she walked to her inner office and flipped on the light. She turned around. He stood close to her, smelling of the wet autumn air.
“What do you want, Ben?”
He wore a light-brown turtleneck that perfectly matched his eyes and hair and pressed against his chest and shoulders in a way that made it seem as if the muscles beneath it were about to burst through.
He said, “A very long time ago I built a wall across my life. There was everything before you and everything after.”
“Very poetic,” she said. “And what? The wall crumbles now, our lives suddenly merge again? Ben, you left me, remember? How’s your wife, by the way?”
“She’s dead, Jo.”
“Oh.” She felt the knot of her anger loosen just a little. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ve been a widower for a year. But even before that we were…” He shrugged in his tight, expensive sweater. “The marriage was over years ago. It was never much of a marriage to begin with.”
She slipped behind her desk, put the big piece of polished oak between her and Benjamin Jacoby. “I’m sorry your life didn’t work out the way you’d hoped, but I put you behind me a long time ago. I went on with my own life. I’ve been very happy.”
He came to the desk. “You never thought of me?”
She didn’t answer.
“It’s a big world, Jo. It’s unthinkable to me that fate would bring us together again without a reason.”
“Fate?” She laughed. “Ben, you never left anything to chance. How long have you known I was here?”
He looked deeply into her eyes. “I always knew it. I just never did anything about it. Then one night, we’re having dinner at my father’s house, the whole family. Eddie’s talking about this casino deal he’s working on in Minnesota, going on about the gorgeous lawyer he was dealing with. I ask him where this casino is. And bingo- Aurora. I don’t know. With Eddie coming here, it made a difference somehow, connected us. Since then I’ve often thought about using him as an excuse to contact you, but I’m not egocentric or stupid enough to believe there could ever be anything between us again. I wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for what happened to Eddie. I don’t have any desire to complicate your life.”
“You can’t complicate it, Ben. You’re not even a part of it.”
“I’m not looking for that, Jo. My life hasn’t been perfect, but it was the one I chose, and it’s had its advantages.” He moved his hand across the desk but stopped far short of touching her. “You haven’t asked why I left you.”
“It was pretty obvious. You were married within six months.”
“The roads we take aren’t always of our own choosing.”
“What? She was pregnant?”
“There are other compelling reasons to marry.”
“Love?”
“In my whole life, Jo, I’ve loved one woman. I didn’t marry her.”
“I don’t want to go on with this conversation. But I do want to know why the charade? Why pretend that my being here was such a surprise?”
“I was afraid that I’d scare you. I know how crazy all this must seem.”
Jo shook her head. “I haven’t heard you say one thing so far that sounded real to me.”
He looked genuinely hurt. “The wall, Jo, that was real. You did divide my life. For a while, you absolutely defined it. I’m not saying that I’ve thought of you every day for the last twenty years, but whenever I think about a time when I was happy, I think about the summer with you.” He seemed to be at the edge of defeat. “Look, I’m in town for only a couple of days. Could I…” He faltered. “Could I ask a favor? A small one, I promise.”
“What is it?”
“I’d like to meet your family.”
“Why?”
“I’d love to see the life you’ve made for yourself.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Only you and I know the truth about us. It wouldn’t be awkward, I promise. And maybe it would help with closure.”
“After twenty years you need closure?”
“All right. Then just to satisfy my own damn curiosity. An hour of your time and your family’s. Is it really so much to ask?”
“Yes, it is. I can’t believe you don’t understand that.”
“There’s so much you don’t understand. So much you never will.” He put up his empty hands. “I guess that’s it.”
“You said there were things I needed to know, for my own good.”
“I was mistaken. They were things I needed to know, and now I do.”
He turned and walked to the anteroom. At the door that opened onto the hallway, he turned back, his hand on the knob. He took a look around him, at the ordinary room where Fran Cooper worked and Jo’s clients waited. “Do you like this?”
“I love it,” she said.
His eyes held a look of wistful sadness. “I wish I could say that about what I do. I wish I could have said it, ever. Good night, Jo.” He went out and closed the door behind him.
She waited until the sound of his footsteps in the corridor had faded to nothing, then went back into her office, sat down, and put her hands over her face as if she were trying to hide behind a small, fragile fence.
14
The bar at the Four Seasons was a big room with a stone fireplace and wide windows that overlooked Iron Lake. On sunny days, the view of the marina and beyond was stellar, row after row of boats at rest on blue water, framed by the sawtooth outline of pines. But at night there was only darkness outside the window glass, and what people saw then was the reflection of the fire and themselves, and the room seemed much smaller.
Cork caught Augie Newsome in an idle moment, wiping down the bar. Newsome was a rubbery-looking man with a willowy body, long arms, and face like stretched putty. He wore Elvis Costello glasses and combed his hair in a gelled wave. He usually appeared to be on the brink of smiling, as if all the ironies of life were right in front of him and always amusing. Cork had known him a dozen years, ever since Newsome migrated up from the Twin Cities for reasons that only Cork and a very few others knew. During his first stint as sheriff, he’d given Newsome a break that had meant a difference in the kind of bars behind which the man spent his time.
“Sheriff,” Newsome said brightly, wiping his way down the bar toward Cork. “What can I do you for?”
Except for a couple seated at one of the tables near the fireplace, the bar was deserted. It was Thursday, the night before the weekenders descended. The locals called them 612ers, because the vast majority of the tourists and the nonresident landholders came from the Twin Cities where for years those three numbers had formed the prominent telephone area code.
Cork said, “Ed Larson talked to you today.”
“That he did. Asked about the dead guy out at Mercy Falls. Man, is that crazy or what? Right here in Aurora. Say, I understand Marsha Dross is doing fine. Glad to hear it. Her and Charlie Annala are pretty regular customers. Can I get you something?”
“I just need a few answers, Augie. You told Larson that Edward Jacoby asked you where he might find a prostitute around here. Is that correct?”
“He didn’t use the word prostitute, but that’s what he wanted.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him the lake was all the entertainment most folks needed up here. If it was a boat he was looking to rent, or fishing gear, I could point him in the right direction.”
“Augie,” Cork said, leaning close so that his voice wouldn’t carry to the couple near the fireplace. “I’ve got a
