Deadfall Read Free

town. Strapping on the gun belt, he ran up Camsel Drive. A door opened. Lars and Barb Jergins, owners of the Elder Elk Diner, stepped onto the porch. Their eyes rose up to the smoke as their mouths dropped.
    Tom raised a hand. “Lars! Barb!” he called.
    â€œWhat happened,Tom?” Lars asked.
    â€œDon’t know. Stay here. I’ll come tell you when I find out.”
    They went back inside.
    Tom rounded the corner onto Provincial Street. This was Fiddler Falls’s main thoroughfare, though it consisted of only four short blocks of businesses, including an Elks Lodge, a combination town hall and community center, and Dr. Jeffrey’s big Victorian housecum- office. At the street’s southern terminus was Dirty Woman Park, a half-moon swatch of grass, trees, playground equipment, and redwood picnic tables and benches.
    Tourists chuckled at the name until they learned its literal meaning. Despite living right on the river, Becca Nahanni was said never to have bathed. Never. Her stench and a patina of grime that covered her skin, caking in her wrinkles, had supported the rumor.When she had died in her nineties, she willed her small shack to the town. It had been so odorous and foul, the town had razed it and created the park in her honor.
    Beyond Dirty Woman lay the Fond du Lac River, half a mile wide where the town touched its banks. In the other direction, due north, Provincial Street passed, among other businesses, a restaurant, a boardinghouse, St. Bartholomew’s Church, and finally a small school that serviced forty-three students, K through 12. Just beyond the school, the community’s only paved street crumbled into dirt. Before long it devolved into grassy ruts, marking the passage of hunters, fishermen, and other souls brave enough to venture into Canada’s northern backcountry. It was the town’s widest street, one lane north, one lane south, with room at both curbs to parallel park. Townies rarely bothered to drive, since a mile walk connected any two points in Fiddler Falls.
    Tom saw that Provincial was occupied now. A block and a half from where he stood, directly in front of Kelsie’s General Store, a car sat twisted and burning. It looked like the newscast images he’d seen of car bombings. A few people—likely everyone in the vicinity at that hour of the morning—had come out of the stores and businesses to watch from the sidewalks. Others were closer, in the street.
    Hurrying forward, he yelled to the people standing around it. “Back away!”
    The asphalt around the rear of the car appeared to be burning with a low blue flame. He guessed that meant the gas tank had already ruptured, but he didn’t want another explosion to prove him wrong and take out the closest spectators in the process.
    The first scent he recognized was ozone, a powerful sterilant that destroys bacteria, viruses, and odors. Lightning strikes and fastflowing water create the chemical, which accounts for the fresh smell after thunderstorms and around waterfalls. In a drug enforcement course, Tom had learned that affluent pot users were known to use ozone generators to eliminate the smell of the drug. Ozone always reminded him of freshly laundered sheets.
    As Tom inhaled, the ozone gave way to the pungent odor of gasoline, burning rubber, and a putrid reek he could not identify. It stung his nostrils, drawing tears from his eyes.
    He coughed and yelled, “Step back!”
    No one did. He realized that those nearest the car were not townies but the group of six young people who’d arrived by floatplane the previous day. They’d picked up the bright-mustard Hummer, which had been sitting at the service station since the week before. According to Lenny Hargrove, the station’s owner, the driver had been from a transportation service and had hitched a ride on an outfitter’s plane back to Saskatoon.The Hummer’s appearance had caused a flurry of speculation