Trickster's Point

CHAPTER 41

C ork had seen optical illusions created in such a way that, when you looked at the image, at first you saw one thing, but if you stared at it long enough, or from a different angle, you saw another image entirely. After he left Kenny Yates, as he drove back into Aurora, he realized that’s how it was with what had occurred at Trickster’s Point.

He turned on his cell phone, called ahead to the Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department, and made a suggestion to Ed Larson. When he arrived, he found Larson, Sheriff Marsha Dross, and BCA Agent Phil Holter gathered in Dross’s office.

“Well?” he asked as he headed to the chair they’d left empty for him.

“You were right,” Larson replied. “The other set of prints on the flyer we took from the John Doe’s car belonged to Jubal Little. How did you know?”

Cork took off his leather jacket, hung it on the chair back, and sat down. “I realized we were all looking at the man on the ridge as if he and whoever murdered Jubal were connected. When Stephen first suggested that possibility, it seemed natural. The killer and his backup. To have two men up there with no relationship to each other seemed too enormous a coincidence. But coincidence it was. When I understood that, I understood things in a different way, although largely because I knew something no one else did.”

“And that was?” Holter said, obviously wanting to be able to write off as nonsense whatever it was Cork was going to say.

“That when Jubal was eighteen, he murdered someone.”

This clearly hit them all with shocking effect. Their stares went owl-eye huge, and they seemed dumbfounded. So Cork told them what had happened at Trickster’s Point the day Donner Bigby died.

When Cork finished, Holter asked, “You knew all along Little had killed that kid?”

“Not when it happened. I bought the story Jubal told me. Years later, he told me the truth. And not long ago, I threatened to use what I knew against him.” He turned to Dross. “You asked me what Jubal and I argued about the morning before he died. That was it. Jubal pretty much demanded to know if I still planned to use Donner Bigby against him. I told him that if he won the election and went ahead with the mining and the casinos, I would. He tried to argue me out of it. I wouldn’t budge. He repeated something he’d said to me once before. My end was my own doing. I didn’t understand then, but it’s obvious to me now. He’d arranged to have me silenced.”

“You really believe that?” Holter asked.

“Jubal died thinking I’d shot that arrow into his heart. He recognized my fletching pattern. He thought I’d done it deliberately. I didn’t try to argue with him, what was the point? At the end, he told me, with a grudging kind of respect, that I’d finally bested him. Bested him in what way, I had no idea. Now I get it. He thought that somehow I knew he was planning to kill me, and I simply struck first. It was what he would have done in my place.”

Holter said, “You’re saying that he arranged for the John Doe to kill you and gave him your flyer so that the guy would know what you looked like? Is that it?”

“Jubal chose Trickster’s Point. He told me he wanted to go back where it all began, to make our peace there, with each other and with the past. He said Winona had advised him it would be a good thing to do. Do you remember, Ed, when you interviewed me at the start of all this, and I told you that what I was hunting wasn’t deer but Jubal Little?”

“I remember.”

“I thought maybe if we made peace, I’d find the old Jubal, or what was left of him. But it had been a trap all along. Jubal figured, and rightly so, that we’d be alone out there. Even though I’d be hard to miss, I’m guessing that flyer with my picture on it was just Jubal making sure nothing got screwed up.”

“A hell of a lot of speculation,” Holter said dismissively. “No proof of anything.”

“If we knew the true identity of our John Doe, we might be able to prove a connection,” Dross offered.

“Do you have a photo of him?” Cork asked.

“Lots from the crime scene,” Larson replied.

“I have an idea,” Cork told them.

Holter gave him a dismal look. “Why does that not surprise me?”

When Kenny Yates showed Cork and Larson in, the Jaegers were gathered in the den. They all had drinks in their hands, and there was a nice fire crackling away in the fireplace. The room carried the pleasant, comforting scent of woodsmoke, yet the way the Jaegers eyed their visitors was anything but comfortable.

“Thank you, Kenny,” Camilla said.

“You’re welcome.” Yates turned to leave.

“I’d like you to stick around, Kenny,” Cork said. “I’m hoping you might be able to help me out here.”

Yates looked surprised, then looked to Camilla Little, who nodded her assent.

Alex Jaeger said, “What exactly is it that you think we can do for you?”

Ed Larson stood next to the chair where Camilla sat. He said, “In most homicides, we find that the perpetrator and the victim are acquainted. The motive tends to be something personal between them. I’d like you all to take a look at the photograph of the man killed on the ridge above Trickster’s Point the same day Mrs. Little’s husband was killed. I’d like to know if you recognize him, if he might have been someone Mr. Little was acquainted with.”

Larson handed the photo to Camilla first. She studied it and shook her head.

Alex was next, and he did the same. “Never saw him before.”

Larson took the photograph to Nick, who was finishing off a glass of what looked like scotch on the rocks. He put the drink down, took the photograph, eyed it carefully, and said, “Son of a bitch.”

“You know him?” Larson asked.

“He looks different dead, but I’d swear it’s Chet Carlson.”

“Carlson?” Yates said. “Let me see that picture.” He crossed to where Larson stood with Nick Jaeger, took the photograph, glanced at it, and said, “That’s him all right.”

“Who was Chet Carlson?” Larson asked.

“A linebacker for Kansas City when Jubal quarterbacked for them,” Yates explained. “He wasn’t in the league very long. Mean mother. Some guys, they played for the love of the sport or maybe for the money. Carlson, he played to get his licks in. Loved doing damage on the field. I heard that after he left football he signed on with that mercenary company.”

“Blackwater?”

“Blackwater. That’s it. Didn’t surprise me in the least that he’d go into a line of work where it’s always open season on human beings.”

“What about you?” Larson said to Nick. “How do you know him?”

“He used to hunt with Jubal and me sometimes. I didn’t care for him at all. Like Kenny says, the guy was all about hurting things. I finally told Jubal I wouldn’t go on any more hunts if Carlson was going to be a part of them.”

“Good shot?” Cork asked.

“With the right equipment, anybody can be a good shot,” Nick said. “He never joined any of the hunts when Jubal and I shot muzzle-loaders and black powder, so not a pure hunter. But with a Marlin and a good scope, he could put a bullet where it had to go for a kill shot.”

“I don’t understand,” Camilla said. “Why would he be involved in killing Jubal?”

“He wasn’t,” Cork said.

“He was supposed to kill me.”

He explained his reasoning, and when he’d finished, the room was dead still.

“Doesn’t make a lick of sense,” Alex finally blustered. “How would Jubal have explained you getting shot?”

Cork shrugged. “Hunting accident, maybe, but not his doing. All he had with him was a bow and a few arrows. So a stray shot from some careless hunter, who either didn’t know the damage he’d done or vanished because of it. Probably another reason Jubal chose Trickster’s Point, all the incidents of accidental hunting deaths out there. He believed he could sell ice to Eskimos, so I’m sure he figured that whatever he said people would buy it.”

“Carlson’s a loose end,” Larson pointed out. “And kind of a loose cannon, it sounds like. Seems to me a dangerous man for Little to bring into something like this and just hope he’d keep quiet.”

Cork looked toward Nick. “If I were Jubal, I’d plan on another hunting accident, maybe somewhere in the wilds of Canada where there’d be no witnesses. Or maybe he’d just report that they got separated out there and lost and Carlson was never found. What do you think, Nick? Things like that happen, don’t they?”

Nick’s face clouded, and he said vaguely, “I’ve heard.”

“It’s all speculation, of course,” Cork went on. “Jubal took the answers with him when he walked the Path of Souls.”

Alex shook his head fiercely. “His fingerprints on a sheet of paper. That’s all you have. Proves nothing.”

“Not yet,” Larson said. “But it’s a beginning, Mr. Jaeger. And I’m going to make sure that we find out where it leads.”

Camilla’s hands lay folded in her lap, and her eyes rested there, as if holding them in place. She didn’t look up when she spoke. “I’m sorry, Cork.”

“Nothing to be sorry for, Camilla. Jubal always did what Jubal wanted. Not your fault.”

“Hey,” Nick said suddenly. “So who killed Chet Carlson? And who killed Jubal?”

Camilla finally lifted her eyes and looked at Cork. Everyone did.