Hunter’s Dance (10 page)

XV

He must go, the good son who had never given his parents a sorrow.

Maybe one more coat. It was a waste of time and energy, she knew. The polish job was as near to perfection as she'd ever done, and more wax wouldn't add a smidgen to the depth of the wood's luster. But it was an excuse, something to keep her sequestered here in her workshop, wrapped in the comforting scent of wood shavings and the warmth of the fire. Something to keep her out of the house.

The feeling was a familiar one. It came every fall, when the unused rooms grew cold and the creak of their shrinking floorboards echoed through the house, a sorrow that crept into her life with the regularity of dropping leaves and migrating geese.

She should have long ago passed the stage where those empty rooms were a mocking reminder of loss and failure. She should by now be reconciled to the knowledge that she herself would be the final child to take its first steps on that kitchen floor. Well, she could always die soon, and give Nick a chance to marry some fertile young thing and fill the place with a covey of Italian babies. It was dopey that the thought still caused such an ache. And pointless. Right now there might well be little Nicky Thorsens romping over half the state of Michigan. To her horror, Mia felt tears stinging her eyes. She wiped them away on her sleeve and picked up the jar of wax.

Maybe it was only that she was getting older. No children when she was twenty-five meant no grandchildren now. When she was gone there'd be nothing left of her in this world, except the occasional blanket chest and clock case.

She spread the paste evenly over the walnut surface and capped the jar. Papa's secret recipe. Not a secret any more, but it still smelled as bad as ever, a combination of skunk and sauerkraut with a hint of stale sweat.

The geese in the yard set up a squawk, and Mia crossed to peer out the door, grateful for the distraction. Ross Maki walked up the drive. He had the determined stride of one who is afraid that, if he slowed down for a second, he'd change his mind and head back the way he came. He looked like he'd lost his best friend, which, she remembered, he had. He also looked completely exhausted. The past months of running a farm, as well as doing her bidding and trying to make his fortune in uranium, had taken their toll.

“Come on in, Ross. Close the door to keep the dust out. I have to buff up this final coat. But it's done at long last. You can make the royal presentation to
Madame
Hollander on Saturday. I only wish I could be there for the unveiling.”

The boy stepped inside but made no response other than a tiny nod, and Mia regretted her brusqueness. “If you feel up to it,” she added.

“I've been drafted.”

It didn't come as a surprise to Mia, as surely it hadn't been to Ross. Nevertheless it was a shock, partly because of the realization of how much she'd come to care about him. She'd miss him—his willingness, his habitual expression of bewilderment, and the sudden smile that could wipe it away.

“When do you have to go?”

“A few weeks. The middle of November. I can still take the clock to Dearborn.”

“I didn't mean that,” Mia said. “The clock's not important.
Madame
has waited six months. She can hang on a little longer. But Ross, you must have known for a while now. Didn't you tell anybody?”

Ross shifted from one foot to the other. “No, only…well, no.” Of course, he'd told Bambi Morlen. “I told Ma this morning.”

“Oh, your poor mother! How's she going to manage without you? Maybe you could get some kind of a hardship…dispensation, or whatever it is, get out of going for now.”

“Nah,” he said. “Pa's doing okay. He still limps some, but he's getting around fine. He just got in the habit of not doing much.” There was a two-inch hole in the sleeve of his mackinaw, and he began pulling at the frayed threads. “Anyway, I want to go.”

Mia laughed. “Oh sure, I can see that.”

“I might as well go. There ain't no reason for me to stay around. I'll be glad to get out of here.”

Ross might be right about that. And it wasn't like he had any choice in the matter. Maybe taking an optimistic view was for the best. “At least the business in Korea is about over,” she said.

“Pa says it ain't.” Ross sounded anything but optimistic. “He's got plenty of time to listen to the radio and read the papers. He says Tibet is only the beginning, and the Red Chinese are gonna be trouble.”

“Tibet?” Mia asked. Oh lord, was there something new?

“They invaded Tibet. Pa says it's just a start.”

Mia hadn't heard anything about that. The papers all said the war was over. She couldn't believe Mike Maki knew more than the president. She hoped not, anyway. “Well,” she said, “not everybody gets sent to Korea.”

“Almost everybody.”

“Just don't volunteer for anything.”

“Not me! I don't want to die. But….”

“But?”

Ross lifted his eyes to her face, then looked down, bit his lower lip, and coughed. “Do you think that maybe…in a war or something like that…. Well, not everybody dies….”

“No, some are only maimed for life.”

He didn't smile, and why should he? Mia pledged to herself once again to learn to curb her gallows humor.

He nodded earnestly. “But some aren't hurt at all. Do you think it could be that it's not just luck? There
has
to be some people dying—in a war, I mean. Do you think maybe God takes the ones that need to be punished…the ones that have done something really bad?”

“Are you saying that soldiers who are killed might be ones that deserve to die?” Was this really coming from someone supposedly mature enough to become one of those soldiers?

“Maybe…something like that.”

“What about the good-die-young theory?”

“Bambi wasn't all that good.”

Bambi? Bambi had hardly been killed defending his country.

“You think Bambi Morlen's death was punishment?” she asked. “Punishment for who? Bambi's in no pain now. It's his family, his mother, and his friends, that are suffering.”

“I suppose.” The young man didn't sound convinced.

“Ross.” Mia waited for him to look into her eyes before continuing. “Ross, even though I'm an ancient gray-haired crone, I don't know quite everything. But I can tell you this for sure, death doesn't play favorites. It takes the totally innocent right along with the wicked.” It was a truth she knew for damn sure, but not something she cared to dwell on. She patted his arm. “But if you want advice about magic charms and avoiding curses, you'll have to go to Lucy Delaney.”

This time Ross did laugh. “I think Lucy only
puts
hexes on people. Pa's still suspicious about how he came to fall off that roof.” The smile transformed his face and once again he was the Ross she would miss so dearly. “Maybe that's what happened to Nick,” he said. “He probably passed by Lucy without offering her a ride.”

Brother, what next? Mia kept her voice light. “What kind of fix is Nick in now?”

“He's gone in the ditch, over by the old sawmill. That's why I'm here, for the truck and a chain.”

“Well, you know where they are.”

Ross nodded and stepped out the door, but Mia stopped him in his trek toward the toolshed. “Ross,” she said, “you knew Bambi Morlen better than anybody around here. Do you have any ideas about what happened? About who might have killed him?”

Mia immediately regretted asking. Ross Maki's face resumed the hangdog look, and he went back to enlarging the hole in his sleeve. His words were almost lost in his turned-up collar.

“He got in that fight with Marvin Wall. Marve can get pretty wild when he's crossed. And there's his brother. They say Adam Wall did a lot of killing in the war.” He lifted his head and shoved his hands in his pockets. “He made it back in one piece though.”

Only when the young man was rattling down the driveway in her delivery van, did Mia begin to wonder what Ross himself might have done, or felt he'd done, that was so bad as to sentence him to death in battle. She did seem to recall that he walked off with a plate of food at the dance without paying the twenty-five cents.

XVI

You can never know how angry a man is to the bottom of his soul when he hears of a woman's infidelity.

It was midafternoon when McIntire's car chugged up the hill to the Flambeau County sheriff's office. The drive from the Club had taken nearly two hours and had left his beloved Studebaker Champion mud-spattered and once again low on gas. A disconcerting clatter issued from its nether regions. A loose muffler was the only theory McIntire, with his minimal automotive experience, could come up with.

The parking area behind the courthouse was crammed with vehicles, including, in a far corner, an alien-looking low-slung two-seater that could only be Bambi Morlen's Morgan. A disheveled-looking man walked slowly around it, snapping pictures with a battery of cameras hanging from his shoulder. He turned at the sound of McIntire's slamming car door, stared for a moment, and loped for the courthouse steps. McIntire followed with a sinking feeling as to what this reaction to his arrival might augur.

The sheriff's outer office had been stripped of its furniture, leaving only a gray metal file cabinet and coordinating desk. The desk was strategically stationed before the door which was closed on Koski's inner sanctum, and Marian Koski, her duties as the sheriff's wife extending beyond the domestic, sat behind it, telephone to her ear. She waved McIntire to come through.

He plunged into the swarm of uniformed officers and eager-faced youngsters clutching notebooks.

Clayton Beckman, owner, editor, printer, and chief reporter of the
Chandler Monitor
, leaped into his path. The rest of the troop formed up behind Beckman, pencils at the ready.

“John, is it true that the sheriff has some new information?”

Beckman obviously had not taken time to shave or to partake of a swig of Lavoris that morning. McIntire backed out of exhalation range. “I might be able to tell you that after I've seen him. So if you'll just let me….”

McIntire didn't suppose the man stayed in business by letting himself be intimidated by township constables; the editor moved in again. “You've talked to the victim's mother. How's she holding up?”

Had the grimy state of the Studebaker given him away? A headful of brown hair, limp and dandruff-dusted, appeared at Beckman's left shoulder, and a feminine voice broke in. “Is there any truth to the rumor that the body was mutilated?”

The clamor in the room was shut off like a tap. Every eye turned to McIntire. Pencils were poised. The restrained elation was palpable.

It would be for the best if the whole story came out before the mutilation took on far greater proportions than the removal of a couple square inches of skin. But that wasn't McIntire's job.

He looked down at the young woman. “The boy was left dead. That constitutes mutilation in my book.” The pencils dropped, and a quick sidestep got him through to Pete Koski's office.

It was nearly as jammed as the reception room. A third of the space was consumed by the scratched oak desk that ordinarily faced the smaller one out front. It wasn't often the sheriff wished to lock himself away from his constituents.

The desktop was usually concealed by the tattered map on which Koski plotted out his fishing expeditions. Today the map stood in a corner, rolled and fastened with a rubber band. The desk was a cliché of overflowing ashtrays and dribbly coffee cups. Koski sat surrounded by a cluster of men standing or seated on straight-backed chairs. The only one McIntire recognized was Wendell Morlen. Haggard, rumpled, and clearly agitated, he started up when McIntire entered. “It's about time!”

Sheriff Koski took the envelope from McIntire, removed the note and handed it to the bereaved father without reading it.

No one moved while Morlen squinted at the paper, then spread it on the desk, produced a pair of spectacles and stood to read the message. The chair screeched and slid across the floor as he dropped back into it.

“The sons-a bitches! How did those bastards think they'd get away with pulling shit like this?” He bellowed again, “The sons-a bitches!”

The murmur of voices outside the closed door ceased.

A stocky man with the insignia of a Michigan state police lieutenant on his hat—a hat held up by the biggest pair of ears McIntire had ever seen on anything not of pachyderm persuasion—spoke into the silence. “You know who wrote this?”

“Yes, I sure as hell know who wrote it.” The rage in his eyes faded to bewilderment, and again he rose from the chair. “But why would they go after
me?
I only work for the place.” He extended the letter to the lieutenant, his hands shaking so the paper rattled. “What you said…about Bambi's head.… God! The bastards!”

The policeman studied the paper and handed it to the sheriff. “I don't understand. How can you tell from this—?”

“It's the money,” Morlen said. “So we'd know. He wanted us to know.…”

Koski herded Wendell Morlen back to his chair. “Take it easy, Mr. Morlen. What is it?… who is this
he?
”

Morlen leaned back and took several deep breaths. “Like I told you, my family has been here because I'm handling some legal transactions for the Club. One of those transactions involves the purchase of a section of land, twelve hundred some acres. It started out complicated and has gotten more so. There's a dispute over ownership. Most of the property is state land, tax forfeit. But there is a claimant saying that he should have first rights to purchase it at the value the state sets.”

“Seventeen thousand, five hundred twenty-five dollars.”

Morlen nodded.

Koski picked up the phone.

“We'll need to talk more about this, Mr. Morlen.”

“Just make it quick. Shit, it's all a matter of public record. You don't need me. I want to get out of here. I want to take my son home.”

McIntire had remained silent through the entire exchange, and maybe now wasn't the right time to speak up. And he probably wasn't the right person to do the speaking up. But in a matter of hours, maybe minutes, Wendell Morlen would be long gone.

“Mr. Morlen,” he said, “a witness at the Club says you came in late Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning, about three o'clock.”

Three superior levels of law enforcement glared, and Morlen looked genuinely confused. “The eagle-eyed Mrs. Baxter, no doubt. Well, she'd better get those beady little eyes checked. She's wrong.”

“She was pretty positive. Says she recognized the sound of your car.”

“Then it's her ears need looking into. I spent Saturday night in Lansing. I came home on Sunday. You were with the sheriff at my cottage when I got there.”

Pete Koski managed to nod to Morlen and send McIntire a ferocious
What kind of bullshit is this?
message at the same time.

But Lieutenant Dumbo was all business. “Witnesses?” he asked.

“Shit, yes, there are witnesses. I went with Jim Harrington. We met with half the lawyers in Michigan.”

“Did you take your car?”

“We took the train from Marquette. Jim drove from the Club to the depot. And he drove us back on Sunday.”

“Could someone have used your car while you were gone?”

Morlen shrugged. “The keys were in it. I guess anybody could have taken it. Maybe somebody borrowed it. You'll have to ask my wife.”

“Could your wife have been driving it herself?” McIntire chimed in again.

Morlen looked like he'd bitten into a rotten apple. “You'll have to ask her,” he said.