Mercy Falls (7 page)

“First of all,” LeDuc said in a gentle growl, “we’re all real sorry about Marsha Dross. We sure hope she’ll be fine.” He paused a long time, looking implacably at Cork. “As for that chunk of ear you’re missing, well…” He glanced at the woman on the far side of the conference table. “Heidi, there, told me a little while ago she thinks a few scars on a man is sexy, so maybe it’ll prove a blessing in the end.” He almost smiled. “We’ll do everything we can to help Agent Rutledge with his investigation.”

“George, it would help most if you could encourage anyone on the rez who might know something to step forward. Talk to Agent Rutledge, or give me a call at my office, if they’d rather.”

“We’ll get the word out,” LeDuc promised.

Thomas Whitefeather, an old man who was not an elected member of the council but was a part of it because he was a hereditary chief, spoke up. “Should we be afraid for the safety of the people on the rez?”

Rutledge fielded that one. “Until we know for sure the reason for the attack on Sheriff O’Connor and his deputy, I’d advise that any suspicious activity you observe warrants concern. However, at the moment we’re operating on the belief that this was an isolated incident. I’ll be spending time here today, and later in the general vicinity of the shooting. I’ll be available to speak with anyone who might be able to shed some light on what’s happened.”

Rutledge stayed after, but Cork left and walked to the Pathfinder with George LeDuc.

“You must’ve really pissed somebody off,” LeDuc said.

“Looks like.”

“Folks on the rez, we’ve been glad to see you back in that uniform. Most of us. We hear anything, Cork, you’ll know. But don’t count on anyone talking to your BCA friend.”

“I already told him that, George.”

LeDuc shook his head and his long white hair shivered. “Out here, you can always tell a white man, but you can’t tell him much.”

A
LITTLE BEFORE
three that afternoon, Larson strode into Cork’s office. The sun was bright and cast a long blade of light with a sharp edge that cut across Larson’s thighs as he sat down.

“What have you got?” Cork asked.

“A good cast of the tire tracks,” Larson said. “Excellent casting, actually. Rutledge’s people are going to do a pattern match and then we can start checking sales around here. We dug the bullet from the ground, and that’s on its way to the BCA lab. We didn’t find any more shell casings, or anything else on the hilltop.”

“You saw the tracks down the back side of the hill?”

“There were definite signs someone had gone that way, but we didn’t find a good boot print. You took Rutledge out to the rez?”

“Yeah. He’s there now, interviewing, hoping he’ll find somebody who noticed something unusual. Problem is, there’s nobody for a couple of miles in any direction from the Tibodeaus’ place,” Cork said. “And even if they’d seen something, they’re not going to tell Simon.”

“He’s good. Let’s wait to see what he comes up with.” Larson’s mouth went into a tight line, as if he were trying to keep something from slipping through his lips. “Cork,” he finally said, “you need to see Faith Gray.”

Faith Gray, MSW, PhD, was the consulting psychologist retained by the county for a variety of purposes. She did psychological testing for certain positions and was also responsible for counseling any sheriff’s personnel involved in an officer-related shooting until she was ready to certify that they were fit for duty.

“I didn’t shoot anybody,” Cork said.

Cork had been toying with the silver pen he’d used to work on the duty roster. The pen slipped from his hands. He bent to retrieve it and, when he came up, realized that Larson’s dark eyes had followed every move.

“You were shot,” Larson said. “I can get you the policy statement, but you ought to know what it says. You wrote it.”

“All right.” Cork put up his hand as if to stop an argument. “I’ll do it.”

“It would be a mistake to put it off.”

“I said I’d do it.”

Larson nodded, rose from his chair, and left.

Cork sat for a while, eyeing the telephone. Finally he lifted the receiver to call Faith Gray and noted, a little distantly, that his hand was shaking.

As he’d promised, he was home for dinner. Jenny had put in a meat loaf, Annie had done potatoes and a tossed salad, and Stevie had set the table. His children weren’t always this organized or cooperative, but whenever the foundation of the family seemed threatened, they pulled together admirably. They greeted him with prolonged hugs, as if he’d been away on a long trip.

He stowed his gun belt on the top shelf of his bedroom closet and put his revolver in the lockbox there. He took off his uniform, donned jeans and a yellow chamois shirt, and came down to dinner looking like a man who might be doing anything for a living. Except that he had stitches closing the lobe of his left ear where a bullet had narrowly missed piercing his skull. They talked about what happened. The children asked about Marsha, whom they all liked, and they were glad she would recover. As soon as he could, Cork moved them on to other topics.

“Get any great college offers today?” he said to Jenny as he wedged off a piece of the meat loaf with his fork.

She’d taken her SATs early and had done extremely well, scoring in the ninety-fifth percentile. For several months, she’d been considering the schools to which she would make application, and had narrowed her choices to Northwestern, Stanford, and Columbia, none of which the O’Connors could afford outright. They’d filed a statement of financial need, and knew that much of the final decision of a college would rest on what kind of aid Jenny was offered. She was a straight-A student with a lot of extracurricular activities and honors. Through a state-sponsored program, she’d already taken a number of college-level courses at Aurora Community College and aced every one. On top of it all, she was part Ojibwe. According to her high school counselor, all of these things made her an attractive candidate.

It was Northwestern that Jenny talked about most.

“No, but Mom and I talked some more about going to Evanston to check out Northwestern’s campus.”

“Sounds like a wise idea.” Then he said, “Some more’?”

Jo said, “We’ve been talking about a short trip to Evanston for a while.”

Cork paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Really?”

“We told you, Dad. Don’t you remember?”

“Sure.” Although at the moment, he didn’t. “When?”

“That’s one of the things we need to discuss,” Jo said.

Stevie, who was seven, put down his glass of milk. He had a white mustache on his upper lip. “I told Roger Turppa that I had a sister in the twelfth grade and he said I was a liar “cuz school doesn’t go that high.”

“It might not for Roger Turppa, if he’s anything like his dad,” Cork said.

“Evanston’s not that far from South Bend,” Annie said.

Everyone knew Annie wanted to go to Notre Dame. There’d never been any doubt. Although only a sophomore, she was already determined to secure an athletic scholarship in softball, and when Annie set her mind on something it usually came to pass.

“We’ll talk about Northwestern—and Notre Dame—later,” Jo said. “When your father’s not so tired.”

After dinner, Jo washed the dishes, Cork dried. He was just hanging up the dish towel when the front doorbell rang.

“Dad,” Annie called from the living room. “It’s for you.”

Simon Rutledge stood at the door, his hands folded patiently in front of him, smiling as he watched Cork come from the kitchen.

“Smells good,” Rutledge said.

“The kids fixed meat loaf.”

“The kids?” Rutledge laughed. “Mine can’t even follow a recipe for ice water. Let’s talk outside, okay?”

Cork stepped onto the porch and closed the door. It was a blue twilight with a few clouds in the west lit with a faint rose glow. The air was cooling rapidly, and by morning, Cork figured, there’d be frost. Gooseberry Lane was empty, but the houses along the street were lit by warm lights from within. During summer, when the evenings seemed to stretch into forever, he loved to sit with Jo in the porch swing and watch Stevie play with the other kids on the block, their laughter a perfect ending to the day. He didn’t have that feeling now.

“I didn’t get a lot on the rez,” Rutledge said.

“I figured.”

“People seem pretty well split in how they think of you.”

“They always have been.” Cork put his hands on the porch railing and leaned against it lightly. “You know anything about my family, Simon?”

“Nope. Only know you.”

“My grandfather was a teacher, opened a school on the reservation in a time when most Ojibwe kids got sent away to government schools. The BIA’s approach was to do its best to rub out the Indian in Indians. My grandfather had friends on the rez and also in politics and he was able to keep a lot of children from being taken from their families. Know why he did that?”

“He appreciated the culture?”

“He was in love. With my Grandma Dilsey, who convinced him to do the right thing. He was a decent man, but it was my grandmother who guided his heart. People on the rez respected my grandfather but they loved Grandma Dilsey.

“My mother chose to marry a white man, too. And a law enforcement officer, to boot. My father was a man of strong beliefs. He tried to be fair, and I think he did a pretty good job of it, but not everybody saw it that way. A lot of white folks called him a squaw man behind his back, like they did my grandfather. The Anishinaabeg called him
odeimin
. Know what that means?”

Rutledge shook his head.

“Strawberry.”

“Because of his sweet disposition?”

“His ruddy Irish complexion. Now here I am, a little Indian and a lot of Irish. When folks, white or Shinnob, don’t like what I’m doing, often as not they blame it on my blood.” Cork glanced at Rutledge who was looking at the sky. “You find anyone who seemed pissed enough to shoot me dead?”

“You know the Ojibwe. For all the emotion they showed, I might as well have been talking to sticks. Nothing they told me was very useful.” He yawned. It had been a long day for him, too. “We’ve got an agent in St. Paul who’s going to St. Joseph’s Hospital tomorrow to interview Lydell Cramer. We’ll see what he has to say for himself.”

Cork heard the dismissive tone of his voice. “But?”

“I’ve got to tell you, the Indian connection seems pretty strong. Whoever the shooter was, he knew the territory, knew the Tibodeaus’ schedule, and knew it would most likely be you who responded to the call.”

“Could mean it’s just someone who’s a good strategist.”

“You make it sound like a war.”

“I don’t think it’s over. Do you?” Cork said.

Rutledge put his hands in his pockets, hunched his shoulders. “He went to a lot of trouble and didn’t get what he wanted. No, I don’t think it’s over.”

Cork looked up and down the empty street. “Then it
is
a war. What do we do in the meantime?”

“Follow up on the tire castings and see what ballistics can tell us about the weapon.” He saw Cork scrutinizing the neighborhood. “Worried?”

“He drew me out where there wouldn’t be witnesses. I don’t think he’ll try anything here.”

“Even so, it might be best to confine yourself to your office for a while. No rural calls.”

“I’m not going to hide, Simon.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I won’t be stupid.”

“All right.” Rutledge started down the porch steps. “I’ll be in touch.”

Cork watched the agent get into his car and drive away. Night was pressing hard against the last stubborn light of day. He stood a few minutes longer on the front porch, peering deeply into the places where night and shadow already met. He turned his back to the street, felt a prickle run the length of his spine, the brief anticipation of a bullet, then he stepped inside.

H
E WAS FOLLOWING
his father through a stretch of pine woods he didn’t recognize, following him at a distance. Liam O’Connor loped ahead, a giant of a man, putting more and more distance between himself and his son with each stride. He broke through shafts of sunlight, flashing brilliant for a moment, all gold. In the next instant he dropped into shadow. Cork tried to call out to him, to bring him back, but his jaw felt rusted shut, and all he could push through his lips was a desperate, incoherent moan. He struggled to run faster, to catch up so that he could throw his arms around his father and hold him forever. From somewhere in the pine boughs above came the harsh taunts of crows. He realized that everything around him had been perfectly still until the birds shattered the silence, and he became afraid. The cawing turned into the rattle of gunfire, and he saw that it was not his father he was chasing but Marsha Dross. As he watched, blood bloomed on the blouse of her uniform and she fell. Cork fought to free his legs, which had sunk deep into a bed of pine needles that held him like quicksand. The gunfire again became the cawing of the birds, and the cawing became the ringing of the phone in his bedroom as he pulled himself awake.

“Sheriff?”

“Yeah.”

“Sheriff, it’s Bos.”

Cork registered that it was Boston Swain, the night dispatcher.

“You awake?”

“I’m here. What time is it?”

“Three
A.M.
You’re sure you’re awake.”

Cork wiped away tears but was quite sure he was awake. “What is it, Bos?”

“Sheriff.” She paused a moment, perhaps waiting for Cork to affirm that his eyes were open. “It looks like we’ve got a homicide.”

He’d gone to bed to a clear sky and a moon heading toward full, and he’d thought by morning there would be frost. Clouds had moved in during the night, however, and kept the temperature up. As Cork headed away from home, a light precipitation began to fall, more mist than rain, coating everything with a wet sheen. The wipers of his old Bronco groaned intermittently across the windshield, the headlights shimmered off glazed asphalt, and the tires hissed as they rolled. The road to the overlook at Mercy Falls wound through dripping forests that, in the dark morning hours, seemed primordial and menacing.

There were two parking lots for the overlook at Mercy Falls. The first lot was for the picnic shelter and the restroom blockhouse. The second lot, a hundred yards up the hill and hidden by a thick stand of aspen, was nearer to the falls but had no facilities. The lower lot was empty; in the upper parking lot Cork found three vehicles. Two were department cruisers. The other was a silver Lexus SUV with an Avis sticker on the bumper. Nearby, heard but unseen, Mercy Creek gushed through a narrows in slate-gray bedrock before tumbling one hundred feet into a small pool. The falls overlook was a favorite place for sightseers during the day. Officially, it closed at sunset, but at night it was a popular spot for couples to do what couples in parked cars had always done in dark, beautiful places. The deputies on night patrol would swing by occasionally, often enough to keep the local kids guessing.

The two cruisers had been positioned so that their headlights blasted over the SUV from either side. Cork parked in back of the Lexus and left the Bronco’s headlights on. Morgan and Schilling stood in the mist, their jackets zipped against the damp chill.

“Watch your step,” Morgan said as Cork approached.

Cork looked down and skirted a small puddle of vomit, yellow-white on the wet pavement.

Schilling looked pale and shaken. “On the ground, in front.” He nodded toward the Lexus.

The man lay on his back. A Cubs ball cap was pulled down over the top half of his face, obscuring his eyes. His mouth was open in an unending yawn. Long splashes of blood, almost black now from clotting, clung to his cheeks like leeches. His shirt, a button-down light-blue oxford, was a stained, shredded mess, getting damp from the mist. His pants and black briefs had been yanked down around his ankles. His knees were spread wide, and his crotch and inner thighs looked as if someone had taken a big brush, dipped it in a bucket of blood, and painted his skin.

Schilling said behind him, “They didn’t just kill him, Cork. They castrated him, too.”

“You found him?”

“Yeah.” Schilling blew into his hands and shifted on his feet as if he were freezing.

“You touch anything?”

“I checked him for a pulse, that’s it.”

Cork looked back at the puddle of vomit. “His?”

“Mine,” Schilling said. “Sorry.”

“How’re you feeling now?”

“I’ve been better.”

“Okay. Nothing gets touched until Ed gets here. In the meantime, Howard,” he said to Morgan, “I want you to get on the radio and run the plate, make sure it’s a rental. Then let’s contact Avis and find out who rented it.”

Morgan nodded and headed to his cruiser.

“What about me?” Schilling said.

Cork considered the body and the ground around it becoming wet as the mist grew heavy, turning to a light rain. He didn’t want to disturb the scene, but he also didn’t want the rain to wash away evidence.

“Pull your cruiser around in front, Nate, and park with your grille facing the grille of the SUV. Stay back from the body a good ten feet. Leave your headlights on.”

While Schilling maneuvered his vehicle, Cork grabbed a ground cloth and length of nylon rope from his Bronco. With his pocketknife, he cut four cords from the rope, each a couple feet long. When Schilling got out of his cruiser, Cork handed him one end of the ground cloth.

“Tie the corners to your grille. I’ll tie the other end to the SUV.”

When they were done, the ground cloth provided a shelter that kept the rain from falling directly on the crime scene.

“Now what?” Schilling asked.

“Wait for me in my Bronco. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Cork went to Morgan’s cruiser and spoke to his deputy through the open window. “How’s it going?”

“Bos is making the call now. Captain Larson’s on his way. Should be here pretty quick.”

“Stay with it. I’m going to talk to Schilling.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Still a little pale.”

Cork returned to his Bronco, where Schilling sat hunched on the passenger side up front. Cork killed his headlights, and the two men sat for a moment in silence.

“Ever seen someone dead before?” Cork asked.

“Only in a casket. Never like that.”

“Tough, huh?”

“You’ve got that right.”

“You want to smoke, go ahead.”

“Thanks.” Schilling pulled a pack of Marlboros and a silver lighter from the inside pocket of his jacket. He tapped out a cigarette, wedged it into the corner of his mouth, flipped the lid on the lighter, put the flame to the tip of the Marlboro. He shot a cloud of smoke with a grateful sigh.

Cork opened his window a crack.

“Didn’t touch the body, right?”

“Like I said, only to check the pulse.”

“When did you throw up?”

“Right after that. It hit me real sudden.”

“Sure. So you threw up and radioed the call in immediately?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What time was that?”

“I don’t know exactly. A little before three, I’d guess.”

Cork had given up smoking a couple of years earlier, but he still found the smell of the cigarette enticing. “Tell me about your night up to that point.”

“Nothing to tell. Real quiet up till then.”

“Routine check of the park? That’s why you were here?”

“I ran Arlo Knuth out earlier. I just wanted to be sure he didn’t come back.”

Arlo Knuth was an itinerant who spent his nights sleeping in parks or on back roads or wherever he could get away with parking the old pickup that was his home.

“What time?”

“Maybe midnight. Maybe a little before.”

“You always do that after you’ve run Arlo off? Come back later to check?”

“Sometimes, not always.”

“What made tonight different?”

“I don’t know. Just a feeling.”

“Why the hard-on for Arlo? He’s harmless.”

“Park closes at sunset. He’s not supposed to be here at night. No one is.”

“Most deputies cut Arlo some slack.”

“I figure it’s the law. Park’s closed, everybody should stay out. Hell, I run kids off all the time who are making out here. Why should Arlo be any different?”

“When you came back, did you check behind the restroom blockhouse down in the lower parking lot?”

“No, sir.”

“Sometimes Arlo uses the blockhouse for cover. That way he can wash up first thing in the morning.”

“I know. And I would have checked it out, but when I got here I found a dead man. Pretty well ended my patrol.”

“Think Arlo could’ve been involved in this?”

The deputy looked down at his cigarette, which hadn’t touched his lips since his first drag. “No, sir, I don’t expect so. Like you say, he’s harmless.”

Headlights flashed through the trees as several vehicles pulled off the main road and came up the winding access.

“All right, tell you what,” Cork said. “Finish that cigarette, then take a hike down the path to the lower lot, check the blockhouse, see if Arlo’s still around.”

Ed Larson pulled up in his Blazer and parked. Cork left Schilling and headed to the Blazer just as Larson got out.

“Early start to your day, Ed.”

“Same for you,” Larson said. “What have we got?”

“Male Caucasian. Multiple stab wounds to the chest. And castrated. That’s it so far.”

“ID?”

“Not yet. I didn’t want to disturb anything until after you’d had a chance to go over the scene. Looks like a rental vehicle. We’re running the plates, so we may get something soon.”

“All right. Who found him?”

“Schilling.”

“Where is he?”

“In my Bronco. He’s pretty shook. When you see the vic, you’ll understand why. Oh, and watch your step as you approach the Lexus.”

Larson looked at the SUV. “I called Simon Rutledge. I figured as long as he was in the neighborhood. He’ll be here in a bit.”

“Good,” Cork said.

Morgan stood beside his cruiser, arms folded, water dripping from the bill of his uniform cap. Cork went over, and together they watched as Larson’s team arrived and set about their work. Morgan had started his engine and left it idling so that the battery wouldn’t wear down while his headlights lit the scene. The exhaust gathered in a ghostly white cloud that crawled around and under the vehicle. A minute later, Schilling left the Bronco and started down the path to the lower parking lot.

“Where’s he going?” Morgan asked.

“I told him to check behind the blockhouse for Arlo Knuth.”

“Think Arlo’s still around?”

“Worth checking out. And gives Nate something to do.”

“Good idea. I still remember the first body I saw on duty.” Morgan’s face was lit from the reflection of all the light in front of him. His mouth was in a grim set. “Traffic accident. Guy went through the windshield, ended up on the other side in pieces. I lost my lunch that day.”

Ed Larson was kneeling under the ground cloth Cork and Schilling had tied above the body. “Cork,” he called.

Cork wasn’t in uniform. He’d thrown on a pair of wrinkled jeans and a green sweatshirt with
MACKINAC ISLAND
across the front, slapped a stocking cap on his head, and shrugged into his bombardier’s jacket that was so old and worn it looked like the hide of a diseased deer. The jacket was soaked dark from the mist and his face dripped as he walked to Larson.

“What is it?”

“You told me his balls were missing,” Larson said.

“They are.”

Larson held his flashlight out to Cork. “Look in there.”

Cork knelt beside Larson and shined the light into the cavern of the dead man’s mouth, which Larson held open with gloved fingers.

“Jesus.”

“They’re not missing,” Larson said. “They were fed to him as a last meal.” He straightened up. “We’ll move him in a little while to see if we can locate a wallet for an ID.”

Cork had had a good look at the face. He swung the beam of his flashlight down to the dead man’s right hand, where a big gold ring adorned the pinkie—an odd finger, Cork had always thought, for a man to put a ring on.

“No need,” he said quietly. “I know who it is.”