Iron Lake co-1

by William Kent Krueger

  But he looked down at the black jumble of negatives bound up in plastic, and he knew it was never so simple.

  Onto Molly’s kitchen table, he dumped the contents of the bag, a mess of dozens of strips of black-and-white negatives mixed with several audiocassette tapes. He checked the tapes first. Each was identified only by number, nothing else. He took a strip of negatives at random, lifted it toward the ceiling light, and saw immediately that unraveling any secrets they held would be far more difficult than he’d expected. Looking at a print was simple. A print was a reflection, more or less, of what the eye naturally saw. Trying to decipher the inverted lighting of a negative in which shadow is light and light is shadow was going to be no easy task. The small size of the negative was another stumbling block.

  Cork squinted at the images on the strip in his hand. The first photograph, like the one of Jo and Parrant, had been shot at night. Lytton seemed fond of night shots, of using the night vision lens, an apparatus that could magnify small sources of light hundreds of times to illuminate night images. But then, night was the best time for activities people preferred kept secret. The photograph appeared to have been shot from a distance. Several people sat around a table in a room that looked to be on the upper floor of a building. A telescopic lens brought the next photos much closer. The room itself had a picture on the wall, much too small for Cork to make out details, and a bookcase. But that was really all he could tell. He turned the strip over, hoping that a reversed view might help. It didn’t. Who they were, where they were, and why Harlan Lytton saw fit to capture them on film remained a mystery.

  It was clear to him that he would need to enlarge the image. He looked in the drawers of Molly’s kitchen for a magnifying glass, but found nothing. He trudged upstairs, where Molly lay reading in bed. She took off her glasses and gave him a smile.

  “Done so soon? Or is it just that you couldn’t resist the temptation of my bed?”

  “No and yes,” Cork said, crossing to her. “No, not done by a long sight, and yes, the temptation of your bed is mighty.” He sat beside her, leaned where she lay propped on her pillow, and kissed her. “I need something that will magnify the negatives. Do you have a magnifying glass or a loupe hidden away somewhere?”

  She thought a moment. “I don’t think so. The only time I need to magnify anything is when I read.” She looked down at the glasses she’d set on the bed. “Will these help?”

  Cork took them and experimented with enlarging the print in the book Molly had been reading. “Not perfect, but they’ll do. Sure you don’t mind?”

  “If they’ll bring you to bed sooner, you have my blessing.”

  “One more thing. Do you have a tape player?”

  “You mean like for cassettes?”

  “Yes.”

  She shook her head regretfully. “I’m a CD person, Cork. What about the tape player in your Bronco?”

  “Broken.”

  “Is it important?”

  “It’ll keep until tomorrow.”

  She gave him a kiss before he rose and headed to the door.

  On his way to the kitchen he took a small lamp from the living room. He set it by the jumble of negatives on the table, plugged it in, and removed the shade. He held the strip of negatives to the bare bulb and, using Molly’s glasses to enlarge the image, studied each negative in the strip carefully. After five minutes his head had begun to ache, and he still had no clue who the people were or why Lytton had photographed them.

  One after another he studied the strips of negatives, but he found nothing he understood. He was beginning to feel discouraged when he picked up a strip and recognized immediately a familar structure. The mission building on the rez. The first shot showed the mission from a distance. The next was much closer and centered on St. Kawasaki’s old motorcycle, which was parked near the cemetery fence. The subsequent shots in the series seemed to have been taken through a crack between the bottom of a window shade and the sill. Two bodies by candlelight, a man and woman in a naked embrace. They were standing amid the disarray of construction-sawhorses and two-by-fours. Who they were was unclear because the shade cut off their heads. The middle shots in the sequence were unusual, close-ups of a rib cage. Looking closely, Cork could discern long scars across the ribs. The final photograph focused on a hand caressing a breast. Spilling out on the skin beneath the hand was an image-a tattoo of the Wisdom Tree.

  Cork’s head throbbed. This wasn’t what he wanted, expected. Still, it did explain why Tom Griffin might have attacked him at Harlan Lytton’s cabin. And although St. Kawasaki didn’t seem like a man given to that kind of violence, God alone knew the true limits of desperate people.

  He kept at it, and a few minutes later came across another strip that was different from the others. They weren’t photographs of people but of documents. Cork adjusted the right lens of Molly’s glasses until he could just make out the words of the letterhead that appeared on each document: GameTech. He sat back a moment, thinking. GameTech. Where had he heard that name before? He looked at the negatives again. Everything with the exception of the bold name on the letterhead was too small to make out. GameTech. It sounded so familiar. He got up, walked to Molly’s cupboard, took down a cup, and filled it from the faucet at the kitchen sink. GameTech. He took a sip, then put the cup down, turned the faucet back on, and splashed a little water on his face. He dabbed it off with a hand towel and looked out the dark window over the sink. GameTech.

  And it came to him. That was the logo Ernie Meloux had been twirling on the countertop when Cork spoke with him at the casino the day after the judge died. He didn’t know what the connection was, but he put the strip aside.

  A few strips later he came upon a figure easy to identify even in the reverse world of a negative. Hell Hanover. His white bald head was like a black carbuncle grown up from his shoulders. He was dressed in clothing with an odd pattern. Cork finally realized they were army fatigues. In the first negative, Hanover stood alone, framed by a large American flag that hung between two trees behind him. The second shot, still set against the background of the flag, captured him shaking hands with another man. They were turned to the camera. Posed. Cork adjusted Molly’s glasses and looked closely. Then he smiled.

  “Shake hands with the devil,” he whispered.

  For the man who’d joined Hell Hanover was none other than Judge Robert Parrant.

  The other shots showed the two men reviewing several lines of what appeared to be armed soldiers in fatigues. Although the clothing bore no identifying insignia, even an idiot could guess that the photographs documented a gathering of the Minnesota Civilian Brigade.

  Cork kept digging. As midnight approached, he was dog tired. He’d found nothing more that seemed significant. Mostly a lot of people caught in the act of things better left between them and their own consciences. Infidelity, recreational drugs, homosexuality. In a city these were things as ordinary as catching a bus. In Aurora, they could obliterate a life.

  His back hurt. His neck and shoulders were tied in knots. His head was pounding. He’d developed a tick in one eye that was beginning to drive him crazy. He was about to call it a night when he pulled out a strip of negatives that made him feel suddenly empty and afraid.

  He held them to the bulb and looked over each negative carefully. In the first, a man stood with a rifle cradled in his arms, his foot atop an animal that had been killed. A trophy shot.

  Looking closer, Cork realized that the animal was human.

  The next shot, a close-up, showed a face wearing what looked like a black-and-white mask. In the inverted world of the negative, Cork knew the black was skin. And the white? That had to be blood. So much of it the face was all but obliterated. But there was an unusual aspect of the hair that was quite clear. It was braided.

  The other shots were more of the same, as if an artist were documenting his work from several angles. Cork still couldn’t be sure who’d been killed or who’d done the killing. What he needed was a print.
Or, better yet, an enlargement.

  Molly stirred, waking slowly as he sat on the bed.

  “I’ve got to leave for a while,” he told her.

  She was instantly awake. “What time is it?”

  “Going on midnight.”

  “Where are you heading at this time of night?” She slid upright, her back against the headboard.

  “Harlan Lytton’s.”

  “Why in heaven’s name would you want to go back there?”

  “I need to use his equipment.”

  “Can’t it wait until morning?”

  “No. There are things I have to know.”

  “Bad things?”

  “Yes.”

  She threw the covers off. “I’m coming with you.”

  Molly dressed quickly while Cork selected the negatives he wanted to take. He separated the others into two piles-those he’d already looked at and the larger jumble that still remained. He put the negatives he hadn’t yet scanned and the cassette tapes in the plastic bag, then put everything into a large paper sack, and placed it all carefully back under the logs in the woodbox.

  On the way to Lytton’s, he told Molly she’d been right. Most of what he’d seen he was probably better off not knowing.

  “You said what you found was bad. How bad?”

  Cork told her about the photo that looked like a trophy shot. He told her about the man with braided hair and a mask of blood.

  “Do you have any idea who they are?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  She waited. “Well?”

  “I believe Harlan Lytton was the man who did the killing.”

  “And the man he killed.”

  “I think that was Joe John LeBeau.”

  35

  Molly scrambled through the window of the bathroom in Lytton’s cabin, then turned and took the Winchester that was passed up to her. Cork climbed in after her, pulled a flashlight from his coat, and took back his rifle.

  They moved to the big room. The beam of the flashlight showed nothing different from his earlier visit. He played the light along the walls, the furnishings, the floor with its big stain.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Molly asked.

  “This way.” Cork led her to Lytton’s darkroom, giving a wide berth to the crusty stain on the floor.

  In the dark, he found the light string and switched on the bare, overhead bulb. He could see his breath.

  “I’ve got to get some heat in here. I don’t know if the chemicals will work this cold. You can stay here.”

  “Are you kidding? I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

  She followed him into the big room. There were electric baseboard heaters set just warm enough to keep the cabin pipes from freezing. Cork turned them to high. Then he took logs and kindling from the woodbox next to the Ben Franklin stove and had a fire going in no time.

  While the cabin warmed, Cork checked Lytton’s equipment and supplies. He found plenty of developer, paper, and wash. He tested the safelight and the enlarger.

  “Where’d you learn this?” Molly asked.

  “A buddy of mine was a police photographer when I was on the force in Chicago. I just hope I remember enough.”

  When the cabin had warmed sufficiently, Cork laid out trays of developer, stop bath, fixer, and water. He took out the negatives and inserted the strip with the dead man into the negative carrier of the enlarger. He turned on the safelight and turned off the bare bulb. He focused the image from the enlarger until the negative that was like a trophy shot was clear on the bare easel, then he opened a package of photo paper and inserted a piece.

  “Here goes.”

  He switched on the enlarger lamp for fifteen seconds, took the print through the developer, stop bath, fixer, and wash. Using a squeegee, he wiped the excess water off the print and held it up carefully for a good look.

  “You were right,” Molly said, a little hoarsely. “Harlan Lytton killed Joe John.”

  In the enlargement, the satisfied look was quite clear on Harlan Lytton’s face as he stood with his foot on the body of Joe John LeBeau.

  Cork repeated the process with the close-ups of Joe John. They were grisly images. From left. Right. Above. The head and body had been adjusted slightly with each shot.

  “God.” Molly grimaced. “What was he doing?”

  “I think Harlan was attempting art.”

  A sharp snap from the other room made them both freeze. Cork picked up the Winchester from where Molly had propped it against the wall. He held a finger to his lips and stepped to the closed door of the darkroom. He gestured for Molly to switch off the safelight, then he carefully opened the door.

  The darkness inside the cabin was profound. Cork crouched with the Winchester readied while he probed the dark with his eyes. Nothing moved. He could hear Molly’s shallow breathing directly at his back. Then he heard the crack of the floorboards near the potbelly stove as they expanded with the heat. He stood up.

  “I think we should leave,” Molly suggested. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  “I agree. But I want to make a few more prints first.”

  Cork made enlargements of all the photos of Joe John’s murdered body. Then he did the same with the negatives of Hell Hanover, the judge, and the Minnesota Civilian Brigade. The brigade photos appeared to have been taken in a clearing somewhere surrounded by unbroken pine forest. Cork recognized a number of faces among the three or four dozen men in the ranks. Any of them were capable of breaking into Sam’s Place and working him over. Most were probably capable of murder as well. He’d been lucky to have come away with only bruised ribs. Luckier than Joe John had been.

  Finally he slipped the negatives of the GameTech documents into the enlarger and took a look.

  “Consultant contract?” Molly asked, peeking over his shoulder at the first image.

  “It appears so. For Stu Grantham’s services as a property consultant.”

  “But he’s head of the county board of commissioners.”

  “That he is. And look who signed for GameTech,” Cork said, pointing to the flamboyant signature of Robert Parrant.

  Cork scanned the other documents, all contracts for consulting services from various individuals in Tamarack County, including-for consulting on the issues of security-Wally Schanno. He made a print of Schanno’s contract, then he said, “Let’s get out of here. The smell of this stuff is making me sick.”

  They were quiet a long time on the way back to Molly’s cabin. It was late and the roads were empty.

  “Why?” Molly finally asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I thought Joe John was back. But he couldn’t have been, could he?”

  “I’m pretty sure those pictures were taken months ago when Joe John disappeared. My guess is Harlan dumped the body somewhere. Probably in one of the bogs on his land. Nobody would go snooping there with Jack the Ripper roaming around loose. Then he crashed the truck somewhere else so there’d be no evidence of the murder.”

  “Which brings us back to why.”

  “I’m so tired right now I can’t think straight.” He pulled into Molly’s lane and parked in front of the cabin. “I need a cigarette and a beer. And I need a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow I’ll see what I can figure in the why department.”

  “Where do you plan on sleeping?”

  “Right now, I’d take a bed of nails if it were offered.”

  “How about the left side of my mattress? It’s not a bed of nails, but it is a little lumpy.”

  Cork smiled wearily. “Best offer I’ve had in ages.”

  36

  He woke with her arm over him, her cheek against his back, and the warm morning smell of her all around him. He’d never slept with Molly before. Before, the bed had been a place of brief coming together and of leaving. It felt good to lie beside her with the early sun beyond the window and the cabin full of quiet. It was peaceful and healing to be with her and not be cut apart by guilt.

  H
e lay very still, reluctant to move even the least bit, to do anything that would wake her. There was something protective in the way her arm lay over him, the way her breath warmed his back. Then he felt the light, deliberate touch of her lips on his shoulder.

  “You awake?” she asked softly.

  “Still dreaming,” he answered. “The sun’s up. I thought you had to be at the Pinewood Broiler early.”

  She brushed a kiss across his back. “I called Johnny and told him I’d be late.”

  “When?”

  “An hour ago.”

  “I didn’t feel you leave.”

  “You were sleeping soundly.”

  He kissed her hand. She made a pleased sound in her throat and snuggled more firmly against him. “Let’s stay in bed, Cork. Let’s stay here the whole day.”

  “What’ll Johnny say?”

  “Screw him. I’ve never once missed a day. I’ve never even been late.”

  “Tempting,” Cork admitted.

  “But?”

  He didn’t reply. She drew away just a little.

  “You’re going to stick your nose into things, aren’t you?” she said.

  “Know what I’d like?” he said, trying to hold onto the brightness. “I’d like to take a shower with you, then fix you breakfast. It’s been a long time since I made breakfast for anyone but myself.”

  “Cork, promise me something.”

  “What?”

  “You won’t do anything that’ll get you hurt.”

  “I’m not what you’d call a brave man,” he assured her.

  She sighed, her breath making the hair at the back of his neck shiver. “Maybe not, but you’re stubborn, and that’s just as bad.”

  After they’d showered, Cork bounced downstairs ahead of Molly and made two telephone calls. He was just hanging up when she came down the stairs.

  “Who’re you calling?” she asked.