Iron Lake

by William Kent Krueger

  “Oh,” she said when she understood. “I saw your line go on and I thought—”

  “That’s all right, Helen,” Parrant said, dropping his hands. He straightened his red silk tie and brushed his blue suit. “We were just finishing our discussion. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

  The woman nodded, glanced at Cork, and backed quickly out.

  Parrant ran his hand through his hair and looked smooth as ever. He moved back to his desk, picked up the phone, and righted the fallen chair.

  “Jo said you had photographs. Where’d you get them?”

  Cork’s ribs hurt every time he took a breath, but he didn’t want Parrant to know. “Does it matter?”

  “I’d like to know who’s so interested in my private life.”

  “You’re a senator now. You haven’t got a private life.”

  “What are you going to do with the photos?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  Parrant sat down and eyed Cork with an unruffled air. “I’m sure you can’t hurt me, Cork. But if you try, I’ll squash you like a bug.”

  “I’m shivering in my boots, Sandy.”

  He turned to leave. As he reached for the door and opened it, Parrant said at his back, “I’m used to winning, Cork. It’s what I do best.”

  Outside Cork got into the Bronco. He undid his shirt and looked at the place where his ribs hurt like hell. The skin was already a brooding purple from the beating he took at Sam’s Place. There seemed to be a yellow-green border developing around the bruise. He wondered if Parrant had broken anything. He reached into his shirt pocket for a Lucky Strike, and hauled out a crushed pack. He extracted a bent cigarette, straightened it out, and lit up. After that he sat for a while staring at the windshield that was blanketed with snow.

  Eventually he opened the gym bag. He hadn’t looked at the pictures since the night before. There was no point in looking again. He knew that. No point except to feed the coldness inside him. In a strange way, that was exactly what he wanted now. He wanted to feed himself to the cold until the cold had consumed him and he didn’t care anymore.

  He stared at the folder. Manila, old and beaten. Doodles on the outside. Although dried blood obscured some things, others were quite clear. Squares, circles, scribbles. A word here and there. Idle scrawl. But there was something about that scrawl. It was different from the writing on the label that said “Jo O’Connor.”

  He crushed out his cigarette in the ashtray and stepped from the Bronco. Folder in hand and moving gingerly because of his ribs, he hurried back into the building. He ignored Joyce Sandoval’s questioning glance and went straight to the aerial photo hanging on the wall. He studied the handwritten inscription on the matting. “Happy Birthday, Sandy. The Judge.” The late Judge Robert Parrant had written with a peculiarly grand flourish.

  Cork looked at the folder. The doodled words on the bloody cover were in the same hand.

  The folder hadn’t originally belonged to Harlan Lytton. It had belonged to another dead man first.

  24

  HE’D ALWAYS LOVED WINTER in the North Woods. The clean feel of a new snow. The icy air almost brittle in his nostrils. The way sound carried forever. He could hear Walleye barking a long way off as he parked his Bronco on the frozen lake, climbed the rocky slope of Crow’s Point, and made for Henry Meloux’s cabin. The world felt empty of everything except that sound.

  Meloux stepped out as Cork approached. He was wiping his hands on a rag. Big snowflakes caught in his white hair as he stood waiting.

  “Corcoran O’Connor,” the old man said with a smile.

  Walleye, who was on a rope tied to a metal peg driven into the cabin wall, wagged his tail and nuzzled Cork’s crotch.

  “You don’t seem surprised to see me, Henry,” Cork said.

  “When you are my age, you will be surprised by little, too.” He looked at Cork with concern. “You are moving like a man my age.”

  “A little accident,” Cork said. He gently touched his ribs.

  “I have made bean soup,” the old man offered. “We’ll eat.” He untied the dog, turned, and led the way inside.

  The cabin smelled of the soup, a thick, tantalizing aroma. Cork realized he hadn’t eaten at all that day, hadn’t even been hungry until he smelled the soup. From his coat pocket, he pulled an unopened pack of Lucky Strikes and gave them to the old man. Meloux seemed pleased.

  “After we eat”—he nodded—“we can smoke together.”

  Meloux filled two chipped bowls and brought them to the table. He brought bread in a basket and poured coffee from the blue speckled pot that had jumped by itself the day Molly had been there. Walleye sat patiently on his haunches, watching carefully for anything that might come his way. With the wooden ladle, the old man fished a bone the size of a child’s fist from the soup pot and put it on the floor. The dog waited until Meloux called him.

  They ate without a word, but not in silence. The old man slurped from his spoon and lapped at the residue of soup along the edges of his lips. In the way of someone used to keeping company with himself, he occasionally mumbled toward his bowl. On the floor, Walleye gnawed greedily on the soup bone. When Meloux was finished, he took the pack of Lucky Strikes Cork had given him and drew out a cigarette. He offered the pack to Cork, then lit his own cigarette with a wooden kitchen match he struck on the underside of his chair. He settled back and seemed quite pleased.

  “You make an old man feel pretty good, Corcoran O’Connor,” he said. “It is a long hard way here even without snow, but you visit me often now.” He gave Cork an ironic smile.

  Cork leaned his forearms on the table and bent toward the old man. “Harlan Lytton is dead, Henry.”

  The old man took a long, slow puff from his cigarette.

  “You’re not surprised,” Cork said.

  “Death is no surprise to an old man like me. Being able to take a regular crap, now, there is a surprise.”

  “Why did you tell me about the Windigo calling his name? Did you think I could do something?”

  “Once the Windigo has called a man’s name, there’s nothing anyone can do.”

  Cork sat back, eyed the old man, and took a long shot in the dark. “But you told Russell Blackwater the Windigo had called his name.”

  Something showed in the old man’s face, a glimmer of concern, but it passed quickly.

  Cork knew he’d hit home and he pressed Meloux. “The night I took you into town you went to the casino, but not to gamble. You wanted to talk with Russell Blackwater. Did you hear the Windigo call his name? Is that why you walked into town in the middle of a blizzard? To warn him?”

  The old man took the cigarette from his lips and looked at Cork appreciatively. “The whites were wrong to kick you out as sheriff.”

  “Did he believe you?”

  Meloux shrugged. “It makes no difference if he believes or not. He will still face the Windigo.”

  “Why warn him and not Lytton?”

  “Vernon Blackwater’s son is one of The People. Harlan Lytton was not.”

  “That’s why you told me about Harlan? You thought I would warn him?”

  “He was white and his heart was probably very black”—the old man shrugged—“but he was still a man. The Windigo, that is something else.”

  “You know, Henry, if my grandmother hadn’t been one of The People, I’d probably wonder about all this Windigo business.”

  “If your grandmother hadn’t been one of The People, you would probably not be so smart,” the old man said with a calm flourish of smoke.

  Cork thanked Meloux for the soup and put on his coat to leave.

  At the door the old man studied him hard. “This anger in your eyes, is it because you are hunting the Windigo?”

  “I don’t know what it is I’m hunting, Henry.”

  Meloux nodded thoughtfully, still looking keenly at Cork. “The Windigo was a man once. His heart was not always ice. What makes a man’s heart turn to ice? I would think about that
, and I would think about how to fight the Windigo.”

  “I thought you told me I wasn’t the one to fight the Windigo.”

  Meloux shrugged. “I’m old. I’m not right as much as I used to be.”

  “Often enough, Henry,” Cork replied.

  From Meloux’s he started across the ice, heading back toward town. A mile to the east he could see the inlet where Molly’s sauna stood. He slowed and stopped, then turned in that direction. When she didn’t answer his knock, he let himself in with the key on the nail under the steps. The cabin was cool. Molly kept it that way. Lately, whenever they’d crawled into bed, the sheets were cold at first and for the first few minutes they simply held each other while the bedding warmed around them. Cork walked the quiet cabin, taking in the silent disarray of Molly’s life. The Sunday paper was folded on the coffee table near the big stone fireplace in the main room. On the floor beside a hand-sewn pillow sat an empty cup with a used tea bag in the saucer and next to it, lying facedown, a book called The Tao of Loving. A sweater lay thrown over the back of her rocking chair. He walked up the stairs. In the bathroom her cosmetics were scattered about the counter next to the sink. The lid was still off the Noxzema. Hairbrushes and combs stood together in a small clay pot she’d made herself in an art class at the community college. In the bedroom, the bed had been hastily made. Cork heard the sound of her old Saab coming down the lane. He headed downstairs and stepped into the kitchen as she came in the back door.

  Molly glanced at him coldly and hung her coat. “What are you doing here?”

  “I let myself in.”

  She brushed past him and went to the refrigerator. She took out a carton of cherry yogurt and grabbed a spoon from the drawer. She wore the jeans and the taupe sweater she’d waitressed in all morning. There was a spot of mustard on her right sleeve.

  “You look good,” he said.

  “What did you expect? That I’d fall apart?” She gave him a brief appraisal. “You look like a bully just stole your lunch.”

  “About yesterday,” he said cautiously. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  Molly pulled the lid off the yogurt and took a spoonful. “Why are you here?”

  Cork shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat and stared at the scarred wooden floor. “I need to talk to someone.”

  “Find someone else.” She turned her back to him and walked to the table.

  “There isn’t anyone else,” he said. “I’ve lived here almost my whole life and I’ve got no one to talk to.”

  She slid a chair out with her foot and sat down heavily. “Try your wife.”

  “She’s in love with someone else.”

  “I could’ve told you that.”

  Cork stared at her, bewildered.

  “You know, Cork, for a smart man you’re pretty stupid sometimes.”

  “You knew?”

  “I suspected.”

  Cork felt fuzzy and a little numb, as if something were blocking the flow of blood to his brain. “How?”

  “A feeling from the things you told me.”

  “Christ, I feel like such a fool.”

  “You’re not the first.” She considered him a moment, then put down the yogurt. “Would you like some tea?”

  “Do you still have that whiskey?”

  “Ginseng’ll be better for you.” She went to the cupboard. “Who is he?”

  “Sandy Parrant.”

  “Is she planning on going with him to Washington?”

  “She’d never do that,” Cork said. “She’d never take the kids away.”

  Molly shrugged. “Love makes people do strange things. I ought to know.”

  Cork turned around and stared out the window. Snow was still falling, still very lightly. It would have been lovely if he hadn’t felt so bad.

  “I heard about Harlan Lytton,” Molly said. She moved to the stove for the kettle. “It didn’t sound pretty.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “Any idea who killed him?”

  “Not yet.” He watched her familiar movements, but she was a distant figure now, on the far side of a chasm he’d created. “I don’t think I’ll stay for the tea.”

  “Cork,” she said quickly as he turned to the door. “I didn’t say anything about Jo because I didn’t want you to think I was trying to turn you against her. I didn’t want you to think I was just some sort of desperate husband-stealing bitch.”

  “I would never think that about you. You were the best thing in my life, Molly.”

  She fisted her hand on her hip and shot back, “Somehow I missed that part in our discussion yesterday.”

  “Yesterday wasn’t about you. I hoped I could save my children from—I don’t know—the inevitable.”

  “Children survive a lot, Cork. You and I both know that.”

  “I guess we do.”

  They fell quiet. Cork wanted to say he loved her. He wanted to ask her to forgive him. He wanted to lay his head against her breast and weep into her warm flesh and feel as connected to someone as he’d felt the night the grief passed through him when he hunted the big bear with Sam Winter Moon.

  Molly crossed her arms and seemed to read his thoughts. “I told you there wasn’t a swinging door here, Cork. I meant it.”

  “I understand.”

  “I don’t think you do. You hurt me. You were ready to cut me out of your life like I was a rotten spot on an otherwise perfect apple.”

  He looked at the floor. “I’ve got no apple now. Only applesauce.”

  He glanced at her face. If there was a smile anywhere near, she hid it well.

  “You’ve always made me laugh, Cork. That’s not what I want now.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To feel needed. To feel that you need me as much as you need air to breathe. I’m worth that.” She pointed toward the cold outside. “Go on. Take some time to think about it.”

  He didn’t need any time. Already he couldn’t breathe. But he turned the knob anyway, because it was what Molly wanted, and he walked out the door.

  25

  IN THE LANGUAGE OF THE ANISHINAABE, December was called Manidoo-Gizisoons. The month of small spirits.

  It was late afternoon by the time he entered the limits of Aurora. December 20. One day away from the shortest, darkest day of the year. The forecast was for continued snow, heavier during the evening, additional accumulations of up to three inches by morning.

  Cork wished there were a forecast for his spirit. He felt the dark and the cold penetrating deep in him. He wondered when there would be warmth again, when there would be light. He also wondered if his ribs would ever stop hurting.

  He parked in front of Sam’s Place and stood a moment looking through falling snow at the geese who were bound to their small world of open water. In a strange way, he figured he knew what that was like. To have the world close down around you. He took his keys and moved to the door. It was already unlocked. He was careful not to look at the windows and wondered if even now he was being watched. He turned away casually, as if he’d changed his mind naturally, and he walked to the side of the Quonset hut; then he edged to the kitchen window that was covered with cardboard. He listened for a minute. Inside, just a couple of feet from his head, a cupboard door squeaked.

  They’d looked for something after the judge was killed. Now Lytton was dead. Were they looking this time for something Lytton had? He tried to think of some plan, some way of trapping them. Then he heard glass shatter inside.

  The sound of the breaking broke something in Cork. It was like the ripping of a membrane, a thin sheathing that had contained his outrage and his anger. His whole body drew taut and a bitter taste flooded his mouth. His home was being violated again. His whole life was being violated. He headed to the Bronco, took out the tire iron, and stepped to the front door. He took a deep, painful breath, clenched his teeth, kicked open the door, and rushed them.

  Jenny crouched in the kitchen near the sink, picking up pieces of
a broken glass. She cried out when Cork came at her, and she fell back, holding her arms up to protect herself. Cork stood over her with the tire iron raised.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, hoarse with the rage that still ran in his blood and with the pain that knifed at him from his ribs.

  “I . . . I . . .” she stammered. Her eyes were full of terror. “I just wanted to help clean up.”

  Cork lowered the iron and held his side.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m sorry I scared you. You had me scared, too.”

  He glanced around. The place had been picked up. Everything was in order. Dishes sat dripping in the rack by the sink. White suds clung to Jenny’s hands.

  “Are you all right, Dad?” she asked, seeing how he held himself.

  “Fine. Here, let me help you.” He knelt carefully and picked up the last pieces of the broken water glass and dropped them into the garbage can under the sink. “The place looks great. You’ve been here awhile.”

  She dried her hands on a dish towel. “I heard about the man who was killed last night. I’m scared for you, Dad.”

  “There’s no reason to be, Jenny.”

  She stared at him. She had her mother’s blue eyes and, normally, her mother’s calm, self-assuredness reflected in them. But her eyes were afraid now.

  “Somebody killed him,” she pointed out. “And shot at you.”

  That was a point Cork couldn’t argue. Still, he smiled reassuringly. “I’m sure I’m safe.”

  Jenny leaned against the counter, still watching him with her frightened blue eyes. “What’s a Windigo?”

  “Where’d you hear about that?”

  “Around. What is it?”

  “A story. That’s all it is. Just a story.”

  Jenny finally looked down, studying her hands that were raw and red from the hot dishwater. “I want to stay here with you.”

  “Here?” He reached out and held her. “I’m flattered, honey, but I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “For one thing, I’m not the cook your aunt Rose is. I’m used to eating my own bad cooking, but I wouldn’t take the chance of poisoning you.”