Chapter 5: Forty Minutes

His cabin sat at the end of a gravel road, with the lake behind it.

It was a low log house with split wood stacked along one wall.

Nolan carried my mother's recipe box in without being asked.

"One bedroom," he said, setting it on the kitchen table. "A woodstove. The water takes a minute to get hot."

"Is this where you take everyone Lars throws out?"

"You're the first."

He didn't smile when he said it.

I stood in the middle of his kitchen in my coat. There was one mug in the drying rack and one plate.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked.

"Because Roz asked me to."

"That's not why."

He leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. His forearms were thick, with old white scars across the knuckles.

"I'm not a Lars man," he said. "You think I am. Everyone who wears the jersey thinks it about everyone else. I do my job and I go home."

"You said I should ask the clinic."

"And I can't say more than that. So here's what I'm offering."

He held up one finger.

"You take the bedroom. I take the couch."

A second finger.

"I don't talk about the team. Not the locker room, not the files, not what I've seen. If you ask me, I'll say no, and you won't be angry about it."

A third.

"And nothing happens."

I looked at his hand.

"I'm married," I said. "Technically."

"That's what I mean."

"Nothing's going to happen, Mr. Brumley."

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