Free Purgatory Ridge by William Kent Krueger Page 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 wasAnnie, 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
    D URING 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.
    Jo hadn’t wanted him to come, but he’d made her understand there was no way she could keep him from it. She hadn’t said a word the whole way. Outside the gates of the mill, a few protestors still lingered. They sat comfortably on canvas chairs and talked, their protest signs lying in the long rye grass beside them. Cork recognized the kid who’d been at Sam’s Place and the woman with the cane who’d accompanied him. Isaiah Broom was there, too. They stopped their talk as Cork drove by, and they eyed him as if he were the enemy.
    Gil Singer, the deputy at the gate, let them through easily. As he had earlier that day, Cork parked beside the Land Cruiser Wally Schanno drove. There were a few other vehicles, mostly county sheriff’s cars. The mill seemed pretty much deserted. Schanno stood near the burned-out cab of the logging rig. He was leaning a bit, and he