The William Kent Krueger Collection 2

by William Kent Krueger

  “Ever?”

  “I mean over nothing. Like right now.”

  “What happened just now?”

  Ren took a breath and let out a heavy sigh. “She said she was afraid nobody cared about her. I told her I did. I told her she was just like a sister.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “What’s the big deal?”

  Charlie rubbed her fists against her pants—wiping away the pain or wiping off hemlock sap, it was hard to say—stuffed her hands in her pockets, hunched her shoulders, and started walking away, kicking at the ground as she went.

  “Let’s go out on the porch, Ren, so we can keep an eye on Charlie.”

  They settled on the top step. It was late afternoon and quiet. A quilt of fallen leaves covered the ground; soft yellow sunlight and long dark shadows overlay everything. It reminded Cork just a little of autumn afternoons in Aurora when he sat on the front porch of his house on Gooseberry Lane and admired the street, the neighborhood, and the town he was happy to call home.

  “You’re coming right up against a line that all people cross, Ren. Every man, every woman. It’s a tough one, so tough in fact that most societies seem to have developed all kinds of complicated rituals to help folks through it. You know, if you were a Shinnob in the old days, you’d have to know how to play a courting flute to get the girl you loved to marry you.”

  “I like Charlie. We’re best friends. But I don’t, you know, like her like a girl. I never even thought of her like a girl. I mean, look at her.”

  Ren’s point was well taken. She was slender, breastless, and her head, covered by the dark bristle of her returning hair, looked like a dough ball rolled in iron filings. Her movements were fluid and explosive, and at the moment, kicking viciously at the ground, she resembled more a playground bully than a burgeoning young woman.

  “Is there someone you do like that way?” Cork ventured.

  Ren seemed totally absorbed in pulling at a wood fragment that was separating from a porch plank. Finally he said, “I guess. Her name’s Amber. But I don’t want to tell Charlie that.”

  “I wish I could say there’s a right way to go about something like this, Ren, but every situation is different. Mostly I’d advise you to do your best to be honest with Charlie. If you tell her things that aren’t true, hoping to spare her feelings, you’ll only end up making everything worse in the end.”

  Ren succeeded in breaking loose the long splinter. He tested the point of it against his thumb. “Why does everything have to change?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that. I only know it does and that you can’t stop it. What you can do is figure how to deal with it.”

  The boy looked at Charlie, who stood with her back resolutely turned toward them.

  “So . . . should I talk to her?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I guess.”

  Ren roused himself, descended the steps, and headed toward Charlie.

  The exchange with Ren caused Cork to think about his own children, the stumbling of his daughters particularly as they’d made their way across the threshold of adolescence to the worldly realizations that awaited them on the other side. His son was only seven, but he’d make that journey, too, someday. Cork missed them, missed them terribly, and he was suddenly afraid that somehow in his absence—or even because of his absence—horrible things might be happening to them. He wanted desperately to hear the music of their laughter, feel the bump of their hearts against his chest. He wanted to protect them, but it felt to him as if they were on the far side of the sun.

  Watching Ren make his awkward way toward Charlie, struggling to find the right words to keep their friendship sealed, Cork understood that at the moment he couldn’t do anything about his own children. He could, however, do something about these. And he would. He’d be damned if he’d let any harm come to them.

  * * *

  Ren’s feet crunched on dry leaves. He knew Charlie heard him coming, although she didn’t turn around. He stopped a few feet shy of her.

  “Charlie, I’m sorry.”

  He circled so that she had to look at him.

  “What do you want?” She glared at him.

  “I don’t want you mad at me. Well, that’s okay really, ’cuz you’ve been mad at me before. I just don’t want you mad because you think . . .”

  “What? Think what?”

  “I don’t know.” He felt hopeless, all the right words hiding. “If you were gone, I think I’d die.”

  “So go die.”

  “Damn it, Charlie, I mean it. Remember when my dad died, everybody got all weird around me, even my mom. Everybody except you. I could still goof around with you, talk to you like always. That helped more than anything anybody else tried to do for me. I mean, you were just being you, you know. I mean it. If I lost you, I’d be lost, too.” He scratched his forehead over his right eye although nothing itched there. “I’m sorry if I hurt you or something. . . .”

  “Shut up.” She said it quietly, without anger. She stared at her boots. “I don’t know what’s going on, Ren. Sometimes I want to cry for no reason. Sometimes I feel all this stuff and it scares me because I don’t know where it’s coming from. I look in the mirror and I hate who I see. This head.” She slapped at the dark bristle. “I’m not pretty like Amber Kennedy. I don’t have boobs.”

  “You want boobs?” he asked incredulously.

  “I didn’t used to but I do now. I don’t know what’s going on.”

  “Look, I think it’s a heredity thing. Did your mom have big boobs?”

  “The pictures I’ve seen of her, yeah, I guess.”

  “Well, there you go,” he said with a flourish of his hands. “You’ll have boobs, too, someday. I’ll bet anything. Ask my mom. She knows all about that stuff.”

  Charlie glanced up, frowning a little. “I should ask Dina Willner. She’s the one with the boobs. You sure noticed.”

  “Ah jeez, Charlie. She’s, like, pretty and all, but way old. I know that.”

  “You don’t like her?”

  “Well . . .” He thought about what Cork had advised. The truth. “I like looking at her and all, but I don’t really want to talk to her or anything. I like talking to you.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. Way better.”

  She smiled. “I like talking to you, too.”

  Ren reached out and rubbed the bristle on her scalp. “I probably shouldn’t have helped you shave your head, huh?”

  “It’s okay. But I’m thinking I’ll let it grow for a long time before I cut it again.”

  Ren shook his head doubtfully. “If it gets too long you’ll trip over it when you’re running bases.”

  She punched his arm lightly. “Not that long, dude.”

  “And listen, if you had boobs you probably couldn’t swing a bat.”

  “Yeah, but I’d have a nice cushion whenever I had to slide into second.”

  They laughed, and for a little while Ren’s world felt right again.

  38

  The road to the Copper River Club was narrow and not well maintained. Jewell had always suspected that this was because the high-profile members didn’t want to broadcast the true nature of the bit of Eden they’d fenced off for themselves at the end of that road. She’d never been past the main gate, although she was acquainted with many in Bodine who had, folks who worked in the compound as cooks or on the grounds crew or doing maintenance or security. And there was Ned. She’d been told that each family had its own lodge, but there was a common dining hall in which truly magnificent meals were served. By the standards of most people of enormous wealth, the accommodations of the compound would be considered rustic. However, the idea at the heart of the Copper River Club, as Jewell understood it, was to preserve forever the virgin beauty of the Huron Mountains and to offer the members a unique escape from their tailored estates and the glass-and-concrete towers from which they oversaw their industries and their fortunes. Which might have made on
e think a bit of Thoreau and Walden Pond but for the gate across the road, the guard box there, and the firearms carried by the security personnel.

  “Afternoon, Wes,” Ned said to the guard who leaned in the window of the constable’s Cherokee.

  Wes Barnes was a resident of Bodine, though not a native. He’d come for the job at the Copper River Club. He was not particularly tall, but he was muscular, with an octopus-shaped scar on his jaw that spread tentacles down his neck. The scar suggested violence, but Jewell hadn’t been able to figure exactly what kind. Disfigurement from fire or an explosion was her best guess.

  “Ned.” Barnes greeted him, then looked at the women. “Jewell, how are you?”

  “I’m fine, Wes.”

  He studied Dina with an eye that seemed to be considering more than just security. “I don’t believe I know you.”

  “Right back at you,” Dina said.

  “I need to talk to Calvin Stokely,” Ned broke in. “Is he around?”

  “He went off duty a couple of hours ago,” Barnes replied.

  “Mind if I drive up to his place, see if I can catch him there?”

  “What’s the nature of your business?”

  “That’s pretty much between him and me.”

  Barnes’s eyes crawled like spiders over Jewell and Dina. “And between them, too, apparently.” He shook his head. “I can’t clear you, Ned, but you want to talk to his brother about it, fine by me. I’ll have him come down.”

  “Appreciate it, Wes.”

  “No problemo.”

  Barnes returned to the guard box.

  “His brother?” Dina asked.

  “Isaac Stokely. Head of security.”

  “Isaac. He killed their father, right?”

  “Right. Protecting his brother and their mother. Still doing his best by Calvin, who’s never been able to hold down a job. Got him on the payroll up here, gave him a place to live.”

  Barnes stuck his head out and called, “He’s on his way.”

  Ned waved a thanks through the open window.

  Dina settled back in her seat. “Is this Isaac likely to let us in?”

  Ned shrugged. “He’s a tough one to read. I make an official visit up here once or twice a week, just to check in on issues of interest to both the Club and the town. I always let Isaac know I’m coming, so getting through the gate’s never a problem. Unannounced like this, well . . .” He finished with a shrug.

  “What’s he like?”

  “You’ll see for yourself in a few minutes. Left Bo-dine for a long time, came back.”

  “A lot of people seem to have done that around here,” Dina said. “What’s the attraction?”

  “Bodine’s got its problems, but it’s basically a good place to live,” he replied.

  “A little deadly these days, seems to me.”

  Ned turned so that he could speak to her over the seat back. “Believe me, this is unusual. In the time I’ve been constable, I’ve never dealt with anything much worse than folks who’ve had a little too much to drink and maybe get a little belligerent, barking dogs, vandalism once in a while, the very occasional break-in. A lot of people in town still don’t lock their doors and most don’t worry about walking alone at night. It’s a good life and folks appreciate that. Heck, it’s been a good twenty years since we’ve had anything like this happen.”

  Barnes stepped out of the guard box and lit a cigarette in the cup of his hands. A couple of minutes later, a Land Cruiser drove up and stopped on the other side of the gate. Isaac Stokely got out, spoke to Barnes for a minute, then came to the constable’s Cherokee.

  The dominant characteristic of Stokely’s face was a black handlebar mustache, which he took care to keep waxed, so that he greatly resembled the image Jewell held of a lawman of the old Wild West. The pupils of his eyes were small and dark, and whenever she encountered Stokely on the streets in Bodine, those eyes bored right into her. She didn’t know him well; he was older by several years. When she entered high school, he’d already left for boot camp to train to be a grunt in Vietnam. After the killing of his father, he returned to duty and remained in the military long after the war was over. When he finally returned to Bodine wearing civilian clothes, he’d become a taciturn man given to intimidation through long, piercing stares. As far as Jewell knew, he never talked about the life he’d lived during his absence from Bodine, but in a small town silence breeds rampant speculation. All kinds of dark, covert deeds had been ascribed to him. In order to have landed the prized position as head of security for the Copper River Club, he probably had contacts in high places.

  He put a hand on the top of Ned’s Cherokee, as if to hold it there until he was finished with his business. “What’s the trouble, Ned?”

  “No trouble, Isaac. Just hoping I could talk to your brother.”

  “What about?”

  “Like I told Wes there, it’s something I’d rather keep between me and your brother.”

  “Afternoon, Jewell,” Stokely said. He drilled her with his small dark pupils, then did the same to Dina. “I don’t believe I know you. I’m Isaac Stokely.”

  “Donna Walport.”

  “You ladies a part of whatever it is that concerns Calvin?”

  “I’d like them there with me,” Ned said.

  Stokely squinted at the constable. “Tell you what, Ned. You give me a good idea what this is all about, I might be more inclined to let you through.”

  “All I can tell you is that it’s official business.”

  “Got a court order of some kind?”

  “I’d like to keep it a little friendlier than that if I can, Isaac.”

  Stokely tapped the top of the vehicle while he considered its passengers. “Got to be honest with you, Ned. I haven’t heard anything from you that makes me feel compelled—or even inclined—to open the gate. All a little too vague for my tastes. The folks up here value their privacy highly, and it’s a big part of what they pay me for. You understand.”

  “They won’t even know we’re here, Isaac. I guarantee it.”

  “Uh-huh.” Stokely stood up straight and pulled a pack of Juicy Fruit from his shirt pocket. He took his time easing out a stick, undoing the silver wrapper, putting the gum into his mouth. He crumpled the wrapper and rolled it around in the middle of his palm.

  “Tell you what I’ll do. I’ll let Calvin know you’d like to talk to him, and I’ll suggest he stop by your office. How’s that?”

  “I’d rather see him right now.”

  “Take it or leave it, Ned.”

  “Then I guess it’ll have to do.”

  “Glad you understand. Folks.” He put his fingers to his brow in a lazy salute and stepped away.

  Ned turned the Cherokee around and started back toward Bodine. “That got us exactly nowhere,” he said.

  “Is there another way in?” Dina asked.

  “Yes,” Jewell replied. “The same way Ren and Cork went. Impossible in the dark. What now?”

  Ned turned a bend in the road, and when the trees hid them from the gate he pulled to the side. “Let me try Olafsson.” He punched in the number, waited, finally said, “It’s Ned Hodder again. I’ve got some information I think you’d like to hear. About the Max Miller killing. Give me a call when you can.” He closed the phone. “Voice mail still. Court should be done by now. Maybe he’s gone home for the day.”

  Dina leaned toward them from the backseat. “Back there you said nothing like this has happened for twenty years. You were talking about Tom Messinger, right?”

  “You know about Tom?”

  “Jewell told me. And it occurs to me that there are similarities here.”

  Ned glanced at Jewell, then turned back toward Dina, frowning as he worked the comment over in his head. “That was a long time ago. And Tom’s dead.”

  “Humor me, okay? The murder took place after a wild party, is that right?”

  “That’s always been the theory.”

  “Maybe Tom Messinger did
n’t leave the party alone. Maybe he wasn’t the only one in the car that night. Do you know if anyone ever bothered to find out?”

  Ned shrugged. “He killed himself. He left a written confession. End of story, I suppose.”

  “Who else was on that championship team?”

  “I was,” Ned said.

  “Besides you.”

  “A lot of guys.”

  “Any of them still live around here?”

  “Del and Calvin,” Jewell leaped in. “They were the star running backs.”

  “Were you at that after-banquet party, Ned?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were Del and Calvin there?”

  “They wouldn’t have missed it.”

  “Is it possible they were with Tom Messinger that night?”

  “I suppose it’s possible. God, I’d love to ask them.”

  Dina said, “You can’t get to Stokely right now, but Delmar Bell doesn’t live behind a gate.”

  “Way out of my jurisdiction,” Ned said.

  “So ask as a concerned citizen. Be interesting to see if he squirms.”

  Ned’s cell phone chirped. He lifted it and looked at the LED readout. “It’s Olafsson.” He answered, “This is Hodder. . . . Yeah, I see. . . . Jesus . . . oh, Jesus . . . No, I’d rather talk to you in person. I’ll meet you at my office in half an hour. . . . No, at my office. You won’t be sorry when you hear what I have to say.” He ended the call and sat a moment staring ahead. “Our deal’s off. Let’s go get Charlie and Ren. They need to tell Olafsson their story. And we won’t be talking to Delmar Bell.”

  “Why not?” Jewell asked.

  “Because this afternoon somebody shot him in his apartment behind Providence House. He’s dead.”

  39

  Charlie was sullen the whole way into Bodine. Ren sat beside her, quiet, too. Cork rode up front beside Jewell, who followed Hodder in her Blazer. Dina rode with the constable.

  It was evening, daylight almost gone. When they crossed the bridge over the Copper River, Cork looked at the water below; its swift, roiling surface was mostly silver-blue, reflecting the sky. He thought of the river as a living thing. The surface was its skin; the pale streaks where boulders disturbed the flow were scars on that skin. He wondered what the river knew about the girl’s death but could not tell. His old friend Henry Meloux, the Ojibwe Mide, might be able to interpret the voice of the river and divine its secrets, but to Cork it spoke not at all.