by Stephen Frey
On my way out I make certain the place is locked up. I won’t call Prescott to let him know he can get back into his mansion until tomorrow morning. The thought of him spending a night in a drafty room at the Friendly Mattress doesn’t bother me at all.
I head to my truck. It’s parked halfway around the circle because when I got here all the crime scene vehicles were in front of the mansion.
It’s really cold under a crystal-clear, star-studded sky. Eight degrees, and to help stay warm I bang my arms to my chest as I jog. The frigid air burns my lungs and the dampness inside my nostrils freezes with every breath. The weather’s supposed to turn ugly tomorrow night. The storm’s supposed to start as freezing rain and sleet, then dump as much as two feet of snow on us, maybe more. It’s a monster and it’s still growing. We always get at least one of these a year.
I was inside the mansion for less than thirty minutes, but the truck’s already freezing and the air blowing out of the vents is ice-cold when I start the engine. I slide the picture of Cindy under my seat, rev the engine a couple of times, then get going.
The Prescott driveway is almost two miles long. From the ridge the mansion is built on, the driveway twists and turns down the hill to an old wooden bridge where it crosses the Boulder, then straightens out and heads toward 681. Once the driveway straightens out, the pine trees rise up on both sides of it, cathedral-like, closing me in. I understand why Cindy kept so many lights on. I breathe a heavy sigh of relief when I get to 681 and make the turn for home. I always like coming back out of this forest, but I don’t know why.
When I come into the house I’m in for a shock. Vivian’s waiting for me wearing a little schoolgirl outfit. A white cotton shirt unbuttoned all the way, no bra, a skimpy plaid skirt cut way high on one thigh, and those five-inch heels she used to wear when she worked at the club on the outskirts of Madison. Amazingly, she’s done something with her hair, too. It’s combed to one side, styled, and looks incredible. It changes her whole face, her whole demeanor. She seems like a completely different person.
“Come on, Sheriff Summers,” she says in a sexy voice, taking me by the hand and leading me into the living room. “Let’s have some fun.”
“Vivian,” I say softly as we reach the lumpy couch. “It’s okay.”
“I want to.”
I’m so damned tired I can barely keep my eyes open, and that image of Cindy lying on the floor in the pool of blood is still stark in my mind. I’m not in the mood despite how long it’s been since we made love and how good she looks and I don’t understand how Vivian wouldn’t understand that. “Viv, please, I—”
“Don’t embarrass me, Paul. I tried so hard tonight to look good for you. Don’t you find me attractive anymore?”
I gaze deeply into those dark eyes. “It’s not that.” I’m not in the mood, but she certainly is. “You look very pretty.”
At three o’clock in the morning I wake up to take my nightly trek to the bathroom, but when I’m finished I don’t go straight back to bed. Instead, I pad softly downstairs to the kitchen. One thing about Vivian, she keeps the kitchen very neat. She’s like my father was in that way. Everything has its place and has to be put back in that place before she goes to bed at night.
I hesitate for a moment at the doorway after I switch on the overhead light, staring across the room at the drawer where she keeps that set of six steak knives we bought at the Wal-Mart over in Duluth a couple of months ago. They have black handles and thin pointy tips with an inch of serration starting just below the tips. Just like the one I dug out of the bonfire ashes up on the Silver Wolf Trail has.
I pull the drawer out slowly and gaze down, feeling my breath go short. Only four steak knives are in their designated spots. I shake my head. We don’t have a dishwasher and the sink is empty.
“What are you doing?”
I whip around. Vivian is standing in the doorway, wearing nothing at all. “I was just, well, I …” My voice fades as she moves seductively toward me. “Viv, I don’t—”
“Shush,” she whispers, putting a finger to my lips.
She slips her hands to my cheeks and gives me a passionate kiss. I feel very guilty. Cindy’s lying in the morgue in Superior and here I am doing this. But if I turn Viv down, it might turn into a war—like it did the other night—because she’d think I was too distracted by Cindy’s death. She doesn’t even want me to think about Cindy, not even in death. She told me that in no uncertain terms when I wasn’t in the mood earlier.
10
I PATIENTLY WAIT my turn to greet Father Hannah after Sunday services at the Lutheran church down Main Street from the precinct—we call Route 7 Main Street from the Bruner Saloon over to the Kro-Bar. In summertime, after following the choir back down the narrow center aisle of our small church with the rotting steeple, Father Hannah greets his congregation outside, beneath an old oak tree that’s been around as long as the old-timers who spend their days chewing the fat at the Saloon’s counter can remember. It’s nice to stand out there on a warm summer morning while you wait for him, enjoying the precious few Sundays a year you can. It makes you feel glad to be alive.
It warmed up last night, all the way to thirty-seven degrees by six o’clock this morning. But it’s still too cold for an outside holy greeting, so the line stretches down the center aisle as Father Hannah dutifully says hello to everyone at the church door. Most people strike up conversations with friends while they wait, but I keep to myself. That’s one of the downsides of being sheriff in a small town, especially after something like Cindy’s murder. The entire town hangs on your every word, so it’s best to stay off by myself and not socialize. That way nothing can be misconstrued and I can’t be blamed for a rumor later.
Father Hannah makes everyone in his flock feel as if he really cares about them. He always knows about something that happened to you during the week so you feel like he takes a special interest in you. He got close to Mrs. Erickson right after he moved to Bruner two years ago to replace Father Pettigrew, who finally couldn’t hide his Alzheimer’s any longer—one morning the old padre showed up to lead Sunday services in his pajamas and slippers and we all had to admit what we’d suspected for a while. Father Hannah quickly recognized how valuable a resource Mrs. Erickson would be, so he made her the church choir director a month after he took over, and he has dinner with her every Monday night to go over the hymns they’ll use that Sunday. At least, that’s why he tells her he has dinner with her. I doubt Mrs. Erickson has any idea how she’s being used, but so what if she doesn’t. Father Hannah uses the information he gets out of her at dinner in good ways, and people up here can use any kind of help they can get, especially in the winter.
I glance out through a pane of glass that isn’t stained and watch crystal-clear drops fall from the icicles clinging to the church’s eaves. This wave of sun and warmth for the north-country is just a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Something sent to fool the uninitiated and the stupid. The swing in temperature could allow a sheet of black ice to coat the territory before we’re pounded by the snow. A buried layer of black ice can be ten times more dangerous than the piles of snow.
“Sheriff.”
I glance over my shoulder. It’s Maggie Van Dyke, Karen’s younger sister. Bear’s ex-Karen. Maggie’s short, wide, and thirty-two years old. She’s not very attractive, even by Bruner standards, but a sweeter woman was never born. She’s never been married and she’s lived in a little trailer over on Tunlaw Street ever since her parents died in a nasty car wreck last Thanksgiving weekend on Route 7. Gus and Trudy were on their way to Superior and Duluth on Black Friday to go Christmas shopping when they ran off the road and hurtled into a thick grove of white pines. As far as we could tell, they were dead on impact. The old Impala was so badly mangled it took us an hour to cut their bodies out of it.
Everything about that crash was strange. It happened in the middle of the day, the weather was clear, and there wasn’t a single skid mark on the road. And Gus—who was
driving—hadn’t had a heart attack or a stroke, according to the coroner’s office.
The one thing that really hit me hard at the funeral was that Bear cried. He and Gus were close, almost like father and son. It isn’t usually like that up here, because everybody knows everybody else’s business. The father-in-law knows when his son-in-law is hanging out late at the Kro-Bar or the Saloon, he knows when his son-in-law is running around with another woman. Ironically, there’s a lot of hostility because of that closeness, which is one reason I tried to stamp out Mrs. Erickson’s web.
Bear didn’t hang out at bars drinking and didn’t have affairs, and I would know. His vices were the same as Gus’s: vodka, cheeseburgers, and football on TV. So the two of them watched a lot of football together and that bond blinded Gus to how Bear wasn’t giving Karen what she needed, what every human being needs: companionship. I remember thinking to myself at the funeral how I’d never seen Bear cry. It scared me a little, and I don’t scare easily.
“Sheriff.”
“Yes, Maggie.” I’m only half-listening, which is rude, but I assume she’s going to ask me about Cindy’s murder just like everybody else in this musty old church wants to do. And I can’t say anything. “What is it?”
“Can I talk to you in private after this?” she asks quietly. “After we’re out of church.”
I turn to face her and see a lost, helpless look in her eyes. “What’s it about?”
“I’d rather not say here.” Her voice turns meek. She motions for me to keep up as the line shuffles forward. “It’s not about Cindy,” she whispers. “Promise.”
I glance toward the front. We’re only five people away from Father Hannah. “Where then?”
“How about the precinct?”
“Is this something you want to keep just between us?” It seems obvious that it is.
“Yes.”
Then the precinct won’t work because Mrs. Erickson will be there. She almost always works after Sunday service, and not because I make her. She goes in because she’s usually picked up a lot of gossip from the choir and she wants to get it out over her web right away so she gets credit for it. That way she can charge me up for a few hours of overtime, too. “The precinct’s no good. How about we talk at your place?”
“You sure you don’t mind coming over?”
“It’s no problem, Maggie, really.”
“Hello, Sheriff.” Father Hannah has a deep, booming voice for such a small man.
“Hello, Father.”
He leans in close. “You okay?” he whispers. The blood of Christ hangs heavy on his breath and it’s probably a nice merlot. That’s what he always brings to our house when he comes to dinner every few months—two bottles, too. “A terrible thing about Cindy Prescott.”
I like the way most people around here call her by her maiden name. I never liked to think of her as Cindy Harrison; it doesn’t seem right. I’ll admit it has a ring to it. But to my ears it was always the wrong ring. “Yes, it is.”
His expression grows even darker. “How is Vivian?”
Vivian never comes to church. I probably wouldn’t, either, if I wasn’t the sheriff. Since my father committed suicide that September I was sixteen, I haven’t believed in God. But I have to come to church, all the town leaders do. It wouldn’t look right if we didn’t.
“She’s fine.” She’s at home asleep. At least, she was when I left. “Thanks for asking.”
He gazes at me, starts to say something, stops, then starts again. “Will you wait a minute while I finish up here?”
Suddenly it seems like everyone wants to talk to me offline. “Sure.”
When everyone’s gone, Father Hannah leads me to a little room off to the right of the pulpit. He shuts the door, puts one hand to his mouth, looks down at the slate floor, and knits his eyebrows together. “Paul, it’s come to my attention that there’s a cult in Dakota County. A cult of devil worshipers.”
Not him, too. “Father, everyone’s jumping to conclusions about Cindy’s—”
“This isn’t about Cindy’s murder. I don’t believe in all that crap Mrs. Erickson’s feeding everyone about pentagrams carved into Cindy’s body everywhere or her hanging from the wall like she was crucified. I know she’s just selling herself.”
Father Hannah’s a sharp guy. “Then what’s it about?”
“My counterpart down in Hayward, Father Marshall, called me. He told me a teenage girl came to him while he was praying alone at the altar in his church yesterday morning and started telling him how someone she knew was in the cult. How they’d done some bad things and how they were about to do some very bad things. She was very nervous while she was talking to him. She told him that there are some people from Hayward in the cult, but that the important people, the ones who run it, are from Dakota County.
“Before she could get too far into things,” he continues, “before she could name names, there was a noise at the back of the church. Father Marshall didn’t see anyone, but it spooked the girl and she ran out.” He hesitates, looks heavenward, and crosses himself. “She hasn’t been seen or heard from since and her parents are going crazy. He told me they were going to call the Hayward sheriff right after they got off the phone with him.”
I run my hands through my hair. I feel like the walls are closing in around me. I’m going to have to accept that the cult really exists, and that maybe these people are getting tired of killing animals and maybe they want more. Maybe they’ve already taken more.
I wish those two steak knives weren’t missing from my kitchen drawer. And I wish I hadn’t found that ticket from the Bruner Washette beside Cindy’s body.
11
AS I TAP on the storm door of the pastel-pink mobile home, I gaze up through the thick pine tree branches above me. I drove to church this morning beneath a clear sky, but now high clouds are rolling in and the temperature’s dropped back to thirty-three degrees. That’s still warm for this time of year in the north-country, but those changes the weather people have been predicting for the area are starting to move in. Freezing rain is supposed to begin late this afternoon or early evening, then change to snow around ten o’clock tonight. Now they’re calling for up to two and a half feet of the white stuff. The storm keeps getting bigger and bigger.
“Hi, Sheriff,” Maggie says as she opens the door. “Would you like some coffee?”
I wipe my boots on the cement stoop before coming in. The path to the door through a few inches of old snow has turned muddy because of the sudden temperature change. “No thanks,” I say as I move past her.
“Tea?”
I shake my head.
“Pop?”
“No, Maggie.”
“How about something to eat? I could fix you some eggs and bacon, or maybe a sandwich.”
“I’m fine,” I say firmly, trying to let her know that we need to get down to business sometime before the start of baseball season. “Thank you.”
“I feel bad that you came all the way over here,” she says, pointing to an old sofa. “Please sit down.”
The tiny trailer isn’t far from the church. It’s not like coming over here was a big deal.
I’m about to sit down when a snake comes slithering out from beneath the couch, tongue flickering. “Christ Almighty!” I shout, taking three panicked steps backward. “What the hell?”
Maggie looks at me like I’m crazy, then sees the snake and smiles. “Oh, that’s just Charlie,” she says, like it’s some doddering old uncle that wouldn’t hurt a flea. “He’s my little Burmese python. Come here, you bad boy.” She bends down, grabs it roughly behind the head, and starts pulling. Four thick feet later the wriggling tail appears. “I’ll be back in a sec, Sheriff. Make yourself comfortable.”
Instead of the couch I pick a wooden chair in the corner of the room to sit in. It isn’t as comfortable as the couch, but I can see beneath it and nothing’s going to sneak up on me from behind. I swear I’ll never get used to this place—or its people.
<
br /> “I feel so guilty for putting you out,” she says, huffing as she comes back into the room. “I want to get you something.”
“It’s fine, really. What did you want to talk about?”
She relaxes onto the couch and catches her breath. “I … I wanted to talk to you about Karen.”
I figured that was it when she said it wasn’t about Cindy’s murder.
“I’m real worried. I haven’t heard from her since Christmas Eve, since she left Bear. I thought I’d hear something from her by now.”
I shrug my shoulders. “The note your sister left Bear said she was going away, way away. It said she didn’t want him to come looking for her, either.” And, as far as I know, Bear’s complied with her request. He hasn’t lifted a finger to find her. I guess he’s that pissed off, or he felt the same way she did. “It said all that twice.”
She reaches inside her top and pulls a wadded Kleenex from her bra. Maggie’s emotional to begin with and in the last few months she’s lost her parents and, apparently, her sister. Maggie and Karen were close and it does surprise me that Karen hasn’t at least called. “I know.”
“I showed you the note,” I remind her.
“I remember.”
“You told me it was her handwriting, her signature at the bottom.”
She lets out a little sob. “It was. I recognized it.”
“You can file a missing person report,” I say. “Then I can call the state police and put things into motion. If that’s what you want to do.”
