Curt Posner watched the three investigators pick through the wreckage of the burned-out van. During his eleven years as sheriff, he had never heard of a car bomb going off anywhere in Northern Minnesota, let alone Ely. But now, the charred remains of a research organization’s van disfigured a small forest road like the advancing stage of a spreading infection.
It had been a hell of a week. First, the fatal accident involving one of the area’s most experienced woodsmen. Posner had known Norm Dillman for years. In addition to the old trapper’s expertise with firearms, there was the nagging question of what he was doing out in the woods with a rifle in the middle of July. There was no hunting season in July, and Dillman was a vehement and outspoken opponent of poachers.
Next came the murder
