full of water so cold it felt like a big hand had grabbed me and was squeezing the life right out of me. It was dark in the water under the ice. I couldn’t see anything. The last thing I remember is this beautiful light, this beautiful peaceful light surrounding me, and I remember not being afraid.
“The next thing I know I’m in a hospital room. I open my eyes and the nurse there is crying, making the sign of the cross, saying it’s a miracle. I’d stopped breathing for almost half an hour before they pulled me from that river and revived me. As nearly as I’ve been able to tell, there’s been no residual harmful effect. I forget things now and then, but who doesn’t?”
“You told me you grew up in a children’s home. Your parents?” Cork asked.
“Killed in the accident.”
“And you believe it was a miracle that you survived?”
Gooding thought a moment. “I know these things happen, that doctors say there’s a medical explanation, the cold water shuts down the body, reduces the need for oxygen, all that. But believe me, when it happens to you, it’s nothing short of a miracle.” Gooding glanced behind him again. “Like I say, I’d just as soon you kept this to yourself. Especially now, with all that’s happening here in Aurora.”
“Sure, Randy. I understand. No problem.”
Gooding stood to leave.
Cork said, “You and Annie friends again?”
Gooding smiled. “We had a long talk one night after youth group. I apologized, told her pretty much what I told you about Nina van Zoot. I think she appreciated that I trusted her. She’s a special young woman, Cork.” Gooding stood up. “Thanks for the breakfast. I owe you one.”
After he’d finished his own breakfast, Cork headed to the sheriff’s office. He wanted to have a talk with Solemn. When he walked into the department, he found Marsha Dross on front desk duty talking with a blonde in tight jeans, stiletto heels, and a red Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirt.
Deputy Dross said, “I can’t authorize that. You’ll have to talk to the sheriff.”
“And he’s not here,” the woman said impatiently.
“That’s right.”
“What about his lawyer? If I get permission from him, can I talk to Winter Moon?”
“That would be a beginning,” Dross said.
“Who’s his attorney?”
“Jo O’Connor.”
“Got an address for this Joe guy?”
“In the phone book.”
“Thanks. You’ve been a big help,” the woman said with sarcasm. She turned abruptly, glared Cork aside, and shoved out the door.
“Who was Ms. Charm there?” Cork asked.
“Journalist. Tabloid journalist.”
“Oxymoron, isn’t that?” Cork said. “She wanted to talk to Solemn?”
“Yes. And she’s not the first.”
“May I talk to him? On behalf of his attorney, that Joe guy?”
The deputy laughed and buzzed him through.
It was Cy Borkmann in charge of the jail that day.
“Has he been any trouble?” Cork asked.
“Winter Moon? Are you kidding? All he does is sit. Talks to you when you talk to him. Stands when you tell him to stand. Otherwise, it’s like he’s zoned out or something.” He let Cork into the interview room, then went to get the prisoner.
When Solemn came, he stood just inside the door. He looked a little spacey as he smiled at Cork. The deputy locked the door and left them alone.
“How’re you doing, Solemn?”
“Fine,” Solemn said. “I’m just fine. But I’ve been wondering about you.”
“Me?” Cork stood in the middle of the room, feeling oddly awkward in the young man’s presence. “Never been better.”
Solemn studied him awhile, that enigmatic smile never leaving his face. It was Cork who broke the silence.
“You heard about the roses?”
“Father Mal was here a little while ago. He told me.”
“What do you think?”
“If you think about something like this, you’ve missed the point. You were at the cemetery?”
“Yes.”
“Before you began to think, what did you feel?”
“That someone had gone to a lot of trouble for no reason that I could see.”
“You felt that? Really?”
It wasn’t true. What he’d felt when he first stood in the quiet of that cemetery, in the overpowering scent of roses, was something very much like awe. Then his thinking had kicked in, his twenty-first century mind, locked behind bars of skepticism.
“Did you and the good father come to any conclusions?” Cork said.
“He has his doubts. Mostly, though, he asked about my prayers. The priestly thing, I guess. He asked me if I talked to God.”
“Do you?”
“All the time now. But it’s not like praying, like I grew up thinking of prayer. I just clear my mind and I find that God is there.”
“Kitchimanidoo?”
“The Great Spirit, if that’s the name you want to use, sure. Words don’t mean a lot. They get in the way.” Solemn closed his eyes and was quiet for so long that Cork thought he’d gone to sleep standing up. “I grew up thinking Henry was some kind of witch. Everything I knew about religion was what I was told in church, and I didn’t listen much. I wasn’t ready for any of this, Cork. Now, when I clear my mind, the one question that’s always there is, why me? And the answer that keeps coming back is, why not?”
He smiled gently. “Maybe that’s what this is really all about. Jesus didn’t come to me because I was prepared for Him. He came to me because He can come to anybody. I’d like people to know that. That’s what I told Father Mal.”
Solemn looked peaceful and convinced, and Cork found himself thinking about the kids he used to see at O’Hare in Chicago, the Hare Krishnas, beating their drums and chanting, so sure that they’d connected with the divine. How many of them now wore business suits, and took medication for high blood pressure, and didn’t want to talk about their Krishna days? Fervor was something the young possessed, and then it trickled away. He thought about Joan of Arc. If somehow she had managed to escape the burning and live to see wrinkles and the other slow wounds of time on her skin, would she have ceased to hear God speak, laid down her sword, become some man’s vessel carrying some man’s child? He wondered how long it would take Solemn’s certitude, his moment of grace, to pass and leave him as empty and lost as everyone else. Some part of Cork hoped that wouldn’t happen, but mostly he was sure it would.
“Look, Solemn, the reason I came today. I’m still trying to figure who it was Charlotte was seeing before her death. I’d like to talk to her friends, get an idea if they had any inklings. Do you know who her friends were?”
“Real friends, I don’t think she had.”
“Who did she hang with?”
“Three people usually. Bonny Donzella, Wendy McCormick, and Tiffany Soderberg. She was tightest with Tiffany.”
“You’re still certain you don’t know who the married man might have been?”
“No clue.”
“Did she ever talk about her father?”
“Not much.”
“When she did, how did she sound?”
