The William Kent Krueger Collection #4

by William Kent Krueger

  “He was going to be in the public eye in such a way that everything he did would be watched. His relationship with Winona would be too risky. If it’s true that he had his eye ultimately on the presidency—and knowing Jubal, that’s exactly where his ambition would push him—he had to make sure that he appeared to be squeaky clean.”

  Rainy didn’t look convinced. “If all her life Winona’s known that Jubal would have to abandon her, for the mountaintop, as you put it, why believe that she killed him just as he was poising himself to get there?”

  On his fingers, Cork counted off the reasons. “One: Sam Winter Moon taught her to bow-hunt and still-stalk. Two: She knows the area around Trickster’s Point well. And three: I tend to agree with the guy who said that hell has no fury like a woman scorned.”

  “I’m going to ignore for the moment the sexist nature of that last comment and repeat what Uncle Henry told you, that hate isn’t the other side of love. That would be fear. So if Winona Crane killed Jubal Little, what was she afraid of?”

  Cork shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m really just thinking out loud.”

  Meloux put an old hand in the center of the table, his fingers spread like the points of a star. “Does your heart, Corcoran O’Connor, agree with the way your head is trying to lead you?”

  “No,” Cork had to admit. He sat back, feeling defeated again. “I’m flailing here, Henry.”

  “Did you come hoping for advice? Or did you come hoping for something else?”

  “I was wondering if you might be willing to talk to Winona.”

  Meloux fell silent as he considered Cork’s request. Walleye circled the table and nudged his old head under the Mide’s right hand, and Meloux idly stroked the dog’s yellow fur.

  “If she comes to me, I will talk to her,” he finally agreed. “But my purpose will be to help her spirit heal, if that is what she wants, not to help you put her in the hands of the police.”

  “Fair enough, Henry,” Cork said, and he rose to leave. “Migwech.”

  Rainy walked him across the meadow to where the trail entered the trees. Morning had arrived fully, but because clouds sealed the entire dome of the sky, there was no sun.

  “Do you think you can convince Winona to talk to Uncle Henry?” she asked.

  “If I can find her. She’s gone into hiding again.”

  She smiled at him and reached out to touch his cheek. “Do you know what Uncle Henry says about you?”

  “No, tell me.”

  “He says you’re like a dog who can’t remember where he’s buried his bone. You just keep digging until you find it.”

  “Pretty pathetic, huh?”

  “I don’t think so at all.”

  She kissed him just as his cell phone began to ring. He pulled it from his belt holder and saw that it was Ed Larson calling.

  “This is Cork. What’s up, Ed?”

  Larson said, “You might want to come down to the sheriff’s department, Cork. We just brought in Isaiah Broom. Holter’s insisting we arrest him for the murder of Jubal Little.”

  CHAPTER 32

  “We showed up at his door,” Holter said. “Captain Larson and myself. We wanted to get to him early, but just to talk to him. He took one look at us and said, ‘I killed him.’ It was that simple.”

  That simple, Cork thought. He wanted to say, Come on, Holter, nothing’s that simple, but he held his tongue.

  They sat in the office of Sheriff Marsha Dross. They all had mugs of coffee, and someone had put a plate of doughnut holes on Dross’s desk. Nobody was eating them. Cork thought the feel in the room was different from the excitement that should have been there if they really believed they were going to be able to close the case.

  “Have you questioned him yet?”

  Larson shook his head. “He asked to have his attorney present.”

  Cork saw the dismal look on Holter’s face. “Wouldn’t happen to be Leon Papakee, would it, Agent Holter?” he asked.

  “It is,” the BCA agent replied coolly. “He’s on his way. Should be here soon.”

  “So what do you think?” Cork asked of them all in general.

  Dross said, “We’re reserving judgment, but we’d be interested in what you think.”

  Cork lifted his mug. The smell of the coffee was good and strong, and he figured Dross had made it herself. He sipped and considered the question, then replied, “I think Broom is the kind of man who could have done this kind of thing, but I don’t think he’s the kind of man who would hand himself over to you gift-wrapped.”

  Holter said, “Unless he plans to use this whole tragic situation as a political forum of some kind.”

  “I could see him doing that,” Cork said. “What about Lester Bigby?”

  Holter looked surprised at the apparent jump in topic. “What about him?”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “Yes. He wasn’t happy about it, but he was cooperative. He showed us his hunting bow, his arrows. Very nice, but very commercial. Nothing homemade. Nothing like the arrow that killed Jubal Little.”

  “As I explained to you once before, Agent Holter, I don’t lock my doors. I still think he could have taken one of mine.”

  “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  “Did you get his fingerprints to match against the ones on the arrow that killed your John Doe on the ridge?”

  “I didn’t believe it to be necessary at this point.”

  “Did you at least ask him where he was last Saturday?”

  “We did. He was out all day, at that resort property of his on Crown Lake.”

  “Interesting. He told his wife he was going to spend the day with his father.”

  “Time enough for both, I suppose.”

  “His father says he wasn’t there at all.”

  “Look, what difference does it make? We have in custody the man who admits to the murder.”

  “Yeah, a guy who normally wouldn’t say boo to the cops, and without even being prompted insists, ‘Cuff me.’ You really buy that, Holter?”

  “Jesus, O’Connor. You were the one who suggested we take a good look at Broom. Now you’re saying we made a mistake? Give me a break.”

  Larson intervened evenly. “For now, it’s the best lead we have, Cork. We’re not going to send an innocent man to jail, you know that.”

  “Do I? I was looking pretty good to you there for a while.”

  “Maybe you still are,” Larson said. “Go on home. We’ll be in touch.”

  Cork stood up to leave. As he put his half-empty coffee mug on Dross’s desk, the sheriff asked, “Just for the sake of argument, why would Broom lie about something like this?”

  Love, Cork wanted to tell her. Instead he said, “Maybe it’s like Holter says. Isaiah’s got some political points to make, and he just wants the spotlight.”

  “Risky,” Dross said.

  “If you’re born Indian, your whole life is about risk,” Cork replied, and he left.

  * * *

  As he’d been doing for some time now, he’d parked his Land Rover a couple of blocks away so that he could slip into and out of the sheriff’s department without the media spotting him. When he got there this time, however, he saw that he’d been found out. A silver Escalade was parked behind the Land Rover, and as Cork approached, Kenny Yates stepped out. He wore a sanded calfskin leather jacket and leather gloves. Although it was overcast, he had on an expensive pair of shades.

  “The Jaegers would like to see you,” he said, blocking Cork’s way.

  “Fine, but I have a couple of things I need to do first.”

  “They would prefer that you come right now.”

  “They would, huh?” He looked up into the big man’s face, into his own reflection in the lenses of the sunglasses. “I was under the impression that you didn’t work for the Jaegers. You work for the Littles.”

  “Consider it a request from Mrs. Little then. But the Jaegers’ll be there, too.”

  “All right. I�
��ll follow you.”

  “I’d prefer you rode along with me.” Yates finally took the sunglasses off, and Cork saw that his eyes were troubled. “Got something I want to say to you.”

  “All right. Let me call home first.”

  He checked in with Jenny. Everyone was up, and everything was fine, and Cy Borkman, God bless him, had shown up of his own accord and was having a plate of pancakes and eggs at the kitchen table even as they spoke. Jenny relayed a message from him to Cork: Do what you have to. The home front is secured.

  Yates drove, but not a direct route to Jubal Little’s place on Iron Lake. Cork waited for him to say what was on his mind, but it was clear that Yates had to work up to it. Cork figured it must be something pretty hard, considering all the posturing and now all the delay.

  They came to a stoplight, one of only three in Aurora, and Yates said, “It’s like this. No matter how it turns out, Camilla’s going to be hurt.”

  So it’s Camilla now, Cork thought. What he said was, “Jubal’s dead. What could hurt her more than that?”

  Yates shot him a cold look. “It’s going to all come out about Jubal and that Indian woman, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about, Kenny.”

  “Don’t play stupid, Cork. I’d hate to see Camilla have to go through the public shit bath that would result if the press found out why Jubal came north.”

  “Kenny, you have no idea why Jubal really came north.”

  “To fuck the Indian woman.”

  “The physical thing was part of it, I’m sure, but there was something else, something much deeper going on. In a way, I think Jubal was looking for wholeness of spirit. I think that’s what he was really after.”

  “Doesn’t matter what he was really after. Those reporters, if they get wind of this woman, won’t be saying he visited her for wholeness, believe me.”

  “I’m going to do my best to keep anyone out of this who doesn’t have to be a part of the public story. Once again, I’m giving you my word.”

  The light turned green, and Yates pulled ahead.

  “Okay, something you maybe ought to know, Cork. That bullet hole through your windshield? You got a lead on the guy who fired it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Check this out. Yesterday afternoon Nick Jaeger leaves the house. He’s carrying a piece, a rifle. Gets into his Mercedes and takes off. Doesn’t come back for maybe three hours. Brings the rifle with him back into the house. This morning Camilla tells me he’s heading down to the Twin Cities tomorrow. Not even sticking around to see the end of the investigation into Jubal’s murder.”

  “A pressing appointment?” Cork asked.

  “Right,” Yates scoffed. “Him and Jubal used to hunt together. Black powder, muzzle-loaders, that antique gun shit. Jubal told me that Nick Jaeger was the second best shot he’d ever seen.”

  Cork said, “Let me guess. Jubal was the best.”

  “There’s a gun case in Jubal’s house,” Yates went on. “It’s locked or I would have checked to see if any of his rifles had been fired recently. Maybe it’s something you ought to think about. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “Why would Nick Jaeger try to kill me?”

  Yates pulled into the drive of Jubal Little’s lake home. “You’re the P.I. You figure it out.”

  Jaeger’s Mercedes SUV was parked in the drive, and Yates pulled up behind it. They got out, and Yates walked ahead. Cork saw a curtain in a front window drop into place. Yates opened the door for Cork and ushered him inside.

  “In here,” Alex Jaeger called from down the hallway.

  “They’re all yours,” Yates said and bowed out.

  Cork walked to the den, where he’d faced the Jaeger family the day after Jubal died. They’d scattered themselves about the room like throw pillows, Alex standing by the fireplace, Nick at the liquor cabinet, and Camilla sitting demurely on the brown leather divan. When he came in, they watched him like a caribou might track a nearby wolf.

  “Thank you for coming,” Alex said.

  “With all due respect, Kenny didn’t give me much choice.”

  “I’m sorry, Cork,” Camilla said. “Kenny’s . . . well, Kenny takes his job seriously. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

  A fire crackled away in the fireplace, and the room felt too warm.

  “Mind if I take my coat off?” Cork asked.

  “Be my guest,” Alex said. He waited until Cork had slipped off his jacket and laid it over the back of one of the plush easy chairs, then he got down to brass tacks. “Is it true they’ve arrested the man who killed Jubal?”

  Cork didn’t answer immediately. He took a moment to study each of the Jaegers carefully. Alex stood erect, almost imperious, and Cork could see him commanding men in uniform, or standing before legislators and speaking to them in a way meant to bend them to his purpose. He was born to lead, or at least held himself as if that were the case. Nick dropped ice into a glass and poured in some Johnnie Walker Blue. He seemed more intent on his liquor than on what was occurring in the room, but it was, Cork thought, a studied gesture. And then there was Camilla, who sat lovely and attentive and with a lingering air of sadness about her, and who seemed to Cork to be somehow at the apex of this familial triangle.

  “Why am I really here?” Cork said.

  “I don’t understand,” Alex replied. “It was a simple question.”

  “And one you already know the answer to. You’ve been inside this investigation from the beginning. I don’t know how, and I don’t care, but everything I know about it, you know, too. So what is it that you really want to ask me?”

  Nick glanced up from his glass of scotch and locked eyes with his brother. Camilla looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap.

  “All right, here it is,” Alex said. “How much will it cost us to make sure that you say nothing to the press about Jubal and this Indian woman?”

  “Ah,” Cork said. He thought a moment. “How much are you willing to pay?”

  “I assume you have a number in mind.”

  “Make an offer.”

  “All right,” Alex said. “Five hundred thousand dollars.”

  Cork smiled. “What is it you’re trying to protect? Jubal’s name? The Jaeger name?” His eyes swung toward Camilla. “Or just protective brothers trying to stand between their sister and the bullies of the world? I don’t want your money.”

  Camilla spoke up immediately. “I told them you wouldn’t accept something like this, Cork. They wouldn’t believe me. And honestly, I don’t care what people might say about Jubal and Winona Crane. I know the truth, and that’s what’s important to me.”

  Alex said, “The truth? Hell, Camilla, the truth is that the guy’s been unfaithful to you for years with this woman.”

  “We had an understanding about her.”

  “Yeah, that Jubal could walk all over you and you wouldn’t say boo to him.”

  “You wouldn’t understand.” Her anger was clearly mounting.

  “Oh? I’d love to be enlightened. Because whenever I confronted Jubal with it, he just clammed up. Christ, the stink of guilt poured off him.”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Camilla shouted. “Jubal loved me.”

  “Then why was he fucking another woman?”

  “Because,” she said as the tears began, “I wasn’t enough. And I understood that. And I wanted Jubal anyway. And she was the price.” She wiped her cheeks with her knuckle.

  Alex threw his arms up as if in disgust or surrender. “It doesn’t matter. If the press gets wind of her, they’ll fry him up and serve him to the public on a platter.”

  “He’s dead,” Camilla said. “It can’t hurt him now.”

  Nick said, “But it’ll hurt you, Camilla.” This was the first he’d spoken since Cork arrived, and it was a tender offering. “The shadow of Jubal will follow you, and people will think all kinds of things about you. They don’t know you.”

  She smiled
at her brother. “You don’t think I’m strong enough to endure that?”

  “All these years, I’ve watched you take what Jubal offered you, and I couldn’t understand why you accepted so little when you deserved so much more. It’s not right that he should go on making your life miserable even after he’s dead.”

  She stood up, walked to the liquor cabinet, put her hand against her brother’s cheek, and said, “The life I had with him was the life I chose, Nickie.”

  “No, Dad and Alex chose it for you. You were the sacrifice on the altar of their political ambition.”

  “Is that what you’ve thought all these years?”

  “When we hunted together,” Nick said, “I sometimes put Jubal in my sights and thought about pulling the trigger, just to set you free.”

  Her hand slid from his cheek, and she took a half step away. “You didn’t kill him, did you, Nickie?”

  “Me?” He seemed genuinely surprised at the question. “No. But I won’t lie to you. I’m not sorry he’s dead.”

  “I don’t want to hear that.” Camilla turned from him and walked away.

  He watched her go, then took a long swallow from his glass.

  An uncomfortable silence had fallen over the room, and into it Cork dropped this: “Is that why you tried to kill me, Nick? To protect your sister from more hurt?”

  “Tried to kill you?” Nick gave a short laugh. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “The slug through my windshield. I think you fired it.”

  “Whoa, O’Connor, hold on a minute,” Alex said. “That’s a hell of an accusation.”

  “Maybe so, but easily proven.” Cork walked to a window of the den that overlooked the driveway. He pulled a curtain back, so that Nick Jaeger’s Mercedes was visible on the drive. “Whoever it was who fired the shot left tire tracks at the scene. The sheriff’s people took impressions. My guess is that if I told them to check the tires on your SUV, Nick, they’d get a match.”

  “There are lots of vehicles with those tires on them, I’m sure,” Nick said.

  “Maybe so. But they also got an impression from the sole of an expensive hiking boot. If they secured a search warrant, I’d be willing to bet they’d find that boot and its mate somewhere among your things. So, I’m going to ask you again, is that why you tried to kill me?”