Chapter 49
I lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling, listening to Rainy breathe gently beside me.
I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t erase from my mind the image of the paddle blade cutting into a man’s neck, releasing a fountain of blood.
I realized that my hands were fisted, as if I was still holding tight to the murder weapon.
Murder, that’s what it was. I was pretty sure that when I maneuvered through the justice system, the court would call it justifiable homicide.
But I knew the truth. Murder was what had been in my heart.
As quietly as I could, I finally got out of bed.
I put on my robe and went downstairs to the kitchen.
When I turned on the light, I saw that Ernie was staring at me, that enigmatic smile on his lips.
I removed his head and took a cookie from his belly, poured myself a mug of milk, and sat at the kitchen table.
“You ever wanted to kill anybody, Ernie?” I asked. I took a bite of the cookie, a sip of the milk. “Wanting to and doing are very different things, let me tell you.”
His face didn’t change. In that way, he was just like Henry Meloux, and for the first time ever, I hated Ernie.
I heard a discreet cough and turned to find my sister-in-law in robe and slippers, standing in the kitchen doorway.
“Okay if I join you?” Rose asked.
“Be my guest,” I said without enthusiasm.
She skipped the milk and cookie and took a chair beside me. I thought she would talk to me, try to offer some words of comfort, maybe advice. If she did that, I was ready to just get up and leave. But it wasn’t me she talked to.
“You look a little bewildered tonight, Ernie,” she said to the cookie jar. “What’s on your mind?”
She waited, then nodded as if he’d answered her.
“Sucks, huh?” she said.
Despite myself, I wondered what she’d imagined him saying.
She nodded at the cookie jar. “I understand. You give and give and give and what do you get in the end? All your cookies are gone, and all you have is an empty belly and you get no thanks. I agree. It sucks.”
She cocked her head as if listening, then said as if in reply, “I’ve never heard you complain before. And I don’t want to be callous, but wasn’t that what you were made for?”
I was the one who broke the silence that followed. “You don’t owe her an answer, Ernie.”
“I wasn’t really expecting an answer,” she said to the cookie jar.
“But since I’m the one who filled you up time and again for so many years, I feel a pretty deep connection with you.
We’ve shared so much together, together watched a lot of water go under the bridge.
You often gave me good advice and, once in a while, I returned the favor. ”
“He doesn’t need your advice.”
“I wasn’t planning on offering any. But, Ernie, do you remember that time years ago after my sister died and I looked at you and you seemed to be smirking at me, making light of my grief?
And I picked you up in anger and was ready to throw you against the wall?
Remember that? And do you remember who saved you?
Yeah, it was this lummox sitting next to me.
He took you from my angry hands and set you back safely on the counter, then, despite his own grief, he took me in his arms and gave me comfort.
He saved your ass that day, Ernie. And mine. ”
We both sat quiet for a while.
“You give and give and give,” Rose said. “But when you’re empty, how do you fill yourself back up? How do you prepare to go back to giving, which is what you were made for?”
I looked at her and watched her shake her head sadly.
“Oh, Ernie,” she said, “I wish I knew.”
She stood up as if to leave.
“Rose,” I said.
She waited.
“I made a promise to a dead man, but with everything that’s in my heart, all these dark thoughts, I don’t know if I can keep that promise.”
She studied my face, then turned to the face on the cookie jar. “What do you think, Ernie?” She listened, then nodded. “I think so, too.”
She leaned and kissed the top of my head. “Good night, Cork. Good night, Ernie,” she murmured, and walked away.
The next day, Stephen, Daniel, and Mal exited the Boundary Waters along with the others who’d been involved in the ground search for me and the Kennedy brothers.
We got word of their coming. I left before they arrived.
I’m not sure why, but I didn’t want to deal with their hearty greetings and their justifiable questions.
I went to make my formal statement about all that had occurred.
Marsha Dross called me into her office. I sat down across the desk from her.
During the time I was sheriff and she was my deputy, I’d been with her when she was shot, almost killed.
In that same ambush, I’d lost a chunk of my right ear.
My earlobe healed. Marsha lost any hope of ever giving birth to a child.
After I resigned and turned in my badge, I encouraged her to run for the office. She was damn fine at her job.
“Bearer bonds,” she said. “That’s what was in the pack. Ten million dollars’ worth.”
A bearer bond is a monetary certificate that is in no one’s name.
Any Tom, Dick, or Harry can cash it in. That’s why the Kennedy brothers’ father and uncle had tortured and killed Wollersheim in Duluth.
Greed, pure and simple. The same thing that had driven Ollie and Stan. Or rather, Michael and Patrick.
“The RCMP has picked up Jeanette, Patrick Kennedy’s wife. She claims she knew nothing about her husband’s plans.”
“She didn’t,” I said.
“You know this how?”
“Stan told me.”
“Stan?”
“Long story. Patrick Kennedy. We had a heart-to-heart. I believed him.”
“Heart-to-heart? From all those bruises on you, I’d say more fist to face.”
“That was Ollie.”
“Ollie?”
“The other brother.”
“Michael.”
“Whatever. I don’t suppose you could get me the address of Patrick Kennedy’s widow.”
“I’m sure I can. Why?”
I looked out the window. From where I sat, I could see across all of Aurora, past everything that had been precious to me my whole life. Iron Lake lay vast and blue under the morning sky. Beyond that was the great wilderness, where anything was possible, including, perhaps, miracles.
“I’ve got a promise to keep,” I said.