Blood Hollow

30

Gooding joined Cork at the counter of the Broiler the next morning. Cork was finishing his coffee. Gooding ordered a cup for himself and a side of whole wheat toast.

“Light breakfast,” Cork said.

“Here on official business, sort of. Our acting sheriff asked me to find you, let you know a couple of things.”

“Cy? How’s he doing?”

“Holding his own, I’d say.” Gooding leaned nearer to Cork. “If you haven’t heard, you soon will. Arne Soderberg came into the office yesterday afternoon with his attorney. Gave a full statement. He admitted to an affair with Charlotte Kane. Said it began last summer, but he broke it off when he got himself elected sheriff. When she took up with Winter Moon, he got jealous, went back to seeing her. He admitted he was at Valhalla, but swears she was alive and unharmed when he left. He’s got a receipt and a witness that place him in town in the time frame we believe she was attacked. Looks like a pretty solid alibi. He also admitted that the rose petals were his doing. Said the last promise he made to her was that when he was a free man, as in divorced from Lyla, I guess, he’d give her a bed of roses to lie in.” Gooding looked down. “Soderberg. I should have been suspicious. He had money, transport, and a key to the cemetery. Pretty sloppy police work.”

“Give yourself a break. You couldn’t have known he had a motive. Who would have thought it?”

Gooding looked up again. “You did.”

“What about the blood tears? Did he know anything about that?”

“Swore he didn’t have anything to do with it. Doesn’t know a thing about it.”

“You hear anything yet from the BCA on the samples you took from the angel?”

“Mostly water and a little blood. Type O-positive, most common blood type. Nobody actually saw the angel weeping. The tears had already streamed down the monument when the crowd started to gather, so I suppose they could easily have been put there earlier by almost anyone. Somebody, maybe, who just wanted to add to the mystique. You could figure it any number of ways that have nothing to do with miracles.”

Gooding’s toast arrived. He opened a packet of honey.

“Cork, I’ve got to tell you, we still like Winter Moon for the girl’s murder. Too much evidence against him. The CA’s going ahead with the prosecution. You still believe he’s innocent?”

“I do.”

“You really care about that kid, don’t you?” Gooding said as he spread the honey over his toast. “I wonder if sometimes we want to believe something so much that the truth can smack us right between the eyes and we don’t even notice.”

Cork sipped his coffee and ignored the comment. “You said you’d have a talk with Kane. Did you?”

“I went to his place yesterday. It was like talking to a lamp-post. I don’t know where Winter Moon is, but if I were you, I’d tell him to lie low right now. I think you’re right about Kane. He’s right on the edge of doing something stupid.”

From the Broiler, Cork headed straight to Sam Winter Moon’s old cabin. As he passed through Alouette on the rez, he saw Dot’s Blazer parked outside LeDuc’s general store. Solemn was in it, alone behind the wheel. Cork pulled up on the passenger side and got out of his Bronco. He walked around the back of the Blazer to the driver’s side, and noticed the old pickup parked not far away, and the two men who occupied the cab. He went to the pickup and leaned in the window.

“Junior,” he said. “Phil. What’s up?”

The smell of beer came from inside the cab where Junior and Philbert Medina sat. The two men were relatives of Dorothy Winter Moon, her mother’s sister’s husband’s children from a first marriage. They were both mechanics in their father’s garage in Brandywine, the other rez community. Junior wore a ball cap over his long black hair. Phil kept his own hair in a buzz cut. Both men cradled rifles on their laps and each had a can of Budweiser clamped in a free hand. They gave Cork big, stupid grins.

“Just getting ready for a little deer hunting,” Junior said.

“Deer?”

“Yeah,” Phil put in. “Waiting for a fat buck to come strolling onto the rez.”

“Helping Dot out, are you?”

“That’s what family’s for, cousin.” On the reservation, everyone was cousin.

“You know, I’d feel a lot better if you’d put away either the beer or the rifles.” Cork paused a moment, then added, “You ought to put away both.”

“What are you going to do? Arrest us?” Junior laughed.

Cork turned away and walked to the Blazer.

“Morning, Solemn.”

“Hey, Cork.” Solemn kept his eyes straight ahead.

“I’m guessing you already heard that Kane’s looking for you.”

“I heard.”

“And Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee over there are your answer?”

“Phil and Junior were my idea.”

Dorothy Winter Moon had come from LeDuc’s store with a sack of groceries in her arms. She wore sunglasses against the glare of the bright morning sunlight. She stepped around Cork and opened the Blazer’s back door.

“This isn’t a good idea, Dot.”

“You got a better one?” She set the grocery bag on the backseat and shut the door.

“Go to Henry Meloux, Solemn,” Cork said. “You’ll be safe with him, and maybe he can help in other ways.”

“I can take care of my son,” Dot said.

Cork looked at Solemn. “Is this what you want?”

Solemn didn’t seem to hear. The two Medinas laughed at something, a loud and grating sound.

“Don’t let go of it, Solemn,” Cork said.

Solemn slowly turned his head, and Cork saw the hardness in his eyes.

“Let go of what?” Solemn said.

“What you found out there in the woods. That feeling. That belief.”

Solemn regarded him for a long time. “What if it wasn’t real?”

“Sometimes believing is all it takes to make a thing real.”

“That boy in the wheelchair, his folks, they believed.”

Dot scanned the street as if any moment she expected that Kane would leap out of the shadows in ambush. “We need to get back to Sam’s cabin.” She circled around the front of the Blazer and got in on the passenger side. “Let’s go, Solemn.”

Cork reached through the window and put his hand on the young man’s arm. “Go to Meloux.”

Solemn didn’t answer. He started the engine and, when Cork withdrew his hand, backed onto the street and headed north out of Alouette. The Medinas followed in their truck.

Cork looked at the dust kicked up in Solemn’s wake and wondered about the comment Gooding had made earlier. Maybe he did believe in Solemn’s innocence simply because he wanted to believe. Was that enough to make it so?