Death Under the Bridge

by Cate Martin

  Then I saw something in the trees ahead of me. Not anything familiar, but something that meant civilization: a hunting stand. I climbed up to peek at the platform, but if it had been used recently or not, I had no way of knowing. Still, I had to be getting closer to the cabin.

  Didn't I?

  "Hello?" I called, just in case one of the Sorensens was anywhere near the hunting stand. No one answered, but I did hear something like a twig snapping. I turned towards the sound and started walking.

  "Hello?" I called again. "Is anyone there?"

  I kept walking, my feet making shushing noises through the thick bed of dried leaves. I peered through the trees ahead of me and was just thinking that I could see the yard behind the cabin. Wasn't that the shed there between those two trees?

  Then I stepped down on a branch I hadn't seen under the leaf cover, and it snapped under my foot with a loud crack.

  Things got confusing after that. Something moved ahead of me, but it was not so much like a thing in the woods was turning as the woods itself was turning to confront me.

  And it had a rifle. That part I was absolutely sure about.

  Chapter 10

  Someone screamed. I think it was me.

  Then the end of the rifle that had been all too near my face fell away.

  "Oh my god, I'm so sorry," someone said, but I was still having a hard time focusing. I had never stared down the barrel of a gun before. It wasn't a pleasant experience. "I'm so sorry. Are you okay?"

  "Am I?" I asked, looking down at my own hands as if they contained the answer. I didn't appear to be shot.

  "You startled me," the man said, and I finally looked up at him. He was wearing a camouflage suit, and as my eyes moved up to his face, he pushed back the hood that had been covering his head. "That's not an excuse. I was jumpy. This is totally on me. Are you okay?"

  "I'm okay," I assured him, finally able to get my own mind calmed. "Are you Keith or Ralf?"

  "Keith," he said, sounding surprised. "Do I know you?"

  "I'm Ingrid Torfa," I said.

  "Oh," he said, blinking. And then his face flushed a deep red. "Oh. We're in trouble, aren't we?"

  "That depends on what you did," I said. "Where's your cousin?"

  "He's around here somewhere," Keith said. Then he deepened his voice so it would carry and shouted, "Ralf!"

  "Andrew Swanson and Luke are waiting for me at the cabin," I said, stumbling a bit when I said Luke's name. I had no idea what last name he used in Runde, or even what his family name might be up in Villmark.

  "Right. It's this way," he said, slinging his rifle over his back and reaching for my elbow to guide me through the trees.

  I hadn't been looking at the shed just then. Perhaps it had been a good thing I had run into him when I had. But I could've wished for better circumstances.

  "I don't know how I could've sneaked up on you," I said. "There are a lot of leaves on the ground, and I wasn't exactly trying to be quiet."

  "I know. I am sorry," he said again. "I think I might've fallen asleep there for a little bit. I was in like a fugue state. You know?"

  "Actually, I do," I said, although in my mind a fugue state meant magic. I doubted that was what he meant, though.

  Or rather, I hoped that wasn't what he meant.

  We had just emerged from the woods and were crossing the cabin's backyard when Loke and Andrew burst out of the trees at a run.

  "There she is!" Loke said and stopped running to put his hands on his knees and get his breath back.

  "What happened?" Andrew demanded, looking from me to Keith and back again. "We heard you scream."

  "I just got startled," I said.

  "That was a pretty sustained scream for being startled," he said.

  "It was my fault," Keith said. "She startled me."

  "You screamed?" Loke asked.

  "No," Keith said. He took a breath to explain but his cheeks started to flush and I turned to see what had to be his cousin Ralf coming up the road. He looked at Loke still fighting to get his breath back, then at Andrew and I and finally at Keith, noting how his cousin was blushing and not meeting his eyes.

  "What happened?" he demanded.

  "I don't know," Keith stammered. "I was alone, and then something was right behind me, like right behind me. Like it was towering over me, right? But when I spun around, it was just Ingrid here." And then his cheeks flushed even darker.

  "I don't understand that story," Ralf said.

  "Neither do I and I was there," I said.

  "You're the one who screamed?" he asked.

  "Yeah, but in my defense, I thought he was going to shoot me," I said.

  Keith raised his hands in surrender, then flinched when his cousin gave him a hard glare.

  "He pointed his gun at you?" Andrew asked.

  "I don't think he meant to," I said, but despite my words the mood in the air darkened another couple of degrees.

  "I'm sorry," Keith said again, apparently to all of us.

  Ralf continued to glare at his cousin for another moment, but then turned to me and Andrew. "I guess I know why you're here. We should go inside."

  "Lead the way," Andrew said. Ralf nodded, then headed towards the cabin's back door. The interior was all one room, with bunk beds near a gigantic stone fireplace and a few tables and chairs scattered about the rest of the space.

  "Coffee?" Ralf offered as he gestured for us to take the chairs closest to the cold fireplace.

  "Sounds good," I said, flopping down onto one of the chairs.

  "Are you okay?" Andrew whispered to me the moment Ralf and Keith stepped away from us to put their guns away.

  "I'm fine," I said, hoping he wouldn't press. I wanted to hear what the Sorensens were saying to each other. But they didn't seem to be making any last-minute effort to get their stories straight or craft an alibi or anything.

  No, from the few words I could catch, Ralf was lecturing Keith on firearm safety and an embarrassed Keith was just nodding over and over again. At least he wasn't making any excuses. But he wasn't offering an explanation either.

  "I can't believe he did that," Andrew whispered as if reading my mind.

  "He said he was in a fugue state," I whispered back, but that was really meant for Loke's ears. If he heard me, he made no sign.

  "No excuse," Andrew grumbled. He looked up as Ralf came to sit with us.

  "Your grandmother sent you, I'm guessing?" he said as he pulled the wool cap from his head and gave his flattened hair a vigorous rub.

  "You were told not to leave town," Andrew said.

  "It was a request," I said. "Not an order."

  "That was how I understood it," Ralf said.

  "Semantics," Loke scoffed. "It doesn't matter how it was phrased or how you understood it. You better have a good reason to disobey Nora Torfa." Then he got up from his chair and started pacing the scant space in front of the fireplace. "We should put them in separate rooms to question them."

  "Separate rooms?" Ralf asked.

  "There's just the one room, Luke," I pointed out.

  "But why?" Ralf asked. "So we left Runde to come here. We had every right to. Why would you need to question us in separate rooms about that? We're scarcely going to lie about it."

  "That's not all we're talking about and you know it," Loke said.

  Ralf glowered at him. I leaned forward to speak, to say something to put Ralf at ease, but Loke shot me the briefest of looks and gave his head the smallest of shakes. I sat back without saying a word.

  "We have no intention of lying," Ralf said again. He glanced up at Keith as he approached with mugs of instant coffee in his hands, and Keith nodded his agreement.

  "Lying about what?" Andrew asked.

  "Last night," Ralf said. "That's what you came here to ask us about, right? Not that you were there. But she was."

  I realized he meant me. But the only place I'd been the night before that Ralf would know about was the meeting hall. Had he also been there?
>
  Then I remembered that I had seen him, him and Keith both. They had been at the table in the corner when all the Villmarkers had arrived after the day out on the lake. The table where Roarr had later sat.

  "Are you confessing?" Andrew asked, confused.

  "No," Ralf said. "We didn't do anything. We were just talking about it."

  "Well," Keith said, but tapered off without saying anything more.

  "Fine," Ralf grumbled. "More than talking. Planning. But what does it matter? We never did anything."

  "Nothing but plan a murder?" Andrew asked.

  Ralf choked on his coffee. "Murder?"

  "That's why we're here," I said. "Garrett Nelsen. You were there this morning. No point in pretending this is news to you."

  "No, we were there," he admitted. "But we had nothing to do with that."

  "I'm confused," Andrew said, pressing his hands to his face.

  But I thought I knew what was going on. "You were planning something last night," I said. "At the meeting hall, the two of you with I'm guessing some others? Not a murder, but some other mischief. Probably something to do with that new bridge."

  The two Sorensens traded a glance, and I knew I had guessed correctly.

  "But like you said, you didn't do it," I said. "The bridge is still there, same as yesterday. So why run?"

  "We're innocent in the eyes of the law," Ralf said. "But your grandmother is a different thing."

  "She'd know," Keith said. "Just by looking at us, she'd know what we were planning to do. She always knows."

  "So you ran away to avoid my grandmother giving you a stern talking to?" I asked.

  Loke leaned over my shoulder to whisper in my ear, but it was a stage whisper designed to carry. "I'd run."

  "We didn't have anything to do with the murder," Ralf said. "We didn't see anything that could help, either. There was no reason for us to stay."

  "We were drinking," Keith said.

  "In the meeting hall when you made your bridge-destroying plans," I said.

  "And after," Keith said. "We were going from barn to barn looking for anything that would burn. Kerosene or something."

  "It wasn't a particularly well-formed plan," Ralf said. "More just an impulse. I don't think any of us thought we'd actually do it."

  "I did," Keith said, but barely more than a whisper. "I thought we would. But somehow we ended up doing more drinking than searching in the third barn we went to. Then we woke up there when the others were all running past the barn to get to the creek."

  "We blended in with the crowd," Ralf said. "If you asked them, most of them would probably tell you we were with them all night. I'm not sure anyone realized we weren't."

  "If you thought you had an alibi, why did you run?" Andrew asked. "I mean, you said you didn't even commit the crime you started out doing, and no one suspects you of the actual crime. Your actions don't make a lot of sense."

  "They really don't," Keith agreed, but fell silent at his cousin's glare.

  "Maybe they do," I said. Loke nodded from where he now stood behind Andrew. But Andrew just looked confused. I stood up. "Sorensens, wait here. We three are going to step outside for a moment." I waved for Loke and Andrew to follow me. I lead the way outside, then stopped a few feet away from the door. "Thoughts?" I asked.

  "They're screwy," Andrew said. "Nothing they said makes any sense."

  "Maybe it doesn't matter," I said. "If they didn't commit the murder, anything else they may or may not have been up to really isn't our business. And I don't think they were involved in the murder. As strange as their story is, I believe the gist of what they're saying."

  "I guess I do too," Andrew said. "If they had killed someone last night, I don't think they would've invited us in to talk about it over instant coffee. No, they don't seem guilty."

  "I agree, so far as that goes," Loke said.

  "Great," I said with a sigh. "Kind of a waste of a morning, but whatever. Andrew, can you go inside and tell them to pack up? We're going to follow them back to Runde."

  Andrew nodded and walked back to the house.

  "Fugue state," Loke said the minute I turned to him.

  "We're thinking the same thing," I said.

  "Maybe," he said. "On the other hand, if they really were drinking all day yesterday..." He trailed off with his hands in the air, but I could follow his thoughts from there.

  "Yeah, maybe it's just part of his hangover," I said. "Still, something is bothering me."

  "What's that?" he asked.

  But we were interrupted by Andrew's return, Ralf and Keith close behind him. I watched as they put their guns and duffle bags in the back of the truck.

  "Sorensens, I have a question," I said.

  "Just one?" Ralf asked.

  "For now," I said. "You weren't acting alone last night. But you've been careful not to name names. Do you mind telling me who else was part of your bridge-burning party? Another Sorensen, perhaps?"

  "No, it wasn't," Ralf said. "Actually, I don't think I know his full name." He shot a look at Keith, who shrugged. "No, no idea. He's just a drinking buddy, usually. This was the first time we'd ever been anywhere with him besides the meeting hall."

  "Was his name Roarr, by any chance?" Loke asked.

  "Yeah, that's it," Keith said. "I don't know if that's a first name, a last name, a nickname or what. But he looks like he probably played football back in his day."

  "Followup question," I said. "Was it his idea that the two of you take off this morning?"

  I thought I was shooting in the dark with that question. I knew for a fact he hadn't been there by the creek that morning. The most logical explanation was that he had gone home after the two Sorensen cousins had passed out in the barn. Villmarkers didn't generally sleep outside of the protection of Villmark.

  But my heart sank as their faces lit up with surprise.

  "Yes, actually," Ralf said. "He woke us up when the others were heading to the creek. He already knew what was going on."

  "He heard the others talking about it as they went by," Keith added.

  "He said we'd be blamed for sure," Ralf went on. "And in that moment, that felt true."

  "You thought my grandmother would blame you for murder?" I asked.

  "I don't remember exactly what happened for a good chunk of last night," Keith said. "We might have made it to the bridge at some point. We didn't burn it down, obviously, but we might have left evidence that we were there."

  "It seemed smarter to just be gone," Ralf said.

  "Does it seem smarter now?" I asked. I must've been channeling my grandmother in that moment, because they both looked down at the toes of their boots and wouldn't meet my eyes.

  "No. We should've stayed," Ralf said.

  "Okay," I said with a sigh. "Get in your truck and head back to Runde. We're going to be following behind you the whole way."

  They both nodded, then turned to climb into their truck. I watched as the truck backed up in a U, then started picking its way along the tree-lined road.

  "I don't know what this all means," I said with a sigh.

  "Well, I really don't know what this means," Andrew said. "Who's this Roarr person you were asking about?"

  "Lisa's fiancé, remember?" I said.

  "Oh, yeah, you mentioned him that one time," he said. "Wait, you think the two things are related? But wouldn't the police have already ruled out her fiancé for her murder? I thought they never even had any suspects. Did they know she was engaged?"

  "The police knew everything they needed to know," Loke said, steering Andrew by the shoulders towards the passenger side of the car. "We have to get going if we're going to follow them back to Runde."

  "Yeah," Andrew said distractedly. I could tell his brain was still whirling.

  "Way to go," Loke whispered to me over the roof of the car as he circled the car towards me. I opened my door and pulled the seat forward so he could get in.

  "I have questions for you," I whispered back.
>
  "I bet you do," he laughed. "And yet..." He just let his thought trail off as he crawled into the back seat, but I knew what he meant.

  I needed to know a ton more about how the protective spells worked, and whether what Roarr was doing was merely mildly worrying or if it was deeply worrying.

  Of course it was entirely possible that any conversation with Loke on the topic would be full of his usual maddeningly vague answers and hints that my grandmother knew things she was deliberately keeping from me. Even so, it was a conversation I desperately wanted us to have.

  But we couldn't. Not with Andrew in the car.

  It was going to be a long, silent ride back to Runde.

  Chapter 11

  As it turned out, a long, silent drive back to Runde would've been pretty nice. But instead I was grilled over and over by Andrew about Roarr. I think in the end I managed to convince him that Roarr had a rock-solid alibi for Lisa's murder, and that no one had ever seriously suspected him in the first place beyond the close connection he had to the victim. If he wasn't convinced, he was at least willing to let it go.

  Not that Loke was any help. He had gone back to sleep the moment the Volkswagen's wheels had left the ruts of the overgrown dirt road for the smoother pavement of the Gunflint Trail.

  "I guess it's not so weird that I never met this Roarr," Andrew allowed after a long pause in our conversation where he had apparently been mulling it over. "I didn't really see much of Lisa after high school since she went away for college. You said he's from another town."

  "Yes, a different town, but I don't remember the name," I said. "You might've seen him at the meeting hall if you'd seen him anywhere. But he's not there a whole lot. I was surprised to see him last night."

  "But you said he's not really the troublemaking sort?" Andrew persisted.

  "I did say that," I said, biting at my lip. This keeping some truths secret was getting tricky. It was a lot to keep track of and hard to remember it all. "He took Lisa's death hard, though. I hope it was just a momentary lapse."