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He retired from the state political arena after that, but he still maintained his influence in the Iron Range. Except for the election of Cork as sheriff, which the judge had opposed, no one in Tamarack County was elected without the judge’s benediction.

As sheriff, Cork had occasionally found it necessary to call on the judge at his estate on North Point Road. But it was never a duty with any pleasure in it.

Cork parked on the long circular drive and waded through the snow to the front door. No one answered the bell. He took off his glove and knocked hard. He tried to look through the windows downstairs, but the curtains were drawn and melted snow had turned to ice plastered across the windows. He went back to the Bronco, grabbed a flashlight, and worked his way around to the back of the house. Stepping onto the big terrace, he rubbed a spot clear on the sliding glass door. The curtains were only partially drawn, and through the gap Cork could see a glass of wine sitting on the coffee table in the living room, a little thread of gray smoke curling up from the ashes of the fireplace, but no sign of the judge.

The wind pushed snow across the open ground in a tide that seemed liquid as water. Cork made his way to the garage, cleared a small side window, and poked the flashlight beam through. Both of the judge’s vehicles-a black Lincoln Mark IV and a new red Ford pickup-were parked inside. He trudged back toward the front door and kicked around the snow in the big entryway, looking for a paper. Finally he tried the knob. The door was unlocked. He swung it open and stepped in.

“Judge Parrant?” he called. “Judge, it’s Corcoran O’Connor!”

He felt uneasy being in the house uninvited. No search warrant. Criminal trespass. Things he still cared about. He knew there was no justification for entering this way. Except a boy who should have been home and wasn’t.

“Judge?” he called again, moving into the living room.

There were still embers in the fireplace. The wineglass on the coffee table was less than half full. The upstairs was dark. The only other light came from a room down the hall. Cork headed that way.

The door was well ajar, but gave only a partial view of what looked like the judge’s study, a room full of books. Cork pushed the door open all the way. At first he didn’t see the judge. He saw the big desk, the map of Minnesota on the wall behind it, and the splatters of blood that ran down the map like red rivers. He put his gloves back on and stepped around the desk. The force of the blast had thrown the judge over in his chair and the shotgun lay fallen beside him. Cork didn’t look long at the body. He’d seen men dead this way before, but it was never easy. And the raw smell of so much blood was something you never forgot.

6

Wally Schanno was an honest man and well thought of in Tamarack County. In his mid-fifties, he was tall and lean, had hollow cheeks, thick pale lips, and a nose like a big ragged chunk of granite shoved into his face. His hands were large. His enormous feet required shoes factory-ordered straight from Red Wing, Minnesota. So far as Cork knew, he had no bad habits. Didn’t drink, smoke, or gamble. He was a practicing Lutheran, Missouri Synod. He had a penchant for suspenders-nothing wild, just plain red, or black, or gray-and he almost never sported a tie. He was not a politician by any stretch of the imagination, but he’d managed to get himself elected sheriff after the recall vote that forced Cork from office. Before that Schanno had been chief of police for the village of Green Lake just half a dozen miles southwest of Aurora. He was a decent man, had done his job in Green Lake well for fifteen years. Cork had nothing against Schanno. He’d always had an admiration for the character of the man. But after Schanno replaced him, Cork’s admiration took on a grudging edge. To his shame, he found himself looking forward to the day when Wally Schanno would screw up big-time.

Schanno looked at his watch for the third time in five minutes.

“Got a date, Wally?” Cork asked.

“Arletta’s home alone,” Schanno said.

“Ah,” Cork replied.

Arletta was Schanno’s wife. She was a woman of rare beauty. Long black hair with flares of brilliant silver, blue-summer-sky eyes, and the most perfect smile Cork had ever seen. She also had Alzheimer’s.

“I called her sister. She said she’d try to get over there as fast as she could. I expected to hear from her by now,” Schanno said.

“You didn’t have to come yourself, Wally,” Cork pointed out. “Your men know what they’re doing.”

“I’m the sheriff,” Schanno said, and cast a hard eye on Cork.

Ed Larson, the only man with the rank of captain in the department and the man in charge of the most serious of Tamarack County’s crimes, came down the hallway from the judge’s study. “I’m finished in there, Wally. But I don’t want to bag him until we have a good time of death. Are you sure Sigurd’s on the way over?”

“I’m sure. Storm’s held him up, most likely.”

At the window, Cork watched the wind drive snow against the pane, where it collected in the corners of the mullions, melted, and froze into a thickening glaze.

Schanno hooked his thumb under his black suspenders and ran it up and down thoughtfully for a moment. “Gotta admit, the judge was probably the last man I’d’ve suspected of suicide. Still, who knows? People fool you all the time.”

Cy Borkmann, one of Schanno’s deputies, stepped in from the kitchen. “Didn’t find any sign of forced entry, Wally, but I dusted all the doorknobs and window casings.”

“How about upstairs? See if you can find anything looks broken into.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Thought you said it was suicide,” Cork commented.

“Just making sure. Wouldn’t you?” Schanno shoved his huge hands into his pocket and walked around the room a moment, looking things over. “Tell me again about the boy.”

“Set off to deliver his papers around two. Never came back. Didn’t call. Judge’s house was the last stop on the route.”

“And no paper here,” Schanno said.

“None that I could see.”

“You check around outside? Kid may have thrown it in the snow somewhere.”

“I looked some. Didn’t find anything.”

“What about the other customers? They all get papers?”

“South of the tracks. I don’t know about out here.“

Cork took a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. He didn’t light it. Although he wanted a smoke pretty bad, he knew better than to take a chance on contaminating the scene.

Schanno said, “You say Darla thinks it’s Joe John. What do you think?”

“Maybe.” Cork shrugged.

“Joe John used to run off pretty regular when he was drinking. Could be the boy’s just taking after him.”

“The boy’s not like that.”

Schanno didn’t appear to be as convinced of that as Cork. “Maybe we’ll know something more when we talk to the neighbors.”

Cork glanced out the window. The porch light was on, but the wind had risen so fiercely and was blowing the snow so hard the only thing illuminated was a blinding curtain of white that hid even the cedars only a dozen yards away. “A brass band could’ve marched in and out of here this evening without anyone noticing a thing.”

The front door opened.

“Our coroner’s finally arrived,” Schanno said, and headed to the entryway.

The sheriff was wrong. It wasn’t Sigurd Nelson.

“Sandy?” Cork heard Schanno say with surprise.

“Where is he?” Sandy Parrant stepped out of the entryway where Cork could see him. The shoulders of his camel-hair coat were dusted with snow. His eyes took in the room, then swung toward the study down the hall. “In there?”

He looked as if he were going to head that way when Schanno moved to block him. “I think you’d better sit down.”

Parrant glanced at Cork, and somewhere within all the concern that darkened his face, a mild surprise registered. “Cork?”