Three-time Anthony Award–winning author William Kent Krueger has “moved to the head of the crime fiction class” (Chicago Sun-Times) with his gripping series featuring Sheriff Cork O’Connor. In Copper River,
Cork is running for his life—and straight into a murderous conspiracy involving teenage runaways.
Desperately avoiding the clutches of professional hit men who have already put a bullet in his leg, Cork finds sanctuary outside the small Michigan town of Bodine. But while he’s hiding out in an old resort owned by his cousin Jewell DuBois, a bitter widow with a fourteen-year-old son named Ren, the body of a young girl surfaces along the banks of the Copper River—and then another teenager vanishes. Instead of thwarting his assassins, Cork focuses on tracking a ring of killers who prey on innocent children—before anyone else falls victim. But as his deadly followers close in, Cork realizes he’s made an error any good man might make—and it may be his last.
“Believable, complicated characters and strong writing…. Sympathetic and moving.” —The Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
“This series gets darker and more elegantly written with every book.” —Booklist
William Kent Krueger is the award-winning author of eleven Cork O’Connor novels, including the New York Times bestsellers Vermilion Drift and Northwest Angle. All are available from Atria Books. He lives in the Twin Cities with his family.
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REVIEWERS LOVE WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER’S AWARD-WINNING CORK O’CONNOR THRILLERS
“The Cork O’Connor mysteries are known for their rich characterizations and their complex stories with deep moral and emotional cores. If you don’t know Cork O’Connor, get to know him now.”
—Booklist
“William Kent Krueger has one of the most fresh and authentic voices in crime fiction.”
—S. J. Rozan, Edgar Award—winning author
“Superior series. Like sweet corn and the state fair, William Kent Krueger’s novels are an annual summer highlight.”
—Minnesota Monthly
CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR COPPER RIVER
Winner of the 2006 Minnesota Book Award for Best Genre Fiction
Honorable Mention for the 2007 Minnesota Booksellers Choice Award for Fiction
“A riveting thriller rich in character, incident, insight, textured plotting, and evocative prose that captures the lore and rhythms of life—and the pain and sadness of death—in America’s heartland. It’s a novel to be savored, and one that makes the reader eager for the next installment.”
—Bill Pronzini, award-winning author of the Nameless Detective series
“Minnesota has become a hotbed of hard-boiled crime fiction, and the Cork O’Connor novels are among the best.”
—Booklist
“As in his previous novels, the author deftly presents the reader with wonderfully drawn, intensely believable characters…. Krueger writes most extraordinary books.”
—Reviewing the Evidence
MORE PRAISE FOR WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER’S CORK O’CONNOR NOVELS
RED KNIFE
“One of those hometown heroes you rarely see … someone so decent and true, he might restore his town’s battered faith in the old values.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“The atmosphere is as explosive as tinder…. A talented writer, Krueger tells his story from wide-ranging viewpoints.”
—The Boston Globe
“Outstanding…. Simply and elegantly told, this sad story of loyalty and honor, corruption and hatred, hauntingly carves utterly convincing characters into the consciousness.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“You can smell the north woods in every chapter.”
—St. Paul Pioneer Press
“Krueger keeps readers guessing in this page-turner, and it’s a joy to read his easy prose.”
—Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
“Colorful characters, spot-on sense of place.”
—Kirkus Reviews
THUNDER BAY
“The deftly plotted seventh Cork O’Connor novel represents a return to top form for Anthony-winner Krueger…. The action builds to a violent and satisfying denouement.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The cast of characters is vivid, the plotting is strong, and O’Connor’s retirement gets off to the kind of start that usually marks the launching of a career. It’s great fun.”
—Washington Times
“[Krueger] has a knack for taking us into the woods and losing us in a good story.”
—Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, SD)
“Exciting and gripping…. You will burn through this book, relishing the twists and turns.”
—Bookreporter.com
“Krueger’s clean writing and deeply felt sense of place make this novel a standout. Read it for the American Indian lore and a trip to the deep woods that requires no mosquito repellent.”
—Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
“Thunder Bay is William Kent Krueger’s finest work. A strong story with a fast-beating heart, this is the kind of novel that will bring many new readers knocking on Cork O’Connor’s door. Count me as one of them.”
—Michael Connelly, New York Times bestselling author
ALSO BY WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER
Northwest Angle
Vermilion Drift
Heaven’s Keep
Red Knife
Thunder Bay
Mercy Falls
Blood Hollow
The Devil’s Bed
Purgatory Ridge
Boundary Waters
Iron Lake
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2006 by William Kent Krueger
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
This Atria Paperback edition August 2009
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ISBN 978-1-4391-5781-7
ISBN 978-0-7432-9365-5 (ebook)
To my grandson Aiden Alan Buchholz,
with the hope that life smiles on him kindly.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Chapter
1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For all the help I’m given when writing a book, a simple thank-you never seems enough, but I’m hoping it will do.
To Michelle Basham I offer not only my thanks for her guidance in understanding the tragic situation of the lost and forgotten children alone on America’s streets, but also my profound admiration for her own unselfish efforts to establish Avenues for Homeless Youth (formerly Project Foundation).
Thanks to Barbara Klick of the University of Minnesota Veterinary Medical Clinic, who gave me a lot of wonderful information and insight into the working life and ethics of veterinarians.
Thank you to the people of Marquette and Big Bay, Michigan, who told me stories only the locals know.
As always, I owe a huge debt to the members of Crème de la Crime for their support, encouragement, camaraderie, and critique. You guys are the best.
Finally, should you ever find yourself in St. Paul, Minnesota, be sure to stop by the St. Clair Broiler, where this and every book that bears my name has been written. Beneath the historic neon flame you’ll find good coffee, great food, and the comfort that comes from the company of truly fine folks.
1
Henry Meloux, the old Ojibwe Mide, might tell the story this way.
He might begin by saying that the earth is alive, that all things on it—water, air, plants, rocks, even dead trees—have spirit. In the absence of wind, the grass still trembles. On days when the clouds are dense as gray wool, flowers still understand how to track the sun. Trees, when they bend, whisper to one another. In such a community of spirits, nothing goes unnoticed. Would not the forest, therefore, know that a child is about to die?
She is fourteen years, nine months, twenty-seven days old. She has never had a period, never had a boyfriend, never even had a real date. She has never eaten in a restaurant more formal than McDonald’s. She has never seen a city larger than Marquette, Michigan.
She cannot remember a night when she wasn’t awakened by nightmares, some dreamed, many horribly real. She cannot remember a day she was happy, although she has always been hopeful that she might find happiness, discover it like a diamond in the dust at her feet. Through all the horror of her life, she has, miraculously, held to that hope.
Until now.
Now, though she is only fourteen, she is about to die. And she knows it.
Somewhere among the trees below her, the man she calls Scorpio is coming for her.
She cringes behind a pile of brush in the middle of a clear-cut hillside studded with stumps like gravestones. The morning sun has just climbed above the tops of the poplar trees that outline the clearing. The chill bite of autumn is in the air. From where she crouches high on the hill, she can see the gleam of Lake Superior miles to the north. The great inland sea beckons, and she imagines sailing away on all that empty blue, alone on a boat taking her toward a place where someone waits for her and worries, a place she has never been.
She shivers violently. Before fleeing, she grabbed a thin brown blanket, which she wrapped around her shoulders. Her feet are bare, gone numb in the long, cold night. They bleed, wounded during her flight through the woods, but she no longer feels any pain. They’ve become stones at the end of her ankles.
In the trees far below, a dog barks, cracking the morning calm. The girl focuses on a place two hundred yards distant where, half an hour earlier, she’d emerged from the forest and started to climb the logged-over hillside. An hour after dawn, Scorpio’s dog had begun baying. When she heard the hungry sound, she knew he’d got hold of her scent. What little hope she’d held to melted instantly. After that, it was a frantic run trying to stay ahead.
Scorpio steps from the shadow of the trees. He’s like a whip, thin and cruel and electric in the sunlight. She can see the glint off the blue barrel of the rifle he cradles. Snatch, his black and tan German shepherd, pads before him, nose to the earth, tracking her through the graveyard of stumps. Scorpio scans the hillside above. She thinks she can see him smile, a gash of white.
There is no sense in hiding now. In a few minutes, Scorpio will be on her. Grasshopper quick, she pops from the blind of brush and sprints toward the hilltop. Her senseless feet thud against the hard earth. She lets the blanket fall to the ground, leaves it behind her. Starved for sunlight, the skin of her face and arms looks bleached. Beneath her thin, dirty T-shirt her breasts are barely formed, but the small, fleshy mounds rise and fall dramatically as she sucks air in desperate gasps. Behind her, the dog begins a furious barking. He has seen the prey.
She crests the hill and comes to a dead end. Before her the ground falls away, a sheer drop two hundred feet to a river that’s a rush of white water between jagged rocks. There is no place left to run. She casts a frenzied eye back. Scorpio lopes toward her with Snatch in the lead. To her left and right, there is only the ragged lip of the cut across the hill.
Only one way for her to go now: down.
The face of the cliff below is a rugged profile offering handholds and small ledges. There are also tufts of brush that cling tenaciously to the stone, rooted in tiny fissures. She spies a shelf ten feet below, barely wider than her foot, but it is enough. She kneels and lowers herself over the edge. Clinging to the brush and the rough knobs of stone that punctuate the cliff, she begins her descent.
The rock scrapes her skin, leaves her arms bleeding. Her toes stretch for a foothold but, numbed, feel almost nothing. Weakened by an ordeal that has gone on longer than she can remember, her strength threatens to fail her, but she does not give up. She has never given up. Whatever the horror in front of her, she has always faced it and pushed ahead. This moment is no different. She wills a place to stand. Her feet find support, a few inches of flat rock on which she eases herself down.
“Come on, sweet thing. Come on back up.”
Scorpio’s voice is reasonable, almost comforting. She lifts her face. He’s smiling, bone-white teeth between thin, bloodless lips. Beside him, the dog snarls and snaps, foam dripping from his purple gums.
“Hush!” Scorpio orders. “Sit.”
Snatch obeys.
“Come on, now. Time to end this foolishness.”
He lays down his rifle, bends low, and offers his hand.
In the quiet while she considers, she presses herself to the cliff where the stone still holds the cold of night. She can hear far below the hiss and roiling of the white water.
“We’ll go back to the cabin,” Scorpio says. “Have a little breakfast. Bet you’re hungry. Now, doesn’t that sound better than running over these woods, ruining those pretty little feet, freezing your ass off?”
He bends lower. His outstretched hand pushes nearer, a hand that has offere
d only humiliation and pain. On his wrist is a tattoo, a large black scorpion, the reason for the name she has given him in her thinking. She eyes his hairy knuckles, then looks into his face, which at the moment appears deceptively human.
“Think about it. You find a place to perch on that cliff, then what? It’s not so bad out here right now. Sun’s up, air’s calm. But tonight it’ll be close to freezing. That means you, too. You want to freeze to death? Hell, it doesn’t matter anyway. I’ll just leave old Snatch here to make sure you don’t climb back up, go get me some rope, and come down there to get you. But I guarantee if I have to do that, I won’t be in a forgiving mood. So what do you say?”
Not taking her eyes off him, she seeks a foothold farther down, somewhere out of his reach, but she cannot feel her toes. Finally, she risks a glance below her. In that instant, Scorpio’s hand locks around her wrist.
“Got you.”
He’s strong, his grip powerful. He drags her kicking up the face of the rock. She struggles, screams as he wraps his arms around her. The dog dances back from the edge, barking crazily. Scorpio’s breath smells of tobacco and coffee, but there’s another smell coming off him, familiar and revolting. The musk odor of his sex.
“Oh, little darling,” he croons, “am I going to make you pay.”
She puts all her desperation, all her remaining strength, into one last effort, a violent twist that breaks her loose, sends her tumbling backward over the cliff.
The world spins. First there is blue sky, then white water, then blue sky again. She closes her eyes and spreads her arms. Suddenly she isn’t falling but flying. The wind streams across her skin. Her held breath fills her like a smooth balloon. She is weightless.
For one glorious moment in her short, unhappy life, she is absolutely free.
Meloux would finish gently, pointing out, perhaps, that the fall of the smallest robin is known to the spirits of the earth, that no death goes unnoticed or un-mourned, that the river has simply been waiting, and like a mother she has opened wide her arms.
2
Renoir DuBois kept his heart in his bedroom closet, hidden in a Nike shoe box.