Trickster's Point

  “Not a clue, Leon. I had those flyers printed several years ago, when I first started the business. I still print a few on my own now and then, but I can’t imagine what they could possibly want with them.”

  “Do you have any left?”

  “A few maybe, somewhere around my office. The document’s still on my computer, too.”

  “Okay. Let’s see if we can get to the bottom of this.”

  They headed back inside, and as soon as they rejoined the officers, Holter said, “I’d like you to come down to the sheriff’s department, O’Connor. I have a few questions I want to ask you.”

  “Mind if I check in with my family first?”

  “No, go right ahead.” Holter glanced at Papakee. “You’ll be accompanying your client, I imagine.”

  “From here on, consider us joined at the hip, Phil.”

  Holter gave a nod, almost dapper, as if welcoming the challenge of Papakee in the mix. He signaled to the agent who’d been standing in the driveway, and the man returned to his boxing of potential evidence.

  Ed Larson said to Cork and Papakee, “We’ll see you down at the department, gentlemen,” then he and Holter left.

  Inside the house, Cork found Jenny, Stephen, and Waaboo in the kitchen with Sheriff Marsha Dross. Dross had Waaboo on her lap. When Cork walked in, she looked up, and the smile that had been there dropped away.

  “Hello, Cork,” she said.

  Beyond the doorway that opened onto the rest of the house, Cork saw uniforms moving in the hallway that led to his office, and up the stairs that led to the bedrooms.

  “Morning, Marsha.”

  He worked at keeping his voice neutral. It was her job, he told himself, the job he’d once done and that he’d taught her to do. In her shoes, he’d have been forced to carry out the lawful search warrant. He might even have sat with the suspect’s grandchild on his lap. Still, the whole thing stuck in his craw.

  “Everyone cooperating?” His eyes went to Jenny and Stephen.

  “Everything’s fine, Dad.” Jenny smiled, pretty reasonably given the circumstances.

  “Yeah,” Stephen agreed, though he didn’t really sound agreeable at all. “Except we still don’t know what they’re looking for or why they’re taking all our computer stuff.”

  “They must have good reason, Stephen, or Judge Eide wouldn’t have signed the search warrant,” Cork told him.

  “You mean like evidence that you had something to do with killing Mr. Little?”

  “Is that it, Marsha?” Cork asked.

  Dross handed Waaboo back to Jenny, scooted her chair from the table, and stood up. She spoke carefully. “I’m sure your father has told you that a lot of police investigation is done in order to eliminate possibilities. Nothing would please me more, Stephen, than to eliminate the possibility that your father was involved.”

  “So that’s what you’re doing? Trying to prove he’s innocent?”

  “What we’re doing is gathering evidence. It won’t be for us to determine anyone’s guilt or innocence. That’s what juries are for.”

  Stephen looked as if he was about to argue, but Cork cut him off. “I need to go down to the sheriff’s department for a little while. You guys do everything you’re asked, okay?”

  “Sure,” Stephen said, but it was clear he had his reservations.

  * * *

  Cork sat in the interview room where Larson had questioned him following Jubal Little’s death. Larson was there again, but this time it was Agent Phil Holter asking the questions, while Larson sat silent in a corner. Leon Papakee was there as well. Holter had stalled awhile in the beginning, and Cork wondered if Larson had insisted that he hold off until Dross returned from the house on Gooseberry Lane and could observe from the adjoining room where the proceedings were being recorded.

  “So,” Holter continued, pressing Cork about the man he and Stephen had found dead on the ridge above Trickster’s Point, “you’d never seen that man before you stumbled on his body?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you’ve seen this before.”

  From an evidence envelope, Holter pulled a familiar flyer that had the name of Cork’s one-man security firm. It contained a listing of the kinds of jobs he would do. And contact information. In the lower right-hand corner there was a photograph of Cork that made him look like the kind of guy who not only would be able to see to your investigative needs but also could be relied on to keep to himself the secrets he might learn about you in the process. Cork had been pretty happy with that particular shot.

  “Sure. I had those printed years ago, when I first hung out my shingle as a P.I.”

  “What about this?”

  Holter turned the flyer over. Printed on the other side was a contour map of the area around Trickster’s Point, taken from a U.S. Forest Service website. Below the map were instructions on how to find the logging road where the man ID’d as William Graham Chester had parked his vehicle, and the easiest route from there to the ridge overlooking Trickster’s Point.

  “We found this in the glove box of Chester’s rental. It has your fingerprints, Chester’s fingerprints, and a set of prints we haven’t identified yet.”

  “I put those flyers up all over Tamarack County. In every bar and Laundromat and grocery store with a bulletin board. Anybody could have got hold of this.”

  Holter returned the flyer to the evidence envelope and frowned a moment, deep in thought. “You’ve told us that you and Little canoed from that landing on the eastern end of Lake Nanaboozhoo to Trickster’s Point. Is that still your story?”

  “Agent Holter, we’re not happy with that particular phrasing. The word story suggests invention. What my client has told you is the truth.”

  “I’m just wondering, Counselor, if maybe your client didn’t drop Little at Trickster’s Point and then paddle down the shoreline a mile or so.”

  Cork said, “You mean to the landing spot Officer Berglund from the Border Patrol found, where someone walked in and joined the dead man? That wasn’t me, Holter. Jubal and I landed together.”

  “And then split up? Was that a usual procedure when you hunted together?”

  “Sometimes we’d separate because it gave us a better chance of coming across a deer trail to follow. Once we’d found something, we’d hook back up and hunt together. But on Saturday, we didn’t really split up. Jubal just went ahead of me while I stowed the paddles with the canoe.” Cork shifted in his chair and looked toward Larson, who’d been silent so far. “Have you followed up on this William Chester? Do you know anything about him?”

  Larson spoke toward the ceiling light that masked the recording equipment. “Would you turn everything off, please.”

  Dross’s voice came disembodied into the room. “You want us to stop recording?”

  “Yes.” Then Larson said quietly to Papakee, “Counselor, I’d like to speak with your client for a few minutes, alone and off the record.”

  “I don’t think—” Papakee began.

  Cork cut him off. “I’m okay with it, Leon.”

  “Hell, I’m not,” Holter blurted.

  “You can lodge a complaint with Sheriff Dross if you’d like, Phil, but I’m going to talk with Cork, and I’m going to talk with him alone.”

  Papakee gave Cork a clear look of warning, then shrugged and said, “I’ll be outside.”

  Holter said, “You rural guys, you fuck everything up.”

  Larson said, “Out, Agent Holter. I’ll let you know when you can come back in.”

  When they were alone, Larson said, “William Graham Chester is a phony name. The driver’s license was a fake. Our guy’s still a John Doe.”

  “What about the registration on the vehicle he drove out there?” Cork asked.

  “A rental. He used a bogus credit card. We’ve run his fingerprints through AFIS. Nothing. This guy seems professional, and good enough that he’s been able to stay below the legal radar.” Larson shook his head. “Off the record, I think yo
u’re being set up, Cork. But there may be some hope. We got prints off the arrow that killed the John Doe. They’re not yours.”

  “But you don’t have a match on those either?”

  “Not yet. They definitely don’t belong to anyone we’re currently looking at.” Larson took off his glasses, leaned to Cork confidentially, and said in a low voice, “Do you have any idea who would want Jubal dead and who would want you to take the fall for it?”

  “Jubal received a lot of threats.”

  “A lot of politicians, especially controversial ones, get threats. Very few get murdered. Who was crazy enough, or angry enough, to go through with the threat? And of those possibilities, who has something against you as well?”

  “I don’t know, Ed. I’ll need to think about that.”

  “Don’t think too long, Cork. The way this is playing out, I get the feeling that someone’s gone through a lot of trouble to set you up. The trap hasn’t sprung yet, but that doesn’t mean it won’t. If it does, I’d hate to see you caught in it.”

  Cork managed a smile and said, “You and me both.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Whenever Cork lied, he was usually able to convince himself that it was for the best of reasons. In the interview room of the Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department, he’d lied to Ed Larson. Larson had asked him if he knew who might want Jubal Little dead and also have enough of a grudge against Cork to want him to suffer in the bargain. Cork had said he’d have to think about it. In truth, however, two pretty solid possibilities had readily come to mind. He held back from telling Larson his suspicions because he knew that in Tamarack County word could spread quickly, and before he was responsible for the shadow of suspicion falling across other innocent folks, he wanted to do a little investigating on his own. At least, that’s what he told himself.

  He hadn’t eaten at all that day and was famished. He grabbed a breakfast sandwich—biscuit, egg, sausage, cheese—and a cup of coffee from a convenience store on his way out of town and headed toward Yellow Lake, a community a few miles south of Aurora. Just outside that small town, he pulled off the road and parked in front of a long, ramshackle structure built of corrugated metal and that was decorated with signage crying out archery supplies, bow-hunting equipment, targets, decoys, and a fully equipped indoor practice range. Above the entrance loomed a huge, handcrafted placard that read: STRAIGHT ARROW, INC.

  Cork opened the door, and a little bell tinkled, a fragile and incongruous sound considering what was represented by the merchandise inside. The place seemed empty, except for the presence of a cat that lay on the countertop next to the register. It was a Chinchilla Persian, an old feline with long fur the color of campfire smoke.

  “Hey, Mattie.” Cork spoke softly to the cat. “Where’s the old man?”

  “Old man?” The voice, indignant, came from the back room. A moment later, a guy with a square build and silver hair appeared, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and jeans. “This old man’ll be happy to kick your butt, you don’t speak more respectfully.”

  “Morning, Dale,” Cork said.

  Dale Basham came to the counter and stroked Mattie’s fur. “Wasn’t sure if I’d be seeing you again this season.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Basham shrugged. “Accident like the one up at Trickster’s Point with Jubal Little, I figured you might be thinking of hanging your bow up for good. I tell guys all the time, don’t shoot at the first thing that moves. You? I figured you knew better. Trained by Sam Winter Moon and all.”

  “What exactly have you heard?”

  Basham picked up the cat, who began to purr.

  Basham and Mattie were an interesting pair. Basham was Oklahoma born, had been a pilot during the war in Vietnam, then flown for Northwest Airlines. When he’d retired as a commercial pilot, he’d moved north to open the Straight Arrow. He’d brought along Mattie, a cat that was now more than two decades old and famously loved by Dale Basham. In the last few years, Mattie’s heart had stopped five times, and Basham, using gentle CPR, had brought her back to life each time. On the surface, he might have appeared gruff—they’d called him Bash when he was in the service—but Cork figured any guy willing to do mouth-to-mouth on a feline couldn’t be all badass. Strange maybe, but certainly good-hearted.

  “What have I heard?” Basham put the cat back on the counter, and Mattie sprawled out—loose limbed and eyes closed—in a way that made Cork think the animal had suffered another heart attack, and maybe he’d see Basham in action. But the cat’s purr box kept running. “Heard Jubal Little took an arrow in the heart. Hunting accident. Sheriff’s Department claims they’re still uncertain about some of the details. Got all that from the television and radio. Also heard, by way of the grapevine, that you were alone up there with him, and it was you who shot him.”

  “That’s what folks are saying?”

  “Enough of ’em that it got to me. Also heard they found some other fella dead up there, yeah? What’s that all about?”

  “You want to know the truth, Dale, that’s what I’m trying to figure out. And maybe you can help me.”

  “Me?”

  “You’re the only retailer of archery equipment in these parts, so I figure most of us bow hunters buy from you.”

  “Or the Internet. Christ, I hate to tell you how much business those damn online stores have cost me.”

  “You know most of the good bow hunters in the area?”

  “Lot of ’em.”

  “Lester Bigby bow-hunts, doesn’t he?”

  “Sure. Don’t know if he’s any good, but he buys here.”

  “Buys materials to make his own arrows?”

  “Nah. He usually buys RedHead carbons. He’s got himself a Bear Carnage, a top-of-the-line compound bow.”

  “Thought you said you didn’t know if he was any good.”

  “Having a big dick doesn’t guarantee a guy knows how to score. Got a lot of hunters come in, spend a shitload of money thinking the gear alone’ll do the trick. You shop garage sales a year later and you can pick that stuff of theirs up for a dime.”

  “Have you seen Lester recently?”

  “Came in just before season opener, bought that Bear Carnage I told you about.”

  “What about Isaiah Broom?”

  Basham shook his head. “Makes all his own gear. Arrows, bow, quiver. Hell, heard he fashions his bowstring out of elk sinew. Christ, I don’t know anybody who gets that into it. He’s good, I hear. Real good. Leastways, I never heard of him shooting anybody by accident.”

  By accident. That was the key phrase. Jubal Little’s death had been no accident.

  Cork decided not to try to change Basham’s understanding of what had occurred at Trickster’s Point. Until he knew who the real killer was, it would be useless to argue. And when the truth was finally known, argument would be unnecessary.

  CHAPTER 25

  Lester Bigby was a wealthy man. When he was twenty-two and just out of college, he’d taken over his father’s logging operation, which had, by then, fallen on hard times, mostly because Buzz Bigby had come to prefer drinking to running his business. Lester turned the situation around and, when things were looking good again, sold the operation and invested the money in stocks. He chose wisely and did well, and then began doing the same for other people in the Arrowhead region of Minnesota. He’d established a good reputation as an investment counselor and had built a solid clientele. A couple of years earlier, he’d created the Crown Lake Development Company and had purchased a very large tract of land southwest of Aurora that included its own pristine lake, one of the very few in the area without any cabin homes already on the shoreline. Last spring, he’d begun construction of a luxury resort, but building had been halted in midsummer. Jubal Little was a large part of the reason.

  Lester had built himself an ostentatious house on North Point Road, just outside the town limits. If there hadn’t already been a number of outrageously ostentatious places on the point, his would have stood out magni
ficently. As it was, it became just another in a line of homes that, in Cork’s opinion, had no place in what should have been the natural and simple beauty of the shoreline of Iron Lake.

  He pulled into the drive, a ribbon of blacktop that curved through a lot of lawn and landscaped garden and stopped at the portico in front. Noon wasn’t far off. The sky was clear blue, and the sun was bright, and the grass sparkled with the wetness of the last few days. Cork got out and was about to ring the bell when the door opened suddenly. Lester Bigby’s wife, Emily, stood there, clearly startled to find Cork blocking her way.

  “Oh!” she said and took a step back.

  “Sorry, Emily,” Cork said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just about to punch the doorbell.”

  She put a hand to her breast, as if stilling a wildly beating heart. “It’s all right,” she said. “I just . . . It’s all right.”

  Like her husband, she was small, in her late thirties or early forties, attractive, with dark brown hair, long and nicely styled. She dressed well, expensively but not showy, and because Jo, who’d served with her for several years on the library board, had spoken well of her, Cork was inclined to like her.

  “I’m looking for Lester. I tried his office in town, but he’s not there. I was just wondering if he might be home.”

  “No, he’s not,” she said, still a little breathy from the fright.

  “Know where I might find him?”

  She glanced at her watch. “Have you tried the Broiler? He likes to lunch there.”

  The garage door opened, and a black Mercedes backed out. Cork saw the Bigbys’ son, Lance, at the wheel of the sedan. He was Stephen’s age, a big kid who reminded Cork uncomfortably of Donner. The genetic linkage to his dead uncle was clear in the massive build of his upper body, and whenever Cork looked at the kid’s face, he saw the face of another kid, dead for more than thirty years. But Lance’s resemblance to Donner ended there. He wasn’t an athlete; he was a musician. Violin. And Stephen liked him. That said a lot.