Heaven's keep

TWENTY-FOUR

It was late afternoon when he returned to Aurora. He stopped at Sam’s Place and checked in with Judy Madsen. She told him it had been a good day. Things had slowed a bit and they were doing fine. If he needed her to, she could handle closing. Cork kissed her cheek and told her she was the best, and she told him back that a kiss was fine but making her a partner was better. He said they’d talk. Soon.

In the back of Sam’s Place, he unlocked the door to the cellar and went down. From an upright locker near the boiler, he took a handheld RF detector-a bug sweeper-and a phone tap detector. This was equipment he’d purchased nearly a year ago during an investigation he’d done for the Chippewa Grand Casino.

He swept that part of Sam’s Place he used for his office and found no evidence of a bug. He checked the phone line. Nothing there. He told Judy he was heading off, and when he thanked her again, she said, “How soon is soon?”

At home, Cork found a note on the kitchen counter from Stephen saying that he was having dinner at Gordy Hudacek’s house, okay? He’d be home by nine. Cork called Stephen’s cell and told his son that he was back from Duluth, and, yes, he’d expect to see him at nine. He used the next hour to sweep his house for bugs and to check his own phone line. As nearly as he could tell, everything was clean. There were four possibilities: The people behind all this didn’t particularly care about bugging him; they hadn’t had time to bug him; the bugs they’d used were too sophisticated for his sweep equipment to detect; or he was mistaken in all his assumptions about what was going on. Finally he called Hugh Parmer and arranged to meet him at the bar in the Four Seasons.

Parmer was waiting when Cork arrived, and the two men took a table near one of the windows that overlooked Iron Lake. Cork ordered a Leinenkugel’s Dark. Parmer ordered a Cutty Sark and water.

“I need a favor from you, Hugh,” Cork said. “A pretty big one.”

“Name it.”

“I’d like you to fly Stephen to Evanston, Illinois, in the morning.”

“I can do that. Care to tell me why?”

“His aunt and uncle live there. I want him to stay with them for a while. I want him out of harm’s way.”

“Things are that bad?”

“They might be. I don’t want to take a chance.”

“Mind if I ask what’s going on?”

Cork explained what he’d seen on the tape the night before, after Parmer had left. He told him about his day in Duluth and his growing concern that there was something solid in the conspiracy theory the two women had proposed to him. He said, “These people probably won’t hesitate to kill again to cover whatever it is they’ve been up to.”

“Which is what?”

Their drinks came, and Cork waited until the waitress was gone to go on. “I don’t know yet, Hugh. But I’m going to do a lot of digging, see if I can uncover a nest of scorpions. If that happens, I don’t want Stephen anywhere near me.”

“I understand. I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have some backup with you, though.”

“You’re probably right, but I work alone.”

“After I drop Stephen off, it might be a good idea for me to fly to that regional airport in Rice Lake and meet you there.”

“This isn’t your business, Hugh.”

“It is if I make it my business.”

“This is a different kind of business from land development.”

“I hunt deer and elk in the White Mountains of Arizona. I’ve hunted caribou in Alaska and gazelle in Africa. I know my way around firearms, Cork. And I wasn’t always a land developer. I started as a ranch hand, an honest-to-God cowboy. You got any idea what kind of mettle that takes?”

“I’m not questioning your mettle, Hugh.”

“And don’t give me a lot of crap about feeling responsible if I’m hurt. A man chooses, and the consequences are on his own shoulders and no one else’s. And just think about what kind of backup I’d provide, Cork. Hell, there’s nothing in this world I can’t afford to buy if we need it.”

“Then why not buy me backup trained in this kind of thing?”

Parmer turned his head and looked away, an odd move for a man who’d have no trouble spitting in the devil’s eye. He nodded, as if he was having a discussion with himself. Finally he looked at Cork and said, “Sometimes when a man gets too good at something, like buying land and putting things on it and making a lot of money in the process, what he does begins to lose its value to him. It’s too easy. That’s one of the reasons I took such an interest in the development here in Aurora. You were an obstacle. You stood in my way. That happens very seldom, and the old excitement kicked in. What you and I planned here for Iron Lake is something I’m proud of, really proud, because it could have been easy and ruinous, but your damn stubbornness, your love for this place, shaped the vision into something that will add to the beauty, not destroy it. At least, that’s how I think of the project. My life is too simple these days, Cork, too easy. And for a long time, it’s been all about me. I’d like to help because it feels important and because I care about the outcome. And also because it makes me feel alive. If you want me to hire backup instead, I will. I have excellent security people. But I feel up to the job and I’d like to do it.”

The man was lean and hard and earnest. He’d come from common stock and risen out of the West Texas dust. He was clear-eyed about the contradictions of human nature and probably understood that inside the best of people there was always a war going on between the light and the dark, and that in anyone the tide of battle could shift at any moment, which meant trust was a dangerous thing. Parmer, Cork figured, would know when to trust. It didn’t hurt at all that he could buy half of Minnesota if it came to that.

“All right,” Cork said. “But you do as I say. Will that be a problem?”

Parmer grinned. “Not at all.”

Back at home, Cork called Rose. She answered in a voice pinched with concern.

“Is everything all right?” he asked.

“Actually, no. Mal is in the hospital.”

“Is it serious?”

“He’s had a mild heart attack.”

“Oh my God.”

“He’s all right,” she said emphatically. “In church this morning, he complained of being short of breath and then of discomfort in his chest. He didn’t want to make a fuss, but I insisted we go to the emergency room. They diagnosed him there. He’s fine, really. They’re keeping him overnight for observation, but he should be all right to come home tomorrow.”

“Are you doing okay, Rose?”

“The worst was over before we really even knew what was going on. So, yes, I’m okay. We’ll need to take a look at all the contributing circumstances and make some changes in our lives, I think. Mal has been driving himself lately. So the first order of business will be for him to slow down. I’m going to sit on him if I have to.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No, Cork. And please don’t think about coming down here to help. Mal wouldn’t hear of it, and you’ve got plenty to keep you busy up there.”

“You’ll keep us posted?”

“Of course. I would have called, but I had my hands full.” She paused. “But you called me. Was there something you wanted to talk about?”

“No, Rose. Just… keeping in touch.”

They talked a minute or two more. Rose indicated she would call Jenny and Annie to let them know.

He hung up, aware that the option of sending Stephen to safety in Evanston was no longer available. He walked to the kitchen, stared out the window over the sink, and thought hard. The possibility that came to him was one he couldn’t arrange over the phone. It would require some travel, and he had less than two hours of daylight left. He wrote a note to Stephen, then hurried to his Bronco and drove north out of town.

A light shone through the window of Meloux’s cabin. Against the thin blue of the twilight sky, a thread of smoke rose up from the stovepipe that jutted from the cabin roof. The evening was still, and, except for the sound of Cork’s footfalls on the well-worn path through the meadow, Crow Point was quiet. As he approached the cabin, Cork heard Walleye begin to bark inside. A moment later, the door opened and Meloux stepped out. Along with him came the succulent smell of hot stew.

“ Anin, Corcoran O’Connor.” The old man greeted him without any hint of surprise.

“ Anin, Henry.”

“I have made stew. Will you eat with me?”

The old Mide seemed to have anticipated his visitor and his need, something Cork had experienced so often with Meloux that he didn’t question the old man’s prescient ability.

“Thank you, Henry. I’m starved.”

Meloux nodded and eyed him closely. “You have the look of a man hungry in many ways.”

Cork offered his host a pouch of tobacco, which the Mide accepted without a word, and they went inside.

It was squirrel stew. The old man had shot the animal himself. Even though Meloux was well over ninety, his hand was still steadier than those of many men half his age. The stew was full of wild mushrooms, wild rice, carrots, and potatoes, and was spiced simply with salt, pepper, and sage. Meloux had also made drop biscuits. They ate without speaking. In the corner of the cabin where Meloux had set a bowl for Walleye, the old mutt slurped with gleeful abandon.

When they were finished, the old man said, “Now we will smoke, and then we will speak of the reason you have come.”

From a deer-hide pouch hanging on the wall, the Mide took a stone pipe with a wood stem. He put two kitchen matches into the right pocket of his worn jeans and wrapped his gnarled hand around the pouch of tobacco Cork had brought him. He led the way to the fire ring beside the lake, where he opened the tobacco pouch. He pinched some of the contents and sprinkled it to the north. In the same way, he offered tobacco to the east, south, west, and finally let some of it fall into the center. Then he sat on one of the stumps that circled the ring, put a bit of tobacco into the pipe, and struck a match. As the mantle of night closed slowly around them, they smoked and then they talked.

Cork told Meloux of the things he’d discovered and what he suspected they might mean.

“Do you believe that your wife is still alive, Corcoran O’Connor?”

Cork shook his head. “For a little while, I entertained that hope. But I don’t understand how it could possibly be. No, Henry, she’s dead, but there’s more to her death than any of us know. I want to find the truth.”

“What will you tell Stephen?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“If you lie to him, he will know. If not now, eventually. I would think about what that means.”

“If I tell him the truth, he’ll want to help and I can’t let him. He’ll hate me for that as much as he would if I lied.”

“The truth, a man can deal with.”

“Stephen’s not a man yet, Henry.”

“He is not a boy either. If you treat him as a man, perhaps he will behave as a man.”

“If I were Stephen and I knew what I know, nothing in all God’s creation would stop me from going after the truth. Not even my father.”

They sat in silence. A half-moon had risen in the east and cast a silver thread across the black water of Iron Lake. Near Meloux, Walleye sighed deeply, the only sound.

“Bring him to me,” Meloux said. “Perhaps it is time to make a man of him.”

“Giigiwishimowin?” Cork asked. He was speaking of the old way in which an Anishinaabe boy became a man. It involved a vision quest that required a boy to go alone into the woods and to fast until he’d been given a dream, a vision that would guide him as a man for the rest of his life.

“Yes,” the old Mide replied. “The vision itself, if it is given to him, may help him to understand. And while he is seeking the vision, it would be a good time for you to do these things you must do.”

“If I don’t tell him the truth behind this, Henry, he may still see it as a lie.”

“And what is the truth behind this, Corcoran O’Connor? You want him to grow into his manhood, do you not?”

“Of course.”

“And you believe in the old way?”

“Yes.”

“Then the truth of this is that you want your son to become a man and you want this done properly, is that not so?”

“Yes, Henry, I suppose that is the truth.”

“Bring him to me tomorrow and I will prepare him. He will stay with me until it is finished.”

“ Migwech, Henry,” Cork said, thanking his old friend.

They walked back to the cabin, with Walleye padding along behind in a tired way. Cork felt tired, too, weighted by the oppressive prospect of all that lay ahead. At the cabin door, he bid the old Mide good night.

Meloux slipped inside with his dog and closed the door.

By the light of the moon, Cork walked the trail back to his Bronco. In the woods on either side, the darkness was intense. But he knew those woods and knew what there was in them to fear, and passing through empty-handed was no concern. The darkness ahead, however, all that lurked within it and that was unknown to him, this was something else. And he was afraid.