Bud Grant and Jeff didn’t know each other, but they’d met.
Bud was a state trooper assigned to the county, and he stopped Jeff a couple of years earlier for speeding during a crackdown on drunk drivers on the river road. They had a friendly chat on the side of the road, and Bud let him go with just a warning. Neither of them knew their lives would cross again, and they would never know they did.
Bud owned some rental houses. There were five of them, and he had inherited them from his father. Bud’s sister got a beach house from their dad, and that was okay with Bud because he didn’t care much for the beach.
The five houses were identical and were lined up next to each other on a big lot that was for one house only. There was a gravel drive that came off the county road and ran straight t
