Irv forgoes the extra butter and rather daintily picks off a piece of the crisp muffin top and eats it. While chewing he says, “I agree with you.”
“What?”
“I agree with you. American police shoot people. We handle ambiguity badly. We have a tendency to make bad situations worse rather than doing the opposite. We often attract the wrong kind of blue-collar kids rather than pulling in top recruits. There’s too much cronyism and too many guns. We have a long way to go. The thing is, Sigrid, we’re in a diner in the middle of a black hole and our job is to get through it. If you don’t help me find Marcus, I’m worried things will get out of hand. Just like you said. I’m not threatening you. Or him. I’m saying . . . Marcus is in more danger than you know. After Jeffrey, there’s a lot of tension out there. The streets are warming up. The commissioner wants Marcus for Lydia’s death. The Simmons family wants justice for Lydia too. That means Marcus is being hunted.”
“He didn’t do it.”
“If he resists arrest and gets hurt, no one is going to care. Do you understand?”
“That sounds like a threat,” Sigrid says.
“It’s not. Saranac Lake is out of my jurisdiction. But I have relationships and friends who can help. I’m your only chance. Like you said, the job is to bring the tension down.”
Sigrid bites into her bagel. The salmon is surprisingly good, but there’s too much cream cheese.
“So anyway,” Irv says, sounding suddenly jovial. “I took an interest in Norway while you were sleeping at Melinda’s house. Spent a whole hour on the internet. I read the Economist, U.S. News and World Report, Wikipedia, and something about stacking wood. I learned that you invented the cheese slicer—so you get a point for that—but Quisling sold you all out to the Nazis, so that’s two points off. On the other hand, your resistance stopped the Germans from building a heavy water reactor, so you get three points for that, almost leaving you in the plus column, but—uh-oh . . . along comes A-ha with ‘Take on Me,’ which is a really bad song that makes no sense. So minus two. So you’re back to zero. Meanwhile, America? We invented jazz, rock–’n’-roll, and chocolate chip cookies. Anyway, it eventually occurred to me that I’m a sheriff, so I just called your chief in Oslo. It was late, but they put me through.”
“You did not.”
“He’s weird.”
“Oh no. You did.”
“I said I was calling from New York, which I guess he took for the city, and he had questions. He wanted to know why Jews had Jewish last names. As it happens, I know the answer. I explained that, in fact, they didn’t have last names until the early nineteenth century when the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Russia insisted they start using them. Until then they used Patronymics and Matronymics. So most of the ones they picked are the ones we associate with Jewish names today. Your chief was very impressed and now we’re good buddies and have you in common. He told me all about your case with Sheldon Horowitz. Old marine had you chasing your tail.”
“Yeah, well. He was a pretty exceptional guy.”
Outside the window four semis and their trailers whiz by in rapid succession.
“Apparently you are a very good police officer, Sigrid, despite being a godless communist in an American diner. Work with me. Tell me how you were planning to find your brother in the big bad forest.”
Sigrid picks up Irv’s pen and draws a circle around Saranac Lake on the unfolded map. “I wasn’t going to look for him, because you’re right, I wouldn’t have found him—even if the professor was right about his favorite spots. I could pass within ten meters and never know it, especially if he didn’t want to be found.”
“So?”
“I was going to make him come looking for me.”
“How?”
“Eventually Marcus’ll need supplies. He’s resourceful and experienced outside, but he’s no survivalist. While he could very well be in Fiji or Peru by now, I’m guessing he’s probably in here . . .” she says, drawing a circle three miles in diameter around Saranac Lake. “If that’s true, he’ll most likely go to one of these seven supermarkets or hardware stores for supplies within a week at most. My plan was to take a bus to the town, put up pictures of myself on all the bulletin boards and telephone poles around there, make an inside joke in Norwegian that only we’d know, proving it was me, and then I’d leave my phone number. At that point I was going to buy a bicycle to get around and otherwise sit back and wait for him to call while also avoiding you.”
Irv sips his apple juice from the purple bendy straw provided. “That’s a good plan.”
“Yeah.”
“It’ll still work.”
“The first half will.”
Irv continues: “It’ll be easier to get around with the Wagoneer to put up all the pictures. Actually, I think we can get some of the young’uns to do it. Frank Allman’s the sheriff out here. He’s a bit soft around the middle but he’s all right, and his people can work wonders with staplers.” Irv finishes his apple juice with a loud slurp. He uses the end of the straw to chase around the last drops that are settled in the irregularities of the glass. “Sounds like we’re going to have a little together time, you and me, as we wait for Marcus to get hungry,” says Irv. “What do you think we should do with all that time?”
“Isn’t it obvious, Sheriff?”
Irv smiles and leans in. “No. Tell me.”
“We are going to find out what actually happened to Professor Lydia Jones.”
King Canute
Irv drives Sigrid back to Melinda’s house, chasing the high beams over black asphalt. They leave the radio off.
Melinda meets them at the door at four thirty a.m. wearing a bathrobe and a vacant stare. Sigrid, unlike her new roommate,
