William Krueger - Red knife

“Father Ted,” Lucinda called out to him.

He turned and smiled. “Lucinda.” Misty was asleep in the stroller and Lucinda took her time reaching the priest. When he looked at her closely, he seemed gravely concerned. “Is everything all right?”

“May I talk to you?” she said.

“Of course. Shall we go into my office?”

“Thank you.”

They went together into the wing that housed the church offices and the education classrooms. The priest unlocked the door. The building was empty. She liked the quiet, the emptiness that was not really emptiness, she knew, because the church and every part of it was filled with the Holy Spirit. The young priest stopped at the front desk and picked up some mail.

“How is the baby?”

“She is doing well, Father. But…”

“But what?”

“It’s almost as if she doesn’t even miss her mother.”

“In a way, that strikes me as a blessing.”

“For her, yes. But I think of poor Rayette. Her little girl will never know her, probably never even think of her as her mother.”

“You can help her with that. You can make sure she knows who her mother was and that Rayette loved her deeply.”

“I will try, Father.”

“Is that all?”

“No.” Lucinda thought for a moment, not certain how to approach her real concern. “Father, what is the duty of a wife toward her husband?”

The priest put down the mail and lines appeared on his brow as he considered. “I would say it’s to love him, to respect him, to support him, to create and raise a family with him, to help as he strives in his service to God and the Church. If we look at scripture, Ephesians tells us that a wife should respect and obey her husband.”

“What if a wife is afraid of something?”

“Afraid of her husband?”

“No, no. Afraid for him.”

“Then I think she does all that she can to help him.”

“What if he doesn’t want her help?”

“Can you be more specific?”

“I’m sorry, Father, I can’t.”

“Well then, this is what I think. But, Lucinda, it’s only what I think, not necessarily advice. I think sometimes people don’t really know what they want, but I’ve never seen a situation where giving a loving hand was a mistake.” The lines on his young brow deepened and he leaned toward her confidentially. “Is there something you want to tell me, something I might be able to help with?”

“No, Father. It’s all right. Thank you.” Misty was awake and had begun to fuss in her stroller. Hungry, Lucinda thought. “I should get home.”

“All right, then. I’ll see you on Wednesday for the service and burial.”

“Thank you, Father.”

She left the church. On the sidewalk that ran along the street, she glanced back. Through his office window, behind the reflection of that cloudy day, the priest was watching.

When she arrived home, she heard voices coming from Uly’s bedroom. Her son had stayed home from school that day, something she’d insisted on, although Will had pressed for Uly to proceed with life as usual. It was rare that Will gave in to her, but in this she’d prevailed. She took Misty from the stroller and as she headed to the baby’s room, she stopped and knocked on her son’s door. He didn’t answer, and she knocked again, louder, and called, “Uly?”

He opened the door and looked at her without speaking, looked at her as if she was an unwelcome stranger.

“I thought I heard you talking to someone,” she said.

Lucinda saw that the chair at Uly’s computer desk was occupied. From the clothing the visitor wore-all black-and the black-dyed hair, she knew immediately that it was Darrell Gallagher, a boy Uly hung out with a lot these days. Darrell didn’t acknowledge her, didn’t even look away from the computer screen, where he was probably surfing the Internet. He and Uly spent a good deal of time on the Internet, communicating with people in cyberspace. She wished Uly would spend more time with real people in real space.

“I was just chilling with Darrell,” he said.

“Why isn’t he in school?”

“He took the day off to keep me company, okay?”

“Yes. Of course.” She tried to think of it as a nice thing for a friend to do.

Uly smiled at the baby. “How’s Misty doing?”

“She’s fine.”

“Hey there, chiquita. ” He gently stroked the baby’s cheek. “Later, Mom.” He closed the bedroom door against her.

After his talk with Meloux, Cork stopped at the sheriff’s department, but neither Marsha Dross, Ed Larson, nor Simon Rutledge was there. He left word for the sheriff to call him on his cell, then he turned to the chore he’d meant to do that day before the Kingbird killings had grabbed his attention.

He had closed Sam’s Place the week after Halloween. November was always a grim month. The fall colors vanished. The stands of maple, oak, birch, and poplar lost their brilliance and became stark and bare. The days were blustery and overcast. The lake was gray, agitated, and empty. The flow of customers to Sam’s Place dried to a trickle. He’d put plywood over the serving windows and hung a sign that read: THANKS FOR YOUR BUSINESS. SEE YOU NEXT SPRING. He’d tipped the picnic table against the big pine beside the lake, turned off the gas to the grill, emptied and shut down the freezer for the winter. That part of the old Quonset hut devoted to the food-service business was abandoned. The other part of the building Cork kept heated and continued to use as the office for his fledgling business as a private investigator. He was the only PI in Tamarack County and the three counties that adjoined it. His first case had involved finding Henry Meloux’s son. Despite the fact that the job had, in the end, cost several lives, business afterward had been surprisingly brisk. Wilred Brynofurson, head of security at Aurora Community College, had hired him to investigate one of their environmental engineers, suspected in the theft of several computers and video projectors. His work resulted in clearing the suspect and uncovering the true culprit, the assistant director of Technology Services, a man with a serious gambling problem. He’d also done surveillance for an insurance company on a plaintiff suing for a debilitating back injury sustained when his car collided with a plumber’s truck. Cork had videotaped the guy, who lived in Eveleth, climbing like a monkey all over his roof, taking down strings of Christmas lights. That one hadn’t been a challenge at all. He’d served subpoenas, located a couple of bail jumpers, and tracked down Rolf and Olivia Nordstrom’s daughter who’d dropped out of her first year at Augsburg College and then dropped out of sight. (After spending one day on campus, he found her living with her boyfriend-a street juggler and sometimes bar bouncer-in a crash pad on the West Bank. He didn’t convince her to return to college or Aurora, didn’t even try, but he did get her to promise to call her worried parents, which she did.)

Except for the work he’d done for Henry Meloux, which had been more a favor than an assignment, his PI work so far hadn’t been particularly difficult. Neither had it been dangerous, and that was important. It kept Jo happy. She liked that he no longer had a job that required a Kevlar vest as part of his standard equipment.

He was on his stepladder, reattaching a corner of the SAM’S PLACE sign that had worked loose in the winter winds, when he spotted Ed Larson’s cruiser turn onto the gravel access that led to the Quonset hut. He set his hammer down and watched as Larson brought the cruiser over the Burlington Northern tracks and parked in the lot. Larson got out, Simon Rutledge with him.

“Think you’ll have ’er ready for fishing opener?” Larson asked as they approached.