Dark Coulee (11 page)

“About one?”

“That sounds just fine. I’ll put some water on for tea.”

J
ENNY woke with a start. Sunshine streaming through trees. Her body was cold and sore from lying on the ground. She got up on one elbow and waited until her head stopped spinning. She had fallen asleep in the shade of an oak tree. That must have been hours ago. As soon as she had gotten to the coulee, she had taken a couple pills. After not sleeping all night long, she had been exhausted, and she knew that school was out of the question.

She stood and walked out to the edge of the overhang—a rock outcropping that overlooked the coulee. In many areas the wash was not very deep, but here it dropped away and cut deep through the limestone. If there was significant rain, a small waterfall would form under the rock overhang. She loved to come and watch the water pour over the edge of the rocks. Liquid silver. Gentle force.

She shook and moved back from the edge, knowing she wasn’t too steady on her feet. She didn’t want to be like the Indian maiden.

On Lake Pepin, there was a spot on the bluffline called Maiden Rock. The legend went that an Indian maiden was told that she had to marry an old Indian chief when she was in love with a young warrior. The night before she was to be wed, she climbed up to this rock, which was more than twenty stories high by Jenny’s calculations, and jumped, falling to her death.

Who could blame her? Being forced to marry some old geezer would be horrible. Jenny never had understood young women who married old men. No matter how much money the old man had stored away, she never thought it would be worth it. But then Jenny had yet to find a young man who did much for her either. Sometimes she wondered if she was a lesbian, but she thought she would know for sure by now if that was the case.

Jenny had always thought the story of Maiden Rock was pretty cool. Very dramatic. And when you think about it, how else could an Indian commit suicide—fall on an arrow? Not very effective. They probably knew of poisonous plants and berries that would kill them, but a lot of them could produce pretty painful deaths.

Jenny looked down into the coulee. It must be three or four stories high here. Enough to do some pretty serious damage. With the tree branches and all, it might not be a guaranteed death, though.

She dumped out her bottle of pills into her hand. She had about ten left. She’d take a couple more, just to get her through the day and help her sleep tonight, and then she’d come off them. She’d go to school tomorrow, and then the weekend would allow her to get through the withdrawal.

She swallowed two more pills. She didn’t even need water to swallow them anymore. Looking up at the sky, she thought it must be getting close to three o’clock, and Brad would be coming home on the bus. She’d walk home in a little while and join up with him near the house.

“The best way to explain macular degeneration is, a small blood vessel in the back of my eye bled out, and as a result I have a hole in my vision.” Ella Gunderson poked her fìnger at her eye. “It makes it difficult to read, hard to do any close work. I have trouble cooking, and I couldn’t knit anymore to save my life. But I can see things far away fairly good. With my glasses on. Your mind kind of fills in where the hole is. So I don’t notice it. For example, I’m staring up at the blue sky. There isn’t a hole where the sky should be, it’s all blue. But if a bird happens to be flying in my blind spot, I don’t see it. My mind just fills in more blue.”

“So basically, you see what’s there, but not everything. So if you see something, it was there.” Claire wanted to understand Mrs. Gunderson’s vision problem and determine if it would make her an ineffective witness. But from what she had heard so far, it didn’t appear it would.

“Yes. That’s right.” Mrs. Gunderson poured her some more tea. “Would you like another Fig Newton?”

“One more would be fine. Then are you ready to tell me what you called about?”

“I am ready. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but I had to think about it. It’s difficult in a small town to turn in someone you have a lot of respect for. And I certainly have a great deal of respect for Pit Snyder.”

“The mayor of Little Rock?”

“Yes. Let me explain.” Mrs. Gunderson shifted on the couch and then straightened up her back, ready to start speaking. “I was sitting in my folding chair, watching the band. I was getting tired and wasn’t going to stay much longer. But it had been so much fun to be out amongst them, as my mother used to say. Anyway, I didn’t lie to you when I told you that I hadn’t seen what had happened. I heard Jenny scream, and that’s when I knew that something terrible had happened. A moment later, Pit Snyder walked by me at a good clip. And this is what I wanted to tell you. I’m sure that I saw a knife in his hand.”

“A knife?”

“Yes, it flashed in his hand. I looked at it twice. At first I thought it was a flashlight or something. But when I got another look at it, I saw that it was a long-bladed knife and that the lights for the dance were shining off of it. I thought that maybe he had needed to cut something open. Then I heard what had happened to Jed Spitzler.”

“I see.”

“I don’t know if you know this, but Pit was in love with Rainey Spitzler.”

“I had heard that, but I thought it was long ago, when they were in high school.”

“Yes, that’s when it started, but I think they took up again, after Rainey was married. There was a bad stretch in there, after Brad was born, and I think Pit and Rainey were seeing each other again.”

“How do you know this?”

Mrs. Gunderson looked toward the sunshine coming in through the kitchen window. “There isn’t much that goes on in a small town that is secret. You haven’t lived in this area long enough to find out, but it’s the truth. It doesn’t take much for people to put two and two together. Rainey and Pit were seen together once or twice; it got all over town. Then it ended. I don’t know how or why. But Pit met and married his wife not long after that. I think he’s been happy with her. But I know he has always felt like Rainey was something special.”

Claire finished her tea and looked at the bottom of her cup. Only a couple little leaves lying there, not much to read by. “Thank you for telling me this. Please don’t let anyone else know that we’ve had this conversation. I will check this out with Mr. Snyder within the day.”

“Might you let me know what happens? I feel so responsible. He’s a good man, Pit Snyder.”

“Yes, I will keep you informed.” Claire was standing up when she heard a crashing noise by the kitchen door.

“Whatever can that be?” Mrs. Gunderson stood up.

“Let me check it out, ma’am.” Claire walked to the door and pulled it open.

Sprawled out in front of the door was Jenny Spitzler. Her eyes were closed, and her head was twisted at an odd angle. Claire knelt down next to her and ascertained that she was still breathing.

As she was bending over the girl, Jenny’s eyes opened and she screamed, “Too much blood! Too much blood!”

I was crying the other night—

Meg had gone to bed, Rich had gone home—and all of a sudden I wished that every tear, every stupid tear that had ever coursed down my cheeks, was a thin sliver of glass.

Why?

So that they could accumulate, count for something. I could pull out my bowl of tears and have something to show for all my sorrow.

I’m sick to death of crying.

Okay.

Do you just say okay to keep me going? So that I know you’ve heard me?

Or does it mean something—is it truly okay to be sick of crying?

What do you think?

I think I think too much.

At the moment I’m disgusted with my life.

Two men have died because of me and the other I’ve sent away.

I’ve gone from having a good job with a big-city police department to being a deputy in a podunk county. And I can’t even solve the case I’m working on.

Sounds like you’re frustrated.

Frustrated? No, that’s when a kid can’t open a box. I’m furious. I want to stand in the middle of my field under the bluff and scream my lungs out.

About what?

We kill each other.

We humans take guns and knives and rocks—whatever is handy—and we kill each other.

What is wrong with us?

What is wrong?

I
don’t like this one bit,” said Judge Shifsky, sighing, as she signed the search warrant.

Claire had found the judge in her chambers. Her judicial robe was off, revealing a short red dress, which made Claire wonder where she was going after work. Odd to think that Judge Shifsky had another life.

“I know.” Claire nodded in agreement. She knew that most people liked Pit Snyder, and this was not going to go down well in the community.

The judge handed back the copy of it and kept her own copy. “Treat him with kid gloves.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Judge Shifsky shook her head. “I hope you don’t find anything. He’s a hell of a good guy.”

“That seems to be the consensus.” Claire was ready to head out the door, but she saw that the judge was not done with her.

“One time, this was five or six years ago, Pit was nominated to be the grand marshal of the River Parade. Quite an honor. I was on the committee that had made the selection, and I was asked to deliver the news. When I told him he had been nominated, he suggested that we pick Bud Schilling—you probably don’t know him. Bud was getting up in years, and Pit was afraid that if we didn’t have him as grand marshal that year, we wouldn’t have another chance. Bud was grand marshal. He died three months later. I’ve never forgotten that. We asked Pit to be grand marshal the next year, and he accepted. There isn’t anyone around these parts that doesn’t like the guy.”

“I have to act on the information I’ve received.”

“Of course you do.”

Claire left the judge’s office. On the way out the door, she glanced back and saw Judge Shifsky staring out the window at the blue sky above her shutters. She seemed to be gazing at something out of reach.

“Hi.” A small woman opened the door and smiled at Claire. Gentle looking, she wore her dark brown curly hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun. An old forties-style dress hung loose on her thin frame, and beaded moccasins adorned her feet. She looked about early thirties, which Claire figured would be about fifteen years younger than Pit.

She wrinkled her nose and brushed back her hair, then said, “I’m in the midst of something. Can I help you?”

“Are you Mrs. Snyder?”

“Yes, I’m Ruth.” She turned and smiled at Billy. “Hi, Billy, haven’t seen you in a while. What’s this all about?”

Claire handed her the search warrant and explained who she was and why she was there, ending with, “I’m sorry to be interrupting you.”

“What does this piece of paper mean?” Ruth shook the paper at Claire. “This is a real search warrant? Does this mean you can come in and look anyplace you want to in my house?”

“Yes, it does, ma’am.”

The woman narrowed her eyes. “I don’t understand all this language. Why are you here?”

“You know that Jed Spitzler was killed. We need to check your house for the murder weapon.”

“Ha,” Ruth burst out with a genuine laugh. “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”

“May we come in?”

“Well, I need to check that this is legitimate.”

“Do you want to see our badges?” Claire asked. She turned back to look at Billy, and he just widened his eyes.

“No, I know Billy. We went to school together. I want to call someone. Is that okay? Pit would be pretty upset with me if I just let anyone into our house. So may I call someone first?”

“Who are you going to call?”

This stopped Mrs. Snyder for a moment, then she said, “Well, Pit’s out on a job, I think. I might give my dad a call. He’s a lawyer in Durand. He’ll know what I should do in this situation.”

“Fine. I’ll have to come in with you while you make that call.”

“Why?”

“Because once I serve the search warrant, I cannot allow the area to be tampered with.”

“You think I might get rid of something? This is so ridiculous. Oh, come on in. Billy, you come in too. Either of you want some coffee?”

Claire had never had a search begin on this amused, neighborly note. The woman wasn’t going to be pushed around, but she didn’t seem worried that they would find anything. She and Billy followed Ruth into the kitchen. It was a large room with a round oak table that was covered with an unfinished quilt.

“Let me clear this off. I was just putting together this quilt when you came. What do you think?” Ruth held up the quilt top.

Claire was astounded by the quilt. “What a lovely thing.”

Black and white and gray blocks of fabric seemed to tumble down the quilt as Ruth held it up. What a wonderful way to spend your time. Claire hadn’t sewn since she was a kid, making clothes for her dolls and once an A-line skirt for home ec. Maybe she needed a hobby. For a moment she imagined herself sitting in a sunny spot in her house with such a quilt spread out over her knees and her hands sewing quietly while she contemplated her life.

Ruth smiled at the compliment. “It’s called Tumbling Blocks. An old Amish design, but I think surprisingly contemporary. I want to get it finished for Christmas. It’s for Pit—he does know about it, but he hasn’t seen it yet. I only work on it when he’s gone. I have another project I sew on at night when he’s here.”

Claire reached for the other end of the quilt, and they folded it together. Then Ruth swept the rest of her sewing equipment off the table and handed them two cups of coffee, pointing to the sugar jar on the counter.

Then she took the phone and dialed a number. “Mr. Torseth, please.” Pause. “Hi, Dad. Sorry to bother you at the office, but two deputies are here. They want to search the place. They think Pit might have had something to do with Jed Spitzler’s murder. I know. Yes. Okay.”

She hung up and turned to them. “He said he’d be right here.”

Claire stopped drinking her coffee. “This isn’t up for discussion. We need to begin our search. We are not waiting for your father to get here.”

Ruth Snyder waved her hand. “No, I didn’t intend for you to wait. But he is coming over. I just wanted you to know.”

Claire heard a little more of the steel in the woman’s voice. She wasn’t laughing anymore. Maybe she had started to realize this was serious.

On the way over to the Snyders', Claire and Billy had discussed where they would like to start. Now Claire asked, “Could you show me to your husband’s workroom?”

“Oh, sure. That’s in the back of the garage.”

Claire turned to Billy. “You’re taking the basement?”

“Right,” he said, and nodded.

Claire followed Ruth out to the garage. Another neat, orderly workroom. Pit appeared to have a project going, a long piece of narrow wood stretched out on his workbench with newspapers under it. It looked as if he had varnished it.

Ruth saw where Claire was looking and explained, “That’s a stretcher for one of my quilts. We’re going to hang it in the living room.”

There was an awkward moment when Claire started opening drawers and Ruth stood behind her watching. Then Ruth turned and left. Claire was glad to have her gone. She knew this was her job, but with someone as nice as Ruth, it did feel like she was violating their house, digging through their business.

It didn’t take Claire long to go through the workspace. Everything seemed in its place. She heard the doorbell ring and assumed that Ruth’s father had come. She might as well go in and talk with him. Get it over with.

She perused the workshop one more time, but it all looked in order. Maybe she would find nothing. Everyone would be happy. She could sit down with Ruth and ask her about quilting.

Claire turned to go. When she reached the door from the garage leading into the house, on impulse she looked back at the work area. That was when she noticed the plastic mat on the floor that stretched the length of the workbench. It was black and looked industrial, like flooring you would see in an airport. But there was a very slight bulge at one end. She walked back over and lifted up the edge. There, tucked into a joint in the cement floor, was a knife. Long-bladed. She put on her gloves and lifted it up.

A rusty brown darkened the place where the blade met the hilt.

Jenny was asleep, breathing deeply.

Mrs. Gunderson stood in the doorway, listening to the girl pull air into her lungs and then out again. She had had such a scare today. She had been afraid that Jenny had come close to overdosing on her pills, which she found out were called Darvocet.

Thank goodness that quick-thinking policewoman had been with her when Jenny collapsed on the doorstep. Between the two of them, they had managed to get Jenny to stand, and they had brought her into the house. Then Jenny had told them what she had taken, and Deputy Watkins had called poison control.

Poison control asked for the dosage, asked if she took this medication frequently, and then told them that the narcotic wasn’t a problem. She hadn’t taken enough to make herself anything but very sleepy. Get her to throw up if they could. Let her sleep it off.

So Mrs. Gunderson and the deputy had hauled Jenny to the bathroom and made her stick her own finger down her throat. After Jenny had thrown up, they had helped her up to bed. She had slept off and on all the rest of the afternoon. Once she had come down for a glass of water, and Mrs. Gunderson asked her how she was feeling. It hadn’t been much of a conversation. Jenny’s end was decidedly monosyllabic.

When Brad had come home, he had been quite tight-lipped on seeing his sister’s condition. He slammed around the house and then went out to do all the chores. Nora had come home sunny as anything, and when told to entertain herself, she had gone outside and built a fort with bales of hay in the barn.

Nora reminded Mrs. Gunderson so much of how Jenny had been when she had been that age: sweet, innocent, and full of life. Whatever had happened to Jenny had happened to her the year her mother died, the year she had been in Mrs. Gunderson’s class. Mrs. Gunderson suspected that it had not been her mother’s death that had changed her, but rather her father’s unrelenting supervision, and maybe, she feared, inappropriate behavior.

She could almost remember the day she had noticed the change. It had been right before Christmas. The children were all running around, getting ready to put on the Christmas pageant. Jenny had stayed at her desk, drawing. When Mrs. Gunderson had gone over to encourage her to join the others, she had seen what she was drawing. It was square after square after square. They filled the lined sheet of paper. Some of them were squares within squares, but most were lined up right next to each other. When asked what she was doing, Jenny replied, “I’m just drawing rooms with no doors.”

That’s how shut off Jenny had become from that day on. It had been horrible to see. Mrs. Gunderson had tried to talk to Jenny about it, but there was no way in to the little girl.

Mrs. Gunderson left the door of Jenny’s bedroom open a crack and went downstairs to see how the other two children were getting on with their homework. They had established a routine of her helping them with it every night.

She was very careful about going downstairs. She counted the steps—there were twenty-two—and put her foot down carefully so as not to miss one. So far, so good. She hadn’t fallen in the house yet.

When she was halfway down the stairs, the phone rang.

“I’ll get it,” Nora sang out.

“Fine, if it’s for me, tell them I’m coming.”

A moment later, Nora’s voice: “It is for you. Deputy Watkins. I asked them who they were.”

Mrs. Gunderson felt the last step and carefully stepped down onto the main floor. She walked over to where Nora held out the phone, took it, and said, “Hello.”

“Hi, Mrs. Gunderson, I’m sorry to bother you, but I did say I would call.” Deputy Watkins’s voice sounded somber.

“That’s fine. We’ve just gathered in the kitchen for homework. Jenny is sleeping upstairs. She seems fine. I’m sure we won’t see any more of her tonight. What news do you have for me?”

“I found a knife at Snyder’s.”

“Oh, dear. I so wished you hadn’t. Does it look suspicious?”

There was a pause at the other end. “I would say it does. I need to ask you again, Mrs. Gunderson, not to say anything to anyone about this. We will know more in a day or two.”

“I understand.” Mrs. Gunderson hung up the phone and decided that she didn’t understand. She didn’t understand the nicest man in the county being suspected of murder, she didn’t understand the sweetest little fifth-grade girl turning into a drug addict, she didn’t understand women losing their hands in farm machinery.

Ella Gunderson went to the sink and washed her hands. She looked out the window into the yard, but the darkness had swallowed everything up. She hoped she had done the right thing.

She turned to Brad and Nora, who were sitting next to each other at the kitchen table doing their homework, and said, “What can I help you children with?”

Claire sat in a chair in her porch and listened to Meg working away in the kitchen. Her daughter was singing “Michael Row the Boat Ashore.” Meg was proud to be doing the dishes all by herself. Claire had recently started letting her do them from time to time. It took her forever, she made a total mess of the kitchen—water everyplace—but she seemed to completely enjoy it. Meg viewed doing the dishes as a treat, and that was fine with Claire. Meg was more than old enough to start doing some chores around the house.

Claire turned when she heard a noise close behind her and saw her daughter holding out a big yellow bowl.

“Where does this go?”

“With the pots and pans in the bottom cupboard.”

Meg stood looking at her. “I’m not very happy that you broke up with Rich. I think it stinks.”

“Oh, you do, do you? Well, I didn’t really break up with him. I told you, we’re just taking a break.”

“Breaking up, taking a break. Sounds the same to me.”

“I hope it’s not.”

“Me too.” Meg went back into the kitchen.

It was nice that Meg liked Rich as much as she did. Claire remembered how badly the Spitzler kids had treated their father’s girlfriend, Lola—not that she didn’t deserve the treatment.

Claire thought about Jenny Spitzler. Her mind went to the girl like a tongue goes to a sore tooth. Her worst nightmare would be that Meg would start taking drugs at that age, lose herself somehow, and that Claire wouldn’t be able to pull her back. When Jenny was straight, Claire could tell that she was a decent girl, but damaged. It scared her to think that losing a mother could do that to someone. She needed to keep going to therapy so that Meg would never lose her mother.