Vermilion Drift

FIFTEEN

Meloux seemed puzzled but not disturbed.

Cork strained to control his anger. “Henry, why didn’t you keep it here with you? Why put it somewhere someone might find it?”

“I do not lock my door, Corcoran O’Connor.” The old man shrugged. “Here, too, someone might find it.”

“Don’t blame my uncle,” Rainy said. “Why didn’t you disable the weapon before you gave it to him? Remove the firing pin or something? You can do that, right?”

It was late afternoon. They sat at the table in the cabin on Crow Point, Cork on one side and Meloux and his niece on the other. Rainy angled her body toward Cork in a threatening way, and, if her eyes had been fists, his face would have been bloody.

“You come here, ask my uncle for help, and when he gives it to you, all you can do is criticize. He’s told me of your good friendship. Frankly, from what I’ve seen so far, I have trouble believing it.”

“Niece,” Meloux said gently. “Your tongue is a knife. If I need a knife, I have my own.”

Cork said, “Henry, you know things you’re not telling me.”

“What I know is that you are looking for a truth I cannot give you now.”

Cork bent toward the old Mide. “A woman is dead, shot with the same gun that over forty years ago killed her mother. It’s the same kind of gun you put in the cave and is now missing. I’m hoping against hope that they’re not the same weapon. I can’t even guess how that could be possible. But I gotta tell you, Henry, I don’t like the feel of it, not one bit. I need to know everything you know.”

Meloux’s face was a blanket of compassion, but there was no hint that he was going to offer Cork anything more.

“Do you know if it was my father’s revolver that killed Monique Cavanaugh?”

Meloux’s expression changed not at all, and again he didn’t reply.

“At least tell me this,” Cork said, his voice pitched with frustration. “Who else knows about this place of bimaadiziwin?”

Meloux thought a moment. “It has always been a secret and sacred place. The Mide have always known, but most have walked the Path of Souls. I do not know who knows and has not yet walked that path.”

“So only you and the dead know? Christ, Henry, that’s not true. Someone very much alive and kicking took that gun.” Cork rose and towered over the old man. “If you know who that is, Henry, for God sake tell me.”

But it was like throwing punches at the wind. The old Mide looked up at him and said quietly, “You are a man on a journey. And all the while you stand here, your feet are idle.”

Fire flared in Cork’s brain. “God damn it,” he said and spun away and headed toward the door.

Rainy followed him outside. “When you come again, if you ever do, will you bring something with you?”

“What?” he snapped at her.

“Manners.” She turned, went back inside, and shut the door.

His only food that day had been the oatmeal he’d ordered for breakfast at the Pinewood Broiler when he talked with Cy Borkman. He was starved, and he headed to Sam’s Place. He parked in the lot, went into the old Quonset hut, and apologized to Judy Madsen for having been absent all day. She glanced at his face, and what she saw there caused her obvious concern. “You look like you swallowed a cockroach. The kids and me, we’ve got this covered. You worry about your other business.”

Judy fixed him a Sam’s Super with the works and a large basket of fries. He took his meal in the rear of the Quonset hut.

Sam’s Super was the hallmark of Sam’s Place. It had been Sam Winter Moon’s pride. Sam had believed in a quality burger. He never used frozen patties. Every day, first thing in the morning, he took twenty pounds of lean ground beef and rolled it in his hands into quarter-pound balls, which, order by order, he placed on the hot grill, pressed flat with his spatula, and seared to juicy perfection. The patty was topped with good Wisconsin cheddar, freshly sliced tomato, a large frond of leaf lettuce, a thin slice of Walla Walla sweet onion, and Sam’s own special sauce, whose recipe was a closely guarded secret. Every time Cork bit into a Sam’s Super, he tasted a heaven of memories.

He was almost finished eating when his cell phone chirped. “O’Connor,” he answered.

“It’s Marsha Dross, Cork. We have a situation here. Can you come to my office right away?”

The instant he walked into Dross’s office, he could feel the tension in the air. Dross was at her desk. Rutledge was standing at the window. Ed Larson was sitting with Lou Haddad and his wife. All eyes swung toward Cork.

“Come in,” Dross said, rising. “You know Sheri?”

“Of course. How are you?” he asked.

Haddad’s wife smiled bravely, and her hand lifted a little in a halfhearted greeting.

“Sheri got a note,” Dross said. “Same message Lou and the others received, but with a twist.”

Dross indicated a sheet of paper on her desk. Cork walked over and took a look but didn’t touch. There was a trifold, just as there’d been with the others. The note had been printed on paper that Cork was pretty sure had no identifying watermark, and the same blood-dripping font-From Hell-had been used. The message was almost the same as before, but, as Dross had indicated, it was different and in a terrifying way: We die, U die. Just like her.

“Just like her?” Cork said.

“We’re assuming it refers to Lauren Cavanaugh,” Ed Larson said. “Which is interesting. As far as we know, only those of us associated with the investigation knew that Lauren Cavanaugh was one of the victims in the mine.”

“Not true,” Cork said. “The person who put her there knew.”

“Exactly,” Larson said. “We’re taking this very seriously.”

“Where did you get this, Sheri?”

“It was under the windshield wiper of my car.”

“Have Max Cavanaugh or Genie Kufus received anything more?” Cork asked Dross.

“We contacted Cavanaugh at his house this afternoon. He’s got nothing more.”

“And Kufus?”

For a moment, they all appeared to be frozen, a tableau of awkward concern. Then Dross said, “She seems to be missing.”