Tamarack County

CHAPTER 28

It was Monday morning. When Cork arrived home on Gooseberry Lane, he found Jenny in the kitchen with Waaboo, both of them eating oatmeal, Jenny a lot less messy in this endeavor than her son. Stephen was nowhere to be seen.

“The Land Rover and the Bearcat are gone. Did Stephen take them?” Cork asked, hanging his parka beside the kitchen door.

“Yes,” Jenny said.

“To school?”

“Good boy,” Jenny said to Waaboo, who’d managed to put a whole spoonful of the cereal in his mouth without spilling any of it. “Stephen didn’t go to school today.”

“No? Where is he?”

“Crow Point.”

“To see Annie.”

“Not exactly.”

“What then?”

“He’s going to do a sweat.”

“Today? In this cold?”

“That’s what he says.”

“And you let him go?”

“He’s my brother, Dad, not my son. I don’t try to tell him what to do.”

“Sorry.”

“He had what he believes was a vision last night, apparently a lot like the one Henry Meloux had. Stephen’s hoping a sweat might make things clear to him. Ooops!” Jenny wiped a big blob of oatmeal off the floor where Waaboo had dropped it.

Cork slipped his boots off, left them on the mat beside the door, and considered the information Jenny had just given him. Apparently, Stephen had been able to dream the vision Meloux had urged him to attempt. Cork was proud of his son, but he wished Stephen had discussed it with him before going out to Crow Point on his own. Just one more example of how his children were outgrowing their need for him, which made him feel old and extraneous.

“Did he tell you what the vision was?”

She nodded. “This morning before he left.”

“Mind sharing it?”

Jenny told him what Stephen had reported to her. Then she asked, “Are you going out there?”

He wished that were possible, wished he could be of some help to his son. But he had other obligations at the moment, pressing ones. “I’ll talk to him later. Right now, I’m heading down to the Twin Cities with Marsha Dross.”

“What for?”

“We’re going to visit Cecil LaPointe.”

“The Wisdom of White Eagle Cecil LaPointe?”

“That’s him.”

“Why?”

“Marsha thinks there may be some connection between LaPointe and both Evelyn Carter’s disappearance and what happened to Wakemup’s dog.”

“Revenge?”

“Something like that.”

“But he’s still in prison, isn’t he?”

“Doesn’t mean he couldn’t have help on the outside. What’s up with you and Waaboo today?”

She used her napkin to dab oatmeal from her son’s nose. “We’re spending some time with Skye.”

“Oh? I figured she’d be going out to Crow Point.”

Jenny looked as if there was something she wanted to say to him, and he waited, but what she said was “Maybe later.”

“Except for that very brief conversation we had when she first arrived, I haven’t had a chance to talk to her at all. What do you think of Skye Edwards?”

“I like her,” Jenny said, and Cork could tell she meant it. But she also avoided looking at him, deliberately focusing her attention on her son. “And Waaboo here likes her, too.”

“Is there something I should know?” Cork asked.

“When you’re back from the Twin Cities, we’ll sit down and talk. As you said, right now you have to go.”

He was torn. Whatever Jenny was holding back, he wanted let in on it. On the other hand, she was right. He was pressed for time. He needed to shower and change into clean clothes. When he returned from his visit to Stillwater Prison, there would be time for all the questions he might want to ask.

“All right,” he agreed and turned to head upstairs.

“Oh, by the way,” Jenny said to his back. “Rainy called.”

It felt like a needle had gone into his stomach. He turned back. “What did she want?”

“Just to say it was okay for Annie to use her cabin.”

“Did she ask about me?”

“Of course.”

“And you told her . . . ?”

“That you were working a case and weren’t here.” She said this in a matter-of-fact way while she cleaned more oatmeal from Waaboo’s face. “I didn’t mention the Daychilds.”

“All right,” Cork said. “Thanks.”

He continued upstairs, feeling guilty, feeling that he should call Rainy, talk to her, but knowing that he wouldn’t. Not yet anyway.

Dross picked him up half an hour later in her pickup. The roads were clear, but along the shoulders the plowed snow was piled high and packed solid. The sunlight set the winter hills ablaze with white fire. The sky was hard blue, a pureness of color possible only in the dry, frigid air of winter. Everything had such a pristine feel to it that Cork couldn’t help believing this was a day on which important answers would be found.

“Coffee in the thermos,” Dross said. “That extra cup beside it is for you.”

“Thanks.” Cork poured some brew, then said, “This’ll pretty much ensure that we have to stop a couple times on the way down.”

“No problem.” Dross carefully passed a slow-moving pickup hauling a long trailer piled with Christmas trees. “So,” she said. “You and Stella now?”

“What’s with everyone’s interest in my private affairs?”

“Small town. No one’s affairs are private.”

“I’m not going there, Marsha.”

She smiled and then shrugged. “Okay. Let’s talk about LaPointe. I don’t know the guy. What do I need to know?”

“A complicated man. Twenty years ago, he was just a mechanic, nice enough guy. Did some work on the Bronco I had back then. Knew his stuff. Good looking. A ladies’ man, but he didn’t seem to me to be a predator. The whole thing with Karyn Bowen was really surprising. Except for the fact that angel dust had been involved, I wouldn’t have believed him capable of that kind of violence. When Ray Jay Wakemup spilled his own story of what happened that night, I have to admit it seemed a more reasonable explanation. I knew Harmon Wakemup well. He was a good cop, but he had a temper, and I always thought that someday it might get him into real trouble.”

“So you think he could have been the one who killed the Bowen girl?”

“Again, except for the involvement of drugs, I’d say LaPointe wasn’t a good suspect at all. If I’d known Harmon Wakemup was there that night, I would have looked at him pretty hard.”

“You didn’t have a clue about his possible involvement?”

“None. As far as I knew, only LaPointe had been with the woman. If what Ray Jay says is true, I’m betting that Harmon, because he was studying to be a cop, went back to LaPointe’s place and made sure that there was no evidence that might implicate him or Ray Jay.”

“Why would LaPointe keep quiet about that?”

“I don’t know. If he talks to us, that’s something I’m definitely going to ask. Who’s minding the store while you’re gone?”

“Pender’s in charge of the department, but Azevedo’s got the lead in the Evelyn Carter investigation. He’s checking out everyone on the list the Judge gave us of people who’ve had access to the Carters’ home recently, from the Schwan’s route man to the propane delivery guy.”

“Long list?”

“No, but with the Judge the way he is now, we can’t be sure it’s complete.” She breathed deeply and shook her head. “If we’re really dealing with a homicide here and the Judge isn’t the perp, then somebody had access to that house. And if this is about Cecil LaPointe, then it’s somebody with a connection to him. One plus one, right? Should be easy.”

“If LaPointe talks,” Cork said. “Big if.”

Dross reached up and pulled the visor down to block the low, glaring sun. “I didn’t know Roy Arneson. By the time you brought me into the department, he’d already retired and was spending most of his time in Arizona. What was he like?”

“Roy was all about Roy.”

“Good cop?”

“Mostly all politician. Knew what it took to look good in voters’ eyes and was more concerned with that than running the department. His big strength was that he knew enough to get out of the way and let his officers do their jobs. Then, of course, he’d take full credit for whatever we did. When Karyn Bowen was murdered, he was facing a tough reelection in the fall because Tom Spinoza, who was chief of police in Yellow Lake back in those days, had already announced that he’d be running against Roy. Spinoza was personable, a Vietnam vet, lots of experience in law enforcement. Roy was just a few years shy of retirement age. So he was worried. Sewing up the Bowen murder case was a big boost to his campaign. And it would probably have been a game breaker if it turned out that we’d arrested and prosecuted an innocent man. So a lot was at stake in LaPointe’s conviction.”

“Important enough to him to play dumb about Wakemup’s story?”

“Apparently so, if everything Ray Jay says is true.”

“And the Judge?”

“You got me there. He’s always been a son of a bitch, but that’s hardly an explanation for such a huge miscarriage of justice. So . . .” Cork shrugged.

“What about Sullivan Becker?”

Cork laughed. “Sully always had his eye on bigger things. Prosecuting LaPointe got him that job offer in Dade County. When you think about it, it was an open and shut case. I mean, hell, LaPointe confessed. But Sully played it big, played it smart, got the headlines, and it got him a ticket out of frigid Minnesota.”

“So with Becker and Arneson, it was all about ambition, and with the Judge it was-what?-the whim of a son of a bitch?”

“As good an explanation as any. Maybe after we talk to LaPointe we’ll know more.” Cork lifted his coffee cup in the direction of the road ahead. “Truck stop coming up. Mind pulling in?”

“Coffee kicking in already?”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He spent a few minutes in the men’s room. When he came out, Dross was on her cell phone.

“Yes,” she said. “I understand. We’ll be there at two, as planned. And thank you. I appreciate your help.”

Cork buckled in, and Dross set her cell phone down on the seat between them.

“I’ll be damned,” she said in amazement.

“What is it?”

She stared at him, a look in her eyes as if she’d just been hit with a stun gun. “That was Terry Gilman, the warden at Stillwater Prison.”

“What did she want?”

“She was informed of our visit and the reason, and it got her to thinking. She checked the record of the visitors LaPointe has had recently. And guess what.”

She waited as if she really expected him to hazard a guess.

“Got me,” he finally replied.

“His last visitor was Evelyn Carter, two days before she disappeared.”