Copper River co-6

by William Kent Krueger

  “Drop the gun, Gary,” Hodder ordered.

  Johnson’s eyes took a slow stroll from Hodder to the pistol in his own hand. He looked at it without interest.

  “Do it now, Gary! Drop it!”

  Johnson’s fingers gradually opened and the pistol clattered to the hardwood floor. Hodder moved forward and kicked the weapon well out of Johnson’s reach. He looked down at Stokely, at the blood gone nearly black around him.

  Hodder said, “Keep him covered while I cuff him.”

  Johnson stood up and lifted his empty hands. “You don’t need to do that, Ned. I won’t give you any trouble.”

  “Just turn around, Gary. Put your hands behind your back.”

  Hodder slipped the cuffs on, pulled a card from his wallet, and went through Johnson’s Miranda rights. Cork radioed Dina and Jewell. A minute later, they came in the back door. When they saw the body and blood, they stopped. A small yet audible breath escaped from Jewell, but she didn’t turn away.

  “What happened, Gary?” Hodder said.

  “What it looks like. I killed him. If he sat up right now, I’d kill him again.”

  Cork checked the rest of the house but found no sign of Charlie. When he came back, Ned was questioning Johnson.

  “You say you shot Stokely last night?”

  “That’s right,” Johnson replied.

  “You were still holding the gun when we found you.”

  “Thinking of using it on myself. I was afraid if I put it down, I wouldn’t be able to pick it up again.” His face was haggard, his eyes deep-set. He looked like a man who’d been through not just a battle but a long, hard war. “Terrible things have happened, Ned, more terrible than you can imagine.”

  “Try me,” Hodder said.

  “They killed children. They kidnapped them and raped them and killed them.”

  “We know. We found graves at Stokely’s cabin. How is it that you know?”

  Johnson thought a long time before answering, but not, Cork surmised, because he didn’t know the answer. It was a difficult thing to talk about.

  “The girl in the lake,” he finally responded. “I got to thinking about her. When I put it together with what Charlie and Ren told me yesterday, I had a sick feeling I knew what was going on. I left Jewell’s place and drove straight to Marquette to confront Bell. He’d been drinking. It didn’t take much to get him to admit things. Hell, he was delighted to talk.” His face drew taut and his hands made fists. “In Africa, I saw the aftermath of genocide, and I saw that same look on the faces of the men responsible, a grotesque kind of rapture. I knew how to make myself cold and hard so that I could ask the right questions to get the answers I needed. He even showed me a videotape he’d made of what he and Stokely did, and he invited me to join them. He thought I was an animal like him.”

  “Why would he think that?”

  This time Johnson didn’t answer. Jewell spoke for him. “You were with him and Stokely and Tom Messinger twenty years ago, the night the runaway girl was killed, weren’t you, Gary?”

  He stared at her and denied nothing.

  “What happened that night?” she asked gently.

  His gaze went distant for a while. Static whispered from the television. In the kitchen, the refrigerator motor had kicked on. Dina shifted on her feet and a floorboard squeaked. These were normal, everyday sounds, yet in the terrible quiet of the house, in the repugnant presence of violent death, they seemed macabre and out of place.

  “We were coming home,” Johnson began. “We’d been drinking, celebrating, feeling good. We stopped for gas just outside Marquette, and she was there. She asked us what was up, where we were going. She said she’d be happy to party with us. We still had beer. Instead of going home, we drove to an old overlook along the lakeshore. One thing led to another and she was willing. We drew straws. Tommy went first. He wasn’t used to drinking and he was already almost gone. He went with her to the car. A few minutes later he came back, puked, passed out. Stokely went next, then Bell. Then it was my turn. I don’t know what Stokely and Bell did to her, but she was a mess, huddled in the backseat, crying. She didn’t want me there.”

  He paused, tears in his eyes.

  “It was my fault. All my fault.”

  “Why?” Jewell asked.

  “I’d spent that autumn on the sidelines with a damn cast on my leg. I missed the whole championship season. Now I was going to miss my turn with that girl. I went back to the other guys, told them. Stokely, Bell, they said like hell. They went to the car, pulled her out, held her down.”

  Through the big window at the back of the house, Cork could see the light slipping away. At the horizon, the line between lake and sky was hard to distinguish. Dark like a black fog crept into far rooms, and the light from the lamp that lit the dead man seemed to grow brighter.

  “I raped her,” Johnson finished. A line of tears glistened down both cheeks, but he went on. “I did it and then I left her. I stumbled away. Christ, I was sick at what I was doing, what I’d done. I made my way down to the lakeshore and threw up. I wasn’t far enough away that I couldn’t hear Stokely and Bell going at her again. I knew I should do something, but it was like I was in the middle of a nightmare and I couldn’t move.

  “When I got back to the others, the girl was still on the ground. Her eyes were open, but she wasn’t moving. I don’t know what they did to her, but I knew she was dead. Stokely, Bell, they took her body, threw it in the lake. I didn’t even try to stop them. Superior wasn’t supposed to give up its dead, except this time it did. Tommy was devastated. He took it all on his shoulders. We killed two people that night. I’ve spent my life trying to put the memory behind me. I left Bodine thinking if I ran far enough, maybe…”

  Jewell said, “Africa wasn’t far enough?”

  “Whenever I closed my eyes, she was there. You can’t imagine the sleepless nights.”

  “Why come back to where it all happened?” Cork asked.

  “You’re a cop. Don’t criminals always return to the scene of the crime?” He looked immeasurably tired. “When my father got sick, he asked me to come home and take over the paper. Running away hadn’t done me any good and I thought maybe coming back here and facing the demon might free me.” He stared down at Stokely’s body. “If I’d been a good person, a strong person, I’d have ended this the night it all began.”

  “It’s ended now,” Jewell said softly.

  “You think so?” He was a huge man, but he seemed to shrink, to condense into himself, a great balloon deflating. “It never ends.”

  “What did Bell tell you about him and Stokely?” Cork asked.

  “He said for years after that night on the lakeshore they would go over what they’d done to the girl. They fed on the grisly details like ghouls. I’m running all over the world trying to forget, and for them it was the heart of their lives. Bell said they planned other killings but never went through with them-until they began driving trucks cross-country. They came across kids looking for rides everywhere. Tender meat, Bell called them. And so it started. Always kids, always runaways. They brutalized them, killed them, buried them somewhere off the highway where they’d never be found.

  “When they had to give up trucking, Bell looked for another source of prey. He found it in Providence House.” He shook his head bitterly. “Providence. Hell of a name, when you think about it. Provided him and Stokely with God only knows how many victims. He said they chose kids no one would miss, and there were a lot of those. He told me he’d been eyeing Sara Wolf for a long time. Finally he couldn’t stand it anymore, so he waited for her one day after school, pretended to be passing by, offered her a ride. He gave her a Pepsi he’d laced with Rohypnol and brought her up to Calvin’s cabin. But she fought them and damned if she didn’t beat them. Got away from Stokely and his dog, Bell said, and threw herself off a cliff into the Copper River. He was disappointed because he still had a lot of ideas about what he could do to her.

  “Since I came back, I
’d exchanged no more than a couple of dozen words with Bell and Stokely. I purposely avoided them. But there he is, spilling his guts to me, telling me these things because in his sick thinking he really believes that night twenty years ago made me just like him. So I killed him. Blew his heart right out of his chest. I came back to Bodine and called Calvin. When he got here, I started the video Bell had given me.” Johnson nodded at the blue screen. “I asked him, was he a part of this? He was smarter than Bell. He understood exactly what I thought of him. He stared at me and said, ‘You won’t say anything. Because if you do, I’ll tell everyone what kind of man we both know you really are.’ He grinned, grinned at me like he had me cornered. I shot him where he stood. All the hours since, I’ve had that gun in my hand, thinking I might as well kill myself while I’m at it.”

  “Why didn’t you just go to the police, Gary?” Hodder said.

  “Because everyone would know what I am. A monster just like Bell and Stokely.”

  “You’re no monster, Gary.” Jewell tried to move toward him, to reach out and comfort him, but Hodder kept her back.

  Johnson stood slumped over, his enormous shoulders rounded in shame. “I don’t feel human, Jewell. Not anymore. Maybe never since that night. Tommy had the right idea. I thought I could do what he did, only it turns out I don’t have the courage. I’ve been sitting here for hours. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

  Cork asked, “Did either of them talk about Isaac Stokely being involved?”

  “Just them.”

  “Did they say anything about Charlie?” Dina asked.

  “Bell did. Said they went looking for her at Max’s place. They killed him when he wouldn’t tell them where she was. Bell said he had a lot of ideas about what he’d do to Charlie when he got hold of her.”

  “He didn’t get hold of her?”

  “Didn’t sound like it. Why? She’s with you, isn’t she?”

  “She ran away last night. Nobody’s seen her since,” Dina replied. “What time did Calvin Stokely get here?”

  He thought about it. “Maybe eight o’clock or nine. He took his time getting here after I called. I figured he’d been drinking in a bar somewhere, eh. I could smell it on him.”

  “And he didn’t say anything about Charlie?”

  He shook his head. “Our exchange was brief, then I shot him. I just kept pulling the trigger, I wanted him dead so bad.”

  Hodder laid a hand on his shoulder. “We’re going back to my office, Gary. I’m going to hold you there and call the Marquette Sheriff’s Department.”

  Johnson nodded and let himself be taken.

  Cork said, “I’ll meet you guys outside. I want to check Stokely’s truck.” He didn’t have to add that he was looking for Charlie’s body.

  He went through the door between the kitchen and the garage and turned on the light. The place was neat. Johnson’s dusty Jeep was parked next to Stokely’s big Dodge Ram. He found Stokely’s keys in the ignition. He unlocked the tailgate but hesitated before lifting the rear window of the camper shell.

  When he stepped from the house, the others were waiting, their shadowed faces tensed for the worst.

  “Nothing,” he said, to their great relief. “No Charlie.”

  As they walked to their vehicles, Cork breathed deeply the autumn-scented air, cool off the lake, cleansing his nose and mouth and throat of the death smell that filled the house. He thought about Charlie and believed there was still plenty of room for hope.

  Hodder put Johnson in the back of his Cherokee, and the newspaperman sat there, bent forward a little like a wilted plant.

  “I’ve got to take care of this,” the constable told the others. “One possibility with Charlie is that she’s broken into a summer cabin and is hiding. After I turn Gary over, I’ll make a swing and check all the ones I think are likely. Terry Olafsson’s going to want to talk to you, so make yourselves available.”

  “Ned.” Jewell moved close to him. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. This is all so crazy, Jewell.”

  “When things are settled, I’d love to sit down over dinner and talk.”

  “I’d like that, too.”

  He smiled briefly, then turned to his duty.

  “Good man, that,” Cork noted as the Cherokee pulled away.

  “I know,” Jewell said. She let out a deep breath. “Ren’s probably worried. We should get home. Who knows, maybe Charlie’s showed up.”

  Dina’s cell phone chirped. She pulled it from the purse she’d left in the Pathfinder.

  “Willner,” she answered. While she listened, her face darkened. “Okay, Kenny. Thanks.” She looked at Cork. “Lou Jacoby’s passed a message to you through my people. He says, ‘Eye for an eye. Son for a son.’ ”

  For a long, stunned moment, Cork couldn’t breathe. “He’s going after Stevie,” he finally said. “The bastard’s going after my son. Give me that phone.”

  Cork punched in the number for Rose and Mal at the duplex in Evanston. Jo answered.

  “Cork?” she said. Her voice was flooded with relief. “You’re all right.”

  “Jo, where’s Stevie? Is he there with you?”

  “He went with Rose and the girls to a movie. I hoped it might get their minds off worrying about you for a while. Why?”

  “Which movie? Where?”

  “Cork, what’s going on?”

  “Do you know which movie theater, Jo?”

  “Yes.”

  “Get him out and get him home. Then you and the kids lock yourselves in Rose’s place until I get there. Do you understand?”

  “What is it?”

  “Lou Jacoby might try to hurt Stevie because he can’t get to me.”

  “Oh God.”

  “Find him, and when you’re back at the duplex, call me.” He gave her Dina’s cell phone number. “Get our son, Jo.”

  He ended the call.

  “What’s Jacoby’s number?” he asked Dina, who would know because she’d worked for Jacoby in the past. He punched in the number she gave him. An old, modulated voice answered, which Cork recognized as Evers, the houseman.

  “Give me Jacoby,” Cork said.

  “Mr. Jacoby is unavailable.”

  “Tell him it’s O’Connor. He’ll make himself available.”

  “I’m sorry, sir-”

  “Tell him, Evers. Tell him I’m coming and I’m going to kill him. And if you don’t tell him, I’m going to kill you, too.”

  “Cork, let me.” Dina spoke firmly and held out her hand. “Evers will listen to me.”

  He slapped the phone into her palm.

  “Evers, it’s Dina Willner. Lou will want to talk to us.” She listened a moment. “Thank you.” She gave Cork the cell phone.

  He waited, a fire raging in his gut, climbing into his chest, burning his throat. Then Jacoby spoke at the other end. “I’m listening.”

  “Listen good, you son of a bitch. You touch my son, I’ll not only kill you, I’ll kill everything you ever loved.”

  “Everything I love is already dead, O’Connor. You saw to that.”

  “It wasn’t me, you blind fuck. It was your daughter-in-law and Salguero. The cops are ready to cuff them both. Leave my son out of this.”

  “You can make that happen. You know what I want.”

  “I’m on my way, all right. I’m coming down from Marquette, Michigan. Give me that time and I’ll give you me. I swear it.”

  The line went silent, but Cork knew Jacoby was still there.

  “You have until morning,” Jacoby said. He hung up.

  Cork made one more call, this one to Boomer Grabowski, a friend and ex-cop in Chicago, a guy as tough as they came. Boomer told him no sweat. He’d get up to Evanston right away, stay with the family until Cork got there. Did Cork want any help dealing with Jacoby?

  “Thanks, Boomer. I’ll take care of him myself.”

  “What’s the plan?” Dina asked.

  “Jacoby gave me until morning,” Cork said. �
��We get Jewell back to the cabins, then I’m leaving.”

  “I’m sorry, Cork,” Jewell said.

  “Let’s just go.”

  He limped to the Pathfinder, saying a silent prayer. At the same time, he imagined himself pumping round after round into Lou Jacoby until that withered old body lay good and dead in a lake of its own warm blood.

  47

  Ren hung by his arms from a tree branch. His wrists had been duct-taped together, then he’d been lifted and hung up like a side of beef. A strip of tape sealed his mouth.

  “Insurance,” the man had said in the cabin. He tried to sound friendly and he smiled a lot, but the gun in his hand spoke differently to Ren.

  “Where’s O’Connor gone?” he’d asked.

  Ren told him he didn’t know.

  “Any idea when he’ll be back?”

  Ren shook his head.

  That was when the man produced the roll of duct tape. “Relax, kid, you’re just my insurance if things go south.”

  He’d marched Ren outside into the trees, hung him up, and sealed his mouth. He had already set up a scoped rifle on a tripod low to the ground, the barrel pointed toward the cabins. He lay down, checked the scope, and made an adjustment. Then he sat up and looked no more at Ren.

  He wasn’t anything like Ren had imagined a hit man to be. He had a bald spot on the top of his head over which he’d combed a few strands of mouse-brown hair. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles that he slipped to the top of his head whenever he sighted through the scope. He was dressed in a brown corduroy sport coat with a tan turtleneck beneath, blue jeans, white sneakers. From a stained white paper bag near his feet came the smell of barbecued meat.

  It was twilight now. Through the branches directly above him stripped half bare by the storm the night before, Ren saw the faint gleam of an emerging star. The woods were a murk of tree trunks and low brush gone gray or black in the failing light, still and indistinct as images in an underdeveloped photograph.

  Ren’s shoulders and arms ached from the hanging weight of his body, but he tried to ignore the pain and think if there was some way to warn Cork and the others. Because there was nothing else he could do, he tried kicking, hoping to break free of the branch. His legs struck at empty air and the effort only made his shoulders hurt even more. He considered the quiet of the evening, the dreadful calm, and thought hopelessly how easy it was going to be to hear the cars coming up the lane. Occasionally from the woods around them came the rustling of a squirrel scampering among the fallen leaves beneath the undergrowth. At first the sounds had startled the man, but he quickly learned to ignore them.