Chapter 8 of 10Unlucky, That Family

"Two point four million dollars," Brenda Lambert said, sliding the dish across the counter. "That's the number going around town. You'd know better than me."

"I know what was offered." Evelyn Sterling paid for her scoop and dropped the coins into the tip jar. Behind the counter the freezer rattled the way it did whenever the afternoon warmed, and Brenda's apron carried a chocolate handprint near the hem where she had wiped her fingers.

"Board's going to vote on it. My cousin keeps the township books, so I hear things."

"I imagine you do."

"You sound like a lawyer."

"I sound like an archivist."

"Archivist." Brenda tried the word out. "You're the museum lady."

"I'm the museum lady."

Evelyn carried her dish to the small table by the window of The Superior Scoop, where she could watch the square fill with people in their Sunday clothes and the wind come off Lake Superior hard enough to stand the flags straight. One scoop cost three twenty-five, which in Port Clement passed for a bargain. She had walked the half mile into town from the museum for the air as much as for the ice cream, and she had promised herself she would not open the diary again until Monday, because she had read those pages until she could have recited them, and reciting them had not put a living man behind the name. Harrison Shaw had told her the board would vote when he chose to call it, and the roof over the chart room had leaked through every storm since she arrived.

The door swung wide and let the cold in along with a woman about Brenda's age, who held her purse against her chest with both arms.

"Afternoon, Marlene."

"Brenda."

"Vanilla?"

"Two scoops. My stomach's been off since Thursday."

Brenda scooped without looking at the carton and set the dish on the counter.

"You hear who I saw Tuesday? Leo Koskinen."

"Did you."

"Family Fare, Tuesday morning. Coffee and a sack of dog food. Paid cash."

"That'd be right."

"He comes to town about as often as the snow flies."

"Unlucky, that family."

Evelyn kept her spoon moving and her eyes on the window, and she understood that if she stood up or looked over or turned her head, the whole conversation would fold like a card table.

"Unlucky's a kind word for it."

"Nobody's married a Koskinen since the wreck. My mother wouldn't have let one past the door."

"They've had a hard road."

"Hard name and hard road both."

Marlene licked a drip off her thumb and did not look at anybody in the shop.

"Smallest stone in the whole cemetery, that family's got. You could cover it with a dinner plate."

"Eino's."

"Eino's. And you won't find a Koskinen at the pasty supper at the Legion. Never have."

"Neither will you, Marlene, and nobody holds it against you."

"I don't have a reason to stay away."

"No. They do."

Evelyn set her spoon in the dish and thought about a man who bought coffee and dog food with cash, read his own meter, and kept a dog.

"Whatever happened out in that storm, folks made up their minds and never found a reason to change them."

"That's the truth."

"And the grandson out there alone on Saari Road."

"With that dog."

"With that dog. Roof's newer than mine, I'll say that for him."

Marlene paid and waited for her change, and the two of them traded the small talk that ends every errand in a town this size.

"Same as always, Brenda."

"Same as always."

"Tell your sister I said hello."

"I will."

The door closed behind her. Evelyn stood, carried the empty dish to the counter, and asked her question as though she were requesting a document rather than a conversation.

"Brenda. You mentioned the Koskinens."

"You know them?"

"I know the name. From the museum's records."

"Records." Brenda wiped the counter and looked at her sideways.

"Old ones."

"Well. There's one left."

"Leo."

"Leo Koskinen." Brenda said the name slowly, as though it left a taste. "Grandson of Eino, the mate on the Whitefish Rose. The family has been on the outs ever since the wreck, and I'll tell you plain, I don't know the whole of why. Nobody does. Ask around and you'll get a different answer from every porch on the street."

"That's why I asked you."

Brenda looked at her a moment longer than the question needed. "Old Koskinen place. Last house on Saari Road, past the county garage, where the pavement gives out."

"I know the road."

"White house, green shutters. He painted the shutters himself."

Evelyn turned her dish so the handle faced the wall.

"He won't want to see me."

"Probably not."

"I have something to show him."

"What kind of something?"

"The kind that belongs to his family."

Brenda folded her rag and set it on the register. "A reporter from Marquette went out there once. Stood on the porch and hollered. Leo shut the door, turned the light off, and the man drove back to town with an empty notebook."

"He won't answer a knock."

"He reads his own meter and tapes the card to the mailbox. That's the whole of his visiting."

"Then I'll knock anyway."

Brenda leaned on the counter. "One more thing, and then I'll let you finish that, which is melting."

"Go on."

"Harrison Shaw has stood in this shop asking who's been in asking about the wreck."

"He asked you that."

"He did. So if you're driving out Saari Road, drive quiet."

Evelyn put her spoon in the dish and did not answer, and Brenda did not press her, which was its own kind of answer.

"Thank you, Brenda."

"Mm-hm. You want my advice, go in the morning. He's out in the yard most mornings, before the wind picks up."

Evelyn wrote it on the napkin with the pen from her tote — Leo Koskinen, Saari Road, last house, where the pavement gives out — folded the napkin once, and slid it into the pocket where she kept the county clerk's card and the index card Agnes Poole had handed her across the library desk.

At the curb her car was cold. She sat with the keys in her hand and the engine off and looked at the square: the flag snapping on its pole, the museum roof half a mile off above the trees, the light coming on over the harbor. The heater blew cold for a block and then warm.

In the morning she would drive out Saari Road and knock. Whether Leo Koskinen would open the door was a question no one in Port Clement could answer for her.