Mercy Falls

40

It was soft twilight when Jo pulled off Sheridan Road onto a long drive that cut through a hundred yards of dark lawn. The tires growled over dun-colored bricks that had been used for paving. She pulled up to a house big as a convent, with a red tile roof and stucco walls. In every way, it rivaled the home of Lou Jacoby.

Ben met her at the door. “Come in. I just got home.” He was still dressed in his three-piece pinstriped suit, looking handsome, distinguished.

She stepped inside.

“It’s a little dark,” Ben said. “I can turn on some lights if you prefer.”

“No, I’m fine.”

They were in a large entryway that opened left and right onto huge rooms.

“Where would you like to talk? In the parlor?”

“You have a parlor?”

“And a billiard room, a library, a study. With a candlestick and a lead pipe we could be a game of Clue. It’s way too big, but it’s what Miriam wanted. How about we sit in the kitchen? It’s really the coziest room in the house.”

He led the way through a large dining room with French doors that opened onto a wide veranda. Jo could see a long stretch of lawn, green and tidy as an ironed tablecloth, with a turquoise swimming pool as a centerpiece. A tall hedge marked the rear boundary, and beyond that lay Lake Michigan, dark silver in the evening light.

The kitchen, which Ben had called cozy, was larger than any room in Jo’s house on Gooseberry Lane. The floor was black-and-white tile. There were long counters, a dozen cupboards, and a butcher-block island. A round table with chairs was set near a sliding door that, like the dining room French doors, opened onto the veranda.

“You must eat well,” Jo said.

“Miriam hired fine cooks.” Ben indicated the table. “Have a chair. Would you like a glass of wine?”

“Thank you.”

“Red? You used to love a good red.”

“I don’t drink red anymore. It gives me a headache.”

“Things change, don’t they? How about a chardonnay?”

He took a bottle from the refrigerator and opened it. From a rack above one of the counters, he took two glasses that hung upside down by their stems.

Several books lay stacked on one of the chairs at the table. They appeared to be college textbooks.

“What are these?” Jo asked.

Jacoby carried the wineglasses to the table and sat down. “They’re Phillip’s. He’s around the house somewhere. He got expelled from his fraternity, and he’s staying here for a while until he can arrange for other housing.”

Jo had no idea what transgression might result in expulsion from a fraternity, but her sense, given the Animal House image she held, was that it had to be significant.

“All right,” Ben said. “Let’s talk. What do you want to know?”

“You get reports from a woman who’s helping with the investigation of Eddie’s murder, is that right?”

“Dina Willner.”

“So what’s going on out there?”

He settled back and folded his hands, a movement that seemed designed to give him a moment to think. “How much do you know?”

“Not much. When I call the department, they’re evasive. I’m sure they’re just following Cork’s instructions. My guess is that it’s because he’s involved in something that I’m not supposed to worry about.” When she said it, she heard a flutter of anger in her voice, and realized how strongly she felt.

“If they don’t want you to know, why hit on me?”

“Because you’re not one of his people. You can do what you like.”

He sipped his wine and thought it over. “They’ve identified the man they believe was responsible for the shooting on the reservation.”

“I know that. Lydell Cramer. He was burned during the meth lab bust a few weeks ago.”

“Seems they were wrong in suspecting him. They’re pretty sure now that it was a man named Stone.”

“Stone? You mean Byron St. Onge?”

“I believe that’s his name.”

“Why? Why in the world would Stone want to shoot Cork?”

“As I understand it, that’s still unclear.”

“They could have told me that. There must be more.”

“There is. When this Stone realized they were onto him, he ran, disappeared into the woods with the woman they suspect in Eddie’s murder.”

“Lizzie Fineday?”

“That’s right. Your husband’s gone into the woods after them.”

“Alone?”

“No, the girl’s father went with him. Also an old man who’s a guide of some kind, and one deputy.”

“Oh, Jesus. No wonder they wouldn’t tell me. Goddamn him.” She looked away a moment. “You know, he loves this. He’s in his glory.”

“Dina indicated she was going to try to accompany them, officially or otherwise. If it’s any consolation, if I had to go after a man like Stone, I’d want Dina there with me. She’s very good at what she does.”

“Tell me about what she does.”

“We use her as a consultant on all kinds of security issues. Protective services, investigations. She’s a crack shot, holds a black belt in some kind of martial art, has significant law enforcement experience. Really, Cork couldn’t ask for better backup.”

“So Stone ambushed Cork. And Lizzie may have killed Eddie.”

“And once they’re caught, it’s all over.” He held up his hands as if it were as simple as two plus two.

They heard coughing in the dining room, and a few moments later Phillip walked in. He wore a black terry cloth bathrobe and sandals and carried a big white towel. He seemed surprised to find Jo and Ben in the kitchen.

“Hello, Phillip,” Jo said.

He glanced from her to his father, and a dark, knowing look came into his eyes. “Don’t let me interrupt,” he said. “Just passing through on my way to swim.”

“Have you eaten?” Ben asked.

“Lasagna. Mrs. McGruder made a shitload. It’s in the refrigerator if you’re hungry. Nice seeing you again,” he said to Jo as he slid a glass door open and went outside.

“Isn’t it cold for swimming?” she asked Ben.

“I keep the pool filled and heated until the end of October. I swim every morning, and prefer to do it outside. The first of November I start swimming at my health club.”

The light in the sky was thinning, and the kitchen had grown dark, but Jacoby made no move to turn on a lamp. He swirled the wine slowly in his glass.

“Rae told me she had a good long talk with you this morning.”

“Did she tell you what she gave me?”

“No.”

“A painting that you’d asked her to do twenty years ago.”

“Grant Park? White dress?”

“That would be the one.”

“I thought she got rid of that. God, I’d love to see it.”

“I considered bringing it.”

He looked genuinely disappointed. “There’s something you ought to see, something I feel a little guilty about.”

He led her from the kitchen through the house, down a long hallway past big empty rooms. The thick carpet seemed to suck all the sound from their feet as they walked.

“You and Phillip, you’re here by yourselves?”

“When Phillip’s gone, it’s just me.”

She followed him to a study that smelled faintly of cigars. He turned on a light switch and revealed a study with shelves of books, an enormous polished desk, an antique couch upholstered in leather, a fireplace. He went to the desk and, beckoning her to look, turned a framed photograph so that she could see the image. It was Jo, standing on the shore of Iron Lake, the water at her back shiny and blue as new steel. Jenny had taken the snapshot a year before for her high school photography class. She had framed it and given it to Jo as a Christmas present.

“That was in my office in Aurora,” Jo said. “I couldn’t imagine what had happened to it.”

He lifted the frame and cradled it in his hands. “Eddie snatched it on one of his visits. I should have returned it, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that.”

“Did you ask him to take it?”

“No. He thought of it as a gift to me.” His face turned pensive. “Jo, I have a confession. When I found out someone had tried to kill Cork, I thought for a while Eddie might have been behind it. For God knows what reason, Eddie wanted desperately for us to be as close as true brothers. I wondered if, in his thinking, killing Cork would open the way for me to have you. A kind of gift from him to me. I know it sounds crazy, but that’s exactly the kind of guy Eddie was.”

“What would you have done if that had been the case?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

He held out the photograph toward her reluctantly, and she saw the sense of loss in his eyes as she took it.

“I’d like you to have Rae’s painting, Ben.”

He looked stunned.

“If you’d like it.”

“It was meant for you, Jo.”

“Twenty years ago it was meant for me. My life is different now. Honestly, Ben, I wouldn’t feel comfortable with it hanging in my home in Aurora. Do you understand?”

“I suppose.”

“Would you like it?”

“Very much.”

“Would you accept it?”

“I’m sure it’s a valuable painting. What if I paid you for it?”

“I’d rather it remained a gift.”

“Thank you, Jo,” he said.

“What if I brought it by tomorrow? About the same time? Say, six?”

“I could pick it up at your sister’s place on my way home from the office.”

“I’m not sure what will be happening there tomorrow night. I’d rather the kids didn’t ask a lot of questions. It would be best for me to come here.”

“All right, then. Six.”

There was a splash outside and Ben drifted to the window. Jo could see Phillip swimming laps with strong, even strokes, his body a long, lean silhouette against the glaring lights in the pool.

“He loves to swim,” Ben said. “He says when he’s swimming, all his problems go away for a while.”

“Problems?”

“He has more than his share. His mother’s dead, he hates his father.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I was the kind of father my father was.”

“And you hate Lou?”

“Why wouldn’t I? He’s arrogant, rude, demanding. He cheated on my mother, disinherited my sister, loved Eddie beyond all reason.” He gave a small, derisive laugh and shook his head in futility. “You know, I can still remember when I was a kid how even one word of praise from him was the best thing imaginable.”

He moved nearer the window and watched his son glide through the turquoise water to the end of the pool, climb out, and quickly grab the towel to dry himself. Then Phillip slipped his robe and sandals on and headed back toward the veranda.

“I should go,” Jo said.

Ben nodded and led her back through the vastness of a house that seemed to hold nothing but a silence waiting to be shattered.

The children and Mal had gone to a movie. The teakettle had just started to whistle on the stove when Jo walked in. Rose poured boiling water over the herbal tea bags in the cups on the kitchen table, then sat down with Jo, who told her what she’d learned from Jacoby.

Jo didn’t touch her tea, but the aroma, the soothing scent of apple and spice, registered in her senses. She wished she could give in to the pull of that smell, which seemed to come from a place of calm, of placid domesticity that was out of her reach at the moment. All she felt was irritation and worry.

“No wonder they wouldn’t tell me anything. He’s done it again, Rose. It’s that damned cowboy mentality of his. That’s the part of him I hate.”

“If you were to ask me, I’d say it’s also part of what you love about him,” Rose said. “He’s certainly come to your rescue on occasion. And mine.”

“I know, I know.” She lifted her cup, sighed into her tea.

“You’re worried, Jo, and that’s understandable. Why don’t you call Aurora again. Now that you know what’s going on, maybe they’ll be more forthcoming. It’s worth a try, don’t you think?”

She was right, of course. Jo used the phone in the kitchen.

Bos was on duty. Jo told her what she understood of the situation and pressed Bos for more details.

At the other end of the line, Bos hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision. She told Jo that the search party consisted of Cork, Morgan, Meloux, Fineday, and now Dina Willner. They hadn’t had any contact with Stone or Lizzie. Last check-in was at twenty-two hundred hours, ten o’clock, and everything was fine.

“Why did he do it, Bos? Why didn’t he just wait for Stone to come out?”

“He was concerned about the Fineday girl. He believed that if he didn’t locate her quickly, Stone might kill her.”

“Did it have to be him?” She hated herself for the question, for the whining way it came out. Of course Cork felt it had to be him, and that was all that mattered. “Bos, you call me with anything, good or bad, you hear?”

“I hear, Jo.”

She hung up, closed her eyes, breathed deeply. The whole kitchen was suffused with the smell of the tea.

“Sometimes,” she said, “I wish…” She let it drop.

Rose stood up and put her freckled arms around her sister, offered a comforting embrace. “I know, but would you have him be less than he is?”

“Of course not.”

They sat at the table again. Jo sipped her tea. “Morgan. He’s a good officer, and Cork trusts him. And Meloux as a guide, that’s a godsend. He’s old, but he’s tough.”

“There you go. God has sent good people along with Cork.”

They heard Mal returning with the children. “I don’t want the kids to know, Rose. Tomorrow, when you go to South Bend, I’m going to stay here and wait for word on Cork.”

“A good idea.”

That night, after Stevie had gone to bed, Jo stood for a few minutes at the window, listening, thinking of the unnatural quiet that came with the mornings since the birds were dead. West Nile virus was a merciless killer.

A breeze rose up, and outside the leaves of the trees murmured softly, as if to remind her that there were those things, like the wind, that moved swiftly and could not be killed.

Jo thought of Cork and the others with him. “Dear Lord,” she prayed, “let them be the wind.”