FOURTEEN

It was Tuesday morning at 6:40 am. The clock radio on the nightstand next to the sleeping head of Palmer Knutson came on to the sounds of “He knows all, he tells only some. He’s Mr. Sports, Mr. Action, Mr. Jim Ed Poole.” The sheriff opened his eyes, and he faced what he hoped would be the two most difficult tasks of the day. First—a job that was getting harder every day—he had to amputate his body from his bed and face a day that as yet had shown no promise of a sun. In January, the sun seldom rose before eight o’clock, and Knutson saw no reason why he should either. But he did so because of the second most difficult task of the day. He and Ellie had to get their son, Trygve, off to school.

As he lay in bed listening to the Morning Show and the unenthusiastic report on the Super Bowl as given by Minnesota Public Radio’s finest, two thoughts mingled. He detested fate and the usual cheating referee decisions that had deprived the Vikings of a spot in the Super Bowl, and he looked forward to next year, when the Eaglet would be out of the nest, off to college, and he wouldn’t have to get up before he felt like it. Usually, he felt like getting up at 7:15. It was only thirty-five minutes later, but it was a time of his choosing. His failure to overcome his nocturnal inertia enabled Ellie to beat him into the shower. He was glad.

“Bad business with poor old Pinky Hofstead,” he thought, “but Orly handled everything all right. The more he lightens up on the Ace Crime Fighter bit and does more things like that, the better deputy he will become.” He breathed deeply, cracked his knuckles and several other joints, and accepted the inevitable.

At least, Palmer and Ellie no longer had to worry about Trygve catching the bus. His clever arguments had convinced his parents that the most logical solution to the family’s transportation crisis was to purchase another car. Trygve often went to school early for academic events, and stayed after school for athletic events. By letting him have a car, it solved everybody’s scheduling problems. Palmer and Ellie had rather favored a brown Plymouth Reliant, but they agreed to let Trygve help in the selection. Now Palmer himself felt a little self-conscious hopping into a bright orange Pontiac Firebird. But, on the other hand, he remembered what it was like to be young, and as long as the kid kept his grades up, well …

Palmer and Ellie never really got around to having their own breakfast until Trygve was pushed out the door. At last this was accomplished, and they sat with the newspaper and some raisin bagels smothered in what Palmer realized was far too much butter. After a comfortable silence, Palmer said, “You know, I think I maybe ought to go to John Hofstead’s funeral.”

Ellie, who was still wrapped in her bathrobe, said, “Are you thinking we both should go? We didn’t really know them that well. I mean, we go to the same church and all that, but they always went to the early services and we went to the late one. Our paths have hardly crossed.”

“Yah,” Palmer acknowledged with a curious intake of breath, “but he was a good man. And Martha always seemed like such a nice person.”

“I suppose there will be a full church. He had a lot of friends.”

“Yah, if you don’t go it almost looks like you weren’t one of his friends.”

“Well, were you?”

“Sure, sort of.”

Ellie’s eyes twinkled as she added, “And it never hurts for an elected official to appear before a large crowd, right?”

“Hey. Is that fair? I think it would be a nice gesture of respect. Besides, I want to hear what Rolf will say. He always comes through for big funerals.”

“Rolf” referred to the Reverend Rolf Knutson, Palmer’s older brother, the senior pastor of the First Norwegian Lutheran Church. Whenever he and his brother stood nose to nose, Palmer was shocked to discover that they were of the same height. Rev. Knutson had silver hair, large silver eyebrows, and a silver voice. In his majestic robes he seemed larger than life. Palmer, the kid brother, had always been in awe of him.

Rather than going to the office, coming home to change into a nice funeral suit, and then change again, Palmer decided to “catch up on some paper work at home,” as he referred to a leisurely perusal of the newspaper. He called the law enforcement office and left word that he would be in the office shortly after the funeral.

The weather had moderated, he noticed, as he drove his Acura Integra to the funeral. It was at last above zero, the first time in five days, and mourners could get by with overcoats instead of fur-lined parkas. As he had anticipated, the church was packed. There were insurance colleagues from all over the state. There were local service club contingents and the new president of Fergus Falls State University. The president of Concordia College, the beneficiary of the Hofstead largess, had also made the sixty-mile drive to attend.

The Reverend Knutson was at his best, linking the deceased’s career in insurance “to that insurance which Christ has provided for our salvation.” There were never very many negative things that could have been said about John Hofstead in the first place, and whatever they were, they were certainly not mentioned on this day. When Reverend Knutson spoke, it was assumed God listened and people were assured by the Lutheran conclusion: “Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant, John Hofstead. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive him into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light. Amen.”

A pleasant lunch followed.

That afternoon snow began to fall. The mourning, for all but the closest family members of John Hofstead, was over. The whiteness settled down over the First Norwegian Lutheran Church and over the beautiful Otter Tail County Court House. It partially obscured the Fergus Falls State Hospital, on the hill overlooking the town. It covered up dirt and soot and grime as perfectly as the Reverend Knutson had maintained that God’s forgiveness covered the sins of mankind. It looked so pure that the sheriff could not bring himself to pore over crime statistics or worry about problems in less blessed places. Instead, since the life of the late John Hofstead was fresh in his mind, he decided to wrap up things and asked Orly Peterson to bring in the file.

As Orly came in he was chuckling, and before Palmer could stop him he said, “So Ole, he decided he was going to be Norway’s first astronaut, see, and he proudly told Sven that he was going to be the first man on the sun. Well, Sven, he looks at him for a few seconds and says, ‘Don’t be silly, Ole. You can’t go to the sun, you’d burn up!’ But Ole says, ‘No, no, I got dat figured out. I’ll go at night.’”

Palmer’s facial muscles moved less than those of a dead walleye as he took the folder out of his deputy’s hand. “Is everything you told me, and all your notes, in this folder?”

“Yah,” Orly said, the smile fading into an equally fish-like solemnity.

“And there’s nothing new to add to it?”

“Not that I can think of. I got the pictures of the scene of the accident developed. I put them in.”

“But basically, I can feel safe about skimming this report and not waste too much time on it?”

Orly shrugged so that his epaulets flapped. “I think so.”

The sheriff began to scan the pages of the report. “You know, you’ve gotten to be a much better writer in the last couple of years. Detail. I like your detail … Yah, good report. And this is where it happened. Right under the loon?”

“Yah, I’m afraid so. It’s almost the sort of thing that could appear in that News of the Weird. ‘Man Killed By Twenty-Foot Loon.’ Although it wasn’t very funny at the time, only cold. But you can see how it must have been for the poor guy. Bam! He hits the statue and that’s all she wrote. Notice how pure and even the snow is? He just laid there until we came. The only footprints you can see there are ours.”

Palmer Knutson studied the picture for a long time. Finally, he asked, “Where’s the snowmobile?”

“Well, Chuck couldn’t get that in the picture. It’s about fifty feet away, down on the lake.”

“Did he take a picture of that, too?”

“Of course. He wasn’t too enthusiastic, but I made him do it. It’s right at the back of the report. You can even see how the exhaust of the snowmobile engine had discolored the area right around it. Those things do cause pollution, you know. I figured it coasted down to the lake and the engine kept running until it ran out of gas.”

“I notice that the track of the snowmobile shows that it went exactly between two small trees to get down to the lake. Could you see any other tracks around the snowmobile?”

“Of course not. Hofstead had fallen off by that time. Besides, it had coasted just to the edge of the clear ice. That stuff wouldn’t take tracks.”

Palmer Knutson looked out the window. “It might have, you know, but they are covered now.” He added, after a long pause, “That’s too bad, it might have told us something. And you’re sure that the snowmobile was at least fifty feet from Hofstead’s body?”

“Yah, at least. How come? What’s the big deal?”

A knot had grown in the sheriff’s stomach. He looked up at his deputy, back at the picture, and then back at Orly. Finally, in a husky whisper, he said, “The big deal is, I’m afraid, that John Hofstead was murdered.”