The Lake Derry Police Department consisted of three men.

The first and most important was Chief Caleb Ridgway, who’d been chief since what seemed like the time of Christ. He’d run for mayor once in the seventies and been so badly and publicly humiliated that none of the subsequent mayors had had the heart to remove him, even though he was a drunk (not the worst crime in this town), a racist (even less serious), and three times divorced (scandalous).

He was in nearby Brent on business.

The second was Assistant Chief Caleb Ridgway Jr, who everybody pretty much called Junebug on account of his name and a childhood obsession with insects. He spoke softly, stammered, and was afraid of guns. Normally he’d be expected to deal with the first murder in Lake Derry’s history in his father’s absence.

But on this day, he was lying dead himself on the shore of the lake.

And so the responsibility fell to the third point in the Lake Derry law enforcement triangle – one Officer Jefferson Beauregard Trestlehorn.