Mercy Falls (32 page)

“I’ve told them everything I know.”

“So have I, several times. They’ll ask again. Before we talk to them we should have a lawyer. And there’s something else, Jo.”

He told her about Phillip Jacoby’s assertion that she had consented to the things he’d done.

“That little son of a bitch,” she gasped.

“So for a while, we sit tight and see what develops and make sure that we’re prepared to face the worst.”

She felt the tears welling, her throat closing. “Shit doesn’t just happen, does it, Cork. It happens and happens and happens.”

“Here,” he said. He kissed her hands, lifted them, and waved them gently over their heads.

“What was that?” she asked.

“A shit shield.”

She was laughing quietly when the knock came at the door.

“Cork?” Rose called. “There’s a call for you.”

Jo followed him to the kitchen, where he took the phone and said, “Yes?” He listened, looked concerned. “I’ll be right there.” He hung up.

“What is it?” Jo asked.

“That was Lou Jacoby. He wants to see me.”

C
ORK PARKED ON
the drive that circled in front of Lou Jacoby’s Lake Forest estate home.

“I swear to God,” he said, killing the engine, “the North Shore has more castles than the Rhine.”

He’d tried to convince Jo not to come, but she’d insisted, telling him that now that they were together, she’d be damned if she’d let anything separate them.

Evers, Jacoby’s houseman, answered the bell. He looked tired but still maintained the rigid formality his position required.

“The O’Connors,” Cork said. “Mr. Jacoby is expecting us.”

Evers led them down a long hallway to the rear of the house, where a small, lovely woman with black hair and a Latin look awaited them. She seemed familiar, but Cork couldn’t recall where he’d seen her before.

“I’ll take it from here,” she said to Evers.

“Of course.” The houseman vanished back into the vast silence of the place.

“It is a pleasure to see you again,” she said to Jo. Then to Cork: “We have not met. I am Gabriella Jacoby, Eddie’s widow.”

She spoke a foreign accent he’d recently heard, and he realized where he’d seen her before. In the face of a pilot.

“Do you have a brother?”

“Yes.”

“Tony Salguero?”

“Do you know Antonio?”

“I’ve met him.”

“He is a good brother.” She smiled briefly, then lapsed into a somber tone. “I told Lou this was not a good idea, but he insisted. I warn you, he is out of his head with grief. He will probably say things that will sound crazy. You may leave now, and I will explain it to him.”

“If he wants to see me,” Cork said, “let him see me.”

She reached for the knob, hesitated as if she were going to speak again, perhaps argue the wisdom of proceeding, then she opened the door and stepped ahead of them inside.

The room was mostly dark and smelled of an old man and his cigars. The only illumination came through the slits of partially opened blinds over the long windows. In the far corner, bars of light like the rungs of a ladder fell across a stuffed chair and its occupant. Jo’s eyes climbed each rung until they encountered the red eyes of Lou Jacoby staring back. He wore a dressing gown that hung open over his chest, showing a white undershirt. His legs were bare, his feet slippered. His hair was a wild spray of white. He seemed smaller than the last time she’d seen him, as if Ben’s death had taken away something physical from his own form. He held a glass that contained ice and a hickory-colored liquid. A smoking cigar sat in a standing brass ashtray to his right.

“I knew you were trouble the moment I saw you with him.” The voice came from the darkness beneath his red eyes, from the mouth Jo still couldn’t quite make out.

“I’m sorry about your son,” she said.

For a moment, he didn’t reply. Then: “The sons should bury the father. That’s how it’s supposed to be.”

Gabriella crossed to him and stood at his side, her hand protectively on his shoulder. In the slatted light, her shadow fell over the old man and swallowed him.

“You wanted to see me,” Cork said.

“If I were a younger man, I’d stand up and beat you to death with my own hands.”

“I didn’t kill your son.”

“Lou has been told about the police investigation,” Gabriella said. “He knows about the gun they found. What they call a throw-down, I believe. They told him it is something policemen have been known to do to get away with murder.”

“Not this cop. Have you talked to Dina Willner?”

“She has been mysteriously silent to our inquiries,” Gabriella replied.

“It’s not enough you kill my son,” Jacoby spat out. “You slander my grandson, too, with your lies.”

“I understand your grief,” Cork said. “But don’t let it blind you to the truth.”

With difficulty, Jacoby rose from his chair. “I’m not a man of idle threats. An eye for an eye. You hear me?”

“Mercy,” Jo said, speaking softly into the dark of the room. “It falls like the gentle rain from heaven, Mr. Jacoby.”

“Not in this house, woman.” He said to Gabriella, “Get them out.”

Gabriella came forward and placed herself between the O’Connors and the old man. “It’s time for you to go.”

“We’ve done nothing to you,” Jo said.

“You’ve done everything short of killing me. Get out.”

Jo turned away, then Cork. Gabriella followed them out and led them toward the front door.

“I warned you,” she said.

“Have you even tried to help him understand?” Cork said.

“You saw him. When he’s ready to listen to reason, I will reason.”

As they neared the door, they saw Evers blocking the way, arguing with someone standing just outside.

“What is it?” Gabriella said.

Evers stepped aside, and Jo saw Rae Bly framed in the doorway.

“I was trying to explain that I have my instructions.”

“To keep me out?” Rae’s voice was a sharp blade of indignation. “I don’t believe it.”

“That’s all right. I will take care of it,” Gabriella said.

Evers stepped back, turned, and walked away, stiff as a zombie.

Gabriella addressed her sister-in-law. “It is true. He does not want to see you.”

“Does he even know I’m here?”

“I told him that you called. He won’t see you. If you try to talk to him now, you will only be hurt by him. When he is ready, I will let you know.”

“I’m his daughter, Gabby.”

“As am I now. And we must think of him. Later he will see you. It will be all right, I promise,
pobrecito
. Now, good day to you all.”

Cork and Jo stepped outside.

Rae stared at the door that had closed against her. She wilted and then she wept. “Ben, Ben. Oh, Benny.”

Jo put her arms around her. After a minute, Rae pulled herself together.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“That’s all right.”

“I didn’t get all the details, but enough to say I’m sorry for what happened to you, Jo. It’s shameful, but that’s the Jacobys. Did Lou see you?”

“Only long enough to threaten us,” Jo said.

“Don’t take him lightly.”

“This is Cork, my husband.”

“I figured.”

“Rae is Ben’s sister.”

“I was sure he’d see me. We’re all we have now, each other.”

“Apparently, he thinks he has Gabriella, too,” Cork said.

“Will you be all right?” Jo asked.

“No, but that’s not your concern. You have your own problems. And the Jacobys,” she said bitterly, “we take care of our own affairs.”

They left her, a small figure standing alone in the shadow of her father’s great house.

F
ROM
R
OSE AND
Mal’s duplex, he called the number on the card Dina Willner had given him.

“I just came from Lou Jacoby’s,” he told her.

“And you’re still alive?”

“Not for long, from the way he’s talking.”

“Cork, Lou doesn’t just talk.”

“Gabriella Jacoby says you’ve been silent on what happened at Ben’s place.”

“Silent? I’ve been trying to reach Lou but Gabriella is screening everything. I can’t get through to him.”

Cork heard the frustration in her voice, a rare emotion in his experience. He realized how tired she must be, too.

“How’s Jo?” she asked.

“Doing remarkably well, considering.”

“Strong woman. How about you? Are you all right?”

“Jo’s safe. I can handle everything else.”

“I’ll get to Lou somehow, explain things, Cork. That’s a promise.”

He was exhausted, but he spent the afternoon at a park on the lake with his family, pushing Stevie on the swings, talking with his daughters about Northwestern and Notre Dame, watching Jo—who seemed, in spite of what she’d been through, calm as the water on the lake that day. Twenty years before, he had proposed to her on Lake Michigan, on a dinner cruise, an evening that had changed his life and taken it in the best of directions.

He sent Jenny and Annie off to play with their brother while he sat on a blanket with Jo.

“I’ve been thinking about Gabriella,” he said. “And her brother. And about an angel who spoke to Lizzie Fineday.”

“An angel?”

“In Lizzie’s confused recollection anyway. What was it that Gabriella called Rae this morning?
Pobrecito
? What does that mean?”

“If I recall my college Spanish, it means something like ‘poor little one.’”

“Lizzie said her angel called her ‘poor vaceeto.’ Could it be that the angel spoke Spanish and what she really said was
pobrecito
?”

“You think Gabriella was Lizzie’s angel?”

“When I called Edward Jacoby’s home the morning after he was murdered, his housekeeper told me that Mrs. Jacoby wasn’t there. She was on a boat. Tony Salguero told me he was sailing on Lake Michigan. Because I didn’t know there was a connection between them, I didn’t put it together at the time, but what do you want to bet they were on the same boat? How difficult would it be to anchor somewhere not far from an airfield, fly to Aurora, take care of some pretty gruesome business, and get back to the boat in time for Lou Jacoby’s call the morning after Eddie was murdered?”

“I don’t know. How would you prove something like that?”

“They had to leave a trail. Dock somewhere, file a flight plan, gas up, land and park a plane. If they tailed Eddie out to Mercy Falls, they had to have a vehicle of some kind. A rental, maybe? There’s got to be documentation for some of this somewhere. It should just be a question of tracking it down.”

He stood up and called to the children. He hated to end the picnic, but there was work to be done.

First he called Ed Larson, who had already spoken with the Winnetka police and knew about what had happened to Jo.

“Christ, Cork. I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah.”

“I’d love to get that Jacoby kid alone somewhere.”

“Won’t happen, Ed.”

“How’s Jo doing?”

“Holding her own.”

“Look, I do have two pieces of good news.”

“I could use some about now,” Cork said.

“First, Simon Rutledge was finally able to talk to Carl Berger. Looks like we’ll be amending the complaint against Lydell Cramer to include conspiracy to commit murder. Berger says that Cramer used his sister and LaRusse to arrange to have Stone do the hit at the Tibodeau cabin. The motive was revenge, pure and simple.

“Now for the second piece of good news. We finally found Arlo Knuth. He’d gone on a bender and wound up in the drunk tank in Hibbing. I talked to him. He says that after Schilling ran him off, he parked behind the blockhouse on the lower level at Mercy Falls. Around midnight, he saw two vehicles head to the upper lot near the overlook. Right behind them came a third vehicle that parked in the lower lot. Two people got out and hiked up the stairs toward the overlook. They came back down half an hour later and left. Arlo says he left right after that. The place was getting too busy.”

“Was he able to give you a description?”

“No, but he did give us something very interesting. Whoever those two people were, they spoke Spanish.”

“
Pobrecito
, Ed.”

“What?”

Cork told him about Gabriella Jacoby and Antonio Salguero, and explained his thinking about Eddie’s murder.

“The Salgueros lost everything in Argentina. Marrying Eddie Jacoby gave Gabriella a handle on another fortune. With her husband dead, she probably stands to get her hands on a significant chunk of change. Insurance, at the very least. Maybe she even moves up a notch in the old man’s will.”

“They’d been married for years. Why kill Eddie now?” Larson asked.

“Maybe she waited until she was solid with his father. She’s given Lou grandchildren, weaseled her way next to his heart. I’d bet she and Tony have been thinking about it for a while. Could be that Aurora’s isolation seemed to offer the opportunity they’d been hoping for.”

“And the hick cops they figured would do the investigating.”

“Probably that, too. Look, it’s a lot of speculation, I know.”

“Makes sense, though.”

“When Dina gave Ben her report on our questioning of Lizzie Fineday, Jacoby must have known what ‘poor vaceeto’ was really all about. He took Dina off the case in the hope of keeping her ignorant, and I’ll bet he canceled his rendezvous with Jo because he went to see Gabriella or Salguero, to confront them.”

“Didn’t want the police involved?”

“Exactly. A family matter. The family name at stake. Something like that. There’s a lot of digging to do, Ed.”

“I’m on it, Cork,” Larson said. “I’ll keep you posted.”

The next call was to Dina Willner’s cell phone.

“Tell me what you know about Tony Salguero,” he said when she answered.

“Handsome. Educated. Refined. Daring.”

“Daring? What do you mean?”

“He flies. He sails. Like his father, he’s a world-class big-game hunter. He was in the Argentine military for a long time, an officer.”

“Special training?”

“I could find out. Why?”

“I want to know if he’s the kind of man who’d know where to thrust a knife to kill somebody instantly.”

Dina’s end of the line went silent a long moment. “As in Eddie Jacoby.”

“Exactly.”

He told her what he knew and what he suspected.

“Gabriella and Tony together.” She was quiet, probably rolling the idea around in her thinking. “Gabriella was a better woman in almost every way than Eddie could have hoped for. Murder might not have been on her mind at first, but I imagine anybody married to Eddie would, over time, begin to think about it seriously.”

“There’s something else,” Cork said. “I think Ben suspected. I think that’s why he took you off the case. ‘Poor vaceeto.’ He put it togther right away.”

“God, why didn’t I?”

“It had been a hard day, remember?”

“Still…”

“Look, with your connections, any way you could find out quickly who Ben called after he talked to you yesterday afternoon?”

“You’re thinking he called Gabriella or Tony?”

“And then went to see them.”

“That’s why he canceled on Jo. Cork, do you think they killed him?”

“Not necessarily themselves. They may have had it done. Ed Larson’s working on the connection with Eddie Jacoby’s murder. Once we have that, Winnetka PD might be persuaded to look at them for Ben’s murder as well. Given the ties between the Jacobys and local law enforcement, it might be best not to tip our hand too early.”

The silence again. Then: “It feels so cold, Cork.”

He thought about Gabriella, the shadow she’d cast over Lou Jacoby that morning, her control. It may all have started as a way to rid herself of a man no woman in her right mind would want, but it was different now, huge and malevolent. It had probably taken the life of Ben Jacoby, and Cork could feel the menace at his own back, in Lou Jacoby’s ignorant vow, “An eye for an eye.”

“Watch yourself, Cork.”

“You, too.”

He put the phone down. He’d made the calls in the front room of the duplex, away from the rest of the family who were all gathered in the kitchen around the table talking and laughing. He could hear Mal and Rose, each of the children, and Jo. He thought about the Jacobys, the various reasons they had married—money, position, beauty, prestige, duty. For all its pain, all its uncertainty, all the terror of the power it wielded, love was still, in Cork’s book, the best reason.

He started toward the kitchen, toward the laughter that was a song, toward the love that was everything.