Tamarack County

CHAPTER 21

Cork sat in Jenny’s Forester in the parking lot of the Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department. The engine was running, and he had his cell phone out. He speed-dialed Rainy, put the phone to his ear, and realized his heart was racing. Not with excitement, but as if he were afraid. The phone at the other end rang several times, then he heard her voice.

“This is Rainy Bisonette. I can’t take your call right now, but leave me a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Migwech.”

He waited for the signal tone and said, “Hey, Rainy, it’s me. Cork.”

He paused, trying to decide what he should say next. When they’d been together, talking with Rainy had been so easy, so . . . good. He thought about how close he’d felt to her after making love, how full, how complete. Then she’d left. Because her son had needed her. He understood that. What he didn’t understand was that open-ended parting she’d offered him in their final moments together on Crow Point: I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep, and I don’t want that from you either. No promises? What was that about? Had he asked her for any? Did she feel trapped? Was she giving him some kind of signal, some desire for distance that was about more than just the miles she intended to put between them?

“Got a favor to ask,” he blundered on. “Annie’s home and is dealing with something pretty hard. She wants some time to herself. Henry offered his cabin, but Annie doesn’t feel comfortable there. Would it be all right if she used yours for a while? Give me a call and let me know.”

He hesitated. What more was there to say? That he loved her, maybe?

“I hope things are going well out there in Arizona. Feels a little like you’re on Mars.”

He realized his heart was beating as if he’d run a mile and his throat was dry.

“Okay, guess that covers it.”

He hung up, feeling pretty lousy, feeling like he’d screwed up with Rainy in ways he couldn’t even begin to imagine. At the same time, he was pissed at her for making him feel this way.

“More than half a goddamn century old,” he said to himself, “and you still don’t have a clue about women.”

He holstered his cell phone, killed the car engine, and went inside the sheriff’s department to have a conversation that he was looking forward to about as much as he looked forward to athlete’s foot.

Fifteen minutes later, he sat in the visitor’s booth of the county jail. Raymond Bluejay Wakemup, wearing an orange jumpsuit, was escorted to the other side of the glass. Wakemup was in his mid-thirties, gaunt in the way of some people who chronically battle addictions. His black hair was cut short. The blue-green head of a tattooed snake crawled out of the top of his jumpsuit and up the left side of his neck. He was clearly puzzled by Cork’s presence. When Cork reached for the phone, Ray Jay did the same, but warily.

“Boozhoo, Ray Jay,” Cork said.

“Boozhoo.” Only a single word, but it was full of questions. He said no more, simply waited. Very Ojibwe. No need to talk until talk was necessary.

“Stella asked me to come,” Cork said.

Now Ray Jay looked truly confused. “She’s coming tomorrow.”

“There’s something she wants you to know before that.”

Ray Jay fell silent again, his dark eyes intense as he waited for Cork to go on.

Cork leaned nearer the glass. What he knew from his years as a law enforcement officer was that when you had bad news to deliver, you got right down to it. “Dexter’s dead, Ray Jay.”

Ray Jay’s head snapped back, as if Cork had hit him squarely in the face with a baseball bat. “You’re lying.”

“Honest to God, I wish I were. But it’s true. I’m sorry.”

The gaunt Shinnob sat a moment, stunned. Finally he managed to say, “How?”

“Someone killed him. And it wasn’t an accident.”

“They killed him on purpose?”

“Yes.”

“Why? He was just a lovable mutt. Who’d want to kill him?”

“I don’t know. Is there somebody who might have a grudge against you?”

“I haven’t done nuthin to anybody. I’ve been clean and sober for almost two years. No fights, nuthin.”

“Then it might be that somebody used Dexter to send Stella a message. Or it might even have been meant for Marlee.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Maybe so, but there it is.”

Ray Jay’s chest heaved as he gulped air, like a drowning man. “How’d they kill him? How’d they kill Dex?”

“As nearly as I could tell, they cut his throat.”

“They had to get close to him for that.”

“So a friend? Somebody he knew?”

Ray Jay slumped in his chair, shoulders fallen, the hollows of his face sunk even deeper. “Hell, coulda been a stranger. Dex, he was always too friendly with everybody.” Now there were tears, big drops rolling down Ray Jay’s high cheekbones. “That dumb dog. That dumb, sweet dog. Jesus, what am I gonna do?”

Cork looked at him and figured he knew exactly what Ray Jay would do. Ray Jay would get himself drunk for the first time in almost two years. And Ray Jay would slide right back into the alcoholism that, before Dexter came into his life, had threatened to destroy him.

“Who’s your sponsor, Ray Jay?”

“Jon Bjork.”

“I’m going to have Jon come over and talk to you. Would that be okay?”

“I don’t want to talk to nobody right now.”

“I think it would be good to talk to Jon.”

“I said nobody.”

“All right, your call. You need anything?”

“Yeah. Dexter back. But that’s something you can’t do. Not you, not nobody. So why don’t you just get the hell outta here and leave me be.”

Ray Jay slammed the phone back onto its cradle, drew himself out of the chair, and vanished from Cork’s sight.

Cork understood why Stella had asked him to cover this chore. It had been tough. For someone who cared about Ray Jay, it might have been damn near impossible.

* * *

On his way back to the rez to report his conversation to Stella Daychild, Cork made a brief stop at home. Stephen hadn’t returned from Crow Point yet. Waaboo was down for a nap. Jenny was at the kitchen table working on a piece of fiction.

“Short story?” Cork asked.

“Who knows?” she replied wistfully. “Maybe the start of my first novel.”

“Mind if I keep your car for a while? I need to go back out to the rez.”

“Stella?” Jenny asked.

Was there something suggestive in her voice? Cork wasn’t certain, so he answered simply, “Yeah. I need to fill her in on my talk with Ray Jay.”

Jenny eyed him. He wasn’t certain what was going on in her head, but he felt oddly uncomfortable. Finally she shrugged and said, “I’m going nowhere. The car’s yours as long as you need it.”

Cork fixed himself a bologna sandwich, grabbed an apple, and took his lunch on the road.

At the Daychilds’, he reported to Stella, “Ray Jay took it pretty hard.”

“I figured,” Stella said. “Want a Coke or something? Coffee?”

“I’d take coffee, thanks. Black.”

Cork sat at the dinette in Stella’s living room, and Stella brought in two mugs. She placed one in front of Cork, took the other for herself, and sat across from him. She looked tired, and Cork felt his heart go out to her. She had a lot on her plate at the moment and, except for him, it seemed, no help in dealing with these things.

He said, “I thought it might be good to have Jon Bjork talk to Ray Jay. He’s Ray Jay’s AA sponsor.”

“I really thought this time Ray Jay had it kicked. But without Dexter . . .” Stella shook her head and sipped her coffee. “Me, I couldn’t have made it except for my kids. You’ve got to have something, someone, to hold on to. Ray Jay’s got nothing now.”

“Not true. He has you.”

She frowned. “When they put us in foster care, that pretty much screwed up the family ties. Ray Jay and Harmon, they went their ways. Me, I went mine. Maybe if they’d tried to keep us all together.”

Cork understood. In Minnesota, Indian children were fourteen times more likely than white children to be placed in foster care, the widest such gap in the nation. Despite the dictates of the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, which required that tribal members be involved in child placement, these decisions usually remained in the hands of white social welfare workers who often had little understanding or appreciation of Indian families or the traditional roles family members played in the raising of children. The result was that families were often separated and familial ties irrevocably broken.

“Anything I can help you with, just give a holler.”

“Actually, there is something. Could you give me a lift to Ray Jay’s place? I want to get it cleaned before he comes home tomorrow.”

Cork glanced toward a closed door down the hallway at the other end of the house. “Leaving Marlee here?”

“No, she’ll come along.”

“How will you get back?”

“Judy’s driving over to help when she gets off work at the casino.” Stella was speaking of Judy Goodrow, Cork knew. A cousin. “She’ll give us a ride home.”

“Is she staying with you tonight?”

Stella shook her head. “She’s got a date.”

“Anybody staying with you tonight?”

“Uncle Shorty offered again.”

“He was supposed to be here last night.”

“The only offer I’ve had so far.”

“All right, let’s take it one step at a time. Let’s get you over to Ray Jay’s.”

“Thank you.”

Stella went to the closed door and knocked. “Marlee, honey? We’re going to clean Ray Jay’s place.” She eased the door open and disappeared inside.

When Stella came back out, Marlee was with her, still moving gingerly. Stella helped her into her coat, then put her own coat on, and Cork held the door open for them. In the Forester, Marlee sat in back, Stella up front.

As Cork maneuvered out of the yard and up the drive toward the highway, Marlee asked, “How’s Stephen?”

“Worried about you.”

Marlee was quiet a few moments. “I don’t want to see him right now.”

Stella turned and spoke over the seat back. “That’s okay, sweetie. You don’t have to see anybody until you’re ready.”

“I mean, I want to see him. But I don’t.”

“I understand,” Stella said.

“Does he?” Marlee directed this at Cork.

“He’s having some trouble with it, but I think he does.”

“Tell him I’ll call him,” she said.

Raymond Bluejay Wakemup had an apartment on Makwa Street in Allouette. It was a bland, single-story, L-shaped structure of cinder block, painted a faded green, built long ago by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Originally, it had housed seniors on the rez, but the tribal government had used casino funds to build a new care facility a few years earlier, and the old structure had been haphazardly redone as apartments. There were bicycles and tricycles scattered in the yard near the front entrance. The building might have been secure at one time, but the door clearly hadn’t latched properly in a long time, and Cork opened it without a key. The smell of frying fish was strong in the hallway. The floor was covered with threadbare carpeting, deeply stained. They walked to the last apartment at the end of the L. Stella opened the door; it wasn’t locked.

Cork had expected a scene of disorder, which was how, in his experience, most bachelors lived, especially those who battled issues with addiction. But Ray Jay’s apartment was in decent order, except for the dog hair layered over most of the furniture upholstery. The place had a gloomy feel, maybe because all the curtains were drawn. The air was stale and, even though Dexter had been with the Daychilds while Ray Jay had done his jail time, still smelled of animal. Cork chocked it up to all that shed hair the dog had left behind.

“It’s not too bad,” Cork said.

Stella said, “It smells like Dexter. I don’t know if that’s a good thing for Ray Jay to come home to or not.”

“How would you get rid of it?”

“Burn the furniture,” Stella said. She went to the windows and drew the tattered curtains aside. Bright winter sunlight exploded across everything but didn’t completely dispel the feeling of gloom.

“I’m going to check the bedroom and bathroom,” Stella said. “Marlee, see what the kitchen looks like.”

She started toward the back rooms but stopped when Marlee called to her.

“Mom, somebody’s been here!”

Cork stepped into the kitchen, Stella right behind him. Marlee stood next to a badly refinished dinette table that occupied a corner of the small room. In the center of the table sat a large, round, opaque Tupperware cake carrier. Propped against it was a sheet of paper folded into a tent with “Welcome Home, Ray Jay!” printed in black Magic Marker.

“That’s nice,” Stella said and smiled.

Marlee said, “I wonder what kind of cake it is. Can I look?”

“Be my guest,” her mother replied.

Marlee reached out and lifted the tall plastic cover. Then she stumbled back and screamed.

Because what had been left for Ray Jay Wakemup was not a cake but the severed head of his beloved Dexter.