Iron Lake

by William Kent Krueger

  Inside, someone whimpered as if being hurt.

  40

  CORK CREPT to the back of the mission building and peered around the corner. A half cord of split wood lay stacked near the back door. The snow behind the building was hard packed by a lot of comings and goings. The deep snow off to the sides of the back entrance was stained yellow where someone had done a good deal of urinating. He edged his way to the door. Leaning close, he listened again for the whimper. This time the only sound he heard was the click of the latch as the door was throw open and the long blue barrel of a rifle came at him out of the dark inside.

  “You alone?”

  “Alone.” Cork nodded. He slowly lowered the Winchester and leaned it against the side of the mission.

  Wanda Manydeeds motioned him back with the rifle and risked a glance out the door, right then left. She jerked her head toward the room behind her. “Inside.”

  She moved back to let Cork through, then closed the door behind him. Only a dim light filtered through the drawn shades into the mission’s single room. Cork’s pupils were still contracted from the sunlight outside and he felt blind, as if he’d stepped into a dark cave. He stumbled over something soft, but caught himself before he fell. Near one of the windows he identified the black, bulky silhouette of a potbelly stove, the source of the warmth in the room. Not far to his left, stacked against a wall under a window, lay a clutter of two-by-fours along with a couple of sawhorses, evidence of St. Kawasaki’s continuing efforts to refurbish the old structure. Directly ahead, worn gray benches marched away in rows toward the far, as yet impenetrable, dark at the front of the mission. From that dark came a whimper.

  “Shhhh, Makwa. Shhhh,” a soft voice cooed.

  Another voice suggested firmly, “Put the rifle down, Wanda.”

  The old floorboards squeaked and groaned as St. Kawasaki came forward out of the dark. He was followed by Darla LeBeau. Someone else came a few steps behind Darla. It was Paul LeBeau. He carried a squirming bundle of blanket in his arms.

  “Poo-wah,” Paul said, speaking in Ojibwe slang. It stinks. “He needs his diapers changed, Aunt Wanda,” he said in English.

  Wanda Manydeeds set the rifle against the wall and took the baby.

  The priest was grinning. “Here Darla and I spent all morning trying to find you, and it was you who found us. How’d you know to come here?”

  “I was looking for Lazarus,” Cork replied. “It keeps rising from the dead.” Cork glanced at the stove. “I’m freezing, Tom. Mind if I warm up?

  “Go ahead. By all means.”

  Heat rolled off the stove, and Cork stood turning first one side of his body then the other to the hot cast iron.

  “You saw me coming?” he asked.

  “Paul saw someone,” Tom Griffin replied. “We didn’t know it was you.”

  “You’ve been here the whole time?” he asked the boy.

  Paul looked to the priest, who gave him an almost imperceptible nod. “Mostly,” Paul answered. “Father Tom thought it was the safest place.”

  Cork, whose eyes had just about adjusted to the faint light inside the mission, noticed the sleeping bag rolled and tied on the floor. That was the soft obstacle he’d stumbled over on entering the mission. He also saw several sacks of groceries lined up on one of the benches.

  “Safe from what?” he asked.

  No one answered his question. He studied the boy—hardly a boy anymore. Paul stood nearly as tall as he. If he kept growing, he’d easily reach his father’s height.

  “Someone drove Lazarus out to Harlan Lytton’s place yesterday,” Cork went on. “Was it you, Tom?”

  “No.” The priest looked puzzled and glanced at the boy.

  “I was there,” Paul admitted.

  “In the ski mask?” Cork asked.

  The boy shook his head. “I fired a couple shots at the ski mask and scared him away.”

  “Fired a couple of shots?” the priest said with surprise. “Wait a minute. Paul, put some more wood in that stove. Crank up the heat for our friend. Cork, we’ll tell you everything, but it’s going to take a while.” He glanced at Paul. “Maybe even longer than I thought. How about putting some hot water on the stove, Darla? I could use some coffee. Even if it’s instant.”

  Paul and Darla did as the priest directed. Wanda Manydeeds finished changing Makwa’s diapers.

  “Cork, help me haul this pew nearer the stove,” the priest said. “Give you a warm place to sit.”

  When the backless old pew was settled, the water hot, and the instant coffee stirred into foam plastic cups that had been pulled from the grocery bags, the priest said, “Okay, let’s talk. But before we do, I want to remind you of a couple of things, Cork. First of all, you’re not the sheriff anymore. That’s one reason we’ve all decided to trust you. Also you told me not long ago that you don’t believe there is such a thing as justice. These people feel the same way.”

  Cork sat on the pew near Wanda Manydeeds, who rocked Mawka. Darla and Paul stood near the back door. Tom Griffin moved about freely with his coffee in his hand, gesturing toward those present.

  “What we discuss here goes no further,” the priest said.

  “Then why tell me at all?”

  “Because I think you’ll keep digging until you know the truth anyway. We’d just as soon try to deal with it now.”

  Cork considered them all a moment. “All right. But first there’s something I have to tell you.” He looked at Darla and Paul LeBeau. “You might want to sit down.”

  Darla moved to her son and put her arm protectively around him, although he was a full head taller than she. “We’re fine,” she said.

  He plunged in, telling it bluntly because there seemed no other way. “Joe John’s dead. I believe he was murdered.”

  He’d delivered tragic news before. It had been part of the job, but he’d never become immune to the effect tragedy had on those who had to hear of it, and he’d never become used to his own feeling of helplessness in those situations. But the LeBeaus surprised him. Their faces didn’t change in the least.

  “They know, Cork,” St. Kawasaki informed him quietly. “I already told them.”

  “You knew?” Cork asked the priest.

  “I’ve known since Vernon Blackwater passed away.” He gestured toward Wanda. “We both have known.”

  “How?”

  Wanda spoke while she rocked Makwa next to her breast. “When Vernon was dying, he asked us both to come. Tom for the part of him that was Catholic, me because I am a Midewiwin. We were alone in the room with him. When he made a last confession to Tom, I overheard.”

  “He confessed to helping kill Joe John?” Cork asked the priest.

  Tom Griffin stood near a window looking uncomfortable. “Why don’t you talk to Wanda about what she overheard. It probably doesn’t matter now, but I still don’t feel right about sharing with you what was told to me in confession.”

  “You shared it with Darla and Paul,” Cork pointed out.

  “That was different. I had no choice.”

  “Why?”

  The priest pulled the shade away from the window just a crack and looked out at the road. A streak of afternoon sunlight cut across his face like yellow war paint. “Because I had to explain to Paul why the judge was dead.”

  Cork felt as if his brain were stuffed with cotton. He squinted at St. Kawasaki and asked dumbly, “Was it you who killed the judge?”

  The priest let the shade fall back into place and shook his head. “No.”

  Wanda said, “I did.”

  Makwa began to whimper again. Wanda stood up and walked slowly about the room, cooing softly to her baby. She didn’t seem in any hurry to tell Cork any more.

  “Was it an accident, Wanda?” Cork asked hopefully.

  “No. I meant to kill him.”

  “Here,” Darla said to Wanda when the baby went on fussing, “let me take him awhile.”

  Wanda gave Makwa over to her sister-in-law and turned back
to Cork. Her long black hair was braided and hung over her shoulder like a length of rope. Her face was the color of sandstone and no less hard.

  “Vernon confessed to watching Harlan Lytton kill my brother. He said the judge set it up. He wouldn’t say why, only that Joe John was murdered and the judge and Lytton were responsible. Vernon didn’t want to die with that secret weighing on him as he walked the Path of Souls.”

  Cork glanced at the priest. “Did you ask him why?”

  St. Kawasaki shook his head. “He was barely able to speak as it was. I just listened.”

  “You should have asked,” Wanda said with an accusing tone.

  “I was his confessor, Wanda, not his inquisitor,” the priest reminded her gently. “We’ve speculated it probably had something to do with Russell embezzling.”

  “You know about that?” Cork was surprised.

  “Everybody knows about that now,” Wanda said.

  “Small town,” the priest added.

  “So what happened between you and the judge?” he asked Wanda.

  “I went there that afternoon to talk to him. Tom wanted me to wait until we could figure a way to do something about it. I didn’t want to wait. I couldn’t. It was like having a wild animal inside me eating me up.”

  “So you confronted the judge,” Cork said.

  “Yes.”

  “And I’ll bet he just laughed at you.”

  Wanda gave Cork a look that said he was right on the money.

  “He said I had no proof of anything. ‘Hearsay,’ is what he called it. I told him I didn’t need any proof. I’d just tell what I’d heard. People would listen.”

  “You threatened the judge? I would like to have been there. What did he do?”

  Wanda, who’d looked directly at Cork until that moment, looked away.

  “He threatened her back, Cork,” St. Kawasaki said. “He had some . . . information.” The priest hesitated, and it seemed as if he and Wanda spoke silently to one another with their eyes.

  Cork said, “It’s all right. I know about the judge and his pieces of information. You’re not the only one he dealt with that way, Wanda. What happened then?”

  “He told me to get out,” Wanda went on bitterly. “He turned away to go to the front door. I grabbed the poker from the fireplace and I hit him. I didn’t even think about it. I just hit him, right in the back of the head.” She put her hand on her own head to show Cork.

  “Then you put the shotgun into his mouth to make it look like suicide,” Cork finished for her.

  “No.” The priest folded his arms and leaned against the mission wall. “That was my doing,” he said.

  “You?”

  “Wanda called me from the judge’s place. I went over on Lazarus, cut across the lake as fast as I could. He was dead when I got there.”

  “And you figured in a white courtroom, under white law, Wanda stood a snowball’s chance in hell of getting justice. So you faked the suicide.”

  “That’s about the size of it, Cork. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was workable. I’ve seen worse things in my life, believe me.”

  Cork did. He rubbed his forehead a moment, wishing like hell he had a cigarette. He glanced at Paul. “So you must have stumbled onto all this, is that it?”

  “Yeah,” Paul said.

  “About where did you come in?”

  “When I delivered the paper, I heard the shotgun go off.”

  “And you went inside to check on the judge. But you found Father Tom and your Aunt Wanda instead.”

  The boy nodded.

  The priest broke in, “I brought him out here so I could explain to him carefully what he saw. Then I went to Darla’s to get her so she wouldn’t be worried. When you came and told us the sheriff wanted to speak to Paul about the judge, I thought it would be best to keep him out here awhile. We let out that Joe John was around, hoping to create a little smoke.”

  “What about Harlan Lytton, Tom? Whose doing was that?”

  The silence of the room reminded Cork of how it was to be underwater, making your way to the surface in a thick, unbreathable stillness. Everyone looked at everyone else and all of them looked unhappy he’d asked.

  It was Paul, drawing himself up to his full height, who said, “I killed him. And I’d do it again.”

  If he’d sounded like a boy before, the youthful sound was gone from his voice now. Cork looked at him and saw the hard face of a man.

  “No, he wouldn’t,” Darla said, putting her arms around her son.

  Paul shrugged away from her. “He killed my father and I killed him and I’d do it again without thinking twice.”

  “Cork,” the priest interjected. “It wasn’t entirely his fault. I left him Lazarus in case he needed transportation. And Wanda—well, Wanda—”

  “I left him my rifle,” she said evenly. “I didn’t think he’d use it that way. But I don’t blame him at all.”

  Cork studied the young man, who didn’t flinch under his gaze. “And it was you on Lazarus at Lytton’s place yesterday.”

  “Yes.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “I was there to kill another man,” the boy said almost proudly.

  “Paul!” His mother looked horrified.

  “You don’t mean that,” St. Kawasaki told him.

  “It’s the truth,” the boy said. “I thought we were supposed to be telling the truth.”

  “No, Paul,” Darla pleaded.

  “Let him tell it, Darla,” St. Kawasaki said. “He’s right. The truth is what we’re here for. We’ve come this far.”

  “What man were you going to kill?” Cork asked young LeBeau.

  “The last man who had a part in murdering my father,” Paul said.

  “Who was that?”

  “Mr. Parrant.”

  “Mr. Parrant? You mean Sandy?”

  “Yeah, him.”

  Darla put her hands to her mouth. “No,” she whispered.

  “Why do you think he had something to do with your father’s death, Paul?” Cork asked.

  “Well.” Paul stopped a moment and seemed for the first time a little uncertain. He glanced at the priest and Wanda Manydeeds and his mother. “They said it.”

  “What did you say?” Cork asked them generally.

  It was Darla who finally spoke. “Sandy Parrant said Joe John showed up drunk for work at Great North the night he disappeared. He said they had words and he fired him. I believed it then. Because of the way Joe John had been. God help me, I believed it. But Joe John was murdered. He didn’t desert us. Sandy Parrant must have been lying.”

  “And why would he lie except to cover up?” the priest finished.

  Cork looked back at the boy. “How did you know he was at Harlan Lytton’s?”

  “I went to his house yesterday,” Paul said. “I was on Lazarus. I had Aunt Wanda’s rifle. I was going to kill him.”

  “No, he wasn’t,” Darla insisted. “My son’s not a killer.”

  “We all are under the right circumstances, Darla,” Cork said. “Go on, Paul.”

  “I came across the lake, through his woods. But he was just leaving. I saw his car heading down the drive.”

  “What kind of car was it?”

  “White.” Paul shrugged.

  “Just white?”

  “I saw it through the trees.”

  “The man has a white vehicle of some kind,” St. Kawasaki said.

  “A lot of people have white vehicles,” Cork pointed out. “Go on, Paul.”

  “I tried to follow him, running Lazarus down in the ditch beside the road. When I saw him turn off onto County 16, I figured he must be headed for the Lytton place. It’s just about the only thing down that road. I caught the Glacier Trail. You know it cuts back of the Lytton property. So I got there ahead of him and hid in the trees. Only I didn’t see him. It was you I saw. I watched and waited and when you came out of that shed, I saw him hit you with a club or something. I thought he was going to kill you. I sho
t at him. But,” he added with a note of shame, “I missed.”

  “He got away, and it was you I almost took a shot at,” Cork concluded. “I’m sorry, Paul.”

  The young man shrugged and managed a slight grin. “S’okay.”

  “You’re sure it was Parrant?”

  “It had to be.”

  “Did you see his face?”

  “He was wearing a ski mask.”

  “The white vehicle. Did you see it at Lytton’s?”

  Paul shook his head, but said definitely, “It had to be him.”

  “Had to be?” Cork let his voice go very hard. “Would you swear to that in court? Would you swear absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt it was Sandy Parrant who hit me?”

  “Well—” Paul seemed confused by the sudden harshness in Cork’s voice. He looked at the floor a moment.

  “Swear to it beyond a shadow of a doubt.” Cork pressed him.

  “I guess I couldn’t,” Paul admitted.

  “Cork, you’re saying you don’t think it was him?” Wanda asked, as if she couldn’t believe what she’d heard.

  “We have no real proof of anything. Nothing that involves Parrant directly,” Cork replied. “It’s all pretty circumstantial at this point.”

  “What about Vernon Blackwater’s confession?” Wanda demanded.

  “Did he mention Parrant at all?”

  “No, but the man had to know.”

  “Isn’t it possible,” Cork offered, “that Joe John was drunk? Who knows why? And that Sandy did fire him and it had nothing to do with Joe John’s murder?”

  “Cork—”

  “Do you have any proof of anything that involves Sandy Parrant?” He waited. “I take it your silence means no. So, you’d condemn a man to death on the basis of speculation, is that it?”

  “We didn’t condemn—” Wanda began.

  “Your speculation put that rifle in Paul’s hands yesterday. For all we know, he might have ended up killing an innocent man.”

  “I don’t believe that for a minute,” Wanda said. “Do you?”