Mercy Falls co-5

by William Kent Krueger

  “You get reports from a woman who’s helping with the investigation of Eddie’s murder, is that right?”

  “Dina Willner.”

  “So what’s going on out there?”

  He settled back and folded his hands, a movement that seemed designed to give him a moment to think. “How much do you know?”

  “Not much. When I call the department, they’re evasive. I’m sure they’re just following Cork’s instructions. My guess is that it’s because he’s involved in something that I’m not supposed to worry about.” When she said it, she heard a flutter of anger in her voice, and realized how strongly she felt.

  “If they don’t want you to know, why hit on me?”

  “Because you’re not one of his people. You can do what you like.”

  He sipped his wine and thought it over. “They’ve identified the man they believe was responsible for the shooting on the reservation.”

  “I know that. Lydell Cramer. He was burned during the meth lab bust a few weeks ago.”

  “Seems they were wrong in suspecting him. They’re pretty sure now that it was a man named Stone.”

  “Stone? You mean Byron St. Onge?”

  “I believe that’s his name.”

  “Why? Why in the world would Stone want to shoot Cork?”

  “As I understand it, that’s still unclear.”

  “They could have told me that. There must be more.”

  “There is. When this Stone realized they were onto him, he ran, disappeared into the woods with the woman they suspect in Eddie’s murder.”

  “Lizzie Fineday?”

  “That’s right. Your husband’s gone into the woods after them.”

  “Alone?”

  “No, the girl’s father went with him. Also an old man who’s a guide of some kind, and one deputy.”

  “Oh, Jesus. No wonder they wouldn’t tell me. Goddamn him.” She looked away a moment. “You know, he loves this. He’s in his glory.”

  “Dina indicated she was going to try to accompany them, officially or otherwise. If it’s any consolation, if I had to go after a man like Stone, I’d want Dina there with me. She’s very good at what she does.”

  “Tell me about what she does.”

  “We use her as a consultant on all kinds of security issues. Protective services, investigations. She’s a crack shot, holds a black belt in some kind of martial art, has significant law enforcement experience. Really, Cork couldn’t ask for better backup.”

  “So Stone ambushed Cork. And Lizzie may have killed Eddie.”

  “And once they’re caught, it’s all over.” He held up his hands as if it were as simple as two plus two.

  They heard coughing in the dining room, and a few moments later Phillip walked in. He wore a black terry cloth bathrobe and sandals and carried a big white towel. He seemed surprised to find Jo and Ben in the kitchen.

  “Hello, Phillip,” Jo said.

  He glanced from her to his father, and a dark, knowing look came into his eyes. “Don’t let me interrupt,” he said. “Just passing through on my way to swim.”

  “Have you eaten?” Ben asked.

  “Lasagna. Mrs. McGruder made a shitload. It’s in the refrigerator if you’re hungry. Nice seeing you again,” he said to Jo as he slid a glass door open and went outside.

  “Isn’t it cold for swimming?” she asked Ben.

  “I keep the pool filled and heated until the end of October. I swim every morning, and prefer to do it outside. The first of November I start swimming at my health club.”

  The light in the sky was thinning, and the kitchen had grown dark, but Jacoby made no move to turn on a lamp. He swirled the wine slowly in his glass.

  “Rae told me she had a good long talk with you this morning.”

  “Did she tell you what she gave me?”

  “No.”

  “A painting that you’d asked her to do twenty years ago.”

  “Grant Park? White dress?”

  “That would be the one.”

  “I thought she got rid of that. God, I’d love to see it.”

  “I considered bringing it.”

  He looked genuinely disappointed. “There’s something you ought to see, something I feel a little guilty about.”

  He led her from the kitchen through the house, down a long hallway past big empty rooms. The thick carpet seemed to suck all the sound from their feet as they walked.

  “You and Phillip, you’re here by yourselves?”

  “When Phillip’s gone, it’s just me.”

  She followed him to a study that smelled faintly of cigars. He turned on a light switch and revealed a study with shelves of books, an enormous polished desk, an antique couch upholstered in leather, a fireplace. He went to the desk and, beckoning her to look, turned a framed photograph so that she could see the image. It was Jo, standing on the shore of Iron Lake, the water at her back shiny and blue as new steel. Jenny had taken the snapshot a year before for her high school photography class. She had framed it and given it to Jo as a Christmas present.

  “That was in my office in Aurora,” Jo said. “I couldn’t imagine what had happened to it.”

  He lifted the frame and cradled it in his hands. “Eddie snatched it on one of his visits. I should have returned it, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that.”

  “Did you ask him to take it?”

  “No. He thought of it as a gift to me.” His face turned pensive. “Jo, I have a confession. When I found out someone had tried to kill Cork, I thought for a while Eddie might have been behind it. For God knows what reason, Eddie wanted desperately for us to be as close as true brothers. I wondered if, in his thinking, killing Cork would open the way for me to have you. A kind of gift from him to me. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s exactly the kind of guy Eddie was.”

  “What would you have done if that had been the case?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know.”

  He held out the photograph toward her reluctantly, and she saw the sense of loss in his eyes as she took it.

  “I’d like you to have Rae’s painting, Ben.”

  He looked stunned.

  “If you’d like it.”

  “It was meant for you, Jo.”

  “Twenty years ago it was meant for me. My life is different now. Honestly, Ben, I wouldn’t feel comfortable with it hanging in my home in Aurora. Do you understand?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Would you like it?”

  “Very much.”

  “Would you accept it?”

  “I’m sure it’s a valuable painting. What if I paid you for it?”

  “I’d rather it remained a gift.”

  “Thank you, Jo,” he said.

  “What if I brought it by tomorrow? About the same time? Say, six?”

  “I could pick it up at your sister’s place on my way home from the office.”

  “I’m not sure what will be happening there tomorrow night. I’d rather the kids didn’t ask a lot of questions. It would be best for me to come here.”

  “All right, then. Six.”

  There was a splash outside and Ben drifted to the window. Jo could see Phillip swimming laps with strong, even strokes, his body a long, lean silhouette against the glaring lights in the pool.

  “He loves to swim,” Ben said. “He says when he’s swimming, all his problems go away for a while.”

  “Problems?”

  “He has more than his share. His mother’s dead, he hates his father.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I was the kind of father my father was.”

  “And you hate Lou?”

  “Why wouldn’t I? He’s arrogant, rude, demanding. He cheated on my mother, disinherited my sister, loved Eddie beyond all reason.” He gave a small, derisive laugh and shook his head in futility. “You know, I can still remember when I was a kid how even one word of praise from him was the best thing imaginable.”

  He moved nearer the window and watc
hed his son glide through the turquoise water to the end of the pool, climb out, and quickly grab the towel to dry himself. Then Phillip slipped his robe and sandals on and headed back toward the veranda.

  “I should go,” Jo said.

  Ben nodded and led her back through the vastness of a house that seemed to hold nothing but a silence waiting to be shattered.

  The children and Mal had gone to a movie. The teakettle had just started to whistle on the stove when Jo walked in. Rose poured boiling water over the herbal tea bags in the cups on the kitchen table, then sat down with Jo, who told her what she’d learned from Jacoby.

  Jo didn’t touch her tea, but the aroma, the soothing scent of apple and spice, registered in her senses. She wished she could give in to the pull of that smell, which seemed to come from a place of calm, of placid domesticity that was out of her reach at the moment. All she felt was irritation and worry.

  “No wonder they wouldn’t tell me anything. He’s done it again, Rose. It’s that damned cowboy mentality of his. That’s the part of him I hate.”

  “If you were to ask me, I’d say it’s also part of what you love about him,” Rose said. “He’s certainly come to your rescue on occasion. And mine.”

  “I know, I know.” She lifted her cup, sighed into her tea.

  “You’re worried, Jo, and that’s understandable. Why don’t you call Aurora again. Now that you know what’s going on, maybe they’ll be more forthcoming. It’s worth a try, don’t you think?”

  She was right, of course. Jo used the phone in the kitchen.

  Bos was on duty. Jo told her what she understood of the situation and pressed Bos for more details.

  At the other end of the line, Bos hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision. She told Jo that the search party consisted of Cork, Morgan, Meloux, Fineday, and now Dina Willner. They hadn’t had any contact with Stone or Lizzie. Last check-in was at twenty-two hundred hours, ten o’clock, and everything was fine.

  “Why did he do it, Bos? Why didn’t he just wait for Stone to come out?”

  “He was concerned about the Fineday girl. He believed that if he didn’t locate her quickly, Stone might kill her.”

  “Did it have to be him?” She hated herself for the question, for the whining way it came out. Of course Cork felt it had to be him, and that was all that mattered. “Bos, you call me with anything, good or bad, you hear?”

  “I hear, Jo.”

  She hung up, closed her eyes, breathed deeply. The whole kitchen was suffused with the smell of the tea.

  “Sometimes,” she said, “I wish…” She let it drop.

  Rose stood up and put her freckled arms around her sister, offered a comforting embrace. “I know, but would you have him be less than he is?”

  “Of course not.”

  They sat at the table again. Jo sipped her tea. “Morgan. He’s a good officer, and Cork trusts him. And Meloux as a guide, that’s a godsend. He’s old, but he’s tough.”

  “There you go. God has sent good people along with Cork.”

  They heard Mal returning with the children. “I don’t want the kids to know, Rose. Tomorrow, when you go to South Bend, I’m going to stay here and wait for word on Cork.”

  “A good idea.”

  That night, after Stevie had gone to bed, Jo stood for a few minutes at the window, listening, thinking of the unnatural quiet that came with the mornings since the birds were dead. West Nile virus was a merciless killer.

  A breeze rose up, and outside the leaves of the trees murmured softly, as if to remind her that there were those things, like the wind, that moved swiftly and could not be killed.

  Jo thought of Cork and the others with him. “Dear Lord,” she prayed, “let them be the wind.”

  41

  The Moon, before it rose, put a glow in the sky above the trees, as if a lost city lay blazing somewhere in the distant forest. Under the aspens on Lamb Lake, Cork and the others prepared for sleep.

  “What about Stone?” Dina asked. “Will he sleep?”

  “It has been a long day for him, too,” Meloux said. “He will sleep.”

  “To be on the safe side,” Cork said, “we’ll stand watches, two hours each. Howard, Will, Dina, and me, in that order.”

  Meloux said, “I don’t sleep so good anymore. I can watch, too.”

  “If you’re up, you can help whoever’s on watch stay awake.”

  Morgan took his rifle and walked to the shoreline as the moon began to push up out of the trees. Cork and the others settled into their bags. Cork didn’t think Stone would try anything that night, but who really knew? It would have been comforting to have more deputies there, but Stone could probably elude an army if he wanted. It was best this way, to try to draw him out. Someone had to do it. Still, he couldn’t help feeling the weight of the responsibility like an anchor on his chest. He was glad Jo didn’t know what he was up to. Or the children.

  He was surprised when Dina shook him awake.

  “Your watch,” she said.

  He rolled out of his bag, his body stiff from the hard ground. Moonlight lit the woods, casting a net of silver and shadow all around. The air was cold, and he unrolled his fleece-lined jean jacket, which he’d used as a pillow, and put it on.

  “Anything?” he asked.

  “Only a beautiful night,” Dina replied. “I’m not ready to sleep yet. Mind a little company?”

  Cork arched his back, working out a kink that felt as though a horse had kicked him. He sat down beside Dina on the fallen trunk where earlier Meloux had smoked. On the lake, the silhouettes of the two islands were clear, the water in the channel between them sparkling like a swatch of black velvet sewn with a million sequins. Occasionally a soft breeze came out of the west and the aspen leaves rustled with a sound like the running of fast water.

  “I never have nights like this,” Dina said. “All my nights echo off concrete.”

  “But you like being a city girl. Or so you said.”

  “I could get used to this.”

  “Why are you here, Dina?”

  She stared at the lake, then at the sky, and finally turned her face to Cork. Her skin was milk white in the moonlight and flawless. “People around your town tell me that even when you weren’t sheriff you helped take care of some pretty troubling situations. Not because the responsibility was yours officially, but because that’s who you are. I understand that.”

  “Nature of the beast?”

  “Something like that. Also, I thought that when you found Lizzie, having a woman around might help.”

  “If you like this kind of thing so much, why did you leave the FBI?”

  “Men and money. Too many of the first, too little of the second. By men, I mean flaming assholes with enormous egos. Now I only do what I want to do.”

  “And you do this kind of thing a lot?”

  “I hunt people, yeah. Usually I find them. That’s something I’m good at. I also protect people. I’m good at that, too.”

  Cork realized that his breath had started coming out in faint clouds. Soon, he knew, the frost would start to form, the leaves becoming brittle.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” he said.

  She looked surprised, perhaps a little too theatrically so. “What do you mean?”

  “Your story makes sense up to a point.”

  “What point?”

  “That you’re here out of the goodness of your heart, some protective sentiment about Lizzie. You’re smart, you’re tough, and you’re not about public service and goodwill toward people. So why are you here?”

  She smiled coquettishly. “Maybe I’m worried about you.”

  “Right,” Cork said.

  “Stranger things, Horatio…” She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “See you in a couple of hours.” She stood up, but when she turned, she let out a small, startled cry. “Henry.”

  Cork swung around and saw that Meloux stood very near, his dark eyes fixed on the lake.

&nbs
p; “What is it, Henry?”

  “I have been thinking about the bear trap.” Meloux walked forward and waved toward the two islands. “Only one way in.”

  Cork followed his gesture and saw how the moon lit the water in the channel, a glittering path between the two black formations. He thought about it. The most direct way to the portage on the other side of the lake. The stone slabs breaking the water, requiring a slow, careful passage. He understood that whatever moved between the islands would be an easy target.

  “You think he’s on one of the islands, waiting for us to pass?”

  “If his heart is set on killing, it would be a good place.”

  “How can we be sure?” Dina asked.

  “Somebody needs to check it out,” Cork said.

  Dina shook her head. “Even if you headed there now, you’d be a sitting duck in all that moonlight.”

  “If he’s awake and watching.” Cork studied the island. “But if he’s awake and if he’s watching, he’ll be looking this way and not watching his back.”

  Meloux laughed quietly. “You are thinking like the bear now.”

  “You’re going to circle around behind him?” Dina said.

  “It seems to me like the best approach.”

  “Not alone.”

  “I’m not risking anybody else.” Cork scanned the eastern sky, still heavy with night. “How long before first light, Henry?”

  “An hour,” the old man said. “Maybe less.”

  “Then we should get started.” He woke Fineday and Morgan and explained to them what was up.

  “I’ll go,” Fineday said.

  “It’s already decided, Will.”

  “I’m not going to just sit here and see what happens.”

  “That wasn’t what I had in mind.” Cork looked toward the sky. “It’ll be light soon, and if Stone’s waiting for us, he’s sure to be watching. We need to make certain his attention stays focused here.”

  “How?” Morgan asked.

  “I think someone should cook breakfast. The wind’s blowing toward the island and the smell ought to get his attention. There should appear to be a lot of activity going on.”

  “I don’t want to sound pessimistic,” Dina said, “but what if he shoots you, slips off the island, and gets away?”