“I think I can swing it.”
The telephone began ringing as he unlocked the door of the Quonset hut.
“Sam’s Place. Cork speaking.”
“So how are things in Nowhere, Minnesota?”
Cork recognized the irreverent gravel of Boomer Grabowski’s voice.
“Compared to the old days on the South Side, generally pretty quiet, Boomer. How about with you?”
“No complaints.”
Boomer and Cork had been cops together in Chicago, working out of the same South Side district. Cork had moved to Aurora, his own choice. Boomer had left, too, forced out by circumstance rather than choice. He was a big man, from a family whose men had always worked the steel mills. His body was like something that had been forged out of iron. But it was only flesh and bone, and most of the bone in his right leg had been smashed in an accident during the high speed pursuit of an armed robbery suspect. Boomer had been forced to retire on a medical disability. Retirement, however, was not in keeping with Boomer’s temperament, and he’d opened his own shop.
“How’re things in the Windy City?” Cork asked.
“Wouldn’t know. I’m calling from Miami. I just checked my messages back at the office and heard your vaguely familiar voice.”
“Vacation?”
“You kidding? Who’s got time? So what’s up?”
Cork filled him in on Mal Thorne, and asked Boomer if he’d check on the priest’s background. Anything he could find out about his time in Chicago and before, if possible.
“You really think this priest has something to do with the girl’s murder?”
“Just checking out all the possibilities, Boomer.”
“Yeah. You were nothing if not a thorough bastard. How soon you need it?”
“The sooner the better.”
“Look, I’m down here for a week. You want somebody on it before that, I can make some recommendations.”
“I think it’ll hold for a week.”
“Tell you what. I’ll call when I’m back in the office. If you’re still hot for me to trot, I’ll hop right on it.”
“Thanks, Boomer.”
“Thank me after I’ve done the job. And after you’ve seen the bill.”
Jo showed up a little before one o’clock, just as Cork was finishing with the lunch rush, and she gave him a hand, taking orders at the window while he worked the grill. By one-thirty, the line had vanished. Jo took from her briefcase the list of guests who’d attended the Lipinskis’ party and handed it to Cork. He laid it on the stool the girls sometimes sat on when things were slow.
“What are we looking for?” Jo said.
“Anyone who might have had a connection with Charlotte.”
“Someone young?”
“In the kind of relationship we’re considering, age probably wasn’t a factor.”
They went down the list silently. The third from the last name caught Cork’s eye.
“Son of a gun,” he said.
“What?”
“Arne and Lyla Soderberg.”
“What about them?”
“Think about it for a minute, Jo. Tiffany and Charlotte were friends. Or something close to it. Tiffany told me that because Fletcher Kane acted creepy, any sleepovers they had were at Tiffany’s house. Maybe something got started there.”
“Arne Soderberg and Charlotte Kane?” Jo made a sour face.
“It’s not such a stretch,” Cork said. “Stay with me on this. Lyla and Arne have a troubled marriage. No secret there. When Charlotte’s body was found on Moccasin Creek, I saw Arne’s face. All horror. I chalked it up to the fact that as sheriff he was still pretty green. But what if it was the shock of seeing someone he was involved with lying there dead?” Cork stood up, feeling a little fire in his gut, the spirit of the hunt awakened.
“You don’t think Arne killed her?”
“I don’t know. He could certainly have been her lover though.”
“What about Fletcher Kane?”
“I’m not forgetting about him. But there’s a possibility here that definitely needs exploring.”
“The truth is you don’t like Arne Soderberg any more than you like Fletcher Kane.”
“I don’t like a lot of people. I don’t suspect them all of crimes. But a few more answers might tell us if we’re on the right track.”
Jo said, “What do we do?”
“I think you should have a talk with Edith Lipinski, find out if she remembers Arne making phone calls, when he left the party, anything that might be helpful.”
“In order to get the lists, I had to tell her about the calls from her home. She’s not stupid. If I start asking about our sheriff, she’s liable to put two and two together very quickly.” She laid her hand very lightly on his arm. “Cork, we need to be careful. The town is seriously divided. People have stopped talking to me, to one another. I’ve had some clients threaten to withdraw their business.”
“You fought for the Iron Lake Ojibwe for years. You’ve been threatened before.”
“It’s not the threats. I don’t care about that. I just think we need to be sensitive to the ripples we send out. If we point fingers and we’re wrong, we may hurt innocent people, and folks here will remember that a long time.”
“If we turn our backs, won’t we remember that longer?”
“Who said anything about turning our backs? Just do what you do quietly, that’s all I’m saying.”
“I’m not discreet?”
“Sweetheart, when you get hold of something, you’re a pit bull.”
“I am, huh?” Actually, he felt a little flattered. “All right. But we have to do this quickly, too, Jo, before Arne realizes we’ve got him in our sights. Maybe while you talk to Edith, I ought to talk to Lyla-discreetly-to see if I can finesse anything useful out of her. Sound like a plan?”
“A plan,” she agreed.
He shut the serving window and put up the CLOSED sign.
Cork drove south out of Aurora, then turned west onto County 7. After a mile and a half, he approached a small billboard that read WEST WIND GALLERY, RIGHT 500 FEET. He took the turn and followed a graveled lane through a stand of poplar.
The West Wind Gallery was an old barn that had been converted into a showplace for the art of Marion Griswold, a professional photographer. She was often commissioned by big magazines like National Geographic and Outdoor Life. Framed and in numbered editions, her photographs were sold in the gallery, which she owned with her friend Lyla Soderberg, and also in galleries in the Twin Cities and in Santa Fe. Her work had been collected and published in exquisite editions designed to elevate the appeal of any coffee table. A wood-burned sign hanging beside the door indicated that the gallery was open from noon until 6:00 P.M. every day except Wednesday.
Marion Griswold lived in a log home of recent construction east of the gallery. It was a lovely two-story structure that had a shaded porch hung with geranium pots. The photographer’s dusty Jeep Wagoneer sat in front of the house. Cork had expected Lyla Soderberg’s gold PT Cruiser to be parked at the gallery, but it wasn’t anywhere to be seen. A little bell above the gallery door gave a jingle as he stepped inside.
A voice sang out from a back room, “Just a minute. Be right there.”
Cork was the first to admit that he didn’t know art. But he knew what he liked, and he liked the photographs of Marion Griswold. She shot the great Northwoods. Wild streams, autumn foliage, wolves with breath crystallized on a subzero day. She was able to capture what his heart felt when he was alone in the woods, and he admired that.
“Cork,” she said, smiling as she came into the main gallery showroom. Her hair was black and cut very short, which Cork figured was a benefit when she was out in the wild, tramping through underbrush looking for a good subject. Her body was wiry and tanned and full of energy barely contained. She wore cut-off jeans, a high-collar white shirt with the tail out, and tennis shoes without socks. She carried a large framed photograph that she leaned against the counter where the cash register sat. “Haven’t seen you here for a while. Not since you bought that piece for Jo. She like it?”