Tamarack County: A Novel Part 3

The sun was on the horizon, a red ball in the cold blue western sky, and the light that it sent through the window above the sink and that bathed Anne as she worked was the color of fresh blood.

"Dad knows," Stephen said.

"Knows what?" She turned to him with a small note of panic.

"That you're leaving the sisters."

"Oh," she said. "Did you tell him?"

"He figured it out. You know Dad. He wanted to know why."

"What did you say?"

"That you'd let us know when the time was right."

"Really?" She seemed surprised and pleased. "Thanks." She looked at her hands, bathed in that sanguine evening hue. "Some things change, Stephen. They just change."

"What are you going to do now, Annie?"

She leaned against the counter and thought a moment, deeply. "I'd like to go somewhere . . . away . . . for a while."

"Like Africa or someplace?"

"It doesn't have to be that far. Just someplace by myself, someplace I can think some things through."

"How about Henry's place or Rainy's?"

"I don't want to impose on them."

"You wouldn't. They've both left Crow Point for the winter. Their cabins are empty."

"Really? Why? Where'd they go?"

"Rainy's son is having some problems with drugs again. Rainy thought she needed to be there with him. He lives in Arizona now, so that's where Rainy is."

"What about her and Dad?"

Stephen shrugged. "Dad doesn't talk about that. Some kind of understanding, I guess."

"So who's taking care of Henry?"

"He's gone to Thunder Bay to stay with his son. It's something he's been wanting to do for a while, and now he's doing it."

"How long?"

"He says he's coming back once the snow's gone. Late spring, maybe."

"Did he take Walleye?" she asked, speaking of the old dog who'd been Meloux's companion for as long as Stephen could remember.

"Walleye died last fall," he told her gently. "He just lay down one day and didn't get up. I've never seen Henry so sad. I think maybe that's part of why he agreed to go to Thunder Bay. He wanted to get away from Crow Point for a while."

Anne's expression seemed suddenly far away. "Like I said, things change."

"Not so much," Stephen said. "And not forever. Henry will be back. And when he comes home, we're going to get him a new dog."

"What about Rainy? Is she coming back?"

"I don't know. Guess we'll have to see."

"Who'll help Meloux if she's not there?"

"Dad's talked to a bunch of folks on the rez. They don't have a plan at the moment, but he says they'll cross that bridge when they come to it."

Stephen's cell phone gave a little chime, signaling a text message. He took it from his pants pocket. The message read: C U @ 7.

"Marlee?" Anne asked.

Stephen nodded.

"Are you two serious?"

If his father had asked, Stephen would have interpreted it as an interrogation, but coming from Anne the question felt okay.

"We're just talking," he said. "We're going to a movie tonight."

"Just the two of you?"

"Yeah."

"Sounds like a date."

"I told you we're-"

"Just talking, I know," Anne said with a little laugh.

Even though it was at his expense, Stephen was happy to hear the sound.

Later, he heard Jenny come in the front door, but everything was quiet for a while before she joined him at the kitchen table, where he was checking his Facebook page on his laptop. Waaboo wasn't with her.

"Napping," she told him, as she began to make a pot of coffee. "He and Joey played their little hearts out. No Dad yet?"

"Not a word. Should we call him?"

"If there's something he wants us to know, he'll call us. Is that mac and cheese I smell?"

"Yeah. Annie volunteered to make it."

"Where is she?"

"Upstairs."

"Is she okay?"

"I don't think so."

Jenny finished putting the coffee together, flipped the brew switch, and sat at the table with her brother. In a lot of respects, she reminded him of their mother. She looked like her, for one thing. The same almost white blond hair and glacier blue eyes. Their mother had been an attorney, driven in many ways, and Jenny, though gentler about it, was like that, too. Because their father was often distracted by a case, she'd more or less taken charge of Sam's Place during its months of operation, and even after they'd shuttered the serving windows of the old Quonset hut at the end of the season, she was still making plans for renovations in the spring and concocting schemes for attracting additional business. But she'd graduated from college with a degree in journalism, and her real dream was to be a writer. Winters were good for her and for feeding that ambition, because there weren't so many demands on her time. Although raising Waaboo was her greatest joy, every spare moment she could steal for herself was devoted to her scribbling. Her brother believed in her, believed that one day she would realize her ambition. But that was something Stephen hoped for everyone who dreamed.

"Has she talked to you?" Jenny asked.

"About why she's leaving the sisters? Not a word. You?"

"No."

"It must be pretty bad. Maybe she stole the Pope's rosary or something."

Before Jenny could reply, the door opened and their father came in. The sun had set, and the light outside had turned a cold steel blue. The bitter chill of the day poured off him, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees. He looked beat, but he smiled at them as he shrugged out of his parka.

"Smells good in here. Mac and cheese?"

Stephen closed his laptop and slid it to the side. "Yep."

Cork hung the parka beside the door and began to unlace his boots. "Good work, guy."

"Annie's work," Stephen said.

His father kicked off his boots. "Probably good to put her back into the rotation. But this doesn't let you off the hook in the future, buddy."

"That's a big ten-four, Dad."

He unsnapped his snowmobile bibs, slipped them off, and folded them and laid them over his boots on the floor. "Where is she?"

"In her room."

Although it wasn't really her room. Her room had been turned into the nursery for Waaboo. Anne was staying in the attic, which had been converted into a bedroom long ago when their aunt Rose had lived with them and had been like a second mother. Rose was married and living in Evanston, Illinois, and now the attic served as the official guest room.

Stephen's father stood with his eyes turned upward. "Has she said anything?"

"About why?" Stephen asked.

"Yeah."

"Nope."

His father breathed deeply and gave a nod. "Okay. Everything in its time, I guess."

Jenny said, "Did you find Mrs. Carter?"

Their father shook his head. "Not a sign of her."

"What do you think?"

"It's certainly not good. Beyond that, I don't know. Listen, I won't be joining you for dinner. I'm meeting Marsha at the Four Seasons."

"Cop talk?" Jenny asked.

"She's under a lot of stress. I'm hoping she'll relax a little, and maybe together we can figure another way of looking at this situation. Maybe there's something we haven't thought of. Anyway, I'm going upstairs to clean up."

"Quietly," Jenny cautioned. "Waaboo's napping. He played his little heart out this afternoon."

Their father left the kitchen. When he was well out of earshot, Stephen said quietly, "Marsha?"

"Don't read anything into it," Jenny said. "Your hormones may be raging, but Dad? He just loves cop talk and a good steak."

CHAPTER 7.

Marsha Dross wore jeans and a rust-colored turtleneck. At forty-two, she was more than a decade younger than Cork, and there were already a few noticeable lines on her face-a furrow between her brows when she was deep in thought or frowning, crow's-feet when she squinted at the sun, two wrinkles that were like parentheses around her mouth when she smiled. Her eyes were dark, a blue that was almost black. She was nearly Cork's height, and her hair, in its color, was very similar to his, though much thicker. For years, she'd worn it short, so that from a distance, in uniform, she might have been mistaken for Cork. Because of this similarity in appearance, she'd once taken a bullet meant for him, a wound that had nearly killed her and had ended any hope she might have of ever bearing a child. She liked a good steak, single-malt scotch, and once upon a time, line dancing. As far as Cork knew, she didn't dance anymore.

When Cork arrived at the Four Seasons, she was already into a scotch. She'd been seated at a table near a window that overlooked the marina behind the hotel. There were no masts to see, only the empty moorings. Far out on the frozen lake stood a little village of ice fis.h.i.+ng houses. Although the shanties themselves were lost in the dark, Cork could see tiny squares of light from the lantern glow through the windows of those that were occupied.

"Better?" he asked as he sat and nodded toward her gla.s.s of scotch.

"I still need a steak in me," she said.

As soon as Cork sat down, a waitress approached, a redhead whose once sharp curves had been softened by the years. "Hey, Cork. How are you?"

"Tired and hungry, Julie. You could start me off with a Leinie's Dark."

"Coming right up. You doing okay, Marsha?"

"Fine, Julie. Thanks."

They spent a few minutes on small talk. She said she'd heard Anne was home. Cork said yes, and it was good to have her. That was all he said, and he knew that because he didn't elaborate Marsha would let the subject drop. She did. He asked about her father, whom he knew, though not well, a retired cop living in Rochester. She told him he was fine but bored, then she went quiet and her eyes drifted across the dining room, which because it was a Friday evening, was quite full. Cork knew where her head was.

"Can't let her go, even for a few minutes," he said.

"Who?" she asked.

"Evelyn Carter."