Billy nodded.
The boys stared, and Cork finally said, “What the hell happened to it?”
CHAPTER 31
Ruth Rustad knocked lightly on the frame of Liam’s open door. “County attorney wants to see you upstairs, Sheriff.”
“Did he say what it’s about?”
“Didn’t. Sounded unhappy.”
“Not unusual. Thanks, Ruth.”
Liam went back to the documents he’d been reading, extracts from articles on alcohol absorption when introduced into the human body by various means. The librarian at the Tamarack County Library had been more than generous with her time in locating them.
“He said now, Sheriff.”
Liam took his time. When he’d climbed to the second floor of the courthouse, he ran into Nicholas Skinner, who was just about to descend the marble stairway. Skinner’s face was the color of an angry sunset sky, and the look in his eyes was like one Liam recalled from the war just before men fixed bayonets.
“You okay, Nick?” Liam asked.
“I just came from our county commissioners’ office.”
“You don’t look happy about that.”
Clutched in one of Skinner’s hands was a long rolled sheet of heavy paper that Liam figured was an architectural drawing of some kind. More than a year before, Nicholas Skinner and some other investors had bought property on the shoreline of Iron Lake within the town limits. They proposed to build a world-class hotel there, along with an expansion of the town’s small marina. His aim, as he’d said in so many of the articles printed about the project, was to increase the allure of the area as a premier tourist destination. At the moment, most accommodations on Iron Lake were cabin resorts or small motel operations. With businesses already closing due to the downturn in the mining economy and new sources of revenue needed in the area, most folks in Tamarack County seemed to welcome the idea. In the local paper, Liam had seen drawings of what the final structure would look like, and he’d been impressed.
“We need a variance for the hotel,” Skinner said. “I’ve been working on it for six months. I thought we were going to get it, but Arne Tikkanen called me this morning. Our county commissioners have decided, quite suddenly, not to grant it.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“He didn’t need to. I know the reason. Retribution.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“All right. What I’m going to tell you doesn’t trespass on client privilege, because I’m no longer Duncan MacDermid’s personal attorney. I quit last night.”
“Why?”
“He called me late, drunk as usual, said you’d been out to question him.”
“That’s right.”
“He said he told you about his wife’s affair, her trysts out at Lightning Strike.”
“Yes.”
“He’d discussed with me divorcing Mary Margaret. I’d advised against it. Divorce would make everything very public. But word seems to have gotten out anyway. Now it’s the only thing people around here are talking about. Between that and his drinking, Duncan hasn’t been thinking clearly. He said you asked him where he was when John Manydeeds was killed. He said you think it wasn’t suicide, and he believes you’re looking at him as a suspect.”
“He’s a person of interest.”
“I’m not his lawyer anymore, and like I said, I don’t consider what I’m about to tell you covered under client privilege.” A look even more inflamed than before came over Skinner’s face. “Last night, he ordered me to lie for him.”
“How so?”
“He insisted I swear that I was with him during the time you believe Manydeeds was killed.”
“We just have a general idea when that would have been. Did MacDermid give you a better idea?”
“Not really. He wanted me to swear we were working together for most of a couple days on a new will, in light of his wife’s affair.”
“What days?”
“The whole weekend after the Fourth of July.”
“And were you, in fact, with him?”
“I was nowhere near him. He’s been holed up in that cottage ever since he found out about his wife and Manydeeds. Every time I’ve called him, to talk sense into him, he’s been nothing but belligerent. Honestly, even before he attempted to strong-arm me, I’d had enough of him as a client.”
“I’m guessing MacDermid accounted for a significant part of your business,” Liam said.
“Once the Four Seasons project is off the ground, if it ever is, that’ll more than make up for getting Duncan off my back.”
“So, you believe he’s behind our county commissioners’ decision not to grant you the variance?”
“I know Duncan’s handiwork when I see it.”
“Thanks for the information, Nick. If I need it, would you be willing to give me a formal statement of everything you’ve just told me?”
“All you have to do is hand me a pen.”
The two men shook hands and Liam continued to the county attorney’s office.
* * *
“I got a call from Duncan MacDermid this morning,” Bud Fassbinder said from behind his desk. He was small and balding, with a pinched face and little black eyes that had always reminded Liam of a ferret. “He told me you’ve been harassing him.”
“Harassing? I simply questioned him,” Liam said.
“He said you accused him of some complicity in that Indian’s death.”
“His name was John Manydeeds.”
“Manydeeds killed himself. End of story,” Fassbinder said.
“I’m not convinced.”
“And why not?”
“Too many inconsistencies.”
“Like what?”
“The nature of the man for one thing.”
“He was an Indian. What more do you need to know?”
Liam stood up and turned to leave the office.
“Where are you going?”
“To do my job.”
“Sit back down.”
Liam remained standing.
“Look,” Fassbinder said, in a conciliatory tone. “You’re not from here.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“There’s always been a certain… order… to life here.”
“And does that order include looking the other way when Indians are killed or when husbands beat their wives?”
“I believe you’re wasting your time with this investigation.”
“With all due respect, this investigation is my responsibility, not yours.”
“There are lines you should not cross.”
“And questioning Duncan MacDermid is one of them?”
“There are consequences.”
“I’ll risk them.”
Fassbinder shrugged. “Your funeral.”
Liam went back downstairs to the Sheriff’s Department, where he found his son sitting with Joe Meese at the deputy’s desk. Cork’s sneakers were covered in dried mud.
Joe looked up at Liam and gave a slight nod toward Cork. “Wait’ll you hear this.”
CHAPTER 32
Liam arranged for the use of one of the two launches the Aurora Volunteer Fire Department kept for water rescues. It was late afternoon when he and Deputy Joe Meese boated to the mouth of Spider Creek. They anchored the launch and followed Cork’s instructions, wading up the stream to the narrow channel in the bulrushes. They found Big John’s canoe lying in the muck among the reeds, exactly as Cork had said.
Both men stood quietly, listening to the song of the red-winged blackbirds flitting among the rushes, then Joe said, “Jesus, what the hell happened here?”
The rear thwart was smashed into pieces, the left gunnel shattered, the whole left side of the stern stoved in. It looked as if an angry giant had slammed a great boulder against the fragile craft.
“Murder,” Liam said. “Or the beginning of it.”
Joe had brought the department Polaroid, and he snapped photos from every angle. Liam lifted
out a Duluth pack, the only item in the canoe, went through the contents, and found more or less what he’d expected, what a man might need for a few days alone in the wilderness. They dusted the canoe for fingerprints, then checked the area for footprints, but the muck had closed over everything, even the evidence of the boys’ recent visit. While they did all this, they speculated.
“Someone waited for him at the mouth of the creek,” Liam said. “They must have jumped him and tried to hide his canoe here.”
“They?” Joe said.
“One man alone couldn’t have brought down Big John. I’m thinking the canoe was damaged in the fight.”
“When he was hanging from that tree, I didn’t see any indication of bruises or anything from a fight.”
“I didn’t look that hard, Joe. Did you?”
What Liam had seen at Lightning Strike was what his experience had told him he’d see: a man who’d been in the grip of booze before and was in the grip of booze again, a man who couldn’t face the harsh reality of what it was to be Indian, a man who had disappointed himself and, in the end, disappointed everyone who’d looked up to him and believed in him.
“We didn’t even bother to do an autopsy,” Liam said. Thinking, What kind of cop am I? “Let’s get back to the office, I want to see the photos Cy took at the scene.”
“What about the canoe?”
“It’s not going anywhere in the shape it’s in. We’ve lifted the fingerprints and we’ve got the photos and Big John’s pack. We’ll come back for the canoe later.”
At his office, Liam pulled out the file with the photographs Deputy Borkman had shot at Lightning Strike before they cut the body down. He studied them, then handed the Polaroids to Joe. “Nothing. No obvious evidence of a fight, no visible bruising.”
“Could have been on his torso,” Joe suggested. “Covered by his clothing. Maybe Sigurd Nelson saw something when he prepped the body for burial.”
When Liam put that question to the coroner over the phone, Sigurd said, yes, there’d been some bruising on his ribs. “Looked like maybe he stumbled because he was drunk and fell against something hard.”
When he set the receiver in the cradle, Liam said, “Bruising on the ribs.”
“Consistent with falling into the side of the canoe and crushing it,” Joe said.
“Or from someone hitting him good and hard.”
“You got anyone in mind?”
“MacDermid for sure. But he had to have help.”
“Not if MacDermid drugged him, like we thought.”
Liam said, “How would he do that?”
Joe closed his eyes and thought a moment. “He boats to the mouth of Spider Creek and waits there for Manydeeds. Maybe has coffee in a thermos, or cold water, or something as a peace offering, which he’s already laced with the sedative.”
“Peace offering? You’re serious?”
“Or maybe not a peace offering but something he convinces Manydeeds to share while two men who love the same woman hash out what’s ahead for them all.”
“I can’t see MacDermid negotiating on this one.”
“For the sake of argument,” Joe said.
“All right. For the sake of argument.”
“They spend some time together, then Manydeeds begins to feel the effects of the drug, tries to fight what he realizes is coming. They struggle, fall against the canoe, but in the end, the drug knocks out Manydeeds.”
Liam nodded and picked up the thread. “MacDermid pulls the broken canoe into the reeds, loads Big John in his boat, heads to Lightning Strike, and makes it look like suicide.” He shook his head. “That would require a hell of a lot of planning.”
“Yeah,” Joe admitted, and it was clear his enthusiasm for the idea was already growing cold. “And he’d have to know more or less when Manydeeds was coming out.”
“Or he could simply have parked that big launch of his at the mouth of Spider Creek and waited as long as he needed to.” In response to the look of doubt on his deputy’s face, Liam said, “According to Nick Skinner, MacDermid asked him to lie about his whereabouts for a couple of days.”
“I suppose it’s possible. How do we prove any of this?”
Liam stood up from his desk. “We begin by seeing if we can get a warrant to search Glengarrow.”
* * *
His father wasn’t home for dinner. He wasn’t home when Cork returned from his weekly Boy Scout meeting at St. Agnes. And he still wasn’t home when Cork’s eyes drifted shut while he lay on the living room sofa reading about Martians invading Earth. The ring of the telephone in the hallway woke him. His mother answered.
“I was beginning to worry, Liam,” she said.
Silence.
“Will he sign it, do you think?” A long pause. Cork rubbed his eyes and sat up. “All right, then,” his mother said. “We’ll see you when we see you.”
When she came into the living room, she saw that Cork was waiting for her to explain.
“Your father. He’s putting together a request for a warrant to search Glengarrow. He’s hoping to get Judge Jorgenson to sign it.”
“Why wouldn’t he sign it?”
“It’s tricky, Cork.” She sat on the sofa next to him. “It’s not just about legality. It’s also about politics. Duncan MacDermid is a powerful man in Tamarack County.”
“Dad says no one is above the law.”
“And he’s right. But it can be difficult.”
“He killed Big John, Mom. He can’t get away with that.”
“Your father will make sure no one gets away with anything.”
Cork wanted to believe her, wanted to believe the things his father had always told him about the law. But bumping up against his father’s words were the recent words of Grandma Dilsey: What I’m concerned about is justice, Liam. That’s something I haven’t seen much of across my lifetime.
* * *
His father wasn’t waiting downstairs when Cork rose to deliver his papers the next morning and headed out with Jackson at his side. As the light in the sky was turning rosy with dawn, he came home to find his father’s cruiser parked in the driveway, and his parents sitting at the kitchen table.
“Did the judge sign the warrant?” Cork asked.
His father finished the sip of coffee he’d just taken. Cork saw how tired he looked, drawn and haggard. And old, Cork thought, with a sinking heart.
“He said the evidence wasn’t compelling enough. No probable cause,” his father replied. “And he said if I ever woke him again in the middle of the night on a wild-goose chase, he’d have my badge.”
“He couldn’t take your badge away, could he?”
His father offered a weary smile. “No, Son.”
“What’re you going to do?”
“Get a little sleep, then try to figure another approach.”
His mother reached out and put her hand over her husband’s. “Things will look better after you’ve slept.”
Liam O’Connor shook his head. “Things will look better when I can cut Duncan MacDermid down to size.”
Cork went upstairs and back to bed, as he always did after his morning route, to try to get another couple of hours of shut-eye, but sleep eluded him. He lay awake, feeling afraid. The world seemed to be changing in front of his eyes, and he couldn’t figure out if it was him—that he’d simply been blind before—or if the world was, indeed, shifting, becoming unstable under his feet.
He finally slept, but fitfully, and when he went downstairs for breakfast, he found his grandmother in the kitchen.
“I’m going blueberry picking, Corkie,” she told him. “Thought you might want to come along.”
His mother was stirring pancake batter, her back to the kitchen table and to Grandma Dilsey. Cork could feel the tension in the air. “Okay if I go, Mom?”
His mother poured the batter onto a griddle and said, “I suppose. But don’t spend all day at it. I’ve made an appointment to get Jackson a distemper booster shot. I’d like you to ta
ke him.”
Although the day was already hot, the kitchen felt frigid, and when Grandma Dilsey said she needed to use the bathroom and left for a few minutes, Cork asked his mother what was going on.
“I told your grandmother that you’d found Big John’s canoe. She wanted to know what your father was going to do about it. When I told her that he was at a bit of a dead end legally, she offered me a few choice words about him. I took issue with her opinions.”
“She wants him to arrest Duncan MacDermid, right?”
“In your grandmother’s thinking, that would be a good beginning.”
“Did you tell her about the warrant Dad tried to get?”
She shook her head. “That’s something he wants kept secret for the moment. And I don’t want you telling her either. I know exactly what she’ll say. That he didn’t try hard enough.”
“Do you think he did?”
“Don’t you go doubting your father. He’s doing the best he can. He always has and he always will.”
“I know. But couldn’t he ask another judge or something?”
“It doesn’t work that way, Cork. Give him time. Your dad will come up with something.”
She put a stack of pancakes on a plate and set it before him. “Remember, not a word of this to your grandmother.”
Later, as he rode with Grandma Dilsey to the rez, Cork stared out the pickup’s window, thinking that if the law could be twisted to keep the truth of Big John’s death from coming to light and a man like Duncan MacDermid out of jail, what hope was there for the kind of justice his grandmother demanded?
Like lots of folks in Tamarack County, white and Ojibwe, Grandma Dilsey had a secret blueberry patch known only to her and her family. A mile north of Allouette, she turned onto an old logging road that ran east toward a line of low hills known as the Turtlebacks. The woods were pine and spruce and maple, an impressionistic blending of greens, and with the cab windows rolled down, the air that poured in smelled fresh and hopeful to Cork. The forest didn’t care about justice. It went about its business in the way it had since the beginning of time. If humans were fickle and not to be trusted, the red burst of wood lilies in a Northwoods meadow could always be counted on to lift your spirits.
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