“O’Connor?” he said.
Cork stepped onto the porch. “Call me Cork.”
“And everybody calls me Buster.”
He wasn’t old. Late fifties maybe. It looked as if his body had been heavier at one time, but had recently been whittled on. Cork shook his hand and felt an unnatural quiver in the man’s arm.
“Come on in. Can I offer you something to drink? How about a beer?”
Inside, the house was all warm brown tones. It was a place stuffed full of mementos-bowling and softball trophies, photographs on the shelves and walls, painted clay figures and drawings on manila paper that looked crafted by the hands of children-but there was an ordered feel to everything. Buster Farrell shuffled into the kitchen and Cork took a moment to look at a photograph on the end table next to the sofa.
“That’s my wife, Georgia,” Farrell said, coming back with two long-neck beers in his free hand. “She’s a schoolteacher. Playing bridge this afternoon. Plays a lot of bridge these days. It’s not that she likes cards so much. Since I retired, I drive her crazy. Hope you like Coors.” He handed a cold bottle to Cork.
“Coors is just fine.”
“Sit down, sit down.”
Farrell took a big stuffed chair for himself. Cork sat on the love seat.
Farrell twisted the cap off his beer. “I remember when this stuff wasn’t pasteurized and it was hard to get outside Colorado because it didn’t travel well. Helluva brew back then. Gilbert said you’re interested in the Charlotte Kane investigation. Didn’t say why.”
The story in the Duluth News Tribune that Cork handed over told him why.
“I’ll be damned.” He put the paper aside.
Cork said, “I talked with Constance Kane a couple of hours ago. She says the young woman in that news photo isn’t her daughter.”
Farrell shrugged. “She’s the parent. She oughta know. But you could’ve fooled me. If it’s not her, then it’s her twin sister. Which she ain’t got, that much I do know.” He tapped the newspaper photo with his finger. “Age is wrong, but she could’ve lied about that. I’ve seen girls I couldn’t guess if they were sixteen or twenty-six, you know?”
“Can you tell me about your investigation?”
“What’s your interest?”
“The guy who’s accused of her murder, I’m working on his defense.”
“You don’t think he did it?”
“No.”
Farrell sipped his beer and considered Cork. “All right.” He settled back in his chair. “The department got a call from the girl’s parents the first night she disappeared. The chief sent a couple of uniforms out. Folks said she told them she was going to the library. Later on, we turned up some kids who said different. She was going to a party up in the foothills, planned to score some weed before she headed out. Never showed at the party. For a couple of days, our guys come up with nada. Then Long Beach P.D. finds her car abandoned in a vacant lot, blood all over the backseat. That’s when I got involved. We looked at every possibility. Known drug dealers in the Pomona area. Carjackers. Her friends, acquaintances.”
“Her parents?”
“Them, too. Nothing. It was the worst kind of case. A nightmare for everybody. I raised a couple kids of my own. Think I didn’t worry? You say to yourself, God save ’em from all the crazies in this world, because you can’t be there to protect ’em every moment. I felt for her folks, I really did. They weren’t bad parents. Wasn’t their fault. Just one of those things.”
“The blood in her car, could it have been a smokescreen? She just ran away?”
Farrell shook his head. “It was her blood, and there was buckets of it. And near as we could tell, there was nothing for her to run from. She was smart, popular, good parents, good friends. The weed thing? Hell, kids that age, they all seem to do it. I’d say it was just a drug deal or maybe a carjacking, something that went really bad. Kid was just at the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m guessing here.” He picked up the newspaper and looked a long time at the photo. “Like seeing a ghost.” He handed it back to Cork. “Whether it’s her or not, I don’t suppose it matters much. Either way she’s dead for sure this time. Ready for another beer?”
“No, thanks. Anything else worth knowing?”
“You like her old man for it, don’t you? It’s what I’d be thinking if I were you. He’s the constant in the whole equation. But I wouldn’t be too quick to jump to any conclusions.” He pointed at the paper. “That kind of tragedy, it lays folks open. You get a good look inside. I don’t know what Dr. Kane was like out there, but here all I saw was genuine grief. Doesn’t mean absolutely he didn’t do it. No matter how long you’ve been in this business, you can still be fooled. I’d just be reserved in my judgment is all I’m saying.”
“Thanks. Appreciate your perspective.” Cork finished his beer in a couple of long swallows and stood up. “I should be going.”
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“Two Charlottes. If I were you, I’d think about the fact that Kane’s a plastic surgeon. From what I learned in my investigation, one of the best. That ought to suggest something to you.”
“It already has.”
Buster Farrell walked him to the door.
“Miss it?” Farrell asked.
“What?”
“Being a cop.”
“Never said I was.”
“You were. I can tell.” Farrell stared hard into his eyes. “Yeah, you miss it.” He gave Cork a quivering, parting handshake. “Me, too.”
37
Cork bought a U.S. road atlas at a 7-Eleven on Murchison Avenue, then went back to the restaurant where he’d had breakfast. He ordered coffee and a BLT and opened the atlas. He located Dansig, Iowa, a small dot on State 26 just south of the Minnesota border. He wanted very much to talk with Glory Kane. Or Cordelia Diller, if that was what she was calling herself now.
When he returned to his motel room, he realized it was dinnertime back in Minnesota. He called home and was surprised by the voice that answered.
“Rose?”
“Hello, Cork.”
“Did you drop by for dinner?”
“Actually, I’m preparing it. Ellie Gruber came back today. She’s at the rectory now, so… I’m back here.”
Back here, Cork thought. Why didn’t she say back home?
“That’s good, I suppose.”
“Of course, it’s good.” Her voice brightened, the chipper tone a little forced. “Have you talked with Glory?”
“I tried to call,” he said. “All I got was a busy signal.”
“That’s probably because of the tornadoes. Several last night in southern Minnesota, northern Iowa. Knocked out power all over.”
“That probably explains it. Is Jo around?”
“She’s coming into the kitchen right now.”
“Good to have you home, Rose.”
“Thanks, Cork.”
A few moments of dead at the other end, then Jo came on the line.
“Cork?”
“Hi, kiddo. Full house again.”
“Not entirely. You’re not here. How’d it go today? Did you find out anything?”
“Fletcher Kane’s a lot more complicated than I imagined. I don’t know what to think now.”
“What about Charlotte?”
“I believe there were two, and one of them may well have been manufactured.” He told her the details of his conversations that day. “I spoke with Hadlestadt again. He said that with the amazing advances in facial bone reconstruction these days, it’s not at all outside the realm of possibility. Highly unethical, but not illegal.”
“He created a look-alike?” she said.
“It’s possible he simply stumbled onto a girl who looked exactly like Charlotte, but what are the odds of that? Given that he was a desperately unhappy man, I think it’s more likely that he used his skill as a surgeon to bring his daughter back.”
“My god, that’s so grotesque.”
“No more stalkers, thank God.”
“Don’t anyone get lax.”
“Don’t worry. By the way, I’ve heard that Nestor Cole may withdraw the charges against Solemn.”
“Why?”
“Word of your suspicions about Fletcher Kane’s relationship with Charlotte leaked out.”
“Cy Borkmann,” Cork said. “Damn, he never could keep his mouth shut.”
“What’s being said about Fletcher isn’t pretty. I think our county attorney is afraid the waters may be too muddy now for him to be sure of a conviction.”
“Well that’s something anyway.” He took a deep breath. “Good having Rose back?”
Jo was quiet, then said, “We’ll talk when you’re home.”
“All right,” he said. “Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
He hung up, wondering why Jo was reluctant to speak about Rose.
He was getting hungry, thinking of dinner though it was still early, coast time. He walked to the window and looked out. A few ragged palm trees, too many cars, a dirty haze. A megalopolis full of people, and he still felt alone. He knew it was nothing compared to the loneliness of Solemn Winter Moon.
Cork walked back to the bed, sat down, picked up the phone and called Rosemount. This time he got through. The connection was scratchy, a sound like the crackle of tinder-dry brush. He asked for Cordelia Diller. In a minute, the woman he knew as Glory Kane was on the line.
“Glory?”
“It’s Cordelia, actually.”
“What’s with the new name?”
“Not new. Old. Before Glory. Long before Glory.”
“So why Glory?”
“We need to talk. Where are you?”
“California.”
She hesitated. “Then you know about Charlotte.”
“Not everything. How about you tell me?”
“I’d rather not talk over the phone.”
“All right. I’m flying back to the Twin Cities tomorrow. I’ll drive down to Rosemount as soon as I’ve landed.”
She thought it over. “All right.”
“I should be there midafternoon sometime.”
“Cork?”
“Yes?”
“You think Fletcher is a good man?”
“People here seem to think so.”
The dry brush sound filled the empty line for a moment. Then she said, “I used to think so, too.”
38
Cork picked up his Bronco at the Twin Cities airport and headed south. In the bluff country near the Iowa border, he began to see the effects of the storms that had swept through two nights earlier. Great trees lay uprooted. High water had left tangled debris in the undergrowth along stream banks. Road signs hung bent on their metal frames. This was the Midwest and it was that season.
Cork drove through Dansig in the late afternoon. Near the south end of town, a warehouse stood with its walls ripped open, the corrugated siding broken and twisted. A mile farther, he encountered a sign, temporarily repaired with a thick binding of silver duct tape, that pointed east down a secondary road toward Rosemount Retreat Center. The road was a long, narrow lane bordered on both sides by windrows of tall western yews. In several places, a fallen tree lay in freshly cut sections along the shoulder. As Cork neared the Center, he heard a chain saw droning in the humid air.
Rosemount Retreat Center stood on a wooded bluff high above the Mississippi River. The buildings were all dark red brick and looked as if they’d been there since the Civil War. The trunk of a large oak near the entrance had split. Half the tree lay on the ground. The white wood deep at the heart was visible in a long gaping wound. Much of the lawn was littered with broken branches. In several buildings, the glass was gone from windows and temporary covers of plywood filled the empty panes. Cork parked in the lot in front of the main building where a green sign indicated OFFICE. He got out and stood a moment in the summer heat. The sound of the chain saw had ceased.
Inside, the air was cool. Cork told the woman at the reception desk that he was there to see Cordelia Diller and that he was expected. The receptionist made a call, told him it would be a few minutes, and asked if he would like to have a seat. He’d been driving for three hours, so he stood.
When she came in the front door, he barely recognized the woman he’d known as Glory Kane. Her hair was cut severely short and was no longer black but a soft auburn. She wore no makeup. She was dressed in a simple white blouse, jeans, and sneakers. A small black purse hung over her shoulder. She’d always been slender, but she looked even slighter now. She seemed to have lost something of herself, though it wasn’t necessarily weight that was missing.
“Hello, Cork.” She gave him her hand.
“Cordelia,” he said.
“Let’s walk.”
He followed her outside, down a path that ran toward the river.
“Cordelia Diller?” he said.
She shrugged. “It’s what’s on the birth certificate. I changed it to Ruby James when I moved to Las Vegas.”
“And Glory Kane?”
“That was Fletcher’s idea. When I became his sister.”
“Are you related to Fletcher at all?”
“No. His real sister died shortly after she was born. Some kind of complication related to her mother’s pregnancy. There.” She pointed to a wooden bench perched at the edge of the bluff. They sat down. She opened her purse, took out a pack of Pall Malls, and lit a cigarette. “Still trying to quit,” she said, blowing smoke. “One more thing I’m working on changing.”
The humidity felt oppressive to Cork. The smell here was different from up north. There was an odor of desiccation, of dead leaves and wet earth and slow rot. He missed the fresh scent of pines and the clean air as it came off Iron Lake.
“You can hardly breathe,” she said, as if she’d read his thoughts. “That’s how I felt every day I lived here.”
“When was that?”
“A long time ago.” She tapped her ash. “That’s how I knew about Rosemount. I was born in Iowa. A town called Winterset. You know Winterset?”
“No.”
“Birthplace of John Wayne. He changed his name, too.” She took a long draw on her cigarette and appraised Cork through the veil of her exhaled smoke. “Rose says you think Fletcher might have had something to do with Charlotte’s murder. I don’t know you, but Rose thinks a lot of you, and I think a lot of Rose. So I’m going to set you straight on a few things. I hope it does some good.”
She fell silent. She was quiet for so long Cork began to think she’d changed her mind. Somewhere on the other side of the buildings, the chain saw started up again and droned on like one crazy cicada.
“It was a long and, believe me, unpleasant road from Winterset to Las Vegas. It doesn’t matter how it happened, but I ended up supplying very rich men with very young, pretty, powerless girls. The streets of Vegas are full of runaways, kids thinking that with all that money floating around, there has to be a way to grab a little for themselves. It’s the lights, too, and the sun. The kids, they’re just waiting to be preyed on.”
“Charlotte was one of them?”
“That wasn’t her real name, of course. She told me it was Maria, but I’m almost sure that was a lie. She was the brightest. The one with the most promise. She had class. I guess I saw some of myself in her. I don’t know what was true about her. She told me she was from St. Louis, that she’d gone to Catholic school there. Wealthy family, she said, but she hated them. Her mother especially. Her father started having sex with her when she was pretty young, and the mother turned her back on it. That part I’d guess is true. Old story with a lot of the street kids.
“She became the exclusive property of a regular client, a man named Frankie Vicente, well connected with the mob. He treated her special. Bought her things. Maria fell in love with the bastard. As much
as a fifteen-year-old can fall in love with anybody. I tried to warn her, told her to be careful. I’d known Frankie a long time. He was handsome, charming. But he wasn’t a man capable of love. If you crossed him, he became a sadistic animal.”
She closed her eyes. The cigarette burned so low between her fingers Cork thought it would sear her. She must have felt the heat. She let it fall into the grass and crushed the ember under the toe of her shoe. Immediately, she reached into her purse for the pack of Pall Malls.
“Eventually Maria learned the truth about him. The hard way. She tried to get away. Ended up on the street in Phoenix. I don’t know how he tracked her there, but he did. Sent his goons. They brought her back. Frankie beat her. Broke her ribs. Nobody leaves Frankie unless Frankie wants them to leave.”
“She didn’t go to the police? You didn’t?”
She looked at him for a moment with contempt, then understood. “That’s right. You were a cop. Well, the cops in Las Vegas are different. Frankie and his people own them.”
She lit another cigarette and clouded the air in front of her.
Then suddenly the tears began to flow. She wiped at them with her free hand.
“Have you ever been scared, Cork? Desperate? I mean so scared and so desperate that you couldn’t see any way out of something? You know how many times I thought about killing myself, and maybe Maria, too, just ending the misery for both of us. But I was too weak for that. So I mostly kept myself in an alcoholic stupor and let things happen.
“Then Maria did something that angered him. I don’t even know what. He hit her with a whiskey bottle, the son of a bitch. Crushed her cheekbone, disfigured her horribly. Of course, he paid for the best plastic surgeon money could buy.”
“Fletcher Kane,” Cork said.
“Yes, Fletcher. Frankie told me to take care of it. Maria and I flew to California several times to consult with him. He was wonderful. Patient, kind. But hurt, too, you could see it. Over time, seeing him, listening to him, I trusted him. He was such a funny-looking man, but he seemed to have a good heart.”
“You still think that?”
Blood Hollow co-4 Page 26