“You didn’t do much talking back there,” Cork noted as he drove the road toward Aurora.
Jo stared out the window, lost in the familiar landscape of red pines and underbrush. “There wasn’t much to say. Because the Ojibwe are my clients, I thought restraint was best at this point.”
“You don’t think your clients did it?”
“Of course not. Do you?”
“No.”
Jo gave a disgusted little grunt and said, “Helm Hanover.”
“What about him?”
“Did you see the look on his face when he saw the body? Like a vulture.”
“Yeah, well, you know how I feel about old Hell.”
Although they’d never been friends, never come near to anything like friendship, Cork had known Helmuth Hanover his whole life. Hanover’s father had been publisher and editor of the Aurora Sentinel, and Helm took over after his father’s death. The elder Hanover had been a cantankerous freethinker, a man of independent politics and social philosophy. He’d hated FDR, had revered Truman, made sport of Eisenhower, and was fond of saying-though never in print-that JFK stood for Just a Fucking Kid. Locally, his political endorsements meant little. He often threw his support to a candidate for reasons wholly unrelated to issues, such as a man’s ability as a deer hunter, and he withheld his approval for reasons equally ridiculous-a candidate’s noisy dog. Helm, his only child, had been a quiet, bright, thoughtful kid. In ‘68, he’d been drafted and sent to Vietnam. Like many veterans, he returned altered, darkly and forever. Physically, he came back with a right leg that was mostly a plastic prosthesis. Emotionally, he carried a bitterness that showed on his face and, ultimately, in his editorials. He deeply distrusted government in any form and harbored a particular animosity toward the federal government for the sacrifice of his own flesh and bone in a war he believed was utterly useless and the fault entirely of cowardly, stupid, and self-serving politicians. On the Iron Range, he wasn’t alone in his assessment of that conflict or of politicians in general. A wise publisher, he used the Sentinel well in reporting on the people and activities of Tamarack County, never misspelling a name and making every attempt to include even the smallest of events, from church socials to league softball games. The editorial page, however, he used like a howitzer. Hanover had blasted Cork many times during his tenure as sheriff, and Cork had long ago joined the legion of those who referred to the bitter newspaperman as Hell.
Nearly a year and a half earlier, Cork had uncovered a direct connection between Hanover and a militia group called the Minnesota Civilian Brigade. Although Cork was absolutely certain the group had been involved in the illegal procurement of arms, none of the brigade was ever charged. Partly this was because evidence had been lacking. The weapons were never found. But it was also partly because the political sentiment on the Iron Range was not entirely unsympathetic to the antigovernment ideology of the brigade. Nothing had been heard from the group for a long time. The official position of those law enforcement agencies concerned-mostly Tamarack County authorities at this point-was that such close legal scrutiny had forced the brigade to disband. Cork believed differently. He’d read about strains of plague that became active when archeologists dug too unwarily. That’s how he thought of the brigade. It was simply underground, waiting to surface, as deadly in its purpose as ever.
Cork’s stomach growled. “I don’t suppose you’re hungry?”
“Hungry?” She looked at him, appalled. “After what we just saw? How could anyone be hungry after that?”
“I don’t know. I just know I am.” He felt her edge away, as if repulsed. “Look, Jo, when I was a rookie cop in Chicago, my first partner-Duke Ranham, you remember him? — Duke told me that after I’d seen death, I’d have one of two reactions. I’d be hungry or I’d be horny. His theory was that it was a subconscious assertion of life. All I know is that he was right, and at the moment I’m hungry.”
“Well, thank God it’s that and not the other.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’ve never seen someone who’s been burned to death.”
Cork lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the bright low sun. “We don’t know for sure that was the cause of death. That’ll take an autopsy to determine.”
“I wonder who it is.”
“Who it was. According to Lindstrom and the night watchman, Harold Loomis, nobody should have been there. If I were Wally Schanno, I’d figure whoever it was, they were the victim of their own bombing, if it was a bombing.”
“If you were Schanno.” She looked at him, then quickly away. “I’ve heard a rumor. People are saying Wally Schanno won’t stand for reelection in the fall.”
“I’ve heard that, too.”
“Are you thinking of running?”
“I haven’t given it a lot of thought, Jo.”
They were approaching the town limits. Cars, lots of them, moved past on the other side, headed toward the mill. Some belonged to the men on the first shift. Others were driven by the curious.
“But you have thought about it?”
“Some.”
“Are you happy? Running Sam’s Place, I mean.”
They entered town on Center Street. Aurora was coming to life. People moved purposefully along the sidewalks and cars filled the streets. “The truth is, this morning I’m very glad I’m not in Wally Schanno’s shoes.”
They pulled into the drive of the house on Gooseberry Lane. Jo sat for a moment, then asked, “Would you tell me if you were thinking seriously of running?”
“We’d talk about it,” he promised.
“That’s all I ask.”
History.
In a place like Aurora, where a man could spend his whole life, cradle to grave, his history was all around him, slapping against him like old newspapers in a wind.
Cork had a strong sense of that as he stepped into Johnny’s Pinewood Broiler to get himself some breakfast. Breathing in the hot griddle scent was like breathing in the air of another time in his life.
“Well, I’ll be.” Johnny Pap smiled as Cork took a stool at the counter.
Johnny Pap was first-generation Greek and had run the Broiler since Cork was old enough to pay for milkshakes with the money he’d earned delivering newspapers. For most of Cork’s life, a stop at the Broiler was part of his daily routine. A year and a half before, his routine had dramatically changed.
“Christ,” Johnny said, leaning against the counter. “I haven’t seen you in here since-well, must be since Molly died.” As soon as the words escaped his lips, Johnny’s face showed that he regretted them.
“Not since Molly died,” Cork confirmed.
The moment seemed awkward for Johnny, considering the current state of Cork’s marriage. But Johnny handled it well. He simply nodded toward the distant sky outside the Broiler and said, “Hell of a bang this morning. Heard those tree huggers really did a number at Lindstrom’s. You know anything?”
“I was just out there.”
“Yeah? Was it bad?”
Talk in the Broiler quieted as other customers turned to listen to what Cork had to say.
“To the mill, no significant damage. But someone died.”
“No.” Johnny pushed back in surprise. “Who?”
“They haven’t ID’ed the body yet.”
“One of us, you think?”
“Us?”
“Locals.”
“As opposed to those outside agitators, you mean.”
“Bingo.”
“Like I said, Johnny, nobody knows. Say, what does a guy have to do to get some coffee and a short stack around here?”
Johnny shook his head slowly in puzzlement and dismay at this deadly turn the world around him was taking and he headed toward the kitchen.
