“Will do, Wally. See you this evening, Cork. Say hello to Jo.”
Karl Lindstrom and Lucky Knudsen left Schanno’s office, but Agent David Earl lingered a moment on his perch on the windowsill. He was looking at Cork, not happily.
“Something on your mind?” Cork asked.
“O’Connor, I know about Burke’s Landing.”
“That was a while ago,” Schanno said from across the room.
“I’ve already expressed my concern to everyone else. I just want to be straight with you,” Earl went on. “There’s every intention of arming you this evening. I’m more than a little concerned about a man like you carrying a loaded weapon in a situation like this. But it’s not my call.”
He waited, as if expecting Cork to argue the point. Cork didn’t.
“Well. Until this evening, then.” Earl looked for a place to drop the last of his cigarette. Schanno offered him nothing, and Earl left, still holding the smoking butt.
“He doesn’t know you, Cork,” Wally Schanno said.
“He’s probably not alone in his thinking, Wally. People haven’t forgotten Burke’s Landing. I’m sure the truth is that there are probably a lot of them who’d rather not see me ever strap on a gun belt or wear a badge.”
“Doesn’t matter who’s in this job-some people are going to feel that way.”
Cork walked to a window and stood gazing at the town. In the morning light, it had a quiet, peaceful look to it. Across the street, the bell tower of Zion Lutheran Church rose with simple grace. Beyond that were the stores on Center Street. And not far beyond that, the lake, cut by white sails and the white wake of motorboats. When he’d occupied that office, the view had been a reassuring one. He’d felt as if being sheriff were part of a larger concept, sometimes as difficult to understand and to justify as the mysterious ways of God and Kitchimanidoo, but the purpose of which was clear to him-to help people live their lives with peace of mind. It hadn’t been an idea with a lot of grandeur to it, no more far-reaching than the boundaries of Tamarack County, yet it had been a part of who he was-until a few confused moments on a cold morning at a place called Burke’s Landing had left two men dead and brought to an end much of the way Cork thought about everything.
Even in his bitterness afterward, he’d never blamed Schanno for taking the badge. It was just the circumstances; it was just the time. And since his fall from grace, Cork had managed to put his life back together again. Did he really want to be back in that office with that view? Hadn’t Burke’s Landing or the years since taught him anything?
“Lindstrom trusts you,” Schanno said at his back. “And for the record, so do I.”
22
“WE’RE CLOSING EARLY TODAY,” Cork said.
“When?” Annie asked.
“Now.”
“Now?” Even Jenny, who usually was delighted to shave off a bit of her time at Sam’s Place, seemed perplexed.
“But it’s only five-thirty,” Annie said. “And look. There are boats headed this way.”
“Shut the serving window and put out the Closed sign,” Cork told her.
“It’s Saturday,” she argued on. “People expect us to be open.”
“If it will make you feel better, write a note and tape it to the window. ‘Family emergency.’ “
Jenny suggested, “How about ‘Closed by order of the health inspector’?”
“Let’s not go overboard.” Cork began cleaning the grill.
Jenny got paper for the note, but Annie stood her ground. “What will people think?”
“Let it go, Annie,” Jenny said. “It’s not like it’s a sin.”
“Why are we closing?” Annie demanded.
“Family dinner,” Cork explained. “It’s been too long since we all sat down together.”
“Does Aunt Rose know?”
“Yes. But it’s your mother who’s fixing dinner.”
Cork caught the concerned glances the two girls exchanged. Jo was the worst cook on the whole Iron Range. Jenny pulled in the Closed sign. “We’ll stay.”
“You’ll go home with me,” Cork said.
Like a couple of condemned prisoners, his daughters set about the work of closing up.
Cork drove home slowly, taking in the beauty of a town he knew as well as he knew his own face. On Center Street, he passed businesses that had been there forever-Lenore’s Toy and Hobby Shop, Tucker Insurance, Mayfair’s Clothing, Nelson’s Hardware Hank. He knew all the men and women behind the glass of the storefronts. Almost every corner brought together some convergence in his life. The smell from Johnny’s Pinewood Broiler-the Saturday-night barbecued rib special-had been the same smell every Saturday night as far back as he could remember, and it never failed to carry him instantly across almost forty years to the days when his father was still alive, still sheriff, and Johnny’s on Saturday night was practically a family ritual. Cork knew that if you lived in a place long enough, you understood it as a living thing. You knew it had consciousness and conscience. You could hear it breathing. You felt its love and its anger and its despair, and you cared.
“You’re driving like an old lady, Dad,” Jenny said.
“I love this town.”
Jenny shook her head. “Me, I can’t wait to leave.”
“When you’re gone, you’ll miss it.”
“Yeah, like I’d miss the clap.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Just an expression, Dad.”
With Rose looking over her shoulder, Jo had surprised even Cork and done a fine job of preparing the food. Although the fare was simple-meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole, and Jell-O with bananas-it had been so long since they’d sat down together as a family, the meal felt like an occasion. Cork couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Jo laugh so much. Midway through the eating, Rose lifted her water glass and said, “A toast to the best family an old spinster could ask for.”
“What’th a thpinthter?” Stevie asked.
Annie fielded that one. “A woman who’s too smart to marry.”
Rose laughed. “For that, you’re relieved of dish duty.”
After dinner, Cork said, “Dishes are mine.” No one argued.
Jo helped him. Then they sat on the porch swing together, watching Stevie play catch with Annie in the front yard. The ball, as it lofted, caught sunlight for a moment and glowed as it passed from the hand of one child to the other. In a very short time, children from other houses on the block had joined them, and Annie began to organize a game. Cork waved to his neighbors across the street, John and Sue O’Laughlin, who’d stepped onto their own porch to enjoy the evening.
“This has been the best day I can remember in a long, long time.” Cork laced his fingers with Jo’s.
“I wish…” Jo began. She stopped herself.
“What?”
“I wish you weren’t going to the Quetico tonight.”
“I’ll be fine. It’s Karl Lindstrom who’s taking the chance. It’s probably a good thing you’ll be out at Grace Cove tonight.”
Grace Fitzgerald was to have met with Jo at her office that morning, but Jo had lingered at Sam’s Place with Cork and had called to reschedule. Grace was due to go out of town on Monday, so Jo offered to drop by that evening.
“Still no idea what she wants to talk to you about?”
“None.”
“And even if you did, you couldn’t tell me.” He glanced at his watch. “Time I was going.”
Jo wrapped him in her arms and kissed him. There seemed something a little desperate in her grasp, in the
