Free Starvation Lake by Bryan Gruley Page A

would’ve caused a stir in Starvation Lake. But her diner was the only good breakfast place nearby. And a good breakfast place is as essential to a northern Michigan town as a reliable propane supplier. No one made a fuss. Besides, Audrey was nice. And she baked a wicked gooey cinnamon bun.
    The diner was blessedly quiet. I gazed down the counter at the photograph of old Red Wing Gordie Howe hanging on the wall. Audrey was no hockey fan, but Gordie Howe happened to be her girlfriend Molly’s uncle, and he’d signed the photo. Beneath it lay a copy of that morning’s
Pilot.
I ignored it. I wanted to eat in peace and get out.
    “One egg-pie special,” Audrey said as she set my breakfast on the counter. Cheddar cheese and scrambled eggs bubbled up through a golden cocoon of Italian bread. I stabbed at the crust with my fork and steam billowed from the sausage, bacon, potatoes, green peppers, mushrooms, and onions baked inside. I had to let it cool before I dug in. Sometimes when I ate something I really liked, I ate in small bites, to make it last. That wasn’t necessary with an egg pie. The hard part was getting a single forkful with every ingredient in it. Since I was a kid, I had averaged about two all-ingredient mouthfuls per pie.
    “So what do you think?” Audrey said.
    “About what?”
    “About anything.”
    I smiled. She always did this with me. “I think I like your new hairdo.”
    “Oh, yes, and the hairnet makes it all the more stylish, don’t you think?” she said. “But thank you, dear. What else is on your mind?”
    “What’s been the talk in here lately?”
    “Oh my gosh, if I hear about that snowmobile again. It’s all I heard in here yesterday, and then the hockey, and then of course, well, you were in here for a little.” She folded her arms across her chartreuse smock. “Sometimes I don’t like some of those people much.”
    She meant they’d talked about me, and that goal I let in. “Yeah,” I said. “I don’t know. Maybe it is the tunnels.”
    Audrey loosed a scornful whoop as she turned for the kitchen. “Sure, dear. And there are flying frogs in the lake, too!”
    As I savored my first bite—eggs, cheese, potatoes, and sausage, minus the rest—I heard a clattering on the sidewalk outside. The door jangled open and I turned to see three children in identical black-and-gold snowmobile suits clump into the diner, each carrying a black helmet. Behind them lumbered a man the size of a meat freezer bursting at his own black snowmobile suit, stitched with a name—“Jimbo”—over his left breast.
    I turned quickly back to my plate, hoping he hadn’t noticed me. I listened while he herded the children to one of the big tables in the back. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder and saw another stuck out over my egg pie.
    “Gus?” came a foghorn voice. “Jim Kerasopoulos.”
    Kerasopoulos was the general counsel of NLP Newspapers, owner of the
Pilot.
“Jim, how are you?” I said. “Got the whole brood here?”
    “Three of ’em, anyway,” he said. “Linda’s got the other two at some cheerleading thing. The snowmobile trails are cooked out by Traverse. They’re still nice and white over here.”
    “Yep.” I remembered the
Pilot
lying on the counter and wished I had brought it nearer to my plate.
    “I was going to stop by your—hey, kids. Kids! Excuse me.” His children were banging their helmets on the table. “Do you want your French toast?” he said. “Let’s put the helmets down.” He turned to Audrey and ordered three French toasts, an egg pie, and four orange juices. Then he sat down on the stool next to mine. “I wanted to talk to you anyway about that story you have about the gentleman who hunts the uh, the—”
    “Bigfoot?”
    He slapped his palm on the counter. “That’s it. Perlman.”
    “Perlmutter.”
    “Exactly. Quite the character. And a very interesting story.” He put on the thoughtful look that lawyers affect when they want you to know that