Windigo Island (18 page)

Raven lay on a cot in an exam room. She was covered with a sheet and blanket. She was awake and turned her head when Jenny and her father walked in.

“He’ll hurt my family,” she said. It was still mostly a mumble through those distorted lips, but it was understandable.

“We’ll make sure they’re safe,” Cork said. “I promise.”

That seemed to comfort her more than any painkiller.

Cork took her hand. “Who is Windigo?”

She shook her head. “Don’t know his real name. Nobody does. When I first met him, he told me it was Angel. But it’s not.”

“You said he didn’t do this to you. It was his brother. Does his brother have a name?”

“Manny. Short for Maiingan.”

“Wolf,” Cork said, translating the Ojibwe word.

“Yeah. Wolf.”

“Why did he do this to you?”

“Word came down Bea was looking for me. Manny heard. Bea’s always trying to help us girls. Manny knows. Usually he ignores it. Thinks he has us too scared. He said I should call her, see what she wanted. She told me you were looking for Mariah. Gave me phone numbers. Manny said he’d take care of it. He came back last night beat up and pissed as hell. I thought if you kept at it, he might get mad enough to kill somebody.” She looked at Jenny. “What I told you in the park was true. I thought if you and Mrs. Arceneaux went poking around you’d get killed or Mariah would. Better if you just left.”

She was quiet for a few moments, maybe collecting herself, her strength.

“Manny followed me to the park,” she went on. “Said he’d been watching me since Misty—Carrie—died. That I’d been different. He grabbed me after I talked to you, wanted to know what you said. I told him you were religious people trying to save my soul. He called me a lying bitch. Said you were the same ones he went after last night. He took me back to our crib, started on me, made the other girls watch. Said he was going to give me the face a lying bitch deserved. A lesson, he called it. He likes giving lessons.”

“How’d you get away?”

“A couple guys off one of the freighters wanted company for the weekend. Manny took Krystal. Before he left, he said if I ever talked to anyone again, he’d kill me. He meant it.”

“But here you are.”

“They say we’re family. We’re not. Carrie’s dead. They didn’t care. Mariah didn’t do nothing, but they blame her.”

“What about Mariah? Is she with Manny?”

Raven shook her head. “Don’t know where she is. Angel took her. Her and another sister. Haven’t come back.”

“And you don’t know where they went?”

“He takes girls all over. Don’t know where he went this time.”

“Would Manny know?”

“He’d know.”

“Where can I find him?”

“Apartment. In Duluth.” She gave a street and number, which Cork wrote down on his notepad.

“Who else is in the apartment?”

“Just Manny, one other sister. Like I said, Krystal’s with the guys off the boat for the weekend.”

“No other men?”

A shake of her head. Jenny could see she was tiring. So could Lenora Downfeather. She said, “I think that’s enough for now.”

They stepped into the small corridor and spoke in whispers.

“Can she stay here?” Cork asked Lenora.

“How long?”

“Just until after dark.”

“She really needs to go somewhere she can get constant care. I’ve pretty much done what I can for her. And I know how this will sound, but I’m not eager for the man who did this to know I help these girls.”

“I understand,” Cork said. “The man who did this? When it’s dark, I’m going after him.”

Lenora Downfeather looked back at the girl lying beaten on the cot.

“Godspeed,” she said.

Chapter 31

T
hey wouldn’t be staying in Duluth that night. In the early evening, while the others kept watch over Raven Duvall, Jenny and Daniel English drove to the hotel to retrieve the things they’d left behind. It was deep twilight when they returned to Rollie’s Large Animal Clinic. Jenny’s father was in the parking lot, talking on his cell phone.

“That’s disappointing, Simon,” Jenny heard him say. “I expected more.”

Cork paced back and forth, his voice taut, bordering on anger.

“No,” he said. “Tomorrow morning will do. But I’ll be keeping tabs on you, Simon, so don’t get cold feet. This won’t simply go away. Tomorrow morning will be the only chance you have to salvage something from all this, the only chance you’ll have at saving your good name. When you’ve done what you need to do, have your lawyer call me. Understand?”

Jenny didn’t hear him say good-bye.

“Simon Wesley,” he explained to her. “Says his boss arranged everything over the Internet. Met the guy who delivered the girls, but got no names. His boss said that’s the way it always works.” Cork’s face was a stone mask, but his eyes were cold. “By the time this is over, it won’t work that way anymore for John Boone Turner. Not ever again.”

Inside, in the waiting room, her father said to everyone, “It’s time to do this.”

He’d outlined earlier what would occur, and his plan had
included only him and Daniel. This didn’t sit well with Jenny, though she’d said nothing at the time. Now she said, “I’m going.”

“We’ve already decided how this will be,” her father said.

Once again, she found herself in a position of defiance, a place that, so far, hadn’t turned out to be particularly good. And she knew that once again she was at risk of screwing up a construct that her father, with years of experience in this kind of thing, had designed. But she was damned if she was going to be left behind.

“Not we. You. You decided.”

“You’re not going, Jenny.”

“I am.”

“When you came along in the beginning of all this, it was with the understanding that I gave the orders.”

“Things are different now.”

Louise said, “Let her go, Cork. If I could, I’d go. I’d help.”

He put up a warning finger. “Not your call, Louise.” He turned back to Jenny. “If things go south, and there’s no guarantee they won’t, I don’t want to have to worry about your safety.”

“And I can’t worry about yours?”

“How will you being there help?”

“We won’t know unless I am, will we?”

His eyes were iron, and he spoke with slow deliberation: “Think about Waaboo.”

“And what do I tell my son as I raise him? That he should stand up for what he believes only if it doesn’t threaten him? That’s certainly not how you raised me.”

“There’s no logical reason for you to do this. Daniel and I can handle it.”

It was like hammering against a locked door, but she kept trying. “I need to do this for me.”

“Why? This isn’t part of the vision.”

He was right. Somewhere along the way it had become about something much more substantial than a vision. The girl they were trying to save had left home long ago, had walked through a door into the world and been lost. To find her, and in a way, to find
herself, Jenny believed that she needed to leave the safety of her own life and follow into that world where Mariah had gone. She understood her father’s resistance. This was a journey no parent wished for a child.

“Maybe all of this is a part of the vision,” she said evenly. “Or maybe none of it is. All I know is that it feels right for me to go. It feels right here.” She put her fist against her breast, over her heart.

Her father opened his mouth to make a reply, but Daniel spoke first. “If we get in too deep, Cork, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have someone on the outside of things to call for backup. If she promised to stay clear of the action.”

Cork shot Daniel a look that said
traitor
. He took a deep breath. “Would that satisfy you, Jenny?”

“That would satisfy me.”

Cork turned away from her, turned away from them all, and was silent a long time before he finally faced them again. “All right. But you do exactly what I say, understood? If trouble comes and I say run, you get the hell out and you don’t look back. Are we clear?”

“We’re clear.”

“Fine,” he said, though his tone said otherwise. “Let’s go.”

The crib, as Raven had called it, turned out to be in an old brick apartment building not far from downtown, the kind a rat might call cozy. It appeared to be a fourplex, two apartments up and two down. There was a wide porch on the first floor and above it a balcony. An alleyway bordered it on one side. On the other lay a great patch of weeds with one tall sunflower making a proud showing near the center. The neighborhood was a sad collection of residential buildings that had probably once been large family homes but had been carved up into tiny, forgettable units, and everywhere Jenny looked, the face of neglect stared back. The saving grace of the old fourplex was that anyone sitting on the front porch or on the balcony would be able to see the calming blue of Lake Superior far down the hill. Jenny imagined this would be a blessing to a girl
constantly under the eye of men like those who called themselves Wolf and Windigo.

They’d taken Daniel’s truck and had parked across the street and a few houses down, where they could check out the place without being seen. The moon was climbing, everything beneath it painted in either silver or shadow. Far down the hill, Jenny could see where the moonlight spilled like mercury across the dark surface of the lake. She could see the tall sunflower and the shadow it cast across the weeds, a sort of black reflection of itself. She could see the glow behind drawn shades in the apartments. What she didn’t see, none of them saw, was any kind of vehicle parked near the building.

“You two stay here,” Cork said. “I’m going to do a little reconnoitering. Daniel, you got a crowbar in that toolbox of yours?”

“Yeah.” Daniel handed him the key.

Cork climbed into the bed of the truck, rummaged around in the big toolbox, came back with a crowbar, and returned the key to Daniel. Without further explanation, he left the truck, slipped across the street, kept to the shadows, and disappeared down the alley around the back of the apartment building.

For a little while, neither Jenny nor Daniel talked. Then Jenny said, “Thanks for backing me up.”

Daniel, whose attention seemed to have been totally on the building across the street, angled his face toward her. He smiled gently in the dark. “I was beginning to think we might be there all night arguing the point. He can be stubborn, can’t he?” He waited a beat and said, “Kind of like you.”

“Both cut from the same cloth,” Jenny said.

“Good cloth,” Daniel replied.

They waited fifteen minutes. Jenny’s father didn’t come back.

“I’m getting a little worried,” Jenny said.

“He’s just doing a thorough lookover is my guess. Never good to walk into a situation you haven’t scoped out well.”

He sounded as if he meant it and wasn’t just trying to reassure. Like her father, he knew this kind of business better than she. So she believed him.

A dark SUV pulled into the alley and parked next to the apartment building. Two figures got out. One was tall and powerful-looking. The other was small, a walking willow branch. Female, Jenny thought. And probably just a kid. The two entered the building through a back entrance. Lights came on in one of the upper units.

“Where is he?” Jenny said after another few minutes had passed. “Shouldn’t he have had a good idea of things by now?”

“Every situation’s different,” Daniel said. “But I think I’ll go see if he needs a hand.” He reached across Jenny, opened the glove box, and took out his sidearm and a pair of handcuffs.

“I’m coming, too,” Jenny said.

“That’s exactly what you promised him you wouldn’t do.”

He was right. She said, “Don’t be long. Call if you need me.” She held up her cell. “You have my number.”

“On speed dial.” He smiled that gentle smile again, then left his truck and crossed the street. Like Cork before him, he stuck to the shadows cast by the moon. Jenny watched him slide around the back of the building, where the big man and willow-stick girl had gone.

Minutes passed. A lot of minutes. In the dead silence, Jenny tried to keep judicious counsel with herself. There was good reason both Daniel and her father had disappeared. Good reason she hadn’t heard anything. Good reason to keep her promise to her father.

This was the part of the hunt that Henry Meloux had said was the most important. The patience. But Jenny knew she was no hunter.

“Screw it,” she finally said aloud and got out of the truck.

She stepped into the street just as a car rounded the corner behind her and caught her full in the glare of its headlights. The blast of a horn came loud and long, and Jenny jumped back.

“Watch where you’re going, crazy bitch,” the driver hollered and drove on.

Jenny stood on the curb, catching her breath, settling herself.
She studied the apartment building to see if any shades had been raised at the sound of the horn. As near as she could tell, no one gave a damn. That kind of neighborhood.

She crossed the street and entered the alley and came to the SUV parked there. Minnesota plates, she saw. Tinted windows that, in the dark, were like ink bottles. As she stood in the shadow of the building, amid the foul garbage smell that poured off a big trash bin in the alley, trying to decide what her next move was, the back door opened, and Jenny froze.

The man who stood in the drizzle of light from the overhead bulb was big, well built. He made Jenny think of the WWE wrestlers she sometimes caught a glimpse of when she surfed the television channels looking for something interesting to watch. His face, or what showed of it in the dull light, didn’t look Indian, but Jenny knew that meant nothing.

“Okay, Ember boy, do your stuff.”

Jenny now saw that the man had a dog with him, an Irish setter. The dog looked old, and when it descended the back steps it moved gingerly. It wandered into the weed patch next to the building, sniffed around the single sunflower stalk, and lifted its hind leg. The guy watched from the porch, and Jenny took the opportunity to ease herself behind the cover of the SUV.

The man reached into his shirt pocket and brought out a joint. He dug into the pocket of his khakis, pulled out a lighter, and lit the joint. He drew smoke deep into his lungs, held it, then exhaled. He repeated the process, and it wasn’t long before the scent of burning weed drifted down to where Jenny hid.

“Come back here, you worthless old hound.” The words themselves were not gentle, but the man spoke them as if they were. The dog laboriously climbed the steps, and the two of them sat side by side, the man running his hand lovingly down the length of the animal’s body, the dog’s tail sweeping contentedly across the porch floorboards.

A girl stepped through the door behind them and came out onto the wooden landing. She was young, probably early teens,
blond, willowy. Maybe the girl Jenny had seen earlier, but she couldn’t be sure. She wore a white tank top, clearly no bra beneath, and tight jeans. She stood beside the man, who paid her no mind.

“Sharesies?” she said.

Without replying, he held up what was left of the joint. She accepted it, took a couple of tokes, handed it back.

“Thanks, Manny,” she said. “I needed that.” Then she said, “I’m hungry, Manny.”

“Food in the refrigerator,” he said.

“It’s all crap.”

“Guess you’ll have to eat crap, then.”

“There’s a twenty-four-hour McDonald’s on London Road.”

“I’m not taking you to no McDonald’s.”

“Sparkle—” she began.

He turned on her. “You say that bitch’s name again, I’ll break your face.”

“I was just going to say that she used to go get food for us there at night sometimes. Maybe she’s there now. I mean, if you really want to find her.”

“I find her, I kill her,” Manny said.

“You already came pretty close.”

“McDonald’s,” Manny said, as if thinking. He shook his head and said, “She’ll come back. You bitches always come back.”

“If she’s there, you could bring her back. That would be good, wouldn’t it?”

“I told you, Cherry, I’m not taking you nowhere. Get back inside.”

Cherry didn’t move. Manny stood, lifted his arm as if to slap her face, and the girl said, “I’m going, Manny. I’m going.”

The man was left alone with his dog. He eyed the last little bit of the joint he held, tossed it in his mouth, chewed a couple of times, swallowed.

“Come on, Ember boy,” he said, standing up. “Let’s call it a night.”

After the man and dog had gone back inside, Jenny waited a full minute before she dared to move. Slowly, she rose from the crouched position she’d held, despite her aching knees.

The hand on her shoulder made her jump. She spun, fists raised, ready to defend herself. Daniel held a finger to his lips, begging silence.

“You,” she whispered in relief. “Dad?”

Daniel said nothing but crooked his finger in a sign for her to follow. He made his way around to the other side of the building, where a short flight of steps led down to a basement doorway. The door was open a crack. Jenny saw splintered wood along the doorframe, and the hasp and padlock hung there, useless. She followed Daniel into the utter black inside. She felt his hand on her arm and let him guide her blindly for a dozen steps, then another door opened, this one onto light and a stairway that headed up. Daniel led the way, and again she followed. They came into a long hallway suffused faintly with the odor of mildew and fried onions. The floor was bare, the old boards worn to gray. The hallway ran straight to the front of the building, where doors on either side opened onto the two lower units and another stairway led up. Daniel went ahead and began to climb. Jenny started up after him, but when she put her weight on the first stair, an old board let out a screech. She held still. They both held still. Nothing else happened. They moved on, but after that, Jenny followed exactly in Daniel’s footsteps.