Red Knife (9 page)

A
fter his talk with Meloux, Cork stopped at the sheriff’s department, but neither Marsha Dross, Ed Larson, nor Simon Rutledge was there. He left word for the sheriff to call him on his cell, then he turned to the chore he’d meant to do that day before the Kingbird killings had grabbed his attention.

He had closed Sam’s Place the week after Halloween. November was always a grim month. The fall colors vanished. The stands of maple, oak, birch, and poplar lost their brilliance and became stark and bare. The days were blustery and overcast. The lake was gray, agitated, and empty. The flow of customers to Sam’s Place dried to a trickle. He’d put plywood over the serving windows and hung a sign that read:
THANKS FOR YOUR BUSINESS. SEE YOU NEXT SPRING.
He’d tipped the picnic table against the big pine beside the lake, turned off the gas to the grill, emptied and shut down the freezer for the winter. That part of the old Quonset hut devoted to the food-service business was abandoned. The other part of the building Cork kept heated and continued to use as the office for his fledgling business as a private investigator. He was the only PI in Tamarack County and the three counties that adjoined it. His first case had involved finding Henry Meloux’s son. Despite the fact that the job had, in the end, cost several lives, business afterward had been surprisingly brisk. Wilred Brynofurson, head of security at Aurora Community College, had hired him to investigate one of their environmental engineers, suspected in the theft of several computers and video projectors. His work resulted in clearing the suspect and uncovering the true culprit, the assistant director of Technology Services, a man with a serious gambling problem. He’d also done surveillance for an insurance company on a plaintiff suing for a debilitating back injury sustained when his car collided with a plumber’s truck. Cork had videotaped the guy, who lived in Eveleth, climbing like a monkey all over his roof, taking down strings of Christmas lights. That one hadn’t been a challenge at all. He’d served subpoenas, located a couple of bail jumpers, and tracked down Rolf and Olivia Nordstrom’s daughter who’d dropped out of her first year at Augsburg College and then dropped out of sight. (After spending one day on campus, he found her living with her boyfriend—a street juggler and sometimes bar bouncer—in a crash pad on the West Bank. He didn’t convince her to return to college or Aurora, didn’t even try, but he did get her to promise to call her worried parents, which she did.)

Except for the work he’d done for Henry Meloux, which had been more a favor than an assignment, his PI work so far hadn’t been particularly difficult. Neither had it been dangerous, and that was important. It kept Jo happy. She liked that he no longer had a job that required a Kevlar vest as part of his standard equipment.

He was on his stepladder, reattaching a corner of the
SAM’S PLACE
sign that had worked loose in the winter winds, when he spotted Ed Larson’s cruiser turn onto the gravel access that led to the Quonset hut. He set his hammer down and watched as Larson brought the cruiser over the Burlington Northern tracks and parked in the lot. Larson got out, Simon Rutledge with him.

“Think you’ll have ’er ready for fishing opener?” Larson asked as they approached.

“Provided I don’t keep getting interrupted.”

“Marsha asked us to stop by, find out if you learned anything from Meloux.”

Cork looked down at his visitors. “In his way, he offered what he could.”

“Which was?”

“Take a hawk’s-eye view.”

Larson stared up at him. “I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I.”

“Does he know where Thunder is?”

“I don’t think so,” Cork said. “If he did, he probably would have come right out and told me.”

“Take a hawk’s-eye view? Is that a clue of some kind?”

“I think it’s more a suggestion on how to approach the problem.”

“But you have no idea what he meant by it?”

“Nope.”

“Big help.” Larson squinted up at Cork, blinking behind his glasses. “Marsha says you stepped back from the investigation. What’s up with that?”

“Other priorities, Ed.” Cork tapped the side of the Quonset hut.

“Right. Fishing opener and all.” Larson looked down at the gravel, then back up. “We just finished canvassing Kingbird’s neighbors.”

“And they told you they didn’t see anything, right?”

“Right.” Larson’s skepticism was obvious.

“They weren’t playing games with you, Ed. Marvin LaPoint lost most of his hearing in Vietnam. When he sleeps, Mindy says it’s like a freight train going through the house. She wears earplugs in bed. They’re not late-night people, so they were probably sleeping when the Kingbirds were killed and wouldn’t have heard anything. On the other side of the Kingbirds, the closest neighbors would be Blakeley and Gene Beatty. They usually spend Saturday nights with Blakeley’s cousins in Biwabik. Big poker game, goes on all night. Blakeley and Gene usually sleep over.”

“That’s good to know. I thought maybe we were just being stonewalled. We also talked to a few of the Red Boyz.”

“Who?”

“Tom Blessing, Daniel Hart, and Elgin Manypenny.”

“And you got a shitload of attitude and nothing else.”

Larson put a foot on the ladder, as if he were thinking of climbing up beside Cork. “Marsha likes Reinhardt for the murders. Doesn’t buy his alibi. What do you think?”

“The alibi’s thin, the motive isn’t. Same’s true for Elise.”

“I don’t know. Tough believing that a woman—a mother yet—could be that brutal. Tape up two people, back-shoot them. Speaking of which, we got prints off the duct tape. Rayette’s were all over the strips used on her husband, but the tape on her wrists was clean. We’re thinking the killer had Rayette tape Alexander, and then he—or she—taped Rayette and wore gloves while they did it.”

Rutledge spoke up for the first time. “I sent the tape to the BCA lab in Bemidji this morning to see if there’s something we can get from fibers or anything else the roll of tape might have come into contact with before it was used for the murders.”

Larson said, “Me, I don’t like either of the Reinhardts for this. Too brutal. And stupid. Buck’s a lot of things, but stupid’s not one of them. And he’d have to know that the Red Boyz wouldn’t let something like that go unanswered. It’s no wonder he’s carrying these days.”

“So who’s at the top of your list, Ed?”

“Seems to me this has all the earmarks of a drug hit. I spoke with Gordon Wingaard, our DEA guy down in the Cities, on the phone a little while ago. He’s inclined to believe the same thing.”

“Who did the hit?”

“Some things we know. Some things we can only speculate about. This is what we know. In California, Kingbird became a member of the Latin Lords, a gang with strong ties to the cartels across the border. The Latin Lords are a big part of the Mexican pipeline that funnels drugs to the Midwest. DEA has been aware for some time that the Lords have been using reservations as depots. Sovereign territory, for one thing. And on the reservation, so much gets tied up with family connections that people don’t talk to the law. DEA has had an eye on the Red Boyz, hoping to intercept shipments, but they haven’t been able to come up with anything, probably because the Red Boyz know ways on and off the reservation that none of the rest of us do.”

“That’s the speculation part?” Cork asked.

“DEA also speculates that the Red Boyz have been able to thin the ranks of the competition in the North Country through a disciplined campaign of intimidation.”

“And so this might be the competition fighting back?”

“DEA certainly likes that possibility. They’re talking to people they know, and they’ve promised to keep us in the loop.”

Cork studied his loose sign a moment, looked up at the thick cloud cover, then dropped his gaze back to the men below. “I don’t want to complicate your speculation, but there’s another possibility I think you ought to consider.”

“Yeah?” Larson said. “What’s that?”

“Lonnie Thunder.”

“I’m listening.”

“According to Meloux, Thunder was running scared after Kristi’s death. Kingbird took him to see Henry, hoping Meloux could help him find some courage.”

“Like the Wizard of Oz,” Rutledge threw in.

“Only Thunder didn’t stick around long enough for the wizard to give him anything. I’m thinking that if Thunder was in a panic and afraid Kingbird was going to turn him in, he might have been desperate enough for what happened out there.”

Rutledge nodded as if he liked the idea. “Which makes it even more incumbent upon us to find him.”

“Yeah, well, good luck.”

“The sheriff’s a little ticked at you, Cork,” Rutledge said. “She feels like you deserted her. Me, I think I can understand. Must be tough.”

“What’s that?”

“Being in the middle. Not the law, but not quite quit of it either. Situation like this Kingbird incident, with your Ojibwe friends on one side and a lot of your white friends on the other. Easier, I’m sure, just to step away and let go of any investment in the outcome. Still…” He shook his head in a troubled way. “I’d guess that’s hard to do when you’re watching it all play out in your own backyard.” He started to turn, as if to head back to the cruiser, but offered what seemed to be a sincere afterthought. “Listen, would you like us to keep you apprised of our investigation?”

Cork said, “No.”

“All right then.” Rutledge walked away.

“Take ’er easy, Cork.” Larson joined the BCA agent at the cruiser.

Cork watched them drive off under the gray overcast that had threatened rain all day but had not delivered. He turned back to his work, picked up his hammer, and pounded the next nail as if it was all that held the world together.

T
hat night Cork was responsible for dinner. The schedule of meals they’d all worked out for the week called for spaghetti and tossed salad. The spaghetti sauce was Prego. The salad came in a bag. This was a meal Cork could handle.

Shortly before five, Jo called to say she would be late. Opposing counsel in a trust dispute wanted to meet to discuss a settlement. Annie called a few minutes later from school to say that she and Cara Haines were going directly from softball practice to the Pinewood Broiler. Cork knew there’d been some kind of falling out between the two friends and was glad they were patching things up. He and Stevie ended up eating dinner on television trays while they watched a rerun of
The Simpsons.

“What do you say we head over to the Broiler for a little apple pie à la mode?” Cork suggested.

“Or French silk,” Stevie said, and his eyes danced with delight at the prospect.

They were halfway to the Broiler when Cork’s cell phone rang. He pulled it from the pocket of his jacket and glanced at the ID. A pay phone.

“O’Connor,” he answered.

There was a lot of static on the line, and Cork could barely hear the voice at the other end. “Cork, this is Oly Johnson. Got a call there’s a fire at Sam’s Place. We’re on our way. Better get your ass over there, too.”

Oly Johnson was the fire chief in Aurora.

The line went dead. Cork slapped his cell phone closed, tossed it to Stevie in the backseat, and hit the accelerator.

“What is it, Dad?” Stevie asked in a frightened voice.

“Fire at Sam’s Place,” Cork replied.

Cork sped through Aurora. At Second Street, he took the corner too fast and wide and barely missed hitting a pickup in the oncoming lane. He took the turnoff to Sam’s Place too quickly and the Bronco drifted on the gravel road. He brought it around and shot toward the Burlington Northern tracks. He sailed over the raised track bed and pulled into the unpaved parking lot. The old Quonset hut stood solid and silent, looking no different than it had when Cork left that afternoon.

“Where’s the fire, Dad?” Stevie asked.

Cork turned off the engine. “Hand me the flashlight in my toolbox back there.”

Stevie unbuckled and rummaged around in the toolbox behind him, then passed the flashlight to his father.

“Wait here,” Cork said. “And make sure your door’s locked.”

He got out of the Bronco and circled Sam’s Place slowly, poking the beam here and there. Back at the Quonset hut door that faced the parking lot, he inserted his key in the lock and swung the door open. The dark inside was both familiar and unsettling. In the silence there, he realized he didn’t hear any sirens coming his way. He considered the call from Oly Johnson, and understood that, of course, there was something incredibly not right about it coming from a pay phone. In his panic over the destruction of Sam’s Place, he’d let himself be fooled.
Hoax?
he wondered.
Warning?
In the second before he heard the shot, he thought,
Ambush.

The
chunk
of the round hitting the side of the Quonset hut came almost simultaneously with the rifle report. Cork spun into the cover inside Sam’s Place. Another report and another round hit the wall outside, penetrated, and struck the cupboard over the sink. This time Cork was able to tell the direction from which the shot had come. A hundred yards south was a stand of poplars that surrounded the ruins of an old ironworks. It was good cover, and with a nightscope anyone who was a decent shot could bring down a target wandering in the parking lot.

“Dad!”

Cork heard the slam of the Bronco passenger door. He peered around the doorway of Sam’s Place and saw the black shape of his son separate from the larger dark of the Bronco.

“No, Stevie!” he yelled. “Stay there!”

But his son had already begun to run.

In his mind’s eye, Cork was seeing the image through a nightscope: the crosshairs centered on the small, moving glow; leading the target just enough to account for bullet velocity and the lope of the boy; exhaling evenly as the finger squeezed the trigger.

He launched himself from the doorway and rocketed toward his son. He hit Stevie on the fifth stride, lifted him in his arms with barely a pause, and sprinted toward the Bronco. He reached the big vehicle and dropped Stevie behind the shield of its bulk.

“You okay?” he said, breathless and scared.

Stevie nodded.

They huddled together. Cork felt his son trembling, then realized the trembling was him. He was shaking worse than if he’d been naked in a blizzard.

“You’re sure?” he said.

“I’m okay, Dad, honest. I thought they shot you.”

“I’m fine.” Though he wasn’t. Not by a long sight.

“Who is it?” Stevie asked.

“I don’t know.”

He tried to think, not just about the identity of the shooter but also about the shooter’s location and whether the son of a bitch would seek a better firing position. The Bronco sat broadside to the old ironworks and provided good cover, unless the shooter moved.

“What are we going to do?” Stevie asked. “Do you have your gun, Dad?”

No, damn it, he didn’t. “What did you do with the cell phone?”

“I left it on the seat. I can get it.” Stevie started to move, but Cork grabbed his son’s arm.

“No you don’t. You stay right here.” His big quaking hands cupped Stevie’s shoulders and he looked sternly into his son’s eyes. “This is what we’re going to do. I’m going to open the driver’s door and turn on the headlights.”

“But he’ll see us.”

Cork didn’t want to waste time explaining, but his son needed to understand.

“If he’s using a nightscope, the glare from the headlights might blind him. I’ll grab my cell phone and zip right back here to you and we’ll call 911. If I’m hit, Stevie, you have to promise me you’ll run. Run to Sam’s Place and lock the door.”

“No, I wouldn’t leave you.”

“If I’m hit, I’ll need help. Use the phone in Sam’s Place to make the call. Do you understand?”

“I don’t want—”

“Run. That’s all there is to it. Understand?” It came out harsh, but he didn’t have time to make it easier.

Stevie stared at him, his eyes dark cups full of hurt. He said nothing, but he nodded.

“All right.” Cork let go of Stevie’s shoulders and moved toward the driver’s door.

The Bronco faced the lake and like a wall shielded him from the shooter’s position down the shoreline. Once he opened the driver’s door, however, the dome light would give him away and for a moment he would be a perfect target. Cork hoped maybe the light would be startling enough to make the shooter hesitate and he could switch on the blinding glare of the headlights before the squeeze of the trigger came. It was a gamble with odds he didn’t particularly care for, but at the moment he couldn’t think of another strategy. He grabbed the door handle and yanked. The dome light winked on. He leaned in and reached for the headlight switch. The brilliance that burst from the Bronco was like white ice, freezing the gravel of the lot, the red cedar picnic table, the lone pine near the shoreline, and thirty yards of the smooth black surface of Iron Lake. Cork reached to the backseat, expecting any second to hear the bark of the rifle, though he knew he wouldn’t hear the bullet that got him. He snatched the cell phone and began to slide back toward safety.

And the shot came.

He heard the report but didn’t feel any impact nor did he hear the round hit. He thought the shot had gone wild.

Then he heard Stevie grunt, and his heart yanked a cord that drew every muscle of his body taut.

“Stevie!” he cried.

He pushed from the vehicle. His feet slipped on the gravel and he went down on one knee, tearing a hole in his jeans. He stumbled toward the rear wheel well where he’d left his son.

Stevie knelt on the ground, bowed forward, his hands pressed to his face. Cork dropped beside him.

“Stevie?” He touched a shoulder.

His son looked up. Blood dripped over his lips and chin. For a second, Cork stood absolutely frozen.

“I’m okay, Dad,” Stevie said. “I went down when I heard the shot and I hit my nose on the bumper. Are you all right?”

Cork felt almost giddy with relief. “I’m fine,” he said. “Just fine.”

He flipped the phone open and 911’ed the sheriff’s department. Then he put his son against the Bronco and with his own body shielded him until he heard the sirens rise out of the distance.