Iron Lake (33 page)

“H
E
’
S NOT HERE
,” Ellie Gruber told Cork at the rectory door. “Father Griffin left this morning before I got here and hasn’t been back.”

“Did he tell Father Kelsey where he was going?”

“He never says where he’s going,” she said with exasperation. “And I mean to tell you it’s got Father Kelsey more than a little upset.”

“Did he take his motorcycle or his snowmobile?” Cork asked.

“Why that old snowmobile went kaput nearly a week ago. He’s left it out at the mission, I believe. So he took that old monster of a motorcycle, must be.”

“Lazarus is still at the mission? Are you sure?”

She thought a moment. “I suppose I am.”

*   *   *

The reservation road curved between solid pines, then dipped into a long flat area of marsh populated by swamp alder, tamarack, and gnarled oak. Cork came to a turnoff in the marsh half a mile shy of the old mission. The turnoff was a road that had been started into the marsh so long ago Cork couldn’t even remember why. There was nothing to log, and the ground was too swampy to support buildings of any kind. Construction hadn’t progressed well, evidenced by an old bulldozer that lay sunk in the marsh near the road, only one rust-crusted corner of the blade left above the snow. Work had been abandoned before the road had gone even a quarter of a mile. The dead end turnoff was blocked now by a bank of plowed snow. Cork put the Bronco into four-wheel drive and cleared the snowbank. He drove a hundred yards into the trees until he was out of sight of the main road and he parked.

He fed a few shells into his Winchester. Then he took off his coat and his red flannel shirt, which left him dressed in his jeans—the denim had been washed so many times they were nearly white as ice—his white wool thermal top, white Nikes, and a light gray stocking cap. In the pale winter colors, he was less likely to be seen, but he was also likely to freeze if he had to spend a lot of time dressed that way. He hoped he wouldn’t.

The mission stood in the middle of a meadow beyond a hill at the end of the marsh. Cork approached the top of the rise in a crouch, keeping to the gray shadow of the snowbank. A hundred and fifty yards ahead, rising white from the white of the snow in the meadow, stood the old mission building. Smoke feathered up from the stovepipe toward the high blue-white of the sky. He knelt and watched the mission for a while. In the wide flat of the meadow and along the dark wall of pine trees and bare birch that surrounded it, nothing moved. He was to the north of the building and a little east. It was nearing two o’clock and the sun was low and bright. Staring into the glare off the field of snow made his eyes water. Finally he had to look away. The images behind him seemed darker then. The tamaracks, the swamp alders, the bare oaks. A shadow flickered over the road and a large crow alighted on a branch of a young tamarack near Cork. It cocked a yellow eye at him, but seemed content to be quietly curious. To the Anishinaabe, the crow was a symbol of wisdom. As he crouched shivering from the cold, Cork hoped the bird was a good sign that he’d find some answers before he froze to death.

He glanced again at the mission and immediately hunkered lower.

Someone stood outside the back door. He couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman. Whoever it was stood very still and seemed to be looking across the meadow to Cork’s right where a white-tail doe and her two yearlings had come out of the woods. They stepped carefully in the deep snowdrifts. The yearlings had to leap to keep up. The doe would take a few steps and pause, her body poised in an alert stance, her ears flickering left and right as she watched and listened. Each time she stopped the yearlings took the opportunity to bound to her side. All three were coming straight at Cork. If he didn’t move, the deer would lead the eyes of the watching figure right to him. If he did move, the deer would bolt. In either event, he stood a good chance of giving himself away. He sat frozen in place, watching the deer approach.

From behind him came the sound of a vehicle on the reservation road. Cork glanced back. He couldn’t see anything yet, but in only a few moments the vehicle would round the curve and drop down into the flat of the marsh and whoever it was that was coming would clearly see him. But there was no way to move without being seen from the mission. He was trapped.

It was the crow who saved him. The black bird suddenly let out three shrill caws that broke like thunderbolts through the stillness of the meadow. The doe’s eyes darted toward Cork and she lurched away with the two yearlings leaping wildly after her. The figure at the mission watched the deer intently as they fled. In the moment before the animals disappeared again into the woods, when the eyes of the watcher were turned farthest from Cork, he threw himself and the Winchester over the snowbank and sunk facedown into the soft snow on the far side. He lay unmoving as the vehicle—an old truck, he guessed from the deep sound of the engine and the rattle of the undercarriage—followed the road into the low-lying marsh area, came up the rise, and passed on the other side of the snowbank. He heard it pull to a stop at the mission and heard the sound of its old doors squeaking open and slamming shut. He heard voices briefly, but didn’t want to look for fear of being seen.

Several minutes passed before he finally risked a peek. There was no one to be seen at the mission. The vehicle that had come along the road had parked on the far side of the building and wasn’t visible to him. He grabbed the Winchester, made a dive over the snowbank, and rolled onto the road. Crawling to the shelter of the snowbank’s shadow, he crouched, shivering violently. He was wet from lying in the snow, and he knew he had to do something quickly. He could head for the Bronco and warm up, but if he did he might miss a chance at uncovering something important at the mission.

He moved toward the building, staying below the snowbank and in its shadow as much as possible. As he approached the mission, he saw that both Lazarus and Father Tom Griffin’s old Kawasaki motorcycle were parked behind it. Cork dashed to the side of the building, where he stood in a thigh-deep drift and pressed himself against the old white wood planking. The shades over all the windows had been pulled. He leaned near the glass of a front window and listened.

Inside, someone whimpered as if being hurt.

C
ORK CREPT
to the back of the mission building and peered around the corner. A half cord of split wood lay stacked near the back door. The snow behind the building was hard packed by a lot of comings and goings. The deep snow off to the sides of the back entrance was stained yellow where someone had done a good deal of urinating. He edged his way to the door. Leaning close, he listened again for the whimper. This time the only sound he heard was the click of the latch as the door was throw open and the long blue barrel of a rifle came at him out of the dark inside.

“You alone?”

“Alone.” Cork nodded. He slowly lowered the Winchester and leaned it against the side of the mission.

Wanda Manydeeds motioned him back with the rifle and risked a glance out the door, right then left. She jerked her head toward the room behind her. “Inside.”

She moved back to let Cork through, then closed the door behind him. Only a dim light filtered through the drawn shades into the mission’s single room. Cork’s pupils were still contracted from the sunlight outside and he felt blind, as if he’d stepped into a dark cave. He stumbled over something soft, but caught himself before he fell. Near one of the windows he identified the black, bulky silhouette of a potbelly stove, the source of the warmth in the room. Not far to his left, stacked against a wall under a window, lay a clutter of two-by-fours along with a couple of sawhorses, evidence of St. Kawasaki’s continuing efforts to refurbish the old structure. Directly ahead, worn gray benches marched away in rows toward the far, as yet impenetrable, dark at the front of the mission. From that dark came a whimper.

“Shhhh,
Makwa.
Shhhh,”
a soft voice cooed.

Another voice suggested firmly, “Put the rifle down, Wanda.”

The old floorboards squeaked and groaned as St. Kawasaki came forward out of the dark. He was followed by Darla LeBeau. Someone else came a few steps behind Darla. It was Paul LeBeau. He carried a squirming bundle of blanket in his arms.

“Poo-wah,”
Paul said, speaking in Ojibwe slang. It stinks. “He needs his diapers changed, Aunt Wanda,” he said in English.

Wanda Manydeeds set the rifle against the wall and took the baby.

The priest was grinning. “Here Darla and I spent all morning trying to find you, and it was you who found us. How’d you know to come here?”

“I was looking for Lazarus,” Cork replied. “It keeps rising from the dead.” Cork glanced at the stove. “I’m freezing, Tom. Mind if I warm up?

“Go ahead. By all means.”

Heat rolled off the stove, and Cork stood turning first one side of his body then the other to the hot cast iron.

“You saw me coming?” he asked.

“Paul saw someone,” Tom Griffin replied. “We didn’t know it was you.”

“You’ve been here the whole time?” he asked the boy.

Paul looked to the priest, who gave him an almost imperceptible nod. “Mostly,” Paul answered. “Father Tom thought it was the safest place.”

Cork, whose eyes had just about adjusted to the faint light inside the mission, noticed the sleeping bag rolled and tied on the floor. That was the soft obstacle he’d stumbled over on entering the mission. He also saw several sacks of groceries lined up on one of the benches.

“Safe from what?” he asked.

No one answered his question. He studied the boy—hardly a boy anymore. Paul stood nearly as tall as he. If he kept growing, he’d easily reach his father’s height.

“Someone drove Lazarus out to Harlan Lytton’s place yesterday,” Cork went on. “Was it you, Tom?”

“No.” The priest looked puzzled and glanced at the boy.

“I was there,” Paul admitted.

“In the ski mask?” Cork asked.

The boy shook his head. “I fired a couple shots at the ski mask and scared him away.”

“Fired a couple of shots?” the priest said with surprise. “Wait a minute. Paul, put some more wood in that stove. Crank up the heat for our friend. Cork, we’ll tell you everything, but it’s going to take a while.” He glanced at Paul. “Maybe even longer than I thought. How about putting some hot water on the stove, Darla? I could use some coffee. Even if it’s instant.”

Paul and Darla did as the priest directed. Wanda Manydeeds finished changing Makwa’s diapers.

“Cork, help me haul this pew nearer the stove,” the priest said. “Give you a warm place to sit.”

When the backless old pew was settled, the water hot, and the instant coffee stirred into foam plastic cups that had been pulled from the grocery bags, the priest said, “Okay, let’s talk. But before we do, I want to remind you of a couple of things, Cork. First of all, you’re not the sheriff anymore. That’s one reason we’ve all decided to trust you. Also you told me not long ago that you don’t believe there is such a thing as justice. These people feel the same way.”

Cork sat on the pew near Wanda Manydeeds, who rocked Mawka. Darla and Paul stood near the back door. Tom Griffin moved about freely with his coffee in his hand, gesturing toward those present.

“What we discuss here goes no further,” the priest said.

“Then why tell me at all?”

“Because I think you’ll keep digging until you know the truth anyway. We’d just as soon try to deal with it now.”

Cork considered them all a moment. “All right. But first there’s something I have to tell you.” He looked at Darla and Paul LeBeau. “You might want to sit down.”

Darla moved to her son and put her arm protectively around him, although he was a full head taller than she. “We’re fine,” she said.

He plunged in, telling it bluntly because there seemed no other way. “Joe John’s dead. I believe he was murdered.”

He’d delivered tragic news before. It had been part of the job, but he’d never become immune to the effect tragedy had on those who had to hear of it, and he’d never become used to his own feeling of helplessness in those situations. But the LeBeaus surprised him. Their faces didn’t change in the least.

“They know, Cork,” St. Kawasaki informed him quietly. “I already told them.”

“You knew?” Cork asked the priest.

“I’ve known since Vernon Blackwater passed away.” He gestured toward Wanda. “We both have known.”

“How?”

Wanda spoke while she rocked Makwa next to her breast. “When Vernon was dying, he asked us both to come. Tom for the part of him that was Catholic, me because I am a Midewiwin. We were alone in the room with him. When he made a last confession to Tom, I overheard.”

“He confessed to helping kill Joe John?” Cork asked the priest.

Tom Griffin stood near a window looking uncomfortable. “Why don’t you talk to Wanda about what she overheard. It probably doesn’t matter now, but I still don’t feel right about sharing with you what was told to me in confession.”

“You shared it with Darla and Paul,” Cork pointed out.

“That was different. I had no choice.”

“Why?”

The priest pulled the shade away from the window just a crack and looked out at the road. A streak of afternoon sunlight cut across his face like yellow war paint. “Because I had to explain to Paul why the judge was dead.”

Cork felt as if his brain were stuffed with cotton. He squinted at St. Kawasaki and asked dumbly, “Was it you who killed the judge?”

The priest let the shade fall back into place and shook his head. “No.”

Wanda said, “I did.”

Makwa began to whimper again. Wanda stood up and walked slowly about the room, cooing softly to her baby. She didn’t seem in any hurry to tell Cork any more.

“Was it an accident, Wanda?” Cork asked hopefully.

“No. I meant to kill him.”

“Here,” Darla said to Wanda when the baby went on fussing, “let me take him awhile.”

Wanda gave Makwa over to her sister-in-law and turned back to Cork. Her long black hair was braided and hung over her shoulder like a length of rope. Her face was the color of sandstone and no less hard.

“Vernon confessed to watching Harlan Lytton kill my brother. He said the judge set it up. He wouldn’t say why, only that Joe John was murdered and the judge and Lytton were responsible. Vernon didn’t want to die with that secret weighing on him as he walked the Path of Souls.”

Cork glanced at the priest. “Did you ask him why?”

St. Kawasaki shook his head. “He was barely able to speak as it was. I just listened.”

“You should have asked,” Wanda said with an accusing tone.

“I was his confessor, Wanda, not his inquisitor,” the priest reminded her gently. “We’ve speculated it probably had something to do with Russell embezzling.”

“You know about that?” Cork was surprised.

“Everybody knows about that now,” Wanda said.

“Small town,” the priest added.

“So what happened between you and the judge?” he asked Wanda.

“I went there that afternoon to talk to him. Tom wanted me to wait until we could figure a way to do something about it. I didn’t want to wait. I couldn’t. It was like having a wild animal inside me eating me up.”

“So you confronted the judge,” Cork said.

“Yes.”

“And I’ll bet he just laughed at you.”

Wanda gave Cork a look that said he was right on the money.

“He said I had no proof of anything. ‘Hearsay,’ is what he called it. I told him I didn’t need any proof. I’d just tell what I’d heard. People would listen.”

“You threatened the judge? I would like to have been there. What did he do?”

Wanda, who’d looked directly at Cork until that moment, looked away.

“He threatened her back, Cork,” St. Kawasaki said. “He had some . . . information.” The priest hesitated, and it seemed as if he and Wanda spoke silently to one another with their eyes.

Cork said, “It’s all right. I know about the judge and his pieces of information. You’re not the only one he dealt with that way, Wanda. What happened then?”

“He told me to get out,” Wanda went on bitterly. “He turned away to go to the front door. I grabbed the poker from the fireplace and I hit him. I didn’t even think about it. I just hit him, right in the back of the head.” She put her hand on her own head to show Cork.

“Then you put the shotgun into his mouth to make it look like suicide,” Cork finished for her.

“No.” The priest folded his arms and leaned against the mission wall. “That was my doing,” he said.

“You?”

“Wanda called me from the judge’s place. I went over on Lazarus, cut across the lake as fast as I could. He was dead when I got there.”

“And you figured in a white courtroom, under white law, Wanda stood a snowball’s chance in hell of getting justice. So you faked the suicide.”

“That’s about the size of it, Cork. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was workable. I’ve seen worse things in my life, believe me.”

Cork did. He rubbed his forehead a moment, wishing like hell he had a cigarette. He glanced at Paul. “So you must have stumbled onto all this, is that it?”

“Yeah,” Paul said.

“About where did you come in?”