Hunter's Moon Chuck Logan (novels to read TXT) 📖

minister paused. “You were drinking yesterday. I could smell it on your breath.”

Karson’s remark landed on target. Gravity replaced the banter in Harry’s voice. “So where do you come down on the question of Jesse? Does she have carry-on baggage or steamer trunks full of skeletons?”

Karson measured him. “I tried to tell Bud that Jesse and Larry Emery have a peculiar way of fighting with each other. That she might marry him to spite Larry.”

188 / CHUCK LOGAN

Harry raised his eyebrows.

Karson continued. “Bud said he’d take his chances.”

“No shit.”

“They were quite a team when they first started going out. They opened the development Coop downtown and came up with this ambitious plan to convert the paper mill to a hydrogen peroxide closed cycle system. No more pumping dioxin into the lake.” Karson smiled. “Those were exciting times. Jesse can be very convincing.

She used to sing in the choir. She has a beautiful voice.”

“What she’s got is a beautiful ass. And the will to use it.”

Karson cleared his throat. “She has a promiscuous edge. But that’s just part of her.”

Harry scrutinized Karson for thirty seconds. Karson sighed and cast his eyes back, remembering. “Then last summer it all started falling apart. The Coop, the plans—”

“Coffee and cookies is over, Karson. Did Chris act alone?”

“Things can get murky. Mistakes were made,” said Karson.

“Things don’t get murky. Things happen. The way we think about them might get murky, like when we don’t want to look at them straight on, when we deny, or lie or forget.”

Karson bit his lip. “Bud’s in the hospital and you served the divorce papers. Maybe you should go home. I could come down to Saint Paul.”

“C’mon, Don, everybody’s covering for everybody. Is that in your job description? Lying, cheating, stealing…arson? How about manipulating a kid to commit premeditated murder?”

Karson’s eyes leveled with sincerity. “Watch out for Larry Emery.

He’s a very dangerous man. Especially when he’s been drinking—”

“Yeah?”

“And when he’s jealous.” Karson’s upper lip was a tidy pink stripe that accented his neatly barbered mustache. His small red tongue flicked at it. “Everybody saw the way you and Jesse were looking at each other. Right at the grave.”

HUNTER’S MOON / 189

Harry raised his eyebrows.

“It was pretty steamy. The two of you there,” said Karson. “Emery didn’t miss it.”

Briskly, Harry asked, “Emery’s not from around here, is he?”

“He was born here, lived with his father in Memphis when his parents split. Moved back to live with his mother. After the service, he was a cop in Duluth. The previous sheriff had to retire. Health problems. Mike Hakala hired Emery to fill out his term. Then he got elected.”

“So back when, he followed Jesse to Duluth and knocked her up?”

“That’s the local legend.”

“And Jesse wouldn’t marry him.”

“She’s obviously always had her sights set a little higher on the socioeconomic ladder.”

“In the cop shop you said you’d talked to Jesse and Chris. And that caused Emery to hate you.”

“Those were private conversations.”

Harry saw what Karson was angling toward. “You guys have an ethical thing about confidentiality, don’t you, like priests in a confes-sional?”

Karson pursed his lips. “Something like that.”

“So you have this office in back of your church with a comfy chair where people come and confide in you. Under the seal, as it were.

And Jesse’s been in that chair, and Chris. What about Jay Cox?”

“I don’t know about Cox.”

“Sorry, I forgot, you gave me Ginny Hakala for that purpose.”

Karson reacted stiffly. “A lot of people had a hand in pointing Chris Deucette in the wrong direction. Some of them had good intentions—”

“Like you?” Karson didn’t respond. Harry’s voice softened without losing any of its edge. “Hard, isn’t it? Trying to figure out what to keep inside, what to let out into the world. You have all their stories in your head. And maybe you talk to God

190 / CHUCK LOGAN

about these people. How’s that work when you talk to God? Is it mystic, like a spirit? Or is it the old anthropomorphic version—God the father by Michelangelo, with eyes and hands and ears? Becky might give you an argument on that. She gave this little speech when I met her. I don’t think she has much faith in a deity that doesn’t have a uterus. You had a chance to talk to her lately?”

Karson shook his head.

“She left the funeral service in a hurry. Wearing running shoes,”

said Harry.

Karson exhaled. “Since the shooting she’s been…hiding, I guess is the way to say it.”

“What’s she hiding from?”

Karson shrugged. “Her brother was killed. She’s been through a traumatic time.”

“Haven’t we all. I just wonder, if I hadn’t been out on that ridge that day and Chris would have accidentally shot Bud Maston to death—how traumatic would that have been for this quaint little community?”

“There’s a lot of anger in you, Harry. I can get angry, too,” said Karson softly. “But my job isn’t to judge.”

Harry shook his head. “You didn’t bury Chris Deucette. You flushed a toilet. Get angry, padre. It does wonders to light up a moral vacuum, which is what you got up here.”

Karson coolly met Harry’s eyes. “How far are you willing to go with this?”

“All the way to the bottom.”

“It could get real dirty,” Karson said. He stood up and took his coffee cup to the sink. “I have to work out some ground rules.”

“The confidential thing?”

“Exactly.” Karson walked to the door. “I’ll tell you a thing. If you weren’t serving divorce papers, Emery would have snapped you in two at the cemetery.”

“That so?”

“And here’s another thing to think about. The minute you’ve completed your go-between role in the divorce, he’ll come after you for Chris.”

HUNTER’S MOON / 191

“Why does he hate you?”

Karson chose his words carefully. “Some people say I helped Jesse and Chris get out from under his thumb.”

Harry spent the rest of the day cleaning up the mess. He called his insurance agent in St. Paul and explained about the car. He’d need a police report for the claim. He ate warmed-over spaghetti and watched