‘‘Deputy Houseman, Investigator,’’ I said. ‘‘You helping out here with my case?’’ It’s always a good idea to establish the territorial limits. Right off the bat. Of course I put him at a bit of a disadvantage, because he wouldn’t ever say that he was helping me. After all, it was a DNE officer who was dead. But it was in my jurisdiction, and we were going to be fully involved. But he knew that I knew that he was supposed to do just that, and that was what counted. I decided I was going to like him as soon as he answered.

‘‘I’m helping them,’’ he said, indicating Hester and the rest of the Division of Criminal Investigation team. ‘‘But I’ll bet they’re helping you. I was his partner,’’ he said, obviously referring to Kellerman.

I nodded. ‘‘I’m sorry. And I’m really sorry about this,’’ I said, gesturing at the entire scene. ‘‘We’ll find out who did it.’’ I turned back to Ken. ‘‘What happened, Ken? Who did this?’’

Ken didn’t know. But he did tell me, all in a rush, that he was certain that he was taking fire from at least three different locations at once; that he thought the dead doper was local; and that he thought Bill had shot the doper; and that the doper’s associates, whom they had apparently missed when they came up, shot Bill, and he damned well knew that he hadn’t killed anybody. But that he’d tried pretty damned hard.

‘‘Okay.’’ I was thinking about his shots at me as I came up the trail. Well, at least now I knew that he aimed a little high. Thank God.

‘‘We saw this one,’’ said Ken, gesturing at the mound under the blanket. ‘‘He was just walkin’ through the woods, came right up the path.’’

‘‘Okay…’’

‘‘Like he wasn’t all that cautious. Had a shotgun, and that other gear with him. We saw him, then we lost him as he hit the trail.’’ He pointed uphill and to the right of the trail. ‘‘We were up there.’’

‘‘Right.’’

‘‘We saw him again, once, and Kellerman and I decided to go get him.’’ Johansen looked at us, distressed. ‘‘There are two ways to the patch from here, you know.’’