Iron Lake (39 page)

Sandy fast-forwarded again.

“. . . don’t understand why, Russell.” Sandy’s voice again. Still angry. “You had a good thing going. Why fuck it up with something like this?”

“Listen, rich boy—” Russell Blackwater tried to cut in.

“No, you listen. I don’t intend to lose this election because of your larceny.”

“What do you suggest, Sandy?” It was the judge’s voice. Calm. And, it seemed, slightly amused.

“Christ, I don’t know. Vernon, why the hell didn’t you keep your boy in line?”

“He is a man,” Vernon Blackwater replied indignantly. “Not a boy.”

“What he pulled with the casino sure as hell makes me wonder.”

A doorbell rang in the background.

“I have a suggestion,” the judge interjected. “I asked Joe John here. I thought we might all talk this out reasonably. Sandy, would you get the door?”

Sandy Parrant reached out and fast-forwarded the tape again.

“. . . you want, Joe John?” Sandy’s voice.

“The People deserve better,” Joe John replied. He sounded proud and incensed. “I thought you would understand and help.”

“I do understand,” Sandy insisted on the tape. “And I want to help.”

“I don’t think so. I think mostly you’re worried about your own ass.”

“Sit down, Joe John,” the judge ordered. After a pause, he requested, “Please, sit down. I have one final negotiation to offer.”

Silence. In the Cherokee, Jo leaned forward struggling to hear. Then a chair creaked on the tape as a body sat down heavily.

“Thank you,” the judge went on. “It’s been my own opinion since you first stumbled onto all this that the usual inducements we might offer would be ineffective. I’ve watched you carefully, Joe John. From a drunk to a man with good reason to have a lot of self-respect. I’ve thought all along you wouldn’t give up that hard-earned self-respect easily. Not for money, certainly. You’ve more than proven that this evening. And I just want to add how much I appreciate your promise to refrain from making all this public until we’ve had a chance to work things out. Now, the fact of the matter is that my son can’t lose this election. And for many reasons, Russell Blackwater should continue to manage the casino. What I’ve done, therefore, is invite an outside negotiator to help us reach a resolution. I believe he is, as the saying goes, prepared to make you an offer, Joe John, that you can’t refuse. Harlan?”

A door opened.

“What the—” Joe John began.

Three shots. Very close together. Loud on the tape. In the Cherokee, Jo jerked, startled.

“My God!” Sandy Parrant’s taped voice cried.

Behind the steering wheel, the real Parrant mouthed the words as if he’d listened to the tape a hundred times and knew it by heart.

“Jesus,” Russell Blackwater gasped.

“And that, gentlemen,” concluded the judge, “solves everything.”

Sandy stopped the tape.

“It was over so quickly I couldn’t do anything,” he explained.

“And then you had a choice, didn’t you?” Jo guessed bitterly. “Expose everything and probably lose the election. Or stay silent.”

His face in the dark was intense, fired. “I was born to greatness. I’ve known that all my life. Even when things started going bad, it was like I was favored by the gods. Fate smiled and everyone who could incriminate me was eliminated. My father, Lytton, the Blackwaters. I was clear of it all. No one was even looking in my direction except for that fucking husband of yours.” Sandy peered intently through the windshield and slowed the Cherokee to a crawl. “There it is.”

Jo could see the sauna, square and black, and farther up among the trees the light from inside the cabin. Cork had turned all the lights off when they left earlier. That meant he was there now, waiting innocently for them to arrive. Her fault! God, how could she have been so stupid, so blind?

Sandy stopped the Cherokee behind the sauna, out of sight of the cabin. He slipped the key from the ignition and shoved it into the pocket of his jeans. “This shouldn’t take long.” He lifted the revolver from his lap.

“You’re not—” she began.

“Going to shoot him? In cold blood? If I have to. But I don’t think I will. Not yet.”

He took the roll of duct tape from his pocket, tore off a strip, and pressed it over her mouth. He reached into the glove compartment and drew out a flashlight. Stepping from the Cherokee, he came around to Jo’s side and opened the door. He took out his jackknife and snapped out the blade.

“I’m only going to cut your feet loose so you can walk. I’m not going to hurt you. But if you try something, I will.”

Slowly he knelt. He reached out carefully with the knife and cut the tape from her ankles.

“In here,” he said, leading her to the sauna door.

He switched on the flashlight. There were three tiers of seats in the sauna, hard, bare cedar planks. Sandy guided her up to the top, forced her to sit, and bound her ankles again with tape.

“I’m just going to have a peek and make sure Cork’s not planning any surprises of his own. I’ll be right back.”

He stepped down, clicked off the flashlight, and left her in total darkness. The boards creaked on the small deck outside as he crept around to the side of the building and headed toward the cabin. She waited a few moments after the creaking had stopped, then she rolled to her side and bumped down the tiers of cedar planks. She felt a jolting pain in her right shoulder as she hit the floor. She scooted toward the door, which opened inward. Pushing herself against the wall, she managed to slide to a standing position. With her hands bound behind her, she groped in the dark for the knob, finally found it, and opened the door a crack, just enough to wedge her body through. She tumbled onto the deck outside.

Like an inchworm, she coiled and uncoiled herself, crawling along the deck toward the edge. She came to the end, a sudden drop-off with the ice three feet below. She brought her body around until she lay parallel with the edge of the deck, then she rolled off. The wind had blown the snow on the ice into uneven depths; where she hit there was almost nothing to cushion the blow on her head. For the second time that night, she was stunned to the point of seeing lights. Her head felt thick and burning as if full of some scorching liquid. Vital seconds passed, a fact she was aware of even through the haze that clouded her thinking. On her side, her injured shoulder taking the brunt of the struggle, she began to move away from the sauna toward a pine tree backed by a small thicket just beyond the shoreline a dozen yards away. She dug at the ice, propelling herself with the side of her boot. Her jacket was a down-filled nylon shell, and the slick material helped her slide easily over the ice, the only piece of luck she’d had all night.

Five feet. Ten. She struggled against fainting. Goddamn it, no! She fed her pain to her anger. She wouldn’t give in. She wouldn’t give Sandy the satisfaction. The pine and the thicket seemed an enormous distance away. If she couldn’t make it there, she’d find another way. Desperately she scanned the area around her, looking for a drift against the shore that might be deep enough to burrow into, to cover herself with snow. Could he find her then? Could he follow a worm’s trail in the night? She was wearing dark clothing, a mistake she regretted now as bitterly as she regretted loving Sandy. She was too easy to see, especially in the unnatural brightness from the northern lights and the rising moon. Her best hope still was to make the thicket before Sandy came back.

She breathed heavily, pushing hard, turning inches into feet, feet into yards. The tree was almost within her reach. She glanced back at the snow-draped thicket just beyond. If she could reach it, nestle in, he might never find her. She hoped he wouldn’t kill one of them unless he was sure he could kill them both.

Ignoring the pounding in her head, the burning in her shoulder, she redoubled her efforts. A moment later she bumped into something hard. The trunk of the pine, she thought with relief. She looked back to gauge the distance left to the thicket and found that the pine tree had not stopped her. It was Sandy Parrant’s left leg.

“I would have been disappointed in you if you hadn’t tried,” he said. “One of the things I’ve always found most attractive is your tenacity.” He took out his jackknife, knelt, and whispered, “You’re also one hell of a piece of ass.” He cut her ankles free and lifted her brusquely.

“Let’s go,” he said. “Our pigeon is roosting.”

C
ORK SAT AT THE KITCHEN TABLE
facing the back door. He wore his coat and his stocking cap, but he’d taken off his gloves and they lay crumpled in front of him on the table. It was warm in the cabin, but that wasn’t why he’d removed his gloves.

The back door swung open and Parrant brought Jo in. Cork looked at her bound wrists, the tape across her mouth, and the familiar revolver in Parrant’s hand.

“Going to kill the whole county?” he asked.

“If I have to.”

“Starting with us,” Cork concluded.

“That depends,” Sandy replied.

“We both know it doesn’t.” He addressed Jo, “You okay?”

She nodded.

“We have a lot of talking to do before I decide on anything,” Parrant said.

“Bullshit. You’ve already decided.”

Parrant put the revolver to Jo’s temple. “I want to know one thing. Does anyone else know about the negatives?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“You expect me to answer that? It would be like signing a death warrant.”

“Not necessarily,” Parrant said. “Some people can be bought. Most people in fact. Or they can be scared easily enough. Who else knows?”

“I lied,” Cork told him. “No one else knows.”

“I don’t believe you.” Parrant rubbed at his nose, thinking. “Tell you what I’m going to do. From now on, every time I get an answer I don’t believe—” He put his arm around Jo to hold her and he pointed the barrel of the .38 at her foot. “—I’ll put a bullet through one of Jo’s extremities.”

“You’d really do that?”

“Maybe. Maybe I’m lying. But think about it. What have I got to lose? A man who aspires to the White House ought to be able to be ruthless if the situation demands. So, what do you think? Will I really do it?”

Parrant’s eyes were quite clear and unblinking as a snake’s. “Let’s begin again,” he said. “Did you tell anyone else about the negatives?”

“No.”

“Did you talk to anyone else about your suspicions of me?”

“No.”

The sound of the gunshot made Cork jerk as if he’d been struck by the bullet. Jo tried to yank free, almost separating from Parrant as she screamed into the duct tape. From under the table, where it had lain cradled on his lap, Cork swung the Winchester. The safety was off, a cartridge chambered. For the briefest instant he had a shot at Parrant. Not a clear shot, however, for Parrant was struggling to pull Jo back. Cork hesitated. That was all Sandy Parrant needed.

“Drop it!” he shouted at Cork, jamming the revolver into the back of Jo’s head. “She’s not hit. But I’ll kill her, I swear to God.”

Cork saw that although Jo stood tottering, she was unharmed. He lowered the rifle to the floor.

“Brinkmanship, O’Connor,” Parrant explained with a galling note of triumph. “A game I’m rather good at. John Kennedy was a fucking amateur.” Parrant resettled his grasp on Jo, wrapped his arm around her, and once again aimed the gun at her foot. “Next time, I promise you, I won’t miss. Once more, did you tell anyone about the negatives?”

“Schanno.”

“When?”

“I saw him today. We discussed GameTech.”

“Schanno.” Parrant considered this and didn’t appear too upset. “I’ve got things on him. I can get to him.”

“I think you underestimate the man,” Cork said.

“No one else knows about the negatives?”

“No one.”

“Did you discuss your suspicions about me with anyone?”

“The priest.”

“Tom Griffin? In confession?”

“I haven’t made a confession in years.”

Parrant took a deep breath and thought that one over.

“He’s free to talk,” Cork reminded him. “Maybe he already has. You may end up having to kill all of Aurora, Sandy.”

“But he doesn’t know about the negatives?”

“Like I said, no one besides Schanno knows.”

Parrant glanced down as if preparing to fire at Jo’s foot. “I think you’re lying.”

“How can I prove I’m not?” Cork asked quickly. “Look, I’ve already put two men’s lives in danger. What will satisfy you?”

Parrant reached into the pocket of his coat and brought out a jackknife. He carefully extended the blade and moved it toward Jo’s back.

“Christ no, Sandy!” Cork half rose from his chair.

Parrant cut Jo’s wrists free. “Take the tape off,” he told her.

She obeyed and let the pieces from her wrists and mouth drop to the floor. “I’m sorry,” she told Cork.

“It’s okay.”

“Over there beside him,” Sandy said. He shoved her toward Cork, then bent and picked up the loose pieces of tape and put them in his pocket. He took out the roll of duct tape and tossed it to Cork. “Tape her wrists,” he ordered.

Jo looked confused, then understood. “Fingerprints. You want Cork’s fingerprints on the tape.”

“So it looks like I bound and killed you,” Cork finished.

“You’d have to be distraught,” Jo went on. “But distraught over what?”

Parrant reached inside his coat and brought out folded photographs. He tossed them onto the table. “Pick them up,” he instructed Cork.

Cork lifted the pictures. They were photos of Molly and him embracing by the sauna. They’d been taken at night with a night vision lens from somewhere out on the water. Harlan Lytton’s handiwork for sure.

“These are the ones he showed you?” Cork asked Jo.

“Yes.”

“And now they’re covered with your fingerprints, too,” Parrant said with satisfaction.

“My gun, my fingerprints on the tape and the pictures.” Cork nodded as if he admired the thoroughness. “We argue over my dead lover. I freak, kill Jo, and then what, Sandy? I commit suicide? Or do I just disappear like Joe John LeBeau?”

“Just tape her,” Parrant said.

“What do we do, Cork?” Jo asked.

“You do what I say,” Parrant threatened.

“Or what?” Cork asked. “You’re going to kill us anyway.”

The tea kettle on Molly’s stove suddenly jumped and skittered across the burner. Startled, Parrant swung the revolver that way and let off a round that buried itself in the wall. “What the hell?”

“Windigo,” Cork said. “You know what a Windigo is, don’t you, Sandy?”

“A fucking fairy tale.”

“It wasn’t a fairy tale made that pot jump around,” Cork said.

The wind rose outside. The windowpane over the sink rattled. From the dark of the night surrounding the cabin came a long low howl that was not the wind but was wrapped within it. And buried somewhere within the howling was the name of Sandy Parrant.

“The Windigo’s calling you, Sandy. Do you know what that means?”

Parrant eyed the window angrily. “It means there’s a joker out there who’s going to die with you.”

“Can’t kill the Windigo with that gun,” Cork told him. “The Windigo called the names of Russell Blackwater and Harlan Lytton, too. Blackwater knew it and carried a gun and it didn’t matter.”

“I don’t believe that crap.”

“Sam Winter Moon once told me there’s more in these woods than a man can ever see. More than he can ever hope to understand.”

“Shut up!”

Parrant pointed the revolver at Jo’s heart as if to fire, to finally end it all. But the light in the kitchen went out suddenly. Cork pushed Jo to the side and threw himself in the other direction. Parrant fired wildly. In the blindness after the loss of the light, Cork spread his arms wide and charged the place where Parrant had been standing. He caught the man in his arms and they tumbled down. Cork heard the scrape of the .38 as it slid loose across the floorboards.

Parrant squirmed from Cork’s grasp and was back on his feet instantly, kicking hard at Cork’s ribs. Cork rolled away and brought himself up. Parrant was at him, throwing punches out of the dark, landing blow after blow to his torso. Cork stumbled back, retreating across the kitchen until he was pinned against the sink. Hunched and grunting, he tried vainly to protect himself as Parrant hammered at his sides and head.

A shattering of crockery and Parrant stopped abruptly. Moonlight streamed through the window over the sink. Parrant, in milky white, staggered back, holding his head. Cork tried to move, to attack, but the pain in his ribs paralyzed him.

Jo’s hand was on his arm and her voice urged him, “Cork, quick!” She pushed him through the kitchen door and into the cold night. Tugging, she pulled him toward the sanctuary of the woods.

They’d barely reached the first of the trees when the crack of Cork’s revolver came from the cabin. Jo ran hard, weaving among the trees and thickets, fighting her way desperately through the deep snow and drifts. She ran until she was nearly breathless, then she risked a glance back. Cork was nowhere to be seen. She stopped and turned, frantically searching among the trees for any sign of him. A black form separated itself from a nearby tree trunk and stepped toward her. Jo almost screamed. Then she recognized the old man Henry Meloux.

“Here,” Meloux whispered, and pointed toward a cedar with its branches bent low under the weight of snow.

“Cork—” Jo tried to explain.

The old man ignored her. “In there quick,” and he held aside a cedar bough showing a hollow in the snow, a little sanctuary. He urged her in, surprising her with his strength. “The man is almost here,” he whispered.

In less than a minute, Sandy approached through the trees, the beam of a flashlight scanning the snow in front of him as he came. Jo realized he was following her tracks. In a few more seconds he would be at the place where Meloux had met her and the tracks would lead him to their hiding place. Meloux’s face showed no fear, only an intense concentration.

Cork’s cry from the direction of the cabin brought Parrant to a sharp stop. He turned and began a hard run back.

“Cork!” she whispered, afraid.

“I will find him,” Meloux said. “Stay here.”

“Like hell I will.”

The old man’s strong hand restrained her. “You have children. Think of them.”

Meloux was gone in an instant, leaving Jo alone in the safe hollow under the cedar boughs.