Iron Lake

by William Kent Krueger

  Schanno’s anger had drained away. His already gaunt face seemed to have caved in. He closed his eyes.

  Cork walked to him and leaned close. “But the judge had you by the balls, didn’t he, Wally? You and the others. Maybe you wouldn’t go to jail over it, but if people knew about you and GameTech, an otherwise sterling reputation would be sorely tarnished. A hard way for a man to end his career, eh, Wally?” Cork stood upright. “The night Blackwater shot you, he wasn’t after me. He was after that file you showed me. He was at the judge’s because it was the judge who had been blackmailing him, Wally. And you were there for the same reason, weren’t you? Looking for anything that might implicate you in all this. It didn’t have anything to do with trying to get the truth. Why in God’s name would you ever let yourself get into that kind of bind?”

  Schanno turned his head, following the music of Arletta’s singing in the back room. “She’ll only get worse,” he said quietly. “Eventually she’ll require constant care. On a sheriff’s salary, all I could afford is some damn nursing home or institution. I figured the money would let me keep her here somehow, where she’s been happy. Where we’ve been happy.” He listened a minute more, then looked back at Cork. “I couldn’t stand the thought of her somewhere where no one really cared. Do you understand?”

  Sure, he understood. But people were dead. And that made a difference. He walked back to the Christmas tree.

  “Did the judge ever ask anything of you?” Cork said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Anything you thought about twice, anything that ran against your grain?”

  “You mean illegal?” Schanno sounded incensed at the idea.

  “For God sake, Wally, the man was giving you money under the table. He wasn’t Santa Claus.”

  “No,” Wally said, anger again putting a hard edge to his voice.

  “What about Joe John LeBeau?”

  “What about him?”

  “How carefully did you investigate his disappearance?”

  “Joe John was a man with a history of drinking and running off. His truck reeked of whiskey. I didn’t spend much time on it at all. Would you?” His eyes narrowed on Cork. “Why?”

  Cork went to his coat hanging in the closet. He took out the prints he’d made at Lytton’s. “Take a look at these.”

  Schanno lifted his reading glasses from where he’d set them on the gold-leafed Bible in his lap and slipped them on. He spent a couple of minutes looking carefully at the photographs. Finally he turned his face up toward Cork. He looked broken. “I didn’t know. I swear to you, Cork, I didn’t know.”

  “I’ll ask again, Wally. Those files you burned. Did you do it to cover your own ass? Did you do it to cover for someone else?”

  “No,” Schanno insisted earnestly. “I did it because what was in those files would only bring shame to a lot of decent people. God as my witness, nothing I burned was anything like this.” He nodded toward the photos. “I guess you found the negatives. I’d’ve looked for them myself except for this bum leg. Where in heaven’s name did you find them?”

  “About as far from heaven as you can get, Wally.” He reached for the prints; Schanno seemed reluctant to give them over.

  “I should keep them,” he said.

  “What for?”

  “I’ll need to reopen Joe John’s case.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” Cork pulled the prints away.

  “What are you going to do, Cork?”

  “I’ll know that when I’ve finally dug down to the bottom of this whole pile of shit.”

  “Maybe it all went down just like it seems,” Schanno said with faint hope. “Blackwater really did kill the judge and Lytton because of blackmail.”

  “That theory almost ties everything together nicely, but not quite.”

  “What’s left?”

  “Two things. First, the judge had a partner. Hell Hanover. I’m pretty sure GameTech is the source of the money the brigade’s been getting. I’ve got documents and photographs I’ll turn over to you later. I don’t care about you and GameTech, Wally. But I want the brigade taken care of.”

  “And the other thing?”

  “The boy,” Cork said. “Paul LeBeau. He saw something at the judge’s house that scared him into hiding. I want to know what.”

  “You’ll have to find him first. I couldn’t.”

  “I think I know who can.” Cork stood a moment, looking down at Schanno who seemed to have shriveled in just the few minutes that Cork had been there.

  “Did I really do anything so wrong?” Schanno asked, his face sunk deep into hopelessness.

  “You stopped looking for the truth, Wally. But I’d guess that’s a sin we’ve all been guilty of.” He turned toward the entryway. “I’ll be in touch.”

  He paused at the front door before leaving. He listened to Arletta still singing somewhere in a back room. There was a joyfulness in her voice that carried beautifully the feel of what the season was supposed to be all about. Cork opened the door and stepped outside wondering if Arletta had any idea what awaited her beyond that season.

  38

  MOLLY STEPPED OUT THE BACK DOOR of the Pinewood Broiler. Her skis and poles stood propped against the wall beside the Dumpster. She lifted them, cradled the skis on her shoulder, and hiked three blocks to the lake.

  Sunlight exploded out of a sky as blue as she’d ever seen. The lake was empty, not even a snowmobile breaking the stillness. Far out stood the ice shanties, clustered here and there like isolated little communities. They reminded her of the deserted towns in westerns when all the cowardly citizens hid themselves just before the outlaws rode in.

  She skied north, skirting the open water behind the brewery, where Russell Blackwater had drowned after trying to shoot Cork. Thank you, she found herself saying, with a little upward cast of her eyes, for keeping Cork safe. She passed North Point, where the judge had been found dead and Sheriff Wally Schanno had been wounded. She knew that somehow it was all tied to the killing of Joe John LeBeau. Terrible events, for sure, but on that glorious afternoon, with the sun at her back and the vast pure white of the lake all her own, she didn’t want to dwell on tragedy. She felt no guilt about that at all. In fact, she wasn’t sure if she’d ever felt better.

  Halfway home she stopped and turned back. Leaning on her poles, she stared toward Aurora, which was mostly a distant feathering of chimney smoke. She had never loved the town, never felt a sense of belonging there. Years before when she’d run away, she’d left nothing behind her. After her father died, she’d returned only to take care of business, with the idea of selling the old resort, which she put immediately on the market. No one made an offer. The big cabin was run-down and the smaller ones fallen into even greater ruin. She took the job at the Pinewood Broiler and began to fix up the big cabin, at first with no greater intention than to ensure the plumbing worked reliably and she could eat a meal at the kitchen table without a chair leg snapping under her. She worked alone, learning as she went. The more she accomplished, the more she planned. She refinished the kitchen table. She tuck-pointed the fireplace chimney and repaired the mantel. She replaced the copper tubing to all the faucets so the water flowed hard and fast.

  In her second summer, she received an offer. An architect from the Twin Cities wanted to buy the big cabin, gut it, and fashion it to his own taste. The offer was good money. But in the end she turned it down and took the place off the market.

  She smiled as she looked back at Aurora. It wasn’t heaven, not by a long stretch, but she had something there that no other place offered her. She had history, which some people might call roots, and she had a future now.

  She stopped at the sauna and started a fire in the stove. She was hoping that Cork might have finished his business and come back already, but when she reached the cabin, Cork’s Bronco wasn’t there. She leaned her skis and poles beside the back door and stepped into the kitchen. The cabin felt empty. She shook off her disappointment and decided to
go ahead and sauna alone. After that, she’d come back and clear a space for the Christmas tree.

  While the sauna heated, she cut herself a slice of dark bread and ate it with butter and honey. She poured a big glass of juice. As she drank it, she made a decision definitely to take the next day off. She’d spend it with Cork somehow, the whole day. Maybe get him on his skis over on the North Arm trails. Or maybe just lounge in bed all day. It would be a first, whatever they did, because at the end of it, he wouldn’t have to leave.

  She went to the wall phone by the refrigerator, intending to call the Pinewood. The phone was dead. That wasn’t too unusual. Ice on the lines sometimes brought them down. Or a tree that fell in the wind. She’d take care of it later.

  She rinsed out the juice glass, put away the butter and honey, and wiped the bread crumbs from the cutting board. She was just about to step outside and head down to the sauna when she heard the groan of an old plank on the stairway.

  “Cork?” she called, startled. “Is that you?”

  Stepping into the main room, she looked toward the stairs and listened. On impulse, she checked the woodbox. The paper sack that held the plastic bag full of negatives was still hidden under the logs. She walked to the stairs and stood looking up toward the second floor. Not a sound anywhere. The old place often gave a groan here or there, and she never took notice. But the bag was in the cabin now, and that made a difference

  A single knock at the back door brought her around suddenly. She made her way cautiously to the kitchen. She couldn’t see anyone waiting on the back steps, and she debated opening the door. Why only one knock? she asked herself. And who would knock once and then leave? Finally she reached for the knob and opened the door.

  A ski fell in. She jumped back startled, then laughed at herself. It was a ski that had come knocking. One of her skis that had fallen against the door. She laughed at herself. All this cloak-and-dagger stuff was getting to her.

  She went upstairs and took a fresh fluffy towel from the bathroom and a pair of white socks from her bedroom dresser, then headed down to the sauna. In the dressing room, she took her clothes off and laid them carefully on the bench. Between the heat from the stove and the sunlight streaming through the windows, the room felt warm and inviting. She took the pair of white socks to wear when she ran onto the ice and she stepped into the sauna. Except for the firelight through the grating of the stove, the small room was dark. She dipped water from a bucket and threw it on the heated stones and an explosion of steam rose up. She sat on the highest bench. In a few minutes she was sweating profusely.

  Closing her eyes, she began to let herself dream. Not sleep dreaming, but dreaming of how her life might be. It was a thing she didn’t often do. In her experience, good things came with great difficulty and were too easily snatched away. She’d long ago learned to accept what she had at any given moment and try to be happy with only that. She could think about the future, plan even, but not expect. It was the expectation that was the trap.

  But there she was, dripping in the sauna, expecting great things of her future with Cork. It was foolish, she knew, but she let herself indulge, just this once. She was happy, happier than she could ever remember.

  The door toward the lake swung open and blinding sunlight invaded her dark. She blinked at it, saw a big silhouette fill the doorway.

  “Cork?” she asked, shielding her eyes, trying to see.

  The silhouetted figure took a step toward her, coming in with the cold. “Guess again.”

  39

  “HE’S NOT HERE,” Ellie Gruber told Cork at the rectory door. “Father Griffin left this morning before I got here and hasn’t been back.”

  “Did he tell Father Kelsey where he was going?”

  “He never says where he’s going,” she said with exasperation. “And I mean to tell you it’s got Father Kelsey more than a little upset.”

  “Did he take his motorcycle or his snowmobile?” Cork asked.

  “Why that old snowmobile went kaput nearly a week ago. He’s left it out at the mission, I believe. So he took that old monster of a motorcycle, must be.”

  “Lazarus is still at the mission? Are you sure?”

  She thought a moment. “I suppose I am.”

  * * *

  The reservation road curved between solid pines, then dipped into a long flat area of marsh populated by swamp alder, tamarack, and gnarled oak. Cork came to a turnoff in the marsh half a mile shy of the old mission. The turnoff was a road that had been started into the marsh so long ago Cork couldn’t even remember why. There was nothing to log, and the ground was too swampy to support buildings of any kind. Construction hadn’t progressed well, evidenced by an old bulldozer that lay sunk in the marsh near the road, only one rust-crusted corner of the blade left above the snow. Work had been abandoned before the road had gone even a quarter of a mile. The dead end turnoff was blocked now by a bank of plowed snow. Cork put the Bronco into four-wheel drive and cleared the snowbank. He drove a hundred yards into the trees until he was out of sight of the main road and he parked.

  He fed a few shells into his Winchester. Then he took off his coat and his red flannel shirt, which left him dressed in his jeans—the denim had been washed so many times they were nearly white as ice—his white wool thermal top, white Nikes, and a light gray stocking cap. In the pale winter colors, he was less likely to be seen, but he was also likely to freeze if he had to spend a lot of time dressed that way. He hoped he wouldn’t.

  The mission stood in the middle of a meadow beyond a hill at the end of the marsh. Cork approached the top of the rise in a crouch, keeping to the gray shadow of the snowbank. A hundred and fifty yards ahead, rising white from the white of the snow in the meadow, stood the old mission building. Smoke feathered up from the stovepipe toward the high blue-white of the sky. He knelt and watched the mission for a while. In the wide flat of the meadow and along the dark wall of pine trees and bare birch that surrounded it, nothing moved. He was to the north of the building and a little east. It was nearing two o’clock and the sun was low and bright. Staring into the glare off the field of snow made his eyes water. Finally he had to look away. The images behind him seemed darker then. The tamaracks, the swamp alders, the bare oaks. A shadow flickered over the road and a large crow alighted on a branch of a young tamarack near Cork. It cocked a yellow eye at him, but seemed content to be quietly curious. To the Anishinaabe, the crow was a symbol of wisdom. As he crouched shivering from the cold, Cork hoped the bird was a good sign that he’d find some answers before he froze to death.

  He glanced again at the mission and immediately hunkered lower.

  Someone stood outside the back door. He couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. Whoever it was stood very still and seemed to be looking across the meadow to Cork’s right where a white-tail doe and her two yearlings had come out of the woods. They stepped carefully in the deep snowdrifts. The yearlings had to leap to keep up. The doe would take a few steps and pause, her body poised in an alert stance, her ears flickering left and right as she watched and listened. Each time she stopped the yearlings took the opportunity to bound to her side. All three were coming straight at Cork. If he didn’t move, the deer would lead the eyes of the watching figure right to him. If he did move, the deer would bolt. In either event, he stood a good chance of giving himself away. He sat frozen in place, watching the deer approach.

  From behind him came the sound of a vehicle on the reservation road. Cork glanced back. He couldn’t see anything yet, but in only a few moments the vehicle would round the curve and drop down into the flat of the marsh and whoever it was that was coming would clearly see him. But there was no way to move without being seen from the mission. He was trapped.

  It was the crow who saved him. The black bird suddenly let out three shrill caws that broke like thunderbolts through the stillness of the meadow. The doe’s eyes darted toward Cork and she lurched away with the two yearlings leaping wildly after her. The figure at the mission w
atched the deer intently as they fled. In the moment before the animals disappeared again into the woods, when the eyes of the watcher were turned farthest from Cork, he threw himself and the Winchester over the snowbank and sunk facedown into the soft snow on the far side. He lay unmoving as the vehicle—an old truck, he guessed from the deep sound of the engine and the rattle of the undercarriage—followed the road into the low-lying marsh area, came up the rise, and passed on the other side of the snowbank. He heard it pull to a stop at the mission and heard the sound of its old doors squeaking open and slamming shut. He heard voices briefly, but didn’t want to look for fear of being seen.

  Several minutes passed before he finally risked a peek. There was no one to be seen at the mission. The vehicle that had come along the road had parked on the far side of the building and wasn’t visible to him. He grabbed the Winchester, made a dive over the snowbank, and rolled onto the road. Crawling to the shelter of the snowbank’s shadow, he crouched, shivering violently. He was wet from lying in the snow, and he knew he had to do something quickly. He could head for the Bronco and warm up, but if he did he might miss a chance at uncovering something important at the mission.

  He moved toward the building, staying below the snowbank and in its shadow as much as possible. As he approached the mission, he saw that both Lazarus and Father Tom Griffin’s old Kawasaki motorcycle were parked behind it. Cork dashed to the side of the building, where he stood in a thigh-deep drift and pressed himself against the old white wood planking. The shades over all the windows had been pulled. He leaned near the glass of a front window and listened.