Glen Patacki

Glen Patacki is Buell’s local justice of the peace and a veteran figure in its police and legal circles. A longtime friend and former colleague of Bud Harris, he brings Harris a warning about renewed scrutiny of the Billy Poe murder case while also raising the possibility that Harris could succeed him in office. Their meeting shows how personal ties and professional calculation overlap in the town’s institutions.

Identity and Position

Patacki is twenty years older than Bud Harris and had served as police chief for much of the period when Harris was a sergeant. He was among the first people Harris met after moving to Buell. By the time of their meeting on his boat, Patacki was the local justice of the peace and had previously put in a word for Billy Poe. His history links him to both the police department and the local process surrounding Poe’s case.

A Warning About the Poe Case

After eight or nine months without a social call, Patacki invited Harris for a drink on his boat. Harris immediately suspected the timing was deliberate. Patacki explained that a reporter from the Valley Independent was asking about warrants, including whether any seal orders might have been missed. The inquiry, he cautioned, could make the Billy Poe murder case look worse. His warning places him at a point where information about the case is moving beyond the people directly handling it and toward public scrutiny.

Succession and His Relationship with Harris

Patacki’s conversation was not limited to the investigation. He told Harris that he was nearing retirement and suggested that Harris consider running for his position. He framed the prospect as something that could be good for Harris, turning the meeting into an informal discussion of succession as well as a warning about the present case. His familiar greeting and reference to Harris as an old friend convey their closeness, while the combination of professional advice and case-related caution leaves the practical stakes of their relationship in view.

Moral and Narrative Significance

Patacki’s part in the novel is brief but consequential: he connects the local investigation to the threat of outside attention and to the future of Harris’s career. His final warning to Harris, “It will always get worse, old friend. Good deeds will not go unpunished,” gives their exchange a bleak moral edge. The remark resonates with Harris’s efforts to understand his own decisions, without resolving whether those decisions will protect the people involved or deepen the danger around them.