a UPI reporter in Vietnam. He and Tree had watched him trying to fish in a rice paddy that was actually a minefield, and they had helped get him safely out. They had known each other for decades, though they seldom got to see each other. Rhodes had a job that was the envy of fishermen: He wrote a column for an outdoor magazine and traveled around the country doing nothing but fishing.
    Tree came over and embraced Rhodes. “What it is, bro.” They dapped in the elaborate Vietnam style and laughed, like the kids they had once been.
    Service went outside with Rhodes. “I’m not much for giving advice,” the old reporter said, “but I’ve been through this one.”
    â€œIngrid,” Service said. Ingrid Cashdollar had been Bowie’s first wife. She had been a deputy in Luce County and Service had known her. She had been beautiful, funny, and an effective cop, and when she died it had affected a whole county, not just her husband. Since then Bowie had remarried and seemed happy with Janey.
    â€œWhat you have to do is keep your mouth shut and let people do and say whatever they need to get out their feelings. The funny thing is that when a wife dies, everyone is concerned about everything except the husband.”
    â€œWe weren’t married.”
    Rhodes smiled. “Yeah, like paper matters.” He fished in his pocket and held out a key. “When all the company clears away, you need to go off somewhere and be totally alone for a while. That key opens the door to a camp I have in west Chippewa County. You have to come in through Fiborn and drive ten miles up a two-track. There’s a coded lock on the gate. What was your last day in Vietnam?”
    â€œDecember 19,” Service said. “1969.”
    â€œOkay, the lock will be coded 1219, and you have the