Tamarack County: A Novel

by William Kent Krueger

  He was still deep in thought when the study door opened. He turned in his chair, expecting Anne back from Sam’s Place. But it wasn’t Anne. It was a man back from the dead.

  CHAPTER 46

  “I thought you were on the bottom of the lake,” Cork said.

  “I was hoping that’s what everybody would think. So, you know who I am.” Walter Frogg seemed surprised.

  “I know all about you. I talked with Cecil LaPointe yesterday. I visited your mother this morning. I spent an interesting few minutes with your cousin Eustis tonight.”

  “You get around.”

  Frogg held a pistol in his hand. He closed the door behind him and crossed to where Cork sat. The lamp on the desk lit the room dimly, and Cork’s visitor stood in a place that was more shadow than light and from which, when he pulled the trigger, the bullets could hit Cork anywhere Frogg wanted them to.

  “You shot my son,” Cork said.

  “Yes.”

  “Why him?”

  Frogg blinked, a face without emotion. “I could have killed one of your girls, but I figured your only son would be a dearer price.”

  “He’s alive,” Cork said.

  “I heard.”

  “Is that why you’re here?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Just me?”

  Frogg lifted his eyes toward the ceiling. In the bedrooms above them, Jenny and Waaboo slept. He considered for several seconds, then nodded. “That’ll pay the tab. Justice done.”

  “Justice. Because of LaPointe? I didn’t know anything about Ray Jay Wakemup’s story until he went public with it.”

  “That’s what you say.”

  “LaPointe holds no grudge.”

  “No, he wouldn’t.” His voice softened when he said this, as if their discussion had brought back to him a pleasing memory. But if so, the emotion passed in an instant, and when he spoke again, he spoke coldly. “This isn’t about grudges. Like I said, justice done. Truth elevated.”

  Cork rocked forward in the chair, and Frogg shoved the pistol toward him in warning.

  Cork said, “All right, since we’re talking truth here, let me lay a truth or two on you, Walter. You tell yourself that what you do, this vigilante crap, is justice. That’s bullshit. Or maybe you’re doing it because you believe you owe something to Cecil LaPointe. But the truth is that you’re just a little man who likes scaring people, a little man who’s pissed at everyone who has power over him, a little man who all his life has carried this big chip on his shoulder. You killed Evelyn Carter and you crippled my son, two people who never did you any harm. There’s nothing noble in that. It’s got nothing to do with justice or truth. It’s no tribute to a man like Cecil LaPointe. It’s pathetic and it’s psychotic.”

  From the shadows where he stood, Frogg said, “And sending an innocent man to prison, what’s that?”

  “Wrong. It’s wrong. I’m not going to defend it. But the faults of a system and those in charge of it are one thing. This”—Cork nodded toward the pistol pointed at his chest—“is something else. This is cold-blooded murder.”

  “You see it your way, I see it mine.”

  Cork considered the weapon. “That’s a twenty-two. The pistol you used on Stephen?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “Is it?”

  “Yeah.”

  Cork shook his head, as if somehow disappointed in Frogg. “Small bullets. They didn’t kill Stephen, and they won’t kill me. Not before I’m on you and break your neck.”

  The ice in his voice was real, the intention absolute. Whatever it took, even if it was the last thing he did in his life, he would make certain that Frogg was dead.

  The study door opened. Anne stepped in. Frogg glanced her way, and Cork saw his opportunity. He shot from the chair. He was on Frogg as the pistol cracked. He felt the sting low on his left side, but it didn’t slow him. He grabbed Frogg’s gun hand with both of his own, and the pistol hit the floor. He rocketed his arm upward. The hard bone of his elbow crushed the cartilage in Frogg’s nose, and blood sprayed. But the man didn’t go down. Instead, he pulled free and threw a quick combination of punches that hammered the wound in Cork’s side. Cork stumbled away. Frogg’s hand shot to his belt, to a sheath there. A hunting knife with a four-inch blade materialized in his grip.

  “Stop it,” Anne yelled.

  She held the pistol Frogg had dropped. He saw it and froze.

  “Shoot, Annie!” Cork shouted.

  She didn’t. The gun was leveled at Frogg, but her eyes were full of indecision.

  “Shoot!” Cork ordered.

  Anne did nothing, and Frogg used that moment of her hesitation to lunge at Cork. The men went down, Frogg on top. Cork managed a grip around the wrist of the hand that wielded the knife, but Frogg was more powerful than Cork had imagined. Men in prison with time on their hands. Despite his best effort, he watched the tip of the knife slowly descend toward his heart.

  Then Frogg grunted and fell to the side. Cork saw Anne draw her arm back from the blow she’d delivered with the butt of the pistol. He rolled, stood up, and took the gun from her. The knife lay on the floor within Frogg’s reach. The man roused himself. He struggled toward a crouch, as if to make a lunge for the blade, but Cork delivered a fast, brutal kick to his face. Frogg reeled and fell. Cork followed him and delivered another ferocious head kick. Then, with the toe of his boot, he angrily sent the knife sliding to the far side of the room.

  Frogg lay still, but not quite senseless. He groaned and his eyelids fluttered. Blood flowed freely from his nose and mouth, ran down his cheek, and dripped red on the honey-colored floorboards.

  Cork stepped back, stretched his arm in front of him, and lowered the pistol barrel until it was aimed directly at the middle of Frogg’s forehead. “Leave the room, Annie.”

  “Dad—”

  “You heard me.”

  Frogg opened one eye, just a crack, just enough for light to glint off the dark pupil beneath. “Going to shoot me, O’Connor?” The words were barely audible. “Cold-blooded murder.”

  “Dad, you can’t do this.”

  “Get out, Annie.”

  “Dad, please.”

  “If you don’t want to see it, leave now.”

  “I won’t let you, Dad.” She stepped between her father and Frogg.

  “He’s crazy and he’s patient, Annie,” Cork told her in a voice chill and urgent. “Sooner or later, he’ll be back to finish this.”

  Frogg’s other lid opened slowly, no more than the width of a strand of yarn, and he looked up at Anne with dull, soulless eyes. “Going to let him kill me, Sister?”

  “Dad,” she said. “I can’t.”

  “You can forgive him?” Cork asked, inflamed.

  “I don’t know. But I know I couldn’t forgive myself if I just walked out.”

  The fire of his anger consumed every other human emotion. He glared down at the man helpless on the floor and considered simply shoving his daughter aside and emptying the pistol even as she watched.

  “Dad,” Anne said. She reached out and gently laid her hand against his chest over his heart. “Dad, please.”

  Her touch released him. That’s exactly how it felt. Something powerful and graceful, something he did not himself possess, came through her and into him. It was a gift, he would later come to believe, one that freed him, at least in that moment, from the kind of anger and hate that had imprisoned Walter Frogg his whole life. The fire died, and Cork relaxed.

  “Call the sheriff’s office,” he said to Anne. To Frogg he said, “If you try to get up off that floor, I will kill you.” He looked hard into the narrow slits of the man’s eyes and spoke the absolute truth. “I will kill you.”

  Frogg gave his head a ghost of a nod, all the movement he could muster.

  Anne picked up the phone from the desk and dialed 911.

  CHAPTER 47

  The dreams had stopped coming, and his sleep was deep. When Stephen finally woke, h
e found sunlight in his hospital room and his father sitting at his bedside. His father’s eyes were closed, and Stephen studied his face carefully. He’d heard that a daughter becomes her mother; he wondered if the same was true with son and father. He hoped this wasn’t so. He loved his father deeply, but he didn’t want to be him. His father carried a terrible burden. Even in sleep, he couldn’t relax completely. Ogichidaa, Stephen thought, and knew that when you’ve stood against evil in defense of what was good, you could never let your guard down completely. There would always be evil in the world. He understood that this was part of the design of the Great Mystery, although the why of it was beyond him at the moment, and maybe always would be. This was something he would ask Meloux about.

  And as often happened, no sooner had he thought of the old Mide than Meloux appeared, standing in the doorway, studying him calmly.

  “Good morning, Henry,” Stephen said quietly.

  Stephen’s father opened his eyes. He looked at his son and smiled. “How’re you doing, buddy?”

  “Better,” Stephen said.

  Meloux came forward. He put his old hand over Stephen’s. His palm was rough from the hard work across all the years he’d lived without convenience in his cabin on Crow Point, lived simply and purely.

  “I can feel your strength,” the old man said. “It returns.” He nodded toward the window. “Like the sunlight.”

  “Where is everybody?” Stephen asked.

  His father rose from the chair and stood beside Meloux. “I have a lot to tell you,” he said and filled Stephen in on the events of the night.

  “You got shot?” Stephen said. This surprised him because his father seemed fine.

  Cork O’Connor tugged his shirttail from his pants and lifted the material to expose his left side, where a large square of sterile gauze lay taped. It reminded Stephen of a patch over a hole in an inner tube.

  “No significant damage done,” his father said. “Went right through my love handle. Another couple of scars to add to my collection thanks to Walter Frogg.”

  Stephen heard the way he said the man’s name. “You think it would be better if he was dead.”

  “I think the world wouldn’t miss a man like Frogg. And I think that as long as he’s alive, he’s trouble. For you, me, and a lot of others.”

  “How’s Annie? Is she here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could I talk to her?”

  “Sure.”

  “Is Marlee here, too?”

  “She is. I’ll get them both.”

  His father tucked his shirt back into his pants and left his son alone with Meloux.

  “You look tired,” Stephen told the old man.

  “When the years you have lived equal mine, you will look tired, too.” The wizened Mide smiled. “It is good to be with you. I have missed your company.”

  “There are things I want to ask you. So many.”

  “I will be here,” Meloux promised. “Until it is time for me to walk the Path of Souls, I will leave my home no more.”

  From the doorway at Meloux’s back, Anne called, “Stephen?”

  She came into the room, and Stephen saw a knowing look pass between her and the Mide. He wondered what that was all about.

  “When you want me, I will return,” Meloux said and left Stephen alone with his sister.

  “Dad told me about last night,” he said to her.

  “A night of resolution,” she replied.

  He sensed a calm in her that had been missing for a long time. “You’re not talking just about that Frogg guy. There’s something else.” He gazed deeply into her eyes, and he understood. “You’re going back to the sisters.”

  “Not right away. I want more time to think things through.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Live in Rainy’s cabin through the winter and help Henry. We’ve decided, he and I. It works for both of us.”

  The meaning of the look that had passed between her and the old man was now clear to Stephen. “I was hard on Skye. I blamed her for what you’ve been going through, but I think this is all a part of the journey you were always meant to take. Will you tell her I’m sorry?”

  “I will.”

  “So what about Skye and you?”

  There was hurt in her face, hurt in her eyes, hurt in her voice. “I’ll always love her, but my life is about something else.”

  “Will this make you happy?”

  She thought a moment. “Remember when we used to sleep out in the backyard in summer, hoping we’d see the northern lights? We’d stay awake as long as we could and nothing would happen. Then we’d finally fall asleep, and sometimes we’d wake up and there they’d be. I think happiness is like that. If you spend your life looking for it, you’ll probably be disappointed. It comes on its own.”

  He wasn’t sure he agreed with her. That was another thing he would have to think about and maybe ask Meloux.

  Anne turned, and he followed her gaze, and there was Marlee in the doorway. The low morning sunlight bathed her in gold, and to Stephen she looked like an honest to God angel, bruises and all.

  “Can I come in?” she asked.

  “I’m just leaving,” Anne said. She squeezed her brother’s hand. “We have lots to talk about. Later.”

  When they were alone, Marlee sat on the edge of his bed. She kissed his lips gently. “You got some sleep?”

  “Yeah. You?”

  “I napped on the couch in the waiting room.”

  “You look good.”

  She smiled beautifully. “And you look wonderful.”

  He took her hand in his, and their fingers intertwined. “Marlee, I’m sorry I got you involved in all this.”

  “I want to be involved in everything that’s you, good and bad.” She glanced at the long, motionless ridge under his sheet, where his useless legs lay.

  With his free hand, he cupped her chin and drew her gaze back to his face. “I’m going to walk again. I’ve decided.”

  “Then I know you will,” she said, and he could tell she believed it, too.

  She bent and kissed him again, this time long and passionately.

  And he was sure, absolutely certain, he felt a tingling deep inside him that ran all the way down to his toes.

  * * *

  Cork took the call in the hospital hallway. It was from Marsha Dross. She informed him that one of the cadaver dogs had located the body of Evelyn Carter. It had been buried in the snow less than a hundred yards from her home. She’d been stabbed to death, most probably with the knife that had gone missing from the Judge’s display case. And Cork, who’d been a cop too long to keep himself from it, a man twice cursed, knew that he would start putting all the pieces of Eveyln Carter’s death together until he could visualize it step by step in his own mind and it would join all the other bloody images that, in his worst moments, he could not help but recall.

  “Have you told her daughter and the Judge?” he asked.

  “They know.”

  “So it’s over?”

  “This particular situation is over. But does this kind of thing ever end?”

  This kind of thing, Cork thought and knew exactly what she meant, a perspective that was yet another curse of wearing a badge.

  “Get some sleep, Marsha. You deserve it.”

  He went to the waiting room and told Anne and the others there—Stella, his friends and family from the rez, Henry Meloux and Hank Wellington—that he would buy them all breakfast. He said he would meet them in the parking lot. They rose in a noisy bunch and moved into the hallway. Stella stayed behind, watching Cork carefully. When he turned to her, he saw that her face was drawn, and when she spoke, there was hardness in her voice. “I know that look,” she said. “You’re going to tell me it’s been swell but you have other fish to fry now.”

  “What I was going to say is that a lot’s happened in a very short time in both our lives. I need a while to think. I don’t want to jump into anything. I’m way too
old and way too tired for jumping. Does that make sense?”

  She considered his words, and her face softened. “I was the one who said it wasn’t about anything except one night.”

  “When your heart’s in the right place, it’s pretty tough for one night to be that simple.” He went to her, took her in his arms, and drew her against him. Son of a gun, there was that incredible fragrance, whose scent he could not quite name, as enticing as ever.

  She asked hesitantly, “Do you think we have a chance? You and me?”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “Damn me,” she whispered. “Yes.”

  “There’s a big part of me that wants it, too. But like I said, it’s a leap, one I need to think about.” He stepped back. “Can I think about it, about us?”

  Her eyes were glossed with tears, but she nodded. “I’m going nowhere.”

  “Me neither. Tamarack County’s got its hooks in both of us.” He kissed her, gently and not too long. “You hungry? Me, I could eat a moose.”

  He took her hand, and they walked from the waiting room together.

  CHAPTER 48

  Three days before Christmas, Skye Edwards left Tamarack County to return to California. She came to the house on Gooseberry Lane, where the O’Connors were finally, belatedly, decorating for the season, and said her good-byes. She thanked them graciously for their kindness and gave them all hugs. She saved her last embrace for Waaboo, then, at the little guy’s insistence, hugged his favorite pal, the orangutan named Bart. She’d spent the day before with Anne and Cork on Crow Point, helping Henry Meloux prepare for his long winter in his beloved home. Cork had sat a good, long spell with Meloux in the old man’s cabin while Anne and Skye had done the hard work of separation, of ending.