Vermilion Drift

TEN

A few minutes before ten, Cork headed to Sam’s Place to give a hand with closing. Judy Madsen was a terrific manager, but she never closed. She didn’t like being out after dark, so Cork usually made sure he was there to supervise.

It was a Monday night, not particularly busy. Judy had put Kate Buker and Jodi Bollendorf, two great kids, on the schedule. They were Anne’s friends, who’d worked for Cork during their high school years and who, home from college for the summer, were putting in time again. They both wanted to be lawyers. Just what the world needs, Cork thought dismally, more lawyers. But everyone had to have a dream, no matter how misguided.

He’d parked his Land Rover and was just about to head inside when Max Cavanaugh pulled up in his Escalade and got out.

“Got a minute, Cork?” he said.

“Sure, Max.”

Mounted on a tall pole above the parking lot was a yard light so bright it made the gravel look like dirty snow. Cavanaugh stood in the glare, clearly troubled. He glanced toward Sam’s Place, then at the dark along the shoreline of Iron Lake.

“Over there,” he said.

Cork followed to the old dock he maintained for boaters who wanted to come off the lake for a burger and needed a place to tie up. Cavanaugh strolled to the end. Another step and he would have been in the water. He stood looking down the shoreline toward the lights of town. In the right mood, he might have understood, as Cork did, how lovely it was: the black surface where the lights danced; the sky above salted with stars and hung with a crescent moon thin as a clipped fingernail; the quiet in which, if Cork listened closely, he was sure he could hear the earth breathe.

“I just came from Nelson’s Funeral Home,” Cavanaugh said, his back to Cork.

Nelson’s was where the autopsies for Tamarack County were performed. For a long time, Sigurd Nelson had been the coroner and did the job himself. In one of his last battles as sheriff, Cork had convinced the county commissioners to hire a certified medical examiner. Now Dr. Tom Conklin, a retired surgeon, handled the function. But the funeral home was still where the job was done.

Cork said, “I’m sorry, Max.”

Cavanaugh hunched his shoulders, dark against the broader dark of the water. “The sheriff wanted me to identify my sister’s body. How could I identify that? Christ, how could anyone?”

There wasn’t much to say to that. Rhetorical, Cork figured. Frustrated, angry, devastated, and rhetorical.

Cavanaugh turned back to Cork. “You found her.” It sounded a little like an accusation.

“Lou Haddad and I.”

“The authorities don’t know anything. Or wouldn’t tell me. Which is it?”

“A little of both, I suspect,” Cork replied.

Cavanaugh took a step. Not threatening. “What do you know?”

“That I can tell you?”

“You’re working for me, remember?”

“Technically, Max, my job is finished. Your sister’s been found.”

Cork didn’t have to see the man’s face to sense his rage.

“I want to know everything you know,” Cavanaugh said. “God damn it, I’ll pay you.”

“It’s not about money, Max. In a situation like this, there are good reasons for not making everything public.”

“My sister’s dead. I have a right to know things.”

“And you will. It’ll just take some time.”

Cavanaugh was silent. Although Cork considered the man his friend, he knew that Max was used to being obeyed. Perhaps in a mine or in a boardroom his silence might have had the desired effect, but Cork simply held his ground and matched Cavanaugh’s silence.

Cavanaugh broke first. “They asked me questions, as if I was a suspect. Am I a suspect, Cork?”

“More likely a person of interest. At this point, pretty much everyone in Tamarack County who knew her is a person of interest. It’s not personal, Max. Did you give them a formal statement?”

“No. I’ll go in tomorrow morning.”

“I’d advise you to take legal counsel with you. I know how it will look, but it’s the prudent thing to do.”

Cavanaugh turned slowly, like a windmill adjusting to a change in the direction of the wind. He stared across the empty lake, where the distant shore was marked by solitary pinpricks of light from cabins hidden among the pines.

“You had someone you loved die this way, Cork. You’ve got to understand what I’m feeling.”

Cavanaugh was probably talking about Cork’s wife, Jo. But he might also have been speaking of Cork’s father. Either way, the answer was yes, Cork understood.

For the briefest moment, he thought about telling Cavanaugh that it was likely one of the old bodies in the Vermilion Drift was his mother. And that he knew what that was like, too, having someone you love disappear and a very long time later learning their true end.

Instead he waited and listened in vain to hear the earth breathe.

Cavanaugh straightened. “I’d like you to continue working for me.”

“In what capacity?”

“I want to know who killed my sister.”

“There are a lot of very capable law enforcement personnel who’ll be investigating.”

“I want someone working on it just for me.”

“Believe me, Max, the resources they have available to them are light-years beyond anything I could bring to the table.”

“You know this town, the people in it. You don’t have to walk a thin legal line and go by the book.”

“You mean I can twist arms and bust faces? I don’t work that way. The sheriff’s people and the BCA are the best there is. I’ve worked with them for years.”

“And if you were me, would you trust them or you?”

A complicated question, not just because of the convoluted syntax. Cork thought a lot of his own abilities, and the truth was that in an investigation he had certain advantages over those who were uniformed and badged. Which was one of the reasons Marsha Dross had already sought his help. And that was part of the complication. If Cork agreed to hire on with Cavanaugh, he couldn’t also agree to sign on with the sheriff. Conflict of interest.

He felt for Max Cavanaugh. He understood the man’s grief, his confusion, his frustration, his desire to rip away the veil of mystery surrounding his sister’s death and, although Cavanaugh didn’t yet know it, his mother’s death as well. Because Cork thought he had a better chance of making that happen working with the sheriff and the BCA, he said, “No, thanks, Max. But if you’re bound and determined, I can recommend a couple of good investigators.”

The old dock groaned under Cavanaugh’s weight as he brushed past Cork, wordless, and returned to his Escalade. In the quiet by the lake, Cork could hear the angry growl of the engine for a long time after it had disappeared into the night.