William Krueger: Tamarack County

“Yeah. You?”

“I napped on the couch in the waiting room.”

“You look good.”

She smiled beautifully. “And you look wonderful.”

He took her hand in his, and their fingers intertwined. “Marlee, I’m sorry I got you involved in all this.”

“I want to be involved in everything that’s you, good and bad.” She glanced at the long, motionless ridge under his sheet, where his useless legs lay.

With his free hand, he cupped her chin and drew her gaze back to his face. “I’m going to walk again. I’ve decided.”

“Then I know you will,” she said, and he could tell she believed it, too.

She bent and kissed him again, this time long and passionately.

And he was sure, absolutely certain, he felt a tingling deep inside him that ran all the way down to his toes.

* * *

Cork took the call in the hospital hallway. It was from Marsha Dross. She informed him that one of the cadaver dogs had located the body of Evelyn Carter. It had been buried in the snow less than a hundred yards from her home. She’d been stabbed to death, most probably with the knife that had gone missing from the Judge’s display case. And Cork, who’d been a cop too long to keep himself from it, a man twice cursed, knew that he would start putting all the pieces of Eveyln Carter’s death together until he could visualize it step by step in his own mind and it would join all the other bloody images that, in his worst moments, he could not help but recall.

“Have you told her daughter and the Judge?” he asked.

“They know.”

“So it’s over?”

“This particular situation is over. But does this kind of thing ever end?”

This kind of thing, Cork thought and knew exactly what she meant, a perspective that was yet another curse of wearing a badge.

“Get some sleep, Marsha. You deserve it.”

He went to the waiting room and told Anne and the others there-Stella, his friends and family from the rez, Henry Meloux and Hank Wellington-that he would buy them all breakfast. He said he would meet them in the parking lot. They rose in a noisy bunch and moved into the hallway. Stella stayed behind, watching Cork carefully. When he turned to her, he saw that her face was drawn, and when she spoke, there was hardness in her voice. “I know that look,” she said. “You’re going to tell me it’s been swell but you have other fish to fry now.”

“What I was going to say is that a lot’s happened in a very short time in both our lives. I need a while to think. I don’t want to jump into anything. I’m way too old and way too tired for jumping. Does that make sense?”

She considered his words, and her face softened. “I was the one who said it wasn’t about anything except one night.”

“When your heart’s in the right place, it’s pretty tough for one night to be that simple.” He went to her, took her in his arms, and drew her against him. Son of a gun, there was that incredible fragrance, whose scent he could not quite name, as enticing as ever.

She asked hesitantly, “Do you think we have a chance? You and me?”

“Is that what you want?”

“Damn me,” she whispered. “Yes.”

“There’s a big part of me that wants it, too. But like I said, it’s a leap, one I need to think about.” He stepped back. “Can I think about it, about us?”

Her eyes were glossed with tears, but she nodded. “I’m going nowhere.”

“Me neither. Tamarack County’s got its hooks in both of us.” He kissed her, gently and not too long. “You hungry? Me, I could eat a moose.”

He took her hand, and they walked from the waiting room together.

Three days before Christmas, Skye Edwards left Tamarack County to return to California. She came to the house on Gooseberry Lane, where the O’Connors were finally, belatedly, decorating for the season, and said her good-byes. She thanked them graciously for their kindness and gave them all hugs. She saved her last embrace for Waaboo, then, at the little guy’s insistence, hugged his favorite pal, the orangutan named Bart. She’d spent the day before with Anne and Cork on Crow Point, helping Henry Meloux prepare for his long winter in his beloved home. Cork had sat a good, long spell with Meloux in the old man’s cabin while Anne and Skye had done the hard work of separation, of ending.

On the morning of her departure, Skye let Cork walk her to the rented Escalade parked in the drive. A gentle snow was falling, flakes that caught in her hair like cloud shavings, that kissed the bare skin of her face and melted into drops and hung like tears on her cheeks. She was in every respect, Cork thought, a lovely person. If Anne’s decision had been to be with her, he would have approved and been happy for them both.

“Would you say good-bye to Stephen for me?” she asked. “And please let me know how his recovery goes and when he walks again.”

He appreciated her hopefulness.

“You’re always welcome here,” he told her.

“Thank you.” She looked up toward a sky invisible behind snow clouds. “But I don’t think there’s any reason for me to come back.”

Cork said, “If you’ll accept the advice of an old fart, it’s my experience that when you leave the door open to it, love just keeps coming.”

“Maybe,” Skye said. “But Annie was special.”

“Isn’t everybody?”

“No,” she said. “Not like Annie.” And what ran down her cheeks now was not from the melting snow. “I feel like my heart’s been carved out of me. Not her fault, I know. But I don’t want to hurt like this again.” She hadn’t put on her gloves yet, and with a cold, bare knuckle, she wiped at her eyes. “I swear that I will never knowingly hurt someone else this way. Why would anyone?” She looked at him as if she expected an answer. But he knew that, whatever he offered, it would not be good enough.

“Good-bye, Cork,” she said.

She got into her Escalade, started the engine, backed out of the drive, and headed away down Gooseberry Lane. He watched until she turned the corner and was gone. Gone forever from their lives, he suspected, and it saddened him.

He stood alone in the falling snow. The street he’d lived on most of his life was quiet and lovely in the way of winter in the North Country. He hoped that Skye was returning to a place she loved as much as he loved Tamarack County, because he knew that there were places that could heal, and home was one of them. Looking down the empty street, he thought about her final comment to him and understood that his heart already knew the answer to a question that his head had been puzzling endlessly.

He pulled his cell phone from the holster on his belt, and he called Rainy Bisonette. A small wind rose up around him and sighed past as he listened to the ring of the phone on the other end. At last Rainy answered.

Cork felt himself smile, and he said to her, “Hello, love.”