Heaven's keep

THIRTY

Cork stopped at the house and checked Jo’s computer. He located the file that contained the report she’d prepared for the National Congress of American Indians. He scanned it quickly and could see nothing particularly threatening about it.

When he arrived at the Four Seasons, he found Parmer waiting. They took his rented Navigator and headed back to Duluth, where Parmer’s private jet was being readied for their departure.

“I got a call while you were gone,” Parmer said. “From the people I asked to look into Fortrell. We’re heading into stormy weather here, Cork.”

“We’re already in it, Hugh. What about Fortrell?”

“The money for a lot of Fortrell’s investments, and probably for the Realm-McCrae casino project, comes from loans secured from the Western Continental Bank of Denver. Western Continental is a legitimate investment bank, but it’s also known to be a funnel for money from investors hiding behind the veil of foreign private banks. PBs they’re called in financial circles. The chief value of PBs is the confidentiality of their services. They operate outside the constraints of banks in this country and are able to handle money for their clients with great secrecy. Because they’re banks, they can move large amounts in ways that individuals can’t. They’re the perfect mechanism for laundering.

“As nearly as my people can tell, the money for the loan came from a PB in Aruba, the Antilles Investment Bank. There are a number of PBs that operate out of that island, and many are suspected of being favored by the mob. The Antilles Investment Bank is one of them.”

“Okay, let me get this straight. You’re telling me that, in the end, the money trail for building that casino leads back to organized crime?”

“I can’t say for sure, but it certainly seems like a reasonable speculation.”

“Doesn’t anybody check on these things?”

Parmer shook his head. “There’s so much development going on that unless something raises a red flag, nobody notices. Now a casino is probably a little different. It might get more scrutiny. But my guess is that all it would take to be certain nobody asks the wrong questions would be plenty of green delivered to the right hands. Happens all the time. And even if questions are raised, we go back to the beauty of the veil of the PB. Who’s to say for certain where the money came from?”

“That might explain a lot,” Cork said. “But it still doesn’t explain why they wanted Bodine’s plane to disappear.”

“Maybe that report you told me about, the one Jo put together on Indians regulating gaming themselves?”

“I read it,” Cork said. “Just a lot of recommendations. It didn’t have any teeth. And Indians don’t do things quickly, without a lot of consideration and talk. Even if there was general agreement that the recommendations were a good thing, it would take a very long time for anything to happen.”

“Was there something really damning in the report, something that pointed fingers?”

Cork stared at the empty road ahead. “I don’t think the report is what this is about. I don’t think we’ve found the reason yet.”

They landed in Casper at 4:00 P.M. Cork rented a Jeep Wrangler, and they drove to the address they had for Geotech West, which turned out to be in a strip mall at the edge of the city. The place was locked, and when he peered through the storefront window, Cork could see that the furnishings were Spartan at best. He went to the business next door, a print shop, and spoke to the middle-aged guy who came to the front counter and turned out to be the owner. He told them he never saw anybody in the Geotech West office. He figured it was some fool prospecting enterprise that had gone bust. There were a lot of those in Wyoming, he said.

Outside, Parmer said, “Like I told you, a doll inside another doll.”

Next they drove to the hotel where Jo and the others had stayed the night before their plane vanished. At the front desk, Cork asked to speak with the manager, and when she appeared Cork handed her his business card.

“Of course I remember them,” she said. “Because of what happened to them, they’re hard to forget.”

“They all stayed here?”

“Everyone on the plane, yes.”

“Even the pilot?”

“Him, too, as I recall.”

“Did you notice anything unusual while they were here?”

“No. Except one of them put up kind of a stink just before they left. He lost his glasses and claimed he was blind without them. He couldn’t find them in his room. Had us looking in the trash and in laundry bags. Hell, everywhere.”

“Did you find them?”

“No. Seems to me his wife promised she’d send him a pair when she got home.”

“His wife?”

“Yes, she was here with him. She didn’t go on the plane, though. Lucky for her.”

“Do you remember which of the guests it was who lost his glasses?”

“I don’t recall his name, but it was one of the older gentlemen.”

“What do you recall about his wife?”

“Much younger.”

“Does the name Edgar Little Bear ring a bell?”

“I really couldn’t say. It’s been such a long time. But it is funny that you’re asking me these things. Felicia Gray from Channel Five asked me pretty much the same things.”

“When was that?”

“A few weeks ago, shortly before she died.”

“She’s dead?”

“Oh, yeah. Big news in these parts. Her car went off the road in the badlands west of here.”

“An accident?”

“I think she blew a front tire and lost control.”

Cork checked in with the county sheriff’s office and got the location of the accident. It was an hour west of Casper on the road to Hot Springs and easy to spot. The highway had been chiseled along a cliff face, and on the south side there was very little shoulder and a precipitous drop-off. A new section of guardrail had been put up to replace the portion damaged in the accident. Cork and Parmer stood on the edge looking down a steep slope that was punctuated with sharp rocks, prickly pear cactus, and squat clumps of sagebrush. At the bottom lay a dry wash that appeared to be full of dust as white as chalk. A huge boulder there was blackened along one side, evidence of fire.

“Wonder what she found that got her killed,” Cork said.

“If we’re lucky, we’ll find it, too.”

“And if we’re luckier we won’t end up down there afterward.”

They checked in at the Excelsior Hotel in Hot Springs, then drove west. It was getting late. The sun had set behind the mountains ahead of them, but there was still plenty of light, and in the valley where Jon Rude had his ranch, the spring grass looked blue in the twilight. They turned onto the gravel drive and drove up to the house. Cork saw Rude’s daughter, Anna, standing at the pasture fence, in deep communion with a horse on the other side. He and Parmer got out and walked to the girl.

“Hello, Anna. Remember me?”

She eyed him intently and nodded. “You’re the man Daddy helped look for your wife.”

“That’s right.”

“Did you find her?”

“No, I didn’t.”

She studied his face in the twilight. “Are you sad?” Her own face seemed prepared to be sad with him.

“Sometimes I am, Anna. But mostly I’m puzzled right now, and I need to talk to your father.”

“He’s in the back with my mom.” She pointed toward the yard behind the house.

“Is this your horse?” Parmer asked the girl. The bay kept poking its nose between the slats of the fence to nuzzle Anna’s hand.

“Yes. His name is Brownie.”

“I have a horse, too,” Parmer said. “Her name is Lullabye.”

“Do you get to ride her?”

“Oh, yes. We ride a lot together.”

“Me and Brownie do, too, but only when my mom or dad can come. I can’t ride him alone.”

“You will someday,” Parmer said.

“When I’m bigger.”

“When you’re bigger,” Parmer agreed with a serious nod.

They left Anna and Brownie at the fence and walked to the backyard. They found Jon and Diane Rude staking out the contours of a large garden. A power tiller stood silent but ready. Rude carried a hammer and a bundle of wooden stakes. Diane had a big ball of string. When Rude spotted Cork, he dropped his bundle of stakes and came striding across the lawn. “My God, Cork. What a surprise.”

“Jon, this my friend Hugh Parmer. Hugh, Jon Rude. And the lovely vision with her hands full of string is his wife, Diane.”

Parmer shook hands with the couple and offered pleasantries.

Rude hung the hammer through a loop on the utility belt he wore. “Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?”

“Came up kind of quick, Jon,” Cork said.

“Are you hungry?” Diane asked. “There’s chicken and a good marinara sauce still warm in the kitchen.”

“As a matter of fact, I could eat,” Cork said. “Hugh, Diane’s an extraordinary cook.”

“Jon made dinner tonight,” she said. “A man of many talents, my husband.”

“Come on in,” Rude said, waving them toward the house. “And while you eat, we can talk about what brings you back to our neck of the woods. Pleasure, I hope.”

Cork said, “We’ll talk.”

Anna played in the living room with a bunch of her stuffed animals, carrying on her end of a lively conversation. In the dining room, over a plate of good food, Cork explained why he was there.

“Jesus,” Rude said when he’d heard it all. He sat back. “Jesus.” He looked from one man to the other. “You’re serious?”

“Never more so,” Cork said.

“You really believe that somebody posing as this Bodine flew the plane and landed it somewhere?”

“That’s what I believe.”

Diane poured Cork another cup of coffee. “Landed it where?” she asked.

“That’s what I’m hoping your husband can tell me.”

“Me?” Rude looked confused.

Cork spooned a little sugar into his coffee and stirred. “In Will Pope’s vision, the eagle landed in a long box and was covered by a white blanket. We figured it to be Baby’s Cradle. But what if it wasn’t? What if we interpreted the vision wrong?”

“You really believed old Will?”

“I believed him.”

“Truth is, so did I,” Rude confessed.

“Okay, so you know this country from the air as well as any man, I’d guess. Where else could you land a plane?”

“There are a few private airstrips.”

“Where would they be?”

“Let me get some maps.”

“First say good night to your daughter,” Diane told him. “I’m putting Anna to bed.”

The girl came in and kissed her father. She said a cordial good night to Cork and Parmer, and then followed her mother to the back of the house.

For the next half hour, Rude guided the two men along the topography east of the Wyoming Rockies, where the land was a pastiche of rugged buttes, alkali flats, dry gulches, grassy hills, and broad river valleys full of agriculture. He marked the airstrips he knew of but acknowledged they were dealing with a huge area and he probably didn’t know them all.

“How about this?” Cork suggested. “What if we drew a line created from two points? The first would be where the plane dropped off radar and the second where those snowmobilers reported hearing it fly overhead. We extend the line east and take a look at what the nearest strips along it would be.”

“As good as anything,” Rude agreed.

When they’d done this, they found the estimated line of flight would have taken the plane southeast of the Washakie Wilderness, well north of the Owl Creek Reservation and the town of Hot Springs, across the badlands south of the Bighorns, and, if it could have flown that far, well into the empty grasslands of Thunder Basin. There were three private airstrips that Rude had marked near enough to this line to make them of interest.

“Okay. Those are the airstrips we consider checking. Where else could that plane have landed?”

“For a safe landing with a turboprop like a King Air, you’d need a hard, flat surface at least twelve hundred feet long.”

“Any salt flats around here that might work?”

“No, but we’ve got some alkali flats east of Shoshoni that might fill the bill.” He put his finger on a spot well to the south of the line they’d drawn on the map.

Cork shook his head. “Doesn’t feel right. Too far to fly. What’s the land up here like?” He tapped the map east of the Washakie Wilderness.

“Some ranchland. Some gas and oil development. But if there’s a flat enough stretch with few enough rocks to land a King Air safely, I don’t know it.”

“What if they turned north?”

“Meeteetse and Cody up that way. Comparatively speaking, lots of folks.”

“South?”

“The Owl Creek Reservation. And almost no people to speak of.”

“Any private landing strips?”

“Only one that I know of. Belongs to Lame Nightwind.”

Cork saw the connection immediately and sat back. “Jesus.”

In that same moment, Rude had the same realization. His eyes narrowed in dark understanding, and he said, “Your Indian pilot.”