The Ravens (24 page)

ONLY
WHEN
HE
SAT
UP
IN
BED
did Lance realize he had a cold. He sneezed loudly and got up to go to the bathroom and blow his nose. As he sat on the toilet with his pajama pants around his ankles, a solitary thought came sailing in from the near oblivion of the previous day, effectively turning any rush of happiness to ashes.

What if Andy was also cleaning up after somebody else?

There was only one person his brother would be willing to do something like that for. Just as there was only one person Lenny Diver might accept a life sentence for. If Diver and Andy, each in his own way, were protecting Chrissy, nearly everything else fell into place. Such as the fact that Andy’s baseball bat was found in Diver’s car with the Indian’s fingerprints on it. Up until now, this was something that had fit only hazily into Lance’s theory that his brother was the killer. He’d assumed that Andy had accidentally come across the drunken Indian and merely exploited the situation. But it was not coincidence that had brought the murder weapon from the Hansen family home in Two Harbors to Lenny Diver’s car in Grand Portage. Chrissy Hansen had done that. No doubt her fingerprints were also on the bat, but it was Lenny Diver’s prints the police had been looking for, and when they found them, the case was virtually closed. The only way Diver could avoid a life sentence was by denouncing his girlfriend, which was something he was apparently man enough not to do. The fact
that Andy had driven down Baraga Cross Road that night, only a few hours before the murder, must have had something to do with Chrissy. Everything he’d done since, all his attempts to keep Lance at arm’s length, could simply be explained as his way of protecting Chrissy from the prying eyes of her policeman uncle.

Then doubt came flooding over him. No, not doubt, but the sheer insanity of it all. How could he believe Chrissy was behind the horrifying sight that he’d discovered in the woods that morning? The bashed-in skull. The blood sprayed all over the trunks of the birch trees. But he remembered Eirik Nyland’s voice on the phone:
Even a woman could have easily caused the injuries Lofthus sustained. And she wouldn’t have to be especially strong.
If someone was high enough, on meth, for instance, no motive was necessary. Drugs could make a person acutely paranoid. As both a drug user and the girlfriend of Lenny Diver, it was almost unimaginable that Chrissy
hadn’t
used meth. And she could have been the one who left the blood evidence that had led the police to Diver, since she too had Indian ancestry.

If that was the case, then what had happened? A failed robbery?

This is what you are looking for.

He realized now what the wooden figure meant: they were two pieces, with one protecting the other. But then the whole point of trying to get Diver acquitted in court vanished. At any time he could clear his own name and walk out a free man. Yet he was never going to do that, because Lenny Diver was no ordinary small-time crook and drug addict. And that matched perfectly the impression that Lance had gotten the one time they’d met. Somewhere in that jailed man was a huge reserve of strength.

In the shower Lance stood for a long time under the pounding hot water, but he didn’t feel any better when he got out. He wiped the steam from the mirror and looked at his face, which he hardly recognized anymore. Gray and doughy. Unshaven too. For more than half a year his life had revolved almost solely around the murder of Georg Lofthus. He wondered if that would ever end.

Seen in this new light, there finally seemed to be an explanation for another relationship. He was thinking of how Andy had
tried to keep Chrissy indoors since the murder, even after Lenny Diver was arrested. This had puzzled Lance, because if Diver was guilty, the danger was over once he was in jail. And if Andy was the murderer, Chrissy was in no danger either. So why keep her locked up like the princess in the tower? It seemed inexplicable. Unless it was to protect her from the consequences of something she herself had done. If Andy knew Chrissy had killed Lofthus, he would probably do anything to prevent his daughter from incriminating herself.

But wasn’t Georg Lofthus entitled to justice?

Lance saw a similarity between Andy and the gay Norwegian. It was no longer the bloody bond between murderer and victim, but a fellowship of impossible dreams and impossible choices.

He jumped when his cell started ringing in his pants pocket.

TAMMY’S
HAIR
LOOKED
NEWLY
WASHED,
and she had on a black blouse that he didn’t remember seeing her wear before.

“Thanks for coming,” she said. “You have to help me, Lance. If Lenny Diver gets off, my daughter is done for. It’s as simple as that. He has a hold on her, both because she’s in love with him and because he supplies her with whatever she wants.”

Lance had completely forgotten the story he’d made up about how Diver might be acquitted because there wasn’t sufficient evidence against him. The truth was that he was already as good as convicted since his fingerprints had been found on the murder weapon.

“There’s little we can do about that now,” he said.

“But if he’s acquitted, won’t the case be reopened?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” said Lance.

He thought about Diver in the Moose Lake jail. Was he really there because he was protecting Chrissy?

“I was wondering . . . ,” Tammy began, and he could hear that she was getting to the real reason for inviting him over. “I thought that you, as a police officer . . . that if you testified and said, for example, that you saw Diver near the cross on that night, something you’d forgotten about but now remembered . . .”

“You mean you want me to give false testimony?” he said.

“No, not false, because we know who did it.”

“Do we?”

A barely visible tightening occurred at the corner of her mouth, but Lance noticed it. For several seconds they stared at each other across the coffee table. Then Tammy lowered her eyes.

“An acquittal would be a death sentence for Chrissy,” she said in a low voice.

He didn’t know what else to say. If he suddenly claimed there was no danger because the evidence against Diver was actually rock solid, it would merely sound like he was lying to reassure her. Yet he also felt a growing annoyance at the way she talked about Lenny Diver. Okay, so he was a crook and a drug addict. But what if he was also the only person standing between her daughter and a long prison sentence?

“Have you heard anything to indicate that Diver was physically abusive toward Chrissy?”

Tammy shook her head.

“Andy, on the other hand . . .”

“Abusive and tender at the same time,” Tammy said. “That’s Andy in a nutshell.”

She stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray and lit another.

“Have you heard about Clayton Miller?” asked Lance.

His sister-in-law frowned.

“A guy that went to Central High with me and Andy. Now he’s a poet and some sort of professor.”

“Oh, that’s right. Chrissy bought one of his books.”

“Andy almost killed him once,” said Lance.

She opened her eyes wide.

“If I hadn’t stopped him, I think he would have been a murderer on that day.”

“But why?”

Lance hesitated.

“I don’t know what provoked the situation,” he said at last. “Or at least I don’t remember anymore. It was so long ago. But Clayton Miller was . . . what shall I say? A slightly girlish boy. Not exactly a fighter. When I showed up, he was lying on the ground with a punctured lung, and Andy was heading for him with a baseball bat.”

Tammy got up and ran to the bathroom, not pausing even to close the door behind her. Seconds later Lance heard the
contents of her stomach pouring into the toilet with violent force. She continued to vomit, until it turned into dry heaves. Lance had an eerie feeling that he was right on the edge of something very dangerous. When the sounds coming from the bathroom finally ceased, he sat and listened for several minutes before he heard Tammy clear her throat and spit into the toilet a few times. After a moment, she flushed and then began brushing her teeth. He could hear her gargle with mouthwash, but he still noticed the faint smell of vomit when she came back into the living room.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

He looked up at her.

“Maybe I should go.”

“No, stay a little longer.”

She touched his shoulder in passing as she went over to her place on the other side of the coffee table. She sat down, picked up her cigarette from the ashtray, and took a long drag.

“Shit,” she said and laughed nervously.

“Are you sick?”

“No, but the thought of Andy with a baseball bat, just like . . . If Lenny Diver and my husband are just the same, what am I going to do?”

“I don’t know who’s worse in this story,” said Lance.

“Lenny Diver is worse,” said Tammy harshly. “Just the thought of that bastard as some kind of drug-addicted Indian brave, with those long braids of his . . . That a man like that could ruin my daughter’s life. I refuse to accept it,” she cried.

“I know,” said Lance.

“That’s why we have to stop him from getting acquitted. Don’t you see that? No matter what means we have to use. Chrissy is more important to you than your job, isn’t she, Lance?”

“Of course, but . . .”

“You’re her uncle,” Tammy insisted.

“I know that.”

“And Lenny Diver is a murderer who deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison.”

Lance wondered whether she was really so convinced of Diver’s guilt, or whether she too suspected something that was much more horrifying.

“I can’t give false testimony,” he said. “But I’ll do everything I can to find out what really happened at Baraga’s Cross that night.”

“But we know what happened,” she said, sighing with resignation.

“Yes, but I’m going to
prove
it,” Lance told her.

Tammy briefly shook her head, giving him a look that he’d never seen from her before.

“It’s going to be hours before Andy gets home from work,” she said then.

She still smelled faintly of vomit, but oddly enough, Lance didn’t mind. He swallowed hard as she got up from the sofa and came over to him. Suddenly her hips were level with his face.

“You know, Andy hasn’t . . .” she murmured as she stood looking down at him, but Lance didn’t dare raise his eyes because now those slender hands were unbuckling her belt right in front of him.

“He doesn’t know how to appreciate . . .” she went on, but then stopped speaking as she swiftly, nimbly unfastened the five shiny buttons on her fly.

A moment later she had wriggled her hips out of both her jeans and her panties and stood there with her dark crotch exposed. Two contradictory forces were struggling to overtake Lance. One wanted to get up out of the chair and leave the house as fast as possible. The other wanted to lean forward and bury his face in her.

He knew which impulse was stronger.

“Don’t you think Andy is stupid?” she whispered.

Lance nodded.

“Isn’t he stupid, not wanting this?”

“Yeah,” he said hoarsely, leaning closer until his face was only inches from her body.

“It’s yours now,” she whispered.

Slowly he raised his hand to touch what Andy didn’t want.

Tammy let out a series of shuddering breaths, as if she’d been holding them in for several minutes.

“Come here,” she said, taking his hand.

Lance stood up and Tammy pressed her head against him. He felt her warm breath on his throat.

“Touch me again,” she whispered, guiding his hand between her legs. “It feels so good when you touch me.”

I can still feel the touch of your hand.

In a flash he saw himself and the whole situation as if from the outside, and he tried to wriggle out of his sister-in-law’s grasp.

“No, Lance,” she said. “Please. I want you.”

But he pulled away and fled to the front hall. As he desperately fumbled to put on his boots, she appeared in the doorway. She’d put her jeans back on. Lance was going to apologize for not staying, but that would only make matters worse. Tammy leaned against the door frame, looking at him with big, sad eyes. She didn’t seem calculating, just lonely.

A
LITTLE
LESS
THAN
AN
HOUR
LATER
Lance was opening the door to the Kozy Bar. After his conversation with Tammy, he had called Chrissy. She answered the phone with a leaden-sounding voice and had agreed to meet him without even asking why.

As soon as his eyes adjusted to the murky underground light, he saw that she was sitting in the darkest corner, at the same table where he had sat when they met several weeks ago. The only other customer was a gaunt old man sitting at the bar, who barely raised his eyes when Lance asked for a Diet Coke.

An old Madonna video was flickering mutely on the TV screen up near the ceiling.

“Hi,” Lance said, sitting down.

His niece gave him a weary smile.

“What exactly are you doing?” he asked her.

She shrugged.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?”

“Are you back on the job?” she said in that same heavy-sounding voice, as if something were constricting her vocal cords.

Lance shook his head.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” she asked.

“I’m wondering why you’re behaving like this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Putting all kinds of things in your body.”

Chrissy let her eyes fall shut, but Lance could still see a sliver of those brown irises. He reached out to grab her hand, which was lying on the table, but she pulled away.

“His trial is going to start soon,” he said.

She nodded.

“It’s guaranteed he’ll be convicted.”

“He’s innocent,” she murmured.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because somebody saw the murderer,” she said. “A man holding a bloody baseball bat. I already told you.”

“There was never any man with a bloody baseball bat on the side of the road outside Finland,” said Lance. “There was never a party at the cabin on Lost Lake either. At least, not on that night.”

“But you said you knew who did it,” said Chrissy. “Somebody you went to school with. A gay guy, wasn’t it?”

“You know as well as I do that I was wrong,” he said.

Chrissy looked down at her lap.

“So how can you know Lenny Diver is innocent?” Lance asked again.

His niece looked like she was going to cry.

“Don’t you see I’m being torn apart?” she whimpered.

“Yes, I do. But you’re the only one who can do something about it.”

“No, you have to help me, Uncle Lance. You have to make sure he goes free.”

“Not unless the real murderer takes his place in prison,” said Lance harshly.

Chrissy leaned forward and hid her face in her arms on the table. Suddenly she looked like a child again. Hesitantly, Lance reached out to stroke her hair. He could see the blond roots amid all that black.

“Don’t you think the guilty party should surrender?” he asked.

She looked up from the table.

“Maybe the guilty person is suffering even more than Lenny,” she said.

“So the two of you are on a first-name basis?”

“Not really.”

“Chrissy . . . I know all about you and Lenny Diver. That he
was your boyfriend. Maybe he still is, for all I know. And that he used to get you drugs.”

She sat up and looked at him in disbelief. Then it dawned on her.

“Did Mom tell you that?” she asked.

Lance nodded.

“That bitch! She’s never wanted me to have anything, not even a boyfriend. She just wants me to have the same miserable life she has. But I’d rather die. She hates Lenny so much it scares me. Just because he’s an Indian.”

“So it’s not because he’s a criminal who’s been supplying her underage daughter with drugs?”

“No. It’s because he’s everything they’re not.”

“I think you should be glad your parents are who they are,” said Lance.

Chrissy looked at him with an intense bitterness he’d never seen from her before.

“They’re nothing,” she said coldly. “And that’s why I’m going to be nothing too.”

“You’re
not
your parents,” said Lance. “Part of you is uniquely you, and in that sense, you’re in a better position than most people.”

“But if I’m going to make something of myself, I need to get out of Two Harbors.”

“Yeah. I can see that.”

“And away from everything that has to do with this case.”

She looked at Lance.

“Away from the murder case?” he said.

“I have to. Otherwise I have no future. You see that, don’t you, Uncle Lance?”

They sat there, staring at each other for what seemed to Lance like several minutes, but was probably only seconds.

“Don’t you?” she pleaded.

Lance got up without replying.

“I’ve got to go,” he said. “Shall I drive you home?”

“No, I’m going to stay here for a while,” said Chrissy.

He was about to tell her what he thought about an underage girl hanging out at the Kozy Bar, but he refrained. Instead, he gave her a little pat on the shoulder and was overwhelmed with tenderness when he noticed how fragile she felt.