The Ravens

by Vidar Sundstøl

  “What happened at Betty’s Pies?” he asked.

  Every detail she could tell him was part of the picture he’d been chasing for nearly half a year. His whole life had been centered on that night: all the comings and goings, car trips, phone calls, lies.

  “That’s where I finally got to see Lenny again,” said Chrissy.

  “The love of your life?”

  “Yes, he is. He was wearing his hair in two long braids. I’d only seen him do that once before, and that was the very first time we met.”

  “How did you two meet?”

  “At a poetry reading in Duluth.”

  “Christ,” said Lance, surprised.

  “You wouldn’t have thought that, huh?”

  “As you no doubt already know, I visited Diver in jail. He surprised me by quoting Longfellow.”

  Chrissy smiled sadly.

  “That sounds like Lenny,” she said.

  “So for that poetry reading he’d braided his hair?”

  “Yeah. But never after that. Not until that night, as if he knew it might be the last time . . .”

  “How did Andy know that you were with Diver?” asked Lance.

  “It turned out he knew who Jennifer was. Her father sells snowmobiles, or something, and Dad had seen her at his store. So when she picked me up that night, he recognized her. But he didn’t say anything. That jerk.”

  “Instead he called her father to find out if you were really there?”

  “Uh-huh. But Jennifer’s little sister picked up the phone. She was home alone. I don’t think her parents ever found out about any of this. But Dad knew what it meant.”

  “And then you met at Betty’s Pies . . .”

  “We met outside Betty’s Pies, in the parking lot. Lenny doesn’t like going in places like that. Family places.”

  “I guess not. So when you met there, did he bring any drugs?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said reluctantly.

  “But you didn’t take any that night, since you’d been clean since Easter. Right?” said Lance.

  “Well, not at first. Lenny was already high when I met him, but he didn’t hassle me about taking anything. He never did. It wasn’t like he forced me, if that’s what you’re thinking. Sometimes he even warned me about doing drugs.”

  “If that’s the case, then how did you usually get the stuff?” asked Lance.

  Chrissy didn’t reply, and he hadn’t expected her to. He knew all about how guys like Lenny Diver operated with their young girlfriends. They never pressured them into anything; they were just there, always on hand whenever the urge hit. Since Chrissy didn’t look like she was going to answer his question, Lance went on.

  “After the two of you met there, did you just drive around, or what?”

  “That’s what we always did,” she said.

  “And you got high together. That night, I mean.”

  “After a while, yeah. First it was just Lenny . . . He didn’t want me to . . . But then he decided to let me.”

  “Meth?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know it makes your teeth fall out, don’t you?” said Lance.

  Chrissy didn’t reply.

  “What time do you think it was when you drove down to the parking lot near the cross?” he asked.

  “God, that’s so long ago.”

  “How long do you think it took from the time you parked to when Andy showed up?”

  “Maybe half an hour,” she guessed.

  “So you drove down there around nine thirty. Do you think he knew the two of you were there?”

  “No, but you said yourself that it’s one of the first places anyone would go.”

  Lance thought about the nights he and Debbie had sat in that same parking lot. He’d been so in love! A sweetness in his blood flowing through his whole body. Was that what Chrissy had felt too? But possibly with an even greater intensity, since she was high?

  “Tell me what happened after Andy arrived,” he said.

  “Suddenly he was standing there with that fucking baseball bat. Looking insane. But also ridiculous. Lenny could have, like, crushed him with one hand behind his back. Jesus! My dad! He started screaming and swinging the bat around, slamming it onto the hood of the car. Lenny got out and tried to calm him down, but it didn’t do any good. Dad shouted at him, said he was going to ruin me, blah, blah, blah. Then Dad opened the door and yanked me out of the car. When I tried to get away, he punched me so hard I landed flat on my face on the ground.”

  “He did what?” exclaimed Lance.

  “What else could he do?”

  “Couldn’t he have . . .”

  “Talked to me?” she said. “I’m afraid that doesn’t work so good when somebody’s high on meth.”

  “Good Lord. So how did Diver react?”

  “He didn’t do anything. I lay there with my scarf pressed to my face and blood pouring out of my nose and mouth. Suddenly Dad seemed to realize that Lenny wasn’t going to get involved. He turned his back on him and came over to me. He was still holding the bat in his hand, and I was so scared and high that I thought he was going to beat me to death. But he just tore the scarf out of my hands and threw it away. Then he grabbed me by the arm and dragged me over to his car.”

  “What happened to the scarf?” asked Lance.

  “I have no idea.”

  “The police didn’t find it, at any rate.”

  “Maybe Lenny took it,” she said hesitantly.

  “Why didn’t he intervene when Andy . . . hit you?”

  “He says he didn’t want to make me fatherless.”

  “So you’ve talked to him since the murder?”

  “A couple of times on the phone.”

  “Was that when you decided to get Mist and King to try and put a scare into me?”

  Chrissy hid her face in her hands and groaned.

  “I can have you sent to prison if I want to,” said Lance harshly.

  His niece merely nodded, her face still covered.

  “So Andy just drove away with you in his car? Is that it?” he continued in a somewhat gentler tone of voice.

  “Uh-huh,” she sniffled, wiping away tears and snot. “But first he threatened Lenny, said he was going to come back with a whole gang and beat the shit out of him.”

  “Did you and Andy go to the cabin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you take with you the latest issue of something called Darkside?”

  “Yeah. It was in my purse. Lenny had bought it for me. How did . . . ?”

  “Just forget it. What did you do at the cabin?”

  “We had a big fight. Dad tied me to a chair and made me stay there all night. He wouldn’t even let me go to the bathroom. I peed on myself, sitting there like that. In the morning he was listening to the news on the old transistor radio, when they said that—”

  “Yeah. I was the one who found the body,” said Lance.

  He pictured Georg Lofthus’s friend, who had been sitting at the base of Baraga’s Cross, naked and bloody. Suddenly the man had looked up and said something in a foreign language, yet Lance had recognized the sound. He didn’t know many Norwegian words, but the naked man had said one of them. A single word had surfaced from the incomprehensible muttering, a word from his Norwegian American childhood. Kjærlighet. That was what the man had said. And he repeated it in English. Love. Now Lance saw how right he’d been. It was love this whole thing had centered on, from the very beginning. The figure of two people holding hands.

  “Uncle Lance?” said Chrissy, her voice thick with tears.

  “Yeah?”

  “You once talked about a gay guy who had something to do with Clayton Miller when you were in high school. You said he drove down to the cross on that night, just like Dad did.”

  For a moment neither of them spoke. Lance could hear every breath his niece took.

  “So who was that guy?” she asked.

  “Just somebody I made up.”

  Chrissy uttered a
little sound. Maybe she said “thanks,” but he couldn’t be sure.

  “What does Lenny Diver say about what happened?” asked Lance.

  His niece took in a deep breath and then let it out.

  “He says he was wandering around in the woods, high as a kite, and when he came back to the parking lot the baseball bat was gone. He thinks somebody killed the Norwegian and then hid the bat in his car afterward. And it could have happened like that, since his car wasn’t locked.”

  “But his fingerprints were on the bat,” Lance pointed out.

  “Yeah, but he picked up the bat after Dad and I left. That’s what he says, anyway. He was angry and swung it around a few times. Just in the air.”

  “And the woman in Grand Marais?” said Lance.

  “He would have been picked up as a suspect right away if he’d said that he was anywhere near the cross that night. A sky-high Ojibwe, with braids and everything. So he had to come up with a story. At least that’s what he told me.”

  Lance was about to say something, but instead he just sat there, his lips slightly parted as he stared at the snow drifting over the parking lot. At a moment like this, it was important to keep very still and just wait for his mind, all on its own, to find the right door and open it. When that happened, and the door opened, he felt as if someone had blown ice-cold air at the back of his neck, making all the little hairs stand on end.

  51

  A FLUSH quickly spread up Tammy’s throat when she saw who was standing on the front steps. The crimson didn’t reach her face, but stopped just below her ears and chin. Lance couldn’t help staring.

  “Can I come in?” he asked.

  She bit her lower lip, looking skeptical, then finally stepped aside to let him into the hallway.

  “Did you forget something here last time?”

  “You might say that,” replied Lance as he hung up his jacket.

  “Well, I’m still here,” said Tammy in a low voice, almost as if she didn’t want him to hear what she’d said. She led the way into the living room. Everything looked exactly the same as it had two days ago. The ashtray was even in the very same spot on the coffee table, overflowing with cigarette butts. It looked like she hadn’t bothered to empty it since his visit.

  “Well?” she said, looking at him.

  “There’s something I . . . ,” he started to say and sat down.

  His sister-in-law remained standing. Lance was afraid she’d misinterpret his intentions and think he wanted another chance.

  “It’s about Lenny Diver,” he said.

  She sat down on the other side of the coffee table, shook a cigarette out of the pack, and lit it.

  “Have you decided to help me, after all?”

  “Yes,” said Lance.

  He saw how relieved she looked. He knew in his heart this was going to be the most difficult thing he’d ever done.

  “But first you have to help me with something,” he went on.

  “Sure. Anything,” said Tammy, giving her brother-in-law an expectant look.

  “Have you ever met Lenny Diver?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Right. That’s what I thought. So I wonder why you described him as a man with long braids.”

  Tammy stared at him, uncomprehending. It hadn’t yet dawned on her that Lance was not really here to help her.

  “As some kind of ‘drug-addicted Indian brave, with those long braids of his,’ ” he said, mimicking her voice. “That was right after you threw up. Remember? You threw up when I told you that Andy had almost beaten a boy to death with a baseball bat when we were in high school.”

  She still didn’t say anything.

  “Why did you describe Diver as a man with long braids?” Lance repeated.

  “I saw pictures of him in the papers,” said Tammy.

  “But the papers used the police mug shot of him,” said Lance. “And he didn’t have braids.”

  “Who cares about his hair? The man’s a murderer.”

  “It was actually highly unusual for Lenny Diver to wear his hair in braids,” Lance continued. “Chrissy saw him like that only twice. Once when they first met. Now if you happened to be there, I’ll admit that you could have remembered about the braids. So why don’t you tell me where and under what circumstances Chrissy and Lenny Diver first met.”

  “Well,” Tammy began, taking a long, deep drag on her cigarette. “I remember seeing them together, they met . . .”

  “I know the answer,” Lance warned her.

  “At the movies,” she said dismissively, but he could hear that she’d given up.

  The only movement in the room was the bluish smoke curling up Tammy’s wrist and forearm, and the ash growing almost imperceptibly until it formed a white horn curving downward from the tip of the cigarette.

  “He’ll get out as soon as I call the FBI and tell them what I know,” said Lance. “But I don’t necessarily have to do that.”

  Finally Tammy looked at him again.

  “What do I need to do?” she asked.

  “Tell me what happened when you killed Georg Lofthus. I’ve spent every waking hour thinking about this case ever since I found his body. If I don’t find out what happened, I’m going to go crazy.”

  “And what happens if I tell you?”

  “It’ll stay just between the two of us.”

  “But how do I know I can trust you?”

  “Do you have a choice?”

  Tammy fixed her eyes on the cigarette drooping from her fingers. She started breathing hard.

  “Okay,” she sighed at last, without looking up.

  “Okay, what?”

  “Okay, so I killed him,” she whispered.

  “But Georg Lofthus didn’t have long dark hair in braids.”

  Tammy raised her arms, her fists clenched, as if holding a baseball bat.

  “I hit him as hard as I could,” she snarled.

  “And then you kept on hitting him?” Lance asked cautiously.

  “It felt good,” she said, with that same intense snarl.

  “Good?”

  Tammy’s hand shook as she picked up her cigarette from the ashtray, took a deep drag, and blew the smoke out the side of her mouth.

  “You would never understand,” she said. “You’re a wimp, just like your brother. I’m the only man in this family. I was upstairs when I heard Andy phoning somebody, and for some reason I had a bad feeling about it. Probably because Chrissy had gone to Duluth that day, or so we thought. I picked up the extension and listened. He was talking to a little girl who said that Chrissy and Jennifer weren’t there. She hadn’t seen them at all. I knew what that meant. She was involved in that shit again. And Andy knew it too. From the upstairs window I saw him get the baseball bat out of the garage and put it in his car. Not long afterward, he started talking about going fishing out at Lost Lake.”

  “But you knew he was going out to look for Chrissy.”

  She nodded and took another deep drag on her cigarette.

  “I drove north, thinking that he might be on his way to Grand Portage to look for them. The strange thing is, I did it to prevent something bad from happening.”

  “What made you drive down to the cross?”

  “That’s where everybody goes to make out. I was hoping they might be there and that Andy wouldn’t find them. When I was partway down the road, I saw his car. It was a miracle he didn’t see me. I backed up almost as far as the highway and pulled onto an old tractor road. While I was walking down to the parking lot, I heard Andy’s voice. He was screaming his head off. He slammed the bat on the hood of Diver’s car and shouted that he was ruining our daughter and that he’d get him locked up in prison if he didn’t stay away from her. Lenny Diver was really calm. It was eerie. I was probably only about fifty yards away. Suddenly Andy hit Chrissy, and she ended up lying on the asphalt. I could hear the impact from where I stood. I was about to run out of the woods to stop him, but fear held me back. The whole situation f
elt like a bomb that might explode at any second. She lay on the ground for a good long while, holding her face. In the meantime Andy kept on yelling and screaming. Finally he dragged her over to his car as if she was a fucking deer that he’d shot or something. And that horrible man just stood there, watching. If he’d been a real man, he would have defended her. My little girl . . .”

  “And then they drove off?” asked Lance.

  She nodded.

  “So it was just you and Lenny.”

  “Yes. I stood there, not daring to move. You should have seen that bastard when he picked up the bat and started swinging it around. He kept on doing that while he babbled furiously, like some kind of maniac. I couldn’t really make out what he was saying, but I didn’t want to know either.”

  “But Lofthus was killed sometime after midnight,” said Lance. “What happened in the meantime?”

  “It wasn’t hard to guess where Andy was going to take Chrissy. So I drove all the way up to Lost Lake. I don’t know what I was thinking of doing. Maybe just talk to them. Tell Andy what I thought of him hitting Chrissy. I don’t remember what I thought. But when I got to the cabin, I saw . . . Through the window I saw Chrissy sitting on a chair, but she looked strange. Then I realized that he’d tied her up. It was straight out of a horror movie. She was crying and screaming, and that cowardly shithead just stood there, looking at her. If it hadn’t been for Lenny Diver, none of that would have happened. And I knew Andy wouldn’t have the guts to do anything about it. He could hit his daughter, but he’d never dare go after Lenny Diver. So it was up to me.

  “I got out of there and drove back down to Baraga’s Cross. When I got to the parking lot, I saw the bat was still lying on the ground. It was almost too good to be true. If I hadn’t found the bat, I probably would have left, because I had no idea how I was going to kill Diver. But there it was, in the middle of the parking lot, and his car was there too, so I knew he was somewhere nearby. As I leaned down to pick up the bat, I saw Chrissy’s scarf. It was drenched in blood. You have to understand . . . that was my little girl’s blood, Lance. My only child, my one and only joy. It may seem stupid now, but at that moment it felt right. I wrapped the scarf around my hand and picked up the bat. At that moment I was bound and determined to find Diver and kill him. I wasn’t insane or anything like that, but I think I was as scared as anyone could be. If a mouse had run across my path, I would have beaten it flat.”