As he walked the flagstone path to the front door, Cork heard voices raised inside the house. It was a warm April afternoon, a few windows were open, and the harsh tones of the exchange carried easily out to the yard. The words weren’t clear, but the two sides involved in the argument were. Arne and Lyla. Everyone in town knew that the Soderbergs’ marriage was hanging by a thread, held together for the sake of Arne’s political ambitions and Lyla’s concern over what people would think.
Cork stepped onto the porch. As he reached toward the doorbell, the front door whipped open, and Tiffany Soderberg flew outside. She ran headlong into Cork, who stood with his arm outstretched. She uttered a little cry of surprise and stumbled back a step.
He barely knew Tiffany, although he’d often seen her around Aurora over the years. She was Jenny’s age, but Jenny seldom mentioned her. She was a honey-haired young woman, pretty. She dressed well, dressed like money, as did her mother. When she got over looking startled, she looked irritated.
“Yes?”
“Sorry, Tiffany. Didn’t mean to scare you. I came to talk to your father.”
She glanced back into the house. “He’s… um… busy.”
“This won’t take long.”
“Who is it?” Lyla spoke from somewhere near the front door but out of sight.
Tiffany rolled her eyes. “Mr. O’Connor. He wants to talk to Dad.”
The door opened wider, and Lyla loomed behind her daughter.
Lyla had once represented Minnesota in the Miss America pageant. She had long, blonde hair, long legs that were tanned even in winter, and long, beautifully manicured nails. She had a notoriously short temper, however. She was wearing a sunflower yellow sweater and Guess jeans, both of which hugged nicely the body that had been a substantial part of her ticket to Atlantic City.
“What can I do for you?” she asked. It was clear that what she really wanted to do for Cork was shove him back out the front gate.
“I’d just like a few minutes of Arne’s time.”
“Friendly or official?”
“I’d say it leans more toward official.”
“My husband’s done for the day.”
Cork wanted to advise her that for the sheriff there was never an end to a day.
Arne stepped into view behind Lyla. “I’m here.”
Soderberg wore khaki slacks and a dark blue polo shirt. He was dressed for relaxing, although his face looked as if he’d been doing anything but.
“I’m gone,” Tiffany said. She slipped past Cork and hurried to the driveway where Lyla’s custom gold PT Cruiser was parked. The vehicle was a beauty, the only one like it in the county, and Lyla drove it everywhere.
“Dinner at six-thirty,” Lyla called. “And don’t you dare put a ding in my car, young lady.”
“Whatever,” Tiffany said with a flutter of her hand. She started the Cruiser, backed onto the street, and was gone.
Lyla gave Cork a cold look. Before it melted, she saved a little of the chill for her husband. Then she vanished back inside the house.
Arne came onto the porch and closed the door. “What is it, O’Connor?”
“I talked with Dorothy Winter Moon a little while ago. She said your people showed up at her place first thing this morning looking for Solemn. I’m wondering what you want him for.”
“We’d like to talk with him, that’s all.”
“What about?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“I was just down at your office. Lid’s tight on everything there. Feels like something big. I’m wondering if you’ve got evidence you believe ties Solemn to Charlotte Kane’s death. Something from the autopsy?”
Soderberg crossed his arms and leaned back against his door. He looked like he’d just dropped a million dollars into the bank. “You’ll find out when everyone else does. You have no special status here, O’Connor.”
“It was just a friendly inquiry, Arne.”
Soderberg straightened and reached for the door. “I’ve got a lot to do. I’ve given you all the time I’m going to.”
“Do you think it was murder, Arne? And do you think it was Solemn Winter Moon?”
Soderberg let go of the knob and swung back toward Cork. “I’ll tell you what I think. I think I’m going to be able to close the book on Charlotte Kane’s death very soon. And I don’t need your help, and I don’t want your interference.”
8
Dot and Solemn Winter Moon lived on the Iron Lake Reservation, on a newly paved road a few miles south and east of the little town of Alouette. For years, she and Solemn had lived in an old but well-maintained trailer with a ceramic deer poised on the narrow apron of lawn in front. The stiff, painted deer always baffled Cork, because Dot Winter Moon didn’t seem like a ceramic deer kind of woman. After the profits from the Chippewa Grand Casino began to be distributed among the Iron Lake Band of Ojibwe, Dot replaced the trailer with a nice, two-bedroom rambler with cedar siding. She kept the deer.
No one answered Cork’s knock. The bright blue Blazer that Dorothy Winter Moon drove was parked next to the house. Cork knocked again, harder, then he circled to the backyard, where a trail ran through a narrow stand of red pines toward the glimmer of a little lake that was called, by mapmakers dry of inspiration, Lake 27. From somewhere in that direction came the bark of a dog. Cork headed down the trail.
He was upwind of the lake, and upwind also of Dot’s big dog Custer. Custer was a golden retriever, as dumb a mutt as Cork had ever seen. And far too friendly to be of any use to Dot for protection. The dog came bounding up the trail from the lake and pranced around Cork playfully with his tongue hanging out of his mouth like a pink salmon fillet.
“Hey there, Custer.” Cork put out a hand and roughed the dog’s long fur. “Where’s Dot?”
“Down here,” he heard her call from beyond the end of the trees.
He found her on a flat gray rock at the water’s edge. She sat cross-legged, smoking a cigarette and sipping a can of Molson. It was nearing evening. The day had cooled and she wore a jean jacket with DOT in letters made of brass studs across the back. Her side of the lake lay in shadow. Sunlight carved an arc across the water midway out, and everything beyond that was gold.
“Come ’ere, Custer,” she called. “Come to mama.”
The dog responded, bounded onto the rock, and lay down at her side.
“Jo tried calling,” Cork explained. “Didn’t get an answer.”
“Sorry.” Dot tapped her ash into a small tin can on the rock next to her. It didn’t have a label, but it looked to Cork to be an empty tuna can. It was full of butts. “Came out here to think.”
She puffed out smoke through a little part in her lips. “I’ve sure made a mess of things.”
“You think so?” Cork said.
She was looking across the lake where the gold and the shadow met. “Always wanting to do things my way. The hell with everybody else. Folks told me a long time ago Solemn needed professional help. I don’t know, maybe he could have used a father at least, but I didn’t want to bring in some shiftless son of a bitch just to play ball with him, you know?”
“He had the next best thing to a father. He had Sam.”
“He sure could’ve used Sam these last few years. Me, too.” She snuffed out her cigarette on the rock and added the butt to the others in the can. “You find out anything?”
“I’m pretty sure they want to talk to him about Charlotte. I’d guess there’s enough evidence to suggest her death wasn’t an accident.”
She finished her beer with a long swallow, set the can upright carefully on the rock, balled her hand into a fist, and crushed the can with a single blow.
“I don’t exactly know what they have,” Cork went on, “but they’re interested in Solemn. It doesn’t look good that he’s disappeared.”
Dot picked up a pack of Salem Lights that lay beside her on the rock. She pulled one out and lit it with a green, disposable Bic. She shook her head, scattering the smoke. “That’s not unusual for him. He gets into one of his moods, he leaves for a while. He comes back when he’s ready.”