Heaven's Keep (21 page)

“No.”

“Would it be in his records?”

“I’m sure it would be. He was meticulous.”

“I’d like to check his home office. And can you give me access to his office at the regional airport down there?”

“Of course.”

“Okay. Tomorrow I’ll drive to Rice Lake and have a look.” Cork
drank from the beer that had begun to warm in his hand. “Now, there’s something else we need to discuss, and this is a little scary.”

Burns said, “Steve Stilwell.”

“That’s right. I think we need to assume the worst. Someone took him out of the picture.”

“They killed him?” Becca said.

“That would be my guess.”

“Isn’t it possible they just bought his silence?”

“Then he’d have stuck around and lied to you, told you he didn’t find anything. And buying his silence is risky. He might decide to talk a blue streak to authorities later. I think he found something or he was getting close to finding something and they killed him. Which means they know you’re looking into things.”

“And that you’re helping?”

“Maybe.”

“Who’s they? And should we be worried for our safety, too?”

“At the moment we don’t know who these people are. I can’t imagine that they’re going to kill us outright. Too suspicious. If they decide to act, they’ll figure a way, like they did with the plane, to get rid of us and make it look like it wasn’t murder.”

“Like what?” Burns said.

“How do you heat this house? Natural gas?”

“Yes.”

“Then a gas explosion. Or a drained brake line on your car. Or carbon monoxide poisoning while you sleep. For guys who know what they’re doing—and it sure as hell looks as if they do—the list is probably endless.”

The women shot a glance at each other and the eyes of one mirrored the concern in those of the other.

“What do we do?” Burns asked.

“Whoever we’re dealing with probably won’t take any action until they believe we’ve found something that’ll make the right people listen. In the meantime, I’m guessing that I’ll be the guy they dog.”

“Cork, we didn’t mean to get you involved this way,” Burns said.

“No? What way did you have in mind?” He smiled briefly, then he said, “I lost someone I loved, too. And if there’s a human hand responsible, I’ve got to know. Stilwell operated out of Duluth, right, Liz?”

She nodded. “He’s got an office in Canal Park.”

“You know where he lived?”

“I can find out. Just a minute.” She got up and vanished down the white tunnel of the hallway toward the den.

Becca stared into the Pepsi in her glass. The ice cubes had melted. She spoke without looking at Cork. “My husband was murdered, wasn’t he?”

“I think he was probably dead before that plane lifted off from the airport in Rice Lake.”

“I figured he was somewhere in those mountains in Wyoming. But his body is probably closer to home, don’t you think?” Still she couldn’t look at him.

“Yes, that’s what I think.”

“Do you think…” She bowed her head, as if immeasurably weary. “Do you think you can find him?”

“I don’t know. I’ll try.”

Finally she looked at him, and he saw in her dark eyes a sad determination. “I want to know what happened. No matter how terrible, I want to know.”

“I understand,” he said.

She got up, walked to one of the long windows, and stared at the angry lake.

Liz Burns returned with a slip of paper on which she’d written Stilwell’s office and home addresses. She also brought a small handgun, a North American Arms .25 Guardian.

“I had a stalker once, a client who developed an unhealthy attachment to me. I bought this for protection.”

“Know how to use it?” Cork asked.

“I fired at the range a few times after I got it. But that was a while ago.”

“I’d visit the range again,” Cork said. He looked toward Becca
Bodine, who was still at the window, staring at the lake. “Becca, do you have anything to protect yourself, should it come to that?”

She spoke with her back to him. “Sandy was a hunter. We have a cabinet full of rifles.”

“And you know how to shoot?”

“Yes.” She turned toward him, and her eyes were as turbulent as the lake behind her. “And I’d love the chance to prove it.”

C
anal Park was a thriving commercial district that had once been mostly warehouses and junkyards. Its name came from the cut of the shipping canal through which the great ore boats and other freighters traveled to reach the deep harbor. The old maritime buildings had been refurbished and remodeled and had become home to restaurants and boutiques and offices and lofts. Stilwell’s office was in a building whose first floor housed a number of small shops and a funky little diner. The sign on the diner door said the soup that day was mulligatawny, and when Cork walked past, the tantalizing aroma of curry powder and ginger tried to seduce him. He passed a small bookstore and a souvenir shop, both nearly empty, and took the elevator to the third floor, which was totally deserted. The door to Stilwell’s office was locked. Cork tried to peer through a long pane of translucent glass, but all he could see on the other side was bright sunlight and the dark suggestions of furnishings. The door had two locks: a dead bolt and a knob lock, each of simple pin-and-cylinder design. He pulled a pair of tight leather gloves from the outside pockets of his jacket and tugged them on. From the inside pocket of the jacket, he pulled a small leather case that contained a set of lock picks. He tried raking the dead bolt first but got nowhere. Then he used a pick and tension wrench and after a couple of minutes managed to slide the dead bolt. He quickly sprang the knob lock and slipped inside the office.

Cork stood for a moment, taking in the place. It was a one-man operation: a large desk with a computer monitor, phone, and desk calendar; two tan, five-drawer file cabinets; on the wall, a framed
aerial photograph of Duluth; a healthy-looking rubber tree near the window; behind the desk, a deluxe computer chair in black micro-suede, and in front of the desk, a matching chair for clients. Cork walked to the desk and checked the calendar, which turned out to be of the
Far Side
variety. The page that was showing—a cartoon with a couple of lions and an idiot hunter—was outdated by nearly a week. Cork flipped back through the dates and saw quickly that Stilwell didn’t use the calendar to track appointments. He checked the desk drawers, then went to the file cabinets, which were locked. He used his pick set again. Carefully he went through each drawer and found nothing of interest. He pulled a couple of client files, just to get a feel for how well Stilwell documented his work, and was impressed. It was clear that the man kept good records during an investigation. In the top drawer of the second cabinet, he found a folder marked “Bodine, C.,” and he lifted it out. Inside were copies of expenses related to the investigation: an airline ticket to Casper, a hotel bill, a car rental receipt, restaurant tabs, records of phone calls, times, charges. Stilwell kept meticulous track of everything he’d spent on his client’s nickel. But there were no other papers, no notes, nothing related to the substance of the investigation itself. Cork looked through the other drawers and found nothing else that seemed relevant.

He closed and locked the cabinets, then went to the desk, booted the computer, and found, as he suspected he would, that he needed a password to access the files. He turned the computer off.

He sat awhile in Stilwell’s chair, staring out the window at the charcoal-colored brick of the building across the street.

In his own investigations, he was prone to keep copious records. He logged in his interviews—names, dates, times, salient observations that fell outside the interview material—and filed this information with the notes he made of the interview itself. He jotted down related thoughts, useful telephone numbers, potential sources. He kept maps, floor plans, photographs, sketches, anything that would help him in his visual recall or his conjecture. If he went solely on the basis of what was in the file for the Bodine investigation, he’d be inclined to believe that the only information of importance to Stilwell was the
cost of doing business. From what he’d learned in his calls to colleagues who knew Stilwell and from what he’d seen in the files for Stilwell’s other clients, that didn’t ring true.

Downstairs Cork went into the diner and sat at the counter. The place was hopping, and it took a moment for a waitress to come his way.

“Coffee,” he said. “Black.”

When she poured it, he asked, “You work here most days?”

“Most,” she said. She was maybe thirty, a lot of lipstick, eyeliner. Blond, probably from a bottle. She started to walk away.

“Know Steve Stilwell?” he asked. “PI with an office upstairs?”

She turned back. “Who’s asking?”

“A friend. Haven’t seen him in a while. He’s got a heart condition, and I’m a little worried.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “He comes in almost every morning. Always eats a heart attack breakfast. I haven’t seen him lately.”

“Anybody else here might have seen him?”

“I’m here as much as anyone.”

“Anybody been asking about him?”

“No. At least nobody’s asked me.”

“Thanks.”

He drank his coffee and took the opportunity to scan the building parking lot, where his Bronco sat. He figured that if Stilwell’s investigation had, indeed, alarmed interested parties and they’d been shadowing Burns and Bodine, they were likely to be onto him, too. All he spotted in the parking lot were empty cars and tourist types and nobody looking his way. He dropped three bucks for his coffee and a tip and took off.

Stilwell’s home address was a small bungalow in a nice residential neighborhood on a steep hill. The street ran between stately trees leafed with new green. It sloped sharply toward Lake Superior, which sparkled at the end of the corridor like a wall built of sapphires. Stil-well
took nice care of his place. The yard grass was cut, and on either side of the walk leading up to the front porch, strips of earth had been turned and prepared for planting, though it was too early in the North Country to put in most varieties of flowers, still plenty of time for a killing frost.

Cork mounted the steps, entered the shadow of the overhang, and tried the door. The curtains inside were drawn across the windows. He left the porch and followed a flagstone walk around to the backyard. A huge red maple shaded three-quarters of the area. In the sunny northwest corner, Stilwell had put in a raised garden created out of railroad ties. The soil of the garden was clear of weeds, and a layer of compost had already been spread. The man was conscientious and clearly into his yard.

The back door stood at the top of a short flight of steps. The storm door wasn’t secured, but the inner door was locked. Once again, Cork made use of his lock picks and was quickly inside. Which was good, because the moment he closed the door behind him, he saw, through the window, a woman leave the house next door and head toward her garage, carrying a plastic garbage bag.

He found himself in a narrow entryway. One side was lined with hooks, from which hung coats of varying degree of warmth. Below them were a pair of boots caked with dried mud, a pair of Adidas, and a pair of rubber galoshes. Beyond the entryway lay the kitchen, where everything was clean, not even a single dirty dish or utensil in the sink. Cork checked the refrigerator. Nicely stocked. He went into the dining room and then to the living room beyond. The woodwork of the bungalow had been wonderfully preserved and the wood floors finished with caramel-color stain under a coat of strong urethane. The furniture and the area rugs had been chosen to accent the rich color of all that beautiful woodwork.
Meticulous,
Cork thought again.

Then he spotted the birdcage near the front window. He walked to it and stared at the canary lying dead on the bottom. The seed feeder looked full, but on closer examination, Cork realized it held only feathery, empty husks. The water cup was completely dry. It appeared as if the bird had succumbed to either hunger or thirst or both.

Cork found an office off the living room. Bookshelves lined one of the walls. If the books there were any indication, Stilwell was a man of broad taste. The volumes were organized alphabetically by author, Heidegger between Hammett and Hemingway, Plato next to Proust, Steinbeck followed by Stendhal. There was a standing four-drawer file cabinet, but Cork found only personal files inside—tax documents, insurance information, papers related to Stilwell’s home and his mortgage. He booted the computer on the desk and was confronted with the same situation he’d encountered at the man’s business office: He needed a password.

He went upstairs. Two bedrooms and a full bath. One bedroom was clearly a guest room. In the other, the closet and dresser were full of clothing and there was a book on the nightstand—
Staggerford
—with a cloth bookmark slipped in midway. Cork checked the usual places, but found nothing related to the case he was interested in.

The final place he checked was the basement, which was unfinished and in which Stilwell stored nothing.

In the end, Cork stood for a long time in the living room of a clean, orderly house with a dead bird in a cage and an owner missing for a week. He was almost certain the man was dead and anything he’d left behind that would have helped point toward the reason and toward his killers had been removed. He had a clear sense that there was an enormous and brutal force at work, something ruthlessly efficient and certainly to be feared. And he had to assume they knew about him.

He left the way he’d entered, through the back door. He went around in front and walked to the house next door, where he’d seen the woman with the garbage bag. He rang the bell and waited. Thirty seconds later, she opened up.

“Good afternoon,” he said with the most pleasant smile he could offer. “My name’s Cork O’Connor. I’m a private investigator, a friend of Steve Stilwell’s. I’m wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions.”

“About Steve? Something’s happened, hasn’t it?”

She was a plump woman in her early fifties, with wispy red hair
and green eyes that held a sudden worried look. She wore a red sweater with an embroidered moose in the center that seemed to be sliding down the ample slope of her breasts.