Mercy Falls co-5

by William Kent Krueger

  “His Land Rover’s there,” he whispered to Larson, who was donning his own goggles.

  Cork scanned the yard, empty except for the chopping block. He signaled and four deputies, with Morgan in charge, slipped along the edge of the trees outlining the yard and took up positions behind the cabin. Four others, led by Larson, spread themselves out in front undercover or in prone positions with a good line of sight. Rutledge and Willner stayed well back. Cork and the remaining deputies cautiously approached the front door.

  Unlike many Ojibwe on the rez and the rural people of Tamarack County in general, Stone kept no dog to bark a warning. This may have been because he was gone for long periods of time, disappearing into the Boundary Waters, and a dog would be neglected. Cork thought it might also have been that Stone was a man for whom companionship, even that of a dog, was not only unnecessary, it was unwanted. Whatever the reason, Cork was grateful for the absence of any animal that might sound an alarm.

  The curtains across the front window were drawn shut. There was no porch. He walked the hard ground silently and put his ear to the front door, listened for a full minute, then stepped back. Schilling and Pender readied the battering ram. On his signal, the two deputies splintered the pine boards.

  “Police,” Cork shouted and rushed in. He glanced left, right. The room, luminescent green through the goggles, was vacant. The bathroom door was open, showing only empty space. “The bedroom,” he said to the others, and motioned his deputies to flank the closed door.

  He stood off to the side. “Stone, this is Sheriff O’Connor. I have a warrant for your arrest. Come out now with your hands in the air.”

  They waited. Cork’s heart hammered in his chest. He wanted this to be over quickly and cleanly, without shooting, without blood.

  “Lizzie, are you in there?” he called.

  Still no response. Cork tried the knob. Although it turned, the door didn’t open. Latched from the inside. Pender and Schilling had come into the cabin. He motioned them into position to use the ram. On his signal, they swung it forward and sent the door tumbling off its hinges. Immediately, they fell back, out of the line of fire through the doorway. Cork waited again, ready for gunshots, but heard only the heavy breathing of his own men. He waved the deputies to follow and swung into Stone’s bedroom.

  The room was empty, the bed made, everything left in neat order like a hotel room awaiting the next guest.

  Cork unclipped the walkie-talkie from his belt. “All clear. Repeat, all clear. The chicken has flown the coop.”

  They drove the vehicles up from the county road and parked with the lights shining on the cabin. Cork and those in charge stood outside the glare. The moon wasn’t visible yet, but there was a strong glow coming from behind the eastern hills. It washed out the stars on the horizon.

  “Morgan’s certain no one came or left between our visit this afternoon and the raid,” Larson said. “The Land Rover’s still here. Wherever Stone’s gone, he’s on foot.”

  “Into the Boundary Waters,” Cork said. “I can almost guarantee it. He knows those woods.”

  “He can’t hide there forever,” Rutledge said.

  Cork shook his head. “Stone’s one of the few people who probably could.”

  “Maybe he’s trying to make it across the border into Canada.” Larson waved vaguely to the north. “Or slip out of the woods somewhere far away.”

  “And what? Start over?” Cork didn’t hide his skepticism.

  “What do you think, then?”

  “I’m not sure. None of this has made a lot of sense so far.”

  Dina Willner spoke up. “What about Lizzie Fineday?”

  Earlier, they’d checked with relatives and friends. No one admitted having any knowledge of her whereabouts. Cork believed Stone had lied that afternoon when he said she was gone.

  “I think we can assume he has her,” Cork said.

  “Why would he take her?” Rutledge asked.

  “I can think of at least three reasons. The best face to put on it would be that he’s trying to protect her. Or that he’s got a hostage if he’s cornered.”

  “You said three reasons,” Willner pointed out.

  “He might be thinking she’s the only witness against him in the shooting at the Tibodeau cabin and he’d rather not have her found. Period.” Cork turned to Larson. “Any word from Borkmann?”

  As soon as they were certain the area was secure, Cork had directed his chief deputy to drive to the North Star Bar, apprise Will Fineday of what was going on, and escort him to Stone’s place.

  “He’s on his way with Fineday. ETA fifteen minutes,” Larson said.

  The cough of a gas engine turning over hit the quiet of the night, and a moment later, the engine settled into a steady thrum.

  “Good,” Cork said. “Schilling’s got the generator going. Let’s get some lights on inside.”

  Larson started in that direction with Cork right behind him, but Morgan called to him from a cruiser, “Cork, it’s Bos on the radio for you,” and the sheriff turned back.

  “This is Cork. Go ahead.”

  “Sorry to take you away, Cork, but Jo just called. She’s been trying to get hold of you. She sounded worried.”

  An hour before hard dark, he’d tried to call her. He didn’t know what he might be walking into at Stone’s cabin, and he wanted to hear Jo’s voice, hear that the children were having a good time, that everyone was safe. Rose told him that Jo had gone out for the evening. A drink with Ben Jacoby. He’d chatted with his sister-in-law, then talked with each of his children. Jenny told him about her tour of Northwestern. Mr. Jacoby had arranged it, she said, had pulled strings. Cork told her that was a nice thing for him to have done. He told them all that he loved them, and at the end he thanked Rose for taking them in. “Should I have Jo call back?” she’d asked. “No,” Cork had replied. “Not necessary. Just tell her I love her.”

  Afterward, he’d thought darkly, Jacoby.

  “Any message, Bos?” Cork said over the radio.

  “She just asked that you call her back as soon as you can.”

  “Did you tell her anything about what’s going on up here?”

  “Not a word. Didn’t want her to worry. I told her you were on a late call. Routine.”

  “Thanks, Bos. Out.”

  Cork headed to the cabin where Dina Willner stood looking through the door as Larson moved about carefully inside, trying not to disturb the scene any more than Cork and his men already had.

  “No sign she was ever here,” Larson said, adjusting his wire-rims. “Was she hiding, you think, when we came this afternoon?”

  It was a question with a hidden implication: that maybe Stone had already taken care of her for good, hidden the body somewhere, and cleaned away all trace of her presence.

  “I don’t know,” Cork said.

  He heard the cruiser coming up the road and headed down to meet it. Before Borkmann or Pender could exit the vehicle, Will Fineday was out and charging at Cork like an angry moose.

  “You found her?” he said.

  “Not yet, Will.”

  “I’ll kill him,” Fineday said. “I should have killed him the other day.”

  “When she ran, Will, why did she come here to Stone?”

  “She was scared, not thinking. Stone, he’s a son of a bitch, but everybody’s afraid of him. She thought he could protect her.”

  “From what?”

  “You guys. She didn’t want to talk to cops.”

  “We know she was in the SUV with Jacoby the night he was killed. Was it Jacoby who bruised her face?”

  “The son of a bitch. When I found out, I wanted to kill him.”

  “Did you?”

  It was clear Fineday understood the direction this was going. Cork could see the struggle in the man’s head and his heart. The truth might land him a view cut by iron bars, but it might also save his daughter.

  “You went to Mercy Falls that night, didn’t you, Will?” Cork said
it quietly, and not as an accusation.

  The threads-fear, distrust, prejudice-that had held him from speaking finally snapped and he nodded. “He was already dead when I got there, lying on the ground, blood everywhere. Somebody had cut his balls off, too. Shame. I wanted to do that myself.”

  “Did Lizzie kill Edward Jacoby?”

  “No, but I’d’ve understood if she did. The asshole beat her and raped her.”

  “She told you she didn’t kill Jacoby?”

  “Until I came back from Mercy Falls, she didn’t even know he was dead.”

  “You believed her?”

  “Yeah, I believed her.”

  “Did you do anything at Mercy Falls?”

  “Like what?”

  “Interfere with the scene.”

  Fineday studied the sky. “Maybe I wiped the door handles clean.”

  “‘Maybe’?”

  “I didn’t want Lizzie’s fingerprints there, okay? I picked up some beer bottles that might have had her prints on them.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Nothing, I swear.”

  “If you’d told me all this before, it might’ve saved a lot of trouble, Will.”

  Fineday’s hard brown eyes leveled on him. “If you were full-blood or at least not a cop, maybe you’d understand.” He looked toward the cabin. “Where are they?”

  “We think Stone went north, into the woods.”

  “He knows the Boundary Waters better than anyone.” Fineday’s eyes traveled over the ridge that lay between the cabin and everything beyond. “He took her with him, didn’t he?”

  “Maybe.”

  “When I find him, I’ll tear out his goddamned heart.”

  “Cork,” Larson called from the cabin. “Something here you’ve got to see.”

  Cork walked to where Larson and Dina Willner awaited him at the door. “What is it?”

  “Follow me.”

  Larson led the way to the bedroom and stepped over the door that lay on the floor, torn off its hinges. He leaned over the bed and pointed toward an indentation in the pillow.

  Cork took a step and saw what Larson meant. A large-caliber rifle bullet had been carefully placed in the center of the pillow.

  “Jacketed round,” Cork said. “Just like the ones fired at the Tibodeau cabin.”

  “It didn’t get there by accident,” Dina said.

  Larson glanced at Cork. “What do you think it means?”

  Cork crossed to the back window, pulled aside the curtain, shielded the glass so that he could see beyond the reflection of the room light. He stared out at the black silhouette of the ridge.

  “It means we’ve got a long night ahead.”

  34

  Mal and the children had gone to bed, but Rose was waiting up when Jo got home. There was a low fire under the kettle on the stove and two mugs on the kitchen table, each with a bag of Sleepytime tea hung over the lip.

  Rose turned up the flame under the kettle. “Have a good evening?”

  “A weird evening.”

  “You can tell me all about it in a minute. First you need to call Cork.”

  “He called?”

  “Yes. Not long after you left.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  Rose looked a little puzzled by Jo’s concern. “That you went out for a drink with Ben Jacoby. What is it, Jo?”

  “Let me call Cork, then we’ll talk.”

  She tried him at home and got voice mail. She called the sheriff’s office and Bos told her Cork was on a call. Routine.

  “Routine?” Jo said. “It’s almost ten o’clock, Bos.”

  “I can radio and let him know you called. Want a call back?”

  “Yes. Please. As soon as he can.”

  “Sure thing. Miss him, do you?”

  “Like crazy.”

  “I’ll let him know.”

  When Jo returned to the kitchen, the kettle was just starting to whistle. Rose poured hot water into the mugs and sat down at the table with her sister. All their lives, long before Jo met Cork, before Rose fell in love with Mal, it had been like this, the two sisters and tea. In the places their mother, an army nurse whom they called the Captain, had dragged them, the desolate bases, the bleak military housing. None of that mattered because they’d had the comfort of their love for each other, embodied in late night cups of tea and talk.

  “All right,” Rose said. “What don’t I know about Ben Jacoby?”

  Jo told her the whole story.

  “And I thought I knew everything about you.” Rose sipped her tea. “But your relationship with him was a long time ago.”

  “I thought so, too. Then I saw him in Aurora, Rose, and for just a little while all the old feelings, I don’t know, tried to come back.”

  “And?”

  “I let myself feel them. And I realized absolutely there was room only for Cork in my life.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  “For Ben it’s been different, all these years.”

  “He’s carried a torch?”

  “That’s what he says. I need to talk to Cork as soon as possible. God only knows what he must be thinking.”

  Stevie wandered into the kitchen looking half asleep. “I had a bad dream.”

  “Well, come on, big guy, let’s get you back into bed.” Jo took his hand. “Thanks for the company, Rose. You know I miss you in Aurora.”

  “I miss you, too. If Cork calls…?”

  “Wake me.”

  She led Stevie back to bed, got ready herself, and slipped under the covers. She tried to stay awake, waiting for Cork’s call. Finally, sleep overtook her.

  The call she was waiting for never came.

  35

  At first light, the tracking dogs began sniffing the area around Stone’s cabin. Stone’s scent was everywhere, but the scent of Lizzie Fineday led straight through the trees, over the ridge that backed the cabin, to Bruno Lake. It was the first in a series of lakes that led deep into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

  The dogs halted briefly at a large dock on the southeastern shore of the lake, deep in the shadow of the ridge. Cork and the others stood at the end of the dock, breathing hard from the fast hike over the ridge, puffing out clouds of vapor into the cold, damp air above Bruno Lake while the dogs went on, working the ground along the shoreline.

  “What do you make of it?” Rutledge asked.

  “Big dock,” Cork said. “There’s no access to Bruno except on foot or by canoe. Not the kind of traffic that would require a dock. I think this is for floatplanes.”

  “For trafficking?” Larson said.

  “That would sure be my guess.” Cork briefed Rutledge on the investigations his department had conducted earlier with the ATF and the DEA. “We never saw any sign of smuggling, probably because this ridge provides perfect cover. You can’t see the lake except from the air, and I’ll bet the ridge blocks the sound of a plane engine.”

  The sun had risen enough to fire the far shoreline, and the mist on the water there looked like steam coming from a cauldron. In a stand of gnarled cedars fifty yards down the shore, one of the dogs began barking furiously.

  Rutledge looked toward the cedars. “What’s all that ruckus about?”

  As if in answer, Deputy Schilling called from the trees, “Cork, something here you ought to see.”

  “What?”

  “Looks like a grave.”

  A faint trail had already been broken through the brush along the shore. Cork followed and near the end climbed over a fallen and rotting pine. He stepped into the cedars whose smell was sharp in the morning air. Orville Gratz, who’d brought the dogs, had pulled his hound back. The animal sat on its haunches, tongue hanging out, looking where Schilling looked, at a mound of rocks that had been piled in the middle of the cedars. The mound was two feet wide and five feet long, and looked as if it hadn’t been there very long.

  “Lancelot followed the girl’s scent here,” Gratz said. He didn’t s
ound thrilled with the discovery.

  Cork said to Schilling, “Get Cy over here with the Polaroid.”

  For a minute, no one spoke. The other dogs were still moving along the shoreline, their barks punctuating the silence in the cedars. Then Rutledge said quietly, “The son of a bitch.”

  Schilling brought Borkmann and the Polaroid.

  “We need shots of that rock pile, Cy,” Cork said.

  Borkmann was still sweating from the exertion of the climb over the ridge, but he positioned himself and shot from several angles.

  “All right, let’s see what’s under there,” Cork said.

  He approached the stones, bent, and began removing them carefully, piling them behind him. Rutledge joined him. Within a few minutes, they’d cleared the rocks away and had exposed a small area of newly dug earth. It was only a few feet long, however, much too small to accommodate a body fully laid out. Cork and Rutledge dug in the dirt with their hands, slowly clearing a shallow basin. A flash of blue appeared. Cork remembered that the last time he’d seen Lizzie Fineday in front of Stone’s cabin, blinking in the sun, she’d been wearing a sweater that same shade of blue. As they removed the soil, the sweater was revealed, but that was all. It quickly became clear that the indentation had been scooped only deep enough to hold Lizzie’s sweater. Below that, the ground was undisturbed. Rutledge stood up, the cardigan sweater hanging from his hand, rumpled and dirty.

  “I don’t get it,” he said.

  “There’s something in the pocket,” Cork said.

  “Anybody got a glove?”

  “Here.” Schilling handed him one, leather.

  Rutledge put it on and removed a folded slip of paper from the sweater pocket. He opened it. Cork looked over his shoulder and saw what was written.

  48 hours.

  “Mean anything?” Rutledge asked.

  Cork wiped his palms on his khakis and looked at his nails, which were packed with black dirt. He pulled his walkie-talkie from his belt and called to Howard Morgan, who was at Stone’s cabin, and told him to send Will Fineday down to the lake. He turned to Gratz. “Did you bring Pook?”