William Krueger - Tamarack County

Afterward, all the men went back out and left Ray Jay alone. He had to pee, and he sat uncomfortable and fidgeting. He’d become sorry, very sorry, that he’d said anything to anyone, and he knew that Harmon would kill him when he found out, and all he wanted to do was run away. Finally, the men returned. The judge stood in front of him and looked down, and Ray Jay thought that God, when he sent someone to hell, probably looked exactly like that. The judge told him that no one believed his story. The judge told him that if they did believe it, it would mean that Ray Jay would go to prison for the rest of his life. Did Ray Jay know what happened to boys who went to prison? They were sodomized. Did Ray Jay know what that meant? Ray Jay did, and Ray Jay didn’t want that to happen to him. The judge told him to go home and to say nothing to anyone about this, ever. If he did, the judge would see to it that Ray Jay ended up behind bars, bent over and with someone’s dick up his ass.

Ray Jay never said a word of this, not to anyone, until, at thirty-six years of age, he entered AA and tried to make amends.

When Corrine Heine made the whole thing public, a media circus had followed. Everyone associated with the case was interviewed, including Cork, who maintained he’d known nothing about Ray Jay’s story. Sheriff Roy Arneson had died of cancer several years earlier, so he couldn’t shed any light. Judge Ralph Carter denied everything, as did Sullivan Becker, who, at the urging of an old law school classmate, had moved to Florida not long after the LaPointe case and gone to work for the Dade County DA, where he made a name for himself prosecuting organized crime.

The kicker was that LaPointe continued to insist that he had, in fact, committed the crime for which he’d been sentenced over twenty years earlier. When Heine vowed to get the case reviewed based on Ray Jay’s account, LaPointe would not agree to be a party to it, and he’d stayed in jail.

After the story broke, Cork talked with Ray Jay Wakemup, who swore that every word of what he’d said was true. Cork had tried to see LaPointe, but the man was refusing visitors. In the end, as they always do, things settled down. The media moved on to other stories, and the questions surrounding the truth of Karyn Bowen’s death became subjects of idle speculation, mostly over beer in the taverns of Tamarack County.

At the time, Cork had spent a good many restless nights considering his own culpability in all this. What he understood was that Ray Jay had not actually seen who committed the murder, and his perceptions, impaired by drugs, probably couldn’t be trusted. There was LaPointe’s continued insistence that justice had, in fact, been meted out correctly. And finally there was Roy Arneson, damn him, who’d left Cork totally in the dark about Ray Jay’s confession. Were it not for all these factors, Cork might yet have been plagued with guilt. But after a while he, too, let go of constantly mulling over the questions about that ancient case.

Eventually, the whole affair had faded away, even in the barrooms of Tamarack County.

Now someone had killed Ray Jay Wakemup’s dog and left his head as . . . what? There’d been nothing to indicate the reason, no note except “Welcome Home, Ray Jay!” Yet, as he drove toward Allouette to make sure of the Daychilds’ safety that night, Cork began to wonder if someone was finally calling Ray Jay to account for the sins of the past, sins still unforgiven.

When the doorbell rang, Stephen didn’t respond immediately. He thought, This is what it’s like here. Colder than you could ever imagine. Hope you enjoy it, Skye.

The bell rang again, and from upstairs, Jenny called, “Stephen, get the door.”

He crossed the living room in no hurry, took hold of the doorknob, but gave himself another few seconds before opening up.

Skye Edwards stood in the light from the porch lamp, smiling at him out of the oval frame her parka hood created around her face. In one hand, she carried a big plastic bag with “Four Seasons” printed in elegant script across the side.

“Hi,” Stephen said, with no great enthusiasm. He stood aside so that she could enter.

She brought the cold. It not only came in the air that entered with her but poured off her clothing. She made a brrrrr sound and stamped her feet and said, “Oh, God, I think my toes are going to fall off.” She flipped the parka off her head. “ Boozhoo, Stephen. Did I say that right?”

“Close enough,” Stephen replied.

She shed her parka and glanced around. “Where should I put this?”

“I’ll take it.” He nodded toward her boots, which had carried in snow on their soles. “Leave those on the mat by the door.” He hung the parka in the closet in the hallway.

Skye put down the plastic bag she carried, knelt and undid her laces. “Where’s Jenny?”

“Putting Waaboo down.”

“Oh, I’d hoped I could spend some time with him.”

“Past his bedtime already.”

“Next time,” she said brightly and put her boots together on the mat. “Would you give this to him when he’s awake?” She reached into the bag she’d brought and lifted out a stuffed orangutan two feet tall. “I picked it up in the gift shop at the hotel. I hope he likes stuffed animals.”

“I’ll give it to him,” Stephen said.

He figured he should invite her into the living room, but instead he stood more or less blocking her entrance to the rest of the house. She kept on smiling, and her eyes went past him, taking in the living room and dining room.

“You have a lovely home here,” she said.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t have anything to do with that. I was kind of born into it.”

“Lucky you,” she said.

Jenny came down the stairs. “Hello, Skye.”

The two women embraced warmly, and Stephen felt something go hard in him, like a fist.

“Annie’s told me so much about you, I almost feel like we’re sisters,” Skye said, holding both of Jenny’s hands in her own.

“Do you have siblings?”

“A mean, older stepsister straight out of Cinderella. And a brother who’s nowhere near as nice as Stephen.” She threw him an easy smile.

“Come in, won’t you?” Jenny invited and led the way into the living room. “Can we get you something to drink? Beer, wine, soda?”

“Red wine?”

“We have merlot.”

“Perfect.”

Jenny looked at the stuffed orangutan in Stephen’s hands. “Where’d you get that?” she asked.

Skye answered, “I brought it. A present for Waaboo. I hope it’s okay.”

Jenny laughed. “It’s perfect. Thank you. I’ll give it to him when he’s awake in the morning.” She took the orangutan from Stephen and said to him, “You know where the wine is. And could you pour a glass for me, too? And one for yourself, if you’d like.”

“Not of legal age yet,” Stephen pointed out dourly.

“Special occasion,” Jenny replied. “And just one glass. But only if you’d like.”

What he’d like, he thought, was to get drunk, something he’d never done before. He went to the kitchen, got out three wineglasses and the bottle, already opened, and poured wine for them all. When he came back to the living room, Jenny and Skye were on the sofa, laughing together.

“Before she wanted to be a nun, she was dead set on becoming the first female quarterback for Notre Dame,” Jenny said.

“On the softball field, I’ve never seen a better pitching arm. She’s amazing. Thanks, Stephen.” Skye took the glass he offered. “What about you?” she asked Jenny. “Do you play softball?”

“Annie and Stephen got all the athletic genes.”

Skye watched Stephen slump into an easy chair. “You play sports, Stephen?”