JOE HAD TWO STOPS in the town of Saddlestring that evening on his way to his new home on the river, and he intended to make them quick.  He'd promised Marybeth he wouldn't be late for Lucy's pre-birthday party that night and he didn't want to screw it up.  Marybeth had already texted him twice to remind him.

Unlike Marybeth, Joe didn't keep a family calendar of milestones in his head.  It hadn't occurred to him until she explained it that not only was this Lucy's last birthday dinner with them before going off to college, but it was the last birthday dinner of any of their girls living at home.  The last chicken was leaving the nest.

Joe kind of wished she hadn't put it in such stark terms.  But he was glad he'd decided to forgo the drive to Winchester to meet Tom Kinnison after the incident with the wolves.  With his luck, confronting Kinnison would result in some kind of long and complicated affair - one never knew what would happen when a man was accused of a crime - that would result in him being late.

He had nothing on his agenda for the next day, so he'd drive to Winchester first thing in the morning.


JOE ALREADY KNEW how he was going to play it because he'd played it the same way before.

Once he located the home of Kinnison, he'd walk up to the front door and knock.  If someone answering to that name opened the door, Joe would say, "I guess you know why I'm here."

The subject's immediate response would dictate how things would go from then on.  Over the years, the tactic had produced on-the-spot confessions to crimes Joe hadn't known a thing about until the confession moment.  Sometimes, the subjects implicated other guilty parties Joe had never suspected were involved or knew anything about.  And sometimes subjects confessed to a non-wildlife crime that Joe would pass along to the local police or sheriff's department.

He'd been waiting over the years for a suspect to blurt out, "It was me.  I killed that son of a bitch and I'd do it again."

But that had never happened.

He was also aware of other possibilities.  Kinnison's wife might open the door and explain that Tom couldn't check his traps because her husband had left the state - or had died weeks ago.  Kinnison could deny everything and claim that the traps were stolen out of his garage.