she was, who came along after my grandfather widowed my grandmother in a freak tractor rollover and she remarried a lifelong bache­lor neighbor. (I have old snapshots of them, and I can tell you they all were cheerless, beady-eyed American Gothics.) I'd arranged for David to hire Lou eight months earlier, not too long after I came to Applecore. At that time he'd just taken early retirement from the FBI, because of an event that shook us all up pretty seriously.

For some time now, Lou's been a rumpled, Willy Loman figure, like a traveling salesman on the skids, shirts frayed at the collars, face tinted from a truckload of Early Times. Over the past fifteen years I'd watched his waist size travel from about thirty-three inches to thirty-seven, and I'd guess it's been at least a decade since a barber asked him if he needed any off the top. Natalie Rose, his spirited, wiry wife of thirty-seven years, succumbed to ovarian cancer seven years ago last Sep­tember, and I know for a fact she was the one who bought his shirts, provided him with general maintenance.

For some time now, Lou's been a rumpled, Willy Loman figure, like a traveling salesman on the skids, shirts frayed at the collars, face tinted from a truckload of Early Times. Over the past fifteen years I'd watched his waist size travel from about thirty-three inches to thirty-seven, and I'd guess it's been at least a decade since a barber asked him if he needed any off the top. Natalie Rose, his spirited, wiry wife of thirty-seven years, succumbed to ovarian cancer seven years ago last Sep­tember, and I know for a fact she was the one who bought his shirts, provided him with general maintenance.

My first memories of him were when he was a county sheriff in a little burg called Coleman, smack in the middle of Texas, some fifty-five long, dusty miles from the ranch where I grew up. When I was about fourteen, I remember he gave up on that and moved to Dallas, there to enter train­ing for the FBI. He eventually ended up in New Orleans, and then, after Natalie Rose passed away and he more or less fell apart, he got transferred to New York, considered the elephant graveyard of an FBI career.

My first memories of him were when he was a county sheriff in a little burg called Coleman, smack in the middle of Texas, some fifty-five long, dusty miles from the ranch where I grew up. When I was about fourteen, I remember he gave up on that and moved to Dallas, there to enter train­ing for the FBI. He eventually ended up in New Orleans, and then, after Natalie Rose passed away and he more or less fell apart, he got 

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