after imbibing too much peppermint schnapps at the VFW. And Vera had managed to knock Gordon a good one back, smacking him upside the head with a frozen ring bologna and giving him a concussion.
They had the odd burglary in Tyler County, the occasional drunken fistfight at the Red Rooster bar. There was a class of social lowlifes who dealt pot and pills to one another. But for the most part, law and orderliness was bred into the folks of the Upper Midwest. Now this bastion of upstanding respectability had been breached, and he was the man who had to account for it.
Dane Jantzen, local hero. Captain of the Cougar football team. Star forward of the Cougar basketball team. Only native of Still Creek ever to be seen on national television. Tricia had accused him of wanting to come back here because he would always be a hero in Still Creek; he didn't need ambition or talent here. He could get by the rest of his life on stories of his glory days, when he had been sure-handed and fleet of foot.
Not true. He had come back because this was home, because he needed a place that was comforting and familiar after his career, his identity, had been ripped from him. In L.A. he had been Dane Jantzen, star receiver for the Raiders. Then his knee had gone and in the blink of an eye he was a nobody. The spotlight had gone out fast enough to blind him and he had been left groping around in the dark for something, someone, some clue to who he would be now that the Number 88 jersey had been handed over to another man with great hands and delusions of immortality.
Tricia had been more disappointed over her loss of status as a player's wife than in Dane's loss of mobility due to his blown knee. She had taken solace in the idea that he would go into broadcasting and eventually be a bigger star in the television booth than he had ever been on the field. When he told her he intended to move back to Minnesota, she literally laughed in his face. He'd been her ticket out of Still Creek; she had no intention of going back. She made it very clear she had married the football jersey, not the man inside it.
So he had come home alone, a beaten hero, and slowly built a new career, built a new life, carefully keeping each component separate so that if he lost one, he wouldn't lose them all, carefully keeping himself separate from the process so as not to lose himself in it. He was satisfied with the result.
He was a good sheriff. Whatever people's reasons for voting for him, they had been getting their money's worth to this point. He ran a tight county, kept crime to a minimum. Until tonight. Now he would be put to the test. Now he would have to prove that he hadn't gotten this job on the strength of his ability to run a good crossing pattern and keep his eyes on the ball.
He would do it, he vowed, pushing the doubts aside. He would catch this killer. He would win because winning was the one thing he had always done best. He wouldn't tolerate a loss. Neither would the good folk of Still Creek.
He'd done the right thing calling in the BCA. The lab boys had swarmed over the scene like ants at a picnic, dusting everything in sight for fingerprints, taking video and still pictures, making plaster casts of tire tracks, measuring blood spatters and scraping samples into plastic bags. They had vacuumed Jarvis's Lincoln and would sift through the debris for trace evidence that might make or break the case. Their efficiency was an awesome thing to behold, Dane reflected, taking another long pull on his beer. He only wished he hadn't beheld it in his county.
Tomorrow they would ship the body off to the Hennepin County medical examiner in Minneapolis, where a team of pathologists would determine the cause of death. Not that there was much question about it. Tyler County's coroner, Doc Truman, was a general practitioner who still made house calls in his '57 Buick Roadmaster. He had neither the equipment nor the inclination to handle a detailed autopsy for a murder
They had the odd burglary in Tyler County, the occasional drunken fistfight at the Red Rooster bar. There was a class of social lowlifes who dealt pot and pills to one another. But for the most part, law and orderliness was bred into the folks of the Upper Midwest. Now this bastion of upstanding respectability had been breached, and he was the man who had to account for it.
Dane Jantzen, local hero. Captain of the Cougar football team. Star forward of the Cougar basketball team. Only native of Still Creek ever to be seen on national television. Tricia had accused him of wanting to come back here because he would always be a hero in Still Creek; he didn't need ambition or talent here. He could get by the rest of his life on stories of his glory days, when he had been sure-handed and fleet of foot.
Not true. He had come back because this was home, because he needed a place that was comforting and familiar after his career, his identity, had been ripped from him. In L.A. he had been Dane Jantzen, star receiver for the Raiders. Then his knee had gone and in the blink of an eye he was a nobody. The spotlight had gone out fast enough to blind him and he had been left groping around in the dark for something, someone, some clue to who he would be now that the Number 88 jersey had been handed over to another man with great hands and delusions of immortality.
Tricia had been more disappointed over her loss of status as a player's wife than in Dane's loss of mobility due to his blown knee. She had taken solace in the idea that he would go into broadcasting and eventually be a bigger star in the television booth than he had ever been on the field. When he told her he intended to move back to Minnesota, she literally laughed in his face. He'd been her ticket out of Still Creek; she had no intention of going back. She made it very clear she had married the football jersey, not the man inside it.
So he had come home alone, a beaten hero, and slowly built a new career, built a new life, carefully keeping each component separate so that if he lost one, he wouldn't lose them all, carefully keeping himself separate from the process so as not to lose himself in it. He was satisfied with the result.
He was a good sheriff. Whatever people's reasons for voting for him, they had been getting their money's worth to this point. He ran a tight county, kept crime to a minimum. Until tonight. Now he would be put to the test. Now he would have to prove that he hadn't gotten this job on the strength of his ability to run a good crossing pattern and keep his eyes on the ball.
He would do it, he vowed, pushing the doubts aside. He would catch this killer. He would win because winning was the one thing he had always done best. He wouldn't tolerate a loss. Neither would the good folk of Still Creek.
He'd done the right thing calling in the BCA. The lab boys had swarmed over the scene like ants at a picnic, dusting everything in sight for fingerprints, taking video and still pictures, making plaster casts of tire tracks, measuring blood spatters and scraping samples into plastic bags. They had vacuumed Jarvis's Lincoln and would sift through the debris for trace evidence that might make or break the case. Their efficiency was an awesome thing to behold, Dane reflected, taking another long pull on his beer. He only wished he hadn't beheld it in his county.
Tomorrow they would ship the body off to the Hennepin County medical examiner in Minneapolis, where a team of pathologists would determine the cause of death. Not that there was much question about it. Tyler County's coroner, Doc Truman, was a general practitioner who still made house calls in his '57 Buick Roadmaster. He had neither the equipment nor the inclination to handle a detailed autopsy for a murder
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