In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

109 11 Mon­ day Eve­ ning Fish Creek was thick with tour­ ists, and, in the hub­ bub, Cu­ biak ­ nearly­ missed see­ ing the cor­ o­ ner near the side en­ trance of Babe and Ray’s, one of the ­ town’s most pop­ u­ lar sup­ per clubs. Bath­ ard had his arm ­ around the shoul­ der of one woman and was talk­ ing to an­ other. The ­ ranger­ ditched the jeep be­ hind Evan­ ge­ line ­ Davis’s diner and ­ caught up with the three as they ­ slowly pro­ gressed to­ ward Sarah ­ Humble’s. Cu­ biak had never met Cor­ ne­ lia. A photo in the ­ coroner’s of­ fice­ showed her pe­ tite and waif­like even in good ­ health. Can­ cer had di­ min­ ished her to a wisp of flesh and bone. She was a ­ sliver, hung on the arms of her com­ pan­ ions, both of them hard ­ pressed to mask their alarm. “So­ pleased to meet you,” she said. Her hand was a ­ feather in ­ Cubiak’s cal­ loused palm. The other woman ­ looked like ­ Cornelia’s ro­ bust twin. “My ­ sister-inlaw , Helen,” Bath­ ard said, intro­ duc­ ing her to Cu­ biak. “I’m on a roll,” Cor­ ne­ lia ­ chirped as the two shook hands. Cu­ biak low­ ered his ­ glance, ­ barely able to look at her. “I need to talk to you,” he told the phy­ si­ cian. The two men set­ tled Cor­ ne­ lia in the car with Helen and then fol­ lowed the bike path to ­ Pechta’s. This far from the town cen­ ter, the 110 only ­ sounds were the buzz of mos­ qui­ toes and the hard ­ crunch of ­ gravel under­ foot. The wind off the bay ­ smelled ­ faintly of fish. The duo was quiet, each man ­ caught up in his own ­ thoughts. In­ side the bar, they took a rear booth. The cor­ o­ ner or­ dered a whis­ key, neat. Cu­ biak asked for tonic with lime. At that, Bath­ ard al­ lowed a ­ slight rise of the eye­ brows. “Things ­ change,” Cu­ biak said as Ame­ lia went to pour their ­ drinks. “In­ deed. Cer­ tainly did for me.” Bath­ ard con­ cen­ trated on fill­ ing his pipe. “I’m not just a coun­ try rube, you know. I ­ worked in the big city, too. Until the day I got a park­ ing ci­ ta­ tion for ex­ ceed­ ing the time at the meter.” “You give up eas­ ily.” “The rea­ son I over­ stayed my al­ lot­ ted time in­ volved a med­ i­ cal emer­ gency. I was in the li­ brary ref­ er­ ence cen­ ter when a ­ middle-aged pa­ tron went into car­ diac ar­ rest. For­ tu­ nately, I was able to re­ sus­ ci­ tate the man be­ fore the par­ a­ med­ ics ar­ rived. Af­ ter­ ward, as a mat­ ter of prin­ ci­ ple, I ac­ com­ pa­ nied him to the ER and ­ waited for au­ thor­ ities to lo­ cate a fam­ ily mem­ ber. As you might as­ sume, this took quite a while and I re­ turned to the li­ brary to find not one but sev­ eral ci­ ta­ tions ­ slapped on the wind­ shield. The pa­ tient re­ cov­ ered and ­ called me sev­ eral weeks later. It turns out he’d been tick­ eted as well. We con­ sid­ ered going to court to­ gether and ex­ plain­ ing the circum­ stance, but we never did. For some rea­ son, I re­ mained fix­ ated on the trav­ esty of the tick­ ets and fi­ nally de­ cided that this in­ ci­ dent was prob­ ably the first in a long list of in­ dig­ nities and in­ jus­ tices I’d be ­ forced to en­ dure sim­ ply be­ cause of the na­ ture of the city. Too big. Too im­ per­ sonal. Six ­ months later, I re­ turned to Door ­ County and I’ve been here since.” “Do you ever re­ gret it?” Bath­ ard fur­ rowed his brow and ­ tamped the bowl. “Some­ times. But­ mostly not. Life was very good for many years, be­ fore Cor­ ne­ lia be­ came ill.” The cor­ o­ ner ­ looked past Cu­ biak. “Tues­ days are the worst. ­ That’s when the obit­ u­ ar­ ies ap­ pear. She reads them all and re­ cites the de­ tails to me...

Share