Vermilion Drift (10 page)

It was twilight when he finished, and he took Trixie for a walk. He passed houses he was almost as familiar with as his own, where people lived whom he’d known his whole life. He walked to the business district of Aurora, two square blocks of storefronts and enterprises. Gerten’s Travel, Bonnie’s Salon, The Enigmatic Gnome, the Tamarack County Courthouse, Pflugleman’s Rexall Drugs, Johnny’s Pinewood Broiler. It was early summer, and the town was full of tourists. Unlike that of Gresham, Aurora’s economy was solid, booming even. Five decades he’d walked these streets. Now they felt different to him. With Jo gone and the kids away, what held him to this place was history. And what was history but memory? And of what value, in the end, was a memory? A man’s life needed to be made of stuff more immediate and substantial. Cork wondered what that was for him now.

“Mr. O.C.!”

He turned and found Ophelia Stillday limping toward him from the door of Pflugleman’s drugstore. In the blue light of dusk, her face was dark and serious.

“What’s wrong?” Cork said.

“I’m glad I caught you.” She petted Trixie, who danced all over the sidewalk at the attention. “I’ve been thinking about Lauren,” she said. “I know I gave you a hard time this morning, but I’m worried about her. Have you found out anything?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Really? What?”

He nodded toward the steps of the courthouse half a block away. “Let’s sit down.” When they had, he said, “I’m going to tell you something, but you need to promise me that you’ll keep it to yourself for a while.”

“Sure.”

“I mean this absolutely.”

“Cross my heart,” she said, and did.

He told her what he’d found that day in the Vermilion Drift. He didn’t describe the state of Lauren Cavanaugh’s body, but Ophelia looked stricken nonetheless. Her mouth hung open in a silent
O
of surprise and shock. Her eyes were full of horror.

“I’m sure the body we found is Lauren Cavanaugh’s, but it hasn’t been officially identified yet, and that’s why it’s imperative that you keep this to yourself. Do you understand, Ophelia?”

“Yes,” she said. “Absolutely.” Then she said, “Oh, Jesus,” and buried her face in her palms. “Oh, Christ.” She dropped her hands and looked at him, confused but also, he thought, angry. “Who would do that?”

“I don’t know. And the reason I’ve told you about this is that I’m hoping you might have an idea who.”

“Me? No. Why would I?”

“Someone from the investigation will interview you and ask that same question. So take a while to think about it. Is there anything important you know that might help?”

“No,” she answered, shaking her head. “No.” But even as she said it, Cork saw a light come into those brown Ojibwe eyes.

“What?” he said.

She frowned and struggled a moment with her conscience. “We’re in trouble financially.”

“The center?”

She nodded. “Since Lauren’s been gone, I’ve had to tackle some areas that typically she handles. Mr. O.C., we owe a lot of money to people. Money that, as nearly as I can tell, we don’t have.”

“Her brother tells me that he’s been picking up the bills for the center.”

She looked down, troubled. “Not for a while. Lauren was supposed to find her own support for the center. She hasn’t been successful. Some of the correspondence I’ve gone through in the last couple of days has been from creditors. Some pretty threatening letters.”

“That’s important, but I’m not sure it’s enough to kill for.”

“What would be?” she asked. She was serious.

“Murder, generally speaking, is a crime of passion. It can be about money, but not usually about money owed. Unless the mob’s involved. If it’s money, it’s usually about greed. If it’s not money, then it’s love or anger or revenge. Do any of those fit?”

She thought for a while, shaking her head the whole time. “She was so loved by everyone. She was such a remarkable person. I don’t know why anyone would want her dead.”

“Probably there’s a lot about her you didn’t know. People hide things. Think for a minute. Anything come to mind? Derek, for example.”

“Derek?”

“That handsome young artist at the center.”

“I know who Derek is.”

“I got strange vibes from him today. Is it possible there was something between him and Lauren?”

The features of her face squeezed up, as if Cork had offered her something foul. “That’s impossible.”

“Is it?” Cork asked. “Lauren was a beautiful woman, unattached, as nearly as I can tell. Derek’s a nice looking kid. And he didn’t strike me as the shy type.”

Ophelia shook her head adamantly. “What happened to Lauren definitely has nothing to do with Derek.”

There was no reason for Cork to convince her otherwise, so he said, “All right, let’s try something else. She has her own wing at the Parrant estate. Sorry, the center. It has an entrance of its own?”

“Yes.”

“And she’s created that little getaway for herself in the boathouse. Have you ever seen anyone come or go using her private entrance, or visit her at the boathouse, particularly at night?”

“No.” She raised an eyebrow. “But I’m not usually there at night.”

“Which is when someone who didn’t want to be seen visiting would probably visit. Who is there at night?”

“Joyce, our housekeeper. She has a room down the hall from my office, but she’s never at the center on weekends.”

“Still, someone should talk to her.”

“Why not you?”

“Because I’m not part of the official investigation.”

Although he could be, if he wanted. All he had to do was accept the sheriff’s offer. The idea was beginning to have its attractions.

Ophelia said, “Jenny told me once that her mom hated you being sheriff.”

“With good reason.”

“But you could help out this one time, couldn’t you? I mean, this is in a good cause, right?”

“That’s exactly what I used to tell Jo,” Cork said. “And her response was always that, when the bullets start flying, a good cause is a poor shield.”

“You think there could be flying bullets?” She seemed caught by surprise.

“That’s the problem with business like this, Ophelia. You never know.” Cork pointed to the courthouse behind them. “The clock on that tower. The hands are stuck.”

“I know this story,” she said.

Hell, everyone in Aurora probably knew the story, but Cork repeated it anyway.

“That clock was hit by bullets during an exchange of gunfire between my father and some men who’d just robbed the bank. My dad was fatally shot during that exchange. The hands of the clock haven’t moved since. People around here think of it as a kind of fitting memorial. For me, it’s a reminder that, when guns are involved, people you love can be lost forever.”

“Jenny told me you stopped carrying a gun. So, if bullets start flying, what do you do?”

“Duck and run, Ophelia. Duck and run.”

A
few minutes before ten, Cork headed to Sam’s Place to give a hand with closing. Judy Madsen was a terrific manager, but she never closed. She didn’t like being out after dark, so Cork usually made sure he was there to supervise.

It was a Monday night, not particularly busy. Judy had put Kate Buker and Jodi Bollendorf, two great kids, on the schedule. They were Anne’s friends, who’d worked for Cork during their high school years and who, home from college for the summer, were putting in time again. They both wanted to be lawyers.
Just what the world needs
, Cork thought dismally,
more lawyers
. But everyone had to have a dream, no matter how misguided.

He’d parked his Land Rover and was just about to head inside when Max Cavanaugh pulled up in his Escalade and got out.

“Got a minute, Cork?” he said.

“Sure, Max.”

Mounted on a tall pole above the parking lot was a yard light so bright it made the gravel look like dirty snow. Cavanaugh stood in the glare, clearly troubled. He glanced toward Sam’s Place, then at the dark along the shoreline of Iron Lake.

“Over there,” he said.

Cork followed to the old dock he maintained for boaters who wanted to come off the lake for a burger and needed a place to tie up. Cavanaugh strolled to the end. Another step and he would have been in the water. He stood looking down the shoreline toward the lights of town. In the right mood, he might have understood, as Cork did, how lovely it was: the black surface where the lights danced; the sky above
salted with stars and hung with a crescent moon thin as a clipped fingernail; the quiet in which, if Cork listened closely, he was sure he could hear the earth breathe.

“I just came from Nelson’s Funeral Home,” Cavanaugh said, his back to Cork.

Nelson’s was where the autopsies for Tamarack County were performed. For a long time, Sigurd Nelson had been the coroner and did the job himself. In one of his last battles as sheriff, Cork had convinced the county commissioners to hire a certified medical examiner. Now Dr. Tom Conklin, a retired surgeon, handled the function. But the funeral home was still where the job was done.

Cork said, “I’m sorry, Max.”

Cavanaugh hunched his shoulders, dark against the broader dark of the water. “The sheriff wanted me to identify my sister’s body. How could I identify that? Christ, how could anyone?”

There wasn’t much to say to that. Rhetorical, Cork figured. Frustrated, angry, devastated, and rhetorical.

Cavanaugh turned back to Cork. “You found her.” It sounded a little like an accusation.

“Lou Haddad and I.”

“The authorities don’t know anything. Or wouldn’t tell me. Which is it?”

“A little of both, I suspect,” Cork replied.

Cavanaugh took a step. Not threatening. “What do you know?”

“That I can tell you?”

“You’re working for me, remember?”

“Technically, Max, my job is finished. Your sister’s been found.”

Cork didn’t have to see the man’s face to sense his rage.

“I want to know everything you know,” Cavanaugh said. “God damn it, I’ll pay you.”

“It’s not about money, Max. In a situation like this, there are good reasons for not making everything public.”

“My sister’s dead. I have a right to know things.”

“And you will. It’ll just take some time.”

Cavanaugh was silent. Although Cork considered the man his friend, he knew that Max was used to being obeyed. Perhaps in a mine
or in a boardroom his silence might have had the desired effect, but Cork simply held his ground and matched Cavanaugh’s silence.

Cavanaugh broke first. “They asked me questions, as if I was a suspect. Am I a suspect, Cork?”

“More likely a person of interest. At this point, pretty much everyone in Tamarack County who knew her is a person of interest. It’s not personal, Max. Did you give them a formal statement?”

“No. I’ll go in tomorrow morning.”

“I’d advise you to take legal counsel with you. I know how it will look, but it’s the prudent thing to do.”

Cavanaugh turned slowly, like a windmill adjusting to a change in the direction of the wind. He stared across the empty lake, where the distant shore was marked by solitary pinpricks of light from cabins hidden among the pines.

“You had someone you loved die this way, Cork. You’ve got to understand what I’m feeling.”

Cavanaugh was probably talking about Cork’s wife, Jo. But he might also have been speaking of Cork’s father. Either way, the answer was yes, Cork understood.

For the briefest moment, he thought about telling Cavanaugh that it was likely one of the old bodies in the Vermilion Drift was his mother. And that he knew what that was like, too, having someone you love disappear and a very long time later learning their true end.

Instead he waited and listened in vain to hear the earth breathe.

Cavanaugh straightened. “I’d like you to continue working for me.”

“In what capacity?”

“I want to know who killed my sister.”

“There are a lot of very capable law enforcement personnel who’ll be investigating.”

“I want someone working on it just for me.”

“Believe me, Max, the resources they have available to them are light-years beyond anything I could bring to the table.”

“You know this town, the people in it. You don’t have to walk a thin legal line and go by the book.”

“You mean I can twist arms and bust faces? I don’t work that way.
The sheriff’s people and the BCA are the best there is. I’ve worked with them for years.”

“And if you were me, would you trust them or you?”

A complicated question, not just because of the convoluted syntax. Cork thought a lot of his own abilities, and the truth was that in an investigation he had certain advantages over those who were uniformed and badged. Which was one of the reasons Marsha Dross had already sought his help. And that was part of the complication. If Cork agreed to hire on with Cavanaugh, he couldn’t also agree to sign on with the sheriff. Conflict of interest.

He felt for Max Cavanaugh. He understood the man’s grief, his confusion, his frustration, his desire to rip away the veil of mystery surrounding his sister’s death and, although Cavanaugh didn’t yet know it, his mother’s death as well. Because Cork thought he had a better chance of making that happen working with the sheriff and the BCA, he said, “No, thanks, Max. But if you’re bound and determined, I can recommend a couple of good investigators.”

The old dock groaned under Cavanaugh’s weight as he brushed past Cork, wordless, and returned to his Escalade. In the quiet by the lake, Cork could hear the angry growl of the engine for a long time after it had disappeared into the night.

T
he next morning Cork was up before sunrise and running.

Years earlier, he’d been a smoker and enough overweight to worry about it. When he hit forty-two, his life went into a meltdown. He lost his job as sheriff, lost a lot of his self-respect, nearly lost his family. Part of pulling himself together involved getting comfortable in his own skin, and running helped him do that. He discovered that when he ran all the tight screws in his head loosened, and he seemed to think a little clearer.

That morning he had a lot to think about.