Free Dead Man’s Fancy by Keith McCafferty

hard time talking about it.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” Stranahan said.
    â€œNo, it’s okay. You distance yourself from these things, or time distances you, I don’t know which. You keep breathing, anyway. The story with asbestos is the fibers irritate your lungs and make scar tissue. Then plaque builds up around the fibers. What it does is choke you; you can’t get enough air. You walk around town, you’ll see people dragging their canisters of oxygen. That’s called asbestosis. I have it to the degree that I can’t hunt elk anymore and talk like I swallowed a jar of buckshot. The worst-case scenario is cancer develops and you hike out to the wood pile like Alfonso did.” He made a gun of his hand and dropped the hammer, pointing his index finger at his mouth. “It was Nicki who made the call. By the time I got there, she was holding him in her lap, just soaked in blood. She was beside herself, kept telling me how she should have seen it coming and it was all her fault.”
    â€œWhat did she mean?”
    â€œIt was just crazy talk.” Stranahan heard a change come into his voice. “People assume a lot of blame when loved ones die.” He pressed his lips together and briefly looked away. “When my wife got the diagnosis, I beat myself up pretty bad. We weren’t from here, came sight unseen for the job. That reporter from the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
who blew the whistle on Zonolite Mountain, what W. R. Grace and company were putting into our good, clean air, those stories were just coming out. I could have got Mary Ellen out of here, she might be alive today. But she was a nurse and wanted to stay and I was loyal to the town.” His voice trailed away.
    â€œWhy don’t you leave now?”
    â€œBecause it wouldn’t matter. All of us who breathed the stuff, we’re like ticking bombs. I could hide under a rock in Africa for the next five years and the big C would know right where to find me. Or I could die drinking kava in Fiji on my ninetieth birthday. Knock wood.” He rapped his knuckles against the desktop. “Anyway, they say the risk of accumulating more fibers is slim; it only took a five hundred mil cleanup. That’s what they say. Besides, I love this town, and I love the Kootenai. There’s good people here, and I say that as someone who deals with the dark side of human nature. I just wish we could climb out of this goddamned recession and the county could pony up for another deputy.”
    He looked askance at Stranahan. “I ought to warn you, it’s Appalachia West up along that Kaniksu Mountain Road. We call it the Boneyard because it’s where a lot of hunters toss game carcasses. It’s a checkerboard ownership, private and Forest Service, about a dozen houses strung along the creek. We’ve shut down one meth lab and another could have popped up, so keep your nose in the air. Shouldn’t be anyone at the Martinelli place, but you never know. If it smells like a hospital ward or wet diapers, just walk away.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t have a key to the door, would you?”
    â€œNo, but anyone with ingenuity ought to be able to find a way inside. Here,” he lifted his hip to extract his wallet, “I’m going to give you a card with my private number on it. Anybody asks why you’re poking around, call and I’ll put them straight.”
    Stranahan said thanks and took the card. He thought of his cell phone, skipping like a basalt stone across the surface of Henry’s Lake. He really was going to have to get another one.
    Monroe stood up. “Sheriff Ettinger told me if you didn’t show up today, it was either because that heap you’re driving died or else you were up to your waist in a steelhead river. You want to float the Kootenai tomorrow morning? Seven a.m.? I could have you off the river by eleven. What is it, seven hours to Bridger? You’d be home before