Lightning Strike

by William Kent Krueger

  “Have you bought anything yet?” his father asked.

  Cork shook his head. “But I kinda know what I’m going to get her. What did you get her?”

  “What I always do, and what she expects. Wind Song cologne and bath powder.”

  “Why do women think they have to smell nice?”

  “Don’t you like that they smell nice?”

  “I guess. But I’m glad I’m not a girl. I don’t have to worry so much about how I smell.”

  “Maybe you should,” his father said and waved a hand in front of his nose. Then he smiled. “You’ll be worrying about it soon enough.”

  The toast popped up and Cork spread the pieces with peanut butter and gooseberry jam. “What are you going to do with those bottles you found at Big John’s?”

  His father took a few moments to respond, and Cork thought maybe he was considering whether he’d answer at all. Finally, he said, “I’m having them dusted for fingerprints.”

  “Why?”

  “Everybody on the rez tells me that Big John didn’t drink. His blood alcohol level says they’re wrong. If he was drinking, I want to know if he was drinking alone. If not, who was with him.”

  “What if his are the only fingerprints?”

  “Then I’ll have to accept that maybe folks on the rez didn’t know about his drinking and weren’t just covering for him.”

  There was a knock at the back door. Cork’s father looked surprised and when he got up to answer, found Sam Winter Moon standing there.

  “Saw the kitchen light on, Liam,” Sam said.

  “Come on in.” Cork’s father stepped aside to let his friend enter.

  “Boozhoo, Cork,” Sam said, using the Ojibwe greeting.

  Jackson trotted to him, and he gave the dog a good petting. When they were all seated, Sam reached into his pocket and brought out a silver cigarette lighter. He slid it across the tabletop to Liam O’Connor.

  “Got that from Oscar after he sobered up and cooled down some,” he said.

  Cork’s father picked up the lighter and turned it over and over, studying it.

  “Fingerprints,” Cork said, because his father was always talking about care in handling evidence.

  “It’s been through too many hands now, Cork.”

  “See the inscription?” Sam said. “And the initials?”

  “ ‘Alba gu bràth, D.M.’ ” his father read.

  “What?” Cork said.

  “It’s Gaelic, Cork. In Irish, we’d say ‘Erin go Bragh.’ Means ‘Ireland Forever.’ I’m pretty sure this is Scottish and probably means basically the same thing about that country.”

  Cork thought a moment. “D.M. What’s that?”

  “Initials, maybe,” his father said.

  One name came quickly into Cork’s mind. “Mr. MacDermid? He’s Scottish, right?”

  “Bright boy,” Sam said.

  “Did Oscar pick up on that?” Cork’s father asked.

  “He didn’t say anything, and I suspect if he understood he would have said plenty.”

  “A crumb?” Cork said, nodding toward the lighter.

  “Crumb?” Then his father got it. “I don’t know, Cork.” He stood the lighter on the table, and it reminded Cork of a headstone in a cemetery. “Maybe.”

  “I’m heading out to talk to Henry,” Sam said. “Something I want to run by him. Care to come along, Liam?”

  “I’ve got a few questions I wouldn’t mind putting to him.”

  “Can I come?” Cork asked.

  His father and Sam exchanged a look, and his father said, “Don’t see why not. But let’s leave your mom a note so she doesn’t worry.”

  * * *

  Henry Meloux lived alone in a cabin he’d built as a young man on Crow Point, far north on Iron Lake at the edge of the reservation. Sam Winter Moon parked his pickup truck on the side of a narrow, graveled county road, and he and Cork’s father and Cork set out along a path that wove two miles through thick forest. They crossed Wine Creek, and not far beyond that broke from the trees and entered a broad meadow full of wildflowers and timothy and thistle. Meloux’s cabin stood on the far side. As the visitors approached, a dog set to barking. This was Makwa, Meloux’s only companion.

  Meloux met them at his cabin door, Makwa at his side. In the language of the Ojibwe, Makwa meant “bear.” The dog was huge and shaggy, a mix of breeds, none of which Cork had ever been able to identify. Despite the great beast’s fearsome appearance, Makwa’s bushy tail wagged eagerly, and he came forward to nuzzle Cork’s outstretched hand.

  “Hey there, boy. How you doing?”

  “He has spent his morning worrying rabbits,” Meloux said. “It keeps him from other mischief.” The Mide looked at Liam O’Connor and Sam Winter Moon. “The day has barely broken. This must be important.”

  “It is, Henry.” Sam and Cork’s father both gave Meloux tobacco, which they’d brought to thank the Mide for his time and his wisdom.

  Meloux said, “Let us smoke and talk. Wait here.”

  He went into his cabin and a minute later, returned with a beaded pouch and a long-stemmed pipe. He led the way along a path that cut across the meadow and between two outcroppings of high rock. On the other side of the rocks lay a circle of stones with a great bedding of char and ash at the center. Beyond a line of aspen, the water of Iron Lake burned with the gold light of early day.

  Cork and the others sat cross-legged on the sparse grass outside the fire ring. Makwa trotted past them and sniffed his way down the shoreline. Meloux offered tobacco to the spirits of the four directions, then filled his pipe from the beaded pouch and, once it was lit, passed it to the others. The pipe came to Cork last, and he looked to Meloux for permission to smoke with the men. Meloux shook his head. When Cork handed him the pipe, Meloux gave him a pinch of tobacco to offer the spirits instead.

  After they’d sat in silence for a while, with the sun on the rise and the morning air warming and the smell of countless sacred fires all around them, the Mide said, “Ask.”

  Sam said, “On the rez, people are talking. They’ve seen something that scares them. They’re saying Big John’s spirit didn’t make the journey on the Path of Souls.”

  “I saw it,” Cork said. “First out at Lightning Strike, then in town yesterday morning, when I was doing my paper route.”

  His father said, “I’m guessing that Louisville Slugger you hauled around this morning wasn’t because of a worrisome dog.”

  “No, sir.”

  Sam said, “On the rez, they’re saying you might have an idea why he hasn’t walked the Path of Souls, Henry. Word is Big John was troubled about something and did a sweat with you just before he died.”

  “Do you know a human being who is not troubled?” Meloux replied. “If you do, I would like to meet that person.”

  “People are wondering if his death had anything to do with the reason for his sweat, and maybe the reason his spirit isn’t at rest. They’re wondering what he might have prayed for in that last sweat.”

  “If you came to me for a sweat, Sam Winter Moon, and I heard your prayers spoken to the Great Mystery, would you want me to tell others what was in your heart?”

  Cork’s father said, “If it helped get to the bottom of a death that might not be what it seems, I would certainly want that.”

  Meloux’s dark eyes leveled on him. “You think you know what the heart of a dead man would want?”

  “What I think is that you’re not going to tell us anything, Henry,” Cork’s father said. “I wish to God you would just say that plainly.”

  “You talk about what the heart wants, Liam O’Connor, what the heart knows. Do you listen to your own heart?”

  “I try.”

  “That is what you tell yourself, but I think you do not do this often enough.”

  “I’m a cop, Henry. I’m trained to look at evidence, and evidence is what I’m looking for here.”

  “Which you will interpret with your brain.”

&nbs
p; “Logic. Reasoning. It’s what a good cop uses. He collects facts, collects evidence, and tries to put things together so that they make sense. It’s the only way I know how to get to the truth.”

  “The heart has its own logic, its own reasoning, its own way to the truth.”

  “Just tell me, Henry. Do you think Big John killed himself?”

  “You ask for a shortcut in your own understanding of the truth. The only truth worth defending, Liam O’Connor, is the one you find on your own.”

  Cork’s father reached into his pocket and pulled out the lighter Sam Winter Moon had given him. “Oscar Manydeeds claims he found this at Lightning Strike. I’m pretty sure it belongs to Duncan MacDermid. Do you know why it might have been found where Big John died?”

  “I do not.”

  “You know of nothing that might tie Duncan MacDermid to Big John’s death?”

  His father’s tone was harsh, tight with frustration, and Cork thought Meloux might respond with anger. Instead, the man said, “You are like a deerfly, Liam O’Connor. No matter how many times I shoo you away, you keep trying to bite me. I have said all I will say on this matter. Now go, or I will be forced to squash you like a deerfly.”

  “Migwech, Henry,” Sam said, thanking the Mide. He stood, and the look he gave Cork’s father said it was wise for him to follow.

  “I may not know the truth in another man’s heart, Henry,” Liam O’Connor said, “but I know when a man is keeping secrets. I don’t know who you’re trying to protect or why, but I swear to you I’m going to find out.” He stood brusquely. “Let’s go, Cork.”

  They trooped in silence across the meadow, into the trees, and back along the path that would take them to the place where Sam had parked his truck. From the way his father held his fists clenched, Cork could tell he was angry.

  “I would like to have seen that,” Sam Winter Moon finally said, in a way that made Cork think he was about to laugh.

  “Seen what?” Liam O’Connor said.

  “Henry squash you like a deerfly.”

  Cork’s father walked on several more steps, then relaxed and unclenched his fists. “He could do it, couldn’t he?”

  “And you’d never know what hit you.”

  Sam laughed. After a moment, Liam O’Connor joined him in that, and Cork thought his father should do as Meloux had advised and listen more often to his heart, because it was a good one.

  CHAPTER 16

  The first book Cork had ever bought with his own money was Treasure Island. He’d purchased it on the advice of Sandie Herron, owner of The Novel Idea. Since then, at her urging, he’d bought Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Time Machine, The Call of the Wild, and The Hound of the Baskervilles. He’d checked out other books by the same authors from the library, but these five he owned and kept on a shelf in his bedroom and he’d read each of them at least three times.

  When he walked into the bookstore that Saturday morning, Sandie—she’d told him never to call her Mrs. Herron; that was too formal for two people who shared a love of books—was helping another customer, Astrid Lankinen, a nearly deaf old woman who was also a customer of Cork’s on one of the afternoon paper routes he shared with Jorge. She always put off paying him when he came monthly to her door to collect for the delivered papers, and when she did finally cough up what she owed, there was never a tip included.

  “You’re sure I’ll like this?” the old woman was saying. “Because I don’t want to waste good money on trash.”

  “I know how much you appreciate Agatha Christie, Astrid.”

  “What?” The old woman leaned nearer and cupped her hand behind her ear. “Speak up. I can’t hear you.”

  “Agatha Christie, Astrid,” Sandie said patiently and with greater volume. “I know how much you like her work. P. D. James is a bit different, but she writes a marvelous mystery, and like Christie’s, her stories are set in England. This is her second novel, and I believe it’s even better than her first.”

  “And if I don’t like it?”

  “Well, Astrid, I guess you can always go somewhere else to buy your books.”

  “Hmmm.” The old woman looked at the novel as if it might bite her. “I’ll take it, but you’ll hear from me if it’s a disappointment.”

  “But you won’t hear from me, will you?” Sandie said quietly. “Because you never wear your damn hearing aid.”

  “What?”

  Sandie spotted Cork and put up a hand, signaling him to wait while she finished with Mrs. Lankinen. After the old lady had tottered past Cork and out the door, Sandie came to him smiling.

  “How’s my favorite young reader? Here for another recommendation?”

  “A birthday present for my mother.”

  “It’s Colleen’s birthday?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Do you know what you’d like to get her?”

  “Not really. I just know she loves to read.”

  “I think I might have just the thing. Follow me.” She went down an aisle and pulled a book from the shelf. “You know Charles Lindbergh, yes?”

  “He flew across the Atlantic. Jimmy Stewart played him in the movie.”

  “That’s right. This book is by his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. It was published a few years ago, but it’s timeless, and I believe it would speak meaningfully to your mother.”

  The book’s title was Gifts from the Sea. Cork liked the cover.

  “And I’ll tell you what. Wait here.” She left him for half a minute, and on returning, placed a paperback novel atop the Lindbergh book. The cover was dark, full of mist half-hiding an old castle and a woman who seemed terrified and looked to be running away. “I know Colleen has a weakness for Gothic romance, so I’ll toss this in as a birthday gift from me. I’ll even wrap them up for you.”

  Sandie had just handed him the beautifully wrapped books when the bell above the door jingled. A woman stepped up next to Cork at the counter, and Sandie said, “Good morning, Mary Margaret.”

  Mrs. MacDermid, wife of the mine owner, always moved in a way that reminded Cork of a doe in a forest meadow, graceful but ever alert for danger. On Sundays, when Cork saw her sitting beside her husband in their family pew at St. Agnes, she never looked happy. He’d sometimes wondered if her somber appearance was simply the effect of the Mass, that long, sacred ceremony, or if it was the result of having to sit so near a man whom most of the population of Tamarack County either feared or hated. He’d never spoken to her, nor she to him, and he thought she probably had no idea who he was.

  But when she glanced down at him, she said brightly, “Good morning, Cork.”

  Despite his surprise, he managed to reply, “Good morning, Mrs. MacDermid.”

  “Gifts, I see.”

  “For my mother,” he said. “Tomorrow’s her birthday.”

  “Well, please wish her a happy birthday for me.”

  “I will, ma’am. Thank you.”

  She smiled politely and waited, and he realized she was dismissing him.

  He stepped outside, paused in the shade of the awning, and tried to make sense of something. Because wafting off Mrs. MacDermid in the bookstore had been the same scent Mrs. Pflugleman had worn at Big John’s wake, the one she’d told him was called Shalimar, the fragrance he’d smelled on the folded note in Big John’s grave.

  When she exited the store, she didn’t seem to notice Cork. As she passed others on the sidewalk, they gave respectful nods and moved aside for her, which made him think of how nobles were treated by underlings in the books he’d read by Robert Louis Stevenson.

  * * *

  Liam had grown up in Chicago, Illinois, the son and grandson of Irish cops. He was a city kid, but when he’d married Colleen, who was adamant that she couldn’t live in a city, he’d uprooted himself and resettled in her hometown of Aurora, Minnesota. He’d quickly become enamored of the beauty, the isolation, and maybe especially the pine fragrance of the great Northwoods, which was a far cry from the odor of hot tar on the Chic
ago streets, the smell of exhaust fumes, and the odious drift from the stockyards and slaughterhouses.

  Sam Winter Moon had, in a way, taken him under his wing, and Liam was soon well acquainted with the Boundary Waters, with canoeing and portaging and everything that went along with setting up camp. When Cork came along, Liam introduced him early to the joys of roughing it. Once Cork was old enough for the scouting program, Liam served in a number of adult capacities, often accompanying the boys on their outings into the woods that surrounded them.

  On that Saturday afternoon, he’d volunteered, along with Cork, to help teach some skills to Cub Scouts who’d never camped before. They’d assembled on the lawn in front of St. Agnes, which was where the Scout troop met every Wednesday evening and where the camping gear was stored. Mostly he stood back and observed the older scouts at work, offering advice when needed. He was pleased with his son’s patience in helping the younger boys as they stumbled about setting up the canvas tents.

  Father Cameron Ferguson was also there. He’d been an Eagle Scout and as soon as he’d been appointed to serve at St. Agnes, had thrown himself into helping with the scouting program. After the tents were all set up and Conrad Dordt, who was the current scoutmaster, was preparing to deliver a lesson on honing knife and ax blades, Liam signaled to Father Cam that he wanted to talk to him.

  They stepped into the narthex of the church, where they could still see the gathering of scouts through the open front door.

  “What’s up, Liam?” the priest asked. He was thirty-three years old, handsome, with an athlete’s build and blond hair as thick as a lion’s mane. Liam had heard his wife comment that a lot of gorgeous manhood had been sacrificed in the name of the Church.

  “You knew Big John,” Liam said.

  “Of course. We all did.”

  “You gave him the Eucharist.”

  “Many times.”

  “And heard his confessions.”

  The priest, who’d been following with nods, suddenly grew still.