William Krueger - Blood Hollow

Glory took a white Bible from the coffee table and held it in her hands. “Rose and I have been talking. There are those who believe it takes three days for the spirit to adjust to the reality of death, three days to let go completely of the body. For Charlotte, three days was a long time ago. I understand that’s not Charlotte they’re working on in the morgue, but Fletcher doesn’t see it that way.”

Cork said, “Any idea where he might have gone?”

In the face of this simple question, Glory seemed completely lost.

“We’ve been over that, Cork,” Rose said. “Glory has no idea.”

“Does he have an office somewhere?” Cork prompted.

“Only here,” Glory said.

“How about a bar he likes?”

“Fletcher doesn’t drink.”

“Friends?”

“Fletcher has associates. He has acquaintances. But he has no friends.”

“Is there someplace that’s special to him? Valhalla maybe?”

“He hates Valhalla. After Charlotte disappeared, he couldn’t stand going back there.”

“Could he be out driving somewhere, thinking?”

“He gets car sick.”

“May I use your phone?” Cork said.

“There.” Glory indicated a cordless on a table near the kitchen doorway.

Cork took the phone and stepped into the kitchen where he could speak in private. On the wall next to the refrigerator hung a large frame with several photographs, each with its own opening in the matte. They were all of Kane and his daughter in a happier time, smiling. On snowmobiles, on mountain bikes, on a tennis court, on a beach, and one in formal attire beside a wall hung with red bougainvillea. They appeared to have done a lot of things together, and seemed to have genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. Physically, they were an unusual pairing-Charlotte, dark-haired and lovely, with a smile that showed braces; her father bald, long-limbed, and homely. Cork thought the girl had been lucky to have inherited what must have been her mother’s beauty, because her father was so extraordinarily odd-looking. The photos appeared to have been taken before the Kanes moved to Minnesota, because there were mountains behind the snowmobiles, and the beach was on the ocean. Cork wondered why he’d never seen Kane and his daughter doing things together in Aurora. Had something happened to come between them, to ruin the joy they’d shared? The death of Kane’s wife, perhaps? Cork didn’t know the details, but maybe it had been a particularly difficult ordeal and the memory was painful. Perhaps that was why there were no pictures of Charlotte’s mother.

He dialed the sheriff’s office and spoke with Deputy Marsha Dross, who was on desk duty. Fletcher Kane hadn’t been there. Cork called the morgue at Aurora Community Hospital where the autopsy would be performed, but he got no answer. He called and spoke with Arne Soderberg at home, who said that since he’d left the Kanes’ house several hours earlier, he hadn’t seen or heard from the man. Cork went back to the living room.

“Glory, is there a working telephone at Valhalla?”

“I think so. We never had the service canceled. But you’re wasting your time, Cork.”

“It’s one more place we can eliminate.”

Glory gave him the number.

Cork let the phone ring ten times. He was just about to hang up when the receiver at the other end was lifted. No one spoke.

“Fletcher?” Cork said.

He heard only the sound of breathing, heavy but not labored.

“Fletcher, it’s Cork O’Connor.”

There was a long moment of silence, followed by a single word uttered like a curse.

“Butchers.”

Glory didn’t accompany Cork. Fletcher, she said, wouldn’t listen to her. Cork suspected Fletcher wouldn’t listen to him either, but he agreed to try.

He wasn’t surprised that Glory didn’t know the roots of her brother’s enmity toward the O’Connor name. It had occurred in a time when Glory was still contentedly inside her mother’s womb.

Cork remembered Harold Kane as a spidery man, long-limbed, with bulging eyes, and soft hands that smelled of antiseptic. On a Saturday morning when Cork and Fletcher were both thirteen years old, Harold Kane had locked himself in his dental office on Oak Street, sat in the chair where his patients usually reclined, and put a bullet in his head.

In a small town like Aurora, suicide was the kind of event that lingered a long time in the collective memory. When it came to light that Sheriff Liam O’Connor had been investigating Dr. Kane because one of his patients had alleged that the dentist molested her while she was anesthetized in his office, there was a good deal more to remember than the desperate act itself. Because the man died before all the evidence could be considered and formal charges brought, his guilt or innocence was never established. That didn’t matter. In the mind of the town, his response was proof enough. He was, in public opinion, tried and convicted.

A few weeks later, Fletcher Kane’s pregnant mother left town, taking her son away from the vicious tongues.

Cork all but forgot the Kanes, but Fletcher had not forgotten the O’Connors. An incident occurred soon after the Kanes’ return that signaled to Cork the deep resentment the man must have felt all those years as a result of his father’s death.

Access to Sam’s Place was via a narrow, gravel road that branched off a street on the outskirts of Aurora. Before it crossed the Burlington Northern tracks, the road passed through land privately owned by Shorty Geiger. Sam Winter Moon, the old Ojibwe after whom the establishment was named, had obtained easement rights through Geiger’s land and across the Burlington Northern tracks. On Sam’s death, when the Quonset hut and surrounding property passed to Cork O’Connor, there was a clause that required renegotiation of the easement agreement. In Aurora, not much happened in a hurry, and no one rushed to litigation. But shortly after Fletcher Kane returned, Cork received notice that access to Sam’s Place could no longer occur as it had in the past. A development company had purchased Shorty’s land and intended to put a fast-food franchise there, a move that would pretty much insure the end of Sam’s Place. Jo mounted a marvelous legal battle and won back the easement rights. The franchise was never built. In the litigation process, Jo discovered that the major investor in the development company was none other than Fletcher Kane.

Cork pulled into the muddy drive of Valhalla, deep in the woods north of Aurora. It was hard dark by then, and his headlights flashed on the back end of Fletcher Kane’s silver Cadillac El Dorado. He parked, killed his lights, and got out.

The night was still, but the lake was thawing. Beyond the pine trees, it moaned and cracked and made Cork think of a great animal awakening.

A bright three-quarter moon lit the scene. There were no lights on in the big cabin, nor in the guesthouse. Cork took a flashlight from the glove compartment of his Bronco, but he didn’t turn it on. He approached the big cabin, carefully mounting the wooden steps built into the hillside. With its grand deck that overlooked the water, the cabin seemed like a ghost ship anchored among the black trunks of the pines. He crossed the deck to the screen door and saw that the heavy inside door was open. The room beyond it was completely dark.

As he stood at the threshold, Cork became aware of a strong odor all around him that was out of place among the fresh scent of spring pines.

Kerosene.

“Fletcher,” he called toward the black inside.

He heard movement, then a metallic squeak. In the dark of the room, a small circle of glowing red rotated into sight. Cork interpreted the squeak to come from the mechanism of a swivel rocker. He was pretty sure the red glow came from the end of a lit cigar.