“Where’d you go?”
“Home.”
“Straight home?”
“Straight home.”
“You got there what time?”
“Twelve-fifteen maybe.”
“And then what?”
“Nothing. I crashed. Woke up around noon the next day.”
“Was Dot home with you?”
“No. It was New Year’s Eve. She was out partying with some guys on her crew. Then it snowed and she had a plow to drive. She poked her head in my room when she got home. Six, maybe seven A.M. ”
Jo glanced at Cork.
“What?” Solemn asked.
“Six hours when you were alone,” Cork said. “And nobody to vouch for your actions during that time.”
Solemn took a moment to put it together, then said, “Oh, shit.”
“Motive and opportunity,” Cork said. “But Arne’s got to have something more, something that connects you directly with Charlotte’s death.”
Jo said, “Let’s go find out what.”
10
Randy Gooding was working late. He seated Jo, Cork, and Solemn at one of the desks in the common area that the deputies used for interviews and for doing paperwork, then asked them to wait while he called the sheriff.
It was going on nine o’clock, and there wasn’t much action in the department. Marsha Dross was on the front desk. She’d smiled cordially and said hello, but she studiously avoided looking at them after that. Pender came in from patrol, saw them, smiled in a knowing way and whispered something to Gooding. Gooding scowled in return. Pender sauntered on by, whistling off-key, and headed toward the locker room.
Despite what Lyla Soderberg had said about her husband being done for the day, Arne showed up fifteen minutes later dressed in a charcoal three-piece, looking like a real estate broker prepared to close a million-dollar deal.
“Let’s do this in my office,” he said. Then to Gooding, “Go get the stuff.”
Gooding left and walked toward the back of the department, toward what Cork knew was the evidence room.
Cork got up and started into the sheriff’s office with Jo and Solemn. Soderberg put a hand on his chest and stopped him. “Not you. The kid’s got counsel. You have no business in there. You wait out here.”
Jo nodded to Cork, and gave him a don’t start anything look. She went into Soderberg’s office with Solemn, and the sheriff followed. Cork watched the door close. He caught Marsha Dross eyeing him. She turned quickly away.
“What’s up, Marsha?” He’d hired the deputy, the first woman to work as a law officer in Tamarack County. He crossed the room and stood near her.
“Not much, Cork. Quiet night, all things considered.” She tapped the front of a manila folder with the sharp tip of her pencil, making a constellation of dots.
“I mean in there.” He nodded toward the sheriff’s closed door.
“That’s department business, Cork. You know I can’t talk about it. Why don’t you get yourself a cup of coffee and relax.”
Cork wandered to the coffeemaker, a big Hamilton Beach. There was barely a cup left in the pot. He poured himself the last of it, strong-smelling stuff that had probably been on the burner for hours. Because he knew where all the supplies were, he set about making a fresh pot.
He was spooning Folgers into the filter when Randy Gooding returned carrying a brown cardboard box marked CHARLOTTE KANE #2731. Gooding glanced his way, then went into Soderberg’s office and closed the door behind him. Cork turned on the coffeemaker, picked up his disposable cup, and sipped from the bitter swill he’d poured earlier.
A few minutes later, a loud thump came from the wall of the sheriff’s office, knocking a framed photograph of Iron Lake off the wall. When the frame hit, glass shattered across the floor. The door to Soderberg’s office flew open, and Solemn burst out, his eyes gone wild. He slammed into the side of the nearest desk and sent papers flying. He turned in a frantic circle, looking like a scared young buffalo surrounded by hunters. Then he shot toward the security door.
“Stop him,” Soderberg shouted.
By then it was too late. Solemn was already beyond the waiting room and headed toward the sanctuary of the night outside.
Marsha Dross gave pursuit immediately. Randy Gooding stumbled out of Soderberg’s office, a trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth. He followed Dross. Duane Pender rushed from the rear of the department, clearing his weapon from its holster as he ran.
Jo was out now, too, and when she saw the gun in Pender’s hand, she yelled, “Jesus, don’t shoot him.”
It was impossible to tell if Pender heard. He was out the door and hot on Winter Moon’s trail.
Cork doubted they would catch him. Solemn had a decent head start and was in good shape. He was also a man who knew the dark, and Cork counted on the dark to welcome him and keep him safe.
The office was suddenly very quiet. Cork walked to Jo, who stood looking a little dazed.
“So,” he said. “How’d it go?”
They sat together in Soderberg’s office, waiting to see if the sheriff’s people would be able to take Solemn into custody immediately. Arne Soderberg was hovering over Dispatch, personally coordinating the movements of his deputies as they searched. Cork and Jo had the office to themselves.
On the wall behind the sheriff’s desk hung an enlarged, framed photograph of Arne Soderberg with his father, Big Mike. As his moniker implied, the elder Soderberg was a continent of muscle and bone with a huge, self- satisfied smile. Big Mike was a legend on the Iron Range, having taken over his own father’s small trucking operation and turned it into the biggest transport company north of the Twin Cities. Big Mike wanted a son who would storm the north country in the way he had, but his wife delivered to him a boy who, everyone agreed, never quite made the grade. Although Arne talked like a winner, his performance never equaled his promise. He had played second string quarterback for Hibbing High School, graduated in the middle of his class from Concordia College in Moorhead, dropped out of the MBA program at St. Thomas University in St. Paul, and had gone instead to a second-rate law school. It had taken him three attempts to pass the bar. Big Mike’s connections got him a job with a prestigious Twin Cities law firm, but Arne was never partner material. After five unremarkable years, he left the firm and returned to Tamarack County to work in his father’s company.
There was one small family photo on his desk, a posed thing with a background that suggested spring. Arne with a grin like he had a couple of fishhooks stretching the corners of his lips, Lyla looking ingenue perfect, and Tiffany vaguely bored.
Cork sat in a chair positioned where he could look out the window at the bell tower of Zion Lutheran a block away. During his own tenure as sheriff, he’d often sat that way, staring out the window as he wrestled with a problem. The view was one thing that never changed, and it made him feel comfortable. The tower was a spectral presence against the empty night.
“It was my fault,” Jo said. “Arne was waiting to ambush Solemn and I walked the kid right into it.”
“What’s Arne got?”
“First of all, the autopsy. X rays showed an elongated skull fracture, more consistent with a blow from something like a club or a bar than from hitting her head on a rock in the accident. Also, there were signs of sexual activity, from the bruises it looks like some pretty rough play, so rape isn’t out of the question. After that, Randy Gooding began taking a good look at the evidence he gathered at Widow’s Creek. Some food wrappers-”
