Officer Gerulis was chomping on a bologna sandwich when we arrived at the station. I noticed for the first time the outdated posters on the walls, faded and peeling from years of exposure to the cigarette and cigar smoke of railroad magnates. Each one advertised the advantages brought in by rail courtesy of the Great Northern Railroad. One grouping of three posters displayed Amtrak’s Empire Builder passenger line racing through the mountains from Chicago to Seattle and Portland. 

The posters had me guessing if this homage to the building’s origins came from nostalgia, or if it was just a lazy acquiescence to the past.

Ollie stood to greet us, a strand of wilted lettuce dangling from his lip. Crumbs littered his desktop, and the tangy-sweet odor of mustard and meat gave the scene a blue-collar vibe. He apologized for our poor timing and informed us that Sheriff de Lude was out to lunch, but usually returned within an hour.

On the drive to the motel, Tony shared his read on Officer Ollie Gerulis. “Seems squared away. Solid. Friendly.” He grinned. “Despite the eating problem.”

We settled into my room to discuss Tony’s desired outcome from a talk with Sheriff de Lude. Musty odors in the gloomy space draped me with melancholy after our refreshing drive through the crisp mountain air. The mildewy scent reminded me of old cellars and neglected children. 

“It can’t hurt to ask for leniency given the story I’ve heard. You haven’t had enough time up here to piss the man off that much. Have you?” Lines of devious pleasure wrinkled around his eyes.

“Appreciate the vote of confidence, Pard.”

The ice maker right outside my window started to rattle and bang its agreement with Tony’s negative expectation.

“How do you sleep with that racket?” Tony asked.

I peered past the heavy blackout curtains, drawn back but still blocking most of the light. “Recent development,” I said.

We stepped outside to examine the obnoxious appliance. It stopped rattling.

Back inside, seated on the edge of the rumpled bed, I said, “Renée could toss the whole thing into the Diner dumpster with one sling of that bad attitude muscle she loves to flex.”

He rolled the Pancho Villa mustache with his lips.

The ice maker began to spasm again.

“That’d be hard to live with,” Tony said.

With a slap of my palm on the bed, I said, “I’m going to get the kid at the desk.”

A “closed” sign hung in the center of the office door’s glass window.

Inside, the wiry youngster from earlier was bent over his desk, scribbling on a newspaper. He ignored my knock.

“I can see you in there, kid.”

The youth lifted his head and gave me a nod. Then he went back to his crossword.

A glance at my watch told me it was nearly noon. I slapped the rickety screen door. Its flimsy rattle denied entry with more force than an avalanche. It opened with a pull, and I thumped on the solid door. 

“Hey, kid?” What was his name? Didn’t Officer Gerulis mention it when we talked that first time? “There’s a problem I need help with.”

He lifted his head again, this time with a questioning expression.

“I have a problem with my room.” I spoke the words slowly and with increasing volume. 

Still no reaction from the boy.

“What the hell, man?” I muttered. “You can’t possibly close for lunch.” I buttered this observation under my breath, but the epithet didn’t open the door. I wondered whether Tony had his badge with him. 

As I gave the knob a rattle, it turned, and the latch released. The door swung open, leaving me standing there like an idiot.

“Mr. Pierce,” the teen said without looking. “What can I do you for?”

My hand hung mid-air where the doorknob had abandoned it on the inward swing. “Uh, ice maker.”

His innocent face opened with surprise. “It’s not next to your room?”

I left the door standing open and stepped to the counter. “Can you tell me your name, son?”

“Why, it’s Timmy,” he said, before his face flushed with heat. He cast his eyes downward in shame. “Sorry. Uncle Ollie has told me more than once that I need to introduce myself.” His hands fidgeted with the pencil.

My defenses crumbled like a castle made of sugar.“Okay, Timmy. That ice maker is absolutely next to my room. It is also making a horrendous racket that is preventing civil conversation with my friend.”

Timmy lifted his head with renewed confidence, came around the counter and passed me on his way out the door. “Uncle Ollie is good at this stuff, but policing keeps him busy.”

I followed him all the way to the ice maker. “Small town like this, seems like he’d have spare time for managing the motel.”

“You’d be surprised,” Timmy said, halting in front of the noisy unit. “Close to the Canadian border like it is, Eureka gets some interesting characters. Ollie thinks the Wilderness,” he looked at me to clarify, “a resort up the road, is a mobster owned joint.”

“Really?” I said, surprised at this declaration.

His attention returned to the ice maker. “It’s making that gawd awful noise again,” he said.

Tony stepped out of the room to look over my shoulder. We watched Timmy squat in front of the panel and remove it.

“Well now. That Derek Cooley might be the least handy handyman we’ve ever used.” He stood and faced us. “Oh, howdy friend. I’m Timmy.” He said this with his youthful hand opened in front of my friend.

“Howdy back at you,” Tony replied, taking the handshake and sneaking me a huge grin. To the boy he said, “Guess it’s not something you can fix?”

Timmy offered a half head shake. “Thought we had her solved.” He picked up a piece of cardboard that had dropped free and examined it. “Might have needed a higher quality replacement part.” He ran his palm across the streak of white in his shiny black hair. “That Cooley, he can’t fix a flat tire without help.”

Tony took a gentle hold of the cardboard. “May I?”

“Might as well,” the youngster said. “Can’t do worse.”

I chuckled. “You are a trusting man, Timmy.”

“Shut it,” Tony said to me, crouching in front of the ice machine.

My attention turned toward Ollie’s young charge. “Officer Gerulis says the two of you do some fishing in the area?”

The young teen nodded, a boyish warmth shaping his manner. “Ollie is a good man.”

“Appears so,” I agreed. “Kind and generous.” I studied the round, boyish face. His teen voice held earnestness, filtered through a maturity and depth that contradicted his age. It was the sound of wisdom come early, the first buds of spring bursting through the snow. 

 A dark cloud passed over his face, the youthful features contorted into a gnarled expression, brooding and troubled. “That’s a hard job he has. Spent some hours on the water with him, talking it out.”

“He been with the Eureka PD long?”

“Ten years, pretty sure.” His smile beamed pride. “Yeah. Spring of nineteen hundred ninety he started. That’s what he says anyways.”

“A good run.”

Tony grunted. “Heard that.”

“The way he tells it,” Timmy said, “it’s been tough the last couple.”

The whirring and clanking of the ice machine came to a halt. Tony stood with a satisfied look on his face. “That ought to do the job.”

Timmy turned to him. “What was it then? Do we need to get our money back from Derek Cooley?”

Tony grunted and gave a disappointed head shake. “Don’t know what he did. No sign of it, apart from the cardboard. But then, I’m no expert HVAC guy.”

I wanted more from the kid and was about to ask for it.

Timmy gave his head the same disappointed shake, without the fancy mustache, and then continued with his tale. “Ever since that doofus Deputy got on with the Sheriff’s office, Ollie’s been pulling back. Not sure why. He won’t share much.”

“Deputy Spiesz? Can’t see him making much trouble. Seems like a lap dog to Sheriff de Lude.”

“It’s odd. Got the look of a Kootenai about him. But don’t talk like one,” Timmy said. “Says he’s from a tribe in New Hampshire, but can’t tell a lick about them because he was adopted by Whites. Knows the Valley in a way no doofus from back East ought—”

Tony slapped the cover panel into place. “Reckon that’ll hold,” he interrupted. “Until you can get a real repairman on it.”

“I thank you.” Timmy took Tony’s hand in both of his. “It will make my guests happy,” he said.

Their congenial interruption annoyed me, but I maintained a mechanical smile. Mental gears ground on the unanswered question that rattled inside. “Why might he know so much about anything? Seems a bit dense to me.”

Timmy gave me a knowing nod and then directed attention towards Tony. “You have done me a great service friend of Mr. Pierce.”

“Aw, come on kid, call me Tony. I might stick around for a few days to help our Mr. Pierce out on his investigation.”

Mutual admiration between the two jolly elves was derailing my inquiry, and my face showed the signs. Before I could launch further into county politics and personalities, the crunch of a footfall sounded on the gravel parking area.

“Howdy, Deputy,” Timmy said, his voice revealing none of the equivocation he’d just expressed about the lawman.

I turned to see the sneaky devil soft-foot his way toward us. There was no evidence of his official SUV.

Timmy raised a hand in farewell. “I’ll be getting back to riding the desk, gentlemen. Good to meet you, Tony.” He ambled away.

Deputy Stan Spiesz bobbed his head incessantly like a marionette, in the perpetual nod of idiots and yes-men. His was the agreeable type, accepting of any comment or idea which allowed him to get along with everyone, eager to please and appease all in his path. The reek of cheap musky cologne followed him, adding to the air of insincerity. 

“Howdy, Deputy,” I said. No reason to introduce Tony as law enforcement.

Tony simply nodded his greeting.

“Guess you’re still looking for the girl?” Spiesz asked.

The question struck me as odd, out of touch. “Has someone found her?”

“Nah,” he said in a soft, compliant voice that no one could have heard under the previous racket of the ice machine. Disbelief and confusion contorted his face, as if unable to make sense of the complex thoughts of those around him. “Nah,” he repeated, this time drawing the word out with a slight shake of his head. 

An eighteen-wheeler picking up speed on the highway caught his attention. We all admired its race toward the Canadian border. 

“Just figured to check,” Spiesz continued, eyes darting from me to Tony and back again. “People’s minds change is all.” He gave a shrug, expression indistinct.

Who did Deputy Spiesz mean? Those noncommittal brand of individuals who set on a thing until the heat threatens to scorch them before they jump and run? Did he expect I’d do the same? That I’d disappear and streamline his life? Simplicity seemed integral to his method. 

I shot Tony a glance, curious about his read on the lawman. 

Tony shrugged.

“Then I’m still looking for her,” I said.

“Good to hear.” Spiesz added an empty grin to his nod.

“I’m pretty convinced that Aiden is the guy behind his child’s disappearance. It might be a sight worse than a custody battle. You do understand how unstable he is, right?”

“Oh yeah,” the Deputy stated with emphasis on the nod. “Ain’t no doubt Aidan is the craziest character out of the batch of them Peale’s.”

“The mentally unhinged kind of crazy, right?”

“Absolutely.” His eyes pierced me for a second. Clear and direct with a hint of depth. It unbalanced my perception of him as a dullard. They crossed again before he blinked hard, the nod becoming a vigorous shake to set his head right. “We are totally on board with that, Mr. Pierce.” The deputy pinched the bridge of his angular nose. His gaze returned to its vacuous state.

“Good,” I said.

Tony remained silent, the humor of my predicament evident from the roll of his shiny mustache.

“I only wanted the confirmation, you see,” Spiesz said to me, then turned his bobbing head toward Tony for a smidge. “It’s an opportunity to work for a paying client, a person interested in the negative implications of a child gone missing. Whatever the reason, folks get scared about it. Also, what it says about policing problems in the Valley.”

My brain lit up. Policing problems? What did he mean by that? With no reason to demand clarification, I let it go.

“A client?” I asked. “Different from Lorna Peale?”

“Sure. Like another person who will pay you to find the child.”

“Like insurance they give to people in case they lose their job,” Tony offered, mouth and eyes competing for mirth.

I scowled at him.

Deputy Spiesz leaned close, eyes flickering with unexpected sharpness, his acrid cologne burning my nostrils. “Make it easier for you to avoid the lies Lorna and her husband spin,” he said in a near whisper, his dull personality suddenly brimming with intelligence. The cleverness disappeared in a blink, replaced once more by the distant stare of incomprehension.

My lips and brow bunched in confusion. Why offer to pay me for a job I was already doing? What was the true motive for their offer? Would their involvement include requirements that might put the child at greater risk? Made no sense. I didn’t actually believe in anonymous benefactors. Everyone wants something for their money. Then again, if Lorna and her daughter failed to come through with the balance, I’d be working for nothing. Altruism only took me part way to paradise. I was still obligated to my family.

“Might give them a listen,” I told the lawman. This second ‘client’ must have had power and influence in the community. Enough to use Deputy Spiesz as a mouthpiece to bully locals into his way of solving problems. A kind of, use the village idiot as my go-between model of influence. “Let me think on it, Deputy Spiesz.”

“Fine by me. Probably would be easier with financial backing, but I understand loyalty well enough.” The lawman gave a tug to his Stetson and rambled off.

Tony and I watched him try to find where he left his vehicle.

“An odd development,” Tony said.

“Damned odd,” I agreed. “Makes me nervous as hell.”