Copper River

  “Did you pay for the room with a credit card?”

  “Cash, from the roll you gave me.”

  “But you used the cell phone to call her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me see it.”

  Cork handed it over.

  “When did you buy this?”

  “Couple of months ago. Replacement for the one that got broken when we busted a meth lab near Yellow Lake.”

  She popped the face off the phone, studied the guts, and said, “Uh-huh.”

  “What?”

  “I think I know how they found you. E911 capable.”

  E911. Cork understood. Many new cell phones were equipped with a chip that, when the unit was turned on, broadcast a continuous GPS signal that was accessible if you knew the phone’s unique chip code. This allowed emergency personnel to locate someone who either didn’t know where they were or couldn’t relay that information. It had other, less publicized uses. It was possible for law enforcement to track suspects or known criminals using the chip’s signal. Also, some cell phone companies documented their customers’ activities on a continuous basis, logging information that might be of interest to a corporation wanting to know, for example, how many Starbucks someone hit in the course of a normal week. Anyone with the right money and proper connections would have had no trouble at all tracking Cork to a dingy motel in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

  “Christ, why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Have you used the phone up here at all?” Dina asked.

  He shook his head. “The bullet killed it.”

  “Good.”

  She tossed it to him and he set it back on the windowsill. “Here.” She took a cell from the pocket of her jacket and gave it to him. “Use this.”

  “This one can’t be tracked?”

  “Whenever I buy a cell phone for myself or my operatives, the first thing I do is disable the chip.”

  “Thanks,” Cork said. He punched in the number for Captain Ed Larson’s office at the Aurora County Sheriff’s Department. “Ed, it’s Cork.”

  “Where the hell are you?” Larson’s voice faded in and out over the phone, the connection tenuous.

  “Best you don’t know, Ed. Jacoby’s put a price on my head.”

  “I heard. I talked with Jo a little bit ago. You should call her. She’s worried sick.”

  “I called her once and it turned out bad. I won’t call her again. If these guys know I’m in touch with her, I’m afraid they might try using her to get to me, understand?”

  “Yeah. Look, I think you’ve got trouble here, too. We got a call last night from one of your neighbors. Someone was sneaking around your house. Dispatched a cruiser and the guy ran. Somebody thinking you came back to Aurora to hide, maybe?”

  “That’s my guess. Jesus, these guys are everywhere.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “Hanging in there. Dina Willner’s with me, so I’ve got backup.”

  “That’s good.”

  “We’ve been talking things over, trying to figure our next move, but we’re working in the dark. Tell me what’s going on with the Jacoby murders.”

  “We’ve had a couple of breaks. First off, we picked up some teenagers joyriding in a car they admitted stealing. It matches the description of the vehicle at Mercy Falls the night Eddie Jacoby was murdered. The kids claimed they took it from a small airfield near Biwabik where it had been parked for several days. Turned out to be a rental. Under the front seat, we found lip gloss manufactured in Argentina.”

  “Gabriella Jacoby is from Argentina.”

  “Bingo. We’re checking the prints against the ones she submitted when she applied for citizenship here. If they match, we may be able to prove she was in Minnesota when she claimed to be sailing on Lake Michigan with her brother Tony.”

  “Who rented the vehicle?”

  “It came from an agency at the Duluth airport three days before Jacoby was murdered. A phony ID and credit card were used, but the rental agent, a young woman apparently much impressed with Tony Salguero’s swarthy Latin American ways, identified him from a photo. Salguero used the same credit card to purchase a roundtrip airline ticket from Chicago to Duluth.”

  “He set it up ahead of time, flew out with Gabriella in his private plane; they killed Eddie and flew back in time to be on their boat next morning,” Cork said. “Probably planned to return the car when things settled down, only the kids got there first.”

  “Everything points in that direction. We have motive —the insurance and inheritance money—and opportunity. And don’t forget we have Arlo Knuth, who’ll testify about the Spanish-speaking couple he saw at Mercy Falls the night Eddie was stabbed. We don’t have every nail in place yet, but we’re getting there, Cork.”

  “What about Ben Jacoby’s murder?”

  “Winnetka PD tells me they’ve got a shoe print. When Ben Jacoby was shot in his pool, you and Dina were covering the front of the estate. The only way for the killer to make a getaway was through the back gate down to the lakeshore. There was a heavy dew that morning, made the sand wet and compact. It held tracks. The only tracks on the beach that early in the morning came from a sport shoe. Fila, size ten and a half. Coincidentally, Salguero’s shoe size. Winnetka’s working on a warrant right now to search his place for a shoe that matches the prints.”

  “All good news,” Cork said. “But still nothing that pins them solid. Look, Ed, I’d bet it was Salguero who did the actual killings. Gabriella has children, two young sons. That makes her vulnerable. What if Winnetka PD brought her in and sweated her. She might be inclined to roll over on Salguero in exchange for a deal that wouldn’t keep her away from her boys forever.”

  “I’ll talk to them about it.”

  “Thanks, Ed. All this is good to hear. If you need to get in touch with me, call Dina’s cell phone number.” He gave it to Larson and ended the call.

  “Well?” she said.

  He explained what he’d learned.

  Dina slipped the phone back into her jacket pocket. “Even if they arrest Gabriella, Lou might not call off the hit. I’ve worked a lot of jobs for him over the years, and Lou’s one stubborn son of a bitch. No matter what the evidence, he might decide not to believe his darling daughter-in-law had a hand in killing his sons.” Dina yawned and stretched. “I need a shower. And a good cup of coffee. Where the hell is Ren? How long does it take to get a latte and get back here?”

  “You know kids. They dawdle.”

  Dina flipped on the light switch in the bathroom and glanced around. “As a matter of fact, I don’t know kids. They scare me. They’re like something I see at the zoo. And as long as they stay on their side of the bars, I do fine. Okay if I use your shower?”

  Before Cork could answer, he heard the growl of the engine as the ATV bounced up the lane from the county road. “Speak of the devil.”

  “Latte and a kolache,” Dina said eagerly.

  She went to the front door and opened it. Cork felt a cool draft of late morning air rush into the cabin.

  The ATV stopped outside. Dina stepped back abruptly, and Ren stumbled past her looking as if he’d been chased by a monster. He spoke in gasps.

  “He’s … he’s … dead.”

  “Whoa,” Dina said. “Who’s dead?”

  Ren’s eyes swung from Cork to Dina then back to Cork. They were wide and wet-looking. “Charlie’s … father.”

  “How do you know?” Cork asked. He pushed himself into a sitting position.

  “I saw him.”

  Dina came around Ren so that she could look into his face, too. “Where?”

  “At their trailer. I was just there. Somebody beat his head in.”

  Cork swung his legs off the bunk, ignoring the pain of his wounds. “Where’s Charlie?”

  “I don’t know. She wasn’t there.”

  Cork stood up and limped to the boy. With some difficulty, he knelt and put his hands gently on Ren’s shoulders. “Take a deep breath. Okay, an
other. Now, tell me everything from the beginning.”

  Ren told it all, from his stop at the Farber House to the red jellyfish on the wall of Charlie’s bedroom to the dead man lying on the floor with his head beat to mush.

  “The baseball bat was right beside him,” Ren said, choking a little on the words. “It was Charlie’s bat. It was, like, the nicest present her dad ever gave her.”

  “You’re sure he was dead, Ren?” Dina asked.

  “His head … I could see his brains sticking out.” He squeezed his eyes shut, as if that would block the image.

  Cork said, “We need to tell the police, Ren. And we need to call your mother. She should be with you. Okay?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Give me your cell phone, Dina. What’s her number at the clinic, Ren?”

  Cork spoke with someone who told him Jewell was out on a call. Ren gave him her cell phone number and he tried that, but she was out of the service area. He handed the phone back to Dina.

  “We shouldn’t wait,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “I’ll go with him,” Dina volunteered. “Would that be all right, Ren?”

  He considered her a moment. “Okay.”

  Cork said, “Is there a police department in Bodine?”

  “Yeah. There’s the constable. Ned Hodder.”

  Dina put her hand on Ren’s shoulder. “Let’s start with him.”

  “Wait,” Cork said. “This is risky. You’re a stranger here. That’ll raise questions.”

  Dina thought a moment. “What if I were a relative? Mind having an aunt Donna, Ren?”

  “Donna?” Ren said.

  “For a little while, I’ll be Donna Walport. It’s a name I use sometimes when I don’t want people to know my real name. I have a few of those.”

  “Like an alias?”

  “I prefer to think of it as a cover name.”

  “Aunt Donna,” Ren said, trying it out. “That’s all right with me.”

  Cork wasn’t thrilled, but he didn’t see another way. “Stay close to her, Ren, and follow her lead. And be careful what you say.”

  “I will,” the boy promised.

  “Don’t worry,” Dina said. “We’ll be fine.”

  But he did worry. He watched them go knowing there was a great gulf between what Ren bravely believed he was capable of and what the reality of the situation might force on him. The boy would have to walk a tough line, holding to the truth here, embracing a lie there, all under the cold eye of people with badges and uniforms. It was a lot to ask. Not many adults could pull it off.

  Except that Ren had something most others did not. He had Aunt Donna.

  12

  The constable’s office was on Harbor Avenue, sandwiched between the Ace Hardware store and Kitty’s Café. An old, narrow, redbrick one-story, it had a desk area up front and two holding cells in back accessed through a heavy metal door. Ren had been in the jail area before. His mother and Constable Ned Hodder were old friends, and Ned had once locked Ren in one of the cells to give him a sense of what it was like to be incarcerated. Ren was just a kid; it had been a kick. That was before his father was murdered and cops became the enemy. Ren wasn’t even certain his mother had spoken to Ned Hodder since his father’s death.

  They parked Ren’s ATV in front of the building and walked inside. The constable was at his desk, writing in a small lined notebook. As soon as the door swung open, he shut the notebook and put it away in the top desk drawer. When he saw Ren, a big smile dawned on his face.

  “And here I thought it was going to be just another boring Sunday.” He stood up.

  In his video collection, Stash had a movie called Anatomy of a Murder that Ren had watched with him one rainy Saturday. The movie was pretty good. It had been filmed not far from Bodine and starred a guy named James Stewart, apparently a big-deal actor in his day. The constable reminded Ren of that guy. Ned Hodder was more than six feet tall and lean. For an adult—and a cop on top of it—he had an easygoing approach to most things. He was straight when he spoke to you, though he sometimes stumbled around for the right words. And every feature of his plain face seemed to tell you that he wouldn’t lie to you even if his life depended on it.

  Every year Hodder confiscated the illegal fireworks that folks brought with them when they came up from Wisconsin, where such things were legal. He stored them in a locker in the basement beneath his office. Every Fourth of July, just after sunset, he enlisted the help of the town fire marshal and, in Dunning Park right on the lake, set off all those pyrotechnics to the delight of most everybody in Bodine.

  Last summer, he’d arrested two members of a band playing at the Logjam Saloon for urinating in public. They were young musicians without a lot of money, so he’d offered them a deal. In lieu of a night in the city jail, the band put on a free concert in Dunning Park. It turned out they knew a lot of old swing tunes, and folks ended up dancing on the grass and having a fine time. Ren was there with his mother, and it was one of the few instances since his father died that he’d seen her look happy.

  Hodder came from behind his desk and extended his hand toward Dina. “Don’t believe I know you. I’m Ned Hodder. How do you do?”

  “Fine, thanks. I’m Ren’s aunt. Donna Walport. Ren here has something pretty awful he needs to tell you.”

  “That so?” Hodder bent a little in Ren’s direction and looked serious. “What is it?”

  “Charlie’s father,” Ren blurted. “He’s dead.”

  “Max? Dead?” The constable straightened up. “What makes you think so?”

  “I saw him.”

  “Where?”

  “At their trailer, a little while ago.”

  “How do you know he’s dead?”

  Ren began to shiver. “Somebody, like, smashed his head in.”

  “Where’s Charlie?”

  “I don’t know. She wasn’t there.” He went on shivering. He couldn’t stop.

  “A little while ago, you say. How long?”

  “Half an hour.”

  Hodder put a large comforting hand on Ren’s shoulder. “You mind going back there with me?”

  Ren didn’t like the idea at all, but he said, “I won’t go inside.”

  “I won’t make you, I promise.”

  “All right.”

  Hodder looked at Dina again. “Ren’s aunt, you said. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen you here before.”

  “My dad’s sister,” Ren put in quickly. “She lives in San Francisco. I never get to see her. She’s visiting us for a few days.”

  “Ren’s mom is at work,” Dina went on smoothly. “I didn’t think he should come here alone. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go with you. Be there for Ren, you know?”

  Hodder thought it over briefly, finally shrugged. “I guess that would be all right.”

  They took the constable’s black Cherokee, which looked to be quite a few miles past warranty. Ren sat huddled in back. He didn’t want to be going where they were going, but he hoped it might help Charlie somehow. Hodder asked him some questions on the way: why he’d been at the trailer, how he’d got inside, if he had any idea where Charlie might be. He pulled into the weedy gravel drive and parked behind the old Toyota pickup that belonged to Charlie’s father. He turned off the engine and said, “Wait here.”

  “Constable?”

  He turned to Dina.

  “Do you ever carry a weapon?” She nodded toward his empty belt.

  “Not generally. I keep a shotgun in the trunk, but honestly I’ve never had occasion to use it. I carry a pocketknife that comes in handy once in a while.”

  “Uh-huh.” She raised an eyebrow and nodded, as if she found his approach rather quaint. “Have you ever been at a murder scene?”

  “How do you know it’s murder?”

  “You think he bashed his own head in?”

  “I’ve never been at a murder scene,” he admitted.

  Hodder got out and approached the trailer with caution
, turning his head as he scanned each window in front, looking, Ren supposed, for some movement out of place in a trailer home with only a dead man inside. He mounted the steps and reached for the screen door.

  “Constable,” Dina called from the Cherokee. “You might want to put on gloves before you touch anything. At least, that’s what they do in the movies.”

  Hodder glanced at his bare hands, then at the door handle. He pulled his pocketknife from the pouch that hung on his belt and unfolded the blade, which he used to open the door. He disappeared inside.

  “Andy Griffith,” Dina said with a shake of her head.

  “Who?” Ren asked.

  “Forget it.”

  He looked at her thoughtfully. “Have you ever been to a murder scene? I mean in your work and stuff?”

  “I’ll let you in on a secret, Ren. I used to be with the FBI.”

  “FBI?”

  “Yep.”

  “But not anymore.”

  “Nope.”

  “Why?”

  “Long story.” She’d been staring intently at the trailer, but now her intense green eyes settled on Ren, and he felt himself grow warm under their scrutiny. “Why don’t we talk about it over a beer sometime.”

  It took a moment for the smile to grow on her lips, and then he understood it was a joke and he smiled, too.

  “I’ll buy,” he said, feeling good, feeling special.

  Then he looked back at the trailer and stopped smiling.

  “Have you seen people who were murdered?” he asked.

  “Yes. And it’s always ugly and upsetting, even for cops.”

  Hodder came back out and walked to Dina’s side of the Cherokee. “Ms. Walport, there’s a cell phone in my glove box there. Would you mind handing it to me?” He took it and punched in 911. “This is Constable Hodder in Bodine. I’ve got what appears to be a homicide on my hands.” He gave the address, listened a moment, and said, “I’ll be here.”

  Detective Sergeant Terry Olafsson of the Marquette County Sheriff’s office had a wide, ruddy face. He was sandy-haired, not much taller than Dina Willner, but with a broad chest. He wore a red windbreaker with the sleeves pulled up to his elbows. Veins ran across the hard muscles of his forearms like thin ropes against smooth wood.