Heaven's Keep (40 page)

In the office where they sat waiting, Cork, Stephen, and Parmer could hear the fountain through the open window.

There was a knock at the door. A man and a woman entered. The man was dressed in an expensive gray suit and wore a blue silk tie. The woman wore tan slacks, a white blouse, and an embroidered blue vest. She was older than the man. Her hair was gray and her eyes were calm brown.

Cork and his son and Parmer stood, and they all shook hands and sat down together around the table.

The man in the suit had a small mustache, thin and black against his olive skin. He spoke with a Hispanic accent. Cork had met him earlier, briefly. His name was Ramirez. “I have brought Sister Amelia. She was responsible for your wife while she was with us.”

Sister Amelia smiled graciously. “I’m sure there’s much you want to know.”

“She couldn’t be saved?” Cork’s most burning question.

The man in the suit answered. “When Mr. Nightwind delivered her to us, our doctors examined her thoroughly. By the time she arrived, there was no hope. The MRI showed the bullet lodged against her spine and surrounded by infection. There was also evidence of significant brain damage due, our doctors suspected, to oxygen deprivation.”

“She was trapped in a buried airplane,” Stephen said.

Ramirez lifted his hand gently to stop Stephen. “We’re a hospice center, son. We’re concerned primarily with helping those who come to us make a peaceful passage to the next life. Because many of our clients have backgrounds they would prefer remain a secret, we ask no questions and seek no explanations. Our location, far from prying eyes and prying officials, ensures that in their final days the privacy of our clients is respected. You understand.”

“Was she in any pain?” Cork asked.

“Our doctors made sure that she was not,” Ramirez said.

“Was she conscious at all?” Stephen asked. “Did she say anything?”

“No.” Ramirez looked toward Parmer. “We have details to discuss of her transport back to the States—on your aircraft, yes?”

“That’s right,” Parmer said.

“Perhaps you and I could handle this for the moment. Sister Amelia, I believe, has something she would like to show Mr. O’Connor. Sister?”

She looked kindly at Cork and at Stephen. “Would you follow me?”

“Sure.” Cork glanced at Parmer. “Thanks, Hugh.”

“No trouble, partner.”

They left the office and strolled through the courtyard, which was filled with the fragrance of the flowers and the gentle murmur of the fountain.

In the days behind, the groundwork for justice had been laid. The men Lame Deer Nightwind was after were Donald and Victor Arbuela, who were brothers, and a brother-in-law, Thomas Quintanna. Cork was sure they didn’t know Jo and had nothing against her personally. To them her death was simply business. They all lived in Miami and claimed to be in real estate. In the photographs, they were balding men with skin tanned the color of a grocery store paper bag and faces as mundane as lettuce. Cork wasn’t surprised that they didn’t look particularly evil. He’d seen the face of evil enough to know that more often than not it was dreadfully ordinary. The safe-deposit box in the Denver bank had yielded damning evidence against the three, evidence of years of corruption, fraud, theft, and murder by
men who thought they were untouchable. The U.S. attorney in Denver, a woman named Sheila Cannon, who carefully evaluated the evidence, assured Cork they were not. He told her of Nightwind’s belief that justice moved with the speed of a turtle. Cannon said maybe so, but in the end the turtle always won the race. Cork understood Lame Nightwind’s doubt about the ultimate ability of the law to prevail, and he chose not to share with Cannon his intention, if the law failed, to keep his promise to Nightwind.

He had retrieved his son, who’d returned from his solitary time in the woods having received the vision he sought. Stephen hadn’t told Cork what that vision was; perhaps he never would. But the change in him was obvious, and the quiet strength in his young, dark Anishinaabe eyes was compelling. Cork believed that Stephen was fully prepared for the final responsibility that lay before them.

Halfway across the courtyard, Cork paused and turned to Sister Amelia. “How did Lame Nightwind know about this place?”

“Several years ago he was hired to deliver a dying man to us. This man’s name, if I divulged it, would be well known to you. His deeds were dark and infamous. Here, he was a different man. I have often seen this. Confronted with the prospect of soon standing before God, unable to hide behind lies and artifice and pretense, people see their lives differently. I’m thankful I don’t have to be responsible for judging their time on earth. My duty, my calling, is simply to help prepare them for their audience with the Lord.”

“And my wife? How was she at the end?”

Sister Amelia began to stroll again. “I was with her constantly. She never spoke. She never regained consciousness. But, Mr. O’Connor, I felt a strength in her that surprised me. Do you know the poem that says, ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’?”

“Not really,” Cork said.

“It’s about death. At first, your wife did not want to go gently. She did not want to die. Or rather, there was something she wanted very much before she died.”

“What?”

“I didn’t know. She had no way of telling me. But I believed absolutely there was unfinished business so important to her that she
couldn’t let go of life until somehow she’d seen to it. In my experience, the only force powerful enough to make death stand back that way is love. So I believed it had to do with love. I prayed with her. I told her that whatever was holding her to this world, God would take care of it. She heard me, Mr. O’Connor, and she believed. And she finally let go.”

“You were with her?” Stephen asked.

“I was holding her hand.” She walked a few steps and stopped and looked with great compassion into Cork’s eyes and Stephen’s. “I believe I understand now what was keeping her here. We knew nothing about your wife, Mr. O’Connor. Your mother, Stephen. That’s sometimes the way it is when people come to us. We had no idea that she had a family who didn’t know where she was or what had become of her. I believe that’s what held her. I believe she wanted you to know. And now God has taken care of it.”

They continued on and passed through the wall of the old mission and came out into the bright sunlight of the desert, where a cemetery had been created. White stone stood against yellow sand. There were green cacti and sage-colored desert plants among the grave markers and the monuments, and all these elements fit together in a starkly beautiful way.

“Many of those who come to us don’t wish to go back for burial,” Sister Amelia said. “They have their reasons for wanting their final rest to be here. With your wife, we had no choice, of course. And Mr. Nightwind was quite generous in his request for her disposition. Your wife is there.”

She pointed toward a large mausoleum at the center of the cemetery. The structure was built of stunning white marble, with a door as white as ice. Cork stopped as if he’d hit a wall, and he stared. He felt that he’d been blind all along but under the blaze of the desert sun the scales had finally fallen from his eyes. He glanced at his son, who had seen it, too.

Sister Amelia touched his arm. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” he said. “It’s just that we know this place. Stephen saw it a long time ago in a vision. A big yellow room with white rocks and a white door and behind it his mother. We didn’t know what it meant.”

Sister Amelia put her hand gently on Stephen’s shoulder. “Perhaps that she would be waiting for you here. That she was always meant to be waiting for you here. Would you like to go inside?”

“Yes,” Stephen said. He walked forward on his own.

But Sister Amelia took Cork’s hand, guiding him, because his eyes had become blind again, this time with tears.

N
ancy Jo O’Connor was laid to rest in the cemetery in Aurora on a lovely May afternoon when the sun was saffron yellow and the sky was cornflower blue. It was a simple graveside ceremony in the place where before there’d been only a memorial headstone. Cork was there. Jo’s children and her friends were there. Rose and Mal were there and Hugh Parmer and Becca Bodine and her son, who finally knew the truth of their husband and father. And Liz Burns was there. Although she’d never known Jo, the part she’d played in Cork’s search had brought her into the lives of the O’Connors in a powerful way.

Cork looked around him at those who’d loved his wife, especially his children. Jenny and Anne were practically grown women, beautiful and strong. There was still a good deal about Stephen that was changing, but much of the fine man Cork believed he would become was already obvious. Jo would have been proud of him. She would have been proud of them all.

They prayed and they wept, and at the end they turned together and headed back to their lives. All of them except Cork, who lingered at the grave. When he was alone, he spoke quietly.

“There’s something I need to say to you, Jo. It’s been in my heart a long time, ever since we argued and you left. I hope you can hear me, sweetheart.” He laid his hand on the polished coffin, where sunlight ran along the grain and gave the wood the look of sweet honey. “I just want to say I’m sorry. And I want to say I love you.” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “And I have to say good-bye.”

He took his hand away, turned where the others had gone, and followed them into the beauty of that day.

Heaven’s Keep

William Kent Krueger
A Readers Club Guide

Questions and Topics for Discussion

1. Despite Cork’s detailed recounting, the reader never really learns what actually happened when Jo’s plane went down. Does the fact that we are not “present” when the plane goes down hurt the authenticity of the event? Could Cork’s view be skewed?

2. Why do you think Cork applies to be the new deputy? Why does Sheriff Dross have her doubts about Cork, despite his being the most popular candidate? How does Cork defend himself? Do you think he really wants to return to the life of a sheriff?

3. In the beginning of the novel Cork proclaims, “Wherever you are, I’ll find you, Jo. And I swear to God, I’ll bring you home” (p. 62). Does Cork make good on his promise? How so?

4. Cork draws strength from both his Catholic family and his Native American (Ojibwe) family. What does each contribute? How do they complement each other?

5. What is Jon Rude’s explanation as to how Heaven’s Keep got its name? How does his interpretation vary from that of the Arapaho’s? What does Honoocooniinit mean to the Arapaho people?

6. Discuss Hugh Parmer. Is he really as generous as he seems? How does Cork come to trust him? What reasoning does he give as to why he wants to help Cork? Is he as genuine as he appears to be?

7. The first meeting of Becca Bodine and Cork is filled with tension, blame, and disregard. Who did you agree with at first—Becca or Cork? What does Cork first notice from the surveillance tape that makes him agree with Liz Burns and Becca Bodine’s theory? What is the impact of having Becca and Liz Burns not appear until six months after Cork gave up his search?

8. Why does Cork decide not to take Stephen on his second trip to Wyoming? Did you agree with this decision? Why was it important for Stephen to go on the vision quest? Moreover, why was it important for Cork?

9. When asked by Liz Burns if he still believes Jo is alive, Cork comments, “It wouldn’t make sense…. And it would hurt too much” (p. 207). Does Cork let himself believe it? What events support the theory that she might be alive? How does he react when he finds out where she is?

10. Hugh Parmer remarks that you do certain things in life because “it feels important and… you care about the outcome” (p. 174). Discuss this statement in the context of Ellyn Grant’s struggle between her love for Lame Deer Nightwind and her love for the Arapaho. Which did she sacrifice even though it was important to her? Why? What chain of events did her decision set in motion?

11. Discuss the events at the end of
Heaven’s Keep
. How is Cork different from the man he was at the start of the book? What lessons has he learned? How do you think the events of
Heaven’s Keep
will impact the lives of Cork, Stephen, Hugh, and the others?

A Conversation with William Kent Krueger

Q.
Heaven’s Keep
is your ninth Cork O’Connor novel. What makes you keep bringing Cork back? Have you ever thought of focusing on a new character? How has Cork grown over the course of the novels? What impact will the events in
Heaven’s Keep
have on him? How has your writing changed?

A. With each book I write in the series, I get to know Cork a little better and continue to discover elements of his character that are new to me. I find him an interesting person, marvelously flawed but always holding tightly to the values that have defined him, which is essentially what makes him a humanly heroic figure.

With each book, I try to augment the normal cast of characters in Aurora with new complex characters whose relationships to the story and to Cork add a unique dimension to that particular entry in the series. At the same time, I usually feature a member of Cork’s family
in a very important and personal adjunct storyline, so I don’t worry about focusing on new characters, introducing and building them in order to have them become a part of the series eventually, because they probably will not.