Unfortunately, Sam wasn’t always around when Solemn went into one of his moods, and his great-nephew often got into trouble. Fights, mostly. Public disturbances. Cork, who was sheriff then, often had young Solemn in his office awaiting the arrival of Dot or Sam. In those days, the transgressions were usually minor. Solemn wasn’t a liar; he never denied his guilt. He wasn’t a thief; he never stole anything. He was, in his dark moments, simply ruled by an impulse to strike out, and when the moment had passed, he was full of contrition. Generally, an apology would do the trick, or sometimes if property had been involved, a bit of time and labor served in repairing the damage. Solemn never tried to duck his sentence.
The spring Solemn turned sixteen, Sam Winter Moon died, died in Cork’s arms with his chest opened up from a shotgun blast. It happened at a place called Burke’s Landing during a tense conflict between whites and Anishinaabeg over fishing rights on Iron Lake. Without Sam’s firm, loving hand to hold him in place, Solemn spun off into space. The trouble he got into became more serious. He became a kid with an unhealthy reputation.
Cork knew the boy needed help. He remembered only too well how Sam Winter Moon had come into his own life after his father died and had guided him through the long journey of his grief. Solemn needed someone to step forward in the same way. That someone should have been Cork. But Sam’s death had nearly destroyed Corcoran O’Connor. Both the whites and the Anishinaabeg blamed him for the bloodshed at Burke’s Landing. Cork blamed himself, too, so it was pretty much unanimous. After that, for a while, his life fell apart. He lost his job as sheriff and his self-respect. He nearly lost his wife and family as well. He viewed Solemn’s plight from the distance of his own isolation and suffering. Although he knew he should help, he’d been unable to scrape himself off the bottom of his own dark hole, and Solemn was left to find his way alone.
Cork studied Dorothy Winter Moon, and she flinched under his stare.
“Why do they want to talk to Solemn, Dot?”
“Used to be I’d know. Used to be he’d tell me when shit was going to hit the fan. Not anymore. He’s been gone for the last two days, vanished, then the sheriff’s people show. I thought it might be serious this time, so I took the day off and looked for him. Then I went to Jo.”
Dot had often turned to Jo when Solemn’s impulses put him on the wrong side of the sheriff’s people. For many years, Jo had represented both the Iron Lake Reservation and the Ojibwe people in court actions. This hadn’t endeared her to the citizens of Aurora, but the Ojibwe trusted her as they would one of their own. So far, Jo had always been able to negotiate Solemn’s freedom in court.
Jo said, “I was hoping you might use your influence to get a few answers, Cork.”
“My influence is limited these days.”
“Would you see what you can do?”
“Sure.” As Cork gathered his tools, he said, “I’ve got to warn you, Dot, this may be all about Charlotte Kane, and it could be serious. Wasn’t Solemn her boyfriend for a while last fall?”
“They broke up.”
“And then she disappeared. And her body was found a few days ago, and now Solemn’s taken off. The police may see a connection.”
“But it was a snowmobile accident. Everybody says.”
“He’s just thinking like a cop, Dot,” Jo said. “Look, I’ll drop you back at your car, then why don’t you go on home. When I hear from Cork, I’ll give you a call. If Solemn shows up in the meantime, or if he contacts you, let me know.”
Dot nodded. It was obvious that the possibility Cork raised had shaken her. She walked toward Jo’s Toyota with her head down, staring at the gravel under her feet.
Jo asked Cork quietly, “Do you really think that might be it?”
He shrugged. “Like you said, just trying to think like a cop.”
When Charlotte Kane moved to Aurora with her father, everyone remarked on her beauty, which she must have inherited from her mother. They remarked on her manners, her reserve (very Kane-like), her intelligence. And when, in her senior year of high school, she began to run with Solemn Winter Moon, they remarked on her disastrous choice in a young man.
For several weeks, beginning with the homecoming dance in early November when they were first seen together as a couple, until around Christmas, when word filtered through town that it was all over, they were a hot gossip item. She, the shy beauty; he, the bad boy off the rez. She, the kindling; he, the fire. At nineteen, Solemn had a reputation not just for his impulsive behavior but also for his conquests. His hair was panther black, and he wore it long, so that it hung down his back like a moon-lit river. He was lean, good-looking, with a brooding Brandoesque quality to his face. As far as Cork knew, Dot had never said a word about Solemn’s father, but it was clear that something more than Indian blood ran through his veins. Solemn used all of this, the good looks, the mystery, the lure of being part of a culture that to whites was mythic and forbidden, to hook and reel in the attractive bored tourist women deserted by their husbands who spent whole days away fishing Iron Lake. No complaints had ever been lodged against Solemn, but the town knew him as a kind of Ojibwe Romeo, and a lot of folks were disappointed when a girl as polite and sensible as Charlotte fell for the Indian’s line. If there were any evidence concerning her death that pointed at Solemn Winter Moon, Cork feared many in the town would render a verdict of guilty long before a trial ever took place.
When he arrived at the sheriff’s department, he found Deputy Duane Pender on desk duty. Pender told him that Arne Soderberg had been in earlier but wasn’t anymore. That was all Pender would tell him.
“Do you expect him back?”
“Can’t tell you that.”
“You don’t know?”
Pender didn’t reply, just gazed at Cork with a face stolid as a guard at Buckingham Palace.
“All right. Then how about telling me why Arne had people out at Dorothy Winter Moon’s place at sunup looking for Solemn.”
“You’d have to talk to the sheriff about that.”
“And he’s not in.”
“Now you’re getting the picture.”
Behind Pender, Randy Gooding came into view. He was carrying a stack of papers, and when he saw Cork he stopped and listened to the exchange. Cork figured it probably wouldn’t have made a big difference if Gooding had been on duty at the desk. Probably, they were all under instructions to keep quiet. The difference would have been that Gooding wouldn’t have played it like a game.
“Any way I might be able to get word to the sheriff that I’d like to talk to him?”
“Can’t think of one.”
Cork glanced at his watch. “Any possibility he’d be at home?”
“I can’t help you there.”
Cork saw Randy Gooding offer the ghost of a nod.
“Thanks, Duane,” Cork said. “You’ve been more of a help than you know.”
Pender’s face took on a slightly troubled look as he considered how this could possibly be.
The Soderbergs lived behind a red brick wall. The wall stood only waist high, but it made a statement. Every year, once the earth warmed enough to welcome new roots, the yard behind the wall became a showcase of annuals that were ordered by Arne’s wife, Lyla, and delivered by the truckload. Lyla always did something different-new flowers, new arrangements, complex and beautiful patterns. The grounds around the Soderbergs’ big, brick Tudor were so perfect by summer that even the birds knew better than to crap on Lyla’s lawn.
Cork paused at the iron gate and looked toward the end of North Point Road where Fletcher Kane’s house was barely visible behind the cedars of the old estate. He hadn’t seen Kane since they’d spoken at Valhalla, and he wondered how the man was holding up.