William Krueger - Heaven's keep

Around a mouthful of cookie, Stephen asked, “What’s for dinner?”

“Mac and cheese.”

“How about we go to the Broiler for fried chicken?”

“We’re on a tight budget, buddy. But tell you what, I’ll slice up a few hot dogs and throw ’em in.”

“I like fried chicken better.”

“Maybe after dinner we could hit the Broiler for a little pecan pie a la mode.”

Stephen shook his head. “I’m going over to Gordy Hudacek’s house.”

“Video games?”

“Yeah.”

“What about homework?”

“I’ll have it done before dinner.”

“See that you do.”

Cork headed through the living room and down the hallway to Jo’s home office. She ran her law practice from a suite in the Aurora Professional Building, but she kept an office at home as well, and she often used it in the evening or on weekends to keep up with her cases. It was done in oak panel, with bookshelves across three of the walls. Plants hung in every window, and a big, healthy ficus stood in a pot in one corner. The office was neat and clean, and the smell of it-thick books and heavy paper-reminded Cork of Jo.

He used the phone on her desk to call her cell. She didn’t answer. He left a message: “Sorry about yesterday. Call me when you get a chance. I love you, you know.”

Dinner was a quick affair, both of them wolfing, not saying much. When Jo was there, they took more time, and in her motherly-lawyerly way, she questioned Stephen about his day. He tended to give brief answers, along with the sense that he was uncomfortable being quizzed, but Jo managed to squeeze enough information out of him that both of his parents had a pretty good window on his life. Cork appreciated that about his wife.

Stephen cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher-his part of the bargain-then headed out to Gordy Hudacek’s house. Cork grabbed the Duluth News Tribune and settled onto the sofa to catch up on news from the outside world.

He hadn’t been reading long when Trixie, who’d nestled on the floor near his feet, lifted her head and barked. A moment later, the front doorbell rang. Cork was surprised to find Sheriff Dross standing on his porch. He thought for a moment-hoped, actually-that she was coming to say she’d changed her mind about him applying for the position that Cy Borkman was vacating, but when he saw her face, he knew it was something gravely serious.

“Could we sit down, Cork?”

“Sure.” He motioned toward the living room.

Dross wore jeans and a brown turtleneck, and Cork wasn’t sure if this was a personal or a professional call. When they were seated, she said, “Have you heard from Jo?”

“No. Why?”

He saw her prepare herself, a moment of resolution, and he knew something terrible had happened.

“We received a call from the sheriff’s department in Owl Creek County, Wyoming. This morning around nine A.M., a charter flight out of Casper disappeared from radar over the Wyoming Rockies. Radio contact was lost and hasn’t been reestablished. Jo was listed on the flight’s passenger manifest.”

Cork sat a moment, stunned. “It crashed?”

“They don’t know the status for sure, Cork.”

“What happened?”

“According to the control tower in Salt Lake City, which was tracking the flight, the plane ran into bad weather. It began a rapid descent southwest of Cody-they’re not sure why-and pretty quickly dropped off the radar over an area called the Washakie Wilderness. They’ve tried contacting the pilot. Nothing.”

“It went down in the mountains?”

“Not necessarily. The Wyoming authorities are calling all the local airports and every private airstrip in the northern Rockies to see if the plane might have been able to land somewhere.”

“And if it didn’t land?”

“You know the routine. They’ll mount a search and rescue effort.” For a moment he didn’t say anything. Couldn’t say anything. He struggled just to breathe. Then he looked at Dross and realized there was more. “What else?”

She took a deep breath. “They’re in the middle of a bad snowstorm out there. Blizzard conditions. If they can’t locate the plane at an airfield, they won’t be able to begin the search until the storm passes. According to the current weather forecast, that might be a while.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Cork said. He looked down at his hands, which he’d clenched into hard white balls. “If that plane’s gone down and Jo and the others are exposed, Christ, Marsha, you know the odds.”

“Cork, we don’t really know anything yet. Probably we’ll hear that they made it to an airfield. In the meantime, the Owl Creek County authorities are doing everything possible. We’re in constant contact with the sheriff’s people. Anything we know, you’ll know, I promise.” She put her hand on his arm. “Cork, we have every reason to hope for the best.”

He looked at her long and hard. “Same line I used to deliver to the loved ones when we were beating the bushes for somebody they’d lost.”

“And more often than not you found the lost ones. Trust the people out there, Cork. They know what they’re doing.” She stood up. “I’m on my way to the reservation to deliver the news to George LeDuc’s wife.” She looked into his face, and her own was full of concern and compassion. “Cork, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

He watched until her truck pulled away. He turned out the porch light and closed the door. Then his legs gave out. He sank to the floor and sat with his back against the wall. He tried to think straight, but his brain was caught in a whirlpool, spinning round and round, and every rational thought got sucked into some dark nowhere, until he was left with only a desperate, mindless repetition to cling to: Oh God, no… Oh God, no…

Eventually he pulled himself up. He walked to the telephone and dialed the number of the Hudaceks’ home. Gordy’s father answered.

“Dennis, it’s Cork O’Connor.”

Hudacek said something amiable in reply, but the words didn’t register. Cork simply told him, “I need to have Stephen come home. I need to have him come home now.”

Day One, Missing 12 Hours

He sat at the kitchen table, a cup of cool coffee at his elbow. He held the phone in his right hand and, with his left, punched in the number of Jo’s sister.

“Rose, it’s Cork. Sorry to call so late.”

Because of either the lateness of the hour or the somber tone of his voice, she didn’t waste time. “What’s wrong, Cork?”

“I’ve got bad news. Jo was on a charter flight to Seattle. This morning while it was flying over Wyoming, it disappeared from radar and radio contact was lost.”

There was a long moment of silence as Rose absorbed this information. “What does that mean exactly? Did the plane crash?”

“Not necessarily. The authorities are checking all the airports in the area to see if it might have landed somewhere. They’re in the middle of a big snowstorm, and it sounds like everything’s kind of confused.”

“So it could have landed in some out-of-the-way place and because of the weather they can’t get word out. Is that it?”

That was the positive read. He said, “Yes.”

He waited, staring out the window at the night beyond that was as black as the cold coffee in his cup.

“Just a moment, Cork,” Rose said. “Mal’s here.” She covered the phone, and he couldn’t hear anything except the emptiness of the line. He thought of the silence in the middle of the message Jo had left him, and again he felt the knife of regret.

Mal was Cork’s brother-in-law. He’d once been a Catholic priest serving the parishioners of St. Agnes in Aurora. Then he’d fallen in love with Rose. Now they were married-five years-and living in Evanston, Illinois.