William Krueger - Ordinary Grace

They sat at the kitchen table both of them smoking and when we walked in my mother stood and looked with hope toward my father. He shook his head. “We didn’t find anything,” he said.

“They’re looking for Morris Engdahl,” I said.

“Engdahl?” Gus swung around and eyed me. “Why Engdahl?”

“I told him about the quarry and about Luther Park.”

My mother put a hand to her mouth and spoke from behind her fingers. “You think he might have done something to Ariel?”

“We don’t know anything,” my father said. “They just want to talk to the boy.”

We ate. Cold cereal with slices of banana chewed and swallowed in an awful silence. Near the end the telephone in the living room rang and my father leaped to answer.

“Oh,” he said. “Hello, Hector.” He bowed his head and closed his eyes and listened, then said, “We have a situation here, Hector, and I can’t make the meeting. Whatever the group decides is fine with me.” He hung up and came back to the kitchen. “Hector Padilla,” he said. “There’s a meeting this morning to talk about the migrant worker shelter.”

The phone rang again and this time it was Deacon Griswold calling to say he’d heard about Ariel and if there was anything he could do just let him know. And it rang again a few minutes later and it was Gladys Rheingold saying that if Ruth wanted company she’d be happy to come over. And it rang and rang after that with offers from townspeople and neighbors who’d heard about Ariel and wanted to know if they could help. And finally it was the sheriff saying he had Morris Engdahl at his office and would Dad and we boys come down there.

“Mind if I tag along?” Gus said.

“I don’t suppose it’ll do any harm,” my father replied. Then to my mother he said, “Would you like me to call Gladys?”

“No,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

But it was clear to me that she wasn’t fine. She looked sick, her face drawn and ashen, and she was smoking one cigarette after another and drumming her fingers on the table.

“All right,” my father said. “Frank, Jake, let’s go.”

We left, all of us except my mother, who sat staring at the kitchen cupboard with cigarette smoke above her head as thick as if she herself was on fire.

The sheriff sat with his arms folded on the table. Engdahl sat across from him slumped in a chair in a manner that was clearly meant to communicate his disrespect. He looked bored in a calculated way.

The sheriff said, “Is it true you threatened these boys?”

“I told them I’d kick their asses, yeah.”

“I understand you assaulted Frank last night.”

“Assaulted? Hell, all I did was grab the little puke’s arm.”

“And might have done more if Warren Redstone hadn’t been there?”

“Redstone? I don’t even know who the hell that is.”

“Big Indian.”

“Oh. Him. We had some words, and I left. That’s all.”

“Where’d you go?”

“I don’t remember. Around.”

“Alone?”

“I ran into Judy Kleinschmidt. We kind of made a night of it.”

“Did you go to Sibley Park and do a little partying with some kids there?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you see Ariel Drum?”

“I saw her, yeah.”

“Talk to her?”

“I might have said something. Hell, I talked to a lot of people there.”

“I heard you got into a tussle with Hans Hoyle.”

“Yeah. Traded a couple of punches, nothing serious. He called my car a piece of shit.”

“Watch your mouth, Morris. What time did you leave the party?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Did you leave alone?”

“No. Judy was with me.”

The sheriff nodded to one of his men and the deputy left.

“Did you go straight home?”

“No.”

“Where’d you go?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“I’d rather you did.”

Engdahl thought a moment then shrugged in a what-the-hell way. “I went to the old Mueller place out on Dorn Road,” he said.

“Why?”

“The place is empty and there’s a big pile of hay in the barn and I had a blanket in my car. See?”

The sheriff took a moment to put two and two together. “You and the Kleinschmidt girl?”

“Me and Judy, yeah.”

“How long did you stay?”

“Long enough.” Engdahl grinned and showed his teeth.

“Then what?”

“I took her home. Then went home myself.”

“What time was that?”

“I don’t know. The sun was about to come up.”

“Anybody see you arrive?”

Engdahl gave a quick shake of his head. “My old man had a snootful last night and was sawing logs on the sofa. Wouldn’t’ve heard a bomb go off.”

The sheriff leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest and for a full minute sat in silence and appraised Morris Engdahl. Over the course of that minute Engdahl went from his slouch to an erect posture and then to a twitching of his shoulders in a nervous way and finally said, “Look I told you everything. I don’t know anything about Ariel Drum. I saw her at the party on the river, that’s all. Hell, I don’t think I even said a word to her. She was sitting on the other side of the fire and just staring into it like maybe she was too good to talk to the rest of us. She’s like that. Doesn’t matter she’s got a harelip.” He stopped blathering and shot my father a guilty look.

The sheriff waited but once Engdahl had embraced silence he held to it.

“All right, Morris. I’d like you to stick around until we find Judy and talk with her.”

“Stick around? I gotta be at the cannery at four for my shift.”

“We’ll do our best to get you there on time.”

“Christ, you better.”

“Say, Lou,” the sheriff said to the deputy who’d been with us on the river. “Put Morris in a cell so he can lie down. He looks like he could use twenty winks.”

“You’re locking me up? I didn’t do anything. You can’t arrest me.”

“I’m not arresting you, Morris. Just offering you our hospitality for a while. Just until we talk to Judy Kleinschmidt.”

“Shit,” Engdahl said.

“Watch your language,” the sheriff snapped. “Impressionable boys here.”

Engdahl looked at me and if looks could kill I’d’ve been dead a dozen times.

We headed home and when we arrived we found a cruiser from the New Bremen police department parked in our gravel drive. My father pulled up next to it on the grass and we went inside where Doyle sat at the kitchen table with my mother.

“Nathan,” she said looking up at him lost and frightened.

Doyle stood and turned to my father and held out his left hand. “Mr. Drum, I just want to show you something. Is this your daughter’s?”

Doyle’s big palm cradled something wrapped in a clean handkerchief. With his right hand he drew back the corners of the handkerchief and revealed a gold necklace with a heart-shaped locket inset with mother-of-pearl.

“Yes,” my father said. “She was wearing it last night. Where’d you get it?”

Doyle’s face was cold as winter concrete. He said, “It was in the possession of Warren Redstone.”

Gus went with my father and Doyle to the sheriff’s office to discuss the locket. Jake and I stayed with our mother which was difficult. She communicated her fear through silence and random movements. She sat at the kitchen table and smoked for a minute then stood and paced and ended up in the living room where she picked up the phone as if to make a call but put the receiver back down and crossed her arms and stared through a window while the cigarette smoldered in her hand. From the kitchen I watched the ember crawl toward her fingers as she stood frozen in terrible thought or speculation.