“You’re driving like an old lady, Dad,” Jenny said.
“I love this town.”
Jenny shook her head. “Me, I can’t wait to leave.”
“When you’re gone, you’ll miss it.”
“Yeah, like I’d miss the clap.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Just an expression, Dad.”
With Rose looking over her shoulder, Jo had surprised even Cork and done a fine job of preparing the food. Although the fare was simple-meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, and Jell-O with bananas-it had been so long since they’d sat down together as a family, the meal felt like an occasion. Cork couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Jo laugh so much. Midway through the eating, Rose lifted her water glass and said, “A toast to the best family an old spinster could ask for.”
“What’th a thpinthter?” Stevie asked.
Annie fielded that one. “A woman who’s too smart to marry.”
Rose laughed. “For that, you’re relieved of dish duty.”
After dinner, Cork said, “Dishes are mine.” No one argued.
Jo helped him. Then they sat on the porch swing together, watching Stevie play catch with Annie in the front yard. The ball, as it lofted, caught sunlight for a moment and glowed as it passed from the hand of one child to the other. In a very short time, children from other houses on the block had joined them, and Annie began to organize a game. Cork waved to his neighbors across the street, John and Sue O’Laughlin, who’d stepped onto their own porch to enjoy the evening.
“This has been the best day I can remember in a long, long time.” Cork laced his fingers with Jo’s.
“I wish…” Jo began. She stopped herself.
“What?”
“I wish you weren’t going to the Quetico tonight.”
“I’ll be fine. It’s Karl Lindstrom who’s taking the chance. It’s probably a good thing you’ll be out at Grace Cove tonight.”
Grace Fitzgerald was to have met with Jo at her office that morning, but Jo had lingered at Sam’s Place with Cork and had called to reschedule. Grace was due to go out of town on Monday, so Jo offered to drop by that evening.
“Still no idea what she wants to talk to you about?”
“None.”
“And even if you did, you couldn’t tell me.” He glanced at his watch. “Time I was going.”
Jo wrapped him in her arms and kissed him. There seemed something a little desperate in her grasp, in the press of her lips.
“What’s that all about?” Cork asked.
“I don’t know. I just… I’m a little afraid for you.”
“I’ll come back. I promise.”
“And besides, I don’t really have a choice, do I?”
He weighed her words, her tone, decided it was not censure he had heard but concern. “If you really don’t want me to go, Jo, I won’t.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You’d never forgive me.”
“Do you believe that?”
“No.”
“Well?”
“Go. It’s what you need to do.”
“Thanks, Jo.” He brushed her cheek with his hand.
He let the swing rock a few more times, listened a bit longer to the song of the children’s laughter, watched a few more tosses of the dirty baseball that, arching through the evening sunlight, was turned to gold. And he thought that although life was far from perfect, it offered moments of perfection, and this was one.
Jo walked him to his Bronco.
“You take care,” she told him.
“I will.”
“I’ll wait up for you.”
They held one another. Their separation would be only a few hours, but it had the feel of a long parting, and Cork remembered happily, This is love.
“‘Bye, Daddy,” Stevie yelled and ran to the curb.
As Cork drove away, he leaned out the window of his Bronco and called out to his children a father’s wish and a father’s blessing: “Be good.”
The Quetico was a large resort and conference center set on the shoreline of Iron Lake a few miles south of Aurora. The main building was an enormous, multiwinged structure with a log facade. On the outside, it projected a relaxed, old North Woods persona. Inside, it was slick and modern, with vast conference rooms, an Olympic-size pool, and the best wood-roast restaurant in the state. There was a wide, sandy beach, a small marina, a number of luxurious cabins hidden among the pines, six tennis courts, and a nine-hole golf course for which Cork couldn’t afford the green fees, even if he’d played the game. The sun, as Cork guided the Bronco along the winding drive, wasn’t far from setting. In the late light, the last of the golfers trailed long shadows as they approached the final green. The parking lot was nearly full. Cork pulled his old Bronco into a space between a blue Mercedes and a shiny black Windstar.
In the main lobby, a sign set on an easel indicated that the dinner for the Northern Minnesota Independent Business Association had been rescheduled to the Hiawatha Room in the building due north. Cork followed the arrow, out of the main building and across the drive to another, much smaller, log-facade structure. Two uniformed officers of the state patrol were stationed just inside the door. The officer to the right had a dog on a leash. The dog and the officers considered Cork carefully. The friendliest look came from the dog. Beyond a small lobby area, double doors opened onto a large room set with tablecloths and silverware and white napkins folded like flowers in water goblets. A lot of guests had already been seated.
“Do you have an invitation, sir?” the officer without the dog asked.
“Looking for Sheriff Schanno,” Cork replied. “Or Captain Knudsen. I’m Cork O’Connor. They’re expecting me.”
“Do you have some ID?”
Cork handed over his driver’s license. The dogless officer reached to a walkie-talkie clipped to his belt and spoke into it. Cork heard Schanno reply, “I’ll be right there.”
A minute later, the Tamarack County sheriff stepped through a door left of the big dining room and beckoned Cork to follow. Beyond the door, Cork found stairs leading up and to the left. A wood-burned sign indicated the Hiawatha Lounge was that way. Directly ahead ran a long, narrow hallway paneled with knotty pine. Cork followed Schanno to an opened door at the end of the hallway where they stepped into a kind of green room, a preparatory place for speakers-several easy chairs, a water cooler, a table, plants, and through the windows a view of the pines that edged Iron Lake. In addition to the law enforcement present-Schanno, Agent Earl, and Lucky Knudsen-Karl Lindstrom was there, along with two other men in slacks and sports coats.
“Evening, Karl,” Cork greeted him.
“Thanks for coming,” Lindstrom said. He looked a little pale. In his left hand, he held a tumbler filled with ice and an amber liquid. He swung his empty hand toward the other two men. “This is Jay Werner, president of NMIBA. And you probably know Jim Kaufmann, who owns the Quetico.”
Cork shook the proffered hands.
“I was just telling Sheriff Schanno we’ve got the largest attendance ever for this dinner,” Werner said. “It’s Karl, don’t you know. The Lindstroms have been a name up here for a good long while, but Karl’s coming north to live here, revamping the mill, knocking heads with those tree huggers, that’s all made him special in folks’ eyes.” He gave Lindstrom a hearty clap on the shoulder.
Kaufmann, a slender, balding man of fifty, added, “We considered canceling, of course, but we all figured, hell, if Karl’s willing, who’re we to back down? Besides, this is more excitement than I’ve had since I left the marines.”
A look passed among the law enforcement officers. This was different for them. Schanno said, “We’re planning this to be no more than another boring dinner followed by a boring speech. No offense, Karl.”