Blood Hollow

Goodman nodded. “Cy.”

  The wattle-throated deputy. A nice man, a competent officer. But sheriff?

  “Where is he?” Cork asked.

  “That’s part of the problem. He has the day off. Took his wife down to Duluth for some hospital tests. So …”

  “No one is officially in charge.” Cork summed it up.

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “It’s all process,” Cork said. “Bail is posted, prisoner released. Doesn’t matter whether we have a sheriff present.”

  “What about getting Solemn home safely?” Dot asked.

  “We’ll do our best to get him to a vehicle, but after that, it’s out of our hands,” Gooding said.

  Bledsoe and the paperwork arrived about fifteen minutes later. “There’s something going on out there,” he told Gooding. “I think they know about Solemn.”

  Gooding went to the window and looked toward the park across the street. “Jeeze, you’re right. They’re swarming this way.”

  “We should probably take Solemn out the back,” Cork said. “Keep him out of sight of the crowd altogether.”

  Gooding stepped to the office door. “Marsha, see if we’d have any interference taking Winter Moon out the back emergency exit. Pender, go out front and keep the crowd away from the front door.”

  “Who put you in charge?” Pender snapped.

  To which Dross, as she departed on her errand, replied, “Just do it, Duane.”

  Gooding turned back to the others in the sheriff’s office. “Cork, if it’s clear in back, why don’t you go out and bring your Bronco around. Dot, Jo, it might be best if you just stayed put for a while. You, too, Ollie.”

  Dross came back and stood in the doorway. “The coast is clear in back.”

  A general buzz had begun outside the opened window, voices rising, and Cork left the office quickly.

  Deputy Pender stood on the sidewalk, facing the crowd that pressed toward the jail, his hands on his hips, fists against the leather of his gun belt. As Cork stepped into the late morning sunlight, he saw Pender lift his right hand and hold it up, as if he were trying to halt traffic at a busy intersection. His left hand went to his lips, and he gave a long shrill blast on a metal whistle.

  The crowd, as it milled its way across the street and onto the grass of the sheriff’s department, reminded Cork of cattle crossing a road. At the sound of Pender’s whistle, those near the forefront did, indeed, attempt to halt, but they were pushed ahead by those behind.

  Pender gave three more whistle blasts. At last, the forward movement stopped.

  “Go back to the park,” Pender shouted. “I want everyone to move back across the street to the park.”

  The sugar-cinnamon smell of minidonuts drifted ahead of the crowd. Yellow balloons on long white strings bobbed above their heads. Somewhere near the back, a boom box was playing “Horse with No Name.”

  “Move back,” Pender said. “I’m not going to warn you again.”

  The front line held.

  Cork figured it was a good time to get his ass out of the way. He slipped behind Pender and headed across the grass to the parking lot. No one seemed to pay him any attention. All eyes were intent on Pender.

  “Winter Moon,” someone yelled. “We want Winter Moon.”

  “Let him out!”

  “Let us see him!”

  “Free Solemn!”

  Free Solemn. They’d found the cry, and it went up in a chorus, from mouths that had never personally spoken a word to Solemn Winter Moon.

  Cork drove out of the parking lot and turned away from the crowd that acted as a barricade across the street. He maneuvered around the block and pulled to the curb at the back of the building. The cell phone on the seat beside him chirped.

  “How’s it look?” Gooding asked.

  “Clear,” Cork said.

  “Ten-four. We’re coming out.”

  No sooner had Gooding hung up than Cork spotted a few people edging around the corner of the building. Among them were the Warroad couple with their wheelchair-bound son. Why they’d broken away from the crowd up front, Cork couldn’t say, but there was nothing he could do about it now except hope that he was able to get Solemn away before anything serious occurred.

  The couple wheeled their son toward the Bronco, coming as if they knew what was happening. Behind them, the other few who’d deserted the crowd hung back, their gazes shifting back and forth between the wheelchair and the crush of people up front.

  The rear door of the building opened. Gooding came out, escorting Solemn, who’d changed from his county uniform into jeans and a white T-shirt. Twenty yards of open ground lay between them and the Bronco. They’d taken only a few steps when a cry went up from the people who’d stationed themselves at the building’s corner, and the rush was on.

  The Warroad couple arrived first, thrusting the wheelchair and its precious occupant between Solemn and the safety of the Bronco.

  “Please,” the woman said. She grabbed Solemn’s hand. “Heal my son.” She tugged at his arm, pulling him toward the boy. Her husband tried to grasp Solemn’s other arm, but Gooding interfered.

  “Move away, folks,” he ordered. “Let this man through.”

  “Please,” the woman said.

  Solemn could not ignore her desperation. He looked down at the boy whose tongue hung from his mouth, whose eyes roamed, whose hands were locked in a vicious grip that held nothing.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

  Cork heard the noise of the crowd rounding the corner of the building. “Get in, Solemn,” he shouted.

  Solemn’s eyes had not left the boy. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Lay your hands on him,” the woman said. “Touch him.”

  The first of those who’d given the cry neared Solemn. Gooding put himself between them and Winter Moon.

  “Stay back,” he shouted. “That’s a police order.”

  It made them pause only a moment.

  Solemn reached out and laid both his hands on the boy’s head. He looked at the woman, his dark eyes full of doubt. “Like this?”

  The flood of people swept into view. The sound of their coming triggered those already near Solemn, and those anxious few shoved past Gooding. Solemn lost his grip on the boy and stumbled toward the Bronco. He slipped into the backseat and slammed the door as two bodies hurled themselves against it. Cork hit the power lock, put the Bronco into gear, and drove away from the wave of faithful sweeping around Gooding.

  Two blocks distant, he finally asked over his shoulder, “You okay?”

  Solemn didn’t reply.

  Cork glanced in the mirror, and saw behind him the face of a terrified man.

  * * *

  The whole distance to Sam Winter Moon’s old cabin Solemn didn’t say a word. Cork parked in the shade of the pine trees and got out. Solemn moved like an old man, slowly and in a daze. When he was out of the vehicle, he stood and stared at the cabin.

  “I’ll bring you whatever you need,” Cork said.

  “I touched him. Nothing happened.”

  “What did you expect?”

  Solemn shook his head. “I told you they were looking for something I couldn’t give them.”

  “I know, Solemn.”

  “It’s gone.”

  “What?”

  But Solemn didn’t say. He walked toward the cabin and went inside alone.

  Fifteen minutes later, Dot drove up in her blue Blazer. Jo followed in her Toyota.

  “Where is he?” Dot looked toward the cabin. “Inside?”

  Cork nodded.

  “How’s he doing?” Jo asked.

  “Pretty shaken.”

  “You need anything, Dot?”

  “No.” She took Jo’s hand, and Cork’s, and thanked them. “Migwech.” She went inside to be with her son.

  “Anybody follow you?” Cork asked.

  “No. They were all too confused, I think. It was pretty crazy back there.”

&n
bsp; “Tell me about it.”

  “Cork, I saw Fletcher Kane. He was standing across the street, watching when Dot and I left the building.”

  “What was he doing there?”

  “I don’t know, but he didn’t seem happy.” Jo looked at the old cabin where Dot and Solemn had sought refuge. “Do we need to do anything here?”

  “I don’t know what it would be. Let’s go home.”

  29

  LATE THAT AFTERNOON at Sam’s Place, Jenny said, “Dad?”

  Cork was scraping the griddle. “Yeah?”

  “Dad?”

  He heard this time how queer her voice was and he turned. Business had been slow. Jenny sat on the stool at the serving window with her headphones on, listening to a CD by a group called Garbage. Cork followed her fearful gaze.

  In the parking lot stood Fletcher Kane, staring darkly at Jenny.

  “I’ll be right back, honey,” Cork said.

  He took off his apron and went outside.

  Kane was dressed in a black suit, white shirt, black tie. He reminded Cork of an undertaker. In the heat, sweat trickled down his temples. His eyes stayed locked on Jenny behind the window.

  “What is it, Fletcher?” Cork asked, not kindly.

  “What if she were dead?”

  “What?”

  “Your daughter. What if she were dead?”

  “What do you want?”

  “You have no idea, do you, how that would feel?”

  “Is that a threat?”

  Kane finally looked at Cork. “They let him out.”

  “Solemn? Yes.”

  “He’s not at his mother’s.”

  A boat came up to the dock. The engine whined like a huge insect, sputtered, then died. The silence after seemed heavy.

  “Why would you care?” Cork said.

  “I want to know where he is.”

  “You think I’m going to tell you?”

  Kane reached into the inside pocket of his suit coat and pulled out a checkbook and a Montblanc fountain pen. He unscrewed the cap of the pen and opened the checkbook.

  “How much?”

  “Are you serious?”

  Kane held the checkbook in the palm of his left hand. With his right, he wrote out a check and handed it to Cork.

  Twenty thousand dollars.

  “Go home, Fletcher.” Cork tore up the check.

  Kane watched the torn pieces flutter to the gravel, then looked toward Jenny. “No idea,” he said, and walked back to his car.

  Cork went into Sam’s Place and called the sheriff’s office, asked for Gooding. After he explained the episode with Kane, he said, “Randy, he’s right at the edge of something.”

  Gooding breathed deeply on the other end. “I’ll have a talk with him. I’m not sure what else we can do. He hasn’t broken any law that you know of, has he?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You know how it is, Cork.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  It was dark when Cork finally locked the door of Sam’s Place and headed to his Bronco with the day’s take in hand.

  He went to First National of Aurora and completed the night deposit. As he prepared to head out of the bank lot onto Center Street, Fletcher Kane’s silver El Dorado cruised passed. Cork waited a moment, then eased onto the street a couple of cars behind him.

  It was a warm summer night. The traffic was primarily young people, teenagers mostly, cruising toward the Broiler, which stayed open until midnight, or to the new Perkins, which was open twenty-four hours. They’d sit in booths, drink coffee or Cokes, smoke cigarettes, and talk of things that mattered to them now. Jenny and her boyfriend would be out there somewhere, in the midnight blue ’76 Camaro that Sean had bought as a junker and had brought back to life. For Jenny, the things that mattered would be books; for Sean, in that season, it would be baseball.

  Cork had been young once, in Aurora. He remembered the explosive feel of summer nights, when, at fourteen or fifteen or sixteen your heart was big and your head was forgotten, when you believed you had it in you to do everything, when you felt like you’d never die but if you did that was all right, too, because it couldn’t get any better than this, or any worse. Every corner on Center Street was a place he’d lingered, spotlighted by a streetlamp, hanging out with a half dozen other boys his age. Except he’d never hung out with Fletcher Kane. Kane was a loner, even then, a small kid with glasses, tending a little toward plump. He was bright, everybody knew that, but not in the least athletic. Cork couldn’t remember if he had had a best friend, or even a good one. Once the scandal of his father’s death broke, and word got out about the investigation Cork’s father had been conducting, Fletcher Kane stopped going to school and Cork almost never saw him on the street.

  Cork did remember one incident. A Saturday night a couple of weeks after his father had died, Fletcher showed up at the old Rialto Theatre. Cork was there, too, to see Sean Connery as James Bond in From Russia with Love. After the show, as Cork headed home, he saw Fletcher surrounded by a number of high school boys, who’d cornered him in the alley behind Pflugelmann’s Rexall Drugstore. Cork ran hard to the sheriff’s office, where he found Cy Borkmann on duty. The deputy was young, but heavy even then. He followed Cork back to the alley and broke up the gathering where the high school boys were in the process of “pantsing” Kane, forcibly removing his trousers to make him walk the streets in his underwear. Fletcher Kane never said a word of thanks, not to the deputy nor to Cork. He eyed them both while he put on his pants, as if waiting for them to take their own turn at humiliating him, then with as much dignity as he could muster, he walked on home. Two weeks later, Kane’s mother left Aurora for good and took her son with her.

  Fletcher Kane had been set that way in Cork’s mind for thirty-five years. Then the tall man with long hands and deep pockets had showed up in Aurora. The boy, however, was still visible in the face, especially in the hard, dark eyes that even after more than three decades still seemed to be watching the town, as if ready to be hurt and to hurt in return.

  Kane turned onto Cascade, circled back, and again entered the stream of vehicles on Center Street. What was he looking for? What was out there in the night that drew him from the solitary dark of his home?

  Cork followed for nearly an hour, up and down Center, past the Broiler and Perkins, as Kane insinuated his El Dorado into the flow of cars packed with teenagers. He had no business tailing the man this way, but he was curious and also concerned. Everything he believed told him Kane needed watching.

  Finally, the El Dorado made a left on Olive and headed west, away from the center of town. Kane took another left on Madison and two blocks later, turned the corner, and pulled to the curb in front of St. Agnes. Cork drove past and rounded the next corner. He parked and leaped from the Bronco.

  A waxing half moon had risen, bright enough to cast vague, disturbing shadows. Cork kept to those shadows as he made his way back toward the church. In the moonlight, the silver El Dorado seemed to glow. The driver’s door, when it opened, flashed like a signal mirror. Cork ducked behind a minivan parked on the street.

  Kane moved like a man condemned, dragging himself up the steps to the doors of St. Agnes. His shadow went before him and touched the wood long before he did. He reached out and tugged at the knob. His right hand rose in a fist and beat against the door. He stepped back, and for a long moment stared at what was locked against him. Finally he turned and sat down on the top step. He bent forward, and his shadow bent with him while he and his darker self began to weep.

  Cork knew that he was trespassing on something terribly private. He crept away, wondering if Kane wept for himself, for his own hopeless situation. Was he, perhaps, still grieving for his daughter? Or had he come to the church seeking something that the locked door prevented him from finding?

  30

  GOODING JOINED CORK at the counter of the Broiler the next morning. Cork was finishing his coffee. Gooding ordered a cup for himself and a side of whole wheat
toast.

  “Light breakfast,” Cork said.

  “Here on official business, sort of. Our acting sheriff asked me to find you, let you know a couple of things.”

  “Cy? How’s he doing?”

  “Holding his own, I’d say.” Gooding leaned nearer to Cork. “If you haven’t heard, you soon will. Arne Soderberg came into the office yesterday afternoon with his attorney. Gave a full statement. He admitted to an affair with Charlotte Kane. Said it began last summer, but he broke it off when he got himself elected sheriff. When she took up with Winter Moon, he got jealous, went back to seeing her. He admitted he was at Valhalla, but swears she was alive and unharmed when he left. He’s got a receipt and a witness that place him in town in the time frame we believe she was attacked. Looks like a pretty solid alibi. He also admitted that the rose petals were his doing. Said the last promise he made to her was that when he was a free man, as in divorced from Lyla, I guess, he’d give her a bed of roses to lie in.” Gooding looked down. “Soderberg. I should have been suspicious. He had money, transport, and a key to the cemetery. Pretty sloppy police work.”

  “Give yourself a break. You couldn’t have known he had a motive. Who would have thought it?”

  Gooding looked up again. “You did.”

  “What about the blood tears? Did he know anything about that?”

  “Swore he didn’t have anything to do with it. Doesn’t know a thing about it.”

  “You hear anything yet from the BCA on the samples you took from the angel?”

  “Mostly water and a little blood. Type O-positive, most common blood type. Nobody actually saw the angel weeping. The tears had already streamed down the monument when the crowd started to gather, so I suppose they could easily have been put there earlier by almost anyone. Somebody, maybe, who just wanted to add to the mystique. You could figure it any number of ways that have nothing to do with miracles.”

  Gooding’s toast arrived. He opened a packet of honey.

  “Cork, I’ve got to tell you, we still like Winter Moon for the girl’s murder. Too much evidence against him. The CA’s going ahead with the prosecution. You still believe he’s innocent?”