Wolf Hour

55 Cashmere, October 2016

Sunday was another sunny day. Kay Myers followed the handwritten directions showing her the route through Minnehaha Park. They invited all adults and children along to something entitled ‘Emma the Hare and Freddy the Fox’.

She came directly from 1025 Bar, the place where the cops drank, where those who wanted to had gathered to pay tribute to the memory of Olav Hanson. That not everybody did might have had something to do with the fact that it was a Sunday. It might also have been connected to the fact that on the Saturday the Star Tribune had already run a story about the thirty-year-old killings known as ‘the McDeath massacre’ involving Mike Lunde’s family, in which it was implied that the late Olav Hanson had protected the guilty. Walker said a few words that were so vague they could have meant anything at all, and a tearful Joe Kjos started reading something from written notes but had to give up. Bob wasn’t there, but it was Bob and not Olav people talked about as they drank at the wake. Walker told Kay he had rescinded Bob’s suspension with immediate effect following the hostage drama on Saturday. That meant it was operative from Saturday morning, so they didn’t have to explain to the press what a cop under suspension was doing in the middle of the whole drama. And with all the other stuff going on around them at that particular time, the MPD definitely needed a hero.

‘I’m telling you this as an example of the sort of trade-offs you’re going to have to make when you take over,’ Walker was saying. ‘Have you got the stomach for it, Myers?’

Kay thought about it before replying that, as regards Bob Oz, that decision was one she would have had no problem taking.

As she walked along the path that twisted through the centrally located park she passed families with children on their way to the waterfalls. They looked happy. And safe. This is what our job is, she thought. It’s to keep these people, these citizens of our city, safe. She realised she had thought of Minneapolis as our city. Was that maybe for the first time? To protect with courage, to serve with compassion. MPD’s motto. She had to smile a little at herself. But maybe it was a day for big words and big thoughts.

She had arrived at the wooden deck in front of the paddling pool where many of the families were now gathered. Here must be where it was going to happen, here, where the roar of the waterfall wasn’t too overwhelming. A number of children were already gathered in front of a wagon on which a miniature stage had been built.

‘You came,’ said a voice next to Kay.

She turned. She’d never seen him without his mask but recognised the voice at once. He was black, but much lighter-skinned than she was. Younger than she had thought too.

‘Kay,’ she said.

‘Alex. Maybe you’d like a coffee afterward?’

She looked at him. ‘Maybe,’ she said.

‘Then let the show begin,’ he said with a smile.

He disappeared behind the wagon. A blaring fanfare emerged from what sounded like a ghetto blaster that had seen better days, then the drapes parted and a glove puppet that looked like a hare wearing a princess’s crown made its entry. The children cried out ‘Look, Daddy!’ or ‘Hey!’ or else just cheered in general excitement. Then all went quiet.

‘You think maybe I’m just a hare?’ the hare said in Alex’s rather feeble imitation of a girl’s voice.

The kids responded with an excited mixture of yeses and noes.

‘The ones who answered right got it wrong,’ the girl’s voice said. ‘And the ones who answered wrong got it right.’

Kay closed her eyes to the sun. It was October, election day soon, but still it warmed. You take the good days you get.

Come Monday the sky remained high and cloudless and the air clear. It stayed that way until dusk, when a couple of lonely clouds appeared. They seemed so high up they must have come from outer space, with the sun tinging them blue and emerald green. From where Bob was standing, phone to his ear and leaning against the Volvo as he looked over the downtown skyline on the far side of the river, the massed buildings looked like a ragged iceberg against a background of orange fire. He’d thought a lot about Mike Lunde over the weekend. Seeing the city buildings in that way, like a work of art, led him to think back over some of the smaller details of the case. The way Mike had said an anonymous artist had apparently exhibited in Arb Park. Referring to it like that, did that mean Mike Lunde himself was Anonymous? Well, that was just one of many questions surrounding the case he knew he would probably never get the answer to. Anyway, now it was time to put it all behind him and move on. Because, really, that was the only way.

Finally the call was answered.

‘Hello, Bob.’

‘Hi, Alice. Thanks for the messages over the weekend. Sorry about the very brief replies, it’s been a busy weekend tying up loose ends in the Lunde case. I’ve done nothing but sleep and work.’

‘I understand, and the most important thing of all is that you’re OK. But remember that your body knows how close you were to losing your life. That’s a heavy psychological blow, even if you don’t feel it right now. The symptoms of post-traumatic stress can come—’

‘—later on. Much later.’ He finished the sentence for her. ‘Thanks, Alice, I remember you saying that. And thanks for what you said about the pills too. It really helped.’

‘Good.’ He could hear she was smiling.

‘But talking about most important things...’ he said.

‘We’ve been to the hospital, got back home just now.’

‘And?’

‘It’s a girl. They say she looks healthy and well.’

‘That is so good to hear,’ said Bob. ‘So good. So...’ He swallowed. ‘You’ve made me very happy, Alice.’

Silence for a few moments.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly, and he could hear in her voice that she was crying.

‘No, thank you,’ he said. ‘Say hello to Stan.’

He slipped the phone back into his coat pocket. Stood waiting. He liked waiting. Liked to see the darkness rise up from the ground, up from the Mississippi, climb up across the facades around him and over the glass walls. The cold came quickly. He’d read somewhere that cashmere is eight times warmer than sheep’s wool. Not a particularly precise way of expressing it, and maybe not even true, but that never stopped him advertising it as hard fact whenever anyone asked him about his choice of coat.

Lights came on in the skyscrapers. And in the sign above Bernie’s. Fifteen minutes later, Liza stepped out into the street. Stopped, as though surprised.

‘Again?’ she asked, acting exasperated. ‘This is... what? The third day in a row? Is this your famous siege technique in operation?’

‘Don’t flatter yourself. I just happened to be in the neighbourhood,’ he said. ‘And I needed someone to split the cost of gas with.’

‘You don’t say?’ she said and got in as he held the car door open for her.

‘I’ll accept payment in the form of a bit of kveldsmat,’ he said as he got in and started the car.

‘Kveldsmat? What’s that? Some kind of Norwegian thing? Like supper?’

‘Yep. You’ll get used to it.’

She laughed. ‘Now who’s flattering themselves? I take it back. You’re not a sheep in wolf’s clothing, you really are a wolf in sheep’s clothing after all.’

‘Speaking of sheep’s clothing, did I ever tell you this coat is eight times warmer than sheep’s wool? That it’s made of goat’s hair that has been combed from the bellies of goats living five miles above sea level? That each goat yields only three and a half ounces of hair per year, so that to make a coat like this takes—’

‘A lot of time and a lot of hard work?’ She gave him that exasperated look again.

Bob thought about her words. Nodded. ‘Exactly. A lot of time and a lot of hard work. If you want a cashmere coat then you have to will yourself to get a cashmere coat.’

‘I get it. And then, if you can be bothered, and if the coat fits?’

‘Then you’ve got a coat for life, baby.’

‘Oh my God, you are so full of bullshit.’

They drove for a while in silence. Then they started laughing. First her, then him. They laughed harder and harder. They didn’t stop laughing for a long time.