A Cry In the Night (21 page)

T
he new puppy was a golden retriever. Even to Jenny's unpracticed eye, the long nose, thin face and slender body indicated good breeding.

The thick old quilt on the kitchen floor was the same one Randy had curled up on. The bowl with water still had his name in the jaunty red letters Joe had painted on it.

Even Joe's mother seemed mollified by the gift. “Erich Krueger is a fair man,” she conceded to Jenny. “Feel as though I was wrong accusing him of maybe doing away with Joe's dog last year. Seems as though if he got rid of that dog he'd a come out and said so.”

Except that this time I saw him, Jenny thought, and then felt unfair to Erich.

Beth patted the sleek head. “You must be very careful because he's so little,” she instructed Tina. “You must not hurt him.”

“They sure are pretty little girls,” Maude Ekers said. “They favor you except for the hair.”

To Jenny there was something different about the
woman's attitude today. Her welcome had been restrained. She had hesitated before inviting them in. Jenny would not have accepted a cup of coffee from the ever-present percolator but was surprised when it wasn't offered.

“What's the puppy's name?” Beth asked.

“Randy,” Maude said. “Joe's decided he's another Randy.”

“Naturally,” Jenny commented. “Somehow I knew Joe wouldn't just forget that other little dog so quickly. He's much too good-hearted.”

They were sitting at the kitchen table. She smiled at the other woman.

But to her astonishment Maude's face showed worried hostility.
“You leave my boy alone,
Mrs. Krueger,” she burst out. “He's a simple farm boy and I already got enough worries with the way that brother of mine is bringing Joey to the bars with him at night. Joe moons about you too much as it is. Maybe it's not for me to say but you're married to the most important man in this community and you should realize your position.”

Jenny pushed the chair back and stood up. “What do you mean?”

“I think you know what I mean. With a woman like you there's bound to be trouble. My brother's life was spoiled because of that accident in the dairy barn. You got to have heard that John Krueger felt my brother was careless with the work light ‘cause he got so flustered around Caroline. Joe's all I got. He means the world to me. I don't want accidents or problems.”

Now that she had started, the words tumbled from her mouth. Beth and Tina stopped playing with the puppy. Uncertainly they clasped hands. “And something else, it may not be my place but you're awful foolish to have your ex-husband sneaking around here when everyone knows Erich is in his cabin painting.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I'm no gossip and this ain't passed my lips but one night last month that actor ex-husband of yours came here looking for directions. He's a talky one. Introduced himself. Boasted you invited him down. Said he'd just been hired by the Guthrie. I pointed the road to your place myself but let me tell you I wasn't happy about doing it.”

“You must immediately phone Sheriff Gunderson and tell him what you know,” Jenny said, keeping her voice as steady as she could. “Kevin never arrived at our house that night. The sheriff is inquiring for him. He's officially listed as a missing person.”

“He never got to your house?” Maude's normally strong voice became louder.

“No, he did not. Please call Sheriff Gunderson immediately. And thank you for letting us visit the puppy.”

Kevin had been in Maude's house!

He had specifically told Maude that she, Jenny, had called him.

Maude had pointed the way to the Krueger farmhouse, a three-minute drive away.

And Kevin had not arrived.

If Sheriff Gunderson had been insolent with his insinuations today, what would he be like now?”

“Mommy, you're hurting my hand,” Beth protested.

“Oh, sorry, love. I didn't mean to squeeze it.”

She had to get out of here. No, that was impossible. She couldn't leave until she knew what had happened to Kevin.

And beyond that. She was carrying in her womb the microcosm of a human being who was a fifthgeneration Krueger, who belonged to this place, whose birthright was this land.

* * *

Afterward Jenny thought of that evening of April 7 as the final calm hours. Erich was not in the house when she and the girls got home.

I'm glad, she thought. At least she would not have to keep up some sort of pretense. The next time she saw him she would tell him what Maude had told her.

Maude had probably called the sheriff already. Would he come back here tonight? Somehow she didn't think so, but why would Kevin tell people she'd called him? What had happened to him?

“What do you want for dinner, ladies,” she asked.

“Frankfurters,” Beth said positively.

“Ice cream,” was Tina's hopeful contribution.

“Sounds terrific,” Jenny said. Somehow she'd felt the girls slipping away from her. That wouldn't happen tonight.

Recklessly she let the girls bring their plates to the couch.
The Wizard of Oz
was on. Companionably nibbling frankfurters and sipping Cokes they huddled together as they watched it.

By the time it was over Tina was asleep in Jenny's lap and Beth's head was drooping on her shoulder. She carried them both upstairs.

Just over three months had passed since that wintry evening when she'd been carrying them home from the day-care center and Erich had caught up with them. There was no use thinking about that. He probably would stay in the cabin again. Even so she didn't want to sleep in the master bedroom.

She undressed the children, buttoned them into pajamas, patted their faces and hands with a warm washcloth and tucked them into bed. Her back hurt. She should not carry them anymore. Too much weight, too much of a strain. It didn't take long to stack the dishwasher. Carefully she examined the couch for signs of crumbs.

She remembered the nights in the apartment when
if she was very tired she left the dishes stacked and rinsed in the sink and got into bed with a cup of tea and a good book. I didn't know when I was well off, she thought. And then she remembered the leaky ceiling, rushing the girls to the day-care center, the constant worry about money, the relentless loneliness.

When she was finished straightening up it was not quite nine o'clock. She went through the downstairs rooms, checking that no lights had been left on. In the dining room she stopped under Caroline's quilt. Caroline had wanted to paint and had been shamed and ridiculed away from her art. She'd “done something useful.”

It had taken Caroline eleven years before she'd been driven away. Had she too experienced the sensation of being the outsider who did not belong?

Slowly climbing the stairs, Jenny realized how close she felt to the woman who had lived in this house. She wondered if Caroline had entered the master bedroom with the same sense of hopeless entrapment that she now felt.

•   •   •

It was midmorning before Sheriff Gunderson came back to the house. Again Jenny had had fitful dreams, dreams of walking in the forest and smelling the pine trees. Was she looking for the cabin?

When she woke up she became ill. How much of the early-morning nausea had to do with the physical aspect of pregnancy and how much was the result of the anxiety over Kevin's disappearance?

Elsa came in as usual at nine o'clock: dour, silent, vanishing upstairs with vacuum and window cleaners and polishing rags.

She was still reading to the girls when Wendell Gunderson came. She had not yet dressed but was wearing a warm wool robe over her nightgown. Would
Erich object to her talking to the sheriff in her robe? No, how could he? The robe zipped up to her neck.

She knew she was pale. She'd tied her hair at the nape of her neck. The sheriff came to the front door.

“Mrs. Krueger.” She detected a pitch of excitement. “Mrs. Krueger,” he repeated, his voice deepening. “Last night I received a call from Maude Ekers.”

“I asked her to phone you,” Jenny said.

“So she claims. I didn't talk to you right away because I decided to figure out where Kevin MacPartland might have driven if he didn't come here.”

Was it possible the sheriff did believe her? His face, his voice, were so serious. No. He looked like a poker player about to play his winning card.

“I realized it could happen that a stranger might miss your gate if he turned off on the bend that leads to the riverbank.”

The riverbank. Oh, dear God, Jenny thought. Could Kevin have made that turn and kept driving, maybe driving quickly, and then gone over the bank. That road was so dark.

“We investigated and I'm sorry to say that's what happened,” the sheriff said. “We found a late-model white Buick in the water near the shoreline. It's crusted by ice and that thick brush keeps anyone walking on the bank from seeing it. We pulled it out.”

“Kevin?” She knew what he would tell her. Kevin's face flashed before her mind.

“A man's body is in the car, Mrs. Krueger. It's badly decomposed but generally answers the description of the missing Kevin MacPartland, including the clothing he was wearing when last seen. The driver's license in his pocket is MacPartland's.”

Oh, Kevin, Jenny mourned silently, oh, Kevin. She tried to speak, but could not.

“We will need you to give us positive identification as soon as possible.”

No, she wanted to shriek, no. Kevin was so vain. He worried about a blemish. Badly decomposed! Oh, God.

“Mrs. Krueger, you may want to engage a lawyer.”

“Why?”

“Because there'll be an inquest into MacPartland's death and some tough questions will be asked. You don't have to say anything more.”

“I'll answer any questions you have now.”

“All right. I'm going to ask you again. Did Kevin MacPartland come to this house that Monday night, March ninth?”

“No, I told you
no
.”

“Mrs. MacPartland, do you own a full-length maroon thermal winter coat?”

“Yes, I do. No, I mean I did. I gave it away. Why?”

“Do you remember where you purchased it?”

“Yes, in Macy's in New York.”

“I'm afraid you have a lot of explaining to do, Mrs. Krueger. A woman's coat was found on the seat next to the body. A maroon thermal coat with the label of Macy's department store. We'll need you to look at it and see if it's the one you claim you gave away.”

T
he inquest was held a week later. For Jenny the week was a blur of unfocused pain.

In the morgue, she stared down at the stretcher. Kevin's face was mutilated but still recognizable, with the long straight nose, the curve of the forehead, the thick, dark red hair. Memories of their wedding day in St. Monica's kept flashing back to her. “I, Jennifer, take thee Kevin . . . Till death do us part.” Never had her life been more entwined with his than now. Oh, Kevin, why did you follow me here?

“Mrs. Krueger?” Sheriff Gunderson's voice urging the identification.

Her throat closed. She hadn't even been able to swallow tea this morning.

“Yes,” she whispered, “that's my husband.”

A low, harsh laugh behind her. “Erich, oh, Erich, I didn't mean . . .”

But he was gone, his footsteps decisively slapping the tiled floor. When she got to the car he was there,
stony-faced, and did not speak to her on the way home.

During the inquest the same questions were asked a dozen different ways. “Mrs. Krueger, Kevin MacPartland told a number of people you had invited him to come to your home in your husband's absence.”

“I did not.”

“Mrs. Krueger what is the phone number of your home?”

She gave it.

“Do you know the telephone number of the Guthrie Theater?”

“I do not.”

“Let me tell you or perhaps refresh your memory. It is 555-2824. Is it familiar to you?”

“No.”

“Mrs. Krueger, I am holding a copy of the March telephone bill from Krueger Farm. A call to the Guthrie Theater appears on this bill dated March
ninth.
Do you still deny making that call?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Is this your coat, Mrs. Krueger?”

“Yes, I gave it away.”

“Do you have a key to the Krueger residence?”

“Yes, but I've mislaid it.” The coat, she thought. Of course it was in the pocket of the coat. She told the prosecutor that.

He held up something, a key; the ring had her initials, J.K. The key Erich had given her.

“Is this your key?”

“It looks like it.”

“Did you give it to anyone, Mrs. Krueger? Please tell us the truth.”

“No, I did not.”

“This key was found in Kevin MacPartland's hand.”

“That's impossible.”