“Dad, Aunt Rose is here. She wants you to come outside.”
“Tell her to come in.”
“No, she says for you to come outside.”
Cork put the day’s take in a bank envelope and sealed it, then he left the Quonset hut.
It was almost dark. Rose stood in the gravel lot, waiting.
“This is a surprise,” he said.
“I was out for a walk.”
“Long walk.”
“I seem to take a lot of those these days. Mind if we talk down by the lake? It’s so pretty in the evening.”
They strolled to the dock, where the water was smooth and dark. The town of Aurora lay along the shoreline to the south, and far across the lake to the east the lights of isolated cabins glimmered here and there like stars fallen to earth.
“What is it, Rose?”
She crossed her arms and looked at the distant lights. “Do you remember the first time we met, Cork?”
“Sure. Beef stroganoff and cherry pie. Best meal I’d had in years.”
She laughed gently. “You always had a good appetite. I knew right away you were a man who could be trusted. In Jo’s life, that was important and rare.”
“You grilled me pretty good that night.”
“You passed with flying colors.”
A fish jumped. A splash of water, blue-black rings widening. Then the night was quiet again.
“Why Jo?” she asked.
“What?”
“What made you fall in love with Jo?”
“Her eyes for one thing. They were fire and ice at the same time. Her brain. The way she talked so passionately about things. It didn’t hurt that she was beautiful, too.”
Rose breathed a sigh. “Men like a pretty woman, don’t they?”
“Beauty comes in a lot of forms, Rose, and I’ll tell you this. I’ve never met anyone with a more beautiful soul than yours.”
In the dim light, she smiled at him. “Thank you.”
“You clean up pretty nice, too.”
She laughed again.
“Long walk just to ask about Jo and me.”
“That wasn’t the reason I came.”
Maybe not, but it was certainly on your mind, Cork thought.
“Jo told me you’re flying to California tomorrow. She said you think Fletcher might have had something to do with Charlotte’s murder.”
“I’m just following leads, Rose.”
“What if you don’t come up with anything?”
“I’ll keep digging until I do.” Cork leaned against one of the dock posts. “You know, Rose, you’ve always been the soul of discretion, but if you’ve got something to say, I wish you’d just spit it out.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I made a promise. An important one.”
“To whom?”
“I can’t say.”
“Do you know something about Charlotte? About the Kanes? Rose, this is important.”
“I know. But I can’t tell you now. When do you leave?”
“First thing in the morning. Why can’t you tell me now?”
“I told you that I knew you were a man who could be trusted. Well, I need you to trust me now.”
If anyone else had put him in this position, Cork would have throttled them. But Rose asked little, and when she did, it was a request to be heeded.
“All right.” He let out a huge breath that conveyed, he hoped, his frustration. “You want a ride back to the rectory?”
“I’d rather walk. I’ve still got a lot of thinking to do.”
A breeze arose, glided off the water cool and fresh, lifted her hair. Cork saw how beautiful she was then, and how any man might love her.
She said, “I used to believe life was pretty simple. There was my family, my friends, and my church, and there wasn’t much that prayer couldn’t help.”
“And now?”
“Some days,” she said, “I wonder.”
She turned away from the lake.
“I wish you’d take a ride,” Cork said. “Until we know who stalked Annie, it might not be safe to be out alone so late.”
She weighed his concern, and after a moment, she said all right.
“Wait in the Bronco. I’ll get Annie.”
Inside, Annie had finished the cleaning and was ready to go.
“What did Aunt Rose want?” she asked.
Cork gathered everything for the night deposit, shook his head, and said, “I’m not sure she knows.”
Early the next morning, before he left town, Cork drove to Sam Winter Moon’s old cabin. Blue woodsmoke rose up from the stovepipe, and the smell of frying bacon was in the air. Dot’s blue Blazer sat under a birch tree. The cabin door opened as Cork walked toward it, and Solemn’s mother stepped outside. She wore jeans and a blue and white Timberwolves T-shirt and held a spatula in her hand.
“Morning, Dot.”
“Cork.”
“Looking for Solemn.”
“He’s along the creek.” With the spatula, she pointed toward the east.
“Where are the bodyguards?”
“Bodyguards?”
“Junior and Phil Medina.”
“Solemn sent them away.” She swung her free hand at a fly that was darting about her head. “Jo told me you’re going to L.A. today.”
“Yeah.”
“I told Solemn. He didn’t seem to care much. He heard about the miracles. That they were bullshit.”
“How’s he doing?”
She shook her head.
“Think he’d mind if I talked to him?”
“You can try. Hungry? I got pancakes and bacon coming up soon.”
“No, thanks. I’ll just have a word with Solemn then be off.”
He found Winter Moon sitting on a stump a hundred yards down Widow’s Creek. It wasn’t far from the place where, months earlier, Cork had found the dead whitetail. All remains of the deer were probably gone now, eaten by scavengers and insects. Nature cleaning up, Cork knew.
Solemn sat slumped, his arms on his knees, his head down, watching the creek water run past a few yards away. He didn’t seem to hear Cork coming.
“Solemn?”
The young man didn’t turn, didn’t move at all. “They don’t believe,” he said.
“A lot of people never did. Does that make a difference?”
“It’s gone. That feeling I got in the woods. I’ve lost it. Why did it come to me if it was just going to go away?” He shook his head. “You were right all along. It was just a dream. Hallucination, whatever. All those people
