Cork gave it to him.
“He moves, I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks, Mal.”
Outside was a small landing with a flight of wooden stairs that led down to the backyard. Cork descended, crossed the yard, and went out a gate near the garage. Dina was parked in the alley, in a dark blue Honda Civic.
“What happened to the Ferrari?” Cork asked when he got in.
“This car doesn’t shout when I’m on surveillance.” Her eyes shifted to the mirror, then back to the alley in front of her. “Among the calls I made after we talked this afternoon were a few discreet inquiries about Lou and those threats he made. Couple hours ago I got a call back. Lou got things going fast. There’s a contract on you. Half a million is what I was told.”
“He wants me dead pretty bad.”
“Half a million is nothing to Lou. It gets worse, because it’s not just a hit, Cork. It’s a bounty. It’s open season on you. Whoever gets to you first.”
“If I’m hit, Lou Jacoby’s the guy the cops will look at.”
“He’s old. He’s lost everything. Probably in his thinking, his life’s over. He goes to jail or even to death row, big deal. I know Lou. He won’t hesitate to do what he feels he has to. That includes collateral damage, Cork.”
“My family?”
“Or whoever happens to be with you at the time. Half a million dollars is a lot of incentive not to be neat.”
“What if we brought in the police, Adam Gabriel, say, and NORTAF?”
“What can they do until somebody actually tries something? You know how that goes. Even if they wanted to help, they can’t watch your back twenty-four/seven. And we both know there are badges up here on the Jacoby payroll. You deal with them and everything gets funneled right back to Lou.
“I worked a case in New Jersey. We had a witness sequestered in a farmhouse outside Passaic. Somebody—a badge, we suspected—leaked the location. The place got hit with three rocket-propelled grenades. Killed the witness and two federal agents. You don’t want that to happen to your family.” She looked grim and sorry. “You need to find a safe place to disappear for a couple of days.”
A flare of anger shot through Cork, seemed to explode in his brain. He slammed his fist into the dashboard. “I’m not running, Dina. I’ll talk to Lou Jacoby, pound a little sense into that old man if necessary.”
“You barge in, you really think he’d back down? Hell, he’d probably shoot you himself.” She put a hand gently on his arm and spoke calmly. “Right now you need to back off. Let us gather enough evidence to convince Lou to listen to reason. With Ed Larson working his end and me here, we’ll have what we need in a couple of days, I promise.”
“A lot of homicides never get solved.”
“A lot of homicides don’t have me working the case.”
He knew she was right, knew that an irrational act in response to another irrational act usually spelled tragedy.
“A couple of days, Cork, that’s all.”
In the dark inside the Civic, he stared into her eyes.
“Trust me,” she said.
Her cell phone chirped. She looked at the display. “It’s coming from the duplex.” She answered. “Yeah?” A few seconds and she said, “Thanks,” and broke the connection. “Shit.”
“What?”
“The Malibu’s on the move.”
Behind them, a car screamed into the alley. Its headlights blasted over them. Dina jammed the Civic into gear and shot off with a squeal. The car was far more powerful than it looked, and Cork figured she had customized the engine, added muscle. She hit the street at the other end, took a hard right. Cork looked back as the black Malibu fishtailed into sight. Dina cut up side streets and blazed down alleyways. She worked gradually east, putting distance between them and the car in pursuit. Finally she skidded to a stop in a driveway behind a high hedge. She killed the engine and the headlights. They sat a moment and the Malibu shot past, roaring into the dark at the far end of the street.
“You need to disappear and you need to do it now,” she said.
“Where?”
“Pick a direction and go. Do you have any money?”
“Not much.”
“Here.” She reached under the dash and something clicked. A small compartment popped open next to the glove box. She reached in and pulled out a stack of bills. “There’s twelve hundred. I keep it for emergencies. Take it. And take this, too.” She reached down, pulled up the cuff of her pants, removed her .32 Beretta from the ankle holster, and handed it to Cork.
“I can’t even say good-bye to my family?”
“The choice is yours, but I think it’s risky. Obviously the guys in the Malibu weren’t alone. Somebody tipped them off that you were in the alley. No telling how many people are on you or where they are. I’ll let Jo know what’s going on.”
He gave a nod and they were both quiet.
Dina sat back with a tired sigh. “Lou, Eddie, Phillip, Gabriella, Tony. My God, what you must think of us Jews.”
“It’s got nothing to do with religion or culture. It’s just a screwed-up family. You find those everywhere. Irish Catholics, Ojibwe—hell, probably even among the Bushmen of the Kalahari.”
At the end of the block, the black Malibu crept into view like a panther stalking its prey.
“I’ll lead them on a merry chase,” Dina said. “You make yourself scarce.”
“Once again you come to my rescue.”
“I’m a sucker for a pretty face. Get going.”
He opened the door, slid out.
“You have my number. Let me know where you end up. Good luck, Cork.”
Dina backed from the drive and turned on the headlights. As soon as the Malibu squealed in her direction, she shot off. Cork hunkered in the dark of the hedge while the Malibu sped past. He waited until the sound of the two engines had faded into the distance before he walked to the street.
Dawn seemed far away. At that moment, everything did.
EPILOGUE
A SOLITARY TWO-LANE highway splits the marsh. To the right and left, brittle reeds disappear into a dingy, low-hanging mist. A fragile light falls over the scene, the day almost breaking. The marsh is silent. The birds have fled south or been killed by the virus, or perhaps it’s something about the place itself that inhibits their song, for there is the feel of abandonment here, of death, like an old battlefield or a cemetery.
Far to the west rises the dark square of a barn wall and the slope of a roof. It seems like an ark floating on a dun-colored sea. East there is nothing but the empty slate sky and the reluctant dawn.
He walks in his windbreaker with his shoulders hunched, each breath of cold air a reminder that autumn is making its last stand. He knows what will follow is a killing season.
He hears the rattle long before the mist around him begins to glow from the headlights, and then the truck passes, an old pickup, the bed fitted with rickety slat-board sides. Thirty yards beyond him the brake lights flash. The truck slows, stops. As he approaches, he sees that the bed is filled with feed sacks stacked half a dozen high in neat rows, and a contraption of wood and metal with gears and a long handle whose purpose is unknown to him. He opens the door. The smell of manure greets him.
“Hop in.” The man at the wheel beckons. He’s in overalls and his boots are caked. “Where you going?”
“North,” he says as he climbs in and slams the door.
“Whereabouts?”
“Just north.”
“Big place, that.” The man grins in a friendly way and gears into the mist.
In a moment, the truck is lost, heading north, which is indeed a big place, but not big enough.
REVIEWERS LOVE WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER’S AWARD-WINNING CORK O’CONNOR THRILLERS
“The Cork O’Connor mysteries are known for their rich characterizations and their complex stories with deep moral and emotional cores. If you don’t know Cork O’Connor, get to know him now.”
—Booklist<
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“William Kent Krueger has one of the most fresh and authentic voices in crime fiction.”
—S. J. Rozan, Edgar Award—winning author
“Superior series. Like sweet corn and the state fair, William Kent Krueger’s novels are an annual summer highlight.”
—Minnesota Monthly
CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR COPPER RIVER
Winner of the 2006 Minnesota Book Award for Best Genre Fiction
Honorable Mention for the 2007 Minnesota Booksellers Choice Award for Fiction
“A riveting thriller rich in character, incident, insight, textured plotting, and evocative prose that captures the lore and rhythms of life—and the pain and sadness of death—in America’s heartland. It’s a novel to be savored, and one that makes the reader eager for the next installment.”
—Bill Pronzini, award-winning author of the Nameless Detective series
“Minnesota has become a hotbed of hard-boiled crime fiction, and the Cork O’Connor novels are among the best.”
—Booklist
“As in his previous novels, the author deftly presents the reader with wonderfully drawn, intensely believable characters. . . . Krueger writes most extraordinary books.”
—Reviewing the Evidence
MORE PRAISE FOR WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER’S CORK O’CONNOR NOVELS
RED KNIFE
“One of those hometown heroes you rarely see . . . someone so decent and true, he might restore his town’s battered faith in the old values.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“The atmosphere is as explosive as tinder. . . . A talented writer, Krueger tells his story from wide-ranging viewpoints.”
—The Boston Globe
“Outstanding. . . . Simply and elegantly told, this sad story of loyalty and honor, corruption and hatred, hauntingly carves utterly convincing characters into the consciousness.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“You can smell the north woods in every chapter.”
—St. Paul Pioneer Press
“Krueger keeps readers guessing in this page-turner, and it’s a joy to read his easy prose.”
—Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
“Colorful characters, spot-on sense of place.”
—Kirkus Reviews
THUNDER BAY
“The deftly plotted seventh Cork O’Connor novel represents a return to top form for Anthony-winner Krueger. . . . The action builds to a violent and satisfying denouement.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The cast of characters is vivid, the plotting is strong, and O’Connor’s retirement gets off to the kind of start that usually marks the launching of a career. It’s great fun.”
—Washington Times
“[Krueger] has a knack for taking us into the woods and losing us in a good story.”
—Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, SD)
“Exciting and gripping. . . . You will burn through this book, relishing the twists and turns.”
—Bookreporter.com
“Krueger’s clean writing and deeply felt sense of place make this novel a standout. Read it for the American Indian lore and a trip to the deep woods that requires no mosquito repellent.”
—Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
“Thunder Bay is William Kent Krueger’s finest work. A strong story with a fast-beating heart, this is the kind of novel that will bring many new readers knocking on Cork O’Connor’s door. Count me as one of them.”
—Michael Connelly, New York Times bestselling author
To my grandson Aiden Alan Buchholz, with the hope that life smiles on him kindly.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For all the help I’m given when writing a book, a simple thank-you never seems enough, but I’m hoping it will do.
To Michelle Basham I offer not only my thanks for her guidance in understanding the tragic situation of the lost and forgotten children alone on America’s streets, but also my profound admiration for her own unselfish efforts to establish Avenues for Homeless Youth (formerly Project Foundation).
Thanks to Barbara Klick of the University of Minnesota Veterinary Medical Clinic, who gave me a lot of wonderful information and insight into the working life and ethics of veterinarians.
Thank you to the people of Marquette and Big Bay, Michigan, who told me stories only the locals know.
As always, I owe a huge debt to the members of Crème de la Crime for their support, encouragement, camaraderie, and critique. You guys are the best.
Finally, should you ever find yourself in St. Paul, Minnesota, be sure to stop by the St. Clair Broiler, where this and every book that bears my name has been written. Beneath the historic neon flame you’ll find good coffee, great food, and the comfort that comes from the company of truly fine folks.
1
Henry Meloux, the old Ojibwe Mide, might tell the story this way.
He might begin by saying that the earth is alive, that all things on it—water, air, plants, rocks, even dead trees—have spirit. In the absence of wind, the grass still trembles. On days when the clouds are dense as gray wool, flowers still understand how to track the sun. Trees, when they bend, whisper to one another. In such a community of spirits, nothing goes unnoticed. Would not the forest, therefore, know that a child is about to die?
She is fourteen years, nine months, twenty-seven days old. She has never had a period, never had a boyfriend, never even had a real date. She has never eaten in a restaurant more formal than McDonald’s. She has never seen a city larger than Marquette, Michigan.
She cannot remember a night when she wasn’t awakened by nightmares, some dreamed, many horribly real. She cannot remember a day she was happy, although she has always been hopeful that she might find happiness, discover it like a diamond in the dust at her feet. Through all the horror of her life, she has, miraculously, held to that hope.
Until now.
Now, though she is only fourteen, she is about to die. And she knows it.
Somewhere among the trees below her, the man she calls Scorpio is coming for her.
She cringes behind a pile of brush in the middle of a clear-cut hillside studded with stumps like gravestones. The morning sun has just climbed above the tops of the poplar trees that outline the clearing. The chill bite of autumn is in the air. From where she crouches high on the hill, she can see the gleam of Lake Superior miles to the north. The great inland sea beckons, and she imagines sailing away on all that empty blue, alone on a boat taking her toward a place where someone waits for her and worries, a place she has never been.
She shivers violently. Before fleeing, she grabbed a thin brown blanket, which she wrapped around her shoulders. Her feet are bare, gone numb in the long, cold night. They bleed, wounded during her flight through the woods, but she no longer feels any pain. They’ve become stones at the end of her ankles.
In the trees far below, a dog barks, cracking the morning calm. The girl focuses on a place two hundred yards distant where, half an hour earlier, she’d emerged from the forest and started to climb the logged-over hillside. An hour after dawn, Scorpio’s dog had begun baying. When she heard the hungry sound, she knew he’d got hold of her scent. What little hope she’d held to melted instantly. After that, it was a frantic run trying to stay ahead.
Scorpio steps from the shadow of the trees. He’s like a whip, thin and cruel and electric in the sunlight. She can see the glint off the blue barrel of the rifle he cradles. Snatch, his black and tan German shepherd, pads before him, nose to the earth, tracking her through the graveyard of stumps. Scorpio scans the hillside above. She thinks she can see him smile, a gash of white.
There is no sense in hiding now. In a few minutes, Scorpio will be on her. Grasshopper quick, she pops from the blind of brush and sprints toward the hilltop. Her senseless feet thud against the hard earth. She lets the blanket fall to the ground, leaves it behind her. Starved for sunlight, the skin of her face and arms looks bleached. Beneath
her thin, dirty T-shirt her breasts are barely formed, but the small, fleshy mounds rise and fall dramatically as she sucks air in desperate gasps. Behind her, the dog begins a furious barking. He has seen the prey.
She crests the hill and comes to a dead end. Before her the ground falls away, a sheer drop two hundred feet to a river that’s a rush of white water between jagged rocks. There is no place left to run. She casts a frenzied eye back. Scorpio lopes toward her with Snatch in the lead. To her left and right, there is only the ragged lip of the cut across the hill.
Only one way for her to go now: down.
The face of the cliff below is a rugged profile offering handholds and small ledges. There are also tufts of brush that cling tenaciously to the stone, rooted in tiny fissures. She spies a shelf ten feet below, barely wider than her foot, but it is enough. She kneels and lowers herself over the edge. Clinging to the brush and the rough knobs of stone that punctuate the cliff, she begins her descent.
The rock scrapes her skin, leaves her arms bleeding. Her toes stretch for a foothold but, numbed, feel almost nothing. Weakened by an ordeal that has gone on longer than she can remember, her strength threatens to fail her, but she does not give up. She has never given up. Whatever the horror in front of her, she has always faced it and pushed ahead. This moment is no different. She wills a place to stand. Her feet find support, a few inches of flat rock on which she eases herself down.
“Come on, sweet thing. Come on back up.”
Scorpio’s voice is reasonable, almost comforting. She lifts her face. He’s smiling, bone-white teeth between thin, bloodless lips. Beside him, the dog snarls and snaps, foam dripping from his purple gums.
“Hush!” Scorpio orders. “Sit.”
Snatch obeys.
“Come on, now. Time to end this foolishness.”
He lays down his rifle, bends low, and offers his hand.
In the quiet while she considers, she presses herself to the cliff where the stone still holds the cold of night. She can hear far below the hiss and roiling of the white water.
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