Wolf Hour

30 Death Penalty, October 2016

‘So now he’s officially a killer,’ Mike Lunde said with an unhappy shake of the head.

They were sitting in the smaller of the two workshops as Bob sipped at the strong black coffee which Mike told him he needed.

‘Yeah,’ said Bob. He’d hung his clothes up to dry and was wearing sweatpants and a sweater borrowed from Mike. ‘One attempted murder, now an actual murder. Victim is a family man who as far as we know never hurt a fly. Gomez can count himself lucky we’re on this side of the state border.’

‘Because of the death sentence, you mean?’ Mike stood working his scalpel around the eyes of the Labrador retriever up on his workbench.

‘Yeah.’ Bob leaned back in his chair. He was already beginning to sober up. And not feeling too bad either. ‘Where do you stand on that? Do you think we should be executing people too?’

Mike paused his cutting and peered up into the air. ‘It’s a difficult one. I’m against capital punishment because I believe that as a society we should be taking a lead in the whole civilisation project, and that means not taking human life. And as I read somewhere, the long view suggests that fewer murders are being committed here. And that applies also to other states that don’t have the death penalty, I think?’

‘True enough. But?’

‘Well, that man they executed four or five years back...’

‘Donald Moeller.’

‘That’s right. He raped and killed a nine-year-old girl, didn’t he?’

‘Yeah. She went to the store to buy sugar. They were going to make lemonade. After he raped her, he cut her throat.’

Bob saw that pained expression cross the taxidermist’s face again.

‘Sorry, Mike, maybe you have kids yourself.’

‘That’s OK. Actually that’s the point. If it had been my own child, how would I have felt then about capital punishment?’

‘Like Tomás Gomez,’ said Bob.

Mike gave him a puzzled look.

‘Cody Karlstad, the man who was shot this evening, was a passionate supporter of the right to bear arms. The way they see it, they’re fighting for a principle of freedom. In their view, that trumps the knowledge that these weapons take more innocent lives than they save. In a court of law that would be called being an accessory to murder.’

‘So you believe...’

‘Yes, I believe Tomás Gomez has introduced the death penalty and appointed himself judge, jury and executioner.’

Mike nodded but said nothing.

Bob walked over to the coffee maker and poured himself another cup, sat down again and watched in silence as Mike worked on. Looking at the dog’s eyes he could see that Mike had finally found the pair he had been looking for. And a thought struck him. That he should quit being a cop and study instead to be a taxidermist. Stuff the things he most wanted to hang on to in his life. The things he’d loved.

‘Mike?’

‘Yeah?’

‘You ever had woman trouble?’

‘No.’

‘Never?’

‘No. Or rather yes. The summer I was twenty-two.’

‘So you haven’t had many?’

‘I guess I haven’t.’

‘So how many?’

‘Two.’

‘Two?’

‘My wife and I started going steady when we were fifteen. When I was twenty-two I fell in love with a Saint Paul girl from Summit Hill. We were both students at MCAD, studying sculpture. I was shy but very definite about it, so I first of all broke with my future wife before I asked the girl out for a date. She said yes, we became a couple, and I spent the next two months learning the difference between infatuation and love. I think she got it too, so there was no big drama when we broke up. And fortunately the woman who was to be my wife was willing to take me back.’

‘So that’s the only woman trouble you’ve had in your life?’

‘And only my second woman.’

They laughed.

‘You’re the only one your wife’s had, I’m guessing?’

‘No,’ said Mike. ‘She had one other. At least that I know of. She was twenty-five, I think. It was a Norwegian writer she met when he visited the Hosmer public library — you know, that little old one in Powderhorn. She fell head over heels for him and says it was because he read to them in Norwegian, that we have this latent yearning toward our own original language.’

‘Did she tell you or did you find out?’

‘She told me.’

‘How did you react?’

‘I took Norwegian lessons.’

Bob laughed and Mike raised a hand theatrically and declaimed, ‘Vodann-stå-dettil-på-setteren-ida?’

‘Meaning?’

‘How are things down on the farm today.’

‘And it worked?’

‘Oh yes. In fact, I believe we owe our firstborn to that line. But I suspect she thought it meant something completely different.’

They both laughed.

‘Anyway, you fought for her, Mike.’

Lunde shrugged. ‘Fought and fought. After a while we realised we’d both been lucky and hit the bullseye first time around. That we were made for each other.’

‘You’re a lucky man.’

‘Don’t I know it. And you?’

‘Me?’

‘When a man asks another man if he’s ever had woman trouble it’s usually because he’s having woman trouble himself.’

‘What kind of woman trouble are you talking about?’

‘Well, I can’t possibly know that,’ said Mike as he worked at the hair on the dog’s tail with a comb and scissors. ‘But maybe it’s related to that loneliness in your eyes. What’s her name?’

Bob lowered his head. Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to sober up so quickly after all. ‘Alice,’ he said.

‘What happened?’

‘Same story as yours. She met someone else.’

‘And that left you lonely?’

Bob stood up and walked over to a white hare that looked as if it had frozen in mid-hop. He gently stroked the fur. ‘Before I met her, I didn’t know what loneliness was. Or maybe I just covered it over with other women. She opened me up like a clam, and I discovered there was another Bob in there, a sensitive, tender guy who could love, cry, ask for help... yeah, all that kind of stuff.’

‘All that kind of stuff,’ Mike echoed with a slight smile, still intent on his work.

Bob put two fingertips against the hare’s nose. ‘But when she left me, I found out she had nullified the effect of my antidote to loneliness. Women. Casual sex. Alcohol. Work. I try, and for a short while it’s OK, but I know it can’t last. I’m like that open clam, the sphincter is gone. I stand there gaping, defenceless, and all the time I’m drying out inside and smelling worse as each day goes by.’

Bob was almost surprised to feel that the hare’s nose was neither cold nor damp, so likelife was the illusion. Around its round pupils the eyes were brown, shading to black at the edges. But Bob was looking at the area closest to the pupil, where the brown shading was lighter, like amber. Like Frankie’s eyes.

‘The only consolation is that after a while you get numb to it,’ said Bob. ‘You stop caring, self-respect doesn’t seem all that fucking important. Nor does the respect of others either. In fact, nothing does. Nothing seems to matter.’

‘Apart from work?’

‘Not even that.’

‘But the way it looks, you work night and day.’

‘That’s just because I want to be the one who brings Tomás Gomez down, not Olav Hanson or one of those other idiots.’

‘Is that why you haven’t told any of them about a taxidermist where Tomás Gomez has an order waiting to be picked up?’ Mike Lunde didn’t look up from his work, but he had that slight smile on his face. It reminded Bob of the way his father looked after he had had that stroke. ‘To be honest I’ve been wondering why you’re the only police officer I’ve spoken to.’

‘Well,’ sighed Bob, ‘now you know.’

‘Thank you for being honest, Bob. Are you going to be honest about that other thing too?’

‘Other thing?’

‘The reason you and Alice broke up.’

‘But I already told you. She met someone else.’

‘Before that. The reason the two of you fell apart.’

‘And what might that be?’

‘I don’t know. It could be the real reason you’re so lonely. But of course, we don’t need to talk about it.’

Bob stood there and swallowed. Looked at the eyes on that hare. No, they didn’t need to talk about it. It had worked just fine so far, hadn’t it? Not talking about it? Just let the wound heal over and knock back a stiff drink when the pain gets too much or the thoughts can’t be driven off. Her eyes were brown. Like caramel, said Alice. He preferred amber.

‘We lost our daughter,’ said Bob. ‘Frankie. She was three years old.’

Lunde stopped working. Briefly wiped his hands together and let his arms drop to his sides. The look he gave Bob was open, naked, direct. What Bob saw wasn’t a look that asked for something, some further explanation. And Mike Lunde didn’t say anything either, it was as though he was someone who understood that no words added to those just spoken could give them meaning. Daughter. Lost. Three years old.

‘She found my service pistol in our bedroom drawer,’ said Bob. ‘She was playing with it. Alice was home and heard the shot. An hour later our daughter died at the hospital.’

Bob chose his words the same way he always did whenever the situation demanded that he explain what had happened. It was a formula he had learned off by heart. After a while he could recite it without too much alteration. Sometimes, like when he gave his statement to the police, he would add details, volunteer facts. Such as that he had kept the pistol and ammunition easily accessible in the drawer of the bedside table because there had recently been two night-time burglaries in the area. But never a word about what it felt like or about Frankie herself. That would be like opening the floodgates. He knew he would lose it. And still, as he stood there reciting the formulaic sentences, he could feel the pressure.

‘I’m so terribly sorry to hear that, Bob,’ said Mike.

Bob could see he meant it. There was empathy in his eyes, a mute pain like an echo of Bob’s own. Bob could only wonder at the arbitrary way empathy was distributed among humans.

‘Alice is a psychologist and she persuaded me to see various professionals who specialised in grief management. They all said the same thing; that experience shows that grief like this often leads to divorce; that it was important to give each other space and not apportion any blame. Of course, none of this was new to Alice, she explained the mechanisms involved to me, described in detail what typically happens to a young couple who lose their only child. We knew. And yet still we didn’t manage to stop a single thing from happening. The exhaustion. The apathy. The silence. The outbursts of rage one person feels when they think they’re being blamed by the other person. Because of the guilt you feel. Hatred for the other, because you feel they share the guilt. Alcohol. Rejection. We completely forgot that we loved each other, we dragged ourselves along with this millstone of grief around our necks that was pulling us both down. Just the sight of each other at the breakfast table was a reminder of what had happened. Neither one of us would let the other forget, because forgetting, escape from the pain the other felt, would be a betrayal. Until in the end we just couldn’t take it any more.’

‘So the reason wasn’t that she found someone else?’

‘Oh yes. But... she threw me out first.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘About what?’

‘That she threw you out?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be sure about that?’

Mike shrugged.

Bob felt the metallic tang of blood in his mouth — he hadn’t even noticed that he’d bitten his tongue.

‘Maybe she didn’t say it in so many words, but she froze me out. Wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t touch me. So I accepted the consequences. I packed my bag and I left.’

‘So you were the one who left?’

‘What? No.’

‘No?’

‘No! She could have phoned and asked me to come back. But she didn’t.’

‘I see.’

‘OK, she did ring. Twice. At the most. Directly afterward. But my life right then was just a chaotic mess and I... I needed it to be, I guess. When I began to get things sorted out and started remembering all the good times we’d shared I got in touch with her. But she told me she’d met this guy, Stan. Stan the Man. It was only a matter of a few months, remember. So...’ Bob had located the wound in his tongue and pressed it hard against the back of his teeth. ‘...in my book, she had the last word.’

‘This Stan...’

‘A guy who works with Alice. Psychologist. I talked to someone I’d got to know a bit there and he reckoned Stan had been interested in her for a long time. I guess he was just waiting for his chance. He claims to be a researcher, but I checked out a couple of articles he published and I wasn’t impressed.’

‘But do you think they love each other?’

‘Love?’ Bob spat it out as though it was a dirty word. But the rushing in the head didn’t come. Instead he thought about it, discovering as he did so that if he put the wound on his tongue between his teeth and clamped down hard on it, the pain brought tears to his eyes. ‘Maybe. I guess so. Yes, they probably do.’

‘Then why are you so angry with her? You were the one who left, and I’m guessing you weren’t exactly celibate once you were gone.’

‘Not exactly, no.’

‘So maybe you’re not really angry because she found someone else but because she’s happy. And since your daughter’s death you feel she has no right to be.’

‘You think so?’

‘It’s not really my business, Bob, but you gave the explanation yourself. That the two of you were bound together by this millstone, that neither one could accept that the other could somehow cut themselves free.’

Bob kept thinking. It wasn’t that he hadn’t had similar thoughts himself, but it was the first time he’d ever heard them spoken aloud.

‘You who spend so much time talking to people who’ve lost something they loved,’ said Bob. ‘Tell me something, are we all insane?’

Mike Lunde stood up straight and pulled off his gloves. ‘Oh but it’s not just people who’ve lost something they love.’

‘It isn’t?’

‘Take a look around,’ said Mike as he lifted off his apron. ‘Insanity is the norm.’

Bob nodded. ‘Amen to that.’

‘I’m done here for today. Where do you live?’

‘Phillips.’

‘I can drive you.’

Bob had protested, but Mike pointed out that Phillips was just down the road, and that anyway it was more or less on his route. His car was a Chevrolet Caprice station wagon, 1995 model, with the characteristic imitation wood-panelling on the sides.

‘I know it’s ugly,’ Mike said. ‘But at least not as ugly as the ’85 model.’

‘The one that looks like they chopped off the rear end of the coupé and welded on a packing case?’

‘That’s the one!’

They talked a little more about cars and where Mike lived, in Chanhassen, a comfortable suburb on the south-west side of town where folk trimmed their lawns and pushed thermometers into the ground in autumn so they’d know when the temperature fell below forty-four and the grass wouldn’t grow any more. And about Prince, the musician who had died a few months earlier.

‘You ever meet him?’ asked Bob as Mike drove through the night-time stillness of the streets.

‘You didn’t see much of him, he ran on a different clock from most people in Chanhassen. And Paisley Park where he lived and worked looked like a factory right there next to the freeway, you didn’t exactly call in to say hi. I went along to a couple of the free neighbourhood concerts he gave there, but the only time I talked to him was actually at a Vikings game.’

‘You spoke to Prince?’

‘We were both guests of a satisfied customer of mine with a private box at the stadium. Prince was polite, but he didn’t say much. I think he was a shy man. But he said he kept pigeons, and he had a cat.’

‘What was he like?’

‘I don’t know, Bob.’

‘But did he seem... happy?’

Mike considered this. ‘He seemed lonely. You a fan?’

Bob nodded. ‘Alice and I kissed the first time to “Purple Rain”.’

Mike hesitated. ‘Not that it’s any of my business, Bob...’

‘Come on.’

He smiled that half-smile again. ‘If you really could get Alice back, are you so sure that’s what you want?’

‘What are you talking about? It’s all I ever think about.’

‘I get that. But as it says in one of Aesop’s fables, be careful what you wish for. Nothing’s changed, Bob. That millstone, it’s still there.’

‘Sure. But it won’t always be there.’ He looked at Mike. ‘Will it?’

Mike shrugged. ‘You’ve seen those animals in my store. They fade a little, but they don’t disappear. Just ask Tomás Gomez. Sometimes I wonder whether I’m really doing my customers a favour by stuffing the things they love. My job is to freeze memories, preserve them in solid form. But there’s something unhealthy about it. You don’t move on. I can see it in my customers, they’re frozen themselves, they’re stuffed themselves, you know?’