latte and get back here?”
“You know kids. They dawdle.”
Dina flipped on the light switch in the bathroom and glanced around. “As a matter of fact, I don’t know kids. They scare me. They’re like something I see at the zoo. And as long as they stay on their side of the bars, I do fine. Okay if I use your shower?”
Before Cork could answer, he heard the growl of the engine as the ATV bounced up the lane from the county road. “Speak of the devil.”
“Latte and a kolache, ” Dina said eagerly.
She went to the front door and opened it. Cork felt a cool draft of late morning air rush into the cabin.
The ATV stopped outside. Dina stepped back abruptly, and Ren stumbled past her looking as if he’d been chased by a monster. He spoke in gasps.
“He’s…he’s…dead.”
“Whoa,” Dina said. “Who’s dead?”
Ren’s eyes swung from Cork to Dina then back to Cork. They were wide and wet-looking. “Charlie’s… father.”
“How do you know?” Cork asked. He pushed himself into a sitting position.
“I saw him.”
Dina came around Ren so that she could look into his face, too. “Where?”
“At their trailer. I was just there. Somebody beat his head in.”
Cork swung his legs off the bunk, ignoring the pain of his wounds. “Where’s Charlie?”
“I don’t know. She wasn’t there.”
Cork stood up and limped to the boy. With some difficulty, he knelt and put his hands gently on Ren’s shoulders. “Take a deep breath. Okay, another. Now, tell me everything from the beginning.”
Ren told it all, from his stop at the Farber House to the red jellyfish on the wall of Charlie’s bedroom to the dead man lying on the floor with his head beat to mush.
“The baseball bat was right beside him,” Ren said, choking a little on the words. “It was Charlie’s bat. It was, like, the nicest present her dad ever gave her.”
“You’re sure he was dead, Ren?” Dina asked.
“His head…I could see his brains sticking out.” He squeezed his eyes shut, as if that would block the image.
Cork said, “We need to tell the police, Ren. And we need to call your mother. She should be with you. Okay?”
The boy nodded.
“Give me your cell phone, Dina. What’s her number at the clinic, Ren?”
Cork spoke with someone who told him Jewell was out on a call. Ren gave him her cell phone number and he tried that, but she was out of the service area. He handed the phone back to Dina.
“We shouldn’t wait,” she said.
“I know.”
“I’ll go with him,” Dina volunteered. “Would that be all right, Ren?”
He considered her a moment. “Okay.”
Cork said, “Is there a police department in Bodine?”
“Yeah. There’s the constable. Ned Hodder.”
Dina put her hand on Ren’s shoulder. “Let’s start with him.”
“Wait,” Cork said. “This is risky. You’re a stranger here. That’ll raise questions.”
Dina thought a moment. “What if I were a relative? Mind having an aunt Donna, Ren?”
“Donna?” Ren said.
“For a little while, I’ll be Donna Walport. It’s a name I use sometimes when I don’t want people to know my real name. I have a few of those.”
“Like an alias?”
“I prefer to think of it as a cover name.”
“Aunt Donna,” Ren said, trying it out. “That’s all right with me.”
Cork wasn’t thrilled, but he didn’t see another way. “Stay close to her, Ren, and follow her lead. And be careful what you say.”
“I will,” the boy promised.
“Don’t worry,” Dina said. “We’ll be fine.”
But he did worry. He watched them go knowing there was a great gulf between what Ren bravely believed he was capable of and what the reality of the situation might force on him. The boy would have to walk a tough line, holding to the truth here, embracing a lie there, all under the cold eye of people with badges and uniforms. It was a lot to ask. Not many adults could pull it off.
Except that Ren had something most others did not. He had Aunt Donna.
12
The constable’s office was on Harbor Avenue, sandwiched between the Ace Hardware store and Kitty’s Cafe. An old, narrow, redbrick one-story, it had a desk area up front and two holding cells in back accessed through a heavy metal door. Ren had been in the jail area before. His mother and Constable Ned Hodder were old friends, and Ned had once locked Ren in one of the cells to give him a sense of what it was like to be incarcerated. Ren was just a kid; it had been a kick. That was before his father was murdered and cops became the enemy. Ren wasn’t even certain his mother had spoken to Ned Hodder since his father’s death.
They parked Ren’s ATV in front of the building and walked inside. The constable was at his desk, writing in a small lined notebook. As soon as the door swung open, he shut the notebook and put it away in the top desk drawer. When he saw Ren, a big smile dawned on his face.
“And here I thought it was going to be just another boring Sunday.” He stood up.
In his video collection, Stash had a movie called Anatomy of a Murder that Ren had watched with him one rainy Saturday. The movie was pretty good. It had been filmed not far from Bodine and starred a guy named James Stewart, apparently a big-deal actor in his day. The constable reminded Ren of that guy. Ned Hodder was more than six feet tall and lean. For an adult-and a cop on top of it-he had an easygoing approach to most things. He was straight when he spoke to you, though he sometimes stumbled around for the right words. And every feature of his plain face seemed to tell you that he wouldn’t lie to you even if his life depended on it.
Every year Hodder confiscated the illegal fireworks that folks brought with them when they came up from Wisconsin, where such things were legal. He stored them in a locker in the basement beneath his office. Every Fourth of July, just after sunset, he enlisted the help of the town fire marshal and, in Dunning Park right on the lake, set off all those pyrotechnics to the delight of most everybody in Bodine.
Last summer, he’d arrested two members of a band playing at the Logjam Saloon for urinating in public. They were young musicians without a lot of money, so he’d offered them a deal. In lieu of a night in the city jail, the band put on a free concert in Dunning Park. It turned out they knew a lot of old swing tunes, and folks ended up dancing on the grass and having a fine time. Ren was there with his mother, and it was one of the few instances since his father died that he’d seen her look happy.
Hodder came from behind his desk and extended his hand toward Dina. “Don’t believe I know you. I’m Ned Hodder. How do you do?”
“Fine, thanks. I’m Ren’s aunt. Donna Walport. Ren here has something pretty awful he needs to tell you.”
“That so?” Hodder bent a little in Ren’s direction and looked serious. “What is it?”
“Charlie’s father,” Ren blurted. “He’s dead.”
“Max? Dead?” The constable straightened up. “What makes you think so?”
“I saw him.”
“Where?”
