Rough Country

the doorway, turned, and said, “Hi. We’re trying to figure out an accounting problem.”
    “When you got a minute,” Virgil said, “I’d like you to walk me over to Miss McDill’s cabin, talk a bit about her.”
    “Go right now,” Stanhope said.
    The sheriff said, “I’ll leave you to it, Virgil. I gotta go talk to the TV people.”
    Virgil nodded: “Go. I would like to fix a ride down to the Avis dealer, though.”
    Zoe said, “My office is in town—I could ride you down there. I’ll be another half-hour here.”
    “That’d be great,” Virgil said.
     
     
     
    ALL THE CABINS had names: McDill had been in the Common Loon, one bedroom, with extra sleeping space up a ladder in a second-story loft. The loft also had a doorway out to the sundeck.
    In addition to the bedroom, the cabin had a segregated space, like a den, with a computer desk complete with an Ethernet cable and a wall notice about wireless connections, a Xerox laser printer, a high-end business chair, and a two-line phone; a small, efficient kitchen; and a living/sitting room with a fieldstone fireplace. McDill’s Macintosh laptop was hooked to an Ethernet cable.
    “No television,” Virgil said.
    “We’ve got a thing about that. If you want to watch television, you’ve got to come up to the theater at the lodge. But the basic idea here is you get away from TV and all that,” Stanhope said.
    “But you’ve got—”
    “We found out that most of the people who come here want to get away from the absolute crap —TV—but a lot of them can’t afford to completely isolate themselves. They’re businesswomen and they need to stay in touch. You’ll notice that your cell phone works here.”
    “I did,” Virgil said.
    “Because we’ve got a low-power repeater in the lodge, which goes to our antenna—it’s out by the shop, you can’t see it from here—that is line-of-sight to a cell out on the highway,” Stanhope said. “So we’re all hooked up, we have all the conveniences, but you can’t see it. We’re looking for feel that’s a little more rustic.”
    Virgil dropped into an easy chair and pointed her at the couch next to it. “I’ve got some questions that you can probably answer. . . .”
     
     
     
    MCDILL HADN’T BEEN seen the night before, but that wasn’t unusual, Stanhope said. Some of the women put in strenuous days on the lake, and with a lot of sun, many of them were pooped by the end of the day and went to bed early. Others went into town, and to a bar called the Wild Goose. So exactly who was where, and when, was not an easy thing to pin down.
    “To tell you the truth, I didn’t even know that nobody saw her last night, until we were talking about it this morning,” Stanhope said.
    “Was she pretty social?”
    “Oh, I’d say . . . average. A little more aggressive about it when she was being social. She liked to dominate the talk, but there are other women up here who are no cream puffs. So, I’d say, she fit in.”
    McDill did like to go to the Wild Goose.
    “Was she gay?”
    “Mmm-hmm,” Stanhope said, nodding. “She was, but she really didn’t come up here for romance. She has a life partner down in the Cities—she’s been notified, she should be coming up—but Erica really came up here to get away. To think. To relax a little bit. She was one of the girls who sometimes drank too much. I mean, not crazy, but she wouldn’t be your designated driver down to the Goose.”
    “I want you to believe that I don’t have a problem with gay women,” Virgil said, “but I’ve got to ask: as far as you know, was she involved in any kind of stressful sexual entanglement?”
    Stanhope shook her head: “Not as far as I know.”
    “No kind of sexual competition with another woman up here?”
    “I don’t think so. She’d been up here for a week, she was going to be here for one more week. She was participating, yoga in the morning, nature hikes and boating in the morning and afternoon, but I didn’t see her pairing off with anyone.” She put her hands to her temples, pressing. “I can’t figure it out. Believe me, if I had any idea of what happened, I would tell you in an instant. But I didn’t see anything.”
    “Okay. Have you ever had anybody die here?”
    She nodded. “Twice. One woman actually came here to die—she loved nature, she loved the place. It was in the fall, after we were pretty much closed down, and we’d wheel her out on the deck so she could see the lake. Then