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Je
Sheriff Gunderson looked from Mark to Dr. Philstrom. “Obviously you both agree. All right. Mark, will you ask Rooney and Clyde to come in here? I’ll get the people from the coroner’s office. They’re still sifting the dirt in the cemetery.”
Rooney was surprisingly composed. Je
Clyde had aged ten years in the past hours. “I’m listing all the property Erich owns,” he said. “I’ll have that for you soon.”
“The painting,” Je
“I left it in the supply closet in the office,” Dr. Philstrom said. “But I think it might be better if Mrs. Toomis would agree to come back and stay in the hospital until this is over.”
“I want to be with Clyde,” Rooney said. “I want to be with Je
“Rooney stays with me,” Clyde said flatly.
Sheriff Gunderson walked over to the window. “This place is a mess of footprints and tire tracks,” he said. “What we need is a good snowstorm to cover them. Keep your fingers crossed. There’s one due tonight.”
The storm began in the early evening. Snowflakes fine and rapid bit at the house and barns and fields. The wind blew and scattered the flying flakes, eventually banking them in rapidly growing piles against the trees and buildings.
The next morning, in prayerful gratitude, Je
During the night, pushing their way through the treacherous roads, Sheriff Gunderson and two deputies had come back. One had wired the phones to monitor incoming calls, had given Je
Je
She began keeping track of days with the awareness of seconds turning into minutes, minutes crawling to the quarter hour, the half hour. She had found the cabin on the fifteenth. On the morning of the sixteenth, the grave had been opened and Erich had phoned. The snowstorm ended on the eighteenth. All through Mi
Don’t let him get angry, she prayed. Don’t let him take it out on the girls.
On the morning of the nineteenth she saw Clyde coming to the house. The upright set of his head and chest was gone. He bent forward as he walked the freshly plowed path, his face puckered not so much against the wind as under an invisible burden he seemed to be carrying.
He stepped into the kitchen foyer, stamping his feet to break the cold. “He just called.”
“Erich! Clyde, why didn’t you ring through? Why didn’t you let me talk to him.”
“He didn’t want to talk to you. He just wanted to know if the lines were down around here last night. He asked me whether or not you’ve been out. Miz Krueger, Je
“Yes.”
“He said he’d been thinking about it. He said that I should have been in the office at that time, that the call should have been picked up there first. Je
“What did you tell him?”
“I said that I’d gotten Rooney out of the hospital that morning and hadn’t been to the office yet so that it was still on the night setting where it rings in the house. Then he asked me if Mark has been poking around here; that was the way he put it, ‘poking around.’”
“What did you say?”
“I told him Dr. Ivanson had been checking the animals and should I have called Mark instead? He said no.”
“Clyde, did he mention the children?”
“No, ma’am. Just said to tell you he’d be phoning and he wanted you in the house waiting for the call. Je
Mark phoned every day. “Je
“Mark, Clyde’s right. He is unca
On the afternoon of the twenty-fifth Joe came to the house. “Mrs. Krueger, is Mr. Krueger all right?”
“What do you mean, Joe?”
“He phoned to see how I was feeling. Wanted to know if I’ve been seeing you. I said just the one time I bumped into you. I didn’t say you’d come to our place. You know what I mean. He said he wanted me to come back to work when I’m ready but if I ever came near you or if he ever heard me call you Je
He sounds crazy. He was openly threatening Joe now. Despair anesthetized Je
“No, ma’am. I don’t want to get her started.”
“Joe, I beg you, don’t tell anyone about that call. And if Erich phones back, just be very calm and easy with him. Tell him the doctor wants you to wait a few weeks more but don’t tell him you refuse to work. And Joe, for God sake, don’t tell him you’ve seen me again.”
“Je
“Yes.” It was useless to deny it.
“Where is he with your girls?”
“I don’t know.”
“I see. Je
“I know I can. And if he phones you again, let me know right away, please.”
“I will.”
“And, Joe… If-I mean he might come back here. If you happen to see him or the car. I need to know at once.”
“You will. Elsa was over at our place for di
“She never acted as though she liked me.”