distracted, not his normal glad-handing self. And he asked to use her phone a couple of times. Said he wanted to check on his daughter but his cell phone wasn’t going through. She directed him to the phone in her husband’s study, off-limits to the party.”
“Marion said she dropped Lyla off at home a little after midnight. She didn’t see any indication that Arne was there.”
“Okay.” Jo put her hands together and bowed her head a moment, thinking. “Arne left the Lipinskis’ house shortly before eleven. It’s a good half-hour drive out to Valhalla. Around eleven-thirty, Charlotte told people she was going snowmobiling. But probably she went out to the guesthouse to meet her lover.”
“Arne.”
“Maybe. I’ve been rereading the statements of all the kids at Valhalla that night. Sid Jankowski and Evelyn Foley said that when they went to the guesthouse a little after one ‘to be alone,’ they heard the snowmobile taking off, and Charlotte wasn’t in the guesthouse when they got there.”
“The time frame works, Jo.”
“Everything we have is circumstantial, Cork.”
“Not everything. We have a trump card. The pubic hairs the M.E. combed off her body. Suppose they match Soderberg’s?”
“Unless we can actually put Arne at Valhalla that night, I don’t think we have enough to compel him to submit to a DNA test.” For a minute, Jo stared out the window. Then her blue eyes widened and she said, “Oh, my god.”
“What?”
“Tiffany Soderberg.”
Jo grabbed a stack of manila folders from a corner of her desk. It looked like the same stack she’d taken to bed with her the night before. She thumbed through quickly, found the folder she was looking for, and opened it. She flipped a couple of pages and scanned the text.
“Here it is. In her statement, Tiffany says she got to the party early, around nine, and that she got a ride to and from Valhalla with Lucy Birmingham. She didn’t drive herself.”
“So?”
Jo held up her hand, indicating Cork needed to be patient. She located another folder and flipped through the pages, found what she wanted. Her finger followed the text as she spoke. “In his statement, a young man named Peter Christiansen says he didn’t arrive at Valhalla until eleven. He wasn’t going to stay at the party long. About twelve-fifteen, he tried to leave, but couldn’t because his car was blocked by Tiffany Soderberg’s car. He went back to the party looking for Tiffany, couldn’t find her, drank another beer, and when he went outside again, her car was gone, and he left.” She looked up at Cork. “If Tiffany didn’t drive there, why did he think it was her car blocking him in?”
Cork thought a moment. “Because it was clearly a Soderberg vehicle.”
“And what Soderberg vehicle really stands out?”
“Lyla’s gold PT Cruiser.”
“Let’s find Peter and make sure that was the car.”
“Then what?”
“Then we visit Arne and if necessary, play our trump card.”
They located Peter Christiansen at the Iron Lake marina, where he had a summer job. After he confirmed the information they needed, they headed to the sheriff’s department and caught Soderberg just as he was leaving his office. He seemed in a particular hurry.
“Clocking out already?” Cork cast an obvious look at his watch.
“My daughter’s graduating tonight, O’Connor.”
“A big celebration?” Jo asked.
“Lyla’s got a special dinner planned. So whatever it is you want, it’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
“I don’t think this one can wait, Arne,” Cork said.
Jo touched her husband’s arm. “Of course it can. Congratulate Tiffany for us, and tell her we wish her good luck. We’ll come back in the morning and talk.”
After Soderberg had gone, Cork turned to Jo. “What was that about?”
“If he is the one,” Jo said, “this may be the last good time he and his family have together for a long while. We can wait until tomorrow, can’t we?”
They left the sheriff’s department. In the park across the street, the crowd had thinned considerably in the summer heat. A few blankets were still on the ground in the shade of the trees. Music played on a boom box, but softly. A red helium balloon had escaped, and its string was snagged in the branches of a maple. Cork watched the balloon pull gently at the end of its tether. The late afternoon was still, like a held breath. All of them, those who waited in the park hoping for a miracle that would free them from their own tethers, whatever they were, looked toward the jail that held Solemn Winter Moon.
“Come on,” Jo said. “Let’s go home.”
26
Arne Soderberg held a coffee mug in his hand and a look of contentment on his face. A slice of morning sunlight, lemon yellow, lay across his desk. The cool scent of pine drifted in through the open window. It was the day after his only child had walked across the high school stage and received her diploma, and Soderberg wore his satisfaction like a new suit.
Cork almost felt sorry for what Jo was about to spring.
“So, what’s up?” the sheriff asked.
At Jo’s request, Gooding was in the room. He leaned against a file cabinet with his arms crossed. Jo and Cork sat in chairs, the high polish of the sheriff’s desk between them and Soderberg.
“I’m trying to get a handle on the situation between parents and the kids who were at Valhalla the night of the New Year’s Eve party,” Jo said.
Soderberg looked confused. “To what end?”
“Everything we know about that night helps us put it in better perspective. I’m wondering about Tiffany.”
“What about her?”
“Did you know she was at Valhalla?”
“No.”
“You didn’t call her there to check on her?”
“Why would I, if I didn’t know she was at Valhalla? She was supposed to be at Lucy Birmingham’s house.”
“You were at the Lipinskis’ New Year’s Eve party, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t try to call Tiffany from there? I mean try to call her at the Birminghams’?”
“No.”
“Edith Lipinski says you asked to use her phone. You told her you wanted to check on your daughter and your cell phone wasn’t connecting.”
“Then maybe I did. I’d been drinking a little that night. I don’t really recall everything.”
“I understand how it is at a party like that. Did you call the Birminghams’ house directly?”
“I don’t remember.”
“If you’d called the Birminghams’ house directly, you would have discovered that Tiffany wasn’t there. Isn’t that right?”
“I suppose.”
“So maybe it wasn’t Tiffany you called?”
The sheriff didn’t answer.
“I thought perhaps it was really Lyla you tried to call?”
