Heaven's keep

TWENTY-TWO

Canal Park was a thriving commercial district that had once been mostly warehouses and junkyards. Its name came from the cut of the shipping canal through which the great ore boats and other freighters traveled to reach the deep harbor. The old maritime buildings had been refurbished and remodeled and had become home to restaurants and boutiques and offices and lofts. Stilwell’s office was in a building whose first floor housed a number of small shops and a funky little diner. The sign on the diner door said the soup that day was mulligatawny, and when Cork walked past, the tantalizing aroma of curry powder and ginger tried to seduce him. He passed a small bookstore and a souvenir shop, both nearly empty, and took the elevator to the third floor, which was totally deserted. The door to Stilwell’s office was locked. Cork tried to peer through a long pane of translucent glass, but all he could see on the other side was bright sunlight and the dark suggestions of furnishings. The door had two locks: a dead bolt and a knob lock, each of simple pin-and-cylinder design. He pulled a pair of tight leather gloves from the outside pockets of his jacket and tugged them on. From the inside pocket of the jacket, he pulled a small leather case that contained a set of lock picks. He tried raking the dead bolt first but got nowhere. Then he used a pick and tension wrench and after a couple of minutes managed to slide the dead bolt. He quickly sprang the knob lock and slipped inside the office.

Cork stood for a moment, taking in the place. It was a one-man operation: a large desk with a computer monitor, phone, and desk calendar; two tan, five-drawer file cabinets; on the wall, a framed aerial photograph of Duluth; a healthy-looking rubber tree near the window; behind the desk, a deluxe computer chair in black micro-suede, and in front of the desk, a matching chair for clients. Cork walked to the desk and checked the calendar, which turned out to be of the Far Side variety. The page that was showing-a cartoon with a couple of lions and an idiot hunter-was outdated by nearly a week. Cork flipped back through the dates and saw quickly that Stilwell didn’t use the calendar to track appointments. He checked the desk drawers, then went to the file cabinets, which were locked. He used his pick set again. Carefully he went through each drawer and found nothing of interest. He pulled a couple of client files, just to get a feel for how well Stilwell documented his work, and was impressed. It was clear that the man kept good records during an investigation. In the top drawer of the second cabinet, he found a folder marked “Bodine, C.,” and he lifted it out. Inside were copies of expenses related to the investigation: an airline ticket to Casper, a hotel bill, a car rental receipt, restaurant tabs, records of phone calls, times, charges. Stilwell kept meticulous track of everything he’d spent on his client’s nickel. But there were no other papers, no notes, nothing related to the substance of the investigation itself. Cork looked through the other drawers and found nothing else that seemed relevant.

He closed and locked the cabinets, then went to the desk, booted the computer, and found, as he suspected he would, that he needed a password to access the files. He turned the computer off.

He sat awhile in Stilwell’s chair, staring out the window at the charcoal-colored brick of the building across the street.

In his own investigations, he was prone to keep copious records. He logged in his interviews-names, dates, times, salient observations that fell outside the interview material-and filed this information with the notes he made of the interview itself. He jotted down related thoughts, useful telephone numbers, potential sources. He kept maps, floor plans, photographs, sketches, anything that would help him in his visual recall or his conjecture. If he went solely on the basis of what was in the file for the Bodine investigation, he’d be inclined to believe that the only information of importance to Stilwell was the cost of doing business. From what he’d learned in his calls to colleagues who knew Stilwell and from what he’d seen in the files for Stilwell’s other clients, that didn’t ring true.

Downstairs Cork went into the diner and sat at the counter. The place was hopping, and it took a moment for a waitress to come his way.

“Coffee,” he said. “Black.”

When she poured it, he asked, “You work here most days?”

“Most,” she said. She was maybe thirty, a lot of lipstick, eyeliner. Blond, probably from a bottle. She started to walk away.

“Know Steve Stilwell?” he asked. “PI with an office upstairs?”

She turned back. “Who’s asking?”

“A friend. Haven’t seen him in a while. He’s got a heart condition, and I’m a little worried.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “He comes in almost every morning. Always eats a heart attack breakfast. I haven’t seen him lately.”

“Anybody else here might have seen him?”

“I’m here as much as anyone.”

“Anybody been asking about him?”

“No. At least nobody’s asked me.”

“Thanks.”

He drank his coffee and took the opportunity to scan the building parking lot, where his Bronco sat. He figured that if Stilwell’s investigation had, indeed, alarmed interested parties and they’d been shadowing Burns and Bodine, they were likely to be onto him, too. All he spotted in the parking lot were empty cars and tourist types and nobody looking his way. He dropped three bucks for his coffee and a tip and took off.

Stilwell’s home address was a small bungalow in a nice residential neighborhood on a steep hill. The street ran between stately trees leafed with new green. It sloped sharply toward Lake Superior, which sparkled at the end of the corridor like a wall built of sapphires. Stilwell took nice care of his place. The yard grass was cut, and on either side of the walk leading up to the front porch, strips of earth had been turned and prepared for planting, though it was too early in the North Country to put in most varieties of flowers, still plenty of time for a killing frost.

Cork mounted the steps, entered the shadow of the overhang, and tried the door. The curtains inside were drawn across the windows. He left the porch and followed a flagstone walk around to the backyard. A huge red maple shaded three-quarters of the area. In the sunny northwest corner, Stilwell had put in a raised garden created out of railroad ties. The soil of the garden was clear of weeds, and a layer of compost had already been spread. The man was conscientious and clearly into his yard.

The back door stood at the top of a short flight of steps. The storm door wasn’t secured, but the inner door was locked. Once again, Cork made use of his lock picks and was quickly inside. Which was good, because the moment he closed the door behind him, he saw, through the window, a woman leave the house next door and head toward her garage, carrying a plastic garbage bag.

He found himself in a narrow entryway. One side was lined with hooks, from which hung coats of varying degree of warmth. Below them were a pair of boots caked with dried mud, a pair of Adidas, and a pair of rubber galoshes. Beyond the entryway lay the kitchen, where everything was clean, not even a single dirty dish or utensil in the sink. Cork checked the refrigerator. Nicely stocked. He went into the dining room and then to the living room beyond. The woodwork of the bungalow had been wonderfully preserved and the wood floors finished with caramel-color stain under a coat of strong urethane. The furniture and the area rugs had been chosen to accent the rich color of all that beautiful woodwork. Meticulous, Cork thought again.

Then he spotted the birdcage near the front window. He walked to it and stared at the canary lying dead on the bottom. The seed feeder looked full, but on closer examination, Cork realized it held only feathery, empty husks. The water cup was completely dry. It appeared as if the bird had succumbed to either hunger or thirst or both.

Cork found an office off the living room. Bookshelves lined one of the walls. If the books there were any indication, Stilwell was a man of broad taste. The volumes were organized alphabetically by author, Heidegger between Hammett and Hemingway, Plato next to Proust, Steinbeck followed by Stendhal. There was a standing four-drawer file cabinet, but Cork found only personal files inside-tax documents, insurance information, papers related to Stilwell’s home and his mortgage. He booted the computer on the desk and was confronted with the same situation he’d encountered at the man’s business office: He needed a password.

He went upstairs. Two bedrooms and a full bath. One bedroom was clearly a guest room. In the other, the closet and dresser were full of clothing and there was a book on the nightstand- Staggerford -with a cloth bookmark slipped in midway. Cork checked the usual places, but found nothing related to the case he was interested in.

The final place he checked was the basement, which was unfinished and in which Stilwell stored nothing.

In the end, Cork stood for a long time in the living room of a clean, orderly house with a dead bird in a cage and an owner missing for a week. He was almost certain the man was dead and anything he’d left behind that would have helped point toward the reason and toward his killers had been removed. He had a clear sense that there was an enormous and brutal force at work, something ruthlessly efficient and certainly to be feared. And he had to assume they knew about him.

He left the way he’d entered, through the back door. He went around in front and walked to the house next door, where he’d seen the woman with the garbage bag. He rang the bell and waited. Thirty seconds later, she opened up.

“Good afternoon,” he said with the most pleasant smile he could offer. “My name’s Cork O’Connor. I’m a private investigator, a friend of Steve Stilwell’s. I’m wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions.”

“About Steve? Something’s happened, hasn’t it?”

She was a plump woman in her early fifties, with wispy red hair and green eyes that held a sudden worried look. She wore a red sweater with an embroidered moose in the center that seemed to be sliding down the ample slope of her breasts.

“Why do you say that?” Cork asked.

“He hasn’t been home for days and I’ve been worried about Binky.”

“Binky?”

“His canary. A sweet little thing. Usually when Steve’s gone, he gives me a key and asks me to feed Binky. Not this time. So I’ve been worried, about him and about Binky.”

“When was the last time you saw Steve?”

“He came back about a week ago from some work he was doing in Wyoming. He stopped by to get his key from me, and he brought me a spoon from Yellowstone to thank me. I collect spoons, you see. He was around that night, but I haven’t seen him since.”

“Have you seen anyone else at his house?”

“No. Well…” One side of her face squeezed up as she considered her next words.

“What?”

“I probably should have called the police or somebody,” she said with obvious regret. “Three, or maybe it was four, nights ago I let Iago out. My cat,” she explained. “It was like eleven o’clock. I wasn’t wearing much, and I turned out all the lights first so nobody would see me in my undies, and then I opened the back door for Iago. He likes to prowl at night. Well, I could have sworn that when I did that, I saw someone slipping inside Steve’s back door. It was dark, so I couldn’t be sure. And I figured it was probably Steve anyway. But I haven’t seen him since he got back from Wyoming so, yesterday I knocked on his door and tried to peek in his windows. I’ve actually been thinking about calling the police or something to make sure he’s okay over there. But he’s a private investigator and all, so I was afraid maybe that would be too nosy, you know?”

“I understand.”

“You’re a friend, right? And a PI?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe you could call the police, then?”

“Sure.”

“Will you let me know when you find out what’s going on?”

“I’ll do that. Thank you for your time.”

“He’s such a nice man.”

“Indeed,” Cork said and walked away.