Purgatory Ridge

Jo headed upstairs to change her clothes. In a few minutes, Cork stepped in. She could smell the fish on him all the way across the room.

“How’d it go on the rez?” he asked. He pulled off his shirt and tossed it into a wicker hamper near the closet.

Jo sat on the bed and bent down to buckle her sandals. “We put together a statement denying any connection with the Army of the Earth or any knowledge about Eco-Warrior. We criticized the action. And we did our best to distance the Iron Lake Ojibwe from any threat of violence over Our Grandfathers.”

“How’d Charlie Warren take that?”

“He wasn’t there. But Isaiah Broom had a huge problem with it.”

“That’s because he probably is this Eco-Warrior.”

“Don’t joke.”

“Who’s joking?” Cork dropped his jeans and reached into the dresser for some shorts.

“You wouldn’t be saying that if you were sheriff.”

“No?”

Jo stood up. “You’d be reserving judgment until you had more facts. Even then you’d say it was up to the court to decide guilt or innocence.”

“But I’m not the sheriff anymore.” He grabbed a red T-shirt and tugged it on.

They were at the edge of a subject they never talked about-the events that surrounded Cork’s fall from grace in Aurora. To talk would risk opening old wounds, discussing events that had hurt them terribly, that had nearly torn them apart. Although Jo felt all these things constantly between them, dark and restless, she was afraid that to look at the past straight-on might be deadly to her marriage. Cork had never seemed eager to talk either, and Jo believed his own silence on the subject of their past indiscretions meant a mutual-though unspoken-agreement not to dwell on hurtful history.

“I’m going to go down and give Rose a hand with dinner,” she said. When she reached the bottom of the stairs, Annie came in the front door. “Where’s Jenny?” Jo asked.

“Sean showed up at Sam’s Place. He said he’d help her close and then bring her home.”

Sean was Jenny’s boyfriend. Jo knew Cork had a grudging liking for the boy and didn’t mind his dropping by to give Jenny a hand.

“Mom,” Annie asked, “did Dad tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“We almost had a fight at Sam’s Place today. Dad broke it up, and some people there asked Dad to run for sheriff.”

“People?”

“Yeah, like party bigwigs or something.”

“They want your father to run for sheriff?”

“Yeah. Pretty cool, huh? Where’s Aunt Rose?”

“In the kitchen.”

Annie made a beeline in that direction.

Jo was waiting at the bottom of the stairs when Cork came down. “Could we talk? In my office?”

Although Jo practiced out of an office in the Aurora Professional Building, she maintained a casual office at home as well. Cork followed down the hallway and looked at her with apprehension when she closed the door behind them.

“Annie told me there was some trouble at Sam’s Place,” she said.

Cork sat on the edge of her desk. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“She also said some people talked to you about running for sheriff.”

“Yes.”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“After I’d thought about it some.”

“This morning, you promised me we’d think through something like this together.” She could feel the anger rising, her voice growing taut. She didn’t want to be that way, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

Cork’s response was edged with anger, too. “I told you we’d talk before I decided anything, and I haven’t decided anything.”

“Cork-” she began, but before she could finish the phone rang. They both looked at it. It stopped immediately, which meant someone else in the house had answered.

She moved away from the door, her eyes scanning the shelves of law books that lined the walls. No answer there, she knew. She wanted to walk toward Cork, to put herself nearer to him, but there was something unyielding inside her that kept her from it.

“I just…” She faltered, tried again. “I’m just afraid-”

A knock at the door interrupted her. “Mom.” It was Annie, speaking from the other side. “The phone’s for you.”

“Can you take a message?” Jo called back.

“It’s Sheriff Schanno. It sounds important.”

“I’ll take it in here, honey.”

Jo headed to the desk. Cork moved himself out of the way.

“Yes, Wally?” She listened a moment. “You’re sure?” A moment more. She closed her eyes. “I understand. And thanks.” She hung up.

“What is it?” Cork asked.

“They’ve positively identified the body at Lind-strom’s.”

“Who is it?”

Jo took a deep breath. “Charlie Warren.”

7

DURING SUMMER IN THE NORTH COUNTRY, the sun seemed to linger forever. The light near dusk was like one final exhalation that breathed gold onto the pines and tamaracks, the birch and aspen, and everything seemed to hold very still as the sun let out its long last breath. Cork loved summer evenings in Tamarack County, loved those moments when the earth itself seemed to pause in its turning. Yet, as he drove to the Lindstrom mill and saw the light on the trees and heard the hush of the woods, inside he felt none of the serenity these things normally brought to him.