Red Knife

by William Kent Krueger

  Larson said, “Me, I don’t like either of the Reinhardts for this. Too brutal. And stupid. Buck’s a lot of things, but stupid’s not one of them. And he’d have to know that the Red Boyz wouldn’t let something like that go unanswered. It’s no wonder he’s carrying these days.”

  “So who’s at the top of your list, Ed?”

  “Seems to me this has all the earmarks of a drug hit. I spoke with Gordon Wingaard, our DEA guy down in the Cities, on the phone a little while ago. He’s inclined to believe the same thing.”

  “Who did the hit?”

  “Some things we know. Some things we can only speculate about. This is what we know. In California, Kingbird became a member of the Latin Lords, a gang with strong ties to the cartels across the border. The Latin Lords are a big part of the Mexican pipeline that funnels drugs to the Midwest. DEA has been aware for some time that the Lords have been using reservations as depots. Sovereign territory, for one thing. And on the reservation, so much gets tied up with family connections that people don’t talk to the law. DEA has had an eye on the Red Boyz, hoping to intercept shipments, but they haven’t been able to come up with anything, probably because the Red Boyz know ways on and off the reservation that none of the rest of us do.”

  “That’s the speculation part?” Cork asked.

  “DEA also speculates that the Red Boyz have been able to thin the ranks of the competition in the North Country through a disciplined campaign of intimidation.”

  “And so this might be the competition fighting back?”

  “DEA certainly likes that possibility. They’re talking to people they know, and they’ve promised to keep us in the loop.”

  Cork studied his loose sign a moment, looked up at the thick cloud cover, then dropped his gaze back to the men below. “I don’t want to complicate your speculation, but there’s another possibility I think you ought to consider.”

  “Yeah?” Larson said. “What’s that?”

  “Lonnie Thunder.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “According to Meloux, Thunder was running scared after Kristi’s death. Kingbird took him to see Henry, hoping Meloux could help him find some courage.”

  “Like the Wizard of Oz,” Rutledge threw in.

  “Only Thunder didn’t stick around long enough for the wizard to give him anything. I’m thinking that if Thunder was in a panic and afraid Kingbird was going to turn him in, he might have been desperate enough for what happened out there.”

  Rutledge nodded as if he liked the idea. “Which makes it even more incumbent upon us to find him.”

  “Yeah, well, good luck.”

  “The sheriff’s a little ticked at you, Cork,” Rutledge said. “She feels like you deserted her. Me, I think I can understand. Must be tough.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Being in the middle. Not the law, but not quite quit of it either. Situation like this Kingbird incident, with your Ojibwe friends on one side and a lot of your white friends on the other. Easier, I’m sure, just to step away and let go of any investment in the outcome. Still . . .” He shook his head in a troubled way. “I’d guess that’s hard to do when you’re watching it all play out in your own backyard.” He started to turn, as if to head back to the cruiser, but offered what seemed to be a sincere afterthought. “Listen, would you like us to keep you apprised of our investigation?”

  Cork said, “No.”

  “All right then.” Rutledge walked away.

  “Take ’er easy, Cork.” Larson joined the BCA agent at the cruiser.

  Cork watched them drive off under the gray overcast that had threatened rain all day but had not delivered. He turned back to his work, picked up his hammer, and pounded the next nail as if it was all that held the world together.

  EIGHTEEN

  That night Cork was responsible for dinner. The schedule of meals they’d all worked out for the week called for spaghetti and tossed salad. The spaghetti sauce was Prego. The salad came in a bag. This was a meal Cork could handle.

  Shortly before five, Jo called to say she would be late. Opposing counsel in a trust dispute wanted to meet to discuss a settlement. Annie called a few minutes later from school to say that she and Cara Haines were going directly from softball practice to the Pinewood Broiler. Cork knew there’d been some kind of falling out between the two friends and was glad they were patching things up. He and Stevie ended up eating dinner on television trays while they watched a rerun of The Simpsons.

  “What do you say we head over to the Broiler for a little apple pie à la mode?” Cork suggested.

  “Or French silk,” Stevie said, and his eyes danced with delight at the prospect.

  They were halfway to the Broiler when Cork’s cell phone rang. He pulled it from the pocket of his jacket and glanced at the ID. A pay phone.

  “O’Connor,” he answered.

  There was a lot of static on the line, and Cork could barely hear the voice at the other end. “Cork, this is Oly Johnson. Got a call there’s a fire at Sam’s Place. We’re on our way. Better get your ass over there, too.”

  Oly Johnson was the fire chief in Aurora.

  The line went dead. Cork slapped his cell phone closed, tossed it to Stevie in the backseat, and hit the accelerator.

  “What is it, Dad?” Stevie asked in a frightened voice.

  “Fire at Sam’s Place,” Cork replied.

  Cork sped through Aurora. At Second Street, he took the corner too fast and wide and barely missed hitting a pickup in the oncoming lane. He took the turnoff to Sam’s Place too quickly and the Bronco drifted on the gravel road. He brought it around and shot toward the Burlington Northern tracks. He sailed over the raised track bed and pulled into the unpaved parking lot. The old Quonset hut stood solid and silent, looking no different than it had when Cork left that afternoon.

  “Where’s the fire, Dad?” Stevie asked.

  Cork turned off the engine. “Hand me the flashlight in my toolbox back there.”

  Stevie unbuckled and rummaged around in the toolbox behind him, then passed the flashlight to his father.

  “Wait here,” Cork said. “And make sure your door’s locked.”

  He got out of the Bronco and circled Sam’s Place slowly, poking the beam here and there. Back at the Quonset hut door that faced the parking lot, he inserted his key in the lock and swung the door open. The dark inside was both familiar and unsettling. In the silence there, he realized he didn’t hear any sirens coming his way. He considered the call from Oly Johnson, and understood that, of course, there was something incredibly not right about it coming from a pay phone. In his panic over the destruction of Sam’s Place, he’d let himself be fooled. Hoax? he wondered. Warning? In the second before he heard the shot, he thought, Ambush.

  The chunk of the round hitting the side of the Quonset hut came almost simultaneously with the rifle report. Cork spun into the cover inside Sam’s Place. Another report and another round hit the wall outside, penetrated, and struck the cupboard over the sink. This time Cork was able to tell the direction from which the shot had come. A hundred yards south was a stand of poplars that surrounded the ruins of an old ironworks. It was good cover, and with a nightscope anyone who was a decent shot could bring down a target wandering in the parking lot.

  “Dad!”

  Cork heard the slam of the Bronco passenger door. He peered around the doorway of Sam’s Place and saw the black shape of his son separate from the larger dark of the Bronco.

  “No, Stevie!” he yelled. “Stay there!”

  But his son had already begun to run.

  In his mind’s eye, Cork was seeing the image through a night-scope: the crosshairs centered on the small, moving glow; leading the target just enough to account for bullet velocity and the lope of the boy; exhaling evenly as the finger squeezed the trigger.

  He launched himself from the doorway and rocketed toward his son. He hit Stevie on the fifth stride, lifted him in his arms with barely a pause, and sprinted t
oward the Bronco. He reached the big vehicle and dropped Stevie behind the shield of its bulk.

  “You okay?” he said, breathless and scared.

  Stevie nodded.

  They huddled together. Cork felt his son trembling, then realized the trembling was him. He was shaking worse than if he’d been naked in a blizzard.

  “You’re sure?” he said.

  “I’m okay, Dad, honest. I thought they shot you.”

  “I’m fine.” Though he wasn’t. Not by a long sight.

  “Who is it?” Stevie asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  He tried to think, not just about the identity of the shooter but also about the shooter’s location and whether the son of a bitch would seek a better firing position. The Bronco sat broadside to the old ironworks and provided good cover, unless the shooter moved.

  “What are we going to do?” Stevie asked. “Do you have your gun, Dad?”

  No, damn it, he didn’t. “What did you do with the cell phone?”

  “I left it on the seat. I can get it.” Stevie started to move, but Cork grabbed his son’s arm.

  “No you don’t. You stay right here.” His big quaking hands cupped Stevie’s shoulders and he looked sternly into his son’s eyes. “This is what we’re going to do. I’m going to open the driver’s door and turn on the headlights.”

  “But he’ll see us.”

  Cork didn’t want to waste time explaining, but his son needed to understand.

  “If he’s using a nightscope, the glare from the headlights might blind him. I’ll grab my cell phone and zip right back here to you and we’ll call 911. If I’m hit, Stevie, you have to promise me you’ll run. Run to Sam’s Place and lock the door.”

  “No, I wouldn’t leave you.”

  “If I’m hit, I’ll need help. Use the phone in Sam’s Place to make the call. Do you understand?”

  “I don’t want—”

  “Run. That’s all there is to it. Understand?” It came out harsh, but he didn’t have time to make it easier.

  Stevie stared at him, his eyes dark cups full of hurt. He said nothing, but he nodded.

  “All right.” Cork let go of Stevie’s shoulders and moved toward the driver’s door.

  The Bronco faced the lake and like a wall shielded him from the shooter’s position down the shoreline. Once he opened the driver’s door, however, the dome light would give him away and for a moment he would be a perfect target. Cork hoped maybe the light would be startling enough to make the shooter hesitate and he could switch on the blinding glare of the headlights before the squeeze of the trigger came. It was a gamble with odds he didn’t particularly care for, but at the moment he couldn’t think of another strategy. He grabbed the door handle and yanked. The dome light winked on. He leaned in and reached for the headlight switch. The brilliance that burst from the Bronco was like white ice, freezing the gravel of the lot, the red cedar picnic table, the lone pine near the shoreline, and thirty yards of the smooth black surface of Iron Lake. Cork reached to the backseat, expecting any second to hear the bark of the rifle, though he knew he wouldn’t hear the bullet that got him. He snatched the cell phone and began to slide back toward safety.

  And the shot came.

  He heard the report but didn’t feel any impact nor did he hear the round hit. He thought the shot had gone wild.

  Then he heard Stevie grunt, and his heart yanked a cord that drew every muscle of his body taut.

  “Stevie!” he cried.

  He pushed from the vehicle. His feet slipped on the gravel and he went down on one knee, tearing a hole in his jeans. He stumbled toward the rear wheel well where he’d left his son.

  Stevie knelt on the ground, bowed forward, his hands pressed to his face. Cork dropped beside him.

  “Stevie?” He touched a shoulder.

  His son looked up. Blood dripped over his lips and chin. For a second, Cork stood absolutely frozen.

  “I’m okay, Dad,” Stevie said. “I went down when I heard the shot and I hit my nose on the bumper. Are you all right?”

  Cork felt almost giddy with relief. “I’m fine,” he said. “Just fine.”

  He flipped the phone open and 911’ed the sheriff’s department. Then he put his son against the Bronco and with his own body shielded him until he heard the sirens rise out of the distance.

  NINETEEN

  They sat in Cork’s office in the back part of Sam’s Place. Marsha Dross and Ed Larson were drinking strong coffee. Cork always made his coffee strong. For Stevie, he’d whipped up some hot chocolate. He’d also put ice in a Baggie, which Stevie applied to the bridge of his nose between sips from his cup.

  A small notebook sat open in front of Ed Larson and he’d already filled a couple of pages with notes. He had questioned Cork and now he was questioning Stevie, whose responses were a little nasally due to the swelling. The questioning had an interesting effect on Cork’s son. It seemed to help him forget about his injury, and his answers were clear and considered.

  No, he didn’t see anything or anyone.

  But he did hear something. When his dad was checking the outside of Sam’s Place with the flashlight, he heard the bump of a canoe against rocks somewhere down the shoreline.

  “In the vicinity of the old ironworks?” Larson asked.

  Stevie squinted a little. Thinking, not pain.

  He wasn’t sure, but most of the shoreline between Sam’s Place and the ironworks was sand or soft dirt. The only rocks were where the dock for the ironworks used to be.

  “I don’t suppose you have an idea about the canoe?”

  Aluminum. Kevlar or wood wouldn’t make that kind of sound.

  “Why do you think it was a canoe? Why not a rowboat or even a powerboat?”

  If it was a powerboat, he would have heard the motor. And if you needed to get away fast, especially if you were alone, a canoe would be better than a rowboat, wouldn’t it?

  Larson looked to Cork, who simply shrugged. He’d heard nothing.

  Dross used a walkie-talkie to contact her people who were going over the area around the ironworks, and she directed them to take a look at the shoreline.

  “Any point in getting our own boat out there?” Larson put the question to the sheriff.

  “In the dark?” She shook her head. “By now the shooter’s off the lake anyway.”

  “That was good work, Stephen,” Larson said.

  Stevie flushed just a little at the praise and went back to sipping his chocolate and nursing his injury.

  They were just finishing up when Jo swept into Sam’s Place, wearing her long black car coat and still dressed in the navy suit, cream-colored blouse, and heels she’d worn that day in court. Like a dark wind she blew past the others and knelt beside her son. She took Stevie’s face in her hands and studied the damage with her sharp, ice blue eyes. Her hair was a little wild—the long day maybe, or maybe she’d run a hand through it worrying about her son and her husband—and errant strands flew out, glowing white in the light, like hot filaments. She made a sound, a rumble in her throat that Cork knew was an unhappy assessment of her son’s condition.

  “Put the ice back on, sweetie. We need to get that looked at.” She stood up and faced Cork. “What happened?”

  “I got a call that Sam’s Place was on fire. When we came out, somebody started shooting at us,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “The question of the day. Marsha’s people are going over the ironworks for anything that might tell us.”

  Jo glanced back at the open cupboard where one of the rounds had lodged. The bullet had already been cut out, but the shelf and the counter beneath the cupboard were strewn with shards from the plates that had been shattered.

  “The Kingbird business,” she said.

  “We don’t know for sure.”

  “Oh?” She gave him a long, cold look. “And what else might it be?”

  He had no other possibility to offer. From the silence, he guessed no one else di
d either.

  She leaned down to her son and spoke differently, almost playfully. “And how’d your nose end up looking like something that belongs on a clown, kiddo?”

  “I hit it on the bumper of Dad’s Bronco. It was my own fault.”

  “Your fault? I don’t think so. Come on, buster, let’s have somebody look at you.” She glanced at the others. “I’m taking him to the ER, all right?”

  “I need to stay here for a while,” Cork said.

  “I’m sure you do,” she said.

  Stevie got up from his chair. Cork got up, too, and wrapped an arm around his son’s shoulders. “You did good tonight.”

  Stevie grinned shyly, then said, “Whoever he was, he sure was a lousy shot.”

  Cork laughed and Dross and Larson joined him.

  Jo didn’t even crack a smile. “Let’s go,” she said, and ushered Stevie ahead of her.

  For a few moments after they left, there was a chilly silence in Sam’s Place.

  “More coffee?” Cork said.

  Dross waved off the offer and Larson shook his head. “I’ll be up all night as it is.” He studied his notes. “If the shooter was using a nightscope and he was actually trying to hit you, he was, as Stevie so aptly put it, a lousy shot.”

  “A warning maybe?” Dross said.

  Cork went to the coffeepot and filled his cup. “There’s usually something that goes along with a warning, something that explains to the idiot that he should butt out. A note, a phone call. There’s nothing like that here.”

  “Yet,” Larson said.

  Cork looked at his watch. It had been nearly two hours since the shots had been fired.

  Dross stood up and arched her back as if working out some stiffness. She walked to the door, opened it, and stood looking toward the ironworks. Cork joined her and watched the flashlight beams poking around in the stand of poplars that surrounded the ruins. One of the beams separated and came up a path worn along the lakeshore, a path a lot of joggers, including Cork, used regularly.