Hunter's Moon

by Chuck Logan

  “C’mon, Don, everybody’s covering for everybody. Is that in your job description? Lying, cheating, stealing…arson? How about manipulating a kid to commit premeditated murder?”

  Karson’s eyes leveled with sincerity. “Watch out for Larry Emery.

  He’s a very dangerous man. Especially when he’s been drinking—”

  “Yeah?”

  “And when he’s jealous.” Karson’s upper lip was a tidy pink stripe that accented his neatly barbered mustache. His small red tongue flicked at it. “Everybody saw the way you and Jesse were looking at each other. Right at the grave.”

  HUNTER’S MOON / 189

  Harry raised his eyebrows.

  “It was pretty steamy. The two of you there,” said Karson. “Emery didn’t miss it.”

  Briskly, Harry asked, “Emery’s not from around here, is he?”

  “He was born here, lived with his father in Memphis when his parents split. Moved back to live with his mother. After the service, he was a cop in Duluth. The previous sheriff had to retire. Health problems. Mike Hakala hired Emery to fill out his term. Then he got elected.”

  “So back when, he followed Jesse to Duluth and knocked her up?”

  “That’s the local legend.”

  “And Jesse wouldn’t marry him.”

  “She’s obviously always had her sights set a little higher on the socioeconomic ladder.”

  “In the cop shop you said you’d talked to Jesse and Chris. And that caused Emery to hate you.”

  “Those were private conversations.”

  Harry saw what Karson was angling toward. “You guys have an ethical thing about confidentiality, don’t you, like priests in a confes-sional?”

  Karson pursed his lips. “Something like that.”

  “So you have this office in back of your church with a comfy chair where people come and confide in you. Under the seal, as it were.

  And Jesse’s been in that chair, and Chris. What about Jay Cox?”

  “I don’t know about Cox.”

  “Sorry, I forgot, you gave me Ginny Hakala for that purpose.”

  Karson reacted stiffly. “A lot of people had a hand in pointing Chris Deucette in the wrong direction. Some of them had good intentions—”

  “Like you?” Karson didn’t respond. Harry’s voice softened without losing any of its edge. “Hard, isn’t it? Trying to figure out what to keep inside, what to let out into the world. You have all their stories in your head. And maybe you talk to God

  190 / CHUCK LOGAN

  about these people. How’s that work when you talk to God? Is it mystic, like a spirit? Or is it the old anthropomorphic version—God the father by Michelangelo, with eyes and hands and ears? Becky might give you an argument on that. She gave this little speech when I met her. I don’t think she has much faith in a deity that doesn’t have a uterus. You had a chance to talk to her lately?”

  Karson shook his head.

  “She left the funeral service in a hurry. Wearing running shoes,”

  said Harry.

  Karson exhaled. “Since the shooting she’s been…hiding, I guess is the way to say it.”

  “What’s she hiding from?”

  Karson shrugged. “Her brother was killed. She’s been through a traumatic time.”

  “Haven’t we all. I just wonder, if I hadn’t been out on that ridge that day and Chris would have accidentally shot Bud Maston to death—how traumatic would that have been for this quaint little community?”

  “There’s a lot of anger in you, Harry. I can get angry, too,” said Karson softly. “But my job isn’t to judge.”

  Harry shook his head. “You didn’t bury Chris Deucette. You flushed a toilet. Get angry, padre. It does wonders to light up a moral vacuum, which is what you got up here.”

  Karson coolly met Harry’s eyes. “How far are you willing to go with this?”

  “All the way to the bottom.”

  “It could get real dirty,” Karson said. He stood up and took his coffee cup to the sink. “I have to work out some ground rules.”

  “The confidential thing?”

  “Exactly.” Karson walked to the door. “I’ll tell you a thing. If you weren’t serving divorce papers, Emery would have snapped you in two at the cemetery.”

  “That so?”

  “And here’s another thing to think about. The minute you’ve completed your go-between role in the divorce, he’ll come after you for Chris.”

  HUNTER’S MOON / 191

  “Why does he hate you?”

  Karson chose his words carefully. “Some people say I helped Jesse and Chris get out from under his thumb.”

  Harry spent the rest of the day cleaning up the mess. He called his insurance agent in St. Paul and explained about the car. He’d need a police report for the claim. He ate warmed-over spaghetti and watched the evening news. The phone rang in the middle of the weather report.

  Don Karson’s conscience, working out ground rules: “Karl Talme teaches English at the high school. He’s the guy Chris pulled the gun on. Maybe you should talk to him. Use my name.” Karson hung up.

  It was a crooked road that wound through Maston County and a man needed a few crooks of his own so as not to lose his way.

  Harry methodically searched for something to drink, down on his knees going through the kitchen cupboards. Finally he stooped over the garbage can and extracted the Jack Daniel’s bottle. An amber corner winked at him through a scum of damp coffee grounds.

  The veins on his strong right arm popped out tight as he squeezed the sturdy glass and wrung the few drops onto his tongue.

  32

  Gunshots woke Harry at dawn. He rolled out of his covers, put his hand on the shotgun, and went to the window. Just hunters up on the ridge. The fog had cleared off and enough sun slipped through the clouds to breathe orchid into the steam drifting across Glacier Lake.

  He put the coffee on and paced. His insides churned cold and his nerves were on their knees, whiskey beggars. Stay ahead of it. He glanced at the bearskin on the wall. Time to give Emery a tweak in his den.

  192 / CHUCK LOGAN

  At 8 A.M., he called the Maston County Sheriff’s Department and asked to speak to Lawrence Emery.

  “He ain’t here. He’s out hunting,” said the deputy.

  “Tell him it’s Harry Griffin. I’m at the Maston lodge.”

  Harry spent two hours splitting and hauling wood to shake the cramps out of his muscles. The phone rang and he jogged inside.

  Emery set the tone immediately. They would talk around Chris.

  “You know, Griffin, there’s some people up here willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but after that stunt you pulled Tuesday…”

  His voice was sly, weary sounding.

  “Is it against the law to serve divorce papers, Sheriff?”

  “No. But the timing sure as hell is bad judgment.”

  “Am I still part of an ongoing investigation?”

  Emery sighed. “What’s on your mind, Griffin?”

  “I want my rifle back.”

  “What?”

  “It’s still deer season. I have a valid license and I want my rifle back to go hunting.”

  “You gotta be shittin’ me.”

  “If there’s no legal reason for you keeping my rifle, I want it back.”

  “The BCA has your rifle for running ballistic tests. It’s routine in a gunshot death. Common sense should tell you that.”

  “So you’re still investigating the shooting, huh?” Emery didn’t answer. “Well, I can get another rifle. Any reason I can’t go hunting then?”

  “You got in mind deer or people?”

  “The Klan came through on snowmobiles the night of the funeral—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I heard. You wanna press charges, come down to the station.”

  “Don’t want any drunk snowmobilers having a serious accident, is all.”

  “Put on some coffee. You an’ me’s going to have a little talk.�
��

  The coffee was ready when the Wrangler tires of Emery’s HUNTER’S MOON / 193

  Blazer slushed to a halt in the soot in front of the lodge. Jerry sat in the passenger seat.

  Harry went out to meet them and decided to put Chris on Front Street, in perspective. He nodded to Jerry and faced Emery. “I know Chris was your kid and whatever else can be said about you and me in that regard, it leaves you with a hell of a conflict of interest.”

  With chilling nonchalance, Emery ignored the comment. He inspected the war zone in the drive and grunted, “Deadly fuckers, they killed the porch.”

  “I need a police report to file my insurance on the Honda,” said Harry.

  “Awright,” said Emery. He needed some coffee. His face was poached with fatigue and part of his red-eyed stare could have come from peering into the miserable wet woods for a whitetail, but the scent of morning whiskey squeezed out from peppermint breath mints.

  “You been getting enough sleep, Sheriff?”

  “Fuck you, Griffin. Go home. Go huntin’ someplace else.”

  “Nah. Think I’ll stick around,” said Harry.

  They entered the lodge and Jerry assumed the quiet presence of a German shepherd, boots spread, thumbs hooked in his pistol belt.

  Emery shrugged off his Mackinaw and looked around. He wore a Pendleton shirt, khaki trousers, and Sorel boots. The trousers were damp to the knee with snow. He stared at the BUD IS A FUCKER

  graffiti scrawled next to the fireplace. “Was going to get Becky out here to clean that up but you being here and what happened at the funeral, probably ain’t a good idea.”

  “Karson was here. He said Becky’s dropped out of sight.”

  “She runs off. Had to go to the Cities and get her once. She’s around here somewhere.”

  “Girl off alone?”

  “She’ll turn up.”

  Harry pointed to the bearskin on the wall. “What do you want to do about that?”

  “Leave it. Goes with the place.” Emery’s casual demeanor 194 / CHUCK LOGAN

  set Harry’s teeth on edge. He decided that was the method Emery had adopted to use on him.

  “You like to shoot bears?”

  “Used to. They got be a nuisance, coming into town after the garbage. Messing with the fishing trade. Got so I didn’t like them.

  Then after I bagged that guy on the wall I was camping out at the other end of the lake and this big storm came up. Damn if this bear didn’t run right into my tent and chase me out on all fours. Bear run one way. I run the other. Big crack of lighting and this dead maple blew over and fell slam on my tent right where I was sleeping.

  I liked bears ever since.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Harry. Emery’s rustic charm concealed spread steel jaws.

  Emery moved silently in that disturbing light way of his up the steps into the den and sat at the table. Jerry shifted his position, maintaining his two-step distance. Emery slapped down a sheaf of computer printouts. “Know what I got here?”

  “Uh-huh,” Harry poured coffee and held up the pot toward Jerry, who did not move a muscle in response.

  “Story of your life from a police point of view.”

  Harry lit a cigarette. Emery took out one of his toothpicks.

  “Yeah, so?” asked Harry.

  “So…” Emery twirled his toothpick in his blunt fingers. “I think you’re one of them interesting guys that things happen to. Fact is, if I was on vacation and met you in a bar somewheres, I suspect we could trade a few stories. But you ain’t the kind of person I appreciate setting up housekeeping in my county. So when your business here is done, I want you gone.”

  Harry offered him a cigarette. Emery shook his head. “Gave it up.”

  “Like Jesse gave you up for Bud Maston?”

  Intimidating pathology toyed in Emery’s smile and a mean street-wise sneer replaced molasses and cornbread in his voice. “How’s a fuckup like you and a rich fatboy like Maston get to be friends anyway?”

  HUNTER’S MOON / 195

  “Met in Vietnam Veterans Against the War.”

  Emery snorted with contempt. “You serve together over there?”

  “Nope. First time I saw Bud was in 1969. Protest rally at the U

  in Minneapolis. Then it was AA. You heard of Alcoholics Anonym-ous? For people with drinking problems?”

  “You’re the one needs crutches, man, not me,” said Emery. He sipped his coffee and spread the printouts on the table like a poker hand.

  “Dee-troit City. You got this habit of assaulting people. Six months in the House of Correction. What happened there, Griffin?”

  “I used to smell like you in the morning. It got me in trouble.”

  “Uh-huh. Was you drinking when your wife filed this assault charge for hitting her?” Harry didn’t respond. “How you go from wife beater to working for a newspaper?”

  “Grew up.”

  “July sixty-seven. Conviction for aggravated armed assault during the Detroit riot. You got a suspended sentence. One of the parties involved in the incident was a black guy, lawyer, now a judge in Detroit. He bargained the suspension.” Emery showed Harry a fax of a military DD214 discharge and grinned. “Got you a bunch of medals. Uncle Sam appreciated your knack for armed assault.” Emery tapped the discharge. “Says here you were assigned to Advisers.

  Story in the newspaper said you were in Special Ops. You get off on that kind of stuff?”

  “You’ve been busy,” said Harry.

  “Computers is wonderful things. Assaulting a National Guardsman with a knife during a riot and insurrection, it says here.”

  “It was a bayonet and it was two Guardsmen.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You wouldn’t get it. You hadda be there.” Harry came forward in his chair. “So you know where I’ve been. I’m curious where you were the morning your kid took a shot at Bud Maston.”

  196 / CHUCK LOGAN

  “Scoff-law attitude, Griffin. I’d watch that. Don’t tempt me to kick your ass and dump you over the county line. Fact is, I got ample cause not to like you much.”

  “It’s mutual. I think you’re a poor excuse for a sheriff.”

  Jerry moved a little closer and Emery grinned and ruffled the printouts. “You only served six months of a twelve-month sentence in the House of Correction. Somebody sprung you. Copper I talked to in Detroit said it was a government deal. Took me a while to figure it out.” Emery’s lip curled. “Got into your military records.

  You was discharged from the army in May sixty-eight. You was wounded in Vietnam. You collected some disability for a couple of years. Seventy to seventy-two. Thing is, on the VA paperwork, there’s a record of you being treated for gunshot wounds in an Air Force hospital in Udorn, Thailand, in January, sixty-nine. What happened?

  You get shit-faced in Dee-troit, take the wrong bus, and wake up in Thailand?”

  “This is all crap…” said Harry. But he was impressed with Emery’s persistence as a hunter. In the woods, in computer banks. Shit.

  “That buddy of yours down in the Cities, Randall the hot-shit writer. He was regular army, then he got mixed up with the CIA. I think you went back over there as a fucking mercenary. You’re Maston’s trained dog, ain’tcha? Kind of scumbag who does it for money.”

  “And what do you do it for, Emery? Love?”

  Jerry stood at the table. “Okay, guys, take it easy.”

  Emery projected menace softly. “Lemme explain how it works, newspaper artist. Maston has projects. Some are good for the town.

  The hospital, the school, the Christmas tree farm. He wants to come off as a guilty fatboy making amends for when his family raped this whole end of the state.”

  Emery took a sip of coffee. “’Course it ain’t gonna do any good.

  In ten years they’ll be no town left, and birds will be building nests in the new hospital. Jobs ain’t there. Last year we voted the town mayor’s office out of existence. Closed the library. Half th
e stores and half the classrooms in the high

  HUNTER’S MOON / 197

  school are empty. All ’cause do-good Bud Maston used his clout to get the mill closed so the fishies wouldn’t die. Fish are fine. Town’s dying. He’s still a Maston, and he’s still fucking people.”

  Emery scratched his ear lobe. “Now here’s the problem. You’re one of Maston’s projects that has went and got itself lost.”

  “Nice how all you people are so worried about me. Karson and now you.”

  “Fuck Karson.”

  “He on your shit list, too?”

  “Let’s just say he ain’t the kind of guy I like to see teaching kids in Sunday school.”

  “Seems like a pretty intelligent guy.”

  “Yeah, right. Been to college and everything.” Emery grinned.

  “Fact is, you and him got a lot in common. Reason he’s up here in the bumfuck outback is he had some emotional problems down in Minneapolis when he was pastor at a big parish. Nervous breakdown and getting high with the kids in his church is what I heard. I can guess at the rest.”

  Emery stood up. Anger came silently in him, like his tread. He threw the police and medical records and Jerry moved between them.

  “They paste you back together in the VA?” Emery snarled as Jerry covered him. “Drug dependency. Stress groups. Did ya tell ’em where it hurts? They ask you why you couldn’t handle it on your own? Fuck!” Emery turned away.

  Then he spun around and pointed his finger. “What I been trying to tell you is you don’t do so good on your own. You’re walking wounded, another loony like that goddamn Cox. Maston collects you guys. Should keep you in a kennel. You need structure. Man, you’re out in the fuckin’ woods alone.”

  He tugged Jerry’s arm. “Tell him, Jerry, you wouldn’t been watchin’ his silly ass the other night, those ole boys from the VFW

  would have made him into bait.”

  “Speaking of which, I was you I’d run Cox’s name through your computer.”

  198 / CHUCK LOGAN

  “I’ll make sure Jay walks the line. You take care you do the same.”

  “What about Jesse? Anybody ever get her to walk the line?”

  “Jessica’s got her faults. But she’s the one who give these people up here hope. We wouldn’t have the new gym or the hospital without her. She holds this community together. Don’t forget that.”