Boundary waters

32

It was past two when the Lincoln Town Car pulled up in front of cabin 7 at the Quetico and parked beside Wally Schanno’s cruiser. The Lincoln sat. Nothing could be seen through the charcoal-tinted windows.

“What’s he waiting for?” Nathan Jackson asked.

Jo said, “If I were him, I’d feel about as comfortable with this situation as I would stepping over a rattlesnake.” Jo moved toward the front door.

“Where are you going?”

“To ask him in.”

“I’ll go,” Schanno said.

“He’s not going to shoot me, Wally. Besides, he doesn’t know you. I’m the one who asked him here.” Before she stepped outside, she addressed Harris, who was studying the Lincoln through a lifted slat in the window bunds. “You wouldn’t do anything stupid, would you?”

A bar of the gray light from outside fell across his eyes and Jo saw how tired they looked. “Ms. O’Connor, too many stupid things have been done already.”

She crossed the porch and descended the steps. The air was cold and wet and her breath came out in vaporous puffs. As she approached the Lincoln, the back window slid down. Vincent Benedetti sat hunched in the seat, a small white man against the big black interior.

“What am I walking into?” he asked.

“A discussion,” Jo replied. She crossed her arms and hugged herself for warmth. “One that probably should have taken place a long time ago.”

Angelo Benedetti leaned into her vision. “Who’s in there? Besides Jackson?”

“Do you want to talk or not?” Jo asked.

“I’ll talk to him,” Vincent Benedetti said.

“Pop, it could be a setup.”

“Is it a setup?” The trembling little white man looked at Jo.

“No.”

“Then let’s go.”

The driver, the big blond man Jo remembered was called Joey, got out and opened the car door for Vincent Benedetti. “I’ll get the wheelchair from the trunk,” he said.

Benedetti waved him off. “The braces. Give me the braces. I want to walk in on my own.”

Angelo Benedetti got out on the other side. Jo saw a look pass between him and Joey over the car top. The younger Benedetti gave a shrug and a nod. From the trunk, Joey hauled out two metal crutches with arm braces. Angelo and he strapped them on the elder Benedetti and stood by patiently as he made his way toward the cabin, step by agonizing step. Pain twisted Angelo Benedetti’s face as he watched his father’s struggle, but he made no move to interfere. At the cabin steps, Benedetti paused, breathing heavily. He eyed the top of the steps as if he were looking at the summit of Everest, gave a grunt, heaved his right leg up, then dragged the left one after. His head disappeared in a cloud of vapor as he sucked in air and expelled it noisily. In a couple of minutes, he reached the porch, where Wally Schanno was waiting with the screen door open.

“Thanks,” Benedetti managed to say.

His son was right behind him.

Schanno reached out to offer his hand, but Angelo Benedetti said quickly and sternly, “No. He’ll make it.”

Benedetti dragged himself across the porch, the crutches thumping one after the other on the wooden planks. Schanno opened the front door, and a moment later, Benedetti was inside.

“Here, Pop.” Angelo Benedetti positioned a highbacked chair for his father, who collapsed onto the cushion, crutches splayed on either side of him as if he’d once had wings but all that remained of them were bones.

Benedetti was sweating heavily and trembling.

“Can I get you some water, Mr. Benedetti?” Jo asked.

He shook his head-a definite indication amid all the general shaking-then lifted his eyes and looked as steadily as he could at Nathan Jackson.

“You son of a bitch,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

“If you were standing up,” Jackson said, “I’d lay you right back down.”

“This is going well,” Jo said to no one in particular. She stepped between the men. “We need to cut the crap here, gentlemen. People we all care about are in trouble.”

“His doing,” Benedetti tried to raise his hand to point an accusing finger at Jackson, but the brace was still attached to his arm. “Get this thing off me.”

Angelo unstrapped the braces and leaned them against the back of the chair. Then he stood behind his father.

“Accusations have come from both sides,” Jo said.

“Where do you get off claiming Shiloh is your daughter?” Jackson leaned past Jo in Benedetti’s direction.

“It’s obvious,” Benedetti fired back. “Just look at her. She has my eyes.”

“Those are her grandmother’s eyes,” Jackson insisted. “And look at her skin.”

“Mediterranean,” Benedetti said.

“My ass. Shiloh’s my daughter.” Jackson thumped his chest. “Marais told me.”

Benedetti smiled cruelly. “She lied. To get what she wanted from you, she told you all kinds of lies. You were easy.”

“You’re the liar.”

Nathan Jackson started around Jo, but Angelo Benedetti moved to intercept him. As if part of a dance choreographed in hell, Harris leaped in and warned Benedetti, “Back off.”

The two men locked eyes. Their hands curled into fists. Their bodies tensed. Schanno wedged his tall, lean, tough frame between them. “Move back, both of you. The only thing we’re going to do here this afternoon is talk. I said move back.”

Benedetti spoke to Schanno without taking his eyes off Harris. “Anybody comes at my father again and that sheriff’s badge you’re wearing won’t matter.”

“Nobody wants to hurt your father,” Jo said.

“Wanna bet?” Nathan Jackson gave Vincent Benedetti a killing glare.

“Nobody’s going to hurt anybody while I’m here.” Schanno used his huge hands to urge the men farther apart.

Vincent Benedetti eased himself forward on the chair, leaned as far toward the confrontation as he could, and aimed the venom of his words at Jackson. “Shiloh’s my daughter, you son of a bitch. I’m here to keep you from killing her the way you killed Marais.”

“ I killed Marais?” The accusation seemed to hit Jackson like a two-by-four between the eyes. “Why would I kill Marais?”

“She put the squeeze on you one time too many. Finally asked some favor you wouldn’t grant. I’m betting she threatened to go public with the whole sordid history, so you had her killed.”

“Marais didn’t have to put the squeeze on me for anything,” Jackson shot back. “We loved each other.”

Benedetti spat on the rug. “Politicians. Shit. You think everybody loves you.”

“You.” Jackson aimed his finger at Benedetti as if he were holding a gun. “You were the one who fought with Marais. The night before she was killed. There were witnesses. It got violent.”

“Violent? She slapped me. She always slapped me. I irritated the hell out of her because I had her number.”

“You know what I think? You were trying to strongarm her into your bed again. When she absolutely refused, you had her killed out of some Neanderthal sense of pride.”

The exchange seemed to have taken a good deal of strength from Vincent Benedetti. He sat back in the chair, trembling violently.

“You okay, Pop?” Angelo bent and touched his father’s arm.

The elder Benedetti stared up at Jackson, but the fire seemed to have dwindled. “I wasn’t propositioning Marais. We had a deal. I loaned her money so she could get Ozark Records off the ground. Instead of paying interest, she was supposed to let me get to know my daughter. She welched. We argued.”

“You threatened her,” Jackson said.

“I lost my temper. I didn’t lose my mind. I didn’t kill Marais.”

Booker T. Harris stepped closer, but cautiously and with an eye on the younger Benedetti. “None of what you just said was in any of your official statements to the police.”

Vincent Benedetti laid his head against the back of the chair. He took a deep breath. “Back then, I was doing my best to protect my daughter. I knew you cops had jack shit on me. Little Shiloh was in a bad enough way as it was. What? Was I going to add to her troubles by dragging her through the circus of paternity hearings? Besides, my wife, Theresa, threatened to leave me if I said a word about Shiloh.”

Jackson paced a little, collecting himself, considering. Then he turned again on Benedetti. “Marais loved me. She told me she was afraid of you, afraid that if you ever found out how she really felt about you, you’d hurt her bad.”

“She was afraid of no one. She loved no one-except herself and her daughter.” Benedetti sighed, sounding tired of the whole exchange. “She used you like a carpet sweeper to clean up her messes. She told you whatever you wanted to hear.”

“That’s a lie.”

“We’re getting nowhere,” Jo broke in. She turned to Nathan Jackson. “Do you really care about the woman out there?”

He looked shocked. “Of course I do.”

“And you?” she said to Benedetti. “You really want her out alive?”

“I’d die for that girl,” he replied.

“All right.” Jo held up a finger as if asking the men to follow her in her train of thought. “Let’s assume for the moment, just for the sake of getting somewhere, that neither of you was responsible for the murder of Marais Grand or for what’s happening here now. The question is, if not you, then who?”

Both men appeared to be a little startled by the concept and it took a while before they stopped glaring at one another and the anger between them seemed to dissolve. Benedetti stared thoughtfully at the wooden beams above him. Nathan Jackson slid his hands into his pockets and turned toward the long windows to gaze at the gray outside. Harris put a finger to his lips and tapped lightly. Metcalf put a new log on the fire, and the bark burned quickly with a sound like someone was crumbling wrapping paper.

“It would have to be a professional in Shiloh’s case,” Harris finally said.

Jackson turned back to listen.

Harris went on. “The murder of Elizabeth Dobson was a clean job. Professional. Not a shred of evidence left to trace him.”

“And the shrink,” Vincent Benedetti said. “Whoever torched the shrink and her records knew his business.”

Jackson looked from one to the other. “Same person, you think?”

“Maybe two,” Angelo Benedetti offered. “Working together. Different talents, covering one another.”

Harris looked toward Metcalf, who’d sat the whole time at the table that held all the electronic equipment. “Feed what we know to the computer at the L.A. field office. See what you come up with.”

Metcalf moved to his laptop.

“Angelo and I will make some inquiries of our own,” Benedetti said.

Jackson squared himself in front of the chair that contained Vincent Benedetti. “I’ve held you responsible for Marais’s murder for fifteen years. For Shiloh’s sake, I’m willing to reconsider. But I’m not letting go yet.”

“There’s an old Sicilian saying,” Benedetti replied. “A man who drinks the wine he’s made never tastes a bitter glass.?Maybe we’ve both been drinking our own wine too long.” He leaned toward Angelo and said, “Take me out.”

Angelo Benedetti gathered his father in his arms. Schanno lifted the crutches and opened the door. Jo followed them all out. Joey had the black Lincoln running, warm and waiting. He held the back door open and helped Benedetti settle his father. Then he popped the trunk for Schanno.

“I’ll be at my office,” Jo told Angelo Benedetti. “Or at home. Call me if you find out anything.”

“I will.” He looked back at the cabin. “You didn’t buy that, did you?”

“All I want is to get to the truth, Mr. Benedetti. I’m trying to keep an open mind.”

He looked disappointed in her. “I’ll be in touch.”

Schanno stood with Jo as the Lincoln pulled away. “What do you think?” he asked.

“I don’t know, Wally. I get the feeling truth and lies are all jumbled up like a ball of snakes here.”

“I know what you mean. Look, I’ve got to get back to my office, oversee the search-and-rescue. The men should be at Embarrass Lake pretty soon. What about you?”

“I’m going back to my office for a while, then out to see Sarah Two Knives. I think she should know what’s going on.”

“Do you know what’s going on?”

Jo eyed the cabin and saw that Harris was watching through the bunds. “Does anyone?”