Purgatory Ridge

by William Kent Krueger

  “Sorry doesn’t bring back the dead.”

  She glared up at him. “But money does? I assume that note you left for my husband was a ransom note.”

  He snatched the photo from her hand. “I needed the money to continue investigating the wreck, to prove Billy was murdered. That all those men were murdered.”

  Grace studied him for a minute, her brown eyes hard, her long nose lifted. “How much are you asking?”

  “Two million.”

  “My husband will have trouble getting it.”

  “Hell, you’re a lot richer than that.”

  “I am. But he’s not. And he can’t touch my money. We signed agreements before we married.”

  “He’s no pauper.”

  “All of his assets are tied up in the mill. On his own, he can’t come up with more than a few hundred thousand.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “My life is at stake here, Mr. LePere. And my son’s. Why would I lie?”

  “Nobody’s going to die.”

  “But we know who you are.”

  “Yeah.” The anger seemed to wash from him. His shoulders sagged and he closed his eyes a moment. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He stepped to a chair, a bentwood rocker, and sat down. He stared at his brother’s photograph, held delicately in his hands.

  “When I was on that raft, something strange happened to me, something I’ve never told anybody about.”

  He told them the story of his ordeal on the raft. The huge waves, the freezing water, the fierce bitter wind. The men dying one by one until he alone was left. Then he told them what he’d never told anyone else. “My father came to me. My dead father. He sat on the edge of the raft and told me it wasn’t my time to die. He said he and my mother and Billy were all waiting for me, but it wasn’t my time.” LePere was up now, pacing, the muscles of his face taut with emotion. “I tried to drink that memory away, along with all the other memories about the sinking, but it wouldn’t go. I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t my time, why out of all the good men on that ore boat, I was the only one spared. I spent nearly a dozen years lost in figuring that one out. But I finally did.” He stopped pacing and faced Grace. “I’m supposed to find the truth.”

  Jo held up her taped hands. “Was this a part of it?”

  He seemed genuinely sorry. “No, things just went… wrong. Look, I want to make a deal.”

  “We’re listening,” Jo said.

  “Your lives in return for a promise that the wreck of the Teasdale will be fully investigated and that nothing that’s found will be covered up.”

  Grace Fitzgerald said, “I promise.”

  He ignored her, but he looked steadily at Jo. “I know you. I’ve heard your word is good.”

  “I give you my word, John. But you understand, you will be prosecuted. There’s nothing I can do about that.”

  He sat again in the rocker. “How does that saying go? Know the truth and the truth will set you free. For a long, long time, I’ve felt like a man in prison. You find the truth and it won’t matter what they do to me. I’ll still be free.”

  Grace asked cautiously, “Will you let us go now?”

  “I can’t. But soon.”

  “Why?” Jo asked. “The other man?”

  “He’s not a good man,” Grace said.

  LePere nodded his agreement. “But I owe him.”

  “And how do you intend to repay him?” Jo asked.

  “We go through with the ransom. He takes the money—all of it—and disappears. After he’s gone, I set you free, and I take the rap.”

  “I told you, my husband may not be able to raise the ransom.”

  “Then we’ll take whatever he can give and that will have to do. For me, it was never about money.”

  “What about your partner?”

  “I’ll take care of him.”

  “Never trust a man who’d hurt a child or a woman.”

  “He hurt you?”

  “Not me. Grace.”

  He gave Grace Fitzgerald a questioning look and she nodded.

  “It won’t happen again, I give you my word.”

  “Let us go,” Grace tried again. “I promise we—”

  LePere didn’t let her finish. He stood up and cut her off, saying, “Your sons will be worried.”

  Jo and Grace pushed themselves up from the sofa. LePere opened a kitchen drawer and took out a roll of gray duct tape. “Turn around,” he said to Grace.

  “Is that still necessary?” she asked.

  He just stared at her. His dark eyes were tired but firm. Grace turned around. He taped her hands and led the two women outside.

  The moon pushed their shadows ahead of them across the yard to the fish house. LePere stepped in front and took a moment to fumble the key into the lock. As the door swung wide, Jo thought how like a gaping mouth was the darkened opening, waiting to swallow her again. The moment the thought occurred to her, she was startled to see a small silver tongue flick out from that black mouth and lick at John LePere’s belly. LePere grunted and stepped back. The tongue darted again. This time Jo realized that it was the knife blade, glinting in the light of the moon. She didn’t have a chance to cry out, to move at all before LePere snatched the boy and lifted him off the ground. Boy and man struggled briefly, the knife thrust high above them, the sharp, clean steel fired by moonlight. The blade fell and lay on the ground, still glowing as if white-hot. The boy became a dark, empty sack in the powerful grip of John LePere.

  “Let him go,” Grace Fitzgerald cried, for it was Scott whom LePere held.

  Then another form shot from the fish house and hit LePere low. The man stumbled but did not go down. The small dark figure attached itself to LePere’s legs and little grunts escaped as he tried to topple a man nearly two times his height and several times his weight. The boy in LePere’s grasp resumed his own struggle, flailing his arms and legs wildly.

  “Stevie,” Jo called out. “It’s all right. Let the man go.”

  And Grace ordered, “Scott, stop. He’s not going to hurt us.”

  All the parts of John LePere, who seemed to have become many-headed and many-limbed, grew still. He put Scott down and the boy ran to his mother. Stevie let go his hold and he, too, joined his mother. LePere bent forward—slowly, it seemed—and picked up the knife. The blade threw a reflection of moonlight across his eyes. He looked at the boys.

  “That was a brave thing to do.”

  His left hand went to his stomach. Jo could see a dark staining on his shirt.

  “You’re cut,” she said.

  He tugged his shirt tail loose from his pants and took a look beneath. “It’s only a nick.” He stepped into the fish house and turned on the light. “Everybody back inside.”

  They filed past him. He taped the boys’ hands again, but he didn’t bother to tape their ankles or their mouths. He looked at the shelves of equipment from which Jo had taken the knife.

  “There may be something else in there that tempts you. Please don’t. It will be over soon,” he promised. “And you’ll be with your families again.”

  “One thing,” Grace said.

  “Yes?”

  “The other man. Don’t leave us alone with him.”

  “I give you my word.”

  He put them in the dark and locked the door. Jo listened to his slow step as he crossed the yard to his house, to that place that once had held family for him but never would again.

  36

  THE SUN WAS JUST RISING as Cork approached the turnoff to Grace Cove. He’d left Henry Meloux at the cabin on Crow Point less than an hour before. It had been a long night, and warrior though he was, Meloux was an old man and very tired. George LeDuc sat on the passenger’s side of the Bronco. He was nodding, nearly asleep, the night’s labor having taken its toll on him as well. Cork pulled a small prescription bottle from his shirt pocket and popped the tab with his thumb. Using his forearms to manage the steering wheel, he tapped two white tablets into the pa
lm of his hand. He tossed the tablets into his mouth and swallowed them dry. He snapped the lid back on and returned the bottle to his shirt pocket. That would keep him for a while.

  Cy Borkmann, a long-time deputy, was posted at the turnoff. He raised his hand and Cork rolled the Bronco to a stop. Borkmann was a portly man with a double chin that quivered like the wattle on a turkey whenever he talked. He stepped to the Bronco and leaned a fleshy arm on Cork’s door. “Hey, Cork. You been home yet?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Word leaked to the newspeople. They’re all over Lindstrom’s place, and yours. They’ve been coming since before sunrise. We tried to keep ‘em out, but hell, they come by boat and hiked through the woods and even had a helicopter drop somebody on the back lawn. This is big news. Sheriff finally gave instructions to go ahead and let anybody with a press ID through. They’re liable to swarm all over you soon as you drive up.”

  “Thanks for the warning, Cy.”

  Cork pulled away. Where the road splintered off toward LePere’s cabin, he turned in.

  “What are you doing?” George LeDuc asked.

  “I’m going to park out here and walk in. I don’t want to drive into a zoo.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s only five-twenty. Kidnapper’s call is supposed to come at six. We’ve got time.”

  He pulled to the side of the road and parked in high weeds. It was LePere’s land, but he didn’t figure the man would mind much now. His privacy had already been shattered. LeDuc followed Cork through the woods, across a dry creek bed, and finally onto the wide lawn that surrounded the big house. As Borkmann had said, the place was a circus. Cameras had been set up to shoot the log home from several angles. Newspeople stood about, talking with one another or trying to talk to the officers posted at every door. Fortunately, no one seemed to take much notice as Cork and George LeDuc made their way across the grass. At the back door, a state trooper blocked their way.

  “I’m Cork O’Connor. I’m supposed to be here.”

  “May I see some ID, sir?”

  Cork showed him a driver’s license.

  “And you, sir?” the trooper asked LeDuc.

  “He’s with me,” Cork said. “He needs to be here, too.”

  The trooper considered George LeDuc, but not for long. A number of reporters were headed their way, and it was clear the trooper had already had enough of the media. “Go ahead.” He stepped aside and let them pass.

  The kitchen smelled of breakfast, of sausages, eggs, hash browns, and coffee. Several empty foam containers sat on the table along with a couple of big white sacks with JOHNNY’S PINEWOOD BROILER printed boldly across the side. Cork figured Schanno had arranged for it. The Broiler supplied the meals for prisoners at the jail. Although he’d eaten almost nothing since Jo and Stevie had been taken, not even the smell of the Broiler’s good food made him hungry.

  The officers were gathered in the living room, awaiting the call. Agent David Earl of the BCA sat in a leather easy chair scribbling in a small notebook. FBI Special Agent Margaret Kay held a cup of coffee in her hand and leaned over the shoulder of Arnie Gooden, who was checking the equipment set up to record the next ransom call. Lucky Knudsen sat with his arms folded, staring, as nearly as Cork could tell, at the rainbows on the dining room wall formed by sunlight that fractured as it passed through the crystals of the chandelier. Wally Schanno was speaking into a walkie-talkie.

  “Where have you been?” Schanno asked when he saw Cork. “Cy said you’d come by him a while ago.”

  “Did an end run around the media,” Cork said. “I didn’t particularly want to talk to anyone. Looks like all hell’s busted loose.”

  “I knew it would sooner or later.” Schanno glanced toward a window where the curtains were open to the front lawn. The craziness that had descended there was clearly visible. “I’ve put them off for a while, but somebody’s going to have to give them something substantial pretty soon. The whole county knows now anyway. The department’s been flooded with calls, folks claiming they saw everything from Big Foot to Elvis out this way.”

  Cork spotted a pot of coffee sitting on a tray along with disposable cups. He headed over and poured himself some. “Coffee, George?” he asked.

  LeDuc shook his head.

  “Cy told me the press is camped at my house, too,” Cork said to Schanno.

  The sheriff nodded dolefully. “I’m sorry about that, Cork. I sent Deputy Dross over there to help Rose out.”

  “I’d better call.”

  Karl Lindstrom stepped out of a doorway down a short hall and walked slowly toward the living room. The man’s appearance startled Cork. Karl was a Lindstrom, a fighter, but the man approaching Cork looked so beaten down that there was no fight left in him. His eyes were bloodshot and tunneled deep into dark sockets. He walked like an old man, sucked dry of life, limp skin over fragile bone. Three feet from Cork, he stopped, and it was a moment before he spoke.

  “I’m sorry. I couldn’t get the money. I tried. I don’t know where else to turn. I don’t know what else to do.”

  Special Agent Kay spoke to him quietly across the room. “I’ve told you, Mr. Lindstrom. You can negotiate.”

  “With what?” Anger—a spark of life—burned in his words.

  “The promise of money. Tell them you’ll have it but you need more time. If it’s money they’re after, they’ll wait. And then something will break for us, I’m sure of it.”

  Lindstrom looked at her, his face gone empty again. “I’m so tired.”

  “Karl.” Cork put a hand on his shoulder. “We have the money.”

  Every face turned to him.

  “You know George LeDuc,” Cork said.

  “Of course.” The look Lindstrom gave LeDuc was full of puzzlement. In all their dealings, the two men had been adversaries. What could possibly be the purpose of the Indian’s presence in this business that was no business of his?

  “George has promised us the money,” Cork said.

  Lindstrom squinted, as if he hadn’t quite heard or didn’t quite believe. “How?”

  LeDuc replied, “I’ve asked the manager of our casino to put it together. You’ll have it pretty soon.”

  Lindstrom’s look did not change. “Why?”

  “Because it’s what people should do,” LeDuc told him. “Wealth in and of itself isn’t an Ojibwe value. The value for us lies in how the wealth is used.”

  Lindstrom seemed stunned, truly stunned. “I… don’t… know what… to say.”

  Cork had a suggestion. “Migwech would be just fine, Karl.”

  “Migwech?”

  “It means thanks.”

  Lindstrom’s arm slowly rose and he reached out to George LeDuc. “Migwech,” he said, as he shook the Ojibwe’s hand. “I will repay you, I give you my word.”

  “We’ll speak of that later.”

  “Is that where you’ve been all night?” Schanno asked Cork. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you.”

  “It’s better you don’t ask, Wally. But listen. I was at the clinic on the rez. Adrianne Wadena, the physician’s assistant out there, agreed to give me something to help me stay awake. When we got to the clinic, we found that somebody had broken into the place.”

  “Drugs?”

  “That would be my first guess. She’s doing an inventory, but you’d best get someone out there to check on it.”

  “Thanks, Cork. I will.”

  Cork walked to where Arnie Gooden was fiddling with the recording equipment with Kay looking over his shoulder. “You’re set up for the call?”

  “Phone company’s helping with another trap-and-trace,” Kay replied. “But this time we’re better prepared. We’ve located all the public phones within a twenty-mile radius. One hundred seventeen. Of those, forty-eight are situated outside business establishments. We have enough agents and officers to cover thirty-three, and they’re in place now. Chances are very good we’ll spot the caller.”

  “And?”

  “If it se
ems appropriate, we’ll make the arrest.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily ensure the safety of our wives and children.”

  Kay breathed out deeply. “What does, Mr. O’Connor?”

  She was right, and Cork let it go. “Anything more on the ransom notes or any of the evidence you’ve gathered?”

  “I’m afraid not. We’re following up any reasonable reports that come to the sheriff’s department and hoping something might turn up there. For now, that’s the best we can do.”

  Cork said, “Thank you. I appreciate what you’re doing.”

  She smiled. Slight but definite. Like everyone else, she looked pretty well beaten.

  “I need to call home,” Cork said to Schanno.

  “The phone in my office,” Karl Lindstrom said. “Or my cell phone.” He took a small unit from his pocket and offered it.

  “I’ll use the one in your office, thanks.” He headed away.

  Rose sounded tired but as if she was holding up. “They came early, Cork. Before it was even light. Those reporters, they’re…” She searched for the word.

  “Vultures?” Cork offered.

  “I was going to say sons of bitches.”

  “How are the girls?”

  “Exhausted. They finally fell asleep a little while ago. I’ll wake them if you want to talk to them.”

  “Let them sleep. But I’ve got some good news for you to give when they wake up. We have the money.”

  “Oh, Cork.” Her voice died in a moment of tears. “Thank God.”

  “And the Iron Lake Ojibwe.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ll explain it all later. I have to go. The kidnapper will be calling soon. Take care of my girls, Rose. I’ll be home when I can.”

  “God be with you, Cork.”

  Lindstrom had drifted to the window and stood now in sunlight, staring out at a lawn that up until that morning had been a beautiful expanse of empty green. Cork joined him. He could see reporters snapping pictures of him and Lindstrom together, but he didn’t care. He caught sight of what looked like a dry white stone, bobbing through the crowd. The shaved head of Hell Hanover. Cork felt his stomach tighten. He had business with Hell, and he would see to it very soon.