Heaven's keep

THREE

Day One

He spent much of the day at Sam’s Place working on the only paying investigation he had at the moment. He made calls to several police departments in Tamarack County and in the three adjoining counties. He’d been hired by Covenant Trucking to look into break-ins at a couple of their depots, and he was trying to find out if there might be a more widespread pattern to the crimes, something he’d seen a few years before, when he was sheriff.

At three thirty he turned onto Gooseberry Lane and pulled into the driveway of his home, a two-story white clapboard nearly a century old. The house had been in his family since its original construction and was known in Aurora as “the O’Connor place,” a designation that would probably continue long after the last O’Connor was gone from it. A huge elm stood on the front lawn, with a rope scar visible on one of the low, thick branches where for years a tire swing had hung. A tall hedge of lilacs edged the driveway. In spring the fragrance from the blossoms was the next best thing to heaven, but now the bushes were a thick, unpleasant mesh of bare branches. Cork parked in front of the garage and went in the side door to the kitchen. He let Trixie, the family mutt, in from the backyard, where she’d been drowsing in the sun.

He was home five minutes ahead of Stephen. At thirteen, Cork’s son was just beginning to get some height and bulk to him. He’d always been a small kid, but in the last few months, the growth hormones had kicked in and Stephen was mushrooming. His coordination hadn’t caught up with his muscle development, and he was heart-wrenchingly awkward these days and knew it. His voice was changing, too. He was self-conscious about everything. Including his name. Until the last few weeks, he’d been known to everyone as Stevie. Now it was Stephen, a name he felt had more substance to it, more sophistication.

Stephen stumbled in carrying his school pack, which he slung onto the kitchen table. Trixie jumped up and pawed Stephen’s thighs and licked his hand. Stephen petted her fiercely in return. “Hey, girl. Miss me?”

“How’d it go today?” Cork asked.

“Okay.” Stephen turned from the dog and made a beeline for the refrigerator. He hauled out a carton of milk, grabbed a glass from the cupboard, and filled it to the brim. He gulped down half the milk, then refilled his glass.

“Cookie with that?” Cork asked.

“Mmmm,” Stephen grunted.

Of all Cork’s children, his son most visibly showed his Anishinaabe heritage. His eyes were dark walnuts, his cheekbones high and proud, his hair a fine black with, in the proper light, hints of red. Despite all Stephen’s awkwardness, both of Cork’s daughters had declared that he was growing into a bona fide hunk.

While Cork pulled out the cookie jar-Ernie from Sesame Street, a ceramic relic that had survived mishap for a dozen years-Stephen picked up the phone and listened to the messages.

“Nothing for me,” he said, disappointed. He’d been begging for a cell phone of his own, but Cork hadn’t knuckled yet. “There’s a message from Mom.”

“Let me listen.” Cork put the phone to his ear and replayed the message.

“Cork, it’s me.” Long pause. Was that the wind he heard in the absence of her voice? “I’ll call you later.”

It was a simple message, nothing of import, but for some reason, Cork saved it on voice mail.

He looked at his watch. He thought she was supposed to be in Seattle around 1:00 P.M. PST. He adjusted for the time zones and figured she should be there by now. He said to Stephen, “I’m going into your mom’s office and give her a call.”

Around a mouthful of cookie, Stephen asked, “What’s for dinner?”

“Mac and cheese.”

“How about we go to the Broiler for fried chicken?”

“We’re on a tight budget, buddy. But tell you what, I’ll slice up a few hot dogs and throw ’em in.”

“I like fried chicken better.”

“Maybe after dinner we could hit the Broiler for a little pecan pie a la mode.”

Stephen shook his head. “I’m going over to Gordy Hudacek’s house.”

“Video games?”

“Yeah.”

“What about homework?”

“I’ll have it done before dinner.”

“See that you do.”

Cork headed through the living room and down the hallway to Jo’s home office. She ran her law practice from a suite in the Aurora Professional Building, but she kept an office at home as well, and she often used it in the evening or on weekends to keep up with her cases. It was done in oak panel, with bookshelves across three of the walls. Plants hung in every window, and a big, healthy ficus stood in a pot in one corner. The office was neat and clean, and the smell of it-thick books and heavy paper-reminded Cork of Jo.

He used the phone on her desk to call her cell. She didn’t answer. He left a message: “Sorry about yesterday. Call me when you get a chance. I love you, you know.”

Dinner was a quick affair, both of them wolfing, not saying much. When Jo was there, they took more time, and in her motherly-lawyerly way, she questioned Stephen about his day. He tended to give brief answers, along with the sense that he was uncomfortable being quizzed, but Jo managed to squeeze enough information out of him that both of his parents had a pretty good window on his life. Cork appreciated that about his wife.

Stephen cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher-his part of the bargain-then headed out to Gordy Hudacek’s house. Cork grabbed the Duluth News Tribune and settled onto the sofa to catch up on news from the outside world.

He hadn’t been reading long when Trixie, who’d nestled on the floor near his feet, lifted her head and barked. A moment later, the front doorbell rang. Cork was surprised to find Sheriff Dross standing on his porch. He thought for a moment-hoped, actually-that she was coming to say she’d changed her mind about him applying for the position that Cy Borkman was vacating, but when he saw her face, he knew it was something gravely serious.

“Could we sit down, Cork?”

“Sure.” He motioned toward the living room.

Dross wore jeans and a brown turtleneck, and Cork wasn’t sure if this was a personal or a professional call. When they were seated, she said, “Have you heard from Jo?”

“No. Why?”

He saw her prepare herself, a moment of resolution, and he knew something terrible had happened.

“We received a call from the sheriff’s department in Owl Creek County, Wyoming. This morning around nine A.M., a charter flight out of Casper disappeared from radar over the Wyoming Rockies. Radio contact was lost and hasn’t been reestablished. Jo was listed on the flight’s passenger manifest.”

Cork sat a moment, stunned. “It crashed?”

“They don’t know the status for sure, Cork.”

“What happened?”

“According to the control tower in Salt Lake City, which was tracking the flight, the plane ran into bad weather. It began a rapid descent southwest of Cody-they’re not sure why-and pretty quickly dropped off the radar over an area called the Washakie Wilderness. They’ve tried contacting the pilot. Nothing.”

“It went down in the mountains?”

“Not necessarily. The Wyoming authorities are calling all the local airports and every private airstrip in the northern Rockies to see if the plane might have been able to land somewhere.”

“And if it didn’t land?”

“You know the routine. They’ll mount a search and rescue effort.” For a moment he didn’t say anything. Couldn’t say anything. He struggled just to breathe. Then he looked at Dross and realized there was more. “What else?”

She took a deep breath. “They’re in the middle of a bad snowstorm out there. Blizzard conditions. If they can’t locate the plane at an airfield, they won’t be able to begin the search until the storm passes. According to the current weather forecast, that might be a while.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Cork said. He looked down at his hands, which he’d clenched into hard white balls. “If that plane’s gone down and Jo and the others are exposed, Christ, Marsha, you know the odds.”

“Cork, we don’t really know anything yet. Probably we’ll hear that they made it to an airfield. In the meantime, the Owl Creek County authorities are doing everything possible. We’re in constant contact with the sheriff’s people. Anything we know, you’ll know, I promise.” She put her hand on his arm. “Cork, we have every reason to hope for the best.”

He looked at her long and hard. “Same line I used to deliver to the loved ones when we were beating the bushes for somebody they’d lost.”

“And more often than not you found the lost ones. Trust the people out there, Cork. They know what they’re doing.” She stood up. “I’m on my way to the reservation to deliver the news to George LeDuc’s wife.” She looked into his face, and her own was full of concern and compassion. “Cork, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

He watched until her truck pulled away. He turned out the porch light and closed the door. Then his legs gave out. He sank to the floor and sat with his back against the wall. He tried to think straight, but his brain was caught in a whirlpool, spinning round and round, and every rational thought got sucked into some dark nowhere, until he was left with only a desperate, mindless repetition to cling to: Oh God, no… Oh God, no…

Eventually he pulled himself up. He walked to the telephone and dialed the number of the Hudaceks’ home. Gordy’s father answered.

“Dennis, it’s Cork O’Connor.”

Hudacek said something amiable in reply, but the words didn’t register. Cork simply told him, “I need to have Stephen come home. I need to have him come home now.”