Chapter 4: Ten O'Clock

I left Maddie asleep on her own couch at six-thirty, with a note on the coffee table and her door locked behind me.

I drove out County Road K with the windows down so I'd stay awake.

My farmhouse is the white one with the crooked mailbox.

Across the road from it stands the old Zeller place, where the vet lives.

Sam Frye was in his yard in coveralls, feeding a calf from a bottle the size of a fire extinguisher.

He watched me pull in.

I got out of the Subaru in a navy dress and the wrong shoes.

There was blue frosting on one sleeve, and I hadn't noticed until that moment.

He crossed the road without hurrying and held out a thermos lid of coffee.

"It's bad," he said.

"Thank you."

I drank it.

It was very bad.

"Heard there was cake," said Sam.

"Most of it's still on me."

"The feed store knew by seven last night." He tipped his head at my sleeve. "Nobody there said anything useful."

"What did they say?"

"That Dee Meyer was already making calls."

"She would be."

He scratched his jaw.

Sam doesn't say much.

For two years I had known him as the man who plowed the end of my driveway.

He did it without being asked, and he refused a pie for it.

"You don't have to tell me anything, Kruse," he said. "I'm just the neighbor."

"I'm not marrying him."

He nodded once.

"Okay."

"That's it? Okay?"

"You want me to say something about it?"