William Krueger - Blood Hollow

“Look, why don’t you try Bob Carruthers? He’s a good, experienced criminal attorney.”

“Experienced,” Jo said. “Good would be a stretch.”

Bledsoe looked at his watch. Cork was becoming irritated that in this house of the law, time seemed more important to everyone than justice. But he kept his mouth shut.

“I’m sorry,” Bledsoe said. “I’m due in court. Good luck.” He headed away.

Cork swung his gaze to Jo. He could see her tense a moment, then give a little sigh. “All right,” she said. “I’ll go with Solemn while he turns himself in so that he’s got someone to advocate for him, but I’m not agreeing to take his case. I’ll help just until we can get a lawyer capable of doing a good job of representing him in this thing.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah,” Jo said without enthusiasm. “I don’t know what the hell I’m going to tell Judge Hickey.”

The occasional snowflake had turned to a dismal drizzle of cold rain by the time Cork and Jo pulled up to Sam’s Place. Iron Lake had disappeared behind a gloom of mist. As they walked across the lot, they felt the wet gravel like slush under their feet. Cork pushed open the door of the Quonset hut and called, “Solemn?”

There was no answer.

He looked in the front where the rain dripped down the glass of the serving windows, but Solemn was not hiding there. He turned back to Jo.

“You told me he didn’t exactly promise he’d stay,” Jo said. “You tried to help. What more could anyone ask?”

Cork stood in the room where he thought he’d made a connection with Solemn. He felt that he’d somehow failed the young man, although he couldn’t have said exactly how. He glanced at the kitchen sink and saw that it was empty. Before he’d vanished, Solemn had done the last thing Cork had asked of him. He’d washed the dishes.

May

On a sunny spring morning a few days after the autopsy, on a hillside in Lakeview Cemetery, Charlotte Kane was buried. If she’d still had sight, her eyes would have beheld a wonderful view from the few feet of earth that were to be hers forever. Spread out below her was Iron Lake. In winter, it would be hard and white as a beaver’s tooth, and in summer so blue it would seem like a fallen piece of the sky. If she’d still had her senses, she’d have felt the touch of the wind off that lake and smelled the cool, deep scent that was the breath of a million pines. Cork had always believed that if you were going to be stuck somewhere forever, that hillside was a pretty good place. Not many people were asked to attend the simple graveside ceremony. Rose and the Soderbergs were among them. Rose had spoken with Glory about a visitation, some way for the folks of Aurora-or of St. Agnes, at least-to pay their respects, but Glory wanted nothing of the kind. Apparently, what Glory wanted most was to be gone, because the morning after the funeral, she left town. Without a word to anyone. Not that there were many who would have cared. Rose told Cork that when she stopped by the old Parrant place to call on Glory, Fletcher had given her the news. “Gone,” was all he would say. And no idea where. Cork could see that Rose was puzzled by her friend’s abrupt departure, and perhaps a little hurt that Glory hadn’t said good-bye.

April warmed gradually into May. The ice on Iron Lake retreated and then was gone. The aspens and poplars budded, and above them geese wedged their way home to the Boundary Waters and to the lakes of Canada beyond.

The Anishinaabeg called May wabigwunigizis, which means month of flowers. It was the season in which Grandmother Earth awakened and the storytellers fell silent, waiting to speak the sacred histories until after the wild rice had been harvested and the snow had returned and Grandmother Earth slept again.

It was tick season. The news was full of reports and warnings of Lyme disease, and doctors’ offices were crowded with patients concerned about every little rash.

It was softball season, and Cork’s favorite team, the Aurora High Voyageurs, for which his daughter Annie pitched, were predicted to take the conference title.

It was the opening of fishing season, the beginning of months when tourists flocked to Aurora lured by walleye and the beauty of the great Northwoods naked of snow.

And it was, as always, the season of love.

“Dad?” Annie said.

“Yeah?”

“What do guys want?”

It was Saturday afternoon. Cork was standing on a stool in Sam’s Place, checking the consistency of the mixture for the shake machine. Business had been slow that day, which was good because Annie had seemed preoccupied.

“Big question,” Cork replied. “With lots of answers, depending.”

“I mean, what do guys look for in a girl?”

She was Cork’s middle child, fifteen years old, and had developed a bit later than her friends the slopes and curves that might catch a young man’s eye. She had never dated, channeling all her energy into sports, especially softball. She was a decent student, although academics were far less important to her than they were to her sister, Jenny. Lately, however, her grades had been slipping and Cork wondered if the current conversation might be a clue as to the reason. It was an unusual topic to be discussing with Annie. Usually they talked sports. But Cork gave it his best shot.

“I can’t speak for all guys. I fell in love with your mother because she was strong, independent, smart. I liked that. She laughed at my jokes, too.”

Annie leaned on the counter of her serving window. She wore jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt with VOYAGEURS printed across the front. She’d begun to let her reddish hair grow out, and it was at an unruly, in-between stage that made it look like licks of flame were bursting out all over her head.

“She was pretty, though. Right?” Annie asked.

Cork put the lid back on the shake maker and climbed down from the stool. “I thought so. But, you know, love has a way of making people beautiful. To each other anyway.” He put the stool in the corner next to a stack of cartons that held potato chips.

Annie was quiet a moment. “Do you think I’m pretty?”

He looked at her. Sunlight cleaved her face, and the freckles of her left cheek were like a field of russet flowers. “Gorgeous,” he said.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. Gorgeous.”

“Oh, Dad.”

He could see that she was pleased. She went back to looking out the window, at the lake that was a huge, sparkling sapphire.

“We were talking about sex at youth group the other night. Like, not officially or anything,” she added, catching the look on her father’s face. “A few of us after. We asked Randy about it, you know, to put him on the spot, see if we could embarrass him.”

She was speaking of Gooding, who headed the youth program at St. Agnes.

“Did it work?”

“Oh yeah. He got all red in the face. It was sweet.” She used sweet the way kids did when they meant devilishly enjoyable.

“What did he say?”

She scraped a finger idly along the window glass. “That men mostly want a woman they can respect and who’ll respect them back. Respect is important, huh?”

“I’d say so.”

She looked at him coyly. “When you told me why you fell in love with Mom, respect wasn’t one of the things you mentioned.”

“Respect preceded the love,” he said, thinking quickly.

Annie laid her head on her arms like a tired dog and thought awhile. “Gwen Burdick got her navel pierced and she wears these short tops so you can see her belly button ring. Guys seem to like that, but it seems to me that’s got nothing to do with respect.”

Cork almost said that there were a lot of things guys liked that had little to do with respect, but he didn’t want to open a door to a subject he wasn’t comfortable pursuing.