Lightning Strike

by William Kent Krueger

  “There’s a precise formulation, based on the size and weight of the animal.”

  “How about an animal that weighed, say, two hundred fifty pounds? A strong animal. Would that be a difficult formulation?”

  “Not really.”

  “And what if the animal were dangerous and you couldn’t get near it? How would you deliver the drug?”

  “I’d probably put it in the animal’s food.”

  “And if you needed to sedate the animal immediately?”

  “I’d probably use a dart.”

  “Are you a pretty good shot?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “Your wife told me you went fishing the weekend after the Fourth of July.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  “Lake Superior. Out of Grand Marais.”

  “Fishing for salmon?”

  “And steelhead. We fish for pretty much anything.”

  “We? You didn’t go alone?”

  “My brother and Nick Skinner went with me.”

  “An annual kind of outing for the three of you, Moira told me. How long do you stay?”

  “Five or six days, usually.”

  “Any luck with the fishing this time around?”

  The vet coughed, and the words came out dry and scratchy. “Not this time.”

  “Moira said you came back early. After only a day or so. The fishing must’ve been really bad.”

  “Yes.”

  “You go far out to catch salmon?”

  “Usually.”

  “What kind of boat did you use?”

  “Ben arranged for it. I don’t know who supplied it.”

  “Ben would know though, right?”

  The vet tried to answer but the words seemed to catch in his throat.

  “Would you like some water, Dave?”

  The vet nodded.

  “In a minute. Where did you stay in Grand Marais?”

  “A cabin somewhere on the shore.”

  “What cabin?”

  “I… don’t recall exactly.”

  “Ben made the arrangements?”

  The vet nodded.

  Liam put his forearms on his desk and leaned toward Doctor Dave. “So, if we followed up on that, we’d be able to find someone in Grand Marais who could verify the cabin and boat rental?”

  “You’d…” The vet swallowed hard. “You’d have to talk to Ben.”

  “We’d like to talk to Ben, but he’s not around at the moment. Any idea where he might be?”

  Doctor Dave’s eyes slid away from Liam. The vet stared down at the scarred and wounded top of Liam’s desk and shook his head.

  “You’ve known each other a long time, you and Ben and Nick Skinner. Since you were kids, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “The Three Musketeers. One for all and all for one. I understand you were Boy Scouts together. Did you ever go with your troop up Spider Creek to Moose Lake?”

  The vet coughed and, with the back of his hand, wiped at the sweat dripping from his brow. “That water,” he said.

  “In a minute. Your brother called you late this afternoon at the clinic.”

  After a long silence, during which the vet seemed to be waiting for Liam to go on, Doctor Dave swallowed and said, “He wanted some help with something.”

  Liam continued to wait.

  “Some, you know, some…” The vet breathed heavily now and couldn’t find his next words. His red Ban-Lon sport shirt was soaked through with sweat.

  The air was humid, stifling. It would have been dead silent in Liam’s small office except for the fast, shallow breathing of the man across the desk from him.

  “Do you know how much Big John Manydeeds weighed?” Liam finally asked.

  “I…” The vet put his fingers to his brow as if he were dizzy and his head needed steadying. “I… would guess two hundred and fifty pounds.”

  “That was before the crows and the maggots got to his body.” When Liam spoke next, his voice was gentle, as if coaxing a frightened animal. “Where did you place the dart, Dave?”

  The veterinarian swayed a little in his chair, and his blue eyes, when they gazed at Liam, seemed to be swimming.

  “The dart, Dave. Where did you shoot Big John Manydeeds with the dart?”

  Doctor Dave’s face had gone the color of a cauliflower. He struggled to sit up straight, but his body wilted and seemed to melt into his chair. He looked at the sheriff in the way that Liam imagined people in the confessional might look at Father Cam.

  Doctor Dave’s words, when he finally offered them, were a guttural choking. “In the back,” he said. And he began to cry.

  CHAPTER 56

  The fire lit their faces in shifting yellow hues, and the moon bathed the lake and everything around them in brilliant white. There was a slight breeze, and the boys could hear the gentle susurrus of waves lapping against the rocks on Eagle Point. They’d eaten in a subdued quiet, Cork for his part feeling a little dazed. He understood only too well that they were sitting where Louise LaRose had sat a month before, that the moon he was seeing gave the same light as the moon that had hung above her, perhaps on the night she’d been killed, if she’d been killed at night. Maybe she, too, had heard the soft lulling of the waves. She’d been like him, he thought, and like Jorge, and like Billy, just a kid with her whole life ahead of her. And then that life had ended. Ended brutally. She’d been just a victim before. Now, she was a person, and Cork felt a genuine sorrow, one he wanted to talk about but could not. So, like the other boys, he held to silence.

  It was Billy who broke the spell. “Crumbs,” he said.

  Jorge said, “Huh?”

  “Crumbs,” Billy said. “It was what Henry Meloux told us. To follow the crumbs. This is where they brought us.” He nodded toward Cork’s backpack, into which they’d put the burned beaded fabric and the broken gold chain with its Marine insignia medallion. A thoughtful look came over his face. “If it hadn’t got so late or if we decided to stay somewhere else tonight or if I didn’t take the flashlight with me down to the lake, I wouldn’t have seen that gold chain flashing in the water.”

  Jorge eyed him. “What’re you saying?”

  “Just that it’s kinda strange how things worked out. Like we were supposed to find that stuff.”

  “My dad would call it due diligence,” Cork told him. “We just followed a logical course, and this is where it took us.”

  “You’re dad’s a cop, and he’s not Shinnob. Me, I’m thinking different,” Billy said. “I’m thinking about my uncle. I’m thinking Big John had a hand in this. He wanted us to find that eagle, globe, and anchor. He was no Marine. He wanted us to know it wasn’t him who killed her. And he wanted us to find his killer, too.” Billy tossed a stick onto the fire. “Maybe now he can finally walk the Path of Souls.”

  “Not until we know who that gold chain belongs to,” Cork said.

  “Your dad can figure that out, can’t he?” Jorge said.

  “Maybe,” Cork said. That didn’t sound very hopeful, so he said, “Sure.”

  The flames were diminishing, and Jorge took a long stick from the wood they’d gathered and poked at the fire. As it came back to life, he said, “Who do you think that chain belongs to?”

  Billy said, “It’s solid gold. No Shinnob would wear something like that.”

  “Why?” Jorge asked.

  “Waste of money,” Billy said. “You could probably buy a refrigerator or something with what that chain cost. If I was going to spend a lot of money on something to wear, I’d buy a good pair of cowboy boots.”

  “Shit kickers?” Jorge said.

  “Damn right. Tony Lamas,” Billy said. “Girls, they’d go crazy for me.”

  “They’d have to be looking at your boots, not your face,” Jorge said and laughed. “Me, I’d buy a Corvette, just like the one on Route 66. Chick magnet.”

  “You wouldn’t be able to drive it till you’re sixteen,” Cor
k pointed out.

  “Fifteen,” Billy said. “But his mom would have to go with him. Some chick magnet.” And this time it was Billy laughing.

  After a while, Jorge said, “What’s California like?”

  “Cuz you might move there?” Billy said.

  “Maybe.”

  “Too many people. You’d think nobody would notice you, but they stare. You’d think you wouldn’t get lonely, but you do.”

  “Lots of other Indians from the reservation moved there, didn’t they?” Jorge said.

  “We never see them. My mom says that’s what the government wants. To separate us so we can’t be who we are. She doesn’t want to go back. Me neither.”

  “What about your dad?”

  Billy shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

  “It sucks,” Jorge said.

  “It sucks,” Cork agreed.

  The night seemed suddenly bleaker and more oppressive, and Cork threw more wood onto the fire so that it blazed brightly.

  “Scooter Grimes. On Eagle Point. With the lead pipe,” Jorge said.

  Billy stared at him. “Huh?”

  “Like in Clue,” Jorge said.

  “That’s sick,” Billy said. Then he seemed to think about it. “But maybe Scooter Grimes. He’s creepy and I heard he hates Indians. Won’t let ’em pump gas at his station.”

  “I heard he drinks like a fish. And I heard his wife ran away with some preacher who came through town with a tent revival,” Jorge said. “When Scooter tracked her down, he beat her and the preacher both and nearly killed them.”

  “My dad says that’s not true,” Cork told him. “And was Scooter a Marine?”

  Neither of the other boys could answer that one.

  “It was someone who knows how to come up Spider Creek,” Cork reminded them. “And who was a Marine. And…”

  “And what?” Jorge said.

  Cork spoke slowly as he put his thoughts together. “Big John must’ve passed by here on his way into or out of Moose Lake and saw the killer with Louise. Whoever it was, that guy waited for him on Spider Creek, drugged him, took him to Lightning Strike, and strung him up. So, it was either someone strong enough to haul Big John around. Or…”

  The other two boys waited.

  “Or there was more than one,” Cork concluded.

  “One of them was for sure a Marine,” Jorge said.

  “And one had some of Uncle Oscar’s horse-killing drug,” Billy added.

  “And they’re bastard enough to kill a girl and try to sink her body in the lake,” Cork said.

  There was a long moment of silence as they all thought this over, then Jorge said, “But who?”

  None of them had an answer for that one, and they sat staring into the fire. After a while, they talked about other things and let the fire die down to low flames, then finally rolled out their sleeping bags and lay under the stars.

  Cork stared up at the Milky Way, which was half swallowed by the glow of the moon, and he thought about Louise LaRose. Life could be difficult on the rez, he knew, and even harder now that so many Shinnobs had left and gone to cities because the government had promised them jobs and a better life, and families and clans had been torn apart. Which, Grandma Dilsey maintained, was exactly the purpose of the Relocation Act. Alcohol had always been a problem, and it was hard to keep to the old ways. But Big John had broken free of the hold of booze and come back. Maybe Louise would have, too, if she’d lived long enough and if she’d had someone like Henry Meloux to guide her.

  Louise was beyond help now. But maybe, Cork thought, just maybe she would have some justice in the end. He and Jorge and Billy had followed crumbs, and they’d found evidence that his father might be able to use. And maybe now Big John could walk the Path of Souls and maybe as he went, he could hold the hand of the spirit of Louise LaRose, and maybe when they reached that place the Anishinaabeg called Gaagige Minawaanigoziwining, they could finally be at peace.

  Cork closed his eyes and fell asleep, his heart pillowed on that hope.

  CHAPTER 57

  It had been a terrible thing to carry, Doctor Dave confessed. All that guilt. But it hadn’t been his fault, none of it.

  “We were supposed to go fishing on Superior, but Ben changed the plan. I didn’t know he was bringing the girl along until I got to Spider Creek. I should’ve backed out then and there. I mean, she was just a kid.”

  “She went willingly?” Liam asked.

  “Yeah. Not bowled over with enthusiasm, but Ben must’ve made promises. She was pretty quiet. Until he got her drinking.”

  “Why Moose Lake?”

  “Ben wanted to be somewhere we wouldn’t be seen with the girl and that wouldn’t take us all day to get to. Have you ever been to Moose Lake? Pretty much nobody goes there unless they’re Ojibwe.”

  “Like Big John. What happened, Dave?”

  “We got ourselves set up on Eagle Point. That’s the first place that’s good for camping. Ben brings out the booze right away and pours himself and the girl a drink. And like he was on cue, the Indian comes paddling by and spots us and the girl. He comes over to the point, climbs up to where we’re camping. Ben gives this big hello, all friendly. The Indian just stands there staring at the girl. Then he says something to her in their language. She says something back. He shakes his head and speaks to her a long time, real gentle. But she snaps back at him and waves him off. He looks at us and says he’s coming back the next afternoon and we’d better be gone back to Aurora. He makes some noise about talking to the sheriff, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and all that. Then he takes off, paddles out into Moose Lake.”

  “Did you leave then?”

  “I wanted to. I’ve got a reputation here. Ben said the hell with him. Who listens to Indians anyway?”

  “Did Nick Skinner say anything?”

  “Not about that. All he could talk about was being pissed off at MacDermid. He’d been trying to get his hotel plan off the ground but MacDermid was putting up roadblocks at every turn.”

  “Why?”

  “Didn’t want the hotel to change the face of the town his family built. Something like that. Nick was in deep, pretty much invested everything he had in the project. He started drinking as soon as we made camp. Turned him surly.”

  “The girl. What happened to her?”

  “It was an accident, God’s truth. She fell and hit her head.”

  “How?”

  “We’d all been drinking pretty heavily by then. Ben suggested we go skinny-dipping. Nick and I passed, but the girl was fine with that. She and Ben went down to the water, both of them walking pretty unsteady. They stripped, and she tried to go in, but she slipped on the rocks. She went down hard, hit the back of her head. And that was that.”

  “You mean she was dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “You checked her?”

  “I did. I didn’t find a pulse.”

  “How drunk were you?”

  The vet shrugged. “Pretty drunk, I guess.”

  Liam said, “She wasn’t dead.”

  “What?”

  “Louise LaRose wasn’t dead when you sank her body in the lake.”

  “No.” Doctor Dave shook his violently. “She was dead.”

  “The autopsy told a different story. There was water in her lungs, Dave. She drowned.”

  “Oh, God. Oh, Jesus. What did we do?”

  “It wasn’t an accident. You killed her.”

  He’d looked ashen before. Now he went perfectly white.

  “And you killed Big John because he knew about the Three Musketeers and Louise LaRose.”

  “I didn’t kill him. I just shot the dart. Nick and Ben, they did the rest.”

  “What about the alcohol in his blood? Did you inject that?”

  He shook his head. “I gave them a syringe. They shot him up.”

  “Why Lightning Strike? Why not just jump him at Moose Lake and sink his body like you did with Louise LaRose?”

 
“We broke camp at first light in the morning. We knew he was coming back and he’d warned us to be gone. We’d left our vehicles at Lightning Strike. By the time we got back there, Nick was convinced we had to do something about Manydeeds. He knew MacDermid’s wife had been meeting the Indian out there, before she called it off.”

  “And he thought you could make it look like the suicide of a drunk and distraught man?”

  He nodded, though he seemed to have barely the strength even for that.

  “The rope he used came from Duncan MacDermid’s boathouse. Why?”

  “That was Nick’s idea, too. He figured if there was any question, MacDermid would be the one looking guilty. He was hoping that would happen, in fact. For him, I think it was payback because MacDermid had been doing all he could to keep Nick’s precious hotel from being built.”

  “And the Four Roses?”

  “Part of Nick’s brilliant plan. MacDermid’s favorite. Ben got a couple of bottles from his bar. That’s what they used to inject Manydeeds. They left the empties out at Lightning Strike.”

  “Then your brother bought two more cases in Duluth and emptied those bottles and put them in back of Big John’s cabin?”

  “Nick’s always thought he was smarter than everybody else. He said they’d never look at us.”

  There was a knock at the door to Liam’s office and Cy Borkman stepped in.

  “Skinner?” Liam asked.

  “Couldn’t find him, Sheriff. Looked everywhere. Nobody’s seen him.”

  Liam eyed the veterinarian. “Do you have any idea where he might be?”

  Doctor Dave nodded. “That call from my brother this afternoon. He wanted me to go with him and Nick out to Moose Lake.”

  “Why?”

  “Nick thought some kids were heading out there, going to try to locate where the girl died. He wanted to get to Moose Lake ahead of them to make sure there was nothing to find.”

  “Was there something to find?”

  “When the girl went down on those rocks, she grabbed at Ben, got hold of this necklace he wears with a Marine medallion. She pulled it off and it went flying. In all the panic after that, we forgot about it. Nick wanted to look for it or anything else we might have left behind.”