Iron Lake

by William Kent Krueger

  “What I know is that we can fool ourselves into believing almost anything.” Cork turned to Paul. “You killed Harlan Lytton. How did that feel?”

  “If you want me to say I’m sorry, I won’t,” Paul told him stubbornly.

  “That’s not what I asked. How did it feel to kill a man?”

  “Cork, please don’t,” Darla pleaded.

  “Let him answer,” the priest said.

  Cork went on, “I saw the man on the floor of his cabin. His heart was shattered, blown apart, but he was still alive. He was still alive when you were in the cabin, too, wasn’t he?”

  The boy’s face was stone.

  Cork stood up and crossed to the boy. He leaned close. “He was alive. There was a hole in his chest and blood everywhere and you couldn’t believe he could still be alive, but he was, wasn’t he? Did he look at you? Did he try to talk to you? Was his voice all choked with the sound of him dying? How was it, Paul? How was it watching the man you killed die?”

  The corners of his mouth twitched. His lips trembled. “I . . . He . . .”

  “Did it feel good with the rifle in your hand and a man dying right there at your feet? Tell me how good it felt, Paul. Tell us all what a great feeling it was.”

  A wounded look entered Paul LeBeau’s eyes. His face began to change. The hardness of the man melted like a wax mask, revealing the face of a child in great pain.

  Cork pressed Paul harshly, “Go on. Tell us. Tell us all how good and honorable it felt.”

  Tears appeared along his lower lids and in a moment began to trickle down his cheeks. “He looked at . . . me . . .”

  Darla tried to put herself between Paul and Cork. “Don’t,” she begged.

  Cork took Paul harshly by the shoulders and pulled him away from his mother. Darla grabbed for him, but the priest held her back. Cork made the boy look at him. “Did it make you feel like a man to see him die? Did it?”

  The boy couldn’t speak. His voice was choked with sobbing. Finally he managed to say, “I’m sorry.”

  “Look at me,” Cork ordered.

  The boy raised his head.

  “Once someone’s dead, being sorry doesn’t cut it. If you hit a man, you can apologize. If you destroy his property, you can pay him back. But if you take his life, there’s nothing you can ever do to make that right. Do you understand?”

  “Paul—” Darla tried to break free of the priest, who held her tightly.

  “Do you understand, Paul?”

  The boy wept so much he couldn’t reply.

  “You were ready to kill another man. A man who may be innocent. Could you live with that the rest of your life? Could you!”

  The mission was filled with the sound of the boy’s weeping.

  “Answer me!” Cork demanded.

  “No,” the boy finally sobbed.

  Cork, who’d kept Paul firmly at arm’s length, drew him close. He put his arms around him and held him tightly while the boy wept. “No,” Cork agreed gently. “And thank God for that.”

  After a while, Paul pulled away and Cork let him return to his mother. The priest said quietly, “I guess that’s the truth of everything, Cork.”

  “What are you going to do?” Wanda asked.

  Cork looked them over and sighed heavily. “I’m not the sheriff anymore.” He said to Darla, “Keep Paul here a while longer, until this business is done for good.” To the priest he said, “How about a ride to my Bronco.”

  “Cork.” Wanda touched his arm. “Migwech.” Thanks.

  St. Kawasaki stepped outside with Cork. The sun had dropped below the treeline and the snow across the meadow was a soft blue-white. The air was turning colder.

  “I didn’t know about Paul at Lytton’s place yesterday,” the priest said. “I feel responsible.”

  “Paul’s responsible for his own actions. He knows it.” Cork picked up his rifle from where it leaned against the mission wall. “Thanks,” he said to Tom Griffin.

  “For what?”

  “Holding Darla. Letting me work with Paul.”

  “It was hard, but easier on him than the legal system. He’s a fine young man.” The priest took a deep breath. “So, what now?”

  “Now I get what I need to put a real son of a bitch in his place.”

  “You have something on Parrant?”

  “I think I probably do.”

  “And you’ll be able to keep all this out of it?”

  “Whatever happens, they’re safe,” he said, nodding toward the mission. He opened the door of Wanda Manydeeds’s old truck. “I feel exhausted. Is this what you feel like after hearing a confession?”

  “Usually,” St. Kawasaki said, “I feel like a drink.”

  41

  MOLLY LOOKED DOWN ON THE WATER from a great height. The surface was perfectly blue and so still it looked like a cloudless sky. Lake Tahoe? she wondered. Tahoe was like that. Blue. Still. Cold. Freezing cold. So cold when she swam in it sometimes she hurt all over as if she were being squeezed by a great blue hand.

  Like now, she thought suddenly. And she realized she was not above the water, but in it.

  She shivered in the grip of that perfectly still water, in the terrible grip of the blue water cold as ice.

  The sun burned her eyes. She should look away, she knew. If she looked at the sun too long, she would turn into a sunflower. She’d heard that when she was small from a lady at her father’s cabin. The lady was fat and laughed a lot and gave her Baby Ruth and Oh Henry candy bars and smelled like flowers. Gardenias.

  The fat lady pointed a plump finger at her and warned her laughing, you’ll turn into a sunflower. Her father told her different, told her she’d go blind. Her father was probably right. Maybe that’s why her head hurt so much. She was going blind from staring at the sun. He’d told her the truth. About that and many things. Told her she came from bad blood. Told her her mother was a tramp. Told her she would end up one, too. Told her men would be after her like devils, and if she let them have her, she would burn. Was that it? Was that the burning in her head? Was she burning like he said she would? Then why was the rest of her so cold?

  She tried to lift her hand, to shield her eyes and block the fire that burned them. But she could not feel her hand, could not tell where it was, if it moved at all.

  Am I dying? she wondered. Then why am I not afraid?

  Cork’s hands were full of flowers. Brilliant yellow petals around a black center. Sunflowers. He held them gently, held them out as if offering them. He stood on the still blue water with fire at his back, all alone with the sunflowers in his hands. She tried to call to him, but she had no voice. He let the flowers drop one by one onto the water. They landed without a ripple and floated toward her, formed a circle, and the circle was warm. That made her happy. To be warm again. She lay in the warm circle of sunflowers thinking how tired she was and how good it would feel to sleep. To sleep and sleep while she waited for Cork to lie down, too.

  She was afraid.

  . . . Did I tell him? . . .

  The fire burned in the blue water around her, in the blue that was all that was left of her vision. The blue and the fire. And then the cloud, black as smoke, moved above her. In the shadow of the black cloud she could see no more.

  . . . Did I tell him . . .

  Yes.

  The voice came from the cloud.

  Yes, you told me.

  . . . No . . . not you . . . did I tell Cork . . .

  Tell him what?

  But her eyes were too heavy, and she was too tired to talk. Molly fell back, fell into the dark, into the vast warm dark with one last question trailing her like a broken rope.

  . . . Did I tell Cork . . . Did I tell him . . . did I tell him I love him . . .

  42

  IN THE FADING BLUE of the late afternoon light, Cork drove toward Aurora. He felt satisfied in a grim way. Things had fallen into place. Most things anyway. The judge. Lytton. Joe John LeBeau’s incomprehensible abandonment of his family. All these
things made sense and, in some way, had been reckoned with. There was, however, still one open loop to the maze of tragic events that had befallen Aurora, and down that last convoluted passage hid Sandy Parrant. Did he know he was being pursued? Cork wondered. If not, he soon would. The canvas bag was his undoing. With the evidence Cork was sure the bloody bag had held, he would nail Parrant’s coffin shut. Bam!

  It was going on four o’clock when Cork pulled into the parking lot of Johnny’s Pinewood Broiler. He thought he’d surprise Molly with a lift home, but she wasn’t there.

  Johnny was hunched at the register, doing some figures with a pencil on the back of a menu. He looked slightly amused when Cork asked about Molly.

  “She left two, three hours ago, big hurry. Said she had to go home to clear a space for a Christmas tree. Christmas tree.” Johnny hooted. “No woman hustles that hard for a Christmas tree. It was a guy, I’ll lay you odds.” Johnny paused a moment, set his pencil down, and looked Cork over keenly. A broad grin spread across his face. “Well, knock me over with a feather.”

  Cork thanked him and headed toward the door.

  “Christmas tree!” Johnny laughed at his back. “O, Tannenbaum,” he called.

  As Cork started back to his Bronco, a car braked hard on the street, hard enough to skid, and when he looked up, he saw Jo’s blue Toyota back up, whip into the lot, and slide to a stop a few feet from where he stood. Jo leaped out, drilling him with an angry glare as she came. She glanced at the Pinewood, tugged off her gloves, and seemed for a moment on the verge of giving Cork a hard slap across the face.

  “You know, you really had me fooled,” she said bitterly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I really believed you were serious about wanting to put things back together.”

  “I was.”

  “My ass,” she snapped.

  “Look, what’s this all about, Jo?”

  “Guilt, shame, remorse, you name it, I was feeding on it. What kind of horrible woman was I to have done that kind of thing to such a nice guy like you. Good father. Faithful husband. Oh, you were good.”

  Cork leaned against the hood of the Bronco. Jo’s voice was carrying, and people on the sidewalk looked at them in passing.

  “I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “I’m talking about you and that slut Molly Nurmi.” She jabbed a finger toward the Pinewood Broiler.

  “What?”

  “Don’t look surprised. How long’s it been going on, Cork? Hmmm? How long has she been giving you more than coffee at the Broiler?”

  Cork took a step away from the Bronco and nearer Jo. The cloud of his breathing broke over her face. “Who told you about Molly?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  Cork grasped her shoulders. “Who told you?”

  “Let go of me or I swear I’ll have you arrested for assault. Don’t think I won’t.” Cork let go and she smoothed her coat where his hands had gripped. “I’m not the only one who was caught with my pants down.”

  Cork studied the satisfaction on her face a moment, then understood. “Someone showed you the photographs.”

  “Good close shots, Cork. No mistake. A little sauna, a little skinny dip, a little—”

  “Who showed you those pictures?”

  Jo smiled enigmatically and didn’t reply.

  “Was it Sandy Parrant? It was Parrant, wasn’t it?”

  “I went to tell him it would be best not to see one another for a while. I was thinking maybe you and I ought to try to work through things, maybe with counseling this time. Foolish me.”

  “And he showed you the pictures?”

  “Yes!” she threw at him, then shook her head with mock amazement. “You really had me going. You almost had me convinced.”

  Cork walked quickly past her toward the Broiler.

  “Where are you going? I haven’t finished,” Jo called after him.

  Cork pushed through the door of the Pinewood and went to the pay phone on the wall. He dug in his pocket for a quarter, but couldn’t find one.

  “Johnny,” he called, “loan me a quarter for a phone call.”

  Johnny, who was still at the register, popped the cash drawer, slipped out a quarter, and tossed it to Cork. “There’ll be interest.” He laughed.

  Jo stepped through the door and stood watching Cork. Johnny took a look at Jo, then at Cork, and said quietly, “Uh-oh.”

  Cork dialed Molly’s number. All he got was a busy signal. He slammed the receiver down and hurried out the door.

  “My quarter!” Johnny called.

  But Cork was outside already, with Jo right behind him.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Parrant knows about me and Molly. I’ve got to get out there before he does.” Cork broke into a run.

  “Why?” Jo slipped on a patch of ice, caught herself, and rushed to catch up. “What would he want with her?”

  “Not her. What she has.”

  Cork jumped into the Bronco. Jo got into the passenger side.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Cork growled.

  “I want to make sure it’s not Sandy you’re after. I don’t want you doing anything stupid.”

  “Hold on,” Cork said, too worried about Molly to argue.

  He shot the Bronco in reverse, nearly sliding into the Dumpster in back of the Broiler. Then he skidded onto the street and headed toward Molly’s.

  On the way, he told Jo everything he knew. About the judge and Lytton and Joe John’s murder. About GameTech and the brigade. He told her his suspicions about Sandy Parrant. Jo sat with her arms crossed, looking out the window as if she weren’t hearing a thing.

  “It’s lies,” she said. “I don’t believe a word of it.”

  He pulled out the prints of Lytton and Joe John LeBeau and gave them to her. Jo looked at them one by one.

  “Christ,” she said. Then, “He didn’t know anything about it.”

  Cork turned into the lane to Molly’s place.

  “This would never stand up in court,” she insisted. “It doesn’t prove anything about Sandy.”

  “Come on, Jo, how could he not have known?”

  He stopped in Molly’s yard and saw her skis propped by the back door. It was growing dark, yet there was no light on in the big cabin. Cork ran to the back door and into the kitchen.

  “Molly!” he called toward the stairs.

  He lifted the lid on the woodbox, yanked out the top logs, and saw that the bag of negatives was no longer there. He ran to the stairs and bounded up them calling, “Molly!” as he went.

  She wasn’t upstairs. When Cork hurried down, he found Jo standing in the kitchen looking irritated. “Well?” she said.

  “Something’s wrong. She should be here. Somewhere.”

  Cork pushed past Jo and rushed outside to the shed where Molly kept her old Saab. The Saab was still there.

  “See?” Jo said. “No one. Not your precious Molly. Not Sandy. Just no one.”

  “The bag’s gone,” Cork said darkly.

  “What bag?”

  “It had negatives of photographs like the ones I showed you and Sandy showed you. Pictures the judge used for blackmail.”

  “If there is such a bag, maybe Molly took it,” Jo said. “Maybe she had reason.”

  “It wasn’t Molly.”

  He looked toward the sauna by the frozen lake. Jo grabbed his arm.

  “Cork, you can’t spread these vicious lies about Sandy. Not now, just as he’s about to head to Washington. If you do, if you say one word that casts a shadow over his going, I swear to God I’ll help him slap a slander suit on you so fast your head’ll swim.”

  Cork pulled loose and started for the sauna. Jo was at his heels.

  “Is this about us?” she said, nearly shouting. “Do you want to hurt Sandy because of me?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Cork replied. “And what makes you think Parrant’s so
goddamned innocent?”

  “Because I’d know,” Jo told him earnestly. “He couldn’t lie to me.”

  “Jesus, Jo, after everything we’ve been through you believe that? People lie all the time and they do a pretty damn good job of it.”

  “Not Sandy.”

  “Fuck Sandy,” Cork said, and broke into a run.

  He pushed open the door to the changing room of the sauna. It was nearly dark inside, but Cork could see clothing piled neatly on a bench. He lifted the sweater, checking its color, wondering with a note of desperation, was this what Molly had worn this morning? He shoved through the door into the sauna that was still warm. He waited a minute for his eyes to adjust to the deeper dark inside the windowless room, and he confirmed that Molly wasn’t there. He stood a moment trying to figure. Where could she be? Had she run? Been taken?

  “I’m tired of this, Cork,” Jo said from the changing room. “I want to go home. You can come back and wait for your girlfriend without me.”

  Cork looked at the other door, the closed door that opened onto the lake.

  “Face the facts, Cork. You’re just trying to hurt Sandy because he hurt you. All these accusations—”

  “Are true,” Cork said.

  He reached for the door.

  “Then prove them, goddamn it. Show me the proof.”

  Cork opened the door. Framed in the threshold lay the snow-covered lake, a pale, peaceful blue in the twilight. A sky, pure as springwater, ran above it to the far shoreline. Ten yards from the door was the hole in the ice that Molly and Cork had dipped in when they’d finished their sauna the night before. And between that hole and the door where Cork dumbly stood, Molly lay naked on the ice.

  His legs would not move. They barely held him up. His throat went dry and he couldn’t swallow, could hardly even breathe. Yet his senses took in everything about her. Her eyes were open and the look on her face was calm. Her white skin had gone blue, nearly the same soft color the twilight gave the snow. Her long red hair stuck to her shoulders and to the ice, the matted strands stiff as broom straw. Her right arm was outstretched, her hand fisted as if it held to something fiercely.