Blood Hollow (Cork O'Connor)

by William Kent Krueger

  Fingerprints on a beer bottle at the scene of Charlotte’s death.

  He looked at his list and knew that in Aurora these were not the only things that could influence the thinking of a jury. He added two more notations.

  Troubled past

  Solemn is an Indian.

  He drew a line under these items to separate the page and began to list the factors that might help Solemn’s case.

  No confession. Denies guilt.

  This was important, because despite what movies and television said about the value of forensic evidence in securing a conviction, the truth was that in the vast majority of homicide cases the killer’s confession was the most damning exhibit the prosecution could present in a murder trial.

  No eyewitnesses.

  At the moment, there was no one who could actually place Solemn at the scene when the crime occurred. That meant that all the evidence against him so far was circumstantial, and a good defense attorney could mount an effective attack on that basis alone. Still, with circumstantial evidence, what a jury would finally decide was anyone’s guess.

  Cork tried to think if there was anything else working in Solemn’s favor. Only one possibility occurred to him, and he wrote it down.

  Talked with Jesus.

  Cork looked at that one a long time, weighing the effect it might have on anyone’s thinking about the case. Solemn seemed to believe truly in what he’d experienced, and that belief had changed him dramatically. But it might be that not everyone would see that change, or believe it to be sincere. Maybe Cork’s own thinking was influenced by his love of Sam Winter Moon and by what he thought he owed Sam’s great-nephew. In a town like Aurora, once the opinion about a thing was set, changing that opinion was like trying to reverse the rotation of the earth. Solemn was a wild kid, a troublemaker, a hoodlum. It wouldn’t be a hard stretch at all to believe he’d killed Charlotte Kane. He was also the desecrator of St. Agnes, and the fact that he claimed to speak to Jesus might well be the final blasphemy.

  Cork drew a line through his third notation under the list of things helpful to Solemn’s case, and assigned it number eight under the things against. Then he looked at what he’d put together. Jo was right to be concerned. On paper, Solemn was already a goner.

  16

  THE NEXT MORNING, as soon as he’d seen the children off to school, Cork went to St. Agnes to talk to Mal Thorne. He tried the rectory first. When he knocked, Rose opened the door.

  She’d been absent from the O’Connor house for over a month, and Cork had seen her only two or three times in that period, not very recently. The children and Jo stopped by the rectory regularly, and they saw her every Sunday morning, but a stop at St. Agnes was never on Cork’s agenda. Now he stood at the doorway to the priests’ residence and looked at Rose as if he were seeing a stranger. For a moment, he simply stared at her, speechless.

  She smiled. “Hello, Cork.”

  “Rose?”

  She laughed, reached out, and hugged him.

  “You’ve lost weight,” he said.

  “A few pounds.”

  “New dress?”

  “Yes. My old clothes tend to hang on me these days.”

  “Your hair’s different.”

  “I’ve decided to let it grow a bit.”

  That wasn’t all that was different. There was a light in her eyes, a rosy aura about her, even a subtle, enticing fragrance that was the faintest hint of perfume, something that, to Cork’s knowledge, Rose never wore.

  “Come in, won’t you?” she said.

  From inside the rectory came the blare of the television. The Price Is Right. Father Kelsey, Cork figured, because the old priest was nearly deaf and Rose never watched television during the day. Cork held back. “I’m looking for Mal. Is he in?”

  “He’s working in his office in the church this morning.”

  “Think he’d mind if I dropped by?”

  “You? In St. Agnes? He’d welcome that like a miracle.”

  “I’ll just go on over then.” Cork took one last look at his sister-in-law. “You know, you look wonderful, Rose.”

  “Why, thank you, Cork.”

  Walking to the church, Cork mulled over the change in Rose. He considered that maybe just getting out of the O’Connor house had made the difference, but that was unconvincing. There was something else going on.

  Mal Thorne was at his desk, shoving around the mouse for his computer. Cork knocked at the door, and the priest looked up. The pleasant surprise of seeing Corcoran O’Connor at his door carved a wide smile on his face.

  “Well, come on in.” He stood up and bounded toward Cork, his hand already out in greeting.

  “I stopped by the rectory first. Rose said I’d find you here.”

  “Just finished brewing up a pot of coffee. Join me?”

  “Thanks.”

  Mal went to a small table pushed against the wall where a framed charcoal drawing of St. Agnes hung.

  “Nice picture,” Cork said. “Where’d you get it?”

  “Randy Gooding. A Christmas present. Remarkable, isn’t it?” Mal lifted the pot from the coffeemaker and poured some into a disposable cup. “All I’ve got is this powdered creamer crap.”

  “Black’ll do.” Cork took his coffee. “Rose seems to be doing fine covering for Ellie Gruber.”

  “Are you kidding? Rose is a saint.” The priest tipped the jar of creamer and tapped some into his own coffee. “I’ve never seen anybody handle Father Kelsey with such a firm, loving hand. Don’t get me wrong. Mrs. Gruber is fine. It’s just that there’s something special about Rose. But I’m sure you know that.”

  Cork sipped from his cup. The coffee was hot and strong, just as he liked it. “Whatever it is she does here, it agrees with her. She looks terrific.”

  “She’s absolutely lovely.” He became intent on stirring his coffee with a white plastic spoon, as if he’d said too much. He indicated a chair to Cork, and he sat back down in the swivel chair he’d been using at the computer. “What’s up?”

  Cork sat down. “Solemn Winter Moon turned himself in last night.”

  The priest was about to take a sip, but he paused. “Does Fletcher Kane know?”

  “I’m sure he does by now. Mal, there’s a strange twist to all this.”

  “How so?”

  “Solemn claims he’s had a vision. He claims he talked with Jesus.”

  “A prayer talk?”

  “No, like we’re having right now.”

  “Jesus in the flesh?”

  “That’s what he says.”

  “When?”

  “While he was out in the woods.”

  Cork told him about Henry Meloux, giigwishimowin, and Solemn’s visitation in the clearing.

  When Cork finished, Mal swirled his coffee for a moment, then said, “Minnetonka moccasins?”

  “That’s what he claims.”

  “Why did you come to me with this?”

  “I was hoping you might talk to Solemn.”

  “The man who urinated in the baptismal font.”

  “Please. Just talk to him.”

  “To what end?”

  “I’d like your reaction to what he says and to the change in him.”

  “Change?”

  “Talk to him. You’ll see what I mean.”

  “How do I get in?”

  “I’ll have Jo arrange it. She’s agreed to represent him. He’s scheduled to be arraigned later this morning. Maybe this afternoon you could see him.”

  “I suppose it couldn’t hurt.”

  “Thanks.” Cork gulped down the last of his coffee.

  Mal Thorne stood up with him as he prepared to go. “Do you believe it’s possible he talked with Jesus?”

  Cork said, “What I believe doesn’t matter.”

  “I think it does,” the priest said. He placed his thick hand gently on Cork’s shoulder. “I think it does more than you realize.”

  17

  AT 11:00 A.M., SOLEMN WINTER
MOON was arraigned in the Tamarack County courthouse on a single charge of assaulting an officer. Dressed in the blue uniform and wearing the plastic slippers of a county jail inmate, handsome with his long black hair down his back, Solemn stood before Judge Norbert Olmstead and entered a plea of not guilty.

  Nestor Cole, the county attorney, had a narrow face and eyes that lay alongside his thin nose like two stewed oysters. He wore black-rimmed glasses that made him look more like a science teacher than a lawyer. Everyone knew he had a good shot at a judgeship when the next vacancy arose, provided he kept a reasonable profile and didn’t blow anything too important. He vehemently maintained that Solemn was a flight risk. Near the end of his argument, he slapped his hand down on the table, but his timing was a hair off and the gesture seemed overly theatrical.

  Jo argued that Solemn’s first absence wasn’t flight; he often sought solitude at Sam Winter Moon’s old cabin. She contended that the second instance was panic, understandable in light of the questionable tactics the sheriff had used in questioning her client. Both times, she pointed out, Solemn returned of his own accord.

  Cork knew that public sentiment ran against Solemn, that he would probably be charged eventually with Charlotte’s death, and that it would be smart to hold on to him until a formal murder charge could be made. Judge Olmstead, a hunched man with a twitching right eye that made him look like a nervous pickpocket, set bail at $250,000.

  Jo was on her feet instantly. “For assaulting an officer?”

  “Counselor,” the judge broke in. “I was thinking half a million. You persuaded me to be lenient.” He banged his gavel to seal his decision and told both attorneys that he wanted to see them in chambers to discuss a date for the scheduling conference.

  Fletcher Kane had come to the arraignment. He sat alone at the back of the courtroom. Although he didn’t say a word, the force of his presence was clear in the way Judge Olmstead kept glancing in his direction. Once that impossible bail had been set, Kane unfolded his hands and rose from the bench on which he sat. No emotion showed in his face as he ambled out of the courtroom.

  Dorothy Winter Moon had taken the morning off from her county job. She’d done herself up carefully and come to court looking as if she handled realty papers all day long instead of wrestling the wheel of a dump truck that could haul ten tons. When bail was set, she said under her breath (but loud enough for Judge Olmstead to hear if he’d cared to take note), “You lousy son of a bitch Republican bastard.” Jo explained to Dot and to Solemn that the only alternative to coming up with $250,000 in cash would be to have a bondsman post bail. In order to arrange that, someone would have to be willing to fork over to the bondsman a nonrefundable twenty-five grand.

  Dot clearly looked distressed. “I’ll come up with it somehow,” she said.

  “Keep your money, Ma,” Solemn said. “I’m not afraid.” He kissed her just before the deputies led him away.

  After Solemn was gone, Dot turned to Jo. She wiped at her eyes with a rough knuckle. “He’s Indian. And he never goes to church. Why would Jesus talk to him?”

  Cork didn’t arrive at Sam’s Place until almost noon. As he pulled up, a boat with a couple of fishermen aboard putted toward the dock and tied up there. Cork hurried inside and began to ready things for customers.

  Shortly before three o’clock, Mal Thorne parked in the graveled lot and walked to the serving window. Jenny wasn’t due for another half an hour, and Cork was still handling things alone. Mal waited until Cork finished with his only customers at the moment, a man and woman who’d ordered chocolate sundaes, then he stepped up and leaned in the window.

  “I just came from talking with Solemn Winter Moon,” he said.

  “Well?”

  “You know, Cork, when I was running the mission in Chicago, I had a regular there, an old man who called himself Jericho. I don’t have the slightest idea if that was his real name or simply what he went by. He had no family so far as I ever knew, no home. He was a harmless old guy. Always wore a tam, like he was Scottish or something. Anyway, despite his life on the streets, Jericho was basically a happy man. Why? He said he had a talk with God every day and that set the tone. Not prayer talk, mind you.”

  “Like Solemn claims to have had with Jesus?”

  “Exactly. I often asked him what God said to him, but he wouldn’t tell me. Well, one day I get a call from Cook County General. Jericho’s been admitted, hit by a flower delivery truck. He’s in pretty bad shape, and they don’t think he’s going to make it. He’s asking for me. So I go to his bedside, give him Last Rites. When I’m done, he crooks his finger, signals me down close, and he whispers in my ear, ‘You always wanted to know what God said to me. Well, Father, I’ll tell you. I never understood a word because He always talked in Hebrew.’

  “The point is this,” the priest went on. “Did it matter whether his talks with God were delusional? They made him happy.”

  “You think Solemn is delusional?”

  “I think whatever he’s experienced, it’s changed him for the better, and to me that’s all that matters.”

  “But you don’t really believe he talked with Jesus.”

  “God makes His presence known in many ways. In acts of love, in selfless acts of courage, in everyday human compassion. There’s no reason not to believe that God’s hand was at work in whatever changed young Winter Moon. But I have to say this. I’ve prayed desperately, devoutly, passionately for much of my life and I’ve never had the kind of vision Solemn claims to have had. As a priest, I’ve got to accept the possibility, but as a man, I’m full of doubt.” He saw the concern in Cork’s face. “What did you expect? That I’d somehow give my blessing?”

  “I just figured you’d be a better judge than me, that’s all.”

  “By the way, he asked me to bring him a Bible. I said I would.”

  A van swung into the parking lot, scraping gravel as it slid to a stop. Half a dozen teenagers piled out.

  “Looks like you’ve got your hands full,” Mal said. “I’m outta here.”

  “Thanks.”

  The priest held up a moment more. “It would be easy if we all had visions, or if we all believed in those who did. My own feeling is that faith was never meant to be easy.”

  A few minutes before five, Cork spotted Jo’s Toyota bumping over the Burlington Northern tracks. There was a lull at the moment, so he stepped outside to greet her. When she got out of her car, Cork could see from the taut look on her face that she was concerned about something.

  “I just came from the reservation,” she told him. “I talked to George LeDuc and Ollie Bledsoe about the possibility of bail for Solemn coming out of some of the casino funds.”

  “No go, huh?”

  She shook her head. “I thought it was worth a try. But I also picked Ollie’s brain while I was at it. I couldn’t figure out why Nestor Cole didn’t charge Solemn with murder. He’s had plenty of time to prepare, and he’s got everything to make a good case for second-degree homicide, intentional or unintentional. He could put Solemn away for at least a dozen years. More if he argued particular cruelty, which would be a good argument, since it appears that whoever killed Charlotte had themselves a little feast while they watched her freeze to death.”

  “What did Bledsoe say?”

  “He thinks Nestor Cole is probably preparing to take everything before a grand jury to see if a charge of murder in the first will fly. If the jury declines to indict, he’s out nothing. If they do hand down an indictment but he doesn’t convict, he can still shrug his shoulders and say it was the grand jury’s decision to go for the whole ball of wax, not his. That way he doesn’t risk losing his shot at a judgeship.” She looked angry. “Solemn may be looking at spending his life in prison, and the jackasses in charge of justice around here can only think of politics.”

  “You look tired.”

  “There’s a lot I’m trying to get a handle on. I won’t know everything that the prosecution has until Cole finally decid
es to charge Solemn with homicide, but I’d like to have some idea of what we’ll be up against. I thought I’d head over to the jail and talk to Solemn again. I was hoping you might be able to spring yourself free and come with me.”

  Cork glanced back at the serving window. There was a lanky kid leaning on the counter talking with Jenny, but he didn’t seem to be in a hurry to order.

  “Jenny,” Cork called. “Can you handle things alone for a while?”

  “Sure, Dad.” She smiled and waved to her mother.

  Duane Pender escorted Solemn to the interview room where Cork and Jo were waiting. Before he closed the door, Pender said, “The prisoners get fed in half an hour. Winter Moon’s still talking to you then, he goes hungry.”

  “You like being a hardass, don’t you, Duane?” Cork said.

  Pender shrugged. “I didn’t send him an invitation to stay here. And I don’t make the rules.” He closed and locked the door.

  Solemn looked calm and rested. He folded his hands on the table.

  “How are you doing?” Jo asked.

  “Good. Father Mal stopped by to see me this afternoon. We had a long talk. He said you asked him to come, Cork. Thanks.”

  Jo offered Cork a what in the hell kind of look, and he realized he hadn’t said a word to her about consulting the priest.

  “Solemn, I want you to know how a few things stand,” Jo said. “I’m almost certain you’ll be charged in Charlotte Kane’s death. I think that won’t occur until after a grand jury hearing.”

  “But you’ll defend me.”

  “Not before the grand jury. Only the prosecution has an opportunity to appear there. The question they’ll consider is whether there’s enough evidence to charge you with first-degree murder. If they hand down an indictment, that’s when you’ll go to trial and I’ll defend you. Now if the county attorney doesn’t get an indictment, he’ll probably charge you with second-degree murder. If that happens, we may have some leeway.”