“Good morning, Mrs. O’Connor,” the white-haired man greeted her. Coming from such a shaky body, his voice was surprisingly clear and strong. “My name is Vincent Benedetti. I believe we should talk.”
Whether it was simply the surprise of finding strangers in her office so early or something about the strangers themselves, Jo wasn’t sure, but she didn’t like the situation or the feeling that gripped her gut.
“Do you have an appointment?” she asked.
“Appointment?” One of the standing men-a huge, broad-shouldered guy with blond hair and an idiotic smirk on his face-gave a horsey laugh.
“Hush, Joey.” The white-haired man studied her eyes. “You’re afraid. Someone told you to be afraid of Benedetti.”
The door was open at her back. Jo calmly turned and closed it. “I’m not afraid, Mr. Benedetti. Should I be?”
“Of me, no. I’ve come a very long way and I’m very tired. I’m here to save your husband’s ass.”
Jo moved to the coffee machine so that he wouldn’t see her surprise. She emptied the pot of water into the reservoir, then faced Benedetti. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Husbands have secrets,” he said. He looked at her dead on, like an animal he had in his sights. “I know you understand that.”
Suddenly, she wanted only to be rid of them. “What exactly can I do for you?”
“It’s what we can do for each other, Mrs. O’Connor.” The white-haired man motioned with his head and the big blond guy moved the wheelchair nearer Jo so that Benedetti spoke to her as if in strictest confidence. “I have information that will help save your husband’s life. In return, you’ll help save my daughter.”
“Your daughter? Do I know your daughter?”
“Everyone knows my daughter. Her name is Shiloh.”
Except for the fact that the man regarded her as seriously as an undertaker, she might have assumed he was joking. “Am I understanding you correctly? You claim to be the father of Shiloh- the Shiloh-the country singer?”
“I just said that, didn’t I?” he replied with annoyance.
“I’m sorry if I seem a little slow on the uptake here, Mr. Benedetti, but that’s quite a claim.”
Benedetti reached inside his suit coat and brought out a shiny leather wallet, from which he extracted a photograph. He handed the photo to Jo. The picture was of a little girl, maybe eighteen months old, in a pretty white dress, posed in a photographer’s studio. “Read the back.”
Vince-Our little girl. She’s walking up a storm. Has my hair and skin, your eyes and temper. Marais.
She studied the photograph, then looked at the white-haired man. Despite the trembling in his body, she thought she could detect in his eyes the same insolence she’d seen in the eyes of the woman in the video. She handed the photo back.
“Does she know?”
He shook his head. “Marais never told her. As far as Shiloh’s concerned, Willie Raye is her father.”
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“Promises. To Marais. To my wife, Theresa.”
“She knew? Your wife knew?”
“Oh, yeah. I never understood how, but she knew. She threatened to leave me for good if I ever tried to do anything about Shiloh. After Marais was murdered, it seemed best just to let Raye take that little girl back to Nashville. He’s queer as a purple dog, but there are worse kinds of fathers.”
“What does all this have to do with my husband?” Jo asked.
Benedetti waved forward one of the men at his side. The man was good-looking in an obvious sort of way. Dark brown hair, curly and expertly razor cut. A strong jaw. A beauty mark on his right cheek. A diamond stud in his left ear. He wore an emerald tie that matched his eyes perfectly. Green eyes. Confident. She’d been aware of his eyes. They’d followed her every move. Men often watched her that way. Even when they respected her abilities, spoke to her as a colleague, their eyes were hiking up her skirt.
“My son, Angelo,” Benedetti explained to her. “Tell her, Angelo.”
“Your husband went into the Boundary Waters yesterday, Ms. O’Connor,” Angelo Benedetti informed her. “He was accompanied by several men. Two of them your husband believes to be agents of the FBI. They’re not.”
“No?”
The coffee machine gurgled suddenly at her back and Jo jerked, startled. At the same moment, the office door opened and Fran, her secretary, came in. Fran halted abruptly, surprised at the gathering, and glanced at her watch.
“It’s okay, Fran,” Jo said. “An early unscheduled conference. We were just moving to my office. Would you do me a favor? When the coffee’s done, bring some in for us?”
“Sure, Jo.”
“Gentlemen, if you’ll follow me.”
Jo led the way into her office. It was a large room lined with shelves of books and dominated by a big cherrywood desk that she’d brought with her from Chicago. The desk had been in storage during Jo’s first two years in Aurora as she struggled to establish a practice. In those years, she worked out of her small office in the house on Gooseberry Lane. She was the first female attorney ever to hang a shingle in Tamarack County, and it had taken a long time to become something more to the people of Aurora than Cork O’Connor’s wife. She’d made a name for herself by taking impossible cases, cases no one else wanted-those of the Anishinaabe, for example. Her success in court gave her the professional recognition she sought, but she still felt as if she were waiting for some door in the town to open for her that maybe never would.
“Would you care to sit down?” With a gesture, she offered chairs to the two standing men. They declined and remained at Vincent Benedetti’s side like palace guards. Jo sat at her desk and leaned forward. “You said the men who are with my husband aren’t FBI.”
“That’s right,” Angelo Benedetti said.
“Who are they, then? And why are they out there?”
“One of them, Dwight Sloane, is a big man with the California State Police. The other, Virgil Grimes, calls himself a security consultant. Both men were involved in the investigation of the Marais Grand murder fifteen years ago.”
“Involved in what way?”
Angelo Benedetti tugged the cuffs of his shirt into place. “Grimes was one of the detectives in charge of the investigation for the Palm Springs Police Department. Sloane investigated on behalf of the state. There is one legitimate agent of the FBI here in Aurora. His name is Booker T. Harris. He’s out of the Los Angeles field office. Fifteen years ago, Harris represented the FBI in the murder investigation.”
He tilted his head slightly to one side and gave her a moment to consider. It was a gesture that struck her as calculated, disingenuous, something he might use on women after he’d propositioned them.
“If you don’t believe me,” he said simply, “check it out. And while you’re at it, check with the FBI on the official status of this investigation. You’ll find that there is no official investigation, Ms. O’Connor. Booker T. Harris, the only legitimate representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is officially on personal leave.”
“These men are out to cover their asses,” Vincent Benedetti broke in. “I’d bet my own ass they were paid off when they investigated Marais’s murder. Now they’re running scared that Shiloh might have remembered something that will finger them.”
“Paid off by whom?”
Benedetti began to cough, a fit that racked his withered body. Angelo drew a clean white handkerchief from his coat pocket and stuffed it into his father’s hand. Vincent Benedetti shoved it over his face as if it were a mask.
“Paid off by whom?” Jo asked when the coughing was well past.
“Marais was smart. She always told me she’d cultivated friends in high places.” He managed a smile.
“What’s so funny?”
“Marais didn’t have friends. Everyone was just a step on a ladder to her.”
“Do you know who any of these people in high places were?”
“She was careful never to mention names. They were all men, of course.”
“Marais Grand was an opportunist?”
Benedetti smiled again and nodded. Whether it was approval or simply an uncontrollable muscle twitch, Jo couldn’t say. “A lot of people would have said tramp, but I never thought of her that way. She was a very talented woman in a business full of very talented people. She used all of her assets to ensure her success. I never faulted her for that.” He dabbed at his lips with the handkerchief and studied the crumpled linen with interest. “Men are most vulnerable when you inflate both their egos and their dicks. A hard truth, but she accepted it.”
Under other circumstances, Jo would have nailed him on that one, but their business was about something else. “You’re saying you believe one of these… friends… murdered her.”
“Or had her murdered.”
“And paid off the police who investigated.”
“That’s what I’m saying, yes.”
“Who, exactly?”
The old man’s eyes closed a moment. His son leaned to him. “You okay, Pop?”
“Just tired.”
A light tap came at the door, and Fran entered carrying a tray with a coffee server and several cups. She put them on a small table near the desk.
“Thanks a lot, Fran.”
“You’re welcome, Jo. Anything else?”
“Not at the moment.”
After Fran had gone, Jo offered coffee, but only Angelo Benedetti took her up on it. As she handed him the cup, his hand brushed hers and he smiled pleasantly. Perfect teeth. Of course.
“I have a theory about who’s guilty, Mrs. O’Connor, but I don’t want to go into it. All I want is to get your husband some help so he can bring my daughter out safely.”
“I’d rather you go into it,” Jo said, stirring cream into her own coffee. “I’d rather have all the facts. Or whatever.”
“My father’s tired, Ms. O’Connor,” Angelo Benedetti began.
Vincent Benedetti held up his hand. “No, no it’s all right. A fair request. I only ask that you keep an open mind.”
Jo sat back down. “It’s wide open and waiting.”
“The FBI agent-Booker T. Harris-has a brother. I didn’t know this when Marais was murdered. The information didn’t come to me until we knew Harris was out here and I had him looked into thoroughly. His brother is Nathan Jackson. You know the name?”
Jo knew it. Attorney general for the state of California. Nationally known crusader for civil rights. Jo had heard him talk at an ABA conference in Chicago. Splendid speaker. Inspiring. A handsome man, too. And if the national press was correct, he was the top choice for the Democratic nomination in the next gubernatorial election.
“Why different last names?” she asked.
“Their mother was widowed and remarried. They have different fathers.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“When Marais was first negotiating with the television people, she was subpoenaed to appear before the Williams Commission. You remember it?”
“Vaguely. Investigated corruption in the entertainment industry, I believe.”
“Exactly. Marais was called to testify because of her rumored connection with me. Rumored.” He seemed to find that funny and gave a wheezy laugh before he went on. “She was afraid that if she appeared, the television people would back off. She got to somebody inside. Her name was dropped from the witness list. You have any idea who the chief counsel for the Williams Commission was?”
“Nathan Jackson?”
“Bright girl.”
Jo sipped her coffee. The caffeine didn’t seem as necessary as it had when she’d first arrived. She felt wide awake. “You’re trying to tell me that Nathan Jackson had Marais Grand killed to keep her quiet about that?”
“No, I think Marais was trying to squeeze him again for something else. Just before she died, she borrowed a substantial sum of money from me to set up a recording company. Ozark Records. She swore she could get a sweet deal-tax breaks, business incentives-because she was Indian and she had this connection inside that would make sure things happened for her. Jackson was in his first term as attorney general. I think something went sour, Marais made threats, and Jackson had her killed.”
“Do you have anything to back up these accusations?”
“I didn’t even have these accusations until a day ago. The different last names-Harris and Jackson-threw me off. I never saw the connection before. But look at it. Same men who investigated the murder are here now. And not officially. Tell me that doesn’t smell rotten to you.”
Jo turned away from them in her chair and quietly studied the gray morning beyond her window. Cars drove past on the street. She could hear the swish of their tires on the wet cement.
“What do you want from me exactly?” she asked.
“Whoever the law is in these parts, talk to them,” the white-haired man said. “Get somebody out there to cover your husband’s ass while he finds Shiloh.”
“Why don’t you tell them yourself?”
“Booker T. Harris looks good. People believe him. Me,” and he gestured toward his wobbling body, “I’m just a crooked old jellyfish. But people who know you here, they’d listen to you. Angelo tells me you have a reputation for integrity. That’s a rare thing anywhere.”
She looked at Angelo Benedetti, who gave her the slightest of nods.
“Mrs. O’Connor,” Vincent Benedetti continued, “if a lot of people find out Shiloh’s out here-especially those rags-it’ll be open season on my girl. There’ll be a stampede and your little town will be right in the middle of it. You need to act quickly. I’m leaving you a card. Angelo.” He snapped his fingers, and Angelo Benedetti pulled a business card from his coat, wrote a number on the back, and handed it to her. “Call me and let me know what’s going on.”
She looked at the card. A purple parrot on the front with Angelo Benedetti’s name embossed below in gold. On the back, a telephone number.
“Where are you staying?” she asked.
“Just call,” Benedetti said. “Do we have a deal?”
“I’ll check it out. If I think you’re telling me the truth, I’ll be in touch. If not, I’ll have the authorities looking for you. Deal?”
Vincent Benedetti offered her a hand that quaked like an aspen leaf. “Deal.”
24
Cork heard the tent flap quietly lifted, and he was instantly awake.
“It’s light,” Sloane said through the mesh of the tent door. “Time to move.”
From behind Sloane came the crackle of a fire. The smell of wood smoke and fresh coffee drifted through the opened flap.
“Louis built a fire at first light,” Sloane explained. “I figured there wasn’t any reason not to at this point. The coffee’s ready. And water for oatmeal. Let’s move it, gentlemen. We’ve got a long way to go.”
The drizzle had ended, but thick clouds lay against the treetops and ragged gray wisps drifted among the trunks and along the riverbank like lost souls. Except for the crackle of the burning wood and an occasional word that passed between Stormy and Louis Two Knives as they stood by the fire, the forest was quite still.
Raye crawled out of the tent after Cork. He arched his back and stretched his arms. “You know, Louis,” he said with a little grin, “I dreamed all night long I was being chased by a majimanidoo.”
Louis had been sipping hot chocolate. He lowered the cup from his mouth and a serious darkness entered his young eyes. “What do you know about a majimanidoo? ”
Raye poured himself coffee in a hard plastic mug. “Not much. Except that according to your mother, it looks exactly like Agent Sloane there.” He lifted the mug to his nose and took in the good hot smell of the coffee.
“What’s a majimanidoo? ” Sloane asked. He was already at work taking down his tent. When the boy didn’t answer, he stopped and looked to Stormy Two Knives. “Well?”
Stormy shrugged. “My son is the expert on his Ojib
we heritage. Me, I just have it in my blood.”
“What’s a majimanidoo, Louis?” Sloane asked.
“A dark, evil spirit,” Louis reluctantly answered.
“You mean because of my color?”
Louis shook his head. “Spirit. Evil spirit.”
“A devil, Sloane,” Raye offered. “An Ojibwe devil.”
“If there is a devil in these woods,” Sloane said, casting a cold eye on Stormy Two Knives, “he’s for goddamn sure met his match in me. Cut the talk now. Get food in your bellies and let’s get going.”
Cork was mixing instant oatmeal in a bowl. “What’ll happen when you don’t check in with your people in Aurora?”
“For a while, nothing,” Sloane said.
“Then?”
“Then they send someone to the last coordinates I gave and they start looking.”
“That was the other side of Bare Ass Lake. We’ll be a long way from there,” Raye said.
Louis asked, “Do they know how to read trail signs?”
“Trail signs?”
“Notches on trees, rocks set in a line, that kind of thing,” Louis explained.
Sloane actually smiled. “That’s a little primitive for them, son.” He shrugged. “But what the hell, it’s worth a try. I’m putting you in charge of trail signs, Louis.”
Within an hour, they’d shoved the canoes into the sweep of the Little Moose River. The water was swift, clear caramel beneath them and silver gray ahead. Between them and Wilderness, the first and largest of the lakes north along the Little Moose, lay more than a dozen miles and two unnavigable rapids. Cork had the point, paddling his canoe. Stormy and Louis came next. Raye and Sloane brought up the rear.
Cork had been thinking a lot about who killed Grimes. Whoever they were, they had some knowledge of the woods they were traveling. Except for the glimpse of the ember Louis had seen on the lake, they’d kept their presence hidden. Although they would have had to stay pretty far back to remain unseen, they’d followed exactly, at every turn and every trail juncture. Cork decided it was likely they knew where Louis was leading them-at least to a point. But they must not have known the whole of it, Shiloh’s exact location. As he’d told Raye the night before, Cork believed that whoever they were, they wouldn’t do anything further until Shiloh was found.
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