He stared into his empty cup. “Unfortunately, no. We’d probably have a better relationship if I had.” He looked up, smiled a little sadly. “Thank you, Jo.”
“For what?”
“I know my being here isn’t your choice, but I appreciate that you let me come. It’s good to see how happy you are.”
“You’re not?” she said.
“The last time I remember being truly happy was when I was with you. But that’s the past. Or maybe just the nature of the past. Everything seems better in retrospect.”
“You were the one who left,” she reminded him.
“That I was.” He stood up suddenly and put his cup on the porch railing. “I’d best be off. We leave early tomorrow. Good night, Jo.”
“Good-bye, Ben.”
He took her hand briefly, then left the porch. He glanced back once and waved. A minute later, he was in his car, heading down Gooseberry Lane in the same direction Cork had gone.
Jo stood for a little while, alone, aware of a feeling like loss, but a small one, in her heart. Then she turned on the porch lamp and called, “Stevie, time to come in.”
Almost immediately her son appeared, loping through the growing dark toward the light of home.
20
CORK HAD NOT been happy to find Jacoby in his house, at his table, eating with his family. The man was an acquaintance from Jo’s law school days, and what was the harm in offering him a little hospitality, particularly considering the circumstances that had brought him to Aurora? Still, it gnawed at him. Maybe it was just the surprise, because Jacoby’s presence had been so unexpected. Maybe it was territorial, because his wife and children seemed to enjoy the man. Or maybe it was because he still didn’t know what to make of Ben Jacoby. With rich people, Cork was always on the lookout for the power play. In his experience, people with money held the belief, however veiled, that there was nothing that was beyond the influence of their wealth. In Lou Jacoby, it was as obvious as if he’d worn a suit made of hundred-dollar bills. The old man was used to getting his way. It was possible the same skewed thinking existed on some level in Ben, but he was better at hiding it.
Cork met Dina at the bar in the Quetico Inn, where the Jacobys were staying. He could have invited Ben Jacoby along, but he didn’t see any reason. Dina could report to her employers if they really wanted to know what was going on.
She sat next to a window with a view. A small candle burned in the center of the table. Dina was looking at the lake, which, as night crept in from the east, had turned a dark, velvety blue. A drink in one hand, she didn’t turn when Cork’s image loomed behind her own in the glass.
“Is it always this pretty?” she said.
“To me it is.”
Cork took the seat across from her at the table, but she still didn’t look at him. She had a nice profile; a small nose with a little squaring of the tip; soft, full lips; good bone structure. Her eyes, he’d noticed, seemed to change color with the light. They were now a dark, intense green.
“Pretty even in winter?” Those full lips formed a smile and she finally looked at him. She wore the sweater she’d had on in Cork’s office earlier that day, but she’d done something to her face, defined the features with makeup that made her seem a different kind of woman from what he’d imagined at first, a little less business. He put that information in the Wait and See file in his mind.
“It has a different beauty in winter,” he said.
“I guess I’ll have to take your word for that. Buy you a drink?”
“Sure.”
She signaled the cocktail waitress. Cork ordered whatever Dina was having. It turned out to be Glenfiddich on the rocks.
While he waited for his Scotch, he said, “So what have you got?”
“Who is Harmon LaRusse?”
“LaRusse? Why do you want to know about him?”
“Because a Chevy pickup registered to one Harmon LaRusse followed you all over the reservation this afternoon. Loved the sticker on the rear bumper. ‘If this is tourist season, why can’t I shoot ’em?’”
“How do you know he followed me?”
“He was parked down the block from the Sheriff’s Department and he pulled out after you when you left this morning. I happened to observe him do this, and I tailed him.”
“ Happened’?”
When she smiled, her green eyes danced. “I intended to follow you, too, but he beat me to it.”
“I thought you were going to work with Ed Larson.”
“A misconception on your part. Who is LaRusse?”
“A Shinnob, used to live on the rez. Big guy, goes by the nickname Moose. I busted him five, six years ago for a string of burglaries. He did a nickel at Stillwater. Must be out by now.”
“A Shinnob?”
“Short for Anishinaabe. LaRusse is full-blood Ojibwe.”
The Glenfiddich came. The waitress asked if Dina wanted another. “Later, maybe,” Dina replied.
“He followed me everywhere?”
“The hospital, the store in Allouette, the bar.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“I can’t imagine it has anything to do with Eddie Jacoby’s murder, but it might have something to do with the shooting on the rez, and so it’s really not my concern. But that bar you went to is.”
“The bar?”
“I just came from there.”
“You went to the North Star alone?”
“I wanted to ask a few questions.”
“That wasn’t smart.”
“I got answers.”
“You got answers at the North Star?” He didn’t try to hide his skepticism.
“Here, let me show you a trick.” She reached down, grasped the bottom of her sweater, and in one quick, fluid movement, pulled it off over her head. Underneath she wore a low-cut top of some thin scarlet material that hugged her body like a surgical glove. Under that was a push-up bra that offered up her breasts with enough cleavage to swallow the Titanic.
Cork dragged his eyes from her chest. “They teach you that at Quantico?”
“I learned that one in the field.” She made no move to put her sweater back on.
“Going in alone was a dangerous thing to do.”
“I wasn’t alone.” She reached down and lifted the right cuff of her jeans, exposing an ankle holster fitted with a small Beretta Tomcat. She let the cuff drop.
“Eddie Jacoby sometimes met a man named Stone at the North Star. You know him?” she asked.
Cork said, “I know him.”
“What would Eddie want with him?”
“Stone’s the kind of guy who’d traffic in anything. Drugs, guns, information. I’m guessing it’s that last one he was selling to Jacoby.”
“What kind of information would Eddie buy?”
“The kind that might be used to influence a vote of the RBC on whether to sign a contract with Starlight.”
“How would Eddie know of him?”
“I don’t know. Slime finds slime. It’s entirely possible Stone was the one who made the approach.”
She sipped the last of her Scotch and the ice clinked against the glass. The sound seemed to intrigue her and she stared for a few moments at the cubes, whose hard edges had been rounded by the Glenfiddich. Cork caught himself glancing again at her breasts.
“Did you see the girl behind the bar?” she asked.
“Lizzie Fineday.”
“Somebody hit her.”
“Will, that’s her father, says it wasn’t him. Probably wasn’t.”
“She have a boyfriend?”
“Stone has a claim on her. I wouldn’t call it love. He’s a hard man, but I don’t think he’d hit Lizzie. Fineday would kill him. But get this. In the bar today, when I tossed Jacoby’s name out there as a possibility, Fineday tossed me out.”
“That so? It might be interesting to talk to her.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Cork said. He took a long, burning swallow of the Scotch. “Want
to be there when I do?”
21
THAT NIGHT Cork woke, looked at the clock on the stand beside the bed—1:47 A.M.—and realized he was alone. He got up, stepped into the hallway. Downstairs a dim flow of light came from the direction of Jo’s office.
He found her sitting at her desk, staring across the room at a window where the blind had not been lowered. There was nothing to see but the empty glass, the vague reflection of the room on the pane.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Couldn’t sleep,” she said.
“Something bothering you?”
She tilted her head back and laughed, not a mirthful sound. “Now, why would you think that? Someone shoots Marsha but they probably meant to shoot you. My client Edward Jacoby is brutally murdered. And you’ve stopped sleeping. What’s to worry about?”
He walked to her desk, sat in the client’s chair. “Anything else?”
“That covers it pretty well, I’d say.”
“Tell me about Ben Jacoby.”
She’d been asleep when he came home, or had seemed to be. He’d been thinking about Jacoby a lot and wanted to talk to her about him, but he hadn’t wanted to disturb her rest.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
“Jo, I’m sleep deprived, not blind.”
“Ben was a long time ago.”
“Not from the way he looks at you.”
She sat back. Her eyes went toward the window again, as if seeking some focus that was not her husband’s face. “I knew him before I met you.”
“So I gathered. Knew him well, I’d say. Better than just law school acquaintances.”
She took a breath. “We had a relationship for several months.”
“What happened?”
“He left. Married someone else.”
He leaned forward. His body was tired and it was hard to sit up straight. “Why didn’t you tell me about him?”
“He was in the past.”
“You told me about others.”
“I don’t know, Cork.”
“So tell me now.”
She shook her head. “You’re angry.”
“No, I’m tired.”
“Either way, it’s not a good time to talk about this.”
“I’d rather we did.”
“He was twenty years ago. He’ll be gone tomorrow.”
“Were you happy to see him again?”
“I was surprised.”
“You must have loved him a lot to be so afraid to talk about him,” Cork went on.
He thought she was going to put him off again. Instead, her blue eyes settled on his face and she said, “I loved him very much. And he hurt me very badly.”
Cork mulled that over. “Did you marry me on the rebound?”
“Has it ever felt like that?”
“No.”
“When you became my life, I put Ben Jacoby away, far away.”
“And now he’s back.”
“Not because I wanted him.” She stood up, intending to take Cork into her reassuring arms, but her attention was drawn to something behind him, something that put fear in her eyes. “Someone’s at the window.”
He turned in his chair. The pane at his back still showed only the reflection of the office. Beyond that, only night.
“He’s gone,” Jo said.
“Wait here.”
Cork ran from the room, down the hallway, and into the kitchen. He flipped the dead bolt, flung open the door and the screen, then plunged into the dark outside. He charged along the side of the house toward the backyard and stopped at the corner. Except for the oblong of light that fell from Jo’s window onto the grass, there appeared to be nothing to see. He stood listening intently, peering at the hidden recesses of the yard. Nothing moved or made a sound.
He heard a sudden rustle behind him in the lilac bushes that edged the driveway, and he pivoted and crouched, thinking what an easy target he was in his boxers and barefoot. He tensed as if he could feel the night scope on him, and he imagined the chambered round, the finger squeezing. The bushes shivered again; he forced himself to be still, to wait. It was dark and his eyes were useless. He cocked his head, trying to catch the slightest sound, the slide of a rifle bolt or the shallow intake of the steadying breath before firing.
A small rocket launched itself from the lilacs. It stayed low to the ground, and Cork stumbled back, startled. The shape made a sudden right-angle turn and scrambled down the driveway. Cork leaped to where he could see the drive all the way down to the street. As the shape passed into the light of the street lamp, it was clearly defined: the O’Loughlins’ cat, Rochester. Cork’s legs went weak, and he leaned against the Bronco, which he’d left parked in the driveway.
Jo stepped out the kitchen door. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah. You didn’t happen to get a good look at who it was in the window?”
“No. He was there and then he wasn’t.”
“He? You’re sure it was a he?”
She thought a moment. “No.”
He took her arm. “Let’s get back inside.”
He threw the dead bolt on the kitchen door and checked the lock on the front door. He made sure the blinds over all the windows were down and the curtains drawn. Upstairs, he took his .38 from the lockbox in his bedroom closet.
“Are you going to sleep with that?” Jo asked.
“Yes, but downstairs, on the sofa.”
She eyed the gun with concern. “Do you think that’s necessary?”
“I don’t know what’s necessary, and I don’t want to take chances.”
“All right,” she said. “Want company?”
“I’ll be fine.”
He put on sweatpants and slippers, took his pillow and a blanket, and stretched out on the sofa in the living room. He put the revolver under his pillow, then lay for a long time listening and thinking.
He’d believed he was safe in town, but maybe he was wrong. And if he was wrong, it meant that his home wasn’t safe. Not for him, not for his family. He would have to do something about that. Whatever it was, he’d figure it out in the morning.
His father stood at the top of a hill, facing the setting sun, his back toward Cork. Cork tried to call out, but his jaw was paralyzed and nothing escaped his mouth but a low, helpless groan. His father began to walk away, disappearing down the other side of the hill, as if the ground were swallowing him. Cork fought desperately to follow, clawing at a slope that lay in deep shadow. He came at last to a place where pine needles had been laid as bedding in a jumble of black rocks that were embedded with gold nuggets glittering in the sun. Then he realized they weren’t nuggets but brass shell casings. He started to run down the other side of the hill, but shots were already being fired and he saw his father tumble. And then it was not his father on the ground but Marsha Dross with her eyes wide open in terror, her lips rapidly moving, whispering words that were like the soft slipping of feet over a rug. In the next instant he was awake, hearing someone come down the stairs in his house.
Jenny shuffled across the carpet to where Cork lay on the sofa.
“Daddy?”
“Morning, sweetheart.”
She seemed surprised to find him there. “What happened?”
“Trouble sleeping.”
“Again?”
He ignored her remark, saw that she was dressed in jeans, a green sweatshirt, a billed cap, and her hiking boots, and he remembered. “All set for your canoe outing?”
“Yeah. Thanks for letting me borrow the Bronco.”
“Got the keys?”
“Right here.” She held out her hand to show him.
“Have a good time.”
“We will.”
“When should we expect you home?”
“After dinner. We’re going to eat at the Sawmill when we come off the lake.”
“Got money?”
“Plenty.”
She kissed his cheek, went into the kitchen, and a moment later he heard the door
open and close.
Morning sunlight fired the curtain. He looked at the grandfather clock in the hallway. Seven-ten. He thought about getting up, but was so tired that he could barely move. Every muscle of his body ached. His head felt thick and fuzzy. But the dream he’d been having when Jenny woke him was still vivid.
Although he hadn’t had a cigarette in a couple of years, he wanted one now.
He heard the kitchen door open and Jenny came back in.
“Dad?”
“What is it, Jen?”
“I can’t get the car started. It won’t even turn over. I think the battery’s dead.”
“More likely a loose cable. Let’s take a look.” He slowly rolled off the sofa.
Outside, the morning was bright and crisp. The day had a peaceful feel. Cork loved this kind of morning, the light in the sky gold and promising, the smell in the air sharp with evergreen.
The night hadn’t been cold enough for frost, but there was a thick layer of dew on the Bronco’s windshield. “Give me the keys,” Cork said.
He got into the vehicle and turned the ignition. Nothing happened. He popped the hood latch and got out.
“Hop in,” he told his daughter. “When I tell you to, try to start it.”
Jenny slipped behind the wheel. Cork walked around to the front of the Bronco and lifted the hood. What he saw froze him.
“Jenny,” he said.
“Try it now?” she called.
“No,” he ordered harshly. “Don’t turn the key. Just get out of the car.”
“What?”
“Just get out, sweetheart,” he said, trying to keep his voice even.
Jenny did as she was told, then joined her father and saw what he saw.
“Oh, Jesus. What do we do, Dad?” She whispered, as if afraid that speaking too loudly might be dangerous.
“We’re going inside,” he told her. “I’m going to call the Department and then we’re going to wake everyone up and get them out of here.”
22
THE BOMB SQUAD from the Duluth Police Department advised that everyone within fifteen hundred feet of the O’Connor house be evacuated. Standard procedure. The Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department barricaded the streets, and two yellow pumpers from the Aurora Volunteer Fire Department stood ready. The bomb squad indicated they would be there in ninety minutes. In the meantime, all there was to do was keep the crowd back and wait.