“The longer you stand here arguing, Wally, the worse that road gets.”
“He’s right, Sheriff,” Gooding said.
Schanno gave in and nodded unhappily.
Cork stood up. He began to gather his dirty dishes to take them to the sink.
“I’ll take care of those,” Rose said. She hugged him. “Give my love to Jo and the kids.”
“I’ll do that. And I’ll see you tomorrow. You, too, Mal.” He put on his parka and his deerskin mittens. “I’m ready.”
Schanno dug keys out of his pocket and handed them to his deputy. “You take the Land Cruiser. I’m riding with O’Connor.”
Gooding shrugged. “Whatever you say.” He opened the door and pushed his way into the storm.
Cork stood in the open doorway a moment, looking back at Rose and Father Mal. They were only two people, but he had a sense of something huge about them and between them, a vast reservoir of strength that neither the blizzard nor the long vigil they were about to keep could empty.
“Shut the damn door,” Father Mal said.
The Bronco was buried in a drift that reached to the grill.
“You get in and get ’er started,” Schanno shouted over the wind. “I’ll clear the snow.”
Cork grabbed the brush from beneath the front seat and tossed it to Schanno, then got in and turned the key. The starter ground sluggishly.
“Come on,” Cork whispered.
The engine caught and roared to life. Cork kicked the defrost up to full blast. Schanno cleared the snow from the windows and the tailpipe and climbed into the Bronco.
“Damn,” the sheriff said, hunching himself against the cold.
Cork couldn’t agree more.
In a couple of minutes, Gooding eased the Land Cruiser forward, and Cork followed slowly.
Dark had come early, descending with the storm. Cork could barely see the taillights ahead of him. The glare of his own headlights splashed back off a wall of blowing snow that appeared solid as whitewashed concrete.
He knew Schanno was right to have been concerned about the road, knew that in a blizzard, snow became fluid in the way it moved. It ran like water around tree trunks, eddied against buildings, filled in depressions. It had already flowed into the trench that Freddie Baker had plowed not more than half an hour before, and as he followed in Baker’s wake, Cork felt a little like Pharaoh of the Exodus with the Red Sea closing in.
“What is it, Wally?”
“What’s what?”
“You rode with me, not with Gooding. I’m guessing you wanted to talk.”
Schanno took his time answering. “I’m tired, Cork. Worn to the nub. I figured you’d understand, that’s all.” He let out a deep breath. “Hell of a way to start a year.”
It was the second day of January.
The interior of the Bronco was lit from the reflection of the headlights off the snow. Schanno leaned forward, peering hard ahead. His face was gray and deeply hollowed. Skeletal.
“Hell of a way to end a career,” he said.
He was talking about the fact that in a few days a man named Arne Soderberg would be sworn in as Tamarack County sheriff, assuming the responsibilities for that office for the next four years.
“You’ve done a good job, Wally.”
“I did my share of stumbling. We both know that.” Schanno pulled off his gloves and put his big hands on the dash, as if preparing himself for an impact. “Soderberg. He’s no cop. Should be you taking the badge.”
“I didn’t want the badge,” Cork reminded him. “Even if I’d run, there’s no guarantee I’d have won.”
“You’d have won,” Schanno said. “You betcha, you’d have won.”
“You’re not sorry to be leaving, are you, Wally?”
“Today, not at all.” Schanno took his right hand off the dash and rubbed his forehead for a moment. The winter air had dried and cracked the skin of his fingers. “I told Garritsen when he comes tomorrow he should bring along his cadaver dog.”
They hit an open area, and the wind slammed against the side of the Bronco with the force of a charging moose. Cork yanked the steering wheel to keep from plowing into a snowbank.
He didn’t want to talk about cadaver dogs.
“You and Arletta got plans?” he asked.
“Going to spend the rest of the winter in Bethesda, enjoying our grandkids.”
“Looking forward to retirement?”
Schanno thought about it for a minute. “I’m looking forward to not being the guy who calls in the cadaver dog.”
3
After he dropped Schanno off at the sheriff’s office, Cork headed for home. The people of Aurora had seen this kind of storm many times before, seen worse. They’d sealed themselves behind heavily insulated walls and double-paned windows and settled down to wait. Cork’s Bronco was the only thing that moved against the wind, and it moved slowly.
An enormous snowdrift blocked the door to Cork’s garage. He left the Bronco parked in the drive and waded to the side door of the house. As he stepped into the kitchen, he could feel how knotted his whole body had become from fighting the blizzard. He breathed out deeply, trying to relax.
“Dad!”
The soft gallop of little feet across the living room floor. A moment later, his seven-year-old son burst into the kitchen. Stevie raced toward his father and threw his small arms around Cork’s waist. The force of Stevie’s greeting nearly knocked Cork off balance.
“You’re cold,” Stevie said. He smiled up at his father.
Cork laughed. “And you’re not.” There were crumbs at the corner of his son’s mouth, and the scent of food ghosted off his breath. “You smell good enough to eat.”
“Mom fixed soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.”
“You mean she burned soup and cheese sandwiches,” Jenny said, as she came into the kitchen. At seventeen, Cork’s daughter was slender and bookish, trying fiercely to be independent. She’d recently emerged from a Goth phase during which she’d dyed her hair the color of night and her entire wardrobe was black. She’d returned to wearing clothes with color, and her hair was very near its natural shade of blonde.
Cork’s wife was right behind her. “I admit everything was a little overdone,” Jo said.
“Overdone? Mom, you cremated dinner,” Jenny said, but with a smile.
Cork eased from his son’s grasp, hung up his parka, and laid his mittens on the counter. Then he gave Jo a long hug.
“Hungry?” she asked.
“For burned food?” He laughed softly. “That’s okay. Rose fed me.”
“Where is Aunt Rose?” Stevie looked with concern toward the window beyond which raged the storm. “Didn’t she come home with you?”
“She stayed out at Valhalla to help Dr. Kane and his sister. Father Mal stayed, too. They’re fine, Stevie.”
“You didn’t find Charlotte?” Jo said.
He shook his head.
“Know what we’re going to do tonight?” Stevie danced with excitement. “Fix popcorn and watch The Lion King.” It was his favorite video.
“Sounds great, buddy.”
Jo put her hand on his cold cheek. Her hair was like winter sun, a shining white-blonde. Her eyes were pale blue. When she was angry, they could become cold and hard and pierce Cork like shards of ice, but right now they were warm and liquid with concern. “Why don’t you go up and take a good, hot shower?”
