Tamarack County (23 page)

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.”

W
hen Anne opened the door to Rainy’s cabin, Stephen wasn’t sure how to read her face, there seemed such a broad range of emotion reflected there. Surprise, dismay, anxiety. Even anger? He missed the old Anne, the ease of her smile, the soft pillow of her acceptance. The woman standing before him was someone different, someone, it seemed to him, afraid. And that had never been Anne. Skye Edwards, he believed, was to blame. But he didn’t say that. He said, “Mind if I come in for a few minutes?”

She moved aside, and he stepped in. She closed the door against the sweep of cold air that came with his entry. She had a fire going in Rainy’s woodstove, and the room felt cozy. There were some books stacked on the stand beside the bed. He didn’t know if Anne had put them there, or if Rainy had left them. It was an austere room, similar to the way he imagined a nun’s or monk’s cell might be furnished.

“Would you like to take your coat off?” Anne asked with a note of politeness that made Stephen feel even more like a stranger.

“Yeah, I guess. Thanks.”

She took it from him and laid it on the narrow bed.

“Would you like to sit down?” She held out a hand toward one of the two empty chairs at the small table in the center of the cabin.

Stephen sat, and after a long moment of consideration, Anne did, too. There was a quiet in the room that should have felt familiar. When Meloux was on Crow Point, Stephen often spent time with the old Mide, and part of being with Meloux was feeling comfortable with silence. The quiet in Rainy’s cabin was different. It felt oppressive to him.

“How’s your hand?” Anne asked.

He’d removed the gauze. His knuckles looked bruised, and they hurt a little when he made a fist, but it was a pain he could live with. In answer to her question, he simply shrugged.

“Jenny told me what you saw, Stephen,” Anne finally said. “If you’re wondering whether you misinterpreted it, you didn’t. You probably don’t understand. The truth is I’m not sure I do either.”

“Does it mean you’re not going to join the order?”

“I don’t know what it means. That’s one of the big reasons I came here. I have a lot to figure out.”

“Do you love her?”

She’d been looking at the floor, but now she raised her eyes and looked at Stephen like a woman in a daze. “I think so.”

“That pretty much seals it, doesn’t it? How can you join the sisters now?”

“People don’t become nuns or monks or priests because they have nothing to give up, Stephen, nothing to lose. It’s a question of calling. I’m trying to figure out here what my calling is.”

“I thought you were happy about joining the sisters. Now you seem so, I don’t know, confused.”

“I am confused.”

“Skye did this.”

“No, Stephen. Skye just woke me up to something about myself I’d never looked at before. She’s helped me make sense of a lot of emotions that I didn’t understand. I’m grateful to her for that. I just . . .” She appeared lost again. “I just don’t know what to do with this understanding.”

Stephen looked away. The sunlight through the south window threw
an oblong box on the cabin floor. The top of the box touched the pile of wood next to the stove, and Stephen watched a spider crawl from under one of the logs into the light and sit there, as if warming itself. He thought it was odd to see a spider in the cabin in winter; it seemed so out of place, out of time, and he stared at it, as if mesmerized.

“Stephen?” His sister’s voice brought his eyes up to her face, and he found that she was smiling, gently. “I’m still Annie, you know? I hope you still love me.”

“Shoot,” he said. “Of course, I do. I just—I just want you happy, that’s all.”

“I think that’s what I want, too. And I’m trying to figure out how to get there.” She folded her hands on the table. “Does Dad know?”

“I haven’t said anything, and I don’t think Jenny has either. Are you wondering if it’ll matter to him? Because it won’t. He’s Dad and he loves you.”

“Oh, Stephen, I don’t know anymore what might matter and what won’t. But . . .” She stared at the stack of logs by the stove and seemed to be studying the spider that still sat in the sunlight there. “I don’t want to disappoint him.”

“You know what Dad would say? He’d say you have to do what you have to do, and the people who love you will understand.”

She laughed, and it felt so good to Stephen to hear that sound. “I’m glad you came,” she said. “I’m really glad we’re talking.”

“That was only part of the reason I’m here,” Stephen told her.

“What’s the other part?”

“I want to do a sweat.”

“Today?” Her eyes shot toward the north window, where the pane was laced with ice crystals. “It’s got to be zero out there.”

“Two below when I left Aurora.”

“Can you even get a fire going at two below?”

“I could if I had some help.”

“Where are you planning to do this sweat?”

Stephen waved toward the east. “The frame is still up from the sweat lodge we helped Henry build last spring at the edge of the lake. I brought tarps from home, and I know Henry keeps blankets in his cabin.”

“What about the rocks for the sweat?”

“The Grandfathers? He keeps those with the blankets.”

“Why is it so important that you do a sweat now, today?”