The man looked up, just at that moment. His face, as was probably appropriate to his profession, gave away nothing, not even a smile. Jake still could not remember his name. He crossed the room and held out his hand.
“Hello, I’m Jake. Are you … Mike’s friend?”
“I am Mike’s neighbor.” The correction seemed highly consequential. He gave Jake’s outstretched hand an appraising look. Then, apparently concluding that it met his standard of hygiene, he shook it.
“Thank you for joining me.”
“Thank you for inviting me. It isn’t often a complete stranger decides to buy me dinner.”
“Oh, that happens to me all the time.”
The joke landed about as badly as it could have. Jake took a seat.
“What’s good here?”
“Pretty much everything,” said the coroner. He hadn’t picked up his own menu. “The burgers. Country fried steak. The casseroles are always tasty.”
He pointed at something beyond Jake’s shoulder. Jake turned to find the specials board. Today’s casserole was chicken, broccoli, and rice. He also saw Mike enter, nod at someone seated just inside the door, and make his way across the room.
“Mike,” said the coroner.
“Hi, Mike.”
“Hello, Roy,” said Mike. “You two getting acquainted?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Roy.
“Mike really put himself out for me today.”
“So I understand,” Roy said. “Not sure why he troubled himself.”
The waitress came. Jake ordered what Mike was having: poppy seed chicken, mashed greens, and fried okra. Roy ordered the trout.
“Do you fish?” Jake asked him.
“I’ve been known to.”
Mike shook his head. “He’s a maniac. This man has a magic touch.”
Roy shrugged, but he was up against his own considerable pride. “Well, I don’t know.”
“I wish I had the patience for that.”
“How do you know you don’t?” Mike said.
“I don’t know. Not my nature, I guess.”
“What is your nature, would you say?”
“I’d say, to find things out.”
“Is that a nature?” the coroner said. “Or a purpose?”
“They merge,” said Jake, becoming annoyed. Was this guy only here for a free dinner? He looked as if he could afford his own damn trout. “I’m very curious about the woman who died up there at the campground. Mike might have told you, I knew her brother.”
“Their brother,” said Roy.
“I’m sorry?”
“They were sisters. Ergo, the brother of one would have been the brother of the other. Or am I missing something?”
Jake took a breath to steady himself. “You sound as if you might share some of my questions about what happened.”
“Well, you’re wrong,” said Roy mildly. “I have no questions. And I don’t see why you should have any, either. Mike here says you’re a writer. Am I being interviewed for a publication of some kind?”
He shook his head. “No. Not at all.”
“A newspaper story? Something that’s going to wind up in a magazine?”
“Absolutely not.”
The waitress was back. She set three plastic glasses of iced tea on the table, and left.
“So I don’t have to worry about looking over the shoulder of the guy sitting next to me on the plane and seeing myself in a book.”
Mike grinned. He’d probably have liked nothing better, himself.
“I’d say not.”
Roy Porter nodded. He had deeply set eyes and wore a blue polo shirt, buttoned up the neck, and an oversized watch on a wide leather band. He also radiated a deeply discomforting power. All that death, Jake supposed. All those terrible things people did to one another.
The waitress returned with their food, and it looked and smelled so good that Jake nearly forgot what it was they were talking about. He hadn’t known exactly what it was he was ordering. He still didn’t know. But he fell on it.
“Were you out at the campsite yourself?”
Roy shrugged. Unlike Jake, who was shoveling that chicken into his mouth, the coroner was delaying gratification, delicately cutting his trout.
“I was. I got there at about six in the morning, not that there was much to see. The tent went up almost completely. There was a little bedding left, and a couple pots, and the heater. And the body, of course. But the body was completely charred. I took some pictures, and had the remains taken down to the morgue.”
“And could you tell anything more once you got it there?”
Roy looked up. “What, in particular, do you think I was supposed to tell? I had a body that looked like a piece of charcoal. You ever hear that thing about hoofbeats in the park?”
It sounded vaguely familiar to Jake, but he said no.
“You hear hoofbeats in the park, do you think horses or zebras?”
“I don’t get it,” said Mike.
“You think horses,” Jake said.
“Right. Because it’s going to be far more likely there’s wild horses in the park than wild zebras.”
“I still don’t get it,” said Mike. “What park has wild horses running around in it?”
He had a good point.
“So you’re saying, it was pretty obvious this woman burned to death.”
