Blood Hollow

  “I have a selfish motive. She’s a big part of a winning season for the Voyageurs. Is that all?”

  “There’s something else,” Cork said.

  The bell rang and the hallway outside her office became a crazy river of bodies with currents running every which way.

  “Just a moment.” She got up and closed the door.

  “I’m very concerned about another young woman I know. She’s only seventeen, and I believe she may be having an affair with a married man.”

  “What’s your interest?”

  “I’m concerned is all. Wouldn’t you be?”

  She returned to her desk and sat down. “What can you tell me about her?”

  “Poor self-esteem. Depressed. She tried suicide once. Fixation with death.”

  “Compulsive sexual behavior?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Drugs? Self-injury? Eating disorder?”

  “Drugs, yes. I don’t know about the others. Why?”

  “These are all signs that might be indicative of sexual abuse. Generally speaking, the more severe the symptoms, the more long-term the abuse.”

  This made Cork sit back.

  “I’m not saying they are,” she hastened to add. “Many teenagers exhibit some of these symptoms. It’s a question of number and degree. I’d have to do a complete assessment.”

  “If you saw these things in one of your students, you’d be required to report it, wouldn’t you?”

  “If I saw it. The thing is, adolescents who’ve been sexually abused can be very good at hiding the symptoms from general view.”

  “If it was sexual abuse, who might be the perpetrator?”

  “Well, statistically speaking, it’s most likely a family member.” The chaos in the hall died away, and the psychologist’s office dropped into a well of silence. She gave him a long look. “Annie wasn’t the reason you came.”

  “No.”

  “Can you tell me who?”

  “I’d rather not, unless I’m sure.”

  “I understand, Cork. But a young woman in this situation desperately needs help and usually doesn’t know how to ask for it.”

  “It’s a bit more complicated than you realize.”

  “This kind of thing is always complicated.”

  “I’m wondering if a teacher might be involved.”

  “A teacher here?”

  “If it’s a teacher, it would be here.”

  She gave her head a faint shake. “The symptoms you’ve described are more consistent with long-term abuse, something that began before this girl ever entered high school.”

  “A girl like this, though, would she be more vulnerable to a sexual relationship with an adult?”

  “Possibly.”

  “So she could be involved with a teacher, someone who had nothing to do with her earlier abuse?”

  “I suppose so, yes. Cork, I wish you’d tell me who this is so I can help.”

  “She’s beyond help, Juanita.”

  The woman puzzled for a moment, then a light came into her eyes. “Jo’s defending Solemn Winter Moon. You’re wondering about Charlotte Kane.”

  “I don’t think Solemn had anything to do with the girl’s death.”

  “He’s a troubled kid.”

  “I still don’t think he did it. Solemn believes that before her death, Charlotte was seeing someone, maybe a married man.”

  “A teacher, you think? Someone here? I hope that’s not what you’ve come to me for. I won’t even begin to speculate on something like that, Cork.”

  “I understand. But, Juanita, if Solemn is innocent, there’s a murderer still out there somewhere. Maybe even walking the halls of Aurora High. You’ve already said that a student-teacher liaison isn’t an impossibility.”

  “One that ends in murder is.”

  “I’m not asking you to accuse anyone, just help my thinking. It may save an innocent young man. Could it have been a teacher?”

  “I’m sure that kind of thing goes on in schools somewhere, but not here. I’m not going to continue this conversation.”

  “Just hear me out.”

  “We’re done.”

  Cork started to argue but saw how tense she’d become. “All right. I didn’t mean to put you in a professionally awkward position. I’m just trying to save a boy I believe is innocent.”

  “I understand.”

  Cork stood up and offered his hand. Her face slowly relaxed.

  “I heard Solemn claims he talked with Jesus,” she said. “Is it true?”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Around. I also heard that Jesus was wearing Minnetonka mocassins.”

  “That’s what Solemn says.”

  She allowed herself a brief smile. “That’s funny. I always figured Him for a Birkenstock kind of guy.”

  That night after Cork got home from Sam’s Place, Jo cornered him in the kitchen.

  “Annie said she saw you lurking in the halls at school today.”

  “I didn’t see her,” Cork said. “How come she didn’t say hello?”

  “Are you kidding? Acknowledging the existence of one of your parents at school? What planet are you from?” Jo was about to make a pot of decaf French roast coffee. As she lifted the bag to pour the beans into the grinder, she asked, “So, what were you doing there?”

  “I had a talk with Juanita Sherburne about Charlotte Kane.”

  “Cork, you didn’t.” She dumped beans all over the counter. “After you promised.”

  “I said I would behave myself. And I did. I was very polite.”

  “You’re splitting hairs. And you’re splitting them because you know you’re wrong. Oh, Cork.” Angrily, she began to gather the spilled beans. “If we have to go to trial, and even before we’ve selected a jury you’ve turned this whole town against us—”

  “Charlotte may have been sexually abused.”

  That made her pause.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Some of the things Juanita told me. I think Charlotte exhibited a number of telling symptoms.”

  Jo looked thoughtful and troubled. “Did you talk about who it might have been?”

  “Not specifically. But according to Juanita, usually it happens among family members.”

  “Family, as in …?”

  “The only family we know about is Fletcher and Glory, so maybe we start there.”

  She shook her head. “I think we should leave it alone, Cork.”

  “Fletcher’s a widower. No lady friends. He’s certainly an odd duck. And remember what Solemn said about Charlotte being so secretive. Maybe it’s the reason she hid so much, and why the one person who should have known she was troubled did nothing. Jo, I’m not accusing him. I’m just saying we should check it out.”

  “Due diligence?” She gave the words a sarcastic sting. “It’s a dangerous speculation, Cork.”

  “Look, this girl had problems. Someone somewhere along the line messed her up. Maybe that same someone killed her. Or maybe someone else preyed on her and then killed her. The more we know about Charlotte, the better we’ll be able to understand what happened.”

  “How did Juanita react to your questions?”

  Cork paused a moment. “When she understood I was asking about Charlotte, she clammed up.”

  “She didn’t want to go there with you, right? And she’s a professional. Imagine what the average citizen of Aurora will think. Solemn already has a lot of black marks against him in Tamarack County. If jurors know that we’re casting aspersions on their friends, their neighbors, God knows who all, even before Solemn’s been charged, they’re going to be sworn onto that grand jury already prejudiced against him. And us. They may not admit it to themselves, but the prejudice will be there. The fact is that the character of their town is being called into question, and they’ll be looking for the easiest way back to normalcy. In their minds, I guarantee you, that way will be to indict and then convict Solemn.”

  “That’s a lot of
speculation, Jo.”

  “I know how juries think. That’s part of what I do. It may be that the questions you ask lead nowhere. Suppose Charlotte was sexually abused. Does that mean it necessarily had anything to do with her death?”

  “Jo, they’re going to charge Solemn with murder eventually. First-degree, second-degree, whatever. I promised him I would help. This is how I do that.”

  “I understand that, Cork. And I hope you understand that I’m trying to handle a very delicate situation here, a balance between my client’s needs at this point, the prejudice of this community, the long-term effect of every move we make, and the fact that you can’t even sneeze in this town without everyone knowing it.

  “Charlotte’s been dead for several months. Will another week or two change anything? Once Solemn’s been officially charged you can ask your questions. People will expect it then. They may not like it any better, but they’ll understand.”

  “You ask for my help and then you ask me to sit on my hands.”

  “I know.”

  Cork stooped and picked up a bean that had fallen to the floor. He looked at it, hard and black in the palm of his hand. That was him inside.

  “All right,” he said. He threw the bean onto the counter and turned toward the side door.

  “Where are you going?” Jo asked.

  “I need to be by myself for a while.”

  He opened the kitchen door.

  “Cork,” Jo said to his back. “It’s good information. I’m sure it will be a big help if we have to go to the mat for Solemn. Thank you.”

  “Yeah.”

  He stepped out under the early night sky and walked away into the gathering dark.

  19

  THE FIRST MIRACLE occurred a few days later, on Memorial Day.

  Every year on that holiday, weather permitting, the O’Connors had a backyard barbeque. They invited friends and neighbors, and over the coals of a couple of grills, they cooked up hamburgers and hot dogs that they served with Rose’s famous potato salad. Everyone who came brought a dish to share. Cork nestled beer and pop in a half-barrel full of ice, and the kids made lemonade from real lemons. The pièce de résistance was a tub of vanilla ice cream handmade in an oak bucket filled with ice and rock salt, and everyone had to take a turn at the crank.

  Memorial Day weekend was a big one for tourists. Cork could have made a tidy profit keeping Sam’s Place open, but for him family came first. If he was going to flip burgers, he’d just as soon do it in the company of people he loved for people he cared about.

  Rose was late. She had planned to come early with Father Mal so that she could help the rest of the O’Connor clan get everything ready. When she hadn’t arrived by one, Jo called the rectory. The phone rang half a dozen times before Father Kelsey picked up. He’d been invited, as always, but Father Kelsey seldom left the rectory anymore. He preferred the comfort of his easy chair in front of the television.

  The priest said that Rose and Father Mal had left some time ago after Mal got a phone call. Something odd at the cemetery. Father Kelsey didn’t know what kind of oddness, or why anyone would call out the priest, or what made Rose feel she needed to accompany him.

  Cork was about to start the coals when Jo reported all this to him and asked if he’d mind popping over to the cemetery to check things out. As Cork headed toward his Bronco, Stevie ran to him begging to go along.

  Lakeview Cemetery occupied the crown of a big hill at the southern end of town. The site was surrounded by a black wrought iron fence, built tall so that deer couldn’t jump it to feed on the flowers inside. Because this was Memorial Day, Cork expected to see a number of people there, paying their respects to loved ones who existed now only in memory, but he was surprised to find the cemetery looking nearly deserted.

  Gus Finlayson, the cemetery groundskeeper, stood smoking a pipe under a burr oak tree just inside the gate. Cork stopped. “Where is everybody?”

  “Way to the other side,” Gus said. “You ain’t heard?”

  “What?”

  “Best go on and see for yourself.”

  Cork drove ahead, threading his way down the narrow lanes between the rows of gravestones. He soon saw the place, dozens of cars parked on a hillside at the distant end of the cemetery. As Cork approached, Stevie stuck his head out the window.

  “It smells pretty,” he said.

  And it did. The air was redolent with the scent of roses.

  Cork parked behind Mal Thorne’s Nova. Just ahead of that was a sheriff’s department Crown Victoria. Randy Gooding stood next to the cruiser, his arms crossed. Mal and Rose were with him.

  “What’s up?” Cork said.

  Gooding nodded down the hillside where a crowd had gathered. “Check it out.”

  Cork glanced at Mal, who looked a little mystified. Rose glowed and seemed about to speak, but she held herself back.

  Cork descended the hill with Stevie at his side. A quiet murmur came from the gathering. In the gaps between people, Cork glimpsed deep red, like a pool of blood, at the center of things. He found an open space and moved in. It was not blood but rose petals, thousands of them, a foot deep over the grave and covering the grass around it in a circle several yards wide.

  Then he looked at the gravestone.

  Fletcher Kane had paid a pretty penny for the stone that marked his daughter’s grave, bought her a white marble obelisk six feet tall. Carved in relief above Charlotte’s name was a beautiful angel with eyes cast toward heaven.

  “Look, Dad,” Stevie said. “The angel is bleeding.”

  Not exactly bleeding, Cork thought. Weeping. Tears of blood, it seemed, dark red trickles that ran glistening from the angel’s eyes all the way down the white face of the stone into the petals that lay deep around the base.

  A few of the crowd were on their knees, praying. Most of the others simply stared at the weeping angel with a quiet reverence. Cork turned away and walked back up the hill.

  “Where did the petals come from?” he asked.

  Gooding shrugged. “The question of the day.”

  “It’s like they fell from the sky.” Rose lifted her hands, as if to catch any petals that might yet flutter down. “And the angel, Cork. Did you see the tears?”

  “I’d take a sample of those tears, if I were you,” Cork said to Gooding.

  “I already have. Over great objection from the true believers down there.”

  The priest gave Cork a dazzling smile. “Don’t you feel it? Something absolutely amazing has happened here.”

  “Amazing all right,” Cork said. “Someone’s gone to a lot of trouble. Did Gus Finlayson see anything?”

  Gooding shook his head. “It was like this when he opened the gate this morning. Says there was nothing last night when he locked up.”

  “Does Arne know?”

  Gooding said, “Sheriff’s over in Hibbing, spending the day with Big Mike and the rest of his family. I didn’t see any reason to haul him back here for this. No harm done, so far as I can see. I’m guessing at some point somebody will come forward and we’ll find out it was just some kind of extravagant gesture.”

  “No one will,” Rose said. There was a look in her eyes that was a little like madness. Cork wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her so happy.

  Stevie climbed back up the hill, cradling something in the palm of his hand. “They look like red teardrops,” he said of the three delicate petals he held. “Can I keep them?”

  “I think it would be all right,” Cork said. “Let’s get on home, buddy. Your mom will be wondering.” He turned to Rose and Mal. “You guys coming?”

  “We’ll be along,” Rose said in a dreamy voice.

  The girls, when they heard, had to see for themselves. They came back with Rose and Mal Thorne, excited and mystified. Then Jo had to go, too.

  In a day that was normally filled with talk about baseball and fishing and gardens and remembrances of the past, most conversations centered on what had quickly been dubbed “the angel of t
he roses.”

  It was dusk before the gathering in the O’Connors’ backyard broke up and people drifted home. Rose and Mal Thorne lingered, sitting across from each other at the picnic table, talking in quiet tones. Mal sipped from a can of Leinenkugel, Rose from a coffee mug. Jenny and Stevie were finishing a game of croquet. Annie was devouring the last hot dog. Cork stood just inside the sliding back door, watching the scene in his yard. Jo came from the kitchen, put her arm around him.

  “Annie’s still eating?” she said.

  “She’s a growing girl, an athlete. And she does like to eat. She told me she wants to be a professional sin eater when she grows up.”

  “A what?”

  “A sin eater. It’s something Mal told her about. Back in the Middle Ages, rich people hired poor folk to feast over the bodies of their dead loved ones. Basically a ritual eating of sins so the rich would go to heaven.”

  “And the poor people?”

  “Fat and damned, I guess.” He saw Jo’s look of concern. “Relax. She was only joking.”

  “A grotesque joke. Why would Father Mal tell her such a bizarre story?”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  With a small frown, Jo regarded her sister and the priest.

  “What is it?” Cork asked.

  Mal leaned across the picnic table and said something. Rose laughed and lightly touched his hand.

  “She’s in love with him.”

  “Rose? With Mal?”

  Jo nodded.

  “She told you?”

  “She didn’t have to.”

  Cork could see it now. A comfortable intimacy between the two of them. Almost like a married couple. In truth, the revelation didn’t surprise him much. He thought back and realized that he’d noted the signs but simply hadn’t put them all together. Jo, of course, had been way ahead of him on that.

  “Do you think Mal knows?”

  “I don’t know. Men can be so blind. Maybe a priest even more so.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “It’s her life.”

  “You’re not going to talk to her?”

  “If she wants to talk to me, she will.”

  “Nothing we can do?”

  “Be there for her when she needs us.”