Dark Coulee (21 page)

After a few more kisses, they settled down on the couch next to each other with pie and toddies and a fire going in the woodstove.

“How’s your therapy going?” He figured it was time to ask.

“I’m making progress, and now I even know what that means.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Not that I don’t have a lot more work to do, but I think I’ve got some things in place to help me. I haven’t had a bad dream for over a week, and the last one I had didn’t scare me that much. It’s almost as if my body, my adrenaline system, is calming down.”

“So have you figured out why this has been happening to you?”

“It’s pretty clear that it’s a direct result of Bruce Jacobs’s death.”

“It must have been hard to see your partner shot. Especially since you were so close to him.”

“I have to tell you something, Rich.” She reached toward him and took both of his hands in hers, as if she needed his strength and support to go on with what she had started. “When I called and invited you over, I didn’t tell you that I had something to tell you, because that’s what I said last time and I was afraid it would scare you off.”

“Now you’ve got me good and scared.”

She bent her head forward in front of him, and her hair fell down each side of her face so he couldn’t see her.

“You know the night it happened, when Bruce was killed?” She lifted her head up and flung her hair back over her shoulders. She looked him straight in the eyes.

He nodded.

“Well, I suspected that he was behind my husband’s death.”

He stayed silent. Let her keep going.

“That night I found out for sure that he was. And that he was also responsible for Bridget being shot and the attempted kidnapping of Meg.”

Rich couldn’t keep quiet. “That bastard.”

“Yes. So what I told you about what happened that night wasn’t true. Bruce did kill Red. But Red didn’t kill Bruce. I did. I shot him. He was turning toward me with the gun in his hands that had just killed Red. I had my gun in my hands. So I pulled the trigger and killed him.”

Rich was stunned. Feelings shifted in his mind like boulders being tumbled down a mountain. Claire had killed Bruce, her partner. She might have loved him at one time, but she killed him.

She squeezed his hands. “What do you think?”

Rich didn’t think he could say anything that would make sense. What a horrible burden she had been carrying around with her for the last half a year. No wonder she was having nightmares.

He gathered her up in his arms and held her tight.

When I drove here, up along the river, I felt like I could now see the bones of the land. I love this time of year when the leaves come off the trees, the underbrush sinks down, the colors mute. Dark brown trees against the graying grass. All that is gaudy and bold is stripped away. We are back to the bones.

Why are you thinking of that?

I feel like my life is like that now. I’ve stripped away so much. My fears, my guilt, my high emotions. I take great joy now in getting up in the morning and watching for the turkey out the kitchen window while I make coffee. I have these perfect moments of contentment. I hold my breath to keep them.

How is your quilting going?

That’s part of it. The handwork. The quiet. The doing something useful.

What about your police work? Isn’t that useful?

It’s necessary. I don’t want to change my job. But I’ve gotten over the thrill of it, the urgency of each case, the rush of the work. I’m beginning to like the slower pace in this border county.

Good. How are you doing with your guilt around the man you killed?

I’ve talked about it. With two people. And the weight of it is now shared. I feel the difference in my body. I walk more easily. I don’t expect anyone to understand what I did, or completely condone it, but I have found a kind of peace.

And? Were you going to say something more?

I would do it again.

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Glare Ice

A
s Claire dressed for the cold November weather, she thought about the oncoming winter season. This time of year she always felt positive about it, energized by it. But she knew that she would reach a point in the middle of the deep cold when she would dream of bright sun and beating-down warmth. So far this November had been breaking records for low temperatures. They had already been subzero a couple nights. The white lace of frost covered her window and made it difficult to see out.

She and Meg had lived in Fort St. Antoine for over a year. This would be their second winter. She intended to enjoy it more than she had her first. Maybe she would buy them both snowshoes for Christmas. She still hoped to finish the quilt she was stitching for Meg’s bed. It was a simple block design, and all she had left to sew was the border.

Thanksgiving was coming, and they would be having it in their own house. Last year they had gone to spend it with her husband’s parents. Because of Steve’s recent death, it had been a very depressing affair. Claire had managed not to cry, but Steve’s mother had left the dinner table weeping before the pumpkin pie was served.

This year would be different. Rich was going to be with them. Just the three of them. She planned to cook a turkey with mashed potatoes, gravy, wild rice, and of course, pumpkin pie. They would have leftovers for a week, but they would have a real Thanksgiving.

Reaching into her closet, she pulled out her mother’s old Bemidji woolen plaid jacket with fringe on the sleeves. She tied her dark hair back and then pulled on a lovely hand-knit natural wool cap that she had bought at the local art fair.

Meg looked up from the television cartoons and gave her the once-over. “You look like a lumberjack, Mom.”

“Thanks, sweetie. That’s just the word of encouragement I needed to go out into the day.”

“A cute lumberjack.” Meg’s eyes brightened, and she asked, “Hey, Mom, can we have a fire tonight?”

“Probably,” Claire had answered as she stepped out the door. Promise nothing. Meg remembered everything and would hold her to all promises. It was better to be vague but hopeful.

Walking down the hill from her house to Main Street, Claire could see all the way across Lake Pepin to the Minnesota shore. Lake Pepin was a thirty-three-mile-long, two-mile-wide bulge in the Mississippi River, which flowed by Fort St. Antoine. There was a cloudy film floating on the water like a cataract forming in a blue eye. Along the shoreline a wide band of ice filigree shone in the sun.

The water that she could see had turned a deep steel blue. Finally, the lake was starting to freeze over. Meg would be so happy. She could hardly wait to try out her skates again this year and asked every day if there was any ice on the lake yet.

The weather was continuing to be very cold for late November, five degrees this morning when she had checked the thermometer on the porch. The radio had promised a high of only fifteen. No snow had fallen yet, but it was in the air.

The trees stood stark and naked. This hill had been so lush in summer. Claire liked the woods revealing themselves, though, the branches reaching bare toward the sky. The land had moved to neutral and had a spareness to it that she found elegant.

She loved walking down to the post office to pick up her mail first thing in the morning on Saturdays. She wished she could do it every day, but during the week, work got in the way.

The shrill screech of a hawk overhead reminded her of the call she had gotten a couple of mornings ago. The sobbing. From the little the woman had said, Claire wondered if it was a case of domestic abuse.

She had not been able to go back to sleep; instead she tried to track down where the call had come from. She had called the operator, but found out that she lived in one of the few parts of the country that didn’t have caller ID. Without that, there seemed to be no way for the phone company to track down a local call. All she knew was that it had been a local call.

The next day at work, she checked with everyone to see if there had been any emergency calls reporting household strife, anything involving a woman. Nothing. No battered women had showed up at any of the local hospitals or shelters. She had tried to let it go. The slight possibility that it had been a prank call occurred to her, but she doubted it. The woman’s weeping still haunted her.

Claire stopped into Stuart Lewis’s bakery, Le Pain Perdu. The smell of fresh-baked bread made her mouth water. Stuart was pulling loaves of crusty bread out of the oven in the back. He was wearing a white apron and a Packers cap sat backward on his head. It was common knowledge in town that Stuart was gay, although he didn’t particularly flaunt it. Rich and he were best friends, which had led to speculation in the past. Rich just laughed the suggestions off.

“Two French doughnuts, monsieur,” she ordered after he had set down his load.

“Oui, madame.” Stuart smiled and fished them out of the shelf with metal tongs. “Would you tell Rich that there’s a poker game tomorrow night at Hammy’s?”

“Sure. I’m seeing him tonight.” Somehow it bothered her that Stuart was using her to pass on messages to Rich. He could pick up the phone and call him. She didn’t see Rich every day of the week, and they weren’t living together. Often they only got together a couple times during the week. She didn’t like how much people had invested in them being a couple, but maybe she was making much out of nothing.

Stuart crossed his arms over his chest for a moment and asked, “Did you see the ice on the lake?”

“Yup, I suppose it’ll be the big news in town today.”

“Hey, it’s either that or watching the paint peel off the village hall.”

Claire strolled down the short street. It was too early for the other stores in town to be open. By ten o’clock cars would line the street, most sporting Minnesota license plates, ready to look at the antiques in the old restored buildings of this small river town. This early, it was mainly Fort St. Antoine citizens walking the streets, doing their morning chores.

Sven Slocum, a retired 3M executive who had moved down to Fort St. Antoine ten years ago, was out in front of his place sweeping leaves from the sidewalk. He kept his small house and yard immaculate. Yellow tulips cut from sheets of plywood lined the sidewalk; woodworking was just one of the many ways he kept busy in retirement. He had coffee with the other older men every morning at the Fort, and seemed to fit in to the small town.

“Howdy, Mrs. Cop,” he hollered.

“Hi, there, Sven. A lovely day, don’t you think?”

He stopped his sweeping for a moment and thought about it. “I’ll take it.”

Claire turned the corner and headed to the post office, which was tucked next to the bank. When she pushed open the door, a blond woman wearing a too-large green-and-gold Packers jacket was standing with her back to Claire, opening her PO box. After pulling out a few envelopes, the woman turned quickly, nearly running into Claire.

Claire reached out to steady her and was struck by the damage visible on the woman’s face: a nasty gash over one eye, a battered lip, and a large raw spot high on her cheekbone. Involuntarily, Claire gasped.

“Are you all right?” A slight hesitation—Claire saw an opening in the woman’s eyes—then she ducked her head and pushed past Claire and out the door.

Claire watched her leave, then turned to catch the eye of the postmaster. Sandy Polanski shook her head.

“Who was that?” If anyone would know anything about the woman, it would be Sandy.

Sandy Polanski had been postmistress for over fifteen years. She looked like a down-to-earth Liza Minelli, with straight black hair cut in a bob. Her husband, Steven, whom everyone called Poly, was a plumber who knew the inner workings of most of the houses in the area, so between them they knew everything that was going on in the township. Sandy was forty years old, had lived in the county all her life, and had one of the most generous spirits Claire had ever met.

Sandy saw most everyone in town five days a week. She knew who was recovering from what operation, who was waiting for a check in the mail, whose grandchildren had been down to visit. She wasn’t nosy, but she was there, consistent, every day, smiling behind the counter, pleasant, so people told her things.

“You don’t know Stephanie Klaus? She’s lived in town the last five or six months. Kind of keeps to herself. She’s from Eau Claire, I think. Got a brother down in Winona. She lives in that blue house near the edge of town, toward Pepin.”

“The one right on the highway?”

“Yeah, with the tire full of red petunias in the summer.”

“I know which one you mean.” Claire also remembered Stephanie from the art fair that was held in the park in the summer. Stephanie had shared a booth with a couple of other woman—all of their work had been weaving of some kind. Claire had looked at some of the rag rugs that Stephanie made, thinking to get one or two of them for her house. Maybe it was time to go ask Stephanie about them. “She looked awful. Do you know what happened to her?”

Sandy shook her head again. “No. She came in looking like that one time before. As I recall, it was right after she moved here. Looks like someone’s beating her up.”

“Looks that way.”

“Can you do anything about it?”

“Not if she won’t report him. I could try talking to her.”

Sandy added, “He beat her up just bad enough so she looks like hell, but not bad enough so she’d report it.”

“Those bruises look a few days old. Do you know when it happened, Sandy?”

“No.” Sandy said, then thought for a moment. “Wait a minute. I did see her on Tuesday, and she was fine. But then I haven’t seen her in here the rest of the week. She didn’t come to get her mail either. It just piled up in her box.”

Claire wondered if Stephanie had been the woman who had called her—the timing was right. She thought to ask something else that had been bothering her. “Do you think she knows who I am?”

Sandy laughed. “Claire, are you kidding? Everyone knows who you are. You’re the only cop in town. And a woman to boot. You’re big news around here.”

Claire left the post office and looked down Highway 35. She could see the green jacket a few blocks down the road, moving slowly away. Stephanie Klaus. She was moving like she still hurt, like every step took a little out of her.

Claire thought again of the new ice forming over the lake. Like skin, a thin covering over a large body. And like skin, so easily broken.

He had found her again.

Take another step down the sidewalk, Stephanie told herself. Get yourself home before you fall apart.

She felt her mind scramble with fear. It was hard for her to think straight when she had so much to avoid thinking about. It was hard to keep walking when her body ached to the core.

Jack would come again. He had promised her he would find her, and hurt her bad, if she told anyone. Next time it would be worse. A lot worse. He had been very clear about that. He had made her repeat it back to him. Then he had kissed her and held her breasts in his hands like they were two stones that he might smack together. She had said she would do anything that he wanted. She had meant it.

Her house was only four blocks from the post office, but it was a long walk. Her bones felt as if they had been cracked. She hadn’t been out of the house since the beating. Maybe she should have waited another couple days. Took the doggone bruises so long to heal.

She thought of killing herself. Getting it over with. Doing it before he did it. Doing it right out in public. She would go down to Shirley’s Bar outside of Nelson and take a pile of barbiturates with a few drinks, fall asleep in the dark corner of the bar. Wouldn’t Shirley get a scare when she found her there, thinking she was just drunk and finding out she was a dead drunk?

Stephanie felt a laugh burble up inside herself, but resisted. Laughing led to crying. She didn’t know why. Maybe it was just any emotion ripped her open and made her want to cry.

She had called in sick for the whole end of the week, but she would go back to work on Monday. She worked at W.A.G., the pet food factory near Red Wing. The bruises would be in their final stage, but she could put on plenty of makeup. No one much looked at her. They were so desperate for help that they would never fire her.

It had started out fine.

At first, she had even been glad to see Jack.

He seemed like he had changed. He told her she looked great. He said he missed her. He even went so far as to say he couldn’t live without her. He brought flowers. He said he would never let her go.

Maybe it was her fault. She had tried to ask him some questions, to pin him down. He got mad and wouldn’t answer.

Then she made the big mistake of telling him about Buck.

That was it. He blew up. She didn’t see it coming. His eyes changed. They turned evil, as if some deep darkness lying in wait inside of him was released by her words. He had asked her to tell him all about this new boyfriend.

When she saw what a mistake she had made and stopped talking, he had said what he always said: “I don’t want to have to beat it out of you.” And it had sounded the way it always sounded—the opposite of what he really meant.

Once they reached this point, she never knew what to do to stop him.

This time, she tried to touch him. She said, “Please, Jack. It can be so good with us.”

He grabbed her wrist before she could touch him. He started bending her arm back. He said, “Until you ruin it.”

He kept bending her arm.

She was afraid he would break it. She never knew whether she should scream at him or try to endure it. Whimpering sounds came out of her mouth. He let go of her suddenly, and she fell to the floor.

He laughed his cough laugh and then kicked her in the stomach.

She lay still, hoping that was it.

Then he told her to stand up. When she didn’t move right away, he grabbed her arm and pulled her up. After slamming her against the wall, he moved in on her.

His face was contorted with rage. He became someone she didn’t know. He looked like a demon, like a devil of anger. He put his hands around her neck and began to choke her. She tried to get a wisp of air, and when it didn’t come, she went into a total panic, slapping out at him, trying to get away.