Purgatory Ridge

by William Kent Krueger

  “I know you can. And that’s the hell of it.” She sat back but still wouldn’t look at him. “Everybody here loves you. You walk down the street and it’s ‘Hey there, Cork.’ ‘How’s it going, Cork?’ ‘Good to see you, Cork.’ Aurora’s like a big family and you’re a favored son.”

  “Prodigal son.”

  “That’s my point. You’ve already been forgiven. What’s a little extramarital affair? Men will be men. It’s different for me. In fact, it’s different for any woman here.”

  “I’d stand beside you.”

  “Right. We’ve both done so well that way in the past.” Her voice was low and bitter.

  “Don’t measure everything against the past.”

  “What other measure is there, Cork? If you become sheriff, all I can see is us going right back where we were.”

  Cork stared at her hard, dark profile. “You’re saying it was my fault?” Something—like the tip of a knife—seemed to prick his gut. “It was my job as sheriff that caused all our troubles?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Funny. It sure sounded that way.”

  “What I’m saying is that your job as sheriff often brought you into conflict with the interests of my clients. It brought us into conflict. I don’t want that to happen again.”

  “Fine. Change your clientele.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “But it’s perfectly all right for me to throw away something I might want.”

  “You’re shouting.”

  “I’m pissed. Jesus. I just kept a man from getting his ass blown to bits. You know, it was like this before, Jo. No matter what I was going through, what you were going through was more important.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “It feels true.” He stepped out and shut the door hard behind him. “I think I’ll stay at Sam’s Place tonight.” He glared at her through the window.

  “Is this where I’m supposed to plead, ‘Don’t leave’?”

  “Damn it.” Cork swung away and went to his Bronco. He drove off, leaving Jo’s Toyota sitting in the parking lot like an animal too stunned to move.

  20

  WHEN JO WALKED IN THE BACK DOOR, the women of the O’Connor household were gathered at the kitchen table. They were partaking of Rose’s remedy for all emotional ills—milk and cookies.

  “Where’s Daddy?” Annie looked at her anxiously from under a spill of wild red curls.

  “He’s fine,” Jo assured her. “He’s just fine.”

  “Everybody’s been calling,” Jenny said. “Annie and I wanted to go to the marina, but Aunt Rose wouldn’t let us.”

  Rose looked unperturbed. “I figured there was no need to add to the confusion.”

  “Your Aunt Rose was right.” Jo headed to the refrigerator, opened the door, and leaned into the cool air that flowed out.

  “What happened?” Jenny asked.

  Jo felt weary, so weary she could barely stand. She took nothing from the fridge, closed the door, and leaned against the big appliance. “It appears that someone tried to kill Karl Lindstrom.”

  “With a bomb,” Annie stated. “We heard it was a bomb.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But Dad saved him.”

  “Did you hear that, too?” Jo asked.

  “Sort of,” Annie said. “He did, right?”

  “Apparently.”

  “And he’s okay?”

  “Yes, Jenny. He’s okay.”

  Rose took a plate full of crumbs to the sink. “Where is he?”

  “He had some business to take care of.”

  “Police business?” Annie asked.

  “He’s not a police officer anymore, damn it.”

  Jenny’s blue eyes grew huge. “Whoa, Mom. Chill.”

  Stevie came into the kitchen, in his pajamas, looking sleepy. “I woke up.” He shuffled to his mother and leaned against her hip.

  Jo put her arm around him. “We’ll get you back to sleep.”

  Annie and Jenny exchanged a glance across the table.

  “Is it okay if we go out for a little while, Mom?” Jenny asked.

  “To the marina,” Jo guessed.

  “Please. We won’t get in the way,” Annie pleaded.

  “There’s nothing to see.”

  “Then there’s no harm,” Jenny said. “We’ll just be wasting our time. We promise to be back by midnight.”

  “Eleven,” Jo replied.

  “Eleven-thirty,” Jenny countered.

  “All right.”

  The two girls left in a blur.

  “You look beat,” Rose said. “I’ll be glad to put the little guy back down.”

  “That’s all right.” Jo bent and hefted Stevie in her arms. “Come on, kiddo. It’s back to dreamland.”

  She laid him in his bed and covered him with a sheet. She kissed his cheek. “Want me to stay a while?”

  “Yeth,” he murmured.

  That was fine by Jo. She sat down in the chair by the window.

  “How about a song?” she asked, although she didn’t feel much like singing him a lullaby.

  “‘Are You Sleeping,’” Stevie said.

  The night-light was on and it bathed everything in the room in a soft, warm glow. Jo began singing quietly, “Are you sleeping, are you sleeping, Brother John?…” Stevie closed his eyes. After a few rounds, Jo saw that he was breathing deeply. She closed her own eyes and wished someone would sing to her. Before she knew it, she was crying softly. She realized that what had happened—Cork’s retreat to Sam’s Place—was a move she’d been anticipating since the day, months before, when Cork had finally come back home. She remembered a statement she’d heard once about murder. After the first time, it was easy. Maybe all transgression was that way. Maybe once a marriage had been violated, it was forever flawed and at risk of breaking apart. Maybe it was inevitable.

  She left Stevie’s room and found Rose waiting at the bottom of the stairway.

  “Where’s Cork?” Rose asked. “Really.”

  “Gone. Back to Sam’s Place.” Jo sat down on the stairs. “Damn it, Rose, I screwed it up.”

  “Tell me about it.” Rose wedged herself in beside her sister.

  “Nothing to tell. We said things. Lousy things.”

  “I take it ‘I love you’ wasn’t one of them.”

  “I don’t understand it, Rose. In front of a jury, I say something and it comes out exactly as I mean it to. I say something to Cork and even if the words are right, they seem to come out all wrong.”

  “Maybe that’s because you know the rules in a courtroom. Look, Jo, I’ve never loved a man, so I could be all wrong, but it seems to me one of the most important rules in love is honesty. If you’re tripping up right now, maybe it’s because you’re trying to dance around something you need to say to Cork. Like, maybe, you don’t really love him.”

  “Don’t love him?” She looked at her sister with astonishment. “Rose, he’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “Have you told him that?”

  “Not for a very long time.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “To say ‘I love you’? Why? You’re afraid he won’t say it back?”

  “Why would he? All I’ve ever done is hurt him.”

  “That’s not true, Jo. Talk to him. Now. Tonight. He can’t know what’s in your heart unless you tell him. And until you do, you won’t know what’s in his.”

  “You really think I should?”

  “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t think so.”

  Jo considered, then finally blurted, “I’ll do it, Rose. Will you—”

  Rose held up her hand. “Go. I’ll take care of everything here. You take care of the rest.”

  Jo put her arms around her good sister. “You’re the best.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  Moonlight spilled generously out of the sky. It flowed across the lake and d
ripped white as milk from the trees along the shoreline. No lights were on in Sam’s Place. Cork’s Bronco was not there. Jo knocked on the door, tried the knob. She turned away and looked at the grounds. The buildings of the Bearpaw Brewery just north beyond the chain-link fence seemed stark in the light of the moon, vaguely menacing. Jo realized she was alone out there.

  Where was Cork? He’d put himself at risk, waded neck deep into whatever it was that was going on in Tamarack County. Was he in danger?

  Or was it something else, something Jo would rather not have considered? He’d loved another woman once. Maybe he’d found someone to love again.

  “Would you blame him?” she asked herself aloud. “Jo, Jo, what have you done?”

  She wandered to the dock, thinking hopelessly, You let your sister raise your children. You’ve put yourself at odds with the whole town. You’ve driven your husband away. Again. But at least you’re one hell of a lawyer, kiddo. Yes, ma’am—you’ve certainly won everyone’s respect.

  “Until they see that photograph,” she whispered to herself.

  She sat down on the old boards of the dock, took off her loafers, and let her feet dangle. The cool water of Iron Lake felt good.

  What was respect anyway? Something bright and shiny but cold to the touch. It didn’t keep her feet warm in bed at night. It didn’t rub her shoulders when she was tired. It didn’t listen—ever. It felt like a mantel trophy, stiff and lifeless and self-serving.

  She looked back toward the dark windows of Sam’s Place. Where was Cork? She stood up, becoming afraid—not that she had driven him away but that maybe something had happened to him.

  Headlights flashed on the road from Aurora. They came over the railroad tracks and fixed on her, so that she felt exposed. The vehicle pulled to a stop with the lights aimed directly at her. She shaded her eyes, in vain, because she could see nothing behind the glare. The headlights died, but her eyes were blind now in the sudden dark. She heard footsteps approaching.

  “Rose told me you were here.”

  Cork paused at the other end of the dock. She could see him now, standing in the moonlight.

  “You went home?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “For the same reason you came out here, I hope. Jo, I’m sorry.”

  “No, Cork, no. I’m the one who’s sorry.” And she was moving toward him, and against him, holding him so tightly the thump of his heart felt as if it were her own. “I’m so thoughtless sometimes. I didn’t mean to be so harsh.”

  “And I didn’t mean to stomp out.” His arms about her made her breathless. “Jo, I don’t want you to be afraid that I’d ever leave you again.”

  “I don’t ever want to give you reason. I love you, Cork.” She was crying now, with relief and with gratitude, and it felt so good and right, and although something was flowing out of her, it seemed to be filling her up at the same time. “If you want to run for sheriff, I’ll be right there beside you. Only…”

  “Only what?”

  “You might not want me there. Wait here, Cork.” She kissed him, then went to her car. When she came back, she held out her hand. “Hell Hanover paid me a visit this afternoon. He brought me this.” The moonlight was bright enough that she knew Cork could see the horror she offered him. He had seen it before, a long time ago. And then he’d left. She was afraid he might leave again, but he had to know.

  Cork looked at it, his face grave. “He’s the worst kind of coward, Jo.”

  “He says you have to step back from the investigation of the bombing and refrain from running for sheriff, ever, or he’ll make that photograph public.”

  Cork tore the photo in half.

  “He’ll have others,” Jo said.

  He brushed her hair softly with his hand. “We’ll figure a way to deal with Hell Hanover.”

  “If people see that photograph, they’ll think differently about me, Cork. And maybe about you.”

  “They’ve thought a lot of different things about me over the years. I can live with it.”

  She put her arms around him and her cheek against his chest. “You know what I’m concerned about most? The girls. What kind of example am I? What will they think of their mother?”

  “They’ll see that I love her, and they’ll understand that’s what’s important.”

  “You do love me, Cork?”

  “What is it?” he asked, hearing her uncertainty.

  She released him, just a little. “In your sleep sometimes, you say her name.”

  “Oh, Jo. I’m sorry.”

  “Do you still love her?”

  She was afraid he would turn away, address the hard truth in a way that would spare them both the discomfort of having to look into one another’s eyes, but he didn’t. He spoke in a voice soft and graceful as the moonlight.

  “When she was in my life, she was all I had. But she’s gone now, and now I’m here with you. And there’s nowhere else I’d rather be, and no one else I’d rather be with. I do love you, Jo.”

  She kissed him with a yielding of herself that was frightening and wonderful.

  “What I know about the goodness of men,” she said to him, “I know because of you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” She turned and leaned back into his embrace while she stared out across the dark water and the path across it the moon had paved. “Cork, I saw my mother alone, watched her give up little pieces of herself to men who didn’t care. I did that, too, once. It was the biggest mistake I ever made. The worst part of it was that I almost lost you.”

  “But you didn’t. I’ll be here. Always.”

  “That sounds like a wedding vow.”

  “No, this is a wedding vow.” Cork turned her and took her hands. “I, Cork, promise to love you with all my heart and all my soul, to cherish you and only you until death do us part.”

  He waited. “If I remember correctly, this is where you come in.”

  She looked into his eyes, eyes that reflected moonlight, and she wanted to say so much. “I… Jo,” she began slowly, “… promise to… to love, to honor, and to cherish you forever and ever. God, and the angels, and the stars in heaven as my witnesses, I promise I will. Oh, Cork, I promise.”

  Although they had been an impulse, the vows seemed as real and as binding to Jo as if they’d been said in a church. She leaned to her husband and their lips touched in a moment that felt sacred to her.

  “What now?” she asked.

  Cork looked toward Sam’s Place. “The honeymoon?”

  21

  HE SLEPT A LONG TIME, and when he woke with Jo’s arm draped over him, he felt as if he’d never slept better. He lay on his side, Jo full against him. Her breath stirred the hair on the back of his neck. Her breasts pressed between his shoulder blades. The bone of her hip dug into the cheek of his butt. One leg was sandwiched between his own. Morning sunlight streamed through the window over the sink in the back of Sam’s Place. Everything had a golden hue. At that moment, Cork couldn’t remember ever having been happier.

  Then the phone rang.

  He felt Jo wake with a start. Instead of separating from him, she tightened her hold.

  “Don’t answer it,” she whispered.

  “All right.”

  After five rings, the message machine clicked in. “Sam’s Place. Leave a message. I’ll get back to you. Thanks.”

  “Cork, Wally Schanno here. Rose said you were out there. Give me a call. I’m at my office. It’s important.”

  The quiet returned, and with it, Jo was wide awake. She kissed the back of his neck. “Don’t call him yet.”

  He had no intention of doing so.

  “I slept so well,” Jo murmured.

  “Better than in ages.”

  “Me, too.”

  “I know why for me. I’m not afraid anymore, Cork. I don’t care what Hell Hanover does. I don’t care what people think.”

  “We’ll figure a way to deal with old Hell.”

  She
squeezed him. “I love you.”

  “And I love you.” He rolled over, kissed her gently. “You wouldn’t happen to be hungry, would you?”

  “Famished.”

  They showered together. Then, while Cork fried up eggs and frozen hash browns, Jo made coffee and called her office to say she’d be in late. They ate outside at the picnic table. The sun was high above the trees on the eastern shore of Iron Lake, but its brightness was cut to a pale yellow by the haze thick in the sky.

  “I wonder what Wally wants,” Cork said.

  “Time with Arletta, I imagine. He’s a man who has put his priorities in place. And you, Corcoran O’Connor, will assume his office.”

  “I mean this morning.”

  “You’ve had the answers so far. He probably wants a few more from you.” Jo’s eyes swung away. “Well, look who’s here.”

  Jenny bounced over the railroad tracks on her bike and pedaled to the picnic table. She was breathing fast. Under her white-blond hair, her forehead glistened. She looked at them both with concern.

  “Aunt Rose told me you were out here.”

  “What is it?” her mother asked.

  Jenny looked at them both and seemed relieved. “Nothing. You look so—happy.”

  Her mother laughed. “Kiddo, you don’t know the half of it.”

  • • •

  An hour later, Cork walked into Wally Schanno’s office at the Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department. Schanno wasn’t alone. Agent David Earl was there, and Karl Lindstrom, and a man Cork had known a long time, Lucky Knudsen, a captain with the Minnesota State Patrol out of the Eveleth district office. Earl smoked a cigarette and sat on the windowsill, where the crossbreeze carried the smoke outside. The other men were drinking coffee.

  “‘Bout time,” Schanno said.

  “And a good morning to you, too, Wally. Agent Earl, Karl. And hey there, Lucky. Been a while.”

  “Yah, well, ya know how it goes, Cork.” He grasped Cork’s hand and gave it a strong shake.

  “How’s Phoebe?”

  “Pregnant.”