Trickster's Point

  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.

  CHAPTER 42

  When Cork pulled into his driveway on Gooseberry Lane, the hour was late. The street was empty and the houses were dark. A light shone through his own kitchen window, and when he walked inside, the room was still redolent with the aroma of sweet baking. On the table sat a plate with chocolate chip cookies, and beside it lay a note.

  Comfort food, Dad.

  The handwriting was Stephen’s.

  He shed his coat and hung it on a peg near the door. He poured himself some milk, leaned against a counter, and drank slowly while he ate a couple of the cookies. He listened to the house, the beautiful quiet, and, for the first time in days, felt at ease.

  Trixie wandered in, tail wagging in a slow, sleepy way, and put her nose against the hand he lowered.

  “Hey, girl,” he said. “Keeping the place safe?”

  He rinsed out the glass in the sink and headed upstairs, where the kids had left the hallway light on for him. He stopped in the open doorway to his grandson’s room and stood watching Waaboo asleep in his crib. The little guy was dressed in footie pajamas patterned with tiny moose. He lay splayed on the mattress, arms and legs all akimbo. Cork walked to the crib, lifted the twisted blanket, and gently covered his grandson. When he turned back to the door, he found his daughter smiling from the hallway.

  “Within an hour, he’ll have kicked that blanket off again,” she whispered when he joined her.

  “Always moving,” Cork said. “Even in his sleep.”

 
“You’re one to talk. Late night.”

  “And not over yet.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’ll be getting a couple of visitors soon.”

  “Should I make coffee?”

  “No. We’ll leave right away.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “I’ll tell you about it in the morning.”

  She studied his face. “You look . . . peaceful. A good day?”

  “An enlightening day. Jenny, if you ever wonder what your life is all about, just pick up Waaboo and hold him. Everything you need to know, it’s all right there.”

  “And right here,” she said and leaned to him and kissed his cheek. Then she yawned.

  “Go back to bed,” he told her gently. “Everything’s okay now.”

  The knock at the back door came just as he returned to the kitchen. When he opened up, Marsha Dross stood on the doorstep beside a hulking Isaiah Broom.

  “Holter’s pissed as hell,” she said. “If he doesn’t have answers from you by the time the sun comes up, he says he’ll arrest you for obstruction.”

  “He’ll know everything by the time he pours his first cup of morning coffee,” Cork replied. “Promise.”

  “What the hell’s going on?” Broom said.

  “You’re free, Isaiah.” Cork reached to his leather jacket hanging on the peg beside the door. “And you’re coming with me.”

  “Yeah?” Broom threw back, not happily. “Where?”

  “You’ll see.”

  The big Shinnob frowned, then lifted his broad nose. “Cookies?”

  Cork went to the table where the plate still held half a dozen. He picked up a couple and returned to the door.

  “For the road,” he said to Dross and handed her one. The other he gave to Isaiah Broom. “Let’s get going.”

  In the light that fell through the doorway, Cork saw Dross wince. She was taking a big chance, and he appreciated it. “I’ll be at your office by first light,” he promised.

  She took a bite of the cookie he’d given her and said, “I’ll be waiting.”

  He drove down the empty streets, through a town deep in its own dreaming. Snow spit from the sky, a few flakes, like moths fluttering in the headlights. For a long time, he drove in a silence that both he and Broom seemed comfortable with.

  “Traitor,” Cork said at last, breaking the silence.

  “What?”

  “That’s what you wrote on the arrow you shot into the door of Rainy’s cabin. Traitor. Why?”

  “Why traitor, or why the arrow?”

  “Both.”

  They’d left Aurora behind, and the dark had swallowed them. The only light came from the back splash of headlights and the glow of the dash. The big Shinnob sat silent and brooding in the night gloom, and was quiet for so long that Cork wasn’t sure he’d get a reply at all.

  “I made that arrow for Jubal Little,” Broom finally said. “I meant to shoot it into his heart myself. When I heard it was you who killed him, I figured I’d let you know that I understood.”

  “You could’ve just told me. I admit I was more than a little confused by that message.”

  Broom stared ahead where the thin scatter of snowflakes drifted white against the black asphalt of the highway. “I was drunk. Celebrating his death, I thought, but later I decided maybe I was just relieved that I didn’t have to go on hating him. I knew you’d be at Henry’s.” He swung his face toward Cork for an instant. “Rainy,” he said. Then he shrugged. “The decisions you make when you’re drunk usually aren’t your best.”

  Cork didn’t have to press him about the traitor part. That arrow had long ago been intended for Jubal Little. “When did you realize it was Willie who killed him?”

  Cork felt the huge body on the other side of the Land Rover tense up.

  “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yeah, you do, Isaiah. That’s why you gave yourself up. To protect Willie. He would never have let you take the blame, you know.”

  They’d negotiated the southern end of Iron Lake and had started up the shoreline toward the reservation. Broom was like one of those wooden statues he carved so adroitly, massive and silent.

  Cork went on. “I talked with Willie earlier tonight. He’s going to turn himself in.”

  Broom twisted quickly, facing Cork. “No.” It was like a command.

  “It has to be done, Isaiah. Willie understands that.”

  “There’s no way he’s going to spend his life in jail. I won’t let him. And it’ll kill Winona.”

  Cork drew to a stop at the side of the road. “Isaiah, there’s something else you need to know. I wish . . .” He was suddenly at a loss for words. He’d delivered bad news, news of death, many times in his law enforcement career, and it had always knotted his gut. “Winona’s dead, Isaiah. She killed herself. That’s pretty much what drove Willie to kill Jubal.”

  Broom looked as if Cork had just done the same to him, put an arrow into his heart. He seemed stunned, deeply wounded, then he turned away, hid his face by staring out the window on his side of the Land Rover.

  “We’re going to see Willie,” Cork told him. “I figured you might want to talk to him alone before he turns himself in. Everything’ll get hard after that.”

  Broom kept his face to the window. “Drive,” he said.

  When they reached Willie Crane’s cabin, there was a light on inside and the Jeep was parked in front. They stood on the doorstep with snowflakes wetting their faces, but when Cork knocked, no one answered.

  “Willie?” he called. He tried the knob and pushed the cabin door open. “Willie, it’s Cork O’Connor. I’ve brought Isaiah with me.”

  “Was he expecting us?” Broom asked.

  “Not exactly. He wanted some time to get things ready before he turned himself in. I figured he’d be here.”

  But the cabin was empty. On the table where Willie ate his meals lay a sheet of paper printed with text, and at the bottom was Willie Crane’s signature. Cork picked it up and read it. A full explanation of the killing of Jubal Little. A signed confession. There was also a note to Cork on a separate sheet of paper. It said simply, “With Winona.”

  Broom read the confession and the note. He walked to one of the windows overlooking the lake that backed the cabin. “There’s a fire on the shore,” he said, and he turned and quickly went outside.

  Cork followed, and they stumbled through the dark along the path where a couple of days earlier Willie had led Cork on a wild-goose chase in search of Winona. They came to the place in the lee of the great rock where the earlier fire had been kindled, and a more recent fire had also burned. The flames were slowly dying. Willie had been there but was gone.

  Broom turned to the black hole that was the lake. “Willie!” he cried desperately. “Willie!”

  Cork stood beside him, thinking how, long ago, Willie Crane had saved his good friend’s life. Thinking how Isaiah Broom, in trying to take the blame for Jubal’s murder, had done his best to repay that debt. Thinking, too, that, in their lives, Willie Crane and Isaiah Broom had been blessed by their great friendship. Thinking of Jubal Little, who’d done his best to have Cork killed. And thinking, finally, that for a big man with such huge ambition, Jubal had had a very small heart.

  “He’s gone, Isaiah,” Cork said.

  Broom turned to him, and the Shinnob’s cheeks were cut by streams of tears that glistened in the light of the dying fire. “Where?”

  “He told me that, when he died, he wanted to be left out there.” Cork nodded toward the deep forest that began on the far side of the lake. “He wanted to become a part of all that beauty. Wherever he is, he’s with Winona, and I doubt that we’ll find them.”

  The snow had begun falling in earnest, thick as ash from some all-consuming fire.

  “We should go,” Cork said.

  “I want to stay for a while.”

  “I have to leave, Isaiah.”

  “Then leave.”

  “Long wal
k home.”

  Isaiah Broom said, “I know.”

  EPILOGUE

  Snow had fallen the night before, not deep, but enough to coat the ground. A hunter’s snow. As they came across Lake Nanaboozhoo, the sun was just rising, and the eastern sky, clear now, was a deep russet, the color of oak leaves in the fall. Above the distant shoreline, the top of Trickster’s Point caught the first light of day, and it reminded Cork of a finger dipped in old blood.

  The air was cool. A low white mist lay on the water, and the canoes glided through as if touching nothing but air. Cork had the stern, Rainy the bow. In the stern of the other canoe, Stephen dug his paddle into the lake easily and almost without sound. Up front, despite his age, Meloux kept pace just as smoothly.

  When they reached the far side, the whole upper half of Trickster’s Point was lit with morning sunlight, which by now had turned gold, and the tops of the trees looked bathed in honey. They pulled the canoes onto shore and tipped them and laid the paddles against the upturned hulls. Without a word, they began to thread their way through the trees, following the same path, more or less, that Cork and Jubal Little had followed only a week before. They said nothing to one another as they walked, and the only sound was the soft crush of their boot soles on the thin crust of snow.

  They broke from the trees, and Trickster’s Point rose above them, and for a moment, Cork’s heart beat faster, as he remembered all the death he’d been a part of there. But all that death was, in fact, the reason they’d come.

  Meloux had brought his bandolier bag, an ancient accoutrement made of ornately beaded deerskin. At the base of the great monolith, he slid the bag from his shoulder, opened it, and drew out a small leather pouch filled with tobacco.

  “Stephen,” he said and held the tobacco pouch toward Cork’s son.

  Stephen seemed surprised and pleased. He took it, loosened the drawstring, and dipped his thumb and index finger inside. He pulled out a pinch of tobacco and offered it to the East, the first of the four grandfathers. Then he turned clockwise and made an offering to each of the other grandfathers: South, West, and North. He let a pinch fall to the ground where he stood, as an offering to Mother Earth, and finally tossed a bit in the air as an offering to the Great Spirit above.