She rose to answer it. “Hello?”

“Dr. Elliot? This is Rachel Sorkin out on Toddy Point Road. I’ve got something of an emergency out here. Elwyn just shot himself.”

“What?”

“You know, that idiot Elwyn Clyde. He came trespassing on my property, chasing after some poor deer. Killed it too-a beautiful doe, right in my front yard.

These stupid men and their stupid guns."

“What about Elwyn?”

“Oh, he tripped and shot his own foot. Serves him right:’

“He should go straight to the hospital.”

“Well you see, that’s the problem. He doesn’t want to go to the hospital, and he won’t let me call an ambulance. He wants me to drive him and the deer home.

Well, I’m not going to. So what should I do with him?”

“How badly is he bleeding?”

She heard Rachel call out: “Hey, Elwyn? Elwyn! Are you bleeding?” Then Rachel came back on the line. “He says he’s fine. He just wants a ride home. But I’m not taking him, and I’m certainly not taking the deer.”

Claire sighed. “I guess I can drive over and take a look. You’re on Toddy Point Road?”

“About a mile past the Boulders. My name’s on the mail box.”

The mist was starting to lift as Claire turned her pickup truck onto Toddy Point Road. Through stands of white pine, she caught glimpses of Locust Lake, the fog rising like steam. Already beams of sunlight were breaking through, splashing gold onto the rippling water. Across the lake, just visible through fingers of mist, was the north shore with its summer cottages, most of them boarded up for the season, their wealthy owners gone home to Boston or New York. On the south shore, where Claire now drove, were the more modest homes, some of them little more than two-room shacks tucked in among the trees.

She drove past the Boulders, an outcropping of granite stones where the local teenagers gathered to swim in the summertime, and spotted the mailbox with the name Sorkin.