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was an old yellow formica dinette table that served as the center of the village council meetings. At other times the room was employed as the big man's holding pen, an interrogation room, and just about anything else he wanted it to be. There was an overhead light sheltered by a dirty, military green, metal lampshade. The walls, once papered, now defied description. |
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I had the distinct feeling that the old room existed primarily in these more modern times for the swapping of stories, guns and telephone numbers, all-night poker games, and the painful passing of all too many long, snowy Canadian nights. |
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Jake was there along with a man he had introduced as Harlan Gorman, a string bean of a man, bereft of hair and minus a few teeth as well. Harlan was the chief of the volunteer fire department. Those two, along with Caleb Hall, the charter boat captain and elected head of the village council, who now sat at the far end of the table, constituted the ''officialdom" of Chambers Bay. |
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Jake had summoned them when I reported the discovery of Percy Kramer's body. |
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Jake was an artful juggler. He had somehow managed to round up his cohorts, organize this meeting and, at the same time, supervise the discreet delivery of Percy's remains to the closest undertaker in the village of Kemper, a wide spot in the road some 17 miles west of Chambers Bay. He |
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