Rainy eyed him with a mix of suspicion and concern. “What’s going on, Cork?”
He thought of just trying to elicit a promise without an explanation, but he knew Rainy wouldn’t let it go at that. So he told her about the threatening phone call he’d received the night before.
“No idea who it was?”
“Male, that’s all I can say.”
“Maybe the same person who set you up in Jubal’s murder?”
“Maybe. But I don’t see the connection yet. Could be it’s the other shoe I’ve been expecting to fall any minute. I just don’t know. At the moment, nothing makes much sense to me. Until it does, promise me that Rhiannon goes no farther than us.”
“It will give you peace of mind?”
“It will.”
“Consider it done,” she said and kissed him.
His cell phone beckoned from the pocket of his jacket, which hung on the back of one of Rainy’s chairs. He said, “I’d better take that.” He left the bed and, naked, danced across the cold cabin floor. He checked caller ID. The call was coming from his house on Gooseberry Lane. It turned out to be Jenny.
“You better come home, Dad.”
“What’s up?”
“The sheriff’s people are here. They have a warrant to search our house.”
CHAPTER 23
It was early enough that the media hadn’t yet roused themselves for the day, and when Cork turned onto Gooseberry Lane, he saw no television vans or reporters. A few of his neighbors were out, standing on their lawns, watching the sheriff’s people and agents of the BCA moving in and out of his house. The driveway was blocked by a Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department cruiser and a dark blue sedan with state plates, and the garage door had been raised. Jenny’s Subaru, which normally would have been in the garage, was parked on the street. Cork pulled up behind it and got out. Agent Phillip Holter and Captain Ed Larson came from the house and met him on the porch steps.
“What’s going on?” Cork asked, keeping his voice low, though he wanted to scream the question. The sun was up, the sky clear and bright, but the morning was still cold enough that his breath huffed out visibly, like blasts of steam.
“The arrow that killed Jubal Little,” Holter replied. “Your prints are all over it. And only your prints.”
“I put my hand around that arrow, Agent Holter. Jubal insisted that I see if it might easily be pushed through or pulled out.”
“When the sheriff’s people got there, the arrow was still in him,” Holter said.
“Of course it was. I had no intention of actually moving it. It was a hunting arrow, for Christ’s sake. You have any idea how badly I would have torn him up if I’d tried? And what’s with the search warrant? If you wanted to go looking through my house, I’d have been happy to let you in.”
Larson said quietly, reasonably, “We need to go by the book, Cork. For your sake as well as ours.”
Holter said, “Mind coming with me to the garage?”
Cork followed him through the wide opening where the garage door had been lifted. It was a two-car structure, which Cork kept clean and well organized. On the north wall hung all his lawn and gardening tools. On the south, he’d mounted large hooks where the O’Connors hung their bicycles when not in use. Along the east wall, he’d created a work area, with a bench and long table and good, bright shop light. Hand tools hung from Peg-Board above the table, and to the right stood a shelving unit where he kept his power tools and supplies.
At the moment, one of the agent’s team was boxing some materials from the shelves, but he paused when Cork and the others entered.
Holter said, “Take a break, Greg,” and nodded for him to leave.
Holter walked to the worktable and picked up a section of what looked to be a long, slender dowel. He rolled it between his fingers, then held it up for Cork to look at.
“The beginning of an arrow?” he said.
“I make my own. But you already know that.”
“Do you make them all the same? With the same pattern of fletching?”
“Yes. It’s a way to identify my arrow from others that might be shot during a hunt.”
“The arrow that killed Jubal Little was exactly like all the arrows in the hip quiver you wore that day. The same fletching.”
“What of it?”
“One of yours?”
“Like one of mine,” Cork said.
“Exactly like one of yours,” Holter said. “Yet when Captain Larson here talked with you at the department immediately following Jubal Little’s death, you never mentioned that fact.”
“I knew Ed was smart enough to figure it out eventually.”
“The arrow that killed the man identified as William Graham Chester, that was exactly like one of your arrows, too. Tell me, O’Connor, how is it that someone else could have shot an arrow you made? Or one exactly like it.”
“My guess is that someone stole it. Or they made it in exactly the way I make mine.”
“Stole it? Just came in and took it? You don’t lock your doors?”
“Agent Holter, I don’t know anyone in Aurora who locks their doors. Could I see that warrant? What exactly is it that you’re looking for?”
“I’d like to see that warrant, too.” A tall man with a long ponytail and dressed in a jean jacket and white shirt and blue jeans walked into the garage. He had eyes the color of chocolate brownies and a voice that spoke its words as slow and rich as maple syrup. This was Leon Papakee, Cork’s attorney. Like Cork, he was what Indians sometimes called a “blood,” a man of mixed heritage. Leon’s Indian heritage was Meskwaki, out of Iowa.
“Thanks for coming, Leon,” Cork said.
“Captain Larson, Agent Holter,” Papakee greeted the officers. “Could I see the warrant, please? And where’s Sheriff Dross?”
“Inside,” Larson replied, nodding toward the house. “I’ll get the warrant.” He left the garage through the side door and headed to the house.
“I haven’t seen you in a while, Phil,” Papakee said casually. “How have you been?”
“Busy, Leon,” Holter replied, just as easily.
“You two know each other?” Cork asked.
“We crossed swords once before,” Papakee said. “The Louis Santee case, down in Granite Falls, couple of years ago. So, is the miscreant business booming, Phil?”
“Economy’s down, Leon. Always drives the crime rate up.”
“Think Jubal Little was killed because of the poor economy?”
“At this point, Leon, your speculation is as good as mine.”
“My speculation is that my client had nothing to do with the recent deaths at Trickster’s Point, and that your presence here is entirely unnecessary.”
Before Holter could reply, Larson returned with the warrant and handed it to Papakee, who read it carefully.
“I’d like to talk with my client in private. All right?”
“Sure,” Holter said with a magnanimous air.
They walked out of the garage and into the backyard. Trixie, the O’Connors’ mutt, was lying in the sun near her doghouse. She roused herself when she saw the two men and trotted toward Cork, her tail wagging like a crazy metronome. She came between the men, and both Cork and Papakee leaned down to pet her.
“What do you know about Holter?” Cork asked.
“Ambitious as they come. By the book, but if he’s got it in for you, he’s like a bronc rider, and he’ll stay on you till you break. The warrant’s pretty specific,” Papakee said. “They’re taking any tools and materials that might relate to the making of arrows. That’s understandable. But they’re also taking your computers and printers. And they’re looking for some flyers advertising your P.I. business. Any idea why?”
“Not a clue, Leon. I had those flyers printed several years ago, when I first started the business. I still print a few on my own now and then, but I can’t imagine what they could possibly want with them.”
“Do you have any left?”
> “A few maybe, somewhere around my office. The document’s still on my computer, too.”
“Okay. Let’s see if we can get to the bottom of this.”
They headed back inside, and as soon as they rejoined the officers, Holter said, “I’d like you to come down to the sheriff’s department, O’Connor. I have a few questions I want to ask you.”
“Mind if I check in with my family first?”
“No, go right ahead.” Holter glanced at Papakee. “You’ll be accompanying your client, I imagine.”
“From here on, consider us joined at the hip, Phil.”
Holter gave a nod, almost dapper, as if welcoming the challenge of Papakee in the mix. He signaled to the agent who’d been standing in the driveway, and the man returned to his boxing of potential evidence.
Ed Larson said to Cork and Papakee, “We’ll see you down at the department, gentlemen,” then he and Holter left.
Inside the house, Cork found Jenny, Stephen, and Waaboo in the kitchen with Sheriff Marsha Dross. Dross had Waaboo on her lap. When Cork walked in, she looked up, and the smile that had been there dropped away.
“Hello, Cork,” she said.
Beyond the doorway that opened onto the rest of the house, Cork saw uniforms moving in the hallway that led to his office, and up the stairs that led to the bedrooms.
“Morning, Marsha.”
He worked at keeping his voice neutral. It was her job, he told himself, the job he’d once done and that he’d taught her to do. In her shoes, he’d have been forced to carry out the lawful search warrant. He might even have sat with the suspect’s grandchild on his lap. Still, the whole thing stuck in his craw.
“Everyone cooperating?” His eyes went to Jenny and Stephen.
“Everything’s fine, Dad.” Jenny smiled, pretty reasonably given the circumstances.
“Yeah,” Stephen agreed, though he didn’t really sound agreeable at all. “Except we still don’t know what they’re looking for or why they’re taking all our computer stuff.”
“They must have good reason, Stephen, or Judge Eide wouldn’t have signed the search warrant,” Cork told him.
“You mean like evidence that you had something to do with killing Mr. Little?”
“Is that it, Marsha?” Cork asked.
Dross handed Waaboo back to Jenny, scooted her chair from the table, and stood up. She spoke carefully. “I’m sure your father has told you that a lot of police investigation is done in order to eliminate possibilities. Nothing would please me more, Stephen, than to eliminate the possibility that your father was involved.”
“So that’s what you’re doing? Trying to prove he’s innocent?”
“What we’re doing is gathering evidence. It won’t be for us to determine anyone’s guilt or innocence. That’s what juries are for.”
Stephen looked as if he was about to argue, but Cork cut him off. “I need to go down to the sheriff’s department for a little while. You guys do everything you’re asked, okay?”
“Sure,” Stephen said, but it was clear he had his reservations.
* * *
Cork sat in the interview room where Larson had questioned him following Jubal Little’s death. Larson was there again, but this time it was Agent Phil Holter asking the questions, while Larson sat silent in a corner. Leon Papakee was there as well. Holter had stalled awhile in the beginning, and Cork wondered if Larson had insisted that he hold off until Dross returned from the house on Gooseberry Lane and could observe from the adjoining room where the proceedings were being recorded.
“So,” Holter continued, pressing Cork about the man he and Stephen had found dead on the ridge above Trickster’s Point, “you’d never seen that man before you stumbled on his body?”
“That’s right.”
“But you’ve seen this before.”
From an evidence envelope, Holter pulled a familiar flyer that had the name of Cork’s one-man security firm. It contained a listing of the kinds of jobs he would do. And contact information. In the lower right-hand corner there was a photograph of Cork that made him look like the kind of guy who not only would be able to see to your investigative needs but also could be relied on to keep to himself the secrets he might learn about you in the process. Cork had been pretty happy with that particular shot.
“Sure. I had those printed years ago, when I first hung out my shingle as a P.I.”
“What about this?”
Holter turned the flyer over. Printed on the other side was a contour map of the area around Trickster’s Point, taken from a U.S. Forest Service website. Below the map were instructions on how to find the logging road where the man ID’d as William Graham Chester had parked his vehicle, and the easiest route from there to the ridge overlooking Trickster’s Point.
“We found this in the glove box of Chester’s rental. It has your fingerprints, Chester’s fingerprints, and a set of prints we haven’t identified yet.”
“I put those flyers up all over Tamarack County. In every bar and Laundromat and grocery store with a bulletin board. Anybody could have got hold of this.”
Holter returned the flyer to the evidence envelope and frowned a moment, deep in thought. “You’ve told us that you and Little canoed from that landing on the eastern end of Lake Nanaboozhoo to Trickster’s Point. Is that still your story?”
“Agent Holter, we’re not happy with that particular phrasing. The word story suggests invention. What my client has told you is the truth.”
“I’m just wondering, Counselor, if maybe your client didn’t drop Little at Trickster’s Point and then paddle down the shoreline a mile or so.”
Cork said, “You mean to the landing spot Officer Berglund from the Border Patrol found, where someone walked in and joined the dead man? That wasn’t me, Holter. Jubal and I landed together.”
“And then split up? Was that a usual procedure when you hunted together?”
“Sometimes we’d separate because it gave us a better chance of coming across a deer trail to follow. Once we’d found something, we’d hook back up and hunt together. But on Saturday, we didn’t really split up. Jubal just went ahead of me while I stowed the paddles with the canoe.” Cork shifted in his chair and looked toward Larson, who’d been silent so far. “Have you followed up on this William Chester? Do you know anything about him?”
Larson spoke toward the ceiling light that masked the recording equipment. “Would you turn everything off, please.”
Dross’s voice came disembodied into the room. “You want us to stop recording?”
“Yes.” Then Larson said quietly to Papakee, “Counselor, I’d like to speak with your client for a few minutes, alone and off the record.”
“I don’t think—” Papakee began.
Cork cut him off. “I’m okay with it, Leon.”
“Hell, I’m not,” Holter blurted.
“You can lodge a complaint with Sheriff Dross if you’d like, Phil, but I’m going to talk with Cork, and I’m going to talk with him alone.”
Papakee gave Cork a clear look of warning, then shrugged and said, “I’ll be outside.”
Holter said, “You rural guys, you fuck everything up.”
Larson said, “Out, Agent Holter. I’ll let you know when you can come back in.”
When they were alone, Larson said, “William Graham Chester is a phony name. The driver’s license was a fake. Our guy’s still a John Doe.”
“What about the registration on the vehicle he drove out there?” Cork asked.
“A rental. He used a bogus credit card. We’ve run his fingerprints through AFIS. Nothing. This guy seems professional, and good enough that he’s been able to stay below the legal radar.” Larson shook his head. “Off the record, I think you’re being set up, Cork. But there may be some hope. We got prints off the arrow that killed the John Doe. They’re not yours.”
“But you don’t have a match on those either?”
“Not yet. They definitely don’t belong to anyone we’re curre
ntly looking at.” Larson took off his glasses, leaned to Cork confidentially, and said in a low voice, “Do you have any idea who would want Jubal dead and who would want you to take the fall for it?”
“Jubal received a lot of threats.”
“A lot of politicians, especially controversial ones, get threats. Very few get murdered. Who was crazy enough, or angry enough, to go through with the threat? And of those possibilities, who has something against you as well?”
“I don’t know, Ed. I’ll need to think about that.”
“Don’t think too long, Cork. The way this is playing out, I get the feeling that someone’s gone through a lot of trouble to set you up. The trap hasn’t sprung yet, but that doesn’t mean it won’t. If it does, I’d hate to see you caught in it.”
Cork managed a smile and said, “You and me both.”
CHAPTER 24
Whenever Cork lied, he was usually able to convince himself that it was for the best of reasons. In the interview room of the Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department, he’d lied to Ed Larson. Larson had asked him if he knew who might want Jubal Little dead and also have enough of a grudge against Cork to want him to suffer in the bargain. Cork had said he’d have to think about it. In truth, however, two pretty solid possibilities had readily come to mind. He held back from telling Larson his suspicions because he knew that in Tamarack County word could spread quickly, and before he was responsible for the shadow of suspicion falling across other innocent folks, he wanted to do a little investigating on his own. At least, that’s what he told himself.
He hadn’t eaten at all that day and was famished. He grabbed a breakfast sandwich—biscuit, egg, sausage, cheese—and a cup of coffee from a convenience store on his way out of town and headed toward Yellow Lake, a community a few miles south of Aurora. Just outside that small town, he pulled off the road and parked in front of a long, ramshackle structure built of corrugated metal and that was decorated with signage crying out archery supplies, bow-hunting equipment, targets, decoys, and a fully equipped indoor practice range. Above the entrance loomed a huge, handcrafted placard that read: STRAIGHT ARROW, INC.
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