Signs of Struggle (8 page)

“I’ve always had a problem with just letting things go, Sheriff. I don’t want to cause any trouble, but what if Larry Soderstrom was out at the farm that morning? Did Mrs. Soderstrom say he was?”

“No.”

“Well, there you go,” I said, leaning back and stretching my legs out in front of me, ignoring the twinge in the back of my right thigh. ”If she said he wasn’t out there, but Larry was driving the Corvette I saw, what was that? A coincidence?”

“No, sir. It’s a problem, O’Shea,” Sheriff Payne said, a bit of steel in his voice. “A problem for me, not you. I’m going to go find Larry Soderstrom, and I’m going to interrogate him. I’ll get to the bottom of it. Thanks for coming in.” He stood. So did I.

“Thanks for listening,” I said.

“Now, unless you have some other bit of information to share with me…”

“I’m gone,” I said, wanting to get out of the way after having done my civic duty. I turned and left, out the door, up the worn limestone steps, and into the hot summer day. I sat down high up on the steps of the County Courthouse where, based on pedestrian traffic, nothing was happening.

I sighed and rotated my head from left to right, front to back, enjoying the cracking sounds and release of pressure. I dug my fingers into my neck muscles. I rolled my shoulders, removed my glasses, rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands. Slipped my glasses back on. Looked up.

From the height of the courthouse steps I could see most of Rockbluff stretching out from north to south, embracing the steady waters of the Whitetail River like lifelong lovers. Beyond the town, easily in sight, stretched carpets of corn and soybeans springing forth from fertile fields, silently generating wealth. Rockbluff was oozing commerce and well-being, but it seemed like maybe some secrets were starting to ooze out, too.

I smelled freshly-cut grass, the heavy scent of the slow-moving river, and the heat of searing sunshine. The breeze shifted, and the sweet fragrance of luscious lilacs came to me, a heavy perfume I could almost taste in the heated air.

It somehow didn’t fit that Hugh Soderstrom was dead in this place, and under peculiar circumstances, and the lively exchange I had witnessed just minutes before in The Grain seemed out of place, too. And yet, Ann Frank’s quote came to mind: “Look around you at all the beauty and be happy.” I decided to try, and this was a good place for it. Sitting alone in the sun on the stone steps of the County Courthouse, I looked out over the clean, clear waters of the Whitetail River, where even now several boys in inner tubes were drifting downstream like bugs on leaves.

And at that moment, just for the hell of it, I decided to attend the funeral of Hugh Soderstrom, taking place tomorrow.

Larry Soderstrom might be there, and then Payne could interrogate him and I could find out how that went. Besides, I could check out the pastor. My friend and pastor back in Georgia, Ernie Timmons, had called and nagged me once already about finding a local church , and I had just kept putting him off, mainly because my first day in Rockbluff was a Sunday and I was exhausted from driving straight through from Belue, Georgia. And a second Sunday was still two days away. Ernie could be a pest.

I stood and looked around again and realized maybe my expectations had been a bit ambitious. To have expected everything to go according to my plan, especially where there were flesh-and-blood people, was naïve, but I had to admit, except for the situation at the Soderstrom Farm, my sore leg, and aching shoulder, I was in pretty good shape. Time to count my blessings and leave the rest to Sheriff Payne.

I stretched again and descended the steps of the County Courthouse. The sign on the Hawkeye State Bank read ninety-five degrees, high for late May. Ambling along Bridge Street toward the river, my hamstring let me know it was still there, but at least it wasn’t shouting. More like snickering at my advancing age and reluctant healing.

At the peak of the bridge I waved back at some sunburned kid draped into a black inner tube, the last one in the group of adventurers I had seen from the courthouse steps, laughing in delight as his tube approached Fisherman’s Dam and its gently-sloping, twenty-foot spillway. His friends had already negotiated the giant slip-and-slide, and were now turned around and encouraging him to enjoy the ride as well. He picked up speed and began shrieking louder, and I realized it was not a sunburned kid. It was Horace Norris.

“What are you doing down there?” I laughed, calling loudly to the old man.

“Better question! What are
you
doing up
there
?” Horace repeated, shouting over the sound of the spillway. “That’s Thoreau!”

And then he was passing beneath the bridge, waving with both hands and laughing out loud, head thrown back, purely gleeful, slipping beneath the bridge and over the smooth face of the dam's spillway and on again downstream for more adventures. I wondered where I could acquire an inner tube.

I turned and headed for my truck back up the street in Moon’s parking lot. Seeing Horace, I knew I needed to get out more and meet people, and what better opportunity than a funeral in a small town?

H
ugh Soderstrom’s funeral took place at Christ the King Church. I parked two blocks away. It was as close as I could get. Once inside, I smiled and took a program from a desiccated little old man whose white shirt collar was two sizes too big for his skinny turkey neck.

I entered the sanctuary and sat on a gray metal folding chair in the back because the pews, choir loft, and the balcony were bulging with mourners. It reminded me of the crowds of married grad students at the “All You Can Eat For $5” lunches at the Pizza Inn in Iowa City when Karen and I were first married.

Lunatic Mooning sat in the choir loft, wearing a suit, charcoal gray; shirt, white; and tie, black. Oh, those flamboyant Indians and their penchant for colorful ceremonial costumes. I caught his eye. He nodded, looked away.

I looked at the program printed on stiff gray paper. Symbolic. A pen and ink drawing of the church on the cover. Inside left, Hugh Soderstrom’s birthdate and date of death, and the fact that The Reverend Dr. Ernst VanderKellen would be officiating.

Inside right, a brief biography of the deceased. Hugh earned twelve varsity letters at Rockbluff Community High School, participated in Future Farmers of America and 4-H, and reigned as Senior Class President and Homecoming King. He graduated from Iowa State University, married Wendy, served four years’ active duty in the Air Force. Then he came home to work the family farm when he wasn’t flossing after every meal.

He was twenty-eight when the machine ate him, three years older than Wendy.

The old college senior-freshman attraction. Reasonably mature guy, drooling idiot sorority girl.

The Soderstrom family came in, Larry leading the way, Wendy leaning on his right arm. I watched the shattered family proceed. With the exception of Wendy and Larry, they all looked like people of the land, strong, weathered, and prosperous; resolute in their grief. People to whom pain is a normal part of life to be endured and accepted, like drought and hail, tornados and floods. Loss a part of life, defined by the details of miscarriage, stroke, and accidents that mangle and kill.

More family came in, parents and aunts and uncles, I guess. I only paid attention to Wendy, her lovely face tear-streaked; and Larry, who looked bored. Probably thinking about little girls and how to get them in his van, if he had one. Would you like to see my puppy? They walked to the front of the church and sat in the first row.

The Van Dyke-bearded Pastor VanderKellen entered the platform from a side door, strode manfully to the pulpit, sable vestments swaying, and provided a glowing eulogy for Hugh Soderstrom. When he finished, he came down from his heights to personally shake hands and whisper what had to be inspiration and comfort to each member of the immediate family: Hugh, Wendy, and an older couple, probably Wendy’s parents. The common touch, as it were. The populist preacher. The pandering pastor, maybe fishing for a small bequest.

After VanderKellen spoke a very long time to Wendy, he gave her a lingering look that did not exactly define “chaste.” Résumé-builder for an aspiring televangelist?

He then swept back up to the pulpit where he pronounced a solemn benediction in his best preacher voice, stentorian, rich and rumbling. The men from the funeral home, professionally somber, appeared and slowly, reverently, guided the casket back down the aisle, staring straight ahead. The family followed.

I shouldered my way past several people so I could be on the aisle when Larry came by. The bereaved brother nodded and said “God bless” to people who reached out to pat him on the shoulder or shake his hand as he passed. He looked as if he were in pain, either that or trying to suppress raging flatulence. Then he saw me.

His somber facial expression transformed into a glare, and it hurt my feelings. I was going to give him the kiss of peace until then; so I merely leaned over, looked him in the eye, and said, “I
know
.” Then I winked and leaned back.

I think he would have killed me on the spot except for the unfortunate restraints placed upon him by the reality of all those pesky witnesses. Wendy, on his far side and sensing anger, looked up, followed his eyes, found my face. And I found hers.

Put simply, Wendy was tan and beautiful. Shoulder length curly hair, the color of cornsilk, and large cerulean eyes that revealed a deep, intelligent aspect. At the farm, distracted, I had not noticed their striking color before. But now they looked back at me, alluring, hypnotic. I forced myself to drop eye contact and look at her chest.

Her extraordinary figure could not be muted by her simple black suit. With regard to Wendy, everywhere I looked there was temptation to fantasy.

And now she was left alone to carry on except for the manly ministrations of her brother-in-law, Saint Lawrence of the Dubious Comfort. I looked back up at her as she passed by. She returned my gaze, nodded, said, “Thank you,” then looked again to the back of the church and the doors that would lead to the limousine, the ride to the cemetery, and a future that must have, just a few days ago, seemed rich and promising, but now was bleak and barren, as if saturated with Roundup.

The relatives passed by quickly, sunburned men in ill-fitting suits and dull neckties, and able women in simple church dresses. And, of course, The Reverend Doctor, a righteous vision in his opulent vestments. Ushers dismissed the rows of mourners from the front of the church on back. Sheriff Payne looked at me as he left. By the time I limped outside, the hearse was pulling away, followed by cars with headlights burning, cars filled with solemn, good people proceeding to the grave. Like all of us.

In the midst of all the Crown Vics and SUVs, a chocolate-brown Jaguar XKJ pulled away to join the single file of vehicles filled with the grieving on the brief journey to the hungry, open mouth of the earth, waiting to swallow up the remains of one who had worked the land with joy, and now would be entombed by it. I wondered about the Jag’s driver, but then I heard my name called.

It was Payne, standing at the bottom of the church steps. I joined him and said, “You wanted to talk to me, Sheriff?”

“I do, Mr. O’Shea. When you dropped by my office I forgot to ask you something important,” he said, looking me directly in the eye.

Eye contact to Iowans is key. If an adult does not give eye contact when he’s talking to you, he is probably from Minnesota, holding something back or twisting the truth. If a child withholds eye contact, she is lying, and probably has kinfolk in Wisconsin. I looked at him and said, “Ask away.”

“What are you doing in Rockbluff?”

“Hiding out.”

“What are you hiding from? What did you do?”

“It’s more like what I didn’t do, Constable,” I said, thinking back to Georgia.

“I don’t understand. Help me out here.”

“I didn’t die in the car wreck, and that’s why I’m here in Rockbluff,” I shrugged. “Simple is as simple does.”

“Let’s get a bite to eat,” he said, starting down the steps. “I’ll buy.”

I agreed to meet him at The Tenderloin Tap, which seemed more like a name for a risqué dance than a restaurant. “I’ll have a question for you, too.”

The Tenderloin Tap is one of those institutions that have existed forever in small towns, never changing their menu, steadily generating profit; long, narrow and parallel to the street with a counter and stools on one side and rows of booths along the big windows on the other. There is at least one in every village, fighting off inroads from fast-food joints. Local cholesterol always tastes better than cholesterol from national chains.

The Tenderloin Tap’s neon beer signs offered a kind of comfort Ronald McDonald couldn’t. I joined Payne in a booth, sitting across from him and glancing out the window to the quiet street. I guessed everyone was at the cemetery.

We ordered from a perky high school girl in a green-and-white uniform who appeared with a pad and pencil. Payne ordered the chicken fried steak, peas and corn, and coffee. I ordered the House Special, a 16-ounce Conestoga Tenderloin, hold the veggies, and a Heineken.

“Veggies are awful good for you,” pronounced our waitress, whose name was, according to the cursive over her ample left breast, “Bernice.” I didn’t think people named girls Bernice anymore. She added, “No extra charge. You get two. They’re awful good for seniors.” Payne stifled a laugh and looked away.

“Two steaks? You said I get two? I don’t think I could eat two steaks.”

“Two veggies, silly! Two veggies are included in the price of the entrée.”

“Bernice, didn’t you ever stop to think that meat is nothing but vegetables compressed over time, and a whole lot better tasting? The steer ate the green veggies, and I eat the steer. It’s all there. Eliminates the middle man.”

Bernice’s face fell. She said, “That’s icky,” and left. Payne was shaking his head. In a moment, Bernice reappeared with the Sheriff’s coffee, my Heineken, and a glass.

“Classy joint, bringing me a glass without my having to ask,” I said after Bernice left. I poured the beer. I took a long drink. Funerals make me thirsty.

“Tell me more about the car wreck in Georgia,” Payne said.

I did, but I left out the details, left out how the driver of the 18-wheeler heading south on I-95 must have dozed, drifted left, onto and over the abandoned Mazda Miata on the shoulder. I left out the part from the eyewitnesses, how the truck had come down in the northbound lane. On top of my wife and daughters, exploding everyone into a crushing fireball. I left that out. No point. Just the facts.

He nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said. He sounded sincere. “I hope you can regroup here in Rockbluff. It’s a good place to live.”

“Thank you,” I said, remembering Mulehoff’s identical sentiment. “I’m looking forward to settling into the fatal farm accident capital of the western hemisphere. I have a question for you. With Hugh being dead, might there be some financial benefit to Larry?”

Payne stopped stirring the three packs of sugar he had just dumped into his coffee and looked at me. “You sure don’t tiptoe around the tulips, do you?”

“Not my style. See, I don’t think Larry’s a stellar guy, and people who aren’t stellar do horrible things, especially when enough money is involved.”

Payne went back to stirring his coffee, studying the light brown liquid, as if he expected a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model to rise from below the surface. A battered white Ford F150 pickup truck passed, driven by an old man whose hair matched the paint job. Two kids, a boy and a girl high school age, drove by going the other direction in a red Mustang convertible. Top down.
Ah, youth
. The Sheriff finally looked up from his coffee, started to speak, stopped when he saw someone approaching our booth.

Bernice, a platter of food in each hand. Fast service. Probably big bins of sustenance under red lamps in the back. She left our food and disappeared.

Payne picked up his utensils, set them down again. “You’ve almost put me off my feed, sir, and I was so looking forward to a friendly chat. Helps digestion. So, you think Larry murdered his brother for money?”

“Yep. More bucks for the lifestyle. It’s logical the parents would have set up the estate like that: One son dies, it all goes to the other, just to keep it in the family.”

“Actually, I think it might be something like that, me being a professional information-gatherer in a small town, but so far, there’s no evidence to support your theory.”

“Maybe not, but some interesting coincidences. So, since I have nothing but time on my hands and you’re busy, I’ll check it out. My hunch is, if you look at the estate plan and the will closely, you’ll see that I’m right. The surviving brother gets the bulk of the estate. That would guarantee Soderstrom Farms remains Soderstrom Farms. And Shazam! Up jumps a motive. Nothing new under the sun.”