Sunderson’s disgust was immediate and wholehearted. He didn’t feel culpable but was ashamed that he had had anything to do with these people. He called the chief of police for Ann Arbor and gave a telephone statement to the effect that he had worked for Ziegler in his efforts to retrieve his daughter but had been recently fired after refusing to simply kidnap her. “Wise choice,” the chief said. Sunderson had known him from long ago but had never liked him because of the man’s essentially fascist attitudes about police work. The chief told Sunderson he might have to come back to Ann Arbor as the case developed.
Sunderson noticed a waitress who had a startling resemblance to Mona. He couldn’t help staring, which started a long session of near nausea that lasted several hours. He knew he had to rid himself of his aimlessness and criminal activity, including Barbara. He called and asked her to meet him on his back porch in an hour. He chafed against the self-denial but he had to stop this sexual nonsense. He would have to become a hermit fisherman. Even in winter he could afford to go anywhere to fish. Both coasts of Mexico beckoned.
She arrived while he was having a stiff drink. She quickly made herself some lemonade on this crisp autumn day when the maples were sparkling in their multicolored beauty.
“It’s over,” he said to her.
“I was afraid you would say that. Just when I was really enjoying it.”
“You can resume with someone your own age or a college boy.”
“But I love you,” she pouted.
“Don’t say that. My friend the prosecutor said he had been tipped off. The paperboy saw us together in the living room and told his parents. They reported it. If I were charged I could get ten years for sexual abuse of a minor. I don’t have that many years left and I can’t bear the idea of spending them in prison. They’d love to convict an ex-detective.” He felt a bit desperate lying to her but somehow believed it would let her down easier than a simple rejection.
“We could run away together.”
“I’ve thought of it but there’s no safe place.”
As luck would have it Barbara’s parents, Bruce and Ellen, came driving down the alley in their boring beige Camry. Barbara waved and pulled the hem of her skirt down. She had worn an especially short one for his delectation. Bruce and Ellen came through the back garden gate. Barbara had stacked all of the autumn garden detritus near the gate for the garbage truck. Bruce looked coolly at the weeded garden.
“Nice job. You should do this at home.”
Sunderson got up to shake hands and offered a drink. Bruce was small and had a slightly nasty edge known as the small man’s syndrome.
“No thanks. I only drink after dark except in summer when the dark comes so late up here.”
“What are you drinking dear? I hope it’s not wine.”
“Lemonade,” Barbara said looking in her glass.
“Offer your mother some, dear,” Sunderson said. It was evident that Barbara wasn’t going to make a move to do so unless he said something.
They chatted like neighbors for a few minutes and then Bruce and Ellen were off for the store. When they left Barbara burst into tears again then went through the house to catch the last of the autumn sun on the front porch.
“I don’t see how you can leave me high and dry when I love you.” She started sobbing as he looked at her wonderful legs thinking that they should be around his neck. He had poured a huge drink when they walked through the house hoping it would make him calm and meditative. No such luck. He felt a flood of warm tears. The local paper had called repeatedly about the Ann Arbor violence. He hadn’t answered.
Suddenly she was running down the street toward home still sobbing. He felt more interior tears then saw her dreaded parents coming down the street in their Camry back from the short grocery trip. He waved, they waved. He felt light-headed from his first moral choice in recent memory though part of his motive was not to be in prison for the opening of trout season next spring. There was a virtual flash in his mind of Barbara’s gorgeous bare butt but he was undeterred. He already felt and was trying to subdue his regret. Good people don’t have it easy, he reflected, though he wasn’t really a good person.
It was a scant fifteen minutes before Barbara’s mother was doing a military march down the street toward him. He was happy he had refreshed his drink.
“My daughter is sobbing. I think it’s about you. Did you fire her?”
“No I didn’t fire her. She’s just starting to trim the hedges. She was unhappy this morning about something.”
“Well she seems to be sobbing about you. If her father finds out you’re up to something with her you’ll go straight to prison.”
She turned around and marched up the street.
Sunderson felt sweat oozing from every pore though the air was cool. He went inside and refreshed his drink yet again. He was tempted to cut and run for his trout cabin, but it was only two days from deer season when the orange army would invade the north. He called Marion anyway. They usually opened the season without much interest at his cabin. But as the phone rang with no answer he remembered that Marion was in Hawaii with his wife for a big indigenous conference. Everyone in the Midwest except Sunderson wanted to go to Hawaii, though it interested him slightly more thinking about it having its own native population. There was the idea that he should move to a remote place out of harm’s way. Early in his detective career he would have been happy indeed to bust someone for his current behavior. It would likely bring a ten-year sentence.
Now his sweat turned cold and even more ample. He went in, poured yet another drink, and then pushed it aside and gathered his gear for a cold trip to the cabin. There were snow flurries already up there though the weather report hadn’t predicted anything dire. Winter was coming on so quickly. He packed his rifle and shells in order to at least pretend he was deer hunting. He had long ago lost his taste for it so cherished when he was a teenager and they got the first few days of deer season off school. He prized the memory of shooting a big buck near town when he was sixteen. It dressed out at two hundred pounds and those were hard times. His dad had shot a little spikehorn but Sunderson proudly delivered a real hunk of meat for the family. Like many northern folks they all loved venison and his mother regularly made a stew out of the lesser bits with a big lard crust on top he adored that soaked up the gravy. There was also a nice corn relish a cousin sent up from Indiana. It was virtually impossible to grow sweet corn in Munising or Grand Marais.
He went to bed early very drunk and woke up for the trip very hungover. He couldn’t make it past a single piece of toast. On the way out of town he would pick up a few steaks and a dozen pasties. While he was packing the car Barbara rode past on her bicycle on the way to school, the tenth grade he reminded himself with self-loathing.
“I got time for a quickie if you like,” she said, getting off her bike and revealing her winsome crotch.
“I’m too hungover,” he said feeling his bilge rising. She ignored this, walked into his house, and leaned over the kitchen table lifting her skirt and dropping her panties to the ankles. He couldn’t resist and then off she went whistling her way to school. He was suddenly exhausted and sat on the sofa reading the morning Detroit Free Press that had been delivered by the mouthy paperboy.