Iron Lake

43

WALLY SCHANNO looked about as bad as Jo had ever seen a man look. Hobbling on his crutches, a grimace of pain at every step, he made his way up from the lake to Molly Nurmi’s cabin. The whole way he kept a few yards behind the men who bore the covered stretcher to the ambulance. Although he was a tall man and not particularly old, he seemed small and ancient, bent under the weight of the work of that evening.

In contrast, Cork was like some hard piece of wood, carved into the shape of a man. Nothing showed on his face. He sat at the table in Molly Nurmi’s kitchen and he had not moved since he’d placed himself there shortly after the sheriff’s arrival. Jo had fixed coffee, fumbling in the kitchen cabinets and drawers for filters and a coffee tin and measuring spoon. Cork hadn’t said a word. He’d barely spoken at all in response to the questioning of Captain Ed Larson, into whose hands Schanno had placed the investigation, while he leaned on his crutches and listened. Sigurd Nelson came, waddling down to the ice in his heavy coat, voicing his displeasure at having to be called yet again to do the work of his elected—and underpaid—office. Under the spotlights Schanno’s people had set up, Sigurd pointed out the blue lips, as in carbon monoxide poisoning, the effect of prolonged decreased oxygen flow in hypothermia. The limbs were rigid as well, and the skin hard as ice from deep frostbite, all definite indications of death by hypothermia. She probably fell on her way from the sauna, he speculated, hit her head on the ice, and froze to death. Jo waited, expecting Cork to scream out his protest, to alter that hasty judgment, but he didn’t say a thing as Molly Nurmi’s body was worked loose from the ice, warm water carefully used to melt the link between her frozen skin and the frozen lake water. There was no blood, no sign of a struggle. Nothing to indicate anything other than what it appeared to be—a terrible, terrible accident.

“Go on up to the cabin,” Schanno suggested to Cork as the woman’s body was being freed. “Wait for me there. We’ll talk.”

Now Cork sat rigid, the coffee Jo had poured for him untouched on the table. Jo stood at the sink, watching the mobile spotlights go off down at the lake as the last of Schanno’s people packed it up and the silent column made its way into the bright yard light behind the cabin where their vehicles were parked.

“They’re taking her to the ambulance,” Jo said, thinking it might be something Cork would want to know.

He didn’t respond, although he flinched at the muffled thump-thump of the ambulance doors closing.

“Where’s Wally?” Cork finally asked.

“Talking with Ed Larson. They’re looking at some papers. Ed’s going now. Here comes Wally.”

Schanno came in on his crutches. He moved to the table where Cork sat, slipped the crutches from under his arms, leaned them against the table, and sat down in a chair so suddenly and heavily it looked as if the pull of gravity had just increased on him tenfold.

“Coffee, Sheriff?” Jo asked.

Schanno waved it off. He pulled off his gloves, grunting from the effort. He looked at Cork, then at Jo, and thought for a moment before he spoke.

“Her clothes were folded neatly on the bench in the changing room. The sauna was still warm. No sign of a struggle. The ice down that ramp is treacherous. I nearly lost two men there myself. So, is there any reason I ought to think this wasn’t just a terrible accident?”

Jo waited. She figured if Cork was going to say anything about the bag and Sandy, this was it. But Cork finally said, “No.”

“Ah.” Schanno nodded, but didn’t look convinced. “You told Ed you were both out here to help her get a Christmas tree. That right?”

“You were down there, Wally. You heard me say it,” Cork told him. Cork was staring down at his untouched coffee. “She didn’t have a tree. Take a look.” He made a brief motion with his head toward the main room through the kitchen door.

The sheriff considered this awhile, eyeing Jo most of the time. She returned his gaze steadily.

“The two of you. Together. You were both going to help?” Schanno asked.

“Yes,” Jo replied. She turned away from Schanno’s skeptical look, went to the coffeemaker, and topped off the coffee in her cup.

“Word is you’re working on a divorce. But here you are together way out here just to help this girl get a tree.”

Cork said, “Christmas is like that.”

“Jo,” Wally finally said, “mind if I speak with your husband alone for a few minutes?”

“Forgive me for asking, Sheriff, but is it something he might want an attorney present for?”

Schanno swung his tired eyes to Cork. “You want an attorney here while we talk?”

“No,” Cork said quietly.

Jo put on her coat. “I’ll wait outside, then.”

When she was gone, Schanno said sincerely, “I’m sorry, Cork.”

“Yes.”

“Cork . . .” Schanno faltered. “Cork, I got to ask. Does Jo know about you and Molly Nurmi?”

“Why?” Cork stared at him, hollow-eyed. “Oh, Christ, Wally, Jo didn’t have anything to do with this.”

“Then you tell me what is going on.”

“What’s it look like is going on?”

“It looks like that poor girl had a bad accident. But you and I both know that looks don’t count for much around here anymore.” The sheriff sat back and ran his hand through his thin gray hair. “Hell’s bells, I remember a time when I thought I knew this town pretty well. I look at people now, people I’ve known most of my life, and I wonder what they’re hiding. It’s like that, isn’t it, Cork? You stuff your own closet full of skeletons and you wonder what kind of bones everyone else has stuffed away.” He looked at Cork. His eyes were baggy with exhaustion and full of hesitation. “Was it an accident?”

Cork said, “I haven’t got any evidence to the contrary.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Let me rephrase it. Does what happened here tonight have any connection to everything else that’s gone on lately?”

“Wally,” Cork said, leaning earnestly toward the man with the bum leg. “Go home. Go home to Arletta. Go home and hold her while you still can. There’s nothing more to find out here tonight.”

Schanno stared at Cork and finally seemed to accept that he would get nowhere. He closed his eyes. His lids were spiderwebbed with red veins. “I’m so tired my brain feels like it’s swimming around in molasses.” He rubbed his face and sighed through his hands. “I’ll want to talk with you some more tomorrow.”

“I’m sure you will,” Cork said. He stood up, gathered Schanno’s crutches, and handed them to the man. “Good night, Wally.”

The sheriff tugged his gloves on and slipped the crutches under his armpits, leaning on them heavily. “Everything’s getting away, Cork. Everything’s falling apart, and I can’t seem to do a thing about it.”

“Not your fault, Wally,” Cork said.

Schanno grunted, then headed for the door. Outside he said something to Jo that Cork couldn’t hear. Then he hobbled to his car, where a deputy was waiting to drive him back to town. The car pulled away. Except for Jo, the yard was empty. She turned and came back into the cabin. Cork was standing at the sink, looking out the window.

“What now?” Jo asked.

“Now comes justice,” Cork said. He walked to the coffeemaker and hit the off switch. He turned out the lamp in the main room. “Let’s go,” he said.

“To Sandy’s? Is that why you kept quiet? So you could—what?—kill him?”

“I said let’s go.”

“No.”

Cork thought it over a second. “All right. Stay. You can’t go anywhere. Phone’s dead, so you can’t warn him.”

He started toward the back door. Jo moved to block his way.

“You don’t have any proof, Cork,” she argued. “If you’ve made a mistake in your thinking and you do something terrible, where will you be? Everything you’ve told me about Sandy, everything you know is circumstantial. For Chris’ sake think like a lawman. Don’t be stupid.”

“Stupid?” Cork leveled his cold, determined eyes on her. “I’ll tell you what stupid is, Jo. It’s thinking that the law could ever take care of anything, thinking that the law matters at all. Out of my way, Jo.”

He shoved her roughly away and went outside to the Bronco. He took the cartridges he’d ejected from his Winchester after he left the mission and fed them back into the rifle. He slid behind the steering wheel as Jo climbed into the passenger side.

“Get out,” he ordered.

“Or what?” she challenged him with an angry look. “You’ll shoot me?”

Cork fixed her with his own angry eyes. “Get in my way and I might.”