by M. K. Coker
Karen sank farther down into her seat. Would she even have a roster other than Walrus, when all was said and done?
CHAPTER 9
As she pulled into the drive in front of her bungalow at 22 Okerlund Road, mirrored across the street at Marek’s at number 21, she sniffed and smelled... nothing. But she wasn’t sure if that was because there wasn’t anything to smell or if her olfactory senses had been obliterated. She feared the latter. “I’ll meet you back in twenty. Shower first.”
She entered her house, hoping to see her recently found daughter, but Eyre was apparently out. Karen’s young Brethren cousin, Mary Hannah, would be back home with her parents in Eder over the weekend. So Karen dumped her filthy clothes in the washer and ran up to the shower in the attic room in her birthday suit.
Half an hour later, scrubbed to the pores and back in uniform, Karen pulled the Sub into her reserved slot behind the courthouse, something she’d done many times over the last couple of years as the acting sheriff.
Why, then, did it suddenly feel different?
Beside her, in the passenger seat, Marek wore a new pair of jeans, a chambray shirt, and over his damp hair, his official Eda County Detective cap, his one concession to a uniform. He hadn’t tamed his beard yet, though. But that sort of rough look didn’t reflect as badly on a man as it did on a woman. Unfair but true. For a man, it said he had more important things, more important work, on his mind. For a woman, it meant she couldn’t even manage to get herself together. So how was she going to manage the job?
“Bridal jitters?” Marek asked, making no motion to get out of the Sub.
Nodding, Karen laid her head back and looked up at the fanciful turrets on the Richardsonian Romanesque courthouse. Constructed of Sioux quartzite and rose-colored optimism, it was built to last, unlike the county, which was still declining in population.
“Why did I want this job again?” She ran her hands down her face. “No, don’t answer that. Family, that’s the biggie. Except we’re sitting right here, in Reunion, home of the brave and true Okerlunds, and we might as well be in Albuquerque. Or heck, we could be road warriors like the campers. Why not? Most had better rides than this piece of—” She stopped herself and patted the dash. “This loyal, dedicated work of ingenuity.”
Marek snorted but didn’t contradict her. Typical Dakotan. A snort, a huff, a faint rise of the eyebrow... but nothing more to tempt fate. Rural communities lived far too close to the bone, to the whims of the weather and winds of economic change, to say something aloud that might be construed by the gods as bragging—and hence require a sharp putdown.
“Do you think we’ve been doing this too long, us Okerlunds?” she asked him. “Are we hidebound, or are we just bound to this place? I mean, I love it. It’s our town. But if it wasn’t ours...”
“It wouldn’t be ours,” he said simply. “But it is.”
She let that settle—and it settled her. She put her hand on the door handle.
Then he spoke again, so softly that she barely heard it, and she wasn’t sure she was supposed to. “I promised my mother I’d never come back.”
Her hand dropped as she debated whether she should reply.
“She had her reasons,” he said then opened the door.
And that was on her father. The famous Okerlund feud had eventually run Janina Marek out of town, not on a rail, as the railroads were long gone, but with a pink slip from her beloved teaching position at Reunion High.
He’d broken his promise for one reason, and that reason was why they were all still here. Becca De Baca Okerlund. Marek’s seven-year-old daughter was the bridge between all of the remaining Okerlunds. Karen and Marek were only children who should’ve grown up like siblings, across the street from each other, but the gulf had been too far to cross back then, courtesy of Arne Okerlund’s frosty feud with his father and—for at least a while since the return—with Marek.
Thinking of her father, she wondered just what had happened between him and Marek, something that made Marek look weary and a bit grim when he saw his much-older half-brother. For a gentle man like Marek, a forgiving one, whatever had happened, it had gone deep, though she’d seen a lightening of his grimness—and the disdain of her father—of late. Mareks were trouble, Arne had always said, but Marek was now in the Okerlund camp, a sight she thought she’d never see.
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened between you and my father?” she asked his back, taking a stab. Though not quite in the dark, it was close, as she had nothing but a gut feeling to go on. His shoulders tensed, then he slowly turned.
For a long time, he just looked down at her from his Olympian height. “No, that’s a promise I’ll keep.”
At one time, she’d have picked at him until he spilled—or swatted her down, to both their hurt. But she’d learned sometimes you just didn’t need to know. “Okay. I’m just glad you two aren’t at each other’s throats. Are you going to open that door?”
After a slow blink, he turned, opened the door, and bowed. “Your carriage awaits, m’lady.”
Would it turn into a pumpkin at midnight? She breezed past with a sniff, lady-of-the-manor to peasant, but not entirely for effect. He smelled clean. “You’re supposed to pull a forelock.”
“Did someone say pulled ham hocks?” A head poked out from a side door, then the rest of Janet Dahl followed, ensconced in a rolling office chair. She had moved from the register of deeds to the county auditor spot over the summer to pinch hit for the incumbent, who was at the Mayo Clinic, battling kidney disease. “Oh, hi. Welcome home, Sheriff. You don’t know how absolutely, positively delighted I am to say that. Sorry that Harold had to bring you back from vacation, though.” She wheeled herself right out into the hallway. “You two just can’t catch a break. You should try something with regular hours.”
“Like running elections?” Karen asked her.
Janet threw back her head and laughed. “Got me there. Still, only one very long night, even if it will live on in infamy. I fully intended to sleep in. Then Harold got the phone call from Josephine at the break of day.” Janet sobered, beckoning them into her office. “You’ll want to talk to me.”
Karen looked at Marek, who nodded. They walked into what looked like a frat house the day after a party, with chairs overturned and pizza boxes and half-filled plastic beverage containers littered over any available surface. As pizza wasn’t normally available from Reunion, Karen guessed some unlucky soul must have been sent to Aleford for it.
Janet surveyed the office with bleary resignation. “Sorry about the mess. I just haven’t had the energy to attack it as yet. I think I need a wrecking crew.” Given that Janet, at least compared to her husband, Harold, was the Energizer Bunny, that was saying something. Janet wheeled herself back behind her temporary desk. “I know one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but Bob Bunting would’ve destroyed the reputation of the Sheriff’s Office within months, if not days. He cared nothing about this county or its citizens, only himself and how he could profit.”
Deciding that she didn’t want any sticky residue on her clean uniform, Karen remained standing, her preferred default setting anyway. “Then he’d have been in for a rude surprise, given how little this job pays.”
“It wasn’t the pay, but the power. Oh, I don’t mean he didn’t care about the money. Did you see that big black SUV he bought the day after he won?” Janet shook her head sadly. “He’d have been paying on it until he was old and gray.”
Like all Dahls, even one by marriage, Janet could pinch a pound from a penny. Frugality was a blood sport to them.
Marek righted a chair and sat down. Brave soul. “When did you last see Bunting?”
“Just before one in the morning, when he stormed out of the office, vowing he’d see us all jailed for corruption. Even his supporters, what few remained, were pretty disgusted at that point.”
If Bunting thought a Dahl was corruptible, then he’d really flown the coop. “Who was with him?”
“Let’s see...” Janet laid her head back and stared up at the ceiling as if it held the answer. “On your side, we had a passel of Forsgrens.”
Karen closed her eyes. Her great-grandmother on her father’s side had been a Forsgren, and the county was littered with them, but they could be more than a little trying, especially Bill Forsgren. He was one of the patriarchs, and a drunk to boot. Still, Bill had been the one to spearhead the recount, even though he didn’t hold with female sheriffs. Fortunately for her, he hated Bunting more than he valued his own principles. “My apologies.”
Janet waved a listless hand. “They were jewels in comparison. Let me tell you, I get that people want to win...” She looked around at the spoils of public service. “Or I did until last night. But I talked to Roland from his hospital bed, and he said he’d never encountered anything like what I described. He sounded kind of disappointed he’d missed it, the one big race with people breathing down your neck, challenging every single vote, and trying to make it sound like those overseas military folk with absentee ballots were somehow imposters. Even though I showed them their bona fides, the post office marks, everything. We checked and double-checked... and triple-checked... before they finally conceded.”
Karen decided that Janet was well and truly beat, because she didn’t usually go off the rails when asked a direct question. “Bunting’s supporters?”
“Oh, yeah. Five of them. Women outnumbered the men, three to two, which doesn’t say much for our fair sex, does it. But the idea of sleeping with power seems to attract a certain type.” Her lips pursed, and she glanced out the door. “I shouldn’t have said that. My brain is mush.”
Karen blew out a breath. Maybe this was going to be a slam dunk. “Bunting had a significant other?”
“Well, he had at least two vying for that spot from my cynical gaze, but I don’t actually know the details, nor do I want to know. A young woman who should know better—and have much better with her looks—was hanging on him until the bitter end. Though I’ll admit she wasn’t... quite there. When all was said and done, she abandoned Bunting and ran out, phone clutched in her hand like it was the lifeline to God Almighty. Didn’t catch her name. And I don’t recognize her people, but I’m guessing Valeska by coloring.” Janet closed her eyes. “The other woman was more what you’d expect of Bunting, maybe fifty, looked much older, with a look about her... how do I say this politely?”
Marek saved her. “Well used? Overweight, wearing a Packers sweatshirt and a sour expression?”
Janet peeled back an eyelid to look over at Marek. “I see you’ve already got her number. One of the others called her Nadine, and I think, if I’m not mistaken, she works or worked at the truck stop in Aleford. I rarely go in now that you can just swipe for gas, so I can’t swear to it, but that’s where I’d start. Funny. I know a lot of people, meet a lot of people, in this county, but I didn’t recognize four of the five. Too bad I wasn’t checking their bona fides.”
Nadine was almost certainly Bunting’s ex-wife. That explained a few things, except why she was backing him at the recount when she’d tried to sabotage his election.
“So that’s the two female hangers-on.” Karen knew that even if Janet didn’t know the young woman, others would know people who did. And some were likely related to her, to boot, which sometimes made things dicey. “What of the last woman?”
Janet cleared her throat. “Mindy Hansen Bullard.”
It took a second, but Karen got the connection. Mindy was the wife of Cal Bullard, who was doing twenty to life in the state pen in Sioux Falls. That had been Karen’s first homicide case and Marek’s first in Reunion. While she personally would have given him a lesser sentence for what he’d initially done, that he’d held Marek’s daughter at gunpoint wasn’t something she could easily forgive. “I get that. I had to evict Mindy off their farm a couple months ago. The bank wouldn’t hold off any longer.”
And the bruised, lost looks of the huddled mother and children had ripped at her. Evictions were one aspect of the job she truly hated, but like her father and grandfather, she refused to hand them off to anyone else. She always took business cards along for various public services and charities that might help, but they usually went into the trash—sometimes right there in any convenient mudhole or even manure. Dakotans were a proud bunch. Karen respected that, tried to make it sound like neighbors helping neighbors, but there was no good way to kick a family out of their home.
Still, why was Mindy using her energy to fight for a man like Bunting? It made no sense, except maybe on an emotional level, which was plain stupid. Getting even with Karen for doing her job wouldn’t do squat. Mindy’s kids needed her. Bunting didn’t.
“Who were the men?” Marek asked.
Janet consulted the ceiling again. “One wore a muscle shirt. Arms as big around as hams. He left after the absentee ballots came out. I think he might have been ex-military? Had a tattoo of an anchor on one arm. Left. I think.”
Marek and Karen exchanged a look. “Did he resemble the young woman?”
Janet’s unpainted mouth rounded into an O. “Now that you mention it, yes, and he kept looking at her with that come-hither look, like he was trying to get her to go with him, but she wasn’t having any of it, so he left. Here I was thinking that was a come-on, and she was an idiot for hanging on Bunting, but you’re right—they must be related. After the last vote was tallied, she screamed at Bunting, ‘It was all for nothing,’ and ran out. And that really riled our erstwhile sheriff. I thought he was actually going to strike one of my workers. I stepped between them. After blowing a lot of hot air, he went out, with Nadine.”
That tallied with what Nails had observed. “And the last man?”
“Ah, the last man standing. Now, he was a real puzzle. He seemed... disconnected... from the rest. And talk about put together. Looked slick, with money and connections, and when he left, when it became obvious to anyone with an eye to spare that Bunting was going to lose, he whispered something to Bunting that made me pity our wannabe sheriff. For at least a second. Bunting went white then red and said, ‘We’ll see about that.’ But Mr. Slick just said, ‘Don’t let the door hit you on your way out.’ And out Mr. Slick went... and I can bet you, those old doors didn’t dare touch his mighty fine butt. Ah... don’t tell Harold I said that.”
Karen grinned. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
Janet groaned. “What do I need to do?”
“Find his name for us.” Karen shot a wad of napkins into the trash. “We’ve got a lot of irons in the fire. That would help a lot.”
“Let me see if I can brand him for you, then. Now, shoo. Josephine was looking for your hide this morning. Make sure you don’t get lassoed and pinned to the wall.”
Despite that dire warning, Karen eased herself through the side door into the office, an open bullpen with wooden desks facing large windows with a view of Main Street. Talk about transparency in government. Right then, Karen would have preferred a little less transparency as the sole occupant of the office stood waiting, hands on hips, stance wide. Her rhinestone-studded orange-and-purple paisley shirt descended into skinny jeans and purple boots with tassels. If you thought dude rancher, you were dead wrong. The belt buckle proclaimed one of her many wins as a champion barrel racer.
Deciding to be the barrel, Karen stood stock still as the sixtyish secretary advanced, while Marek, coward that he was, disappeared into the wallpaper... a phenomenal accomplishment given there was none on the boring cream walls studded with sheriffs of the past, all Okerlunds. Looked like she’d be joining their ranks sooner rather than later. Hers would be the shortest stint for a sheriff on record.
The hit came hard, the wrap up, suffocating.
“Josephine... I can’t breathe.”
“Good. Congrats, Sheriff. Don’t ever, ever leave me holding the badge again.”
“I... promise.” One last squeeze, and she was released. Gingerly, Karen checked her ribs. Josephine hadn’t worked on a W
est River ranch throwing hay bales in decades, but you’d never know it. “Really, I’m sorry. I left Kurt and Bork in charge. And my dad as backup.” Then Kurt’s sister had suffered a serious panic attack, Bork had fallen victim to appendicitis, and her father’s adopted grandson had swallowed a penny and almost suffocated. Emergency surgery in Sioux Falls had taken care of the rest—and provided a rock-solid alibi. “How is Bork, by the way?”
“Still woozy. Idiot. He should’ve called the ambulance.”
Travis Bjorkland, their native Minnesotan from just over the border, had driven himself to Sioux Falls with his sirens going the entire way.
“That would’ve taken too long, and they needed the ambulance for Joey later,” Marek said, startling Josephine, who turned and treated him to the same crushing wraparound—but with far less effect.
“Are you here to stay?” she demanded, thumbs hooked in her belt, her forefingers in the ready and locked position to shoot him if she didn’t like the answer.
He waited a beat. A bit of Okerlund payback. “Becca says yes.”
“Thank God for sensible women.” Josephine turned on Karen. “Speaking of which, and speaking of myself, I’ve secured your roster for you, other than Kurt, who said he’d tell you himself. Well, except...”
Josephine could do payback with a vengeance when she chose. But the Okerlunds fought back with their usual tactic: silence. Though it killed Karen to wait, as she hadn’t gotten that closemouthed gene.
“Two Fingers said he’d have to think about it.”
Since Josephine wasn’t smiling, Karen was pretty sure that was straight shooting, not a pulled ham. Her swing-shift deputy had an offer to work at the tiny reservation at Flandreau, north of Sioux Falls. That he didn’t meet the blood quantum was a sticking point for tribal enrollment, but not, apparently, employment. Still, family was a powerful draw, and he had a mother, stepfather, and two young half-sisters there. “I’ll just have to convince him, then.”
