Purgatory Ridge

  “Not again?”

  “Yah. Seems all I got to do is look at her. Twins this time, the doctor’s saying.” He shook his blond head, then smiled broadly. “Not bad for a big dumb Scandahoovian.”

  “What are you doing here, Lucky?”

  Instead of answering, Knudsen nodded toward Schanno.

  “I got a call this morning from the governor’s office,” the sheriff said. “The governor’s offered the services of the state patrol and anybody else we need up here. He’s worried things may get out of control.”

  Cork waited. He knew there was more to it than that.

  “Coffee?” Schanno asked.

  “No thanks.”

  “The deal is this, Cork. Karl is scheduled to speak this evening at the Quetico. The Northern Minnesota Independent Business Association’s annual dinner. A hundred and fifty people in a large room. After what’s happened in the last few days, I’d prefer the gathering were canceled. But I spoke with Jay Werner down in Eveleth—he’s president of the association—and he insisted on going ahead, so long as Karl was willing. Well, Karl here is more than willing.”

  Lindstrom said, “My only concern is the safety of everyone else.”

  “And that’s why I’m here,” Lucky Knudsen put in. “Delivering the guv’s promised manpower.”

  Schanno said, “I don’t have enough deputies to ensure the security of something like this. But with Lucky’s officers, we can probably do what’ll need doing.

  “Specifically, Agent Owen is out at the Quetico as we speak, securing the facility, which, with the help of the state police, will remain secured up to and throughout the event. We’ll have an officer at every entrance and exit. Only authorized staff or guests with invitations will be admitted to the building. Because Karl seems obviously the target, I’ve prevailed upon him to wear body armor.”

  Cork nodded. A good idea. “So what am I doing here?”

  “His idea.” Schanno waved toward Lindstrom.

  “I’d be obliged if you would be at the Quetico tonight,” Lindstrom said. “I appreciate that yesterday you were willing to put yourself at risk for a guy who’d been pretty rough on you. I’m prepared to pay. Think of yourself as a hired bodyguard.”

  “I’ll be there,” Cork replied without hesitation. “But you can forget about paying me.”

  “Thanks, Cork.”

  “Well, gentlemen,” Schanno said, rising from his chair. “We have a lot to do between now and this evening. I suggest we get started. Karl, I’d like you at the Quetico a good half an hour before festivities begin. We’ll get you suited up. And Lucky, when you know your roster, get back to me.”

  “Will do, Wally. See you this evening, Cork. Say hello to Jo.”

  Karl Lindstrom and Lucky Knudsen left Schanno’s office, but Agent David Earl lingered a moment on his perch on the windowsill. He was looking at Cork, not happily.

  “Something on your mind?” Cork asked.

  “O’Connor, I know about Burke’s Landing.”

  “That was a while ago,” Schanno said from across the room.

  “I’ve already expressed my concern to everyone else. I just want to be straight with you,” Earl went on. “There’s every intention of arming you this evening. I’m more than a little concerned about a man like you carrying a loaded weapon in a situation like this. But it’s not my call.”

  He waited, as if expecting Cork to argue the point. Cork didn’t.

  “Well. Until this evening, then.” Earl looked for a place to drop the last of his cigarette. Schanno offered him nothing, and Earl left, still holding the smoking butt.

  “He doesn’t know you, Cork,” Wally Schanno said.

  “He’s probably not alone in his thinking, Wally. People haven’t forgotten Burke’s Landing. I’m sure the truth is that there are probably a lot of them who’d rather not see me ever strap on a gun belt or wear a badge.”

  “Doesn’t matter who’s in this job—some people are going to feel that way.”

  Cork walked to a window and stood gazing at the town. In the morning light, it had a quiet, peaceful look to it. Across the street, the bell tower of Zion Lutheran Church rose with simple grace. Beyond that were the stores on Center Street. And not far beyond that, the lake, cut by white sails and the white wake of motorboats. When he’d occupied that office, the view had been a reassuring one. He’d felt as if being sheriff were part of a larger concept, sometimes as difficult to understand and to justify as the mysterious ways of God and Kitchimanidoo, but the purpose of which was clear to him—to help people live their lives with peace of mind. It hadn’t been an idea with a lot of grandeur to it, no more far-reaching than the boundaries of Tamarack County, yet it had been a part of who he was—until a few confused moments on a cold morning at a place called Burke’s Landing had left two men dead and brought to an end much of the way Cork thought about everything.

  Even in his bitterness afterward, he’d never blamed Schanno for taking the badge. It was just the circumstances; it was just the time. And since his fall from grace, Cork had managed to put his life back together again. Did he really want to be back in that office with that view? Hadn’t Burke’s Landing or the years since taught him anything?

  “Lindstrom trusts you,” Schanno said at his back. “And for the record, so do I.”

  22

  “WE’RE CLOSING EARLY TODAY,” Cork said.

  “When?” Annie asked.

  “Now.”

  “Now?” Even Jenny, who usually was delighted to shave off a bit of her time at Sam’s Place, seemed perplexed.

  “But it’s only five-thirty,” Annie said. “And look. There are boats headed this way.”

  “Shut the serving window and put out the Closed sign,” Cork told her.

  “It’s Saturday,” she argued on. “People expect us to be open.”

  “If it will make you feel better, write a note and tape it to the window. ‘Family emergency.’ “

  Jenny suggested, “How about ‘Closed by order of the health inspector’?”

  “Let’s not go overboard.” Cork began cleaning the grill.

  Jenny got paper for the note, but Annie stood her ground. “What will people think?”

  “Let it go, Annie,” Jenny said. “It’s not like it’s a sin.”

  “Why are we closing?” Annie demanded.

  “Family dinner,” Cork explained. “It’s been too long since we all sat down together.”

  “Does Aunt Rose know?”

  “Yes. But it’s your mother who’s fixing dinner.”

  Cork caught the concerned glances the two girls exchanged. Jo was the worst cook on the whole Iron Range. Jenny pulled in the Closed sign. “We’ll stay.”

  “You’ll go home with me,” Cork said.

  Like a couple of condemned prisoners, his daughters set about the work of closing up.

  Cork drove home slowly, taking in the beauty of a town he knew as well as he knew his own face. On Center Street, he passed businesses that had been there forever—Lenore’s Toy and Hobby Shop, Tucker Insurance, Mayfair’s Clothing, Nelson’s Hardware Hank. He knew all the men and women behind the glass of the storefronts. Almost every corner brought together some convergence in his life. The smell from Johnny’s Pinewood Broiler—the Saturday-night barbecued rib special—had been the same smell every Saturday night as far back as he could remember, and it never failed to carry him instantly across almost forty years to the days when his father was still alive, still sheriff, and Johnny’s on Saturday night was practically a family ritual. Cork knew that if you lived in a place long enough, you understood it as a living thing. You knew it had consciousness and conscience. You could hear it breathing. You felt its love and its anger and its despair, and you cared.

  “You’re driving like an old lady, Dad,” Jenny said.

  “I love this town.”

  Jenny shook her head. “Me, I can’t wait to leave.”

  “When you’re gone, you’ll miss it.”

 
“Yeah, like I’d miss the clap.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Just an expression, Dad.”

  With Rose looking over her shoulder, Jo had surprised even Cork and done a fine job of preparing the food. Although the fare was simple—meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, and Jell-O with bananas—it had been so long since they’d sat down together as a family, the meal felt like an occasion. Cork couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Jo laugh so much. Midway through the eating, Rose lifted her water glass and said, “A toast to the best family an old spinster could ask for.”

  “What’th a thpinthter?” Stevie asked.

  Annie fielded that one. “A woman who’s too smart to marry.”

  Rose laughed. “For that, you’re relieved of dish duty.”

  After dinner, Cork said, “Dishes are mine.” No one argued.

  Jo helped him. Then they sat on the porch swing together, watching Stevie play catch with Annie in the front yard. The ball, as it lofted, caught sunlight for a moment and glowed as it passed from the hand of one child to the other. In a very short time, children from other houses on the block had joined them, and Annie began to organize a game. Cork waved to his neighbors across the street, John and Sue O’Laughlin, who’d stepped onto their own porch to enjoy the evening.

  “This has been the best day I can remember in a long, long time.” Cork laced his fingers with Jo’s.

  “I wish…” Jo began. She stopped herself.

  “What?”

  “I wish you weren’t going to the Quetico tonight.”

  “I’ll be fine. It’s Karl Lindstrom who’s taking the chance. It’s probably a good thing you’ll be out at Grace Cove tonight.”

  Grace Fitzgerald was to have met with Jo at her office that morning, but Jo had lingered at Sam’s Place with Cork and had called to reschedule. Grace was due to go out of town on Monday, so Jo offered to drop by that evening.

  “Still no idea what she wants to talk to you about?”

  “None.”

  “And even if you did, you couldn’t tell me.” He glanced at his watch. “Time I was going.”

  Jo wrapped him in her arms and kissed him. There seemed something a little desperate in her grasp, in the press of her lips.

  “What’s that all about?” Cork asked.

  “I don’t know. I just… I’m a little afraid for you.”

  “I’ll come back. I promise.”

  “And besides, I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

  He weighed her words, her tone, decided it was not censure he had heard but concern. “If you really don’t want me to go, Jo, I won’t.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “You’d never forgive me.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “No.”

  “Well?”

  “Go. It’s what you need to do.”

  “Thanks, Jo.” He brushed her cheek with his hand.

  He let the swing rock a few more times, listened a bit longer to the song of the children’s laughter, watched a few more tosses of the dirty baseball that, arching through the evening sunlight, was turned to gold. And he thought that although life was far from perfect, it offered moments of perfection, and this was one.

  Jo walked him to his Bronco.

  “You take care,” she told him.

  “I will.”

  “I’ll wait up for you.”

  They held one another. Their separation would be only a few hours, but it had the feel of a long parting, and Cork remembered happily, This is love.

  “‘Bye, Daddy,” Stevie yelled and ran to the curb.

  As Cork drove away, he leaned out the window of his Bronco and called out to his children a father’s wish and a father’s blessing: “Be good.”

  The Quetico was a large resort and conference center set on the shoreline of Iron Lake a few miles south of Aurora. The main building was an enormous, multiwinged structure with a log façade. On the outside, it projected a relaxed, old North Woods persona. Inside, it was slick and modern, with vast conference rooms, an Olympic-size pool, and the best wood-roast restaurant in the state. There was a wide, sandy beach, a small marina, a number of luxurious cabins hidden among the pines, six tennis courts, and a nine-hole golf course for which Cork couldn’t afford the green fees, even if he’d played the game. The sun, as Cork guided the Bronco along the winding drive, wasn’t far from setting. In the late light, the last of the golfers trailed long shadows as they approached the final green. The parking lot was nearly full. Cork pulled his old Bronco into a space between a blue Mercedes and a shiny black Windstar.

  In the main lobby, a sign set on an easel indicated that the dinner for the Northern Minnesota Independent Business Association had been rescheduled to the Hiawatha Room in the building due north. Cork followed the arrow, out of the main building and across the drive to another, much smaller, log-façade structure. Two uniformed officers of the state patrol were stationed just inside the door. The officer to the right had a dog on a leash. The dog and the officers considered Cork carefully. The friendliest look came from the dog. Beyond a small lobby area, double doors opened onto a large room set with tablecloths and silverware and white napkins folded like flowers in water goblets. A lot of guests had already been seated.

  “Do you have an invitation, sir?” the officer without the dog asked.

  “Looking for Sheriff Schanno,” Cork replied. “Or Captain Knudsen. I’m Cork O’Connor. They’re expecting me.”

  “Do you have some ID?”

  Cork handed over his driver’s license. The dogless officer reached to a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt and spoke into it. Cork heard Schanno reply, “I’ll be right there.”

  A minute later, the Tamarack County sheriff stepped through a door left of the big dining room and beckoned Cork to follow. Beyond the door, Cork found stairs leading up and to the left. A wood-burned sign indicated the Hiawatha Lounge was that way. Directly ahead ran a long, narrow hallway paneled with knotty pine. Cork followed Schanno to an opened door at the end of the hallway where they stepped into a kind of green room, a preparatory place for speakers—several easy chairs, a water cooler, a table, plants, and through the windows a view of the pines that edged Iron Lake. In addition to the law enforcement present—Schanno, Agent Earl, and Lucky Knudsen—Karl Lindstrom was there, along with two other men in slacks and sports coats.

  “Evening, Karl,” Cork greeted him.

  “Thanks for coming,” Lindstrom said. He looked a little pale. In his left hand, he held a tumbler filled with ice and an amber liquid. He swung his empty hand toward the other two men. “This is Jay Werner, president of NMIBA. And you probably know Jim Kaufmann, who owns the Quetico.”

  Cork shook the proffered hands.

  “I was just telling Sheriff Schanno we’ve got the largest attendance ever for this dinner,” Werner said. “It’s Karl, don’t you know. The Lindstroms have been a name up here for a good long while, but Karl’s coming north to live here, revamping the mill, knocking heads with those tree huggers, that’s all made him special in folks’ eyes.” He gave Lindstrom a hearty clap on the shoulder.

  Kaufmann, a slender, balding man of fifty, added, “We considered canceling, of course, but we all figured, hell, if Karl’s willing, who’re we to back down? Besides, this is more excitement than I’ve had since I left the marines.”

  A look passed among the law enforcement officers. This was different for them. Schanno said, “We’re planning this to be no more than another boring dinner followed by a boring speech. No offense, Karl.”

  “None taken.”

  “You’ll be at the head table with all these gentlemen, Cork,” Schanno said.

  “Wear this.” Knudsen handed him a vest. Kevlar. “Karl’s wearing one, too.”

  Lindstrom unbuttoned his dress shirt and revealed his vest. He shrugged and lifted his glass in a slight toast.

  “You carrying?” Earl asked Cork.
>
  “The only gun I own is a thirty-eight police special. A little clumsy for a sports coat.”

  “Let’s get you something,” Knudsen said. He spoke into his walkie-talkie.

  “You doing okay?” Cork asked Lindstrom.

  “Fine. Really.”

  Right, Cork thought, glancing at the drink in his hand.

  “Between Lucky’s men and mine, we’ve got all the entrances and exits covered,” Schanno said. “I’m hoping the rest of this county is quiet tonight, because I’ve got just one cruiser and one desk officer covering everything else.”

  “What’s with the dog out front?” Cork asked.

  “Borrowed him from the office in Duluth,” Knudsen replied. “Trained to sniff for explosives.”

  There was a knock at the door and Deputy Gil Singer entered, carrying a belt holster into which was nestled a Beretta 92F.

  Cork put on the vest and clipped the holster to his belt. He shrugged his blazer back on. “I’d forgotten how comfy body armor is.”

  Lucky Knudsen’s walkie-talkie crackled and a scratchy voice said, “Sir, they say they’re ready to serve dinner now.”

  “We’re on our way.”

  Schanno looked at Lindstrom. “You ready?”

  Karl Lindstrom bolted down the rest of his drink. “I’m ready.”

  “Gentlemen,” Schanno said and opened the door for them.

  They went out together, Knudsen leading the way. In the banquet room, every table was full. Despite the air conditioning, Cork was sweating profusely. Lindstrom’s face glistened, too, and he walked just a little unsteadily. They threaded their way through the tables, Werner and Lindstrom shaking hands as they went, until they reached an empty table at the front near a podium set on a raised platform. They took their seats, Cork and Agent Earl taking chairs that allowed them to face the guests. Wait staff had already begun to move among the crowd, delivering the first-course salads. Cork looked out over the gathering, men and women in fine dress, laughing and talking, bending to their food, lifting water glasses or wine. Nothing unusual.

  He caught a glimpse of a waiter slipping back through the kitchen door. From behind, he looked like the young man at Sam’s Place who’d nearly been pummeled by Erskine Ellroy. He felt a rush of adrenaline, and he kept his eyes riveted on the kitchen door. A few moments later, the waiter appeared, looking nothing like Cork had expected, nothing like the kid.