When Sandy stepped back into the boathouse, Jo was leaning against the car, holding the strip of negative gingerly away from her with two fingers, as if it were a piece of rotting filth she’d rather not have had to touch.
“What’s that?” Sandy asked innocently.
“You know what it is.”
“I didn’t kill her,” he said. “I swear to you, Jo, I didn’t kill her.”
“A few minutes ago you hadn’t even been to see her.”
“Look,” he explained, approaching slowly, “I got a call this afternoon. A woman. She said she had something I’d want to buy. She mentioned the things Cork talked about. Evidence about my father. She said she had the negatives. She gave me directions. I followed them.”
“It was Molly Nurmi?”
“I can’t say for sure it was.”
“Your housekeeper said you didn’t leave.”
“She works with headphones on. She doesn’t hear a thing. I slipped out and took the Mercedes. She never knew.”
“You saw Molly Nurmi?”
“Not at first. I knocked on the door. No one answered. I saw smoke coming from the sauna and went down there. The bag was in the changing room, negatives all over the place. It looked as if someone had gone through them wildly.”
“And Molly Nurmi?”
“I checked the sauna. She wasn’t there. Then I looked outside. She was dead, Jo. There wasn’t anything I could do to help her.”
“And you ran.”
“Yes.” He looked down, ashamed.
“How do you know she was dead?”
“She was frozen to the ice, for God sake. Jo, I panicked. I saw everything I’ve worked for slipping through my hands. I’m not proud that I ran. But better a coward than a murderer.”
“You took the negatives?”
“Not exactly. I hid them out there. At the Nurmi place. I didn’t want them found; you can understand that. And for obvious reasons I didn’t want them in my possesion.” He looked at her, deep concern eroding the handsome features of his face. “You don’t believe me.”
“No, I don’t.”
“What kind of monster do you think I am?”
“I’m beginning to wonder.”
He stood up straight and looked at her squarely. There was hurt in his eyes, but he spoke evenly. “What do you want me to do? Tell me and I’ll do it. Whatever I have to do to prove to you who I am, I’ll do it.”
“Turn the negatives over to Cork,” she said without a moment’s hesitation. “And tell Wally Schanno everything that happened.”
He took a deep breath and nodded his agreement. “I suspect that in that bag are things that will tear this county-hell, maybe this state-apart,” he warned her. “But I’ll give the bag to Cork, if that’s what you want.”
“That’s what I want.”
“And you’ll believe the things I’ve said? You’ll believe I really love you?”
“I’ll believe you about everything.”
“Then I’ll do it. You’re the most important thing in my life, Jo. I’ll do anything to keep you in it.”
He reached out his hand. She took it.
“Let’s go up to the house,” he suggested. “You can call Cork from there. Tell him to meet us at the Nurmi woman’s place. I’ll give him the bag.”
She held back a moment. “This will mean the end of all your dreams.”
Somehow he managed a faint smile. “No. It just means I’ll never be president.” He kissed her hand gently. “But I’ll always have you.”
46
He had one picture of Molly. Only one. It was a Polaroid he’d taken with her camera in the summer just moments after she stepped onto the shore from a dip in the lake near the sauna. She wore a black one-piece and had a good tan. She was bent a little awkwardly, torn between reaching down for her beach towel and trying to say “Cheese” for the camera. Her red hair clung to her back and shoulders and hung over her face in long, wet strands. She was laughing.
He’d kept the picture in a collection of poems by Robert Frost, hidden from the eyes of anyone who might, in idle curiosity, have stumbled onto it in a drawer. He always slipped it in with the poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Cork didn’t know much more about poetry than the next guy, but he understood well how it felt to have miles to go before he slept.
Now he lay on his bunk, one arm pillowing his head, studying the one and only picture he’d allowed himself of Molly. She looked exactly the way he wanted to remember her, full of life, laughing. That was Molly to him. Not the pale blue icedover body with its sightless eyes set on heaven. Molly deserved to be remembered differently. She deserved a lot of things life never offered her, not the least of which was someone who told her often he loved her. Why hadn’t he? Why had he been so afraid? He couldn’t think of anything so important now that it should have kept him from telling Molly how he felt.
And now it was too late. Too late forever.
Sam’s Place had never felt so empty. He suspected the emptiness was not in the old Quonset hut; it was in him. There was nothing in him now, nothing but the great emptiness of death, which he seemed to carry with him like a virus. People died around him, but he was immune. There was no justice. He should have died long ago. Maybe if he had, Molly would still be alive. And Sam Winter Moon and Arnold Stanley, and God only knew who else. He remembered a line he’d heard once, from an ancient text it seemed. “I am become death…” That was him.
The phone rang. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, but he’d neglected to turn on his answering machine and on the tenth ring he lifted the receiver.
“Cork, it’s Jo.”
“Yeah,” he grunted.
“I know where the negatives are.”
He sat up, instantly alert. “Where?”
“Meet me at Molly Nurmi’s.” She paused, covered the mouthpiece, and mumbled something faintly to someone else. “In half an hour,” she concluded.
“At Molly’s?”
“Yes.”
“Jo, did you know all along?”
“No.”
“Sandy,” he guessed.
“Meet me, Cork. Let me explain.” She hung up without waiting for him to answer.
Cork walked calmly to the front door. He put on his coat and his stocking cap. He grasped his Winchester and fed in the shells he’d stuffed in his pockets at Parrant’s.
“Mr. Senator,” he said as he worked the lever, feeding the first cartridge into the chamber.
“He’ll be there?” Sandy asked as Jo hung up the kitchen phone.
“He’ll be there.”
“Well,” he said somberly, “let’s get it over with.”
She touched his arm. “It will be good to get clear. Whatever happens, whatever those negatives hold, at least we won’t be looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives waiting for the worst to catch up with us.”
