Page 66 of A Winter of Discontent for Henry Milch

“I didn’t break into the house. The doors were open.”

“You were trespassing, then.”

I was probably trespassing but… “That’s Denny’s car. The Thunderbird. He works at his dad’s barbershop.”

“Denny Hazzard.”

Crap, I should have remembered that. He was aptly named.

“Sure. Denny Hazzard is on the second floor. Don’t you want to go in and see?”

“Why were you looking for him?”

“A friend asked me to.”

“Why did you look for him here?”

“I heard that people do meth in these summer houses sometimes.”

“You heard from who?”

“The grapevine.”

“You’re sure he died of a drug overdose?”

“No. I’m not the coroner.”

Another of the sheriff’s SUVs pulled up and a deputy got out. Twiss nodded toward the house.

“Is Detective Lehmann on his way?” I asked.

“You said drug overdose. Do you think Denny was murdered?”

“There’s no blood, so he wasn’t stabbed or shot. It didn’t look like he was strangled or anything. Plus, he was a drug addict.”

“So, we don’t need Lehmann, do we?”

“Can I go then?”

“I’m still thinking about charging you with trespass.”

“Then I should call my lawyer.”

He chewed on that for a moment, then said, “You can go. I know where you live.”

They were laughingand playing pinocle when I got home. Emerald was sitting upright in a playpen from the sixties that had been set up on the floor. I’d specifically said no to playpens after a conversation with a woman in the formula aisle at the Meijer over in Traverse.

So much information in those first few seconds, I was having trouble sorting it out.

“There you are,” Barbara said. “We brought a pizza from The Wagon Wheel; we saved you a few pieces. I’ll heat it up.”

She got up while I hung up my puffer jacket and kicked my boots off.

“Play my hand for me,” Barbara said.

“I don’t know how to play.”

“Neither does she,” Nana Cole said, and then cackled. That’s when I realized there were wine glasses on the table. She was drunk.