Her mother laughed. “Kiddo, you don’t know the half of it.”
• • •
An hour later, Cork walked into Wally Schanno’s office at the Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department. Schanno wasn’t alone. Agent David Earl was there, and Karl Lindstrom, and a man Cork had known a long time, Lucky Knudsen, a captain with the Minnesota State Patrol out of the Eveleth district office. Earl smoked a cigarette and sat on the windowsill, where the crossbreeze carried the smoke outside. The other men were drinking coffee.
“‘Bout time,” Schanno said.
“And a good morning to you, too, Wally. Agent Earl, Karl. And hey there, Lucky. Been a while.”
“Yah, well, ya know how it goes, Cork.” He grasped Cork’s hand and gave it a strong shake.
“How’s Phoebe?”
“Pregnant.”
“Not again?”
“Yah. Seems all I got to do is look at her. Twins this time, the doctor’s saying.” He shook his blond head, then smiled broadly. “Not bad for a big dumb Scandahoovian.”
“What are you doing here, Lucky?”
Instead of answering, Knudsen nodded toward Schanno.
“I got a call this morning from the governor’s office,” the sheriff said. “The governor’s offered the services of the state patrol and anybody else we need up here. He’s worried things may get out of control.”
Cork waited. He knew there was more to it than that.
“Coffee?” Schanno asked.
“No thanks.”
“The deal is this, Cork. Karl is scheduled to speak this evening at the Quetico. The Northern Minnesota Independent Business Association’s annual dinner. A hundred and fifty people in a large room. After what’s happened in the last few days, I’d prefer the gathering were canceled. But I spoke with Jay Werner down in Eveleth-he’s president of the association-and he insisted on going ahead, so long as Karl was willing. Well, Karl here is more than willing.”
Lindstrom said, “My only concern is the safety of everyone else.”
“And that’s why I’m here,” Lucky Knudsen put in. “Delivering the guv’s promised manpower.”
Schanno said, “I don’t have enough deputies to ensure the security of something like this. But with Lucky’s officers, we can probably do what’ll need doing.
“Specifically, Agent Owen is out at the Quetico as we speak, securing the facility, which, with the help of the state police, will remain secured up to and throughout the event. We’ll have an officer at every entrance and exit. Only authorized staff or guests with invitations will be admitted to the building. Because Karl seems obviously the target, I’ve prevailed upon him to wear body armor.”
Cork nodded. A good idea. “So what am I doing here?”
“His idea.” Schanno waved toward Lindstrom.
“I’d be obliged if you would be at the Quetico tonight,” Lindstrom said. “I appreciate that yesterday you were willing to put yourself at risk for a guy who’d been pretty rough on you. I’m prepared to pay. Think of yourself as a hired bodyguard.”
“I’ll be there,” Cork replied without hesitation. “But you can forget about paying me.”
“Thanks, Cork.”
“Well, gentlemen,” Schanno said, rising from his chair. “We have a lot to do between now and this evening. I suggest we get started. Karl, I’d like you at the Quetico a good half an hour before festivities begin. We’ll get you suited up. And Lucky, when you know your roster, get back to me.”
“Will do, Wally. See you this evening, Cork. Say hello to Jo.”
Karl Lindstrom and Lucky Knudsen left Schanno’s office, but Agent David Earl lingered a moment on his perch on the windowsill. He was looking at Cork, not happily.
“Something on your mind?” Cork asked.
“O’Connor, I know about Burke’s Landing.”
“That was a while ago,” Schanno said from across the room.
“I’ve already expressed my concern to everyone else. I just want to be straight with you,” Earl went on. “There’s every intention of arming you this evening. I’m more than a little concerned about a man like you carrying a loaded weapon in a situation like this. But it’s not my call.”
He waited, as if expecting Cork to argue the point. Cork didn’t.
“Well. Until this evening, then.” Earl looked for a place to drop the last of his cigarette. Schanno offered him nothing, and Earl left, still holding the smoking butt.
“He doesn’t know you, Cork,” Wally Schanno said.
“He’s probably not alone in his thinking, Wally. People haven’t forgotten Burke’s Landing. I’m sure the truth is that there are probably a lot of them who’d rather not see me ever strap on a gun belt or wear a badge.”
“Doesn’t matter who’s in this job-some people are going to feel that way.”
Cork walked to a window and stood gazing at the town. In the morning light, it had a quiet, peaceful look to it. Across the street, the bell tower of Zion Lutheran Church rose with simple grace. Beyond that were the stores on Center Street. And not far beyond that, the lake, cut by white sails and the white wake of motorboats. When he’d occupied that office, the view had been a reassuring one. He’d felt as if being sheriff were part of a larger concept, sometimes as difficult to understand and to justify as the mysterious ways of God and Kitchimanidoo, but the purpose of which was clear to him-to help people live their lives with peace of mind. It hadn’t been an idea with a lot of grandeur to it, no more far-reaching than the boundaries of Tamarack County, yet it had been a part of who he was-until a few confused moments on a cold morning at a place called Burke’s Landing had left two men dead and brought to an end much of the way Cork thought about everything.
Even in his bitterness afterward, he’d never blamed Schanno for taking the badge. It was just the circumstances; it was just the time. And since his fall from grace, Cork had managed to put his life back together again. Did he really want to be back in that office with that view? Hadn’t Burke’s Landing or the years since taught him anything?
“Lindstrom trusts you,” Schanno said at his back. “And for the record, so do I.”
22
“WE’RE CLOSING EARLY TODAY,” Cork said.
“When?” Annie asked.
“Now.”
“Now?” Even Jenny, who usually was delighted to shave off a bit of her time at Sam’s Place, seemed perplexed.
“But it’s only five-thirty,” Annie said. “And look. There are boats headed this way.”
“Shut the serving window and put out the Closed sign,” Cork told her.
“It’s Saturday,” she argued on. “People expect us to be open.”
“If it will make you feel better, write a note and tape it to the window. ‘Family emergency.’ “
Jenny suggested, “How about ‘Closed by order of the health inspector’?”
“Let’s not go overboard.” Cork began cleaning the grill.
Jenny got paper for the note, but Annie stood her ground. “What will people think?”
“Let it go, Annie,” Jenny said. “It’s not like it’s a sin.”
“Why are we closing?” Annie demanded.
“Family dinner,” Cork explained. “It’s been too long since we all sat down together.”
“Does Aunt Rose know?”
“Yes. But it’s your mother who’s fixing dinner.”
Cork caught the concerned glances the two girls exchanged. Jo was the worst cook on the whole Iron Range. Jenny pulled in the Closed sign. “We’ll stay.”
“You’ll go home with me,” Cork said.
Like a couple of condemned prisoners, his daughters set about the work of closing up.
Cork drove home slowly, taking in the beauty of a town he knew as well as he knew his own face. On Center Street, he passed businesses that had been there forever-Lenore’s Toy and Hobby Shop, Tucker Insurance, Mayfair’s Clothing, Nelson’s Hardware Hank. He knew all the men and women behind the glass of the storefronts. Almost every corner brought together some convergence in his life. The smell from Johnny’s Pinewood Broiler-the Saturday-night barbecued rib special-had been the same smell every Saturday night as far back as he could remember, and it never failed to carry him instantly across almost forty years to the days when his father was still alive, still sheriff, and Johnny’s on Saturday night was practically a family ritual. Cork knew that if you lived in a place long enough, you understood it as a living thing. You knew it had consciousness and conscience. You could hear it breathing. You felt its love and its anger and its despair, and you cared.