Iron Lake

by William Kent Krueger

  Tom Griffin’s eye wasn’t the only wounded part of his body. The priest bore other scars, some visible on his hands and arms. Although he had never asked the priest directly, Cork had heard about the long political internment that had ended the cleric’s involvement in the church in Central America. This information was always offered in a hushed tone, as if to the conservative parishioners of St. Agnes it was some kind of questionable skeleton in the priest’s closet.

  Tom Griffin caught Cork by surprise, sweeping into the room suddenly, bringing with him the hard cold that had stiffened his old leather jacket. He wore a stocking cap with the red face mask still pulled down, so that, with only the eye holes and nose hole and mouth, he looked like some kind of demon conjured out of a North Woods black night.

  “Sorry I’m late, Cork.” He pulled off the stocking cap and mask.

  “Didn’t hear your snowmobile, Tom,” Cork said.

  “It died on me out at the mission this afternoon. That’s why I’m late. Had to hitch a ride in the back of a pickup.” He shrugged off his coat and threw everything on a chair already occupied by a stack of papers. He wore a red plaid flannel shirt, faded jeans, and hiking boots. Rubbing his cold legs vigorously, he smiled at Cork, and said, “I’ve taken to calling it Lazarus because starting it’s like trying to raise the dead.

  “I see Mrs. Gruber got you some coffee. Good. I think I might have something a little stronger. Care for a beer? I’ve also got some Chivas Regal that would spice up that coffee nicely.”

  “I’m fine, thanks,” Cork replied.

  “Suit yourself.”

  The priest stepped over to the file cabinet, opened the top drawer, and took out a bottle. Lifting a plastic cup from the top of the cabinet, he cleaned out something with his little finger and poured in the whiskey. He cleared off a chair and pulled it up next to his desk, motioning for Cork to go ahead and sit. He sipped from his cup, closed his eye, and sighed.

  “First chance I’ve had to sit down all day.” The sounds of Father Kelsey’s reactions to the game carried into the room. “Timberwolves must be losing tonight.” St. Kawasaki smiled and got up to close the door.

  “I hear Joe John finally called Darla,” Cork said. “Were you there?”

  “I was at Darla’s most of the night.”

  “Joe John give any particular reason for taking Paul that way?”

  “He missed his son,” the priest said with a note of sympathy. “And he was ashamed. He couldn’t face Darla. Pretty simple really.”

  “You talk with him?”

  “No.”

  “Know where he is?”

  The priest sipped his Chivas Regal and shook his head. “I was just out at the reservation talking to Wanda. Darla asked me to intercede.”

  “Did she tell you anything?”

  “She says she doesn’t know where Joe John is.”

  “What do you think?”

  The priest shrugged. “You know The People, Cork. When they want to, they can say nothing very well.”

  “And Wanda’s saying nothing. That should tell you something.”

  The priest studied his whiskey a moment. “I have a good feeling about this. Somehow, it’s all going to turn out for the best.”

  “I wish I did,” Cork said.

  “Maybe that’s the difference between the law and religion. I hope for the best, you’re prepared for the worst.”

  “There’s another difference,” Cork said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Your parishioners can’t kick you out.”

  The priest laughed. Cork took a cigarette from the pack in his shirt pocket. “Mind?” he asked.

  “No, go ahead. Can I bum one?”

  “I didn’t know you smoked,” Cork said.

  “I gave it up when I was in Central America. Rather involuntarily,” he added with a smile.

  Cork held out the pack, the priest took a cigarette, and Cork offered his lighter.

  “You wanted to talk,” the priest said, lighting his cigarette.

  “I need some—” Cork thought a moment. “I was going to say advice, but the truth is, I need some guidance, Tom.”

  “We all do sometimes. It’s not always easy to admit.”

  “I haven’t been to church in a long time. Can’t remember my last confession.”

  “Is that what this is?”

  “Maybe. At least partly.” Cork lit his own cigarette and slipped the lighter in his pocket. “I’ve been out of the house a long time now. You knew that.”

  He paused, expecting the priest to say something. But St. Kawasaki appeared content to smoke his cigarette and listen.

  “I’ve started seeing another woman.”

  The priest didn’t seem surprised in the least.

  “I didn’t think about it at first, where it was going, what ultimately would be invloved. I wasn’t thinking clearly about a lot of things. But now—” Cork hesitated.

  “Now?” the priest encouraged.

  “Now every time I see my children, I’m afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Hurting them badly. Hurting them forever.”

  The priest held his cigarette delicately between his thumb and index finger, smoking in a way Cork had always considered continental. He studied the tip of his cigarette a moment, then said, “Children are resilient. But I agree it’s a reasonable fear.”

  “I don’t know what to do, Tom. I don’t want to lose my family. I don’t want my children hurt.”

  “What I hear you saying is that more than anything you want your family.”

  The understanding in the priest’s voice touched Cork deeply. “Yes,” he confessed.

  “And this other woman, does she know?”

  “She suspects. She hasn’t pressed me.” Cork felt himself shouldering again a weight that seemed unbearable. “She’s a wonderful woman, Tom.” He stood up, walked across the cluttered office to the window. He blew smoke against the glass and stared at the empty steps of the church across the yard. “Funny. I remember every detail of the morning Sam Winter Moon and Arnold Stanley died. But the whole next year is a blur. I wasn’t much of a husband or a father. I didn’t even fight it when Jo asked me to leave. I think about that now and it’s like I was someone else. Someone in a bad dream. Or like I was sleepwalking. This woman woke me up, Tom.”

  “Maybe time did that, Cork.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Do you love her?”

  “I haven’t said that to her, no.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  Cork watched cigarette smoke crawl the windowpane as if it were looking for a way out.

  “Yes,” he finally admitted. “I do.”

  “And you love your family.”

  “Of course.”

  “Does that include Jo?”

  Cork turned back. The priest was watching him with a placid expression.

  “Not at the moment. But maybe it could again if we tried. If we had some help.”

  “From me?”

  “Isn’t that what priests do?”

  “Some.”

  “Would you?”

  “What about Jo? Is this something she wants?”

  “She wants a divorce. And one thing about Jo, once she’s made up her mind about something, she won’t back down.”

  “Sounds like you’re asking me for a miracle.”

  “It does seem pretty hopeless,” Cork said.

  “Hopeless.” The priest sipped his whiskey and smoked his cigarette and seemed to consider the word. “Let me tell you something, Cork. In all my life I’ve learned two things.” He pointed to the black patch over his eye. “One is never call a small man in a uniform ‘Shorty.’ The other is that nothing is ever hopeless.” He dropped the last of his cigarette into the plastic cup. “I’ll talk with Jo. I’ll do my best to convince her to join you in some counseling.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But, Cork, I need to be sure you’re going to end this other
relationship. There’s nothing that I or anyone else can do if you’re not willing to sacrifice everything for your family.”

  “I know. I’ll end it.”

  St. Kawasaki smiled a little wearily. “The things that ask the most of us are the things most worth having.”

  Cork left the window and walked to the desk. He tossed his cigarette into St. Kawasaki’s cup. “Mind if I use your phone?”

  “Go ahead.”

  He dialed Harlan Lytton’s number, waited while the phone at the other end rang eight times. He put the receiver back in the cradle. “Thanks.”

  “No one home?”

  “It’s Harlan Lytton. Sometimes he doesn’t answer out of sheer orneriness.”

  “Lytton? The one with the dog they call Jack the Ripper?”

  “That’s him. I have to go out to see him tonight.”

  “Mind me asking why you’d want to pay a visit to a man like that?”

  “If he answered his phone, I wouldn’t have to. But he didn’t answer.”

  “Why go out there at all?”

  “Long story. Kind of hard to explain.”

  The priest grabbed his leather jacket. “I’ve heard things about this Lytton. I’m not going to let you go there alone. Not at night.”

  “I used to go out there alone all the time when I was sheriff.”

  St. Kawasaki put his hand on Cork’s shoulder and looked at him seriously with his good eye. “I hate to remind you of this, but you’re not the sheriff anymore.”

  14

  LYTTON’S CABIN LAY FIVE MILES OUTSIDE TOWN at the end of a long, narrow cut into two hundred acres of thick brush, bog, balsam pine and tamarack. The lane leading to the cabin was marked by an old hand-painted sign on a cracked gray board nailed to a post: “Taxidermy.” A chain strung between two aspen saplings blocked the entry.

  Cork eyed the deep snow drifted into the narrow lane. “Long walk in, Tom. I’ve got skis and snowshoes,” he offered.

  “The only thing I can handle in the snow is my Kawasaki. I’ll walk, thanks.”

  “Then I’ll walk, too.”

  Cork reached into the glove compartment for a flashlight, then opened the rear door and took his Winchester from its sheath. He pulled several cartridges from his coat pocket and fed them into the rifle.

  “What’s that for?” the priest asked.

  “How much do you know about Jack the Ripper?”

  The snow seemed to multiply the light of the moon that was nearly full and the mass of stars that frosted the sky, and even without the flashlight Cork had no trouble seeing the way along the cut through the trees and brush.

  “I was out here once just after I first came to Aurora. I brought a big muskie Father Kelsey had caught and wanted mounted. Never made it off my motorcycle. That dog was on me as soon as I pulled up. I gave it full throttle coming back down this lane and the Ripper still nearly caught me. Biggest, fastest, meanest dog I ever saw.”

  “Lytton lets it run loose,” Cork said. “Especially when he’s gone, and he’s gone a lot. Burglar protection, he claims. I used to warn him about the dog getting off his land, but the Ripper never does. Seems to know his territory. And we’re in it right now. I don’t want to be caught out here on foot without something to discourage that dog.”

  The priest shook his head at the rifle. “That thing could discourage a critter to death.”

  “Lytton’s put out word that he’s trained the Ripper to attack on command and to go for the kill. Now, that could be just Harlan blowing smoke out his ass, but I’d rather not take that chance.”

  They passed a tangle of vine thick as a stone wall and covered with snow. The vines blocked Cork’s view of much of the woods to his left, and he kept a watchful eye in that direction.

  “Why would anyone train a dog to kill?” the priest asked.

  “What do you know about Lytton?”

  “Only what I’ve been told. He sounds like a man who could use a good long visit in a confessional.”

  Cork stopped. The priest stopped, too.

  “What is it?” Tom Griffin asked.

  “Thought I heard something.” Cork looked carefully at the thick vine wall.

  “What?”

  “Could’ve been only a clump of snow falling off some branches.”

  “Or it could be Jack the Ripper circling for a kill.” The priest looked carefully around. “I feel like a sitting duck on this road,” he whispered.

  “Don’t ever wander off in these woods, Tom. There’s bogs out there could swallow you up without a trace.”

  Cork listened a little longer, then started walking again, wading through the snow that was nearly knee deep and that would, if they had to run, hold them back like thick molasses. He fed a round into the chamber.

  “Lytton’s a strange case. He’s always been a little different. A loner. His mother used to work for the judge. Housekeeper. After the judge’s wife left him and hauled Sandy back east, the judge took a liking to Harlan, treated him in many ways like a son. They did a lot together. Hunting and fishing. That kind of thing. Harlan started getting into a lot of trouble as a teenager. The judge used his influence as much as he could and kept the kid out of jail. Harlan finally joined the marines. Everybody figured him for a lifer, but he came back a few years ago. Word is, less than honorable discharge. Most people just stay out of his way. That’s not difficult because mostly he keeps to himself out here.”

  Tom Griffin said, “I heard he’s a bit of a peeping Tom.”

  “I was never able to catch him at it,” Cork replied. “But he’s been reported in strange places at strange times. When I was sheriff, the FBI was interested in him. Thought he might be linked to the Minnesota Civilian Brigade.”

  “The paramilitary group?”

  “Yep. I could see it. Typical profile for a member of that kind of group is an unemployed, undereducated white guy. Hell Hanover gives the brigade room in the Sentinel once in a while to spout their epithets.”

  “Hanover certainly doesn’t make a secret of the fact that his own sympathies run in that direction.” The priest leaned nearer as if someone in the dark might hear. “Just between you and me, with that shaved head and those cold blue eyes, old Hell looks just like a Nazi commandant.” As if saying the name of Hell Hanover was like conjuring the devil, the priest looked carefully about. “Why in God’s name are you out on a night like this to see a man like Harlan Lytton?”

  “Henry Meloux says he heard the Windigo call his name.”

  “The what?”

  “Long story, Tom. Believe me, I wouldn’t be out here if Lytton would just answer his damn phone. I’ve been trying him all day. Either he can’t or he’s in one of his moods.”

  “It’s important for you to know which?”

  “The judge is dead. Harlan and him have a long connection. Now Henry Meloux’s heard the Windigo call Harlan’s name. I’d just like to check on Harlan.”

  “Professional curiosity? Isn’t that the sheriff’s job?”

  “The Windigo’s not something Wally Schanno’s likely to consider seriously.”

  “And you do?”

  Cork thought about telling the priest that he’d heard the Windigo call his own name and that his interest wasn’t professional but quite personal and very pressing. But he decided to keep it simple.

  “Once I begin to wonder about a thing it’s hard for me to let go. There’s his cabin,” Cork said in a low voice. “He’s got lights on. Good sign. Him and the Ripper enjoying a quiet evening chewing on somebody’s bones.”

  The cabin was small but sturdy, with a shake roof and split shutters, all of cedar. There was a small garage to one side and a shed in back. From what little Cork knew about Lytton, he understood the shed was where the man used to do his taxidermy work. With the Ripper around, very few people brought Lytton that kind of business anymore.

  “Lytton!” he called. “Harlan Lytton!”

  There was no response from the cabin.

  “It�
�s Cork O’Connor! I’ve got Father Tom Griffin with me!” Cork glanced at the priest. “He was never much impressed with my sheriff’s badge. I figure if he’s thinking of taking a bead on us, your collar might carry some weight.”

  “Thanks. He’ll shoot me first out of respect.”

  “Lytton, are you there!” Cork tried again. “Come on, Tom. If he hasn’t shot at us by now, he probably won’t.”

  “Don’t forget about The Ripper.”

  Cork started ahead.

  From behind the wall of vines to the left came a blur of black against the white of the snow. Cork caught the movement out of the corner of his eye. He swung around as a huge black shape charged through the snow, bounding up and down, moving swiftly as a stone skipping over water.

  “Tom!” Cork cried, trying to warn the priest.

  St. Kawasaki saw it coming. He lifted his arm to fend off the attack. Cork had the Winchester shouldered, and he fired at the black form as it launched itself at the priest. The Ripper yelped and his body jerked violently in midair. Tom Griffin turned and ducked, taking the impact of the dog with his shoulder. The Ripper slammed into him, then fell and lay still, a great black shape imbedded in the snow at the priest’s feet. As they both watched, the dark color of his fur seemed to melt out of its throat, staining the white snow.

  “No!” Harlan Lytton screamed, rushing from the cover of the vine wall.

  Lytton was a wiry little man with a face always in need of shaving. In the crisp winter air, as Lytton knelt down beside Jack the Ripper, Cork caught the smell of whiskey and the odor of a body long overdue for a bath.

  “Jack?” Lytton whispered.

  He felt at the dog’s throat. The Ripper made a sound, very faint.

  “Don’t die, Jack,” Lytton pleaded. “Don’t die, Jackie boy. Don’t die on me.”