William Krueger - Blood Hollow

Mal said, “I’ve just been thinking. If it is Charlotte Kane’s body out there, in a way it may be a blessing.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Fletcher and Glory are desperately in need of resolution, one way or another.”

“Kane’s in need of resolution in a lot of ways, you ask me.”

The priest studied him. “I gather from some of the things Rose has said to me that you and Fletcher aren’t on the best of terms.”

Cork turned onto County 5, a narrow strip of asphalt heavily potholed during the freeze and thaw at the end of winter. They were driving through the Superior National Forest, far north of Aurora. The April sun was bright and promising through the windshield of Cork’s old Bronco.

“I’m pretty sure Fletcher blames my father for the death of his own father.”

Surprise showed on the priest’s face. “How so?”

“You know my father was sheriff here a long time ago.”

“I’d heard that, yes.”

“Fletcher’s father was a dentist. When Fletcher and I were kids, his old man killed himself. Turned out my father was investigating a complaint of sexual assault lodged by one of Harold Kane’s female patients.”

“And Fletcher holds your father responsible?”

“He’s never said as much, but his actions have spoken pretty eloquently.”

They thundered over an old wooden bridge and Cork began to slow down, watching for the turnoff. He knew it would come up suddenly around a sharp bend.

“Rose tells me things are rough for them,” Cork said.

Mal nodded. “Fletcher’s totally withdrawn. And Glory loved that girl as if she were her own daughter. I think if she didn’t have Rose to lean on, she’d have fallen apart completely by now.”

“The death of a child.” Cork shook his head. “I can’t think of anything more devastating.”

“They have a lot of people praying for them.”

“Might as well be throwing pennies down a wishing well.”

The priest gave him a long look. “Someday I’d like to know the whole story.”

“What story?”

“The one that ends with you angry at God.”

“And someday I’d like to know the other story,” Cork said.

“Which one is that?”

“The one that ends with a guy as obviously capable as you are exiled to a small parish buried in the Northwoods. You must’ve really pissed off God or somebody.”

“Maybe the choice was my own.”

“Yeah,” Cork said. “Right.”

A brown road sign marked the trailhead at Moccasin Creek. Cork pulled into the graveled parking lot. Snow still lay banked along the edges in small dirty humps, the last of the great piles that had been plowed during winter and that had been melting slowly for weeks. The lot was filled with vehicles, mostly from the Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department. Cy Borkmann, a heavy man and a longtime deputy, stood near his cruiser, smoking a cigarette. Not far away, another man, a stranger, sat in a red Dodge Neon. The door of the Neon stood wide open. The man sat hunched over, legs out of the car, feet on the wet gravel of the lot, staring at the ground.

Cork parked next to Borkmann’s cruiser and got out. “Morning, Cy.”

The deputy smiled, and his already big cheeks mounded some more. “Hey, Cork. Father Mal. What’re you guys doing here?”

“We heard the news. Dropped by to see if we could help.”

Borkmann’s smile faded. He shook his head, and the sack of skin below his chin wobbled. “Sheriff said to keep everybody but authorized personnel out. You’re not exactly authorized these days.”

Borkmann had been a deputy long before Cork was sheriff. They’d always got on well. But things had changed, and Borkmann had his orders.

Cork nodded toward the man in the Neon. “Who’s that?”

“Found the body.”

“Looks a little shook up. Mind if I talk to him?”

Borkmann thought it over. “Sheriff didn’t say anything about that. Go ahead.”

Cork walked to the man, who looked up without interest. He appeared to be in his late twenties with dark, heavily oiled hair and the kind of deep tan that told Cork he was not from anywhere near Minnesota.

“Cork O’Connor.” He offered the man his hand.

“Jarrod Langley.”

“I understand you found the body.”

“My wife did.”

Cork looked around.

“She’s back at the lodge,” Langley said. “I left her there when I called the sheriff’s office.”

“You’re not from around here,” Cork said, noting the accent.

“Mobile,” Langley said. “Alabama. On our honeymoon.” He picked up a piece of gravel and tossed it a couple of times in his hand. “I wanted to go to Aruba. Suzanne wanted to go north. She never saw snow before.”

They’d missed the pretty snow by a few weeks. What was left on the ground now were isolated patches littered with dead pine needles and branches and other debris shaken from the trees by the spring winds. Uneven melt left the snow pock-marked and cancerous looking. In those places where the sun shone steadily all day long, the wet earth was laid bare and the black mud looked like pools of crude oil.

“How’d you find the body?” Cork said.

“We were going for a hike. Figured if we couldn’t ski or snowmobile at least we could walk. Got down there to the bridge and Suzanne saw something sticking out of the snow along the creek. She climbed down to see what it was. Hollered back up to me that she’d found a big machine. She thought it was a snowmobile. Next thing I know, she’s screaming her head off.” He threw the piece of gravel he’d been holding, heaved it across the lot, where it embedded itself in a gritty snowbank. “Hell of a honeymoon.”

“I can imagine,” Cork said.

Langley looked at him, squeezing his eyes a little against the bright sunlight. “You one of the sheriff’s people?”

“Retired,” Cork said. “In a manner of speaking. Mr. Langley, anybody offer you coffee?”

“No.”

“Would you like some?”

“Sure.”

Cork went back to where Borkmann and the priest stood together. “Cy, you used to carry a Thermos of coffee in your cruiser.”

“Still do,” Borkmann said.

“How about giving that man a little. Might not settle his nerves, but it can’t hurt.”

Borkmann looked at Jarrod Langley and nodded. “Good idea.”

When the deputy headed toward the Neon with the Thermos in his hand, Cork said to Mal Thorne in a low voice, “Let’s go.” He started quickly for the trail along Moccasin Creek. Without a word, the priest followed.

The trail access was through a break in the pine trees that enclosed the parking lot and began with a fairly steep incline ending at the creek. Cork led the way. The ground was thawed and muddy and full of boot prints. In a few minutes, the two men reached the footbridge where melting snow and ice had turned the little stream beneath into a milky torrent.

Nine people worked the scene, nearly a third of the whole department. Deputies Jackson, Dwyer, and Minot were using a hand winch hooked to the trunk of a big red pine to pull the snowmobile out of the creek and up the bank. Deputy Marsha Dross was documenting the scene with video while Pender did the same with a still camera. Johannsen and Kirk were working with a tape measure. Randy Gooding hunkered at the water’s edge, half hidden by a boulder that sat on a thick plate of melting snow. Also on that plate, jutting from behind the boulder like a couple of bread sticks, was a pair of jean-clad human legs.

Sheriff Arne Soderberg stood looking over Gooding’s shoulder. Soderberg never wore a uniform. He preferred, in the normal course of his duties, to dress in trim three-piece suits, crisp white shirts, silk ties. On the street, he could easily have been mistaken for a successful banker or stockbroker from the Twin Cities. He was a few years younger than Cork, but his hair was already a magnificent silver, which he had razor cut once a week. He was a good-looking man-strong jaw, piercing blue eyes, a charming, practiced smile-and he photographed well. He had no experience with law enforcement. It was widely known that he was simply being groomed by the Independent Republicans for higher office and that the job as sheriff was an opportunity for Soderberg to prove himself as a public servant before moving on to grander things. For years, he’d been on the family payroll, a vice president in his father’s company, Soderberg Transport, a huge enterprise that dominated trucking on the Iron Range and much of the rest of northern Minnesota. His enthusiasm for politics coincided with the age at which most men experienced a midlife crisis. Cork suspected public office might have been the answer for a man who could buy an expensive sports car anytime he wanted.