Red knife

TWENTY-NINE

When the phone rang, Cork was asleep in the bunk at Sam’s Place. Over the years, particularly in the days when he was sheriff of Tamarack County, he’d become accustomed to being hauled out of bed at god-awful hours, and he was awake instantly and across the dark room to the telephone.

“O’Connor,” he said.

“Cork, it’s Bos.” Bos Swain, one of the dispatchers for the sheriff’s department. “The sheriff asked me to call. She figured you’d want to know. Buck Reinhardt’s been shot. He’s dead.”

Homicide was always startling news, yet as he dressed to head out to the scene, Cork found himself thinking, Of course.

Buck Reinhardt had been killed at 10:35 P.M. as he left the Buzz Saw and made his way across the parking lot toward his truck. He was shot once in the head with a high-caliber bullet fired, witnesses said, from a wooded rise on the other side of the highway, a distance of approximately seventy-five yards.

“A tough shot,” Dross said, eyeing the rise from where she stood near Reinhardt’s truck. “Lighting’s not great, parking lot’s full, a lot of interference.”

Ed Larson, who was standing next to her watching his team finish with the crime scene, said, “With a scope and a steady hand, about anybody who knows how to handle a rifle could make the shot.”

Dross shook her head. “Killing a man, that’s not a cakewalk. Takes a lot of determination.”

“Scared people do it all the time,” Larson said, “and then wonder how the hell it happened.”

Dross turned from the rise and looked at her investigator. “Do you really think it was fear that killed Buck Reinhardt?”

Cork, who’d been leaning against the tailgate of Reinhardt’s truck with his arms crossed and his mind working on the incident, asked, “Witnesses see anything?”

“Nobody we’ve interviewed so far,” Larson said. “The shots were fired, Buck went down, and everybody scrambled for cover. They all agreed where the shots had come from, but that’s about all they’ve been able to tell us.”

Cork came away from the truck. “Shots? He was hit only once.”

“A second round was fired after he went down. Burrowed into the asphalt beside his body. We dug that one out.”

“Whoever it was knew enough about Buck to know he’d be at the Buzz Saw tonight. They just took up their position and waited,” Cork said.

“Who knew about Buck?” Dross asked.

Cork shrugged. “Just about anybody who’d spent five minutes asking. Wasn’t any secret he did most of his drinking here. And he drank a lot.”

They all turned and watched as Reinhardt’s covered body was lifted onto a gurney and wheeled to the ambulance. The small crowd that had gathered around the entrance to the Buzz Saw watched, too. A minute later, with no flashing of lights or other fanfare, the ambulance pulled away.

“Does Elise know?” Cork asked.

Marsha said, “I sent Cy Borkman and he broke the news.”

“How’d she take it?”

“According to Cy, with a little water and on the rocks.”

“What about Brittany Young?”

“Pretty shaken up. One of her friends took her home.”

In the woods on the rise, deputies were going over the area with halogen beams. Occasionally, a bright flash indicated that the scene was being documented with the department’s digital camera. BCA agent Simon Rutledge emerged from the pine trees, looked both ways, then crossed the highway.

“Anything?” Dross asked.

Rutledge grinned and held up a plastic evidence bag. “Found the place in the pine needles where our shooter laid down to wait, and we got a shell casing. No tracks or anything else yet.”

“Nobody saw the shooter leave the woods?” Cork asked.

“Nope,” Larson replied.

“Hiked out probably,” Rutledge said. “What’s the nearest road?”

“That would be Lowell Lake Road, about half a mile that way.” Dross pointed north, up the highway.

Rutledge said, “Any houses there? Anyone who might have seen a car sitting along the side of the road?”

Dross shook her head. “That stretch is deserted.”

“Still, you may want to get someone over there to look for tire impressions from a vehicle parked on the shoulder.”

Larson got on his walkie-talkie and raised Deputy Pender, who was on the wooded rise. He explained what he wanted and told Pender to take one of the other deputies with him.

A red pickup slowed on the highway in order to pull into the parking lot. It was stopped by Deputy Minot, who had instructions not to let anyone in. After an exchange between deputy and driver, the pickup came ahead and parked in an empty slot near the door to the Buzz Saw. Dave Reinhardt got out and walked toward his father’s truck.

“Where is he?” he said.

“His body’s already gone, Dave,” Dross replied. “The autopsy’ll be done first thing in the morning.”

“How’d it happen?”

Dross explained what she knew.

Reinhardt stood with his hands clenched at his sides. “Red Boyz,” he said.

“We’ve got nothing at the moment that points toward anyone, Dave. There’s still a lot of groundwork to do.”

Reinhardt looked at her. In the light of the parking lot lamp, his face was white and hard, like new plaster. “Are you blind or just stupid, Marsha?”

Dross said evenly, “It seems to me the stupid thing would be to rush to judgment.”

“Hey, Dave!” Cal Richards broke from the crowd at the door to the Buzz Saw. He slipped under the crime scene tape and came toward Reinhardt. He was still wearing the coveralls he’d had on when the shots had been fired at Buck earlier in the day. He looked stunned. Or drunk. Most probably some of both. “The shits, man. He’s buying you a drink one minute, the next minute his head’s all over the parking lot. Jesus.”

“Mr. Richards, you need to step back behind the tape,” Dross said.

Richards gave her a screw you look and made no move to comply.

“I’ll be happy to have a deputy escort you,” Dross said.

“All right, all right.” Richards lifted his hands to stave off her move. “Dave, let me buy you a drink?”

Dave Reinhardt said, “I’ll be there in a minute, Cal.”

Richards turned, ducked under the tape, and returned to the bar.

“What are you going to do?” Reinhardt asked. The question was directed at Dross.

“Conduct a thorough investigation that will end in a lawful arrest, Dave.”

“Just like you’ve arrested Lonnie Thunder for killing Kristi? And how about the Kingbirds? Got any leads there? Your investigations have all the speed of a car with square wheels, Marsha.”

“There’s a lot going on, Dave. We’re doing the best we can.”

“Yeah, right.” He stood a few seconds more, looking at his father’s truck, looking at the asphalt that had been chalked with an outline of Buck’s body. “Fuck,” he said and followed Richards to the bar.

“He’s right,” Dross said. “We’re getting nowhere.”

They all looked at her. Finally Larson said, “Okay, so what now?”

“Let’s finish up here. Wrap up the interviews, pull it to a close on the rise, see if Pender has come up with any impressions on Lowell Lake Road. Then let’s go back to the office, do the paperwork, go home, and try to get some sleep. We’ll start on it all again first thing in the morning.”

Rutledge raised his hand, as if he were in geography class. “Marsha, you mind if I drop in on Elise Reinhardt, keep her company in her grief?”

“Kind of late, isn’t it?” Ed Larson said.

Rutledge gave a little shrug. “She told me this afternoon that she seldom goes to bed before two. She said she drinks until she can’t keep her eyes open, otherwise all she sees when she lies down is her daughter’s face. I think she could use a little sympathetic company.”

Dross said, “Simon, I’m so tired I wouldn’t care if you painted yourself yellow and pretended to be a taxi.”

“Then I’ll see you all in the morning.”

He left them and headed toward his Cherokee, which was parked at the far end of the lot.

Ed Larson frowned. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say he’s taking advantage of a woman in a vulnerable position.”

“Elise vulnerable?” Dross laughed. “Yeah, like a Brink’s armored car. I’m sure he’s got something besides her grief on his mind. You headed home, Cork?”

“I think I’ll buy Dave Reinhardt a drink first.”

“Suit yourself.”

She turned to Larson and they walked away, talking quietly.

Inside the Buzz Saw, the shooting seemed to have had an energizing effect. Though it was late, nearing one A.M., the place was still jumping. Cork spotted Reinhardt and Cal Richards sitting together on stools at the bar. Reinhardt already had three empty shot glasses in front of him, and as Cork watched, another patron came up to Dave, offered his condolences, and signaled the bartender to give the man a round. Cork waited until Reinhardt and Richards were alone again, then he took the stool next to Buck’s son.

“Just want to say I’m sorry, Dave.”

Reinhardt, who sat hunched forward over his line of empty glasses, glanced his way.

Cork lifted a hand to signal for a drink. “Everybody knows Buck could be a son of a bitch-”

“Hell,” Cal Richards broke in from Dave’s other side, “he took pride in being a son of a bitch.”

“But he was still your father,” Cork went on, “and I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thanks.” Reinhardt said it grudgingly.

Jack Sellers, who was tending bar, brought three glasses of whatever scotch it was Reinhardt and Richards were drinking. Cork handed him a twenty and told him to keep the change.

“You know if anybody’s told Elise?” Reinhardt said.

“Cy Borkman broke the news,” Cork told him.

“How’d she take it?”

“Pretty well from what I understand.”

“I’ll bet. Probably proposed a toast.” He picked up the drink Cork had bought him and downed it.

“I get the impression Buck hadn’t been particularly husbandly toward her of late.”

“Hell, Buck never worried about being anything to anybody,” Cal Richards said, after gulping his own drink. “He was just fine with who he was.”

A rattlesnake’s just fine being a rattlesnake, Cork thought, but that doesn’t mean you want to cozy up to it.

“Buck was a rare one,” he said instead.

Reinhardt nodded in agreement. “A man spends sixty years on this earth, there ought to be somebody sheds a tear when he’s gone. He could be a mean old bastard, sure, but he was my father, goddamn it.”

Cork picked up his own glass, but held off drinking. “Fathers can be hard to please.”

“I remember your old man,” Reinhardt said. “He didn’t seem too bad.”

“I lost him to a bullet, too.”

“That’s right, I remember. Sorry.”

“Long time ago, Dave. It passes.”

Reinhardt stared at the line of empty glasses. “I tried so hard to do something he’d be proud of. Too late now.”

Cal Richards said, “I know something you could do.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“Get the prick that shot him.”

Cork leaned to the side and looked across Reinhardt’s back at Richards. “You got any idea who that might be, Cal? ’Cause the sheriff would love to know.”

“You’re a cop, Dave,” Richards went on, unperturbed. “That’s what cops do, figure shit out. Hell, you couldn’t do any worse than that bitch who’s wearing the badge.”

Cork said, “Cal, anybody ever tell you that you’ve got all the charm of a gas station toilet?”

“Fuck you, O’Connor.”

Reinhardt’s fist hit the bar. “I know who did it. The Red Boyz.”

“You don’t know that, Dave,” Cork said. “And even if it was one of the Red Boyz, which one? Let Marsha and her people handle this.”

Richards said, low and seductive, “Show that bitch, Dave, and make your old man proud at the same time.”

Jack Sellers came down the bar. “Last call, boys.”

“One for the road, Dave?” Richards said. “On me.”

“Sure, why not?”

Sellers eyed Cork, who declined with a shake of his head.

People had begun to stand and put on their coats and slowly make their way toward the front door. Sellers brought two final shots and set them in front of Dave Reinhardt and Cal Richards.

Richards lifted his glass. “Here’s to Buck, and to finding the goddamn coward son of a bitch who sent him to his reward.”

Both men tilted their heads and threw the shots down their throats. Reinhardt fumbled with his wallet, pulled out a twenty, slipped it across the bar, and slid his butt off the stool.

“I don’t think you’re in any condition to drive, Dave,” Cork said.

Richards, who’d had a lot to drink himself but seemed at the moment to be handling it better, said, “I’ll see he gets home.”

Cork watched them join the slow, steady exodus, then he got up as well and called it a night.