Red knife

SEVEN

A nnie O’Connor had learned how to cook from the best. For the first fifteen years of her life, most meals at the O’Connor house were prepared by her mother’s sister, Aunt Rose. Rose was a cook with an outstanding reputation, and Annie was an apt pupil. Though she preferred sports to most domestic pursuits, cooking appealed to Annie’s sense of order and, in a way, her enjoyment of competition. Since Aunt Rose had left-married and gone to Chicago-Annie regularly took a turn preparing the evening meal. Her father’s schedule was erratic, especially since he’d started his sideline business as a private investigator. He wasn’t an inspired cook, preferring to stick with the staples: mac and cheese, hot dogs, chili, sometimes a passable meat loaf. And once Sam’s Place opened for the season, he wouldn’t be home most evenings until very late. Her mother often worked long hours at her law office and had always been a cook with a reputation for disasters in the kitchen. Although she had improved some since Aunt Rose left, the truth was that almost everyone in the family preferred Annie’s cooking, and Annie liked being the best at things.

Sunday dinner was always at one. That afternoon the main dish was pot roast, simple but succulent, and the smell of it filled the house. Annie and her mother worked together in the kitchen, both agreeing that Annie was in charge. Stevie’s job was to set the table. It was all a familiar pattern, yet that day felt anything but usual to Annie. Before he’d gone out to the reservation with the sheriff that morning after church, her father shared with them what had happened to the Kingbirds, and she couldn’t stop thinking about the tragedy.

She knew Rayette Kingbird mostly from visiting with her at St. Agnes. She’d liked Rayette, liked that at first glance she appeared to be a hard woman but in fact was quite kind and very sensible when you got to know her. Alex Kingbird she knew only a little. She’d seen him around town with Rayette. They’d stopped together at Sam’s Place a few times for burgers and shakes. He was quiet, but he seemed to laugh often when he was talking with Rayette. Annie knew the stories about him: kicked out of the marines, an L.A. gang member, prison time, and the Red Boyz. What she saw was a man who seemed to be a good husband and a good father, someone in love with his wife and his child.

She knew Ulysses Kingbird best. Again, this was through the St. Agnes connection, where music brought them together. At school, he didn’t fit in anywhere. He wasn’t a brain. He wasn’t a jock. He wasn’t a preppie or a stoner. Despite his musical talent, he didn’t hang with the band geeks or the artsy kids. Mostly he was quiet and tried to disappear. Moving down the hallway at school, he reminded her of a piece of driftwood floating, purposeless, down a river.

He might have been successful at being overlooked if it hadn’t been for the fact that his brother was Alexander Kingbird, head of the Red Boyz. As a result, kids at school hit on Uly for drugs. Teachers made assumptions about him. His asshole classmates-and there were a lot of assholes-tormented him with insults. Since Kristi Reinhardt had died, things had become worse. Uly might never have come right out and said anything, but the music connected him and Annie in a powerful way. When they got together to practice the songs Uly had arranged for Sunday’s service, Annie sometimes got him to talk. Not a lot, but through the crack in the door that opened, Annie saw much.

Uly’s biggest problem, it seemed to her, was that his father was Will Kingbird. Him, she didn’t like at all. Mostly she saw him at Mass, where he sat so stiffly he looked as if he’d been carved out of the pew itself. He made her think of the old Louisville Slugger her parents had given her when she started playing softball: hard and perfectly capable of delivering a good, solid smack. Mrs. Kingbird often seemed to have a wary look on her face, and though Uly never talked about abuse, it made Annie wonder.

Her father came home a few minutes before the potatoes were done. He went upstairs to wash his hands. When he came back down, everything was on the table and ready.

At first the conversation was about Jenny, Annie’s older sister who was nearing the end of her first year of college at the University of Iowa, and who’d called to check in, as she always did, after the family came home from church. But Annie was dying to know what exactly had happened at the Kingbird place. Her father didn’t want to talk about it, except to say that it was true, Rayette and Alexander Kingbird were dead. They’d been shot.

Stevie, who seemed not to know better, kept pressing. “Where?”

“They were found in the meadow behind the house.”

“I mean where were they shot?”

Her father looked up from dishing roasted potatoes onto his plate. “In the back,” he replied after a long pause.

“Was there lots of blood and stuff?”

“Stephen,” his mother said, “that’s enough.”

“I was just wondering.” He lingered over his green beans. “Why did they want you there?”

“Alex and Rayette were Ojibwe. The sheriff thought that because I’m part Ojibwe, I might be able to answer some questions they had.”

Annie used this as her opening to ask about something that had been on her mind for quite a while. “You and Mr. Kingbird were friends once, right, Dad?”

“We’re not unfriendly now.”

“I mean like tight.”

“We played football together. Because we shared Ojibwe blood, he probably talked to me a little more than other people. Folks saw that as tight, I suppose, but I never really knew him. I don’t think anybody did. He never let anybody that close.”

Annie said, “I like Uly’s mom better.”

Her father smiled. “You want to know the truth, so do I.”

“But she seems, I don’t know, subdued. Like she’s afraid of him.”

“That might be a cultural issue,” her mother said. “She’s Latina. I believe it’s not unusual to be submissive to your husband, at least in public.”

“I think Uly’s afraid of him,” Annie said.

Her father said, “Has he told you that?”

“Not in so many words. I just get that feeling.”

Stevie piped in, “Uly sure plays the guitar good.”

“He’s always seemed a little troubled to me,” her mother said. “Do you ever see him at school, Annie?”

“He’s only a sophomore, so we don’t have any classes together. But I see him sometimes, yeah. He gets picked on, mostly by guys who’re huge losers and looking for somebody they think might be a bigger loser than them. Allan Richards, for example.”

“Richards?” Her father looked up from his plate. “That wouldn’t be Cal Richards’s boy, would it?”

“That’s him.”

“Cal Richards.” He shook his head. “Now there’s one sick soul. Sounds like the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.”

“Will you help the sheriff?” Stevie asked.

“A little bit maybe. I’m going back to the reservation this afternoon to talk to a couple of people.”

“Oh?” Annie’s mother said. She didn’t sound thrilled.

“I need to talk to George LeDuc, Jo. And as long as I’m out that way, I might as well drop by the Blessing place and have a word with Tom.”

“Mom, can Trixie come in?” Stevie asked.

“Yes, but don’t feed her at the table. I’ve put some scraps aside for her for later.”

Stevie got up to let the dog in. Annie waited until she thought he couldn’t hear, then asked the question that had most been on her mind.

“Do the shootings have anything to do with Kristi Reinhardt?”

“I don’t know, Annie.” Her father stabbed another piece of pot roast, but paused before he put it on his plate. “Buck Reinhardt is a strange man. But, you know, if this is all about his daughter, I can almost understand.”

He seemed ready to say more, but Stevie came back in with Trixie at his heels, and her father went back to eating.

What she would remember whenever she thought back on that conversation was the powerful confusion of compassion and anger she saw on her father’s face. That and how much the look scared her.