Comeback (Gun Pedersen Book 1) (14 page)

23

Stony Lake Community Church was located at the
once-picturesque corner of First Avenue and Lake, where the city crew had recently amputated from the
boulevards a total of thirteen veteran oaks stricken
with wilt. The stumpage invalidated the lush post
cards once produced by the Stony Chamber of Com
merce, which featured a traditional brick church,
grandly overfoliated in leafy oak, and the silver-
lettered slogan, “We visited Stony Lake. Why don’t
you?” Now, on a June day bound for an unseasonable
ninety degrees, Gun sat on one of the stumps and
watched well-dressed men and women file into the
church. They were going to bury Tig Larson.

“Going in, Gun? Or are you just going to flatten
your ass on that stump all day?” Jack LaSalle was not
dressed for a funeral. He was wearing jeans and a
tight, dark blue T-shirt that outlined concrete pecto
rals.

“It’ll be warm,” said Gun. “Yup, I’m going in.

Don’t know if the good shepherd will let such a wolf as
you in, though, what with such a tender flock.” He nodded at Jack’s attire.

“He shouldn’t worry. I’m going in to pay my
respects, but I can’t stay. Left a sign at the bar that says
Back in Fifteen Minutes.”

“Be nimble, Jack.”

“Ha.”

People were already sweating inside. The forty
pews—two rows of twenty with an aisle down the
center—were nearly full. Men used hankies against their brows. Women fanned themselves with blue-
bound hymnals. Reverend Barr was somewhere out of
sight. Tig Larson was in a closed walnut box at the
altar, the coolest man in the house.

After a wait of some twenty minutes the Reverend
Barr opened a narrow door near the pulpit and
ascended into it. All hankies and hymnals were
quieted as he gripped the stand and glared out over
the gathering. He stood stiff for a minute. Then he said, “There’s a terrible reason we’re here today.” Barr let his eyes drop to the podium. “A favored
member of this body lies before you,” he said in a low,
emotional tone. “And his death is one that could
have—yes, should have—been prevented.”

Gun felt something like a drop in atmospheric
pressure as forty pews’ worth of bodies inhaled and
held it. The barometer’s dipping, he thought. Change
in the weather.

“All of you know me,” said Barr. “You know I’m not a judgmental person. Not one to lay blame on
anyone’s shoulders. The Lord is slow to anger, quick
to forgive, and I try to follow His example.”

There were nods around Gun as listeners bowed to
the vinelike strength of Barr’s voice.

“But this is needless waste, this terrible end that our

brother Tig Larson brought upon himself. Needless. It
makes me angry, and I’m going to tell you why.”

Get to it, Gun thought.

“Tig Larson was a brave man,” said Barr. “A brave
man who stood up and looked reality straight in the face, and in turn decided to face others and tell them
what he’d seen.”

Concentration was plain in the squints of the
mourners. Sweat tracked down their temples,
unmopped.

“The week before he died,” Barr said, “Tig came to
my study with a problem. He said he’d been doing
some research. Research into an issue that mattered to
Tig in his heart of hearts.”

Barometer’s dropping, Gun thought. Watch those
clouds.

“There was only one thing more important to our friend Tig Larson than his beloved lakes, trees, and sunshine. And that was the health and wealth and
wisdom of his fellow Stony residents. As a man in a
position of leadership, Tig felt it dearly every time one
of our locals lost a job or missed a meal,” Barr said.
He swept the pews clean with a slow staring stroke. “Our brothers in the timber business, feeling hard
times. Our resorters, feeling a slowdown in the tourist
trade. Tig Larson was a man of compassion, and in
the end he decided to compromise one ideal—a
natural paradise—to aid another—a prosperous
county and community. That was the problem Tig came to me about. He was afraid of the reaction that
his public support for the Loon Country development
would arouse.”

Gun felt a dribble of sweat running like an ant down his neck and reached back to dab it away. Should have
dressed like Jack did, he thought, and left just as fast.
Humidity’s rising.

“And this is the part,” said Barr, “that makes me
angry. It seems Tig was right to be afraid. When he
came to me, I said, ‘Don’t worry, old friend, they’ll
understand. You just go out there and tell them how you feel.’ And that’s what he did. Not that it was easy
for him. But he made a hard and honest choice, and at
the public hearing he made his voice heard. And do you know what happened then?”

The barometer fell out of sight. Gun wondered if
people were breathing.

“I’ll tell you what happened.” Barr stood up tall in
the pulpit and his sweaty face glowed like Moses’ on
the mountain. “Tig went on home. He went home to take the rest of the day off, to recuperate from the
meeting. And then the phone began to ring. It rang time after time, and every time Tig answered it, and every time it was a local resident, and the residents
were mad because of Tig’s decision. They called him
things. They called him a turncoat. They said he’d
betrayed his duty!” Barr slapped the pulpit with both hands.

Lightning and thunder, Gun thought.

“And worst of all,” Barr went on, “they never let
him explain that they were the very reasons he’d
changed his mind.” Barr paused, letting the vibra
tions he’d produced sink into the plaster. “They were hungry, and he offered them food. They were naked,
and he offered them clothing. But they rejected all,
and that rejection was more than Tig could take.”
Barr stopped, took out his own hanky and wiped the
rage from his face.

There it was, Gun thought. The storm, brief but effective. He relaxed in his pew and waited for the
rainbow.

It came. “I don’t know who among you made those
telephone calls,” Barr said softly. “But I know this.

When you go off to decide for yourselves what we’re to
do with this poor famished paradise, you’ll be think
ing of Tig Larson. I want all of you to search your
selves, and if you’re part of the problem”—he nodded
almost imperceptibly at the walnut box—”then I
encourage you to become part of the solution. We can
never justify a man’s death, but maybe we can make it
seem less tragic. We all have one vote to cast. Mine’s
going for Tig Larson—one last time.” Barr was done.
He bowed his head to pray.

Gun missed the prayer. His attention was on the
reverend’s bowed head, which was, as he’d noticed before, bald on top with a ring of gray all around.
Before it had meant only that Barr was losing his hair.
Now it reminded him of someone else. Friar Tuck.
The
friar.

People lost no time in getting out of the thick
church air. Gun stayed behind until the pews were empty, then walked back past the pulpit and entered
Barr’s study through the narrow door.

The reverend was leaning back in a fat leather chair,
his clerical collar off, his white short-sleeve shirt open at the neck, his eyes hidden under a damp washcloth.
Gun’s entry had been quiet.

“Very nice talk, Friar Barr,” Gun said.

Barr snatched away the cloth and jerked forward in
the leather chair. “Polite to knock,” he said, with low control.

“So you were at Larson’s home, then, right before
he died,” said Gun.

“What?”

“When all those angry people called him up. Were
you there listening, or did he just stop by here on his
way to the bluff and tell you about it?”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at, Pedersen,”

said Barr. “Tig called me up that day. I was here at the
office. He told me what was happening. The next
day—well, you know. You found him.”

Gun walked over to Barr’s desk and leaned his
knuckles on Barr’s Calendar of Holy Days. “Do you
know what I think? I think you could fill a cathedral
with the amount of crap you just unloaded out there. I
think you know damn well why Larson drove over the
edge,”

Barr leaned back again, placing the tips of his
fingers together in a pastoral repose. “And what about
you, Pedersen? What do you know about why he went
over the edge?”

“I know he didn’t go home to wait on the wrathful
citizenry,” Gun said. “I know he didn’t change his
stand on Loon Country because he was worried about resorters. And I’ve got a very good idea about why he
did it, and when I know for sure, a lot of people are
going to be very disillusioned about the sacred leader
ship of Stony.” Gun removed his knuckles from the
desk and stood straight over Barr. “Afternoon, Friar,”
he said, and walked out of the study.

“Don’t call me that,” Barr called after him, less
control now in the rising voice. “The title’s Reverend.
Reverend Samuel Barr!” And he sat back in the
leather chair, mouth open, staring at the ceiling.

24

The next morning Gun rose ahead of the sun, took his
swings and swim in the creamy dawn mist, then went
inside and made the sort of breakfast he figured could
stoke a man through difficult tasks. In a large stainless
pan he dropped two chunks of smoked Virginia ham,
searing their sides on high heat. When they were
sizzling he cracked four eggs onto a cast-iron griddle
and cooked them sunny-side up, spooning over fat
from the ham. He ate the eggs soft-yoked, with slices
of cracked wheat bread. Then he went out on gravel to
the lake road. On Highway 71 he turned south and
headed for Minneapolis.

Rutherford’s street address was 1637 Griswold Ave
nue. Gun didn’t know the area, but he had a map— the one from Larson’s Buick, drip-dried, stiff and pocked but serviceable. It placed Rutherford in a residential area near the University of Minnesota. A
student maybe, Gun thought
. The Reverend Barr, Gun knew,
had left a Twin Cities church to come to Stony, though
Gun hadn’t heard why. Could be that Barr had known Rutherford there and offered his special services to
Hedman as a tool against Tig Larson. Barr certainly
could have been “the Friar” spoken of by the bartend
er at the Back Entrance—who’d know him, thirty
miles south of his parish? Gun squinted his left eye against the rising sun as he drove and tried to think of
other men he knew with Friar Tuck halos. There weren’t any. But then, he stayed at home a lot.

Ninety minutes south of Stony the lakeside resorts
and motels, even the mobile-home parks, began shed
ding their overpainted, hardscrabble siding for aged
wood and cedar trim. Bay windows swelled from
clean cabins. The trees grew in ranks, hand-planted,
and the grass was clipped right up the bark. This was
about as far as most of the city people were willing to
drive on their weekends off, and the city was starting
to show. Gun stopped at a small red cafe with a
mug-shaped neon sign and had a cup of coffee.

“You been in here before,” said a man with a shiny
scalp. He wore a white apron with a jumping bass
iron-on.

“Nope,” said Gun.

The man eyed him down the counter. “You used to
play football,” he said.

“Nope,” said Gun.

“Well, shoot,” said the man, wiping a glass with an
apron. “Had you pinned for the guy used to play
tackle for the Lions in Dee-troit. You sure?”

“I live up near Stony,” Gun said. “Have had a place there
for a long while.”

“Well, shoot,” said the man.

“Sorry,” said Gun. He dropped a dollar next to the
empty cup and left.

The temperature had risen enough for Gun to be

uncomfortable with only one window down. He
leaned over and reeled open the passenger window, then upshifted and drove with the wind crackling in
his ears.

So. If Barr really was the Friar, then it made sense to
guess that Larson had killed himself to avoid black
mail. Acting as matchmaker, Barr might have intro
duced the commissioner to Rutherford, then con
spired with friendly Lyle to catch the action in a
camera lens. A discreet presentation at Hedman’s
lodge, complete with black-and-white glossies, could
have shown Larson the grave error of his conserva
tionist ways.

Gun felt in his shirt pocket and came out with his
tobacco pouch and papers. He spread a paper, sprin
kled, and rolled a cigarette on his knee. Chances were
Rutherford would have been warned—a call from
good old Larry Slacker, probably, or from Reverend
Barr right after Gun’s post-funeral intrusion. Damn, Gun thought. Rutherford was probably in Miami by
this time. Walking the beach until the referendum was through, the land overturned, the megamall open, and
the condominiums doing a pleasant trade in time
sharing blue-suits. And Mazy, permanent daughter-
in-law to Lyle. Gun put the cigarette in his mouth and
felt in his shirt pocket. He hadn’t brought matches.

When the sun was at the top of the sky and turning
the highway to water ahead, Gun turned on the radio.
A sign told him he was eighty miles from Minneapolis, near enough to pull in WCCO. The Twins were
playing the Detroit Tigers, game one of a doublehead
er. Herb Carneal announced the score, three to one Twins, and the inning, fourth. Gun shook his head.

Rutherford might be gone, then.
But there would have to be some evidence of a connection, if there was a connec
tion. If Rutherford was out of town, Gun figured, he’d
wait until dark and pry open a window for a look
around. He may have forgotten matches, but a four-
cell flashlight rode under the seat, next to the Smith &
Wesson.

Allan Anderson was pitching for the Twins. With one man out in the Tiger fifth, Anderson walked a
batter, then hit another. The hometown crowd buzzed
worriedly. Herb Carneal remained placid. Anderson struck out the next two batters. Gun thought about
Mazy and needled the speedometer to seventy.

Running through it in his brain, Gun couldn’t
believe she was pregnant. It only magnified the reason he hadn’t wanted to believe in the marriage in the first
place. Mazy had never shown any interest in Geoff.
She didn’t hate him, except for a brief stretch after the
camping incident. He simply had not mattered to her.
He was a thing in the background, an annoyance from
the past.

Thirty miles from the Twin Cities the Tigers were
batting, top of the ninth, one out. Three to two, Twins.
Anderson gave up a single, then walked a man, and
Kelly went to the mound. Herb Carneal announced a
new pitcher, one of the Twins’ anonymous relievers. Gun smiled; he could see it as if he were there in the on-deck circle, working his hands into the handle of
the bat, watching the new kid whipping in his warm-
up tosses. Smelling pine tar, waiting, feeling the
coolness inside. Ready. Herb Carneal gave the batter’s
name and Gun listened as the first two pitches went
wide. On the third pitch Gun thought
swing
and the batter did, sure enough, the ball snapping over the
radio and into the space between left field and center.
A gapper. Gun turned up the sound, two runs scoring
under Herb Carneal’s dispassionate voice. Four to three, Tigers, and Gun thought: a happy ending.

He entered Minneapolis in late afternoon and felt
the temperature rise by ten degrees. The old cement
towers and the wider, glass-sided new ones trapped
the air and held it in the streets. Gun steered the
F-150 into a vacant lot and rattled Larson’s city map
across his knees.

It took him forty minutes to locate Rutherford’s house; 1637 Griswold was large and light green and peeling, with the kind of narrow lapstrake siding
preferred by the wealthy in the 1930s. It did not look wealthy now.

The house stood next to a four-story brick building
with chipboard tacked up over the windows. On its other side were tall, full trees, their lumpy trunks ringed with orange paint. The house itself was in a
dark permanent shade.

Gun street-parked directly in front of the house,
behind a round-edged silver Thunderbird. If this was
Rutherford’s car, he was doing all right for a student.
Gun doubted that he lived alone. The place was too
big. A rental probably, shared with other students. Gun squinted at the dark windows. He was right,
Rutherford didn’t live alone. Gun could see the move
ment of several people in the low light, bodies busy with some sort of action. He couldn’t tell how many
there were, and he didn’t want to speculate on what they were doing. But as he watched, a shiny surface flashed for an instant, and Gun immediately recog
nized it. It was the sheen of a baseball bat, still new
with varnish, and it reappeared again and again, swinging downward like an axe.