Free A Cold Day for Murder by Dana Stabenow

I burned my draft card on the steps of the Capitol in ’70, just before I left for Canada. He, on the other hand, put his public service time in at Anzio, Arnhem and Bastogne.” Bernie made a wry face. “Neither of us ever let the other one forget it.”
    “I thought you said he doesn’t talk to you.”
    “Or me to him. That’s how we never forget it.” He looked past her. “Damn.”
    She swiveled, to see Suzy sipping from a glass. She put it down hastily when she saw them watching her. She tossed her head and pulled Mickey Kompkoff out onto the dance floor. “Who’s the father, do you know? Of Suzy’s baby?”
    “You have been out of touch. She married Mickey last month.”
    “Oh Christ no,” Kate said, casting an involuntary look over her shoulder. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
    “Nope.” He shook his head. “We all tried to stop her. She wouldn’t listen. I think she decided anything was better than living at home with her mother and that parade of uncles.”
    Kate wanted to cry. She’d gone to school with Suzy’s older sister, and she remembered the days when Suzy had tagged along behind the two older girls, begging to be included in their games. She changed the subject. “Listen, Bernie, I’m looking for someone, a park ranger, name of Mark Miller. He ever been in here?”
    Bernie grinned. “Everyone comes to Bernie’s.”
    Kate gave an elaborate shudder. “Please. You ever meet him?”
    “Yeah.”
    “To remember?”
    “Yeah, sure I remember him. Who could forget?”
    “Why? What made him so special?”
    “Oh, hell, Kate, you know the type.” She looked a question and he elaborated. “Sierra Club commando. Fresh out of college, knew the Latin names for every animal, vegetable and mineral in the Park, could quote verbatim from both Johns.”
    “Both Johns?”
    Bernie grinned. “Muir and McPhee. And sometimes Izaak Walton, but I think he’d quote Walton only when he wanted to really piss off old Sam Dementieff, or any other commercial fisherman he could find.”
    She laughed. “That bad?”
    He shrugged and wiped the bar. “He was an okay kid. A little wet behind the ears, but you could tell he really loved the Park. Wanted to open it up and share it with the whole world, as long as the world didn’t have a pickax or a rifle or a fishing pole in its hand.” Bernie polished a glass in silence, and then said in an altered voice, “It was kind of nice, actually.”
    “What was?”
    “All that enthusiasm, you know?” Bernie looked up. “He really did care, Kate. I remember one time he came in here and got about half-swacked and pulled out a copy of the congressional act that made Yellowstone a national park.” He grinned. “And I hear tell he had a poster of Teddy Roosevelt on the wall of his office at Park Headquarters.”
    “You liked him,” Kate said. She was a little surprised that Bernie, committed by inclination and profession to the industrial development of the Park, would speak well of a bona-fide, dyed-in-the-wool, card-carrying greenie.
    Bernie shrugged and hung the glass by its stem from the overhead rack. “Made a change from the usual rape, pillage and plunder boys.”
    “Did I hear someone call my name?” A burly man with a red face and short, stiff red hair that stood straight out all over his head pushed in next to Kate. Mutt gave a warning grumble, deep in her throat, and subsided reluctantly when Kate laid a reassuring hand on her head.
    “Hello, Mac,” Bernie said. “What’ll it be?”
    “The usual. Hello, Kate, what brings you into the Park? Haven’t seen you for months.”
    “Just visiting, Mac. What are you doing here in the middle of winter? You figured out a way to dredge a frozen creek?”
    Mac laughed heartily. He was incapable of laughing any other way. He had sharp brown eyes that he made look merry when it suited him, and a stubborn chin he hid behind a hearty, good ol’ boy hee-haw that disarmed those who didn’t know him well, but put