Vermilion Drift

THIRTY-FOUR

Cork slept surprisingly well and woke with several ideas rolling around in his head, knocking together like ball bearings. He was eager to get some of them out of there.

His first stop that morning was the sheriff’s department. Marsha Dross was at her desk, sipping from a big coffee mug. She had a thick folder open in front of her and was so intent on what it held that she didn’t notice Cork’s arrival. His “Good morning” startled her, and she spilled coffee over the documents and swore. She looked for something to wipe up the mess, had nothing at hand and, when Cork offered a clean handkerchief, accepted it, almost grudgingly.

“Sorry,” he said.

“I didn’t expect to see you so early.” She handed his handkerchief back, damp and stained.

“You look like you could use a couple more hours of sleep.”

“I could use some sleep period,” she said.

“A case like this, a lot of monkeys on your back, I imagine.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“I sat in that chair for seven years. Believe me, I do.”

“Oh, is that so?” She stood up and leaned toward him, not in a friendly way. “You ever have an old serial killing and new murder dovetail? You ever have the newspapers call the department, and I quote, ‘rural and rudimentary’? You ever had the entire board of commissioners visit you at ten P.M. on a Friday night to insist that you do more to, and I quote again, ‘resolve this unfortunate situation before Tamarack County becomes the new Amityville Horror’?”

“Not really,” Cork said. “Guess I must’ve been a better sheriff, huh?”

She gave him a hostile stare, then took stock of his smile, and finally let her body relax. “Have a chair,” she said. When she’d retaken her own, she asked, “So what brings you here too early on a Saturday morning?”

“A few questions about your confessed murderer, Hattie Stillday. I’m not convinced you’re getting the true story there.”

“Nor am I. Rutledge said he filled you in. She knows things only the killer would know, but she’s also wrong on some pertinent facts. She’s involved, I’m just not sure in what way exactly.”

“Are you going to hold her?”

“It’s the weekend, so we can hold her without charges until court opens on Monday. I’m hoping we can use that time to work loose some better answers and maybe get some disturbing loose ends tied up. I’d hate to have someone of her reputation falsely charged. Definitely wouldn’t look good for this ‘rural and rudimentary’ department.”

“Did you do a follow-up interview with Derek Huff at the Northern Lights Center?”

“Ed Larson took that.”

“And?”

“Huff and Lauren Cavanaugh were involved sexually. That’s all there was to it, he insists. Sex. He was pretty open and nonchalant about it. Made it sound like not an unusual thing for a California kid, having sex with a woman twice your age.”

“Kind of makes me wish I’d grown up out there.” Cork smiled briefly.

Dross leveled a sober look at him, then went on. “If Hattie Stillday is right about the time of Lauren Cavanaugh’s death, Huff has an alibi. He was out drinking with Sonny Gilroy. Larson confirmed that.”

“Did he talk about the nature of the sex with Lauren Cavanaugh?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve got my suspicions that Cavanaugh was not exactly the lady she led people to believe she was. Bed is a place where masks get dropped pretty quickly.”

“Maybe I’ll have Ed talk to the kid again, push that issue,” Dross said. “Have you come up with anything more in your own investigation?”

“You mean besides the probability that a Shinnob named Indigo Broom was responsible for the Vanishings and that he probably tortured and cannibalized his victims?”

“For God sake, don’t say that to anyone with a pen and pad in their hand. Rutledge is in Bemidji this morning, discussing that possibility with Agent Upchurch.”

“I’m pretty sure she’ll confirm it.”

“If it’s true, we’ll probably have to make it public at our press conference this afternoon. As for the possibility that Broom was burned along with his cabin, Ed and his guys are out there this morning, sifting through ash, looking for evidence. Depending on what they find, that could open a whole other can of worms on the rez. Cork, you’re getting some good information out there, but I’ll need to know names at some point.”

“I understand.” He stood up. “If I come up with anything else, I’ll let you know. You’ll do the same?”

“That’s our deal, isn’t it?”

They both smiled.

There was a program in progress at the Northern Lights Center, a showing. The lawn, still sparkling from the rain the night before, was set with easels displaying pieces by the current residents, who stood or sat next to their work. A long table had been set with refreshments and with a stack of brochures about the artists and the center in general. Cork ate a mini cinnamon roll and watched people milling about, moving from easel to easel, pausing, nodding, talking with the artists. Near the boathouse was a larger display, several easels with work clearly by the same artist, the featured artist, Derek Huff, who stood bathing in the glory offered him by the people of that rural and rudimentary county.

It was Ophelia Stillday whom Cork had come to talk to. He wanted to know if she was aware of the relationship between Derek Huff and Lauren Cavanaugh. But Ophelia was nowhere to be seen.

He wandered onto a large, recently constructed flagstone patio and walked through French doors into the house. It was quiet, and the enormous place felt empty. He made his way to Ophelia’s office, where he found the door closed but unlocked. He swung it open and was surprised to find Max Cavanaugh seated at Ophelia’s desk, intent on the contents of a file folder opened in front of him.

“Max?”

Cavanaugh looked up, startled. “Hey, Cork.”

“What are you doing here?”

Cavanaugh sat back and shook his head. “Battling, in a way.”

Cork came into the room and approached the desk. “What do you mean?”

“I never come here. I hate this place. When I was a kid, for years after we moved away, I had nightmares about it.”

“Lauren didn’t feel the same way, apparently.”

“Christ, I tried to talk her out of buying the estate, but she had her heart set on it. I knew nothing good would come from her being here.” His face contorted in a way that made Cork wonder if he was ill. “Can’t you feel it? This place is evil.”

“Mudjimushkeeki,” Cork said. “An Ojibwe word. It means ‘bad medicine.’”

“It’s certainly been bad medicine for my family.”

“So if you hate this place, why are you here?”

“You asked me for information about my parents during the time my mother was alive. I thought maybe Lauren might have something. She always had a fascination where our mother was concerned.”

“She was pretty young when your mother died.”

“Too young to remember her at all. Maybe the reason for the wonderment.”

“Have you found anything?”

“No.”

Cork nodded toward the folder opened on the desk. “Those look like financial documents. Anything to do with your mother?”

Cavanaugh closed the folder. Cork saw that on the outside someone had doodled a figure that looked like a dog or a wolf. “They deal with the center. As long as I was here, I thought I’d check on the financial mess Lauren left behind.”

“They’re holding Hattie Stillday for her murder. You’ve heard?”

“Yeah. I got a call. I was always afraid that Lauren’s shenanigans would get her into real trouble someday. I just never figured they would get her killed.”

“You think Hattie’s guilty?”

“I don’t know Ms. Stillday well enough to say one way or the other. But the sheriff told me there’s a lot of evidence pointing her way. And, hell, she confessed.”

“Yeah,” Cork admitted. “There’s that.”

Cavanaugh stood up, took the folder to one of the file cabinets, and slipped it into a drawer. When he turned back, he looked drained. “I’ve got to get out of here. This place is killing me.”

“I understand.”

Cork walked him to the front door, where Cavanaugh said, “You coming?”

“No, I’m here for the art show. Think I’ll stroll around some more. Take care of yourself, Max.”

Cavanaugh looked at him with eyes still sunk deeply in sadness. “You told me the other day, Cork, that time would heal. How much time does it take?”

Cork put his hand on Cavanaugh’s shoulder. “More,” he said.

After Cavanaugh had gone, Cork returned to Ophelia’s office and pulled open the file drawer in which Max had put the folder. He thumbed through until he found the one with the canine doodle on the front. The folder was marked “Stillday, H.”

Cork opened it and found several invoices for artwork. A yellow Post-it was affixed to the first invoice. On it was a handwritten note: Pay this, you stinking whore!

Hattie’s writing? Cork wondered.

He put the folder back in the drawer, left the office, and headed down the hallway toward the north wing, which had been Lauren Cavanaugh’s private residence. The door to the wing was unlocked. He retraced the steps he’d taken only a few days earlier, when he’d first been hired to find Max Cavanaugh’s sister: through the study, the parlor, the dining room, the bedroom. As he went, he noted again the artworks that hung on every wall. Some were paintings, oil and watercolor and other media he couldn’t even guess at. Many were photographs, a lot of them by Hattie Stillday but a few by Ophelia as well. The approaches of both women were similar, though Hattie clearly had the more seasoned eye. Her nature photographs didn’t just frame a scene, they evoked atmosphere and mood and texture. They suggested story. He wondered which of the photographs were those Lauren Cavanaugh had purchased but never paid for, photographs important enough that Hattie claimed she had killed for them.

He sat on Lauren Cavanaugh’s bed, wondering if this was where she’d had her romps with Derek Huff, or had she used the bed in the boathouse for that? He opened the drawers of her dresser again and went through her vanity. He checked her closets. He returned to the study and rifled the drawers of the desk. He came up empty-handed, even though he hadn’t really known what he was looking for. He sat in an easy chair in the parlor and stared at the east wall, which was hung with an arranged display of photographs of the North Country. Three of the photos together formed a long panoramic view of a dramatic shoreline. They’d been shot in black and white, an odd choice, Cork thought, when the subject in reality was so vivid in its color-Iron Lake, which would have been hard blue against the powder blue of the sky, the face of a rock cliff, probably the gray of wolf fur, topped with aspens whose trunks were ivory and whose leaves would have been pale jade. He’d never understand art or artists, he decided, and got up and started away.

He’d reached the French doors and was about to step outside when it hit him. He turned and hurried back to the parlor and stood in front of the three photographs. The reason he’d been able to visualize the colors of the scene so well, he realized, was because he knew the place. A place of bimaadiziwin. It was where Cork’s revolver had been hidden but was no more.

Although he could already tell who’d taken the photos, he leaned close and read the artist’s tag to be absolutely certain.

Ophelia Stillday.