Mercy Falls co-5

by William Kent Krueger

  “You betcha. Nestor’s got him.” He waved toward the sound of the other dogs.

  “Bring her to the dock. You know what we need to do.”

  “Yah,” Gratz said. “Come on, Lancelot.”

  Rutledge watched the man and dog trot away. “What now?”

  “Pook’s an air scent dog,” Cork said. He turned and started out of the cedars. “Gratz’ll take him onto the lake. If Stone dumped Lizzie’s body in the water, Pook might be able to locate her.”

  “And if he didn’t dump her there?”

  “We keep looking.”

  The mist vanished. Where sunlight struck the lake the clear water turned gold. Under the dock, the lake bottom was a jumble of dark stones; nearer the surface a school of minnows darted, moving together like a shadow creature.

  For two hours, Orville Gratz had crisscrossed the lake in a canoe with Pook, but the dog hadn’t caught Lizzie’s scent. The other two dogs had sniffed the entire shoreline of Bruno Lake without success. Cork stood on the dock looking north where the Cutthroat River fed toward Sugar Bowl Lake and the other lakes beyond. He chewed on a ham sandwich, one of a couple dozen he’d ordered brought out to feed the searchers, along with coffee and water. Everything had to be carted over the ridge.

  “I don’t get it,” Rutledge said. He sat on the dock, running his hand through the crystal clear water. “This place is so remote, how could Stone manage a serious smuggling operation? The planes fly everything in fine, but it has to be moved out of here on foot or by canoe.”

  “For a hundred years, the Voyageurs moved millions of dollars of goods through here that way. Helped build a few fortunes,” Cork said.

  “Why did Stone do it?” Dina Willner asked. She stood near him, sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup. “From what I understand, he has plenty of money coming from the distribution of the casino profits.”

  “It’s not about the money,” Will Fineday said.

  “No?” Rutledge said. “What, then?”

  “Fuck you,” Fineday said.

  Rutledge looked surprised by the response.

  “No,” Fineday said. “That’s what it’s about. Everything he does is just a way of saying fuck you. To me, to you, to his people. He doesn’t need anybody, doesn’t want anybody. To him, we’re all weak, like sick animals to be preyed on.” Fineday strode to the end of the dock and stood between Cork and Dina. “On the rez, some people call him majimanidoo. A bad spirit. A devil.” He followed Cork’s gaze north toward the mouth of the Cutthroat. “They’re right.”

  Larson came down the trail from the ridge.

  “What’s the word from the plane?” Cork asked.

  He’d arranged for a Forest Service DeHavilland to fly over the area and look for anyone in a canoe on the lakes or along the Cutthroat. The nearest official access to the wilderness was ten miles west. It was late in the season and few permits were being issued, so anyone in a canoe would be suspect.

  “Nothing. They didn’t see a blessed soul.”

  “Got the map, Ed?”

  “Right here.”

  Larson unfolded a topographical map of the region for four hundred square miles. “The dogs are getting nowhere. The search plane’s a bust. What do you think?”

  “He moved fast,” Cork said.

  “Does he still have the girl?”

  “If he’d left her at the bottom of the lake, Pook would probably have picked that up. I think Stone’s still got her,” Cork said.

  Rutledge ran his hand through the water, making ripples that were edged with gold. He eyed Fineday. “Did she go willingly?”

  Fineday didn’t look at him. His own eyes were glued to the north. “You don’t say no to Stone.” He rubbed the long scar on his face as if the old wound still hurt him. “Why would he take her? He doesn’t care about her. She’d only get in his way.”

  “He has reason,” Cork said. “Somehow it goes back to that cartridge on the pillow and the sweater in the ground.”

  Rutledge glanced up. “Why wouldn’t he just make a beeline to Canada? He could be there by tomorrow.”

  “When he gets to Canada, where is he?” Cork said. “No better off, and he knows it.”

  “We could wait him out. Put a watch on every wilderness access. Make sure every police and sheriff’s department’s on the lookout. I know what you said about him being able to stay in there forever, but that was before he took the girl.”

  “Maybe that’s why he took Lizzie,” Cork said. “With the girl, he can’t stay in there long, and he knows we know it.”

  “I don’t get it,” Dina said.

  “She’s a liability. He can’t afford to keep her. It’s like that hourglass in The Wizard of Oz. As soon as the sand runs out, Dorothy dies. I think that’s what the note in her pocket was about. Forty-eight hours. He’ll keep her for forty-eight hours. He knows we won’t wait him out. He knows we have to try to find Lizzie before her time’s up.”

  “He wants us to go after him?” Rutledge said.

  “I think that’s why he left the cartridge. He wanted it clear that he was the one who’d fired the shots at the Tibodeau cabin. Maybe he figured we were already on the road to figuring that out for ourselves. But he makes the declaration, he maintains control. I don’t think he’s trying to escape. I think he wants us to follow him into his territory. It’s like Will says. ‘Fuck you.’”

  “Seems a stretch to me,” Rutledge said.

  “It’s the kind of man Stone is. He’d get off pitting his power against ours.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  Cork tossed the crust of his sandwich into the lake, and a moment later the bread disappeared in a flash of shiny green scales and a splash of silver water. “I’m going to give him what he wants. I’m going in after him.”

  Rutledge scratched the top of his head. His face looked puzzled and he spent a minute fishing through his hair. He studied something he’d pinched between his fingers. “Damn. I thought tick season was over.” He flicked the critter into the lake and shook himself. “Feels like they’re crawling all over me now. Look, I don’t like the idea of anyone going in, Cork.”

  “I don’t like it either, Simon, but I don’t see any way around it.” Cork pulled the walkie-talkie from its holster on his belt. “Morgan. Over.”

  “Morgan here.”

  “Howard, I want you to get some gear together for a trip into the woods. Enough for three men for two days.”

  “One canoe?”

  Fineday said, “I’m going with you.”

  Cork started to shake his head, but he could see the determination on the man’s face. He understood how he’d feel if it was his daughter out there.

  “Make it two canoes and four men. I want everything ready to go by”-he looked at his watch-“oh four hundred.”

  “Ten-four. I’m on it.”

  “You’re really going in?” Dina said.

  “Yeah. But I think Simon has a good idea. We should put a watch on all the nearest accesses and float Stone’s photo everywhere. Contact the provincial police in Ontario, too. Let them know Stone may be headed their way.”

  Rutledge still looked skeptical. “You think you can find him?”

  “No.” Cork turned away from the lake and started for the ridge. “But I know a man who can.”

  36

  Jo’s first official date with Cork had begun at the Lincoln Park Zoo. It had ended at Rocky’s on the lakeshore, where Cork picked up a sack of fried shrimp and french fries, which they ate while sipping beer and watching Lake Michigan slide into the deep blue ink of evening. In between, she found a man who was funny, gentle, smart, who came from a small town in Minnesota and had somehow managed, despite the awful things he’d seen as a cop on the South Side, to retain a belief in simple human dignity.

  “You’re a good cop?” she’d asked in jest.

  “Depends on the situation. I try to be a good man first. Sometimes that might make me look like a bad cop, but I don’t think of my
self that way. You don’t have to be a hard-ass to be in control of a tough situation. Connection, that’s what I try for. Maybe it’s because I’m part Ojibwe. Connection is very important.”

  “Ojibwe?” It sounded exotic, exciting.

  “Or Anishinaabe. Some people call us Chippewa, but that’s really the white man’s bastardization of Ojibwe. Most Shinnobs I know aren’t fond of the name.”

  “Connection,” she said. “Are we connecting?”

  “I think we are.”

  “Then why haven’t you kissed me?”

  He smiled, as if amused by her boldness. “When I was twelve and my father sat me down to talk about the birds and the bees, one of the things he said to me was, ‘Cork, always let the woman make the first move.’”

  “Was it a good piece of advice?”

  “Do you want me to kiss you?”

  “Very much.”

  “Then it was excellent advice.”

  Through all the years, the hardships, even when they both stood at the painful edge of abandoning their marriage, she’d never forgotten that kiss or the promise it held for her.

  As arranged, Rae Bly was waiting for Jo at the sea lion pool near the zoo entrance. She was so engrossed in watching the animals cavort that she didn’t notice Jo, who finally touched her on the shoulder.

  “Here you are,” Rae exclaimed with a broad smile. “And these are your children?”

  Jo introduced them and Rose, then sent them along saying she would meet them at the primate house in an hour.

  Ben’s sister wore sunglasses and a white cap with a bill that shaded her face. She carried a purse and also a long canister that hung by a strap over her shoulder. “A lovely family, Jo.”

  “Thanks.”

  Rae waved toward a bench in the shade of a tree. “Shall we sit down?” When they were seated, she put down the canister, reached into her purse, and pulled out a silver cigarette case. She held it open toward Jo.

  “I don’t smoke.”

  “You used to. Pretty heavily, as I recall.”

  “I quit when I became pregnant with Jenny.”

  “I don’t have children, so I’m still looking for that compelling reason. Unfortunately, smoking and painting are tied together in my thinking. Paint a little, smoke a little, paint a little. The truth is, I’m afraid to give it up. Maybe the art wouldn’t come without it.”

  Jo settled back so that she was out of the sun. “You’re famous, Ben tells me.”

  “Famous? I sell well, but ‘famous’ is something else entirely. I enjoy what I do, and that’s what’s important for me.” She sent out a cloud of smoke, and waved it away from Jo. “I was so pleased to see you last night. You and Ben. It reminded me of that wonderful summer.”

  “That was a long time ago. A lot has changed.”

  “Some things. Ben still loves you. He always has.”

  “Twenty years ago he left me, Rae. Without a word of explanation.”

  “I know.” She looked up at the blue sky, squinting through her dark glasses. “When I left for school at the end of that summer, I prayed Ben would marry you. I’d talked to him about it. I know he hadn’t told you about Miriam, and he made me promise not to say anything. He was so torn between love and duty. For a little while I thought he would choose love. But Lou’s a formidable obstacle for us all, and in the end, fate seemed to be on his side. In September, our mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She went quickly.”

  “He never said a word to me.”

  “How could he? Her dying wish was for him to marry Miriam, and he couldn’t say no. If it’s any consolation, he was miserable his whole marriage.”

  “What was she like?”

  “Miriam? A horrible JAP. I’m Jewish, so I can say that. She was spoiled, self-centered, vain. What was important to her was the big house, the country club, the glittery life. She didn’t love Ben any more than he loved her, but the life she had seemed to give her everything she wanted. Ben walked through that marriage with his eyes and his mouth closed. And his heart. God, it was painful to see.”

  “How did he endure it?”

  “By doing what the Jacoby men have always done. Poured himself into the business, made money to support his family, found his pleasure in other women.” She looked deeply into Jo’s eyes. “When I saw how Ben looked at you last night, I thought about how everything might have been different.”

  In the silence that followed, she took a long drag off her cigarette.

  “I brought you something,” she said, brightening.

  She lifted the canister, unscrewed a cap at one end, and pulled out a rolled canvas, which she gave to Jo.

  “Open it,” she said.

  Jo spread the canvas and recognized the painting immediately. It was her, Jo, in the white dress, in Grant Park, twenty years ago.

  “Ben asked me to do it for him before I left for school that fall. He wanted to give it to you as a gift. Then he ended things and gave it back to me and told me to get rid of it. He couldn’t bear to look at it. I’ve kept it all these years. I’d love for you to have it.”

  “It’s beautiful, Rae, but I can’t.”

  “Please. It was always meant for you. It would give me great pleasure knowing that you finally have it.” She put a hand on Jo’s arm. “And honestly, if you decide you can’t keep it, you have my blessing to sell it. Believe me, you could get enough for that canvas to send Jenny to Northwestern for a year. Take it, Jo, please. For me.”

  She didn’t feel comfortable accepting, but she also felt that to decline, particularly in the face of Rae’s strong insistence, was not right, either.

  “All right. Thank you.” She rolled it again and slipped it back into the canister. “So you’ve become the artist you always wanted to be.”

  “No thanks to my father.” Rae laughed. “He disinherited me.”

  “Because you became an artist?”

  “That and because I didn’t marry the man he’d chosen for me.” She dropped her cigarette and crushed it on the pavement. “My parents’ marriage was arranged and was a dismal affair. Ben married the woman my parents chose for him, and I saw how miserable he was. I decided, come hell or high water, I was going to marry for love. And I did. George Bly, a wonderful man. It was George who urged me to follow my heart and to paint. He’s an artist, too. Stained glass. My father cut me off financially and cut me out of his will. Big deal. George and I do fine financially. The important thing is that we love what we do and we love each other. Believe me, that’s not typical for the Jacobys.”

  “What about Eddie and his wife? How was that marriage?”

  Rae shook her head sadly. “That may have been the greatest travesty of all. You knew Eddie well?”

  “Well enough to wonder about the woman who would agree to marry him. Ben told me she’s Argentine.”

  “Yes. From one of the best families. She’s beautiful, well educated, cultured, and broke. When the Argentine economy collapsed, her family lost everything. Once again, Jews became the target of old hatred and prejudice. Many of those who were able to emigrated-to Israel, Spain, the States.

  “My father and Gabriella’s father had been financial associates for years. The situation in Argentina developed about the same time Eddie hit marriageable age. No woman who knew him would marry him. My father understood that. He’d seen Gabriella and knew the plight of her family, and he arranged to marry the poor girl to Eddie. It got her out of Argentina, and Lou promised to help the rest of the family emigrate. Her parents chose to go to Israel. Her brother came here.”

  “I was impressed with her last night.”

  “She is impressive. She proved to be a dutiful wife, good mother, doting daughter-in-law. Lou absolutely adores her.”

  Jo detected a note of bitterness in that last statement. “Is that a problem?”

  Rae pulled another cigarette from her silver case and lit up. “In his business dealings, my father’s a powerful and perceptive man. In his personal life, he’s cl
ueless. He has no idea about real love. He mistakes subservience for affection. My mother didn’t put up with his tyranny, and he ignored her. Ben tried to break free of his control, and Lou has never completely forgiven him. I defied him, and he all but banished me. See, my father’s great weakness is this. He’ll deny it with a vengeance but he needs desperately to feel loved, and feeling loved means two things to him. That you need him and that you obey him. Eddie’s mother, Gwen, understood this perfectly. She played to it flawlessly. Dad loved her and gave her whatever she wanted. Eddie grew up doing the same thing, the little toady, and became the apple of Lou’s eye. Gabriella’s no slouch. She understood immediately which way the wind blows.” She shot out a puff of smoke. “If I sound bitter it’s only because, despite everything, I still love my father. And I pity his blindness and I miss his affection. So maybe, in the end, I’m just as screwed up as all the other Jacobys.” She looked away as a tear crawled down her cheek from behind one of her dark lenses. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

  “That’s okay,” Jo said.

  “You”-Rae laughed gently-“you would have made a great sister-in-law. Tell me about your life now. Everything.”

  They talked for an hour, then Jo looked at her watch and said it was time to meet Rose and the children. She stood up, slung the canister strap over her shoulder, and gave Rae a parting hug. As she walked away, heading toward the primate house, Jo couldn’t help thinking that there were a lot of cages in the world, and not all of them had bars.

  37

  No one knew the true age of Henry Meloux. He was already old when Cork was a boy. Meloux was one of the Midewiwin, a Mide, a member of the Grand Medicine Society. He lived on a rocky, isolated finger of land called Crow Point that jutted into Iron Lake at the northern edge of the reservation.

  Cork parked the Pathfinder on the gravel at the side of the county road, locked up, and followed a trail that began at a double-trunk birch and led deep into the woods. For a while, the way lay through national forest land, but at some unmarked boundary it crossed onto the reservation. Cork walked for half an hour through woods where the only sounds were the chatter of squirrels, the squawk of crows, and the occasional crack of a fallen branch under his boots. When he broke from the pine trees, he could see Meloux’s cabin on the point, an old one-room log structure with a cedar plank roof shingled over with birch bark.