William Krueger - Tamarack County

“How do you know this?” Cork asked.

“She told me during her visit in October.”

“The first you’d heard of it?”

“Yes. My parents have always been secretive people. It’s probably not something she would have shared with me, but once that whole LaPointe business came to light, she seemed different, changed, ready to get away from him and begin a new kind of life. It probably also had to do with me being grown now. It was something she could finally share with me woman to woman. You know?”

Dross nodded, as if she did know.

“What made you connect that affair with your mother’s disappearance?” Cork asked.

Justine’s already pinched face seemed to draw in even more, the pupils of her eyes like hard gray nailheads. “My father’s a man who never lets go of a slight against him. I thought that if you coupled Mom’s affair with her intent to leave him, it might have been enough to send him over the edge. And like I said, his thinking and his behavior is sometimes irrational these days. He gets irritated and easily angered. Mom’s had trouble with it and, because of it, trouble keeping help at the house.”

“Do you know who the affair was with?”

“That part she wouldn’t tell me.”

Cork glanced at Dross. “Did you tell her about the knife and gas cans and tubing?”

“Yes,” Dross said.

He shifted his focus back to Justine. “Do you think your father might be capable of having done something to your mother?”

“Something? You mean killed her? Yes. Absolutely.” They waited for her to go on, but that seemed to do it for her. She said, “What will you do now?”

“We’ll continue our investigation,” Dross said. “There are a lot of possibilities we have to consider. If I need to, can I reach you at your father’s house?”

“My father’s house?” She seemed shocked at the thought. “I’m not staying there. I’ve booked a room at the Four Seasons. But you can reach me on my cell phone anytime. You have the number.”

Cork had a thought and said, “Does your father own a cell phone?”

“No, why would he? He has the landline, and he never goes anywhere. My mother’s the one with a cell phone.” She looked at Dross, appeared drawn and tired and angry. “Is that all?”

“For the moment.”

Justine stood up and went to the coat tree, a piece of antique furniture that Marsha Dross had found and refinished and that was part of what gave her office its oddly comfortable feel. She took her coat, a long tan affair with a fur collar, and put it on. “You’ll keep me informed,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“Of course.”

She turned and left, not bothering to close the door behind her.

Cork allowed a few moments to pass, to be sure that she was really gone, then let out a low whistle. “That’s one bitter woman where her father’s concerned.”

Dross tapped her desktop with her fingernail. “So we take with a grain of salt her belief that the Judge could have killed her mother?”

“No, I happen to believe it, too. I’m not saying that he did it, just that he’s capable. And we have a possible motive now.”

Dross glanced at the open door, then back at Cork. “Why did you ask her if the Judge has a cell phone?”

“If Ralph Carter killed his wife and got rid of her body somewhere, I think he had to have help. He never leaves the house unless he’s with Evelyn. So how would he arrange it?”

Dross thought a moment. “The telephone. I’ll request his records.”

Stephen sat on the passenger side of the 4Runner’s front seat. Marlee was at the wheel. They were driving around. Just driving. And talking. Marlee was a good talker. Stephen was an adept listener, a natural talent, but it was also an ability that Henry Meloux had encouraged him to nurture.

At first, Marlee had talked about the play she’d spent the last couple of hours practicing at the high school, You Can’t Take It with You . She had the role of a dancer, “a ditzy dancer” was how she described her character. She told him it was a famous play, a screwball comedy. She said, “You’re going to come, right?”

He assured her that was his intention.

They were south of Aurora when Marlee turned onto a back road, only recently plowed. It was unpaved, gravel washboard. She pulled to the side of the road, right up against the mound of plowed snow, and killed the engine. The sun came through the windshield bright and warm. Marlee turned to him, removed her gloves, and unbuttoned her coat.

“I wanted to thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“For everything you did last night. You were wonderful.” She leaned to him and kissed him a very long time.

When they separated, Stephen smiled and said, “You brought me all the way out here just to thank me?”

“No. I . . .” She turned her face away and was quiet a moment. Then, as if she’d made an important decision, she looked back at him, looked deeply into his eyes. Her almond irises seemed to contain little flecks of gold. “No,” she said. “I wanted to give you something special.”

She shed her coat, turned to him fully, and lifted her sweater. She wore a lacy red bra, which cupped two very firm breasts. Stephen sat stupefied as she slid apart the clasp that held her bra together in front, and the red lace parted. What was revealed to him in the brilliant stream of sunlight was nothing short of heaven.

He started to reach out. “Can I . . . ?”

She nodded. “Take your gloves off first.”

In the blink of an eye, he had them off. He reached out and gently touched her left nipple, which had grown hard, then took her whole breast in his hand. It was a sensation like he’d never felt before, both holy and sinful at the same time, dizzyingly surreal and yet he was terribly, wonderfully present, aware of every sensation in that moment, of the softness of her breast and the heat of his palm and the shine of her eyes and the quickness of his breath.

“Kiss me,” she said.

And did he ever.

He had no idea how far things might have gone if the truck hadn’t come along. They both heard it, rattling over the washboard, approaching from the main road. Marlee quickly sat up and pulled her sweater down. Stephen flung himself back against the passenger door, where he tried to look as if nothing had been happening. The truck came abreast but didn’t pause at all. It was spattered with hardened mud, and the side window was so splashed with road spray that Stephen couldn’t see through it with any clarity. He watched it pass and realized, when he saw his breath begin to crystallize on the windshield of Marlee’s car, that it had grown chilly inside the vehicle.

“Mood spoiler,” Marlee said. She looked over at him, almost shyly. “We should go.”

“Probably, yeah,” Stephen said, although pretty much everything in him didn’t agree.

She reached under her sweater and spent a few moments putting her bra back in place. Stephen turned his eyes away, feeling suddenly awkward.

They were quiet after that. Marlee maneuvered the 4Runner in a U-turn and started back toward the main road. At the junction, she stopped and looked both ways, then, instead of turning toward Aurora, headed in the direction of the rez.

“Where are you going?” Stephen asked.

“I was just thinking. Mom’s probably already gone to work. She was going to get a ride with Kit Johnson.”

“I thought one of your uncles or cousins was going to come and stay with you until we figured out who killed Dexter.”

“That would be Shorty, my great-uncle. He didn’t show last night, and even if he does tonight, he won’t be there for hours.”

Stephen didn’t say a word in objection.