by Mary Logue
This morning she was edgier than usual. She wondered how Jed Spitzler was. It was too early to call anyone. She hoped for Jenny’s sake that her father would not die. The poor girl had suffered so many losses.
Ella remembered how sweet Jenny had been as a student in her class. One day she had brought Ella a poem about what she thought her teacher’s hair looked like and proudly recited it to her. Ella still remembered a line from it: “White as snow, it seems to glow.” Ella had cherished it. She probably still had it in one of her files.
Unfortunately, what was really bothering Ella was what she had seen last night. Although she could not see clearly straight ahead, most of her vision was still fairly good. She had been listening to the music when she saw a flash of light out of the corner of her eye. What she had been seeing, she realized later, was the knife that had killed Jed Spitzler.
She hadn’t said anything because she wasn’t sure Jed hadn’t deserved what he got. Plus, she didn’t think anyone would take her account very seriously. She knew her testimony would never stand up in court. What defense lawyer wouldn’t have a heyday with her loss of vision?
But maybe she should tell someone what she had seen.
Right before Claire woke up and opened her eyes, she felt fear shoot through her body like a knife twisting in her side. She bolted upright in bed, not knowing where she was for an agonizing moment. Sun painted a landscape of brightness on the opposite wall. Rich’s house. His bed. She was okay. Don’t flip into panic. Not here, not where Rich can see what it does to you.
Putting her hand over her heart, she willed it to slow down. Sometimes she feared it would give way under the adrenaline flood. Gradually the beating lessened. She sank down into the bed and relaxed.
She crawled back under the covers for a moment and tried to calm down. She wanted to bolt, throw her clothes on, and leave Rich’s house immediately, but she would not let herself do that. Her fear was not to control her life. If she was to overcome it, she must fight it off and not let it rule her.
Forget about the dream. Stare at the sunshine.
She was wearing a large T-shirt of Rich’s, and it smelled like him—earthy and sweet. In the pit of her, she ached slightly from the lovemaking last night, or rather, early this morning. Wondering what time it was, she tried to find her watch, which she had placed on the bedside table before she had climbed in with Rich.
Eight. Good. She could take her time. Even though she wanted to leave and go home, she would stay and at least have coffee with Rich. Officially she wasn’t working today, but Meg would be coming home, and she did want to check in on Jed Spitzler’s case.
She could hear Rich downstairs, moving around. What a pleasant sound. A man stirring in the morning, probably putting coffee on, reading the paper. How long it had been. Domesticity. She missed it.
After a long moment or two of trying to enjoy this instant in her life, she rose from the warm bed. Pulling on her jeans, she decided to keep his T-shirt on. To show that she was not exactly the woman she had been before. To acknowledge his presence in her life. Besides, it felt comfortable. A trip to the bathroom, where she washed her face, swished water around her mouth, and pulled her hair back, and she was ready to meet the quiet world of Rich’s kitchen.
“Hey, how’d you sleep?” Rich asked her as she descended the stairs.
“Great,” she told him—and she had, until the end. He didn’t need to know about her dream. He wouldn’t understand.
He walked up to her, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed her. Then he pulled back and said, “I assume you need coffee.”
“Desperately.”
“I have some of Stuart’s delicious caramel rolls. Would you like one of them with your coffee? Or I could scramble up some eggs?”
“I could eat both.”
Two old white plates sat on the pine table with knife and fork next to them. Rich poured her a mug of coffee. “I know you like it black.”
She sat down at the table and felt touched by his hospitality. She watched as he pulled out a small cast iron pan and poured some oil in it.
“Do pheasants lay eggs?” she asked.
“Yes, but only in the spring. So you’ll have to make do with plain old chicken eggs. But these are very free-range chickens, as you will see by the color of their yolks.”
“What’s different?”
“They’re bright orange. Startlingly so.” He broke one in a bowl and brought it over for her to see.
“What a beautiful color. Like the sun.”
“Yes, regular storebought eggs look so pale by comparison. The color comes from the iron they get by eating grass and other weeds, I think.”
Suddenly it occured to Claire that Rich didn’t know what had happened last night. “He died, Rich. Jed Spitzler died. Lost too much blood.”
Rich gently poured the eggs into the hot oil and then stirred them slowly. “I wondered. Were you there?”
“Yeah. The kids took it pretty hard. They’re on their own now. I felt so sorry for them. Did you say there was one more?”
“Yeah, they have a little sister. I don’t know her name. She must be nearly twelve.”
“Close to Meg’s age.” Claire thought of Meg all alone in the world. It had almost happened. She pushed the thought away. “At least they have each other. The three of them. And the oldest boy is nearly eighteen.”
“They can’t manage that farm on their own,” Rich said.
“I don’t know. They seem to think they can.”
Rich pulled the eggs off the stove, delivered two to her plate, and brought out the caramel rolls. “Tuck in.”
She took a bite, and he watched her. “Have you eaten already?”
“Yeah. I got up a while ago. I don’t last an hour without some food in me. But it’s time for my midmorning break. I’ll have coffee and a roll.” He paused, then said, “It’s odd to be going out with a deputy. What a strange life you lead.”
Claire nodded. “Stranger than I thought it would be. When I graduated from the academy, I was young and enthusiastic. My uncle had been a cop. I idolized him when I was young. Recently, looking back on his life, I see how destructive police work had been to it. He was divorced twice, drank too much, smoked too much. But what are you going to do? At first the adrenaline of a new case is exhilarating. I loved it. I’d work all night long, drink far too much coffee. Then have to drink something stronger even to get to sleep. But now I see how that adrenaline takes its toll on the body.”
“Even working down here?”
“It’s better, definitely. But you saw last night. I’m not sup posed to be working today, but I’ll probaby run into the office and check out Lola’s ex-boyfriend, Leonard something.”
“I talked to him last night,” Rich told her after taking a sip of his coffee.
“You what? Rich, you are full of surprises.”
“I knew you would ask about him, and I’ve been preparing.”
“Really?”
“Yes. When you ask me about people around here, I always feel like I have nothing to tell because I’ve known these people all my life.” Rich paused and sipped his coffee. “You gotta understand, when you live in one spot with the same community around you, you assume everyone knows what you do—because they do.”
“You’ve got a point.”
“Last night he didn’t have too much to say except he didn’t care for Jed Spitzler. But I assume you knew that. While I was waiting for you to come here, I put my mind to what I had to tell you about Leonard. Three things occurred to me that you should know. First, and this is just to give you some background, he and Lola have been on again, off again for going on a decade now. They’ve never been married, but they’ve lived together and such. Lola’s younger than Leonard. She was a friend of his kid sister’s. So I do think he feels like he owns her.”
“Lola was sure pointing the finger at him last night.”
“She’d like to blame everyone but herself for the state of her life.�
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“Wouldn’t we all? What else?”
“Two, Leonard’s been known to drink too much and act rashly. He’s not alone in that behavior around here. One night, this is about four or five years ago, he was drinking at Barb’s Bar, you know where that is? Down by the river, other side of the tracks, between Pepin and Nelson. Anyway, this guy name of Buddy Purdy pisses Leonard off. They’re sitting drinking at the bar next to each other. Pretty soon, Leonard gets up and leaves the bar. Buddy looks out the window and sees that Leonard is driving Buddy’s car down to the shoreline and then out onto the ice. I forgot to mention it’s winter, the lake is frozen over. He drives it about fifty yards out, and the ice starts to crack. Leonard barely gets out of it in time. The car sinks through the ice.” Rich swirled his coffee around in his cup. “I don’t think they towed it out until spring.”
“How did Leonard get the keys to this guy’s car?”
“Buddy did what most everyone down here does. He had dropped the keys under the front seat.”
“And what’s the last thing?”
“This happened long ago, but I think it’s pertinent. Leonard went out deer hunting with his best buddy when the two of them were just out of high school. So we’re talking twenty-some years ago. They went bow hunting. The season’s longer. It was early morning when this happened—hunting starts at first light. Leonard shot his friend in the neck with an arrow. The kid died.”
Rich unrolled part of his caramel roll and buttered the piece, then took a bite. Claire waited for him to finish eating it. She knew he had more to tell her.
Rich continued. “There had been some talk of his buddy cheating with Leonard’s girlfriend, but it might just have been talk. Sheriff called it an accident. It might well have been.”
Claire took a sip of her coffee and waited. When Rich didn’t look like he would add anything, she couldn’t stand it. “What did you think?”
“Well, it being so early in the morning, it was a safe bet, unless they had been at it all night long, that they hadn’t been drinking. That time of day it is hard to see. But with bow hunting, you tend to be closer to your target before you shoot. I thought about it all when it happened. To tell you the truth, I was just never sure. But I can tell you this. I would never go hunting with Leonard Lundgren.”
Nora made breakfast for herself. She was pretty good at it. She made everything just the way she liked it. She toasted her bread and then let it sit for a while until it cooled off so the butter wouldn’t melt on it. She liked the butter to stay whole. Then she slathered strawberry jam on the toast. More than her dad ever let her put on.
She poured herself some milk, but she poured it into a coffee mug. She stirred a little sugar into it. She liked to pretend she was drinking coffee. Sometimes Brad would make her a very weak cup of coffee. He would heat up milk and then pour enough coffee into it to make it turn color. Then he would let her put a couple spoonsful of sugar in it. The best.
Everyone else was sleeping. It didn’t happen very often that she was on her own. Like last night. What she would do was pretend that her mom was there, in the other room. Otherwise, sometimes she was afraid. But if her mom was there, then she would be all right.
Nora worked hard at remembering her mom. She had her picture right by her bed, and every night she kissed her good night. She said prayers to her mom. She believed in her mom more than she believed in God. Maybe that wasn’t right, but since they rarely went to church, she figured she hadn’t had much practice at believing in God.
After she finished her breakfast, she cleaned up her dishes.
She went out and fed the chickens and gathered all the new brown eggs they had laid early that morning. She loved to hold the eggs against her cheeks. They felt so smooth and warm.
She walked down to the end of the road and got the paper.
Then she watched TV quietly for a while.
They had all gotten in late last night. Very late. When she heard them come home, she had taken her mom’s picture out from under the covers where she had put it for protection and set it next to her bed. Then she went back to sleep.
She was surprised her father wasn’t up yet. He never slept in, not like Jenny, who tried to sleep in every morning. Then Dad and she would fight. Nora hated their fights. She often went and hid in her room when they fought.
Nora went upstairs and walked down the hallway to her father’s room. The door wasn’t shut all the way, so she gently pushed it open. No one. Empty bed. Hadn’t even been slept in. Maybe he had gone to stay at that woman’s house. He had a couple times before. But usually Lola stayed at their house.
That Lola. Lola had bought Nora a Barbie doll for her birthday. The doll sat on the top of her bookshelf now. Nora had never really played with dolls. Besides, she’d rather read or run around outside. Nora got the feeling that Lola would like to make her her own little girl.
Sitting on the edge of her dad’s bed, she waited for something to happen. As if on command Jenny’s door opened, and she came stumbling down the hall.
When Jenny glanced into their father’s room, she let out a scream. Nora glanced around and wondered what she had seen.
“Jenny, it’s me.” She ran out to her.
Jenny grabbed her into her arms and said, “Thank God. It’s only you.”
I do have moments of happiness. You asked me, and I do.
My roses, blooms so heavy they lean toward the earth. Hawk soaring off the bluff.My daughter running up the hill. She can never walk.
It’s as if I forget for that moment.
Their deaths leave me. They are not in my sight, in my presence. I no longer carry them.
They are heavy?
Intolerably.
What can you do about that?
I don’t like these questions where you know the answer and I’m wandering around in the dark.
I just want to forget.
The deaths to have never happened. It all to go away. A good wind, that’s what we need is a good wind to blow it all away.
Where would that leave you?
I would be the rose, heavy with only my own beauty, the hawk soaring over the land, my daughter.
I would be like my daughter again, running up every hill.
Has she forgotten what has happened?
No. I know she hasn’t.
Is there another way?
I hope so.
8
SUNDAY mornings the sheriff’s department was as quiet as a morgue. Tonya was answering the phones, a couple of the squad cars were out, but no one else was around the office. There just wasn’t a lot of call for the police on Sunday mornings in this small county. Claire could hear the bells from the Lutheran church down the street chiming a hymn. Ten o’clock. Time for service. She almost felt like she knew the words to the hymn, but they stayed a vague memory.
As Claire typed his full name into the computer, Leonard Lundgren, she tried to remember him and his manner last night. He was a big man, over six feet tall, broad through the shoulders and chest. He probably had done a lot of heavy work in his time. Much bigger man than Jed Spitzler. But last night he hadn’t seemed particularly belligerent. When Lola had pushed him away, he had backed off and left her alone. Maybe he had been aware of all the eyes on him.
Their computer was hooked into all the important databases in the state, and she wanted to see what would come up for Leonard. Information started to appear on her screen, and she read through it, sifting it in her mind.
He was in his late forties, born July 9, 1952.
Graduated from high school.
Never married.
In jail once. Drunk driving. Before they did much about it. He was just given a warning and a night’s stay.
Three speeding tickets, but spread out over nearly thirty years of driving. That wasn’t bad.
Sued someone over a damage deposit on an apartment. Lost.
No children.
No surprises.
She printed it out for her fi
le, but didn’t think it held any information worth keeping. Obviously the man whose car he had driven into the lake hadn’t pressed charges. And the shooting incident wasn’t on his record. Claire knew it was the way it should be, but it frustrated her that she wouldn’t even know of these incidents if it weren’t for Rich. She would have had a much less complete picture of Leonard.
But she did know. She was going to keep checking into him. She had a feeling he had been up to no good. From what she had heard from Rich, it was obvious that his relationship with Lola was volatile.
Claire wanted to get a look at his truck, at his house. Whoever stabbed Jed Spitzler must have gotten sprayed with blood. There would be traces, and she wanted to find them before it was too late.
If she wanted to get a search warrant on Leonard Lundgren, she would need a little more ammo. The judge didn’t hand them out easily. Claire would need to go in with a good probable cause—at least motive and opportunity, preferably an eyewitness.
She sat back in her chair and looked over what she had printed out, but her mind started to wander back to last night with Rich. He had surprised her as a lover. Maybe because he was awkward and quiet moving through the world, she had thought he would be the same in bed. Not the case. He was a thoughtful, thorough lover with just enough of an edge to be very interesting.
“Hey, Claire.” Steve Walker, the other deputy who had shown up at the dance last night, poked his head into her cubicle. “What’re you doing in here?”
She felt herself blushing as if Steve could read her mind. To give herself a chance to recover, she showed him the file she had printed out. “Checking on the Spitzler case. What about you? You on duty again?” she asked him.
“Just getting off.”
“Long shift. How’d it go last night at the dance?”
“You know about what I know.” He perched on the edge of her desk. “We found nada. No knife, no bloody clothes. No one seemed to have seen it. Pretty strange.”
“I’m glad you think it is. I’m having a hard time believing it. Even his kids, who found him, didn’t see anyone.”