Every morning, as soon as the dishes were washed and the beds made, (Laura) ran out to watch Mr. Scott and Pa working at the well. The sunshine was blistering, even the winds were hot, and the prairie grasses were turning yellow. Mary preferred to stay in the house and sew on her patchwork quilt. But Laura liked the fierce light and the sun and the wind, and she couldn’t stay away from the well. -Little House on the Prairie
(Almanzo) liked Cap Garland. Cap was lighthearted and merry but he would fight his weight in wildcats. When Cap Garland had reason to lose his temper his eyes narrowed and glittered with a look that no man cared to stand up to. -The Long Winter
Twenty-Two
Roelke spent an hour in his patrol car, zapping cars with his newly-calibrated radar gun, and he wrote three tickets before he got bored. He drove by the ranch house where he’d seen young Crystal sitting on the curb, waiting for her parents to stop fighting. No sign of her today. He drove by Mrs. Walter Bainbridge’s house, which always eased her mind, and he drove through the park, which eased parents’ minds.
By then he was bored again, so he circled back to the empty station. He did what he needed to do about the speeding tickets, which took about two and a half minutes. He emptied the trash and washed the coffeepot—did anyone else ever wash it? He really didn’t think so—and tidied the cupboard.
Then he pulled out his report on Travis, the infant surrendered to Child Protective Services. He read his own summary, trying to figure out how he could have better protected Travis. That call could have gone really sour.
“Damn,” he muttered and shoved the report back into the file. Knee bouncing double-time, he grabbed the phone and dialed a familiar number.
“Milwaukee Police Department, District Two.”
“Sergeant Malloy, please. Tell him it’s Roelke McKenna.”
Five minutes later, after scheduling a meeting with his former sergeant for the following Tuesday, Roelke hung up again. He felt a little guilty. The guilt pissed him off.
I’m not doing anything wrong, he reminded himself. How could he know whether he wanted to return to Milwaukee without going back? He hadn’t been there since he’d caught Rick’s killer. Maybe he did belong there. Chloe wasn’t real keen on cities, but he could show her things—historic places and museums and really good bakeries. Moving back to Milwaukee wouldn’t end his relationship with Chloe. They just wouldn’t see each other as often. If Chloe—
The phone rang, and he snatched the receiver. “Eagle Police Department, Officer McKenna speaking.”
“Roelke?” Chloe said in his ear.
“Hey.”
“Is this a bad time? I’m sorry to call at work, but … ”
He sat up straight. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine,” she said quickly. “But I need your advice. It’s about Kari.”
She talked. He listened. “Jesus,” he said at last. Blackmail was nasty.
“Yeah. I feel as if I’m traveling with a stranger, you know? And … ” She sighed. “It gets worse. When the whole blackmail thing came up, Kari kind of went insane. She took a quilt square that was made by Laura Ingalls Wilder from Miss Lila’s house. Miss Lila had told Kari the piece would be hers one day, but still, it was stealing.”
“Jesus.”
“I know. Kari made plans to sell it to some dealer at the symposium so she could pay off the guy blackmailing her, but then her conscience kicked in and she changed her mind. She’s going to put the square back when we get home so it’s there when Miss Lila’s estate is settled. But this blackmail crap could destroy her life. Not to mention her family.”
Roelke pressed one knuckle against his forehead. “Let me think about this. Can we talk in the morning?”
“Thank you. That would be wonderful.” Relief was clear in her voice. “I think I just really needed to share all this with you.”
He liked the sound of that. He liked it so much that to his own utter surprise he said, “Have you thought anymore about living together?”
“I thought we were going to talk about that when I got back.”
“Yes. We were.”
“Roelke, I love you. But I don’t want to live together.”
Damn.
“Rick’s death left a big black hole in your life, Roelke, and I am profoundly sorry—”
“This has nothing to do with Rick.”
“Are you sure? You’ve been down in this deep well of grief, and I know how terrible that is. But here’s the thing, Roelke: I don’t think I’m strong enough to pull you out all by myself.”
This conversation had gone completely off the rails. “I—”
“We’ve been doing fine as we are.” Chloe’s voice was still rising, gathering speed. “I lived with Markus for five years, but we were in his country, working at his museum, and honestly, I didn’t realize how much of myself I’d given up until it was too late.”
“I—”
“And I gotta tell you, I think this dream you have about the farm is just that—a dream. We can’t go back to our childhoods, Roelke. I can’t, you can’t. This whole idea of a place, some place where we can find that—there’s no such thing.”
The torrent of words stopped abruptly, replaced by a muffled sniffling.
Roelke closed his eyes. He’d made Chloe cry.
“I’m r-really s-sorry.” The words came out all shuddery. “I am a h-horrible girlfriend.”
“Chloe, no, I—”
“I’ll c-call you in the morning,” she quavered, and hung up the phone.
Chloe sank onto the tiny seat in the gas station phone booth. What was wrong with her? She had, all by herself, managed to make this most horrible day even worse. She’d hurt Roelke. And she’d done it on the heels of dumping her Kari problem on his strong shoulders.
Roelke would be much better off if he ditched me and found someone else, she thought miserably. Someone younger and saner, with more money in the bank.
The very worst part? What she’d said was true. He might be ready to live together, but she was not.
And really, she wasn’t out of line. The whole question had only come up because of the farm. She wasn’t ready to talk about merging bank accounts and buying property, and marriage and children and whatever else came with the package. She was afraid that—
Afraid? The word struck like a gong in her brain. Was fear holding her back? Fear of getting the phone call that Rick’s fiancée had gotten? Or even … fear that Roelke, like the father of her miscarried child, might one day decide he’d be better off without her?
Well, screw that, Chloe thought angrily. She’d be damned if she’d live a life defined by dread and worry. She wiped her eyes, blew her nose, and slammed out of the booth. Then she got back in the car and slammed the door. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“I don’t care! Just—just go somewhere.”
Kari drove until they reached a Chinese place near the motel, which reminded Chloe that lunch had been nonexistent. The Ellefson sisters managed to order take-out and get back to their room without making eye contact. They picked at Governor’s Chicken and Tofu Almond Ding without speaking. Finally Kari put down her plastic fork and pushed the little cardboard box away. “So, you called Roelke?”
“I did, yeah.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That you were being blackmailed.” Chloe speared a tiny cob of corn on her own fork. “Why, and by whom. And then I asked his advice.”
Kari winced, but she nodded. “What did he say?”
“He said he needed to think about it. We’re going to talk again in the morning.”
Kari began folding her napkin in a manner suggesting serious knowledge of origami. “Look, I’m going to take responsibility for my behavior. I just want Trygve to hear about it from me.”
“Okay.” Chloe put the corn down. “But beyond those things, what is it that you want, Kari? I’ve listened to everything you’ve had to say, and I still don’t know.”
“I want to stay married to Tryg, and to raise my kids as best I can.” Muscles moved in Kari’s jaw. “Look, I obviously have some prob-
lems—”
“You think?” Chloe muttered.
“For Christ’s sake, just stuff it,” Kari snapped. “I’ve done some reprehensible things, but don’t you dare judge me.”
“I—”
“You left. You went to West Virginia, and New York, and spent summers here and there, and ended up living in Switzerland. You have no idea what my life has been like. So keep your judgmental observations to yourself.”
Chloe had no idea how to respond. Finally she said, “I am sorry.”
Kari threw her a suspicious look. “For what?”
“For what you’re facing,” Chloe said. “Sometimes things start to go wrong, and life spirals out of control, and all of a sudden you’re trying to figure out what the hell happened.”
“If Tryg divorces me and gets custody of Astrid and Anja, I don’t know how I’ll get out of bed in the morning.” Tears welled in Kari’s eyes. “But maybe my girls would be better off without me.”
When you’re not singing Anja to sleep after a nightmare, Chloe thought, or helping Astrid with multiplication tables. She sealed up her own little cardboard box of food and tossed it into the trash. She wasn’t hungry.
Roelke pulled off the road, turned off his truck lights, and eased close to the tavern. It was 3:45 in the morning, and he was about to visit the Stagger Inn.
He studied the place with a jaundiced eye. Given the name, the bar’s patrons of choice were evidently drunk before they even arrived—never a good sign. The one-story structure with glass block windows squatted in a trash-strewn gravel lot on a rural road in Dane County. It was hard to imagine Chloe’s sister coming here. But he’d been a cop for a while now; it took a lot more than what he’d heard on the phone to shock him.
Bar time had come and gone, but there were still a few vehicles in the lot. Thirty minutes later two men emerged and roared off on their Harleys. A guy built like Hulk Hogan drove away in a sedan with one headlight burned out. Now just a lonely old-model Ford sat in the lot.
Roelke eased from his truck and clicked the door closed. He’d changed out of his uniform but wore his duty belt beneath a light jacket. He hoped like anything that this would be quick and easy, but he needed to be prepared for trouble. After checking that everything was in place—gun, wooden nightstick, cuffs—he strode across the lot.
The front door was still unlocked. He threw it open, hard. It banged against the left wall. He moved right so he wasn’t silhouetted in the doorway.
“Hey!” A man dumping the contents of a trash can into a plastic bag straightened with a scowl. “Knock that shit off and go back the way you came.”
“You the guy they call Spider?”
“What’s it to you?”
Roelke sized him up in an instant: a skinny man in jeans, forty, maybe fifty, balding. Chances were good that when things got rough, Spider relied on the big guy who’d just left for muscle. Spider’s blue work shirt was helpfully tucked in, and Roelke didn’t see any weapons. If he had a knife, it was well hidden. Spider was too far from the pool table to grab a cue. That left the glass bottles clinking into the garbage bag, maybe a thrown chair. Should be manageable.
The room was depressing—dark paneling, beer signs, dim yellow lights, black leather bucket seats at the bar, several mounted squirrel heads. The only incongruous touch was a big teddy bear wearing a blue sweatshirt with Grandpa monogrammed on the front in gold thread, surveying the room from a high shelf. Even slimeballs had grandkids.
Slimeball was still scowling. “I’m closed.”
“I’m not here for a drink.” Roelke crossed the open space, stopping just out of reach. “I’m here for some snapshots.”
“Yeah?” The man gave a tough-guy shrug. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about some pictures you took of a lady.”
“I said, I don’t know—”
“Yeah, you do.”
Spider narrowed his eyes, widened his stance.
Just hand ’em over, Roelke thought with a sigh.
“Well, maybe I do got pictures,” Spider agreed. “But they’re mine.”
Roelke leapt. One grab, one jerk, one swing, and the bartender was backed against him, caught by the crook of Roelke’s right elbow across his throat. Roelke held Spider’s left wrist behind his back in a position calculated to solicit cooperation.
“Listen to me,” Roelke said. “You picked the wrong lady to threaten.”
“Okay!”
“I don’t like bullies.” Roelke inched the guy’s wrist a little higher.
“Okay!”
“I can have this place shut down by tomorrow night.”
“You can’t—”
“The hell I can’t. Underage drinking, staying open past bar time, drug deals in the parking lot, prostitution—”
“There weren’t any prostitutes!”
“But here’s the kicker: I’m a cop, and you’re not. Who do you think my colleagues in Dane County are going to believe?”
Spider squirmed. “Okay! Okay. You can have the pictures.”
“Where are they?”
“In my safe. Back office.”
Roelke released the throat hold but held on to Spider’s left arm as they shuffled into the back room. “Open the safe and get them out.”
The safe was small, nothing special, shoved in a corner behind a metal desk. It took Spider three tries to work the combination. When the tumblers finally clicked and the door swung open, he grabbed a plain envelope and thrust it toward Roelke. “Here. Take it and get out.”
“Let me see what’s in there.”
Spider poked a finger into the envelope and held it up. Roelke glimpsed a face that looked so much like Chloe’s that rage seared his chest. This SOB might as well have threatened her.
Roelke grabbed the envelope and tucked it into his deep jacket pocket. “Is this all of them?”
“Yes. I swear.”
Roelke considered. The envelope held three or four photos. Polaroids, thank God. No film, no copies. Spider was a moron.
“So go,” the moron said with a last spurt of defiance. “Take them and get out.”
“Just one more thing,” Roelke said in a very low voice. He patted his pocket. “I will be watching you. If you lied to me tonight, if other pictures do exist, I’ll break your leg. If I ever discover that you’ve tried the same trick on anyone else, I’ll break your other leg. Do we understand each other?”
The man’s skin grew visibly damp. “Yes.”
As Roelke turned away, Spider lunged behind his desk—and came up with an empty beer bottle in his hand.
“Don’t do it,” Roelke advised.
Spider smashed the bottom against the edge of the desk. Glass shattered, leaving a nasty weapon in his hand.
Roelke kicked, heard the man yelp, saw the bottle go flying. Then Roelke slammed his right fist against Spider’s chin. The older man went down, slumping against a wall with a look of utter surprise.
Roelke stalked out. Once in his truck he felt inside his pocket to make sure the envelope was still there. It was.
His hand hurt. The rest of him felt pretty damn good. He knew he’d gone way over a line. He hadn’t wanted to. He’d hoped that command presence and bluster would do the trick. But it hadn’t, and after glimpsing that face so like Chloe’s in the photo, he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Roelke knew that if Chief Naborski discovered what had happened tonight, a job in Milwaukee would become his only option. But it was extremely unlikely that Spider would report Roelke’s visit. He couldn’t, not without revealing his own blackmailing scheme.
Roelke started the engine and turned the truck toward home. I needed that, he thought. It was depressing but undeniable. After giving up on the old Roelke place, and the God-awful call to rescue Travis, and hearing Chloe cry on the phone, he had needed to kick some ass.
Chloe called Roelke at 7:30 a.m. from a payphone in the motel parking lot. “McKenna,” he mumbled.
Great start, she thought. “Sorry. You’re usually up by now.”
“It was a short night.”
“Roelke, I owe you an apology. I didn’t handle things well when we talked yesterday.”
“You were kind of … shrieking. I’ve never heard you shriek before.”
“And I will do my very best to never subject you to that again. I was furious with Kari, and I ended up taking it out on you.”
“You said what was on your mind.”
“I’m really sorry.” She didn’t know how to bridge the crevasse she’d dug between them. “Can you forgive me for being so hurtful?”
His voice finally softened. “Of course.”
“Thank you,” Chloe said, with heartfelt gratitude. “So … do you have any thoughts about Kari’s situation? How we should handle it?”
“I’ve got the photographs.”
“You … what?”
“I paid a visit to the Stagger Inn. This Spider guy handed over the pictures of your sister.”
“Just like that?”
“Pretty much. We had a little talk, he saw things my way.”
Chloe felt weak-kneed with relief. “Roelke, I sincerely hope my family problem didn’t make you do anything that—”
“I handled it,” he said briefly. “Tell your sister to stop worrying. The guy swore that there weren’t any others. I’m inclined to believe him. He was in way over his head.”
“I don’t even know what to say. You are amazing.”
“Sometimes,” he agreed. He sounded a little smug.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. So now you can head home knowing that Kari is off the public hook.”
“In a couple of days, you mean. I need to talk to Kari about what happens now, but there’s one more homesite—”
“Seriously? After everything that’s happened, aren’t you ready to end this road trip?”
“Not really.”
He paused. “Have the South Dakota guys caught whoever killed Ms. Rifenberg?”
Chloe watched a very small man drag a very large suitcase from his room. “I don’t know. But the sad truth is that Jayne was a miserable woman who liked patronizing people, and was sometimes just mean. I suspect she pushed somebody too far.”
“People who get pushed too hard can lash out,” Roelke allowed. “Sometimes the last straw is something small.”
“I think that’s what happened.”
“But people kill for revenge, greed, fear … lots of reasons.”
“I know. But I’m sure the detectives are making progress. And there’s still that quilt at the Mansfield homesite that I really need to see.”
An operator’s voice came through the line, demanding change. Chloe pushed another quarter into the slot.
“I just wish you’d skip Missouri and come home.”
“I know. I’ll see how Kari feels.”
“Call me when you can.”
“I will. Listen, what’s going on with the farm?”
“I can’t afford it.”
He can’t afford it, Chloe thought. That was it? Done deal? Wow. The news should have given her a sense of relief. Somehow, it didn’t.
“I still really want to talk with you about all this stuff, but … ”
Chloe hated hearing the frustration in his voice, hated being absent when he needed her. “I’m sorry the timing of this trip is so bad. I can’t wait to talk everything through with you when I get back. And Roelke? From the bottom of my heart, thank you for getting the pictures back. I love you.”
“I love you too,” he said. “That’s why I worry. And please, have a serious talk with Kari about coming home.”
“I will,” Chloe promised. Then she went back to the room.
Kari came out of the bathroom dressed in jeans, her hair wet but neatly combed. “Well?” She put one hand against the wall as if bracing herself. “Did he have any advice beyond the obvious? Tell all to law enforcement and my family?”
“He didn’t offer advice,” Chloe said. “He has the pictures.”
Kari’s eyes went wide. Her mouth slowly opened. “He … what?”
“Roelke went to the tavern and got the pictures. The blackmailing thing is done and over with.”
Kari stared for so long that Chloe began to wonder if she’d been speaking in tongues or something. Then Kari dropped onto her bed, put her hands over her face, and began to cry.
As Chloe watched her sister crumple, something gave way inside and the last bits of anger blew away like ashes. Things would never be the same for her and Kari … but the hostility between them was done and over with too.
Chloe considered saying I forgive you, but she was afraid it might sound sanctimonious. Instead she fetched a box of tissues from the bathroom and sat down beside her sister. Then she put one arm around Kari’s shoulders and let her cry.