Parmer didn’t say a lot, but what he did say got an enthusiastic response. “This is a proud day for me, and this should be a proud day for all of you as well. Those of you who know the history of the Northern Lights development know that the vision has changed significantly in the last six months. Originally what we planned was to alter the shoreline of your beautiful lake by constructing condominiums rising almost at the water’s edge. Which would have been pretty nice for the folks who bought condos, but not good at all for anyone else here. That’s not what’s going to happen now. Now, all the structures will be set back from the lake and the land between will be left pretty much as God created it, full of natural grass and wildflowers. Northern Lights is meant to add to the community and to take nothing from the beauty that has always been a part of this incredible North Country of yours.
“You have one man to thank for this change of heart—Cork O’Connor. I’ve worked closely with him for six months now, and let me tell you, when this man digs in his heels, ain’t nuthin’ gonna budge him. He refused to give in to any blueprint that would damage the lakeshore. He got his way, folks. And not only that, he got to keep Sam’s Place, which we all know serves the best burgers anywhere in the great North Woods.” This was met with a nice round of applause. Then Parmer went on. “The work of building the Northern Lights development will be done by men and women hired locally. It will contribute in every way to the growth of your economy, to the welfare of your citizens, and to the attractiveness of your community. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a solid-gold promise from Hugh Parmer.”
Cork spoke next, said as little as he possibly could and still do the occasion justice.
A few others spoke, and then the band returned and the celebration went on. Cork shook a lot of hands, and finally he and Stephen and Parmer headed back to Sam’s Place.
At the limo, Cork said to Parmer, “You have plans for dinner?”
“Nothing I can’t change. Why?”
“Stephen insists he’s going to catch enough walleye to feed us tonight. If he does, I promised him I’d fry ’em up. If he doesn’t, he’s responsible for the backup plan. What do you say?”
“Hell, I win either way. What can I bring?”
“Yourself. But leave the damn limo behind.”
“It’s a deal. You sticking around?”
“Yeah,” Cork said. “I’m giving my staff a hand. We’re doing a land office business today.”
“What about you, Stephen?” Parmer said.
“I could use a ride back.”
“Done.” Parmer looked at the crowd and nodded his approval. “A fine day for us all, Cork.”
“Amen,” Cork said.
He started toward Sam’s Place but stopped halfway when he heard his name called. From the milling of people, two women separated themselves and walked toward him. Cork didn’t recognize either one. It was almost noon, and he stood in the warm sunlight, waiting, smiling at them both, with no idea of how dramatically they were about to change his life.
NINETEEN
The woman who spoke first had an intense, intelligent face, dark eyes that reminded Cork of ink drops on tissue, long black hair, and a figure that got his notice.
“Mr. O’Connor, my name is Liz Burns. This is Rebecca Bodine.” She pronounced the last name “Bo-dyne.”
Cork shook hands. “A pleasure to meet you both.”
“We have something important to discuss with you,” Burns said. “I wonder if there’s somewhere we can talk, in private.”
“Now?”
“If it’s convenient.”
Cork glanced at the long lines in front of the two serving windows. “Will this take long?”
Burns said, “I know you’re busy, but when you hear what we have to say, you’ll understand why it can’t wait.”
“All right. This way.” Cork led them to the door of the Quonset hut and stood aside so they could enter. He came after them and closed the door. “Have a seat.” He indicated the two chairs at the table. He went into the serving area, grabbed an empty stool, told Judy he would be in to help as soon as he could, and returned to the rear of Sam’s Place. He set the stool at the table. “Can I offer you something to drink? Coffee, soda?”
“Thank you, no,” Burns said.
“Well, then.” Cork sat on the stool and looked from one woman to the other. The noise from the band and from the crowd came in through the open windows, the distracting sound of revelry. “Just a minute.” He went around the room, sliding the windows closed. “That’s better.” He sat on the stool again. “So.”
Burns said, “When I introduced you to Becca, did her name mean anything to you, Mr. O’Connor?”
“Call me Cork. And no, it doesn’t ring any bells. Should it?”
“Becca?” Burns nodded her encouragement for the woman to speak.
“Mr. O’Connor—Cork . . .” The Bodine woman faltered. It reminded Cork of when his children were young and confessed to something worthy of punishment. She gathered herself and went on. “My husband’s name was Clinton. Everyone called him Sandy.”
Cork had been leaning toward her, smiling his encouragement, trying to let her know he wasn’t someone she had to fear. But when he heard the name, he sat back and everything in him went stony.
Burns said, “That name means something. The pilot of the plane your wife was on.”
“What do you want?” Cork said.
“To talk to you and to show you something.”
“What could we possibly have to talk about?”
“I’m a lawyer, Cork,” Burns said. “And I’m Becca’s friend.”
“You’re representing her?”
He was speaking of the wrongful death suit that had been brought against her husband’s estate because of his drinking the night before the plane went missing.
“Not technically.”
“What is it you want?”
“Everyone who lost someone on that plane is a party to the lawsuit, everyone except you, Cork.”
“Believe me, it’s not because I don’t hold Sandy Bodine responsible for the death of my wife.”
“Why then?”
“I don’t owe you, or you,” he said, looking pointedly at the Bodine woman, “an explanation. I think we’re at the end of our conversation.” He stood up.
“Please,” Becca Bodine said. “Please, just listen.”
He’d struggled to get past his grief, to let go of his yearning for Jo, to begin to move on. He’d thought he’d done it. Now here it was again, threatening him in the form of a woman with a fearful look on her face and tears in her eyes.
“Goddamn it,” he said. “You want to know why I’m not part of that lawsuit? I’ll tell you why. I sold all that land out there for a million dollars. I don’t need the money from a lawsuit. And I don’t need the pain of dredging up the past and having it dropped in my lap again. And—” He broke off and turned away and stormed across the room. He stared out the window at the people and the colorful balloons.
“And what?” Burns said.
“I hate lawsuits. Nobody wins in the end except the lawyers. And, hell, the last thing we need is Indians suing Indians.”
“You can help that not happen,” Burns said quietly.
“Yeah? How?”
“Tell him, Becca.”
“Mr. O’Connor—”
“It’s Cork, goddamn it.”
The Bodine woman sat back as if he’d hit her. Then she gathered herself and threw her next words like punches. “My husband wasn’t a drunk. My husband wasn’t irresponsible. My husband was a good, loving, hardworking man. And he didn’t kill your wife or anyone else.”
“Go sell it to Disneyland, Ms. Bodine, because that’s the only place your fantasy might come true.”
“You . . . you . . . you son of a bitch!” She stood and flew across the room. Her open hands rammed into Cork’s chest and she shoved him powerfully backward.
“Becca!” Burns leaped to her feet.
&n
bsp; “Why did you even think he might listen?” the Bodine woman said. “Let’s go. He won’t be any help at all.”
Burns stepped between her friend and Cork. “Will you both settle down for a moment, please? Cork, give us a chance to explain. Becca, understand that what we’re asking isn’t easy.”
“He won’t listen to what we’re asking,” the Bodine woman snapped viciously.
“What is it you’re asking?” Cork shot back with equal venom.
The door to the serving area opened, and Judy poked her head in. “Everything okay?”
“We’re fine, Judy.” Cork felt the heat of his anger passing. “We’re fine. Go on back.” He looked toward Burns. “So what is it you want?”
“We just want you to look at a videotape,” Burns said. “That’s all. Just look at a videotape.”
“Of what?”
“Of the man accused of flying drunk.”
“What’s the point?”
“When you see the tape, you’ll understand the point.”
The Bodine woman stared at him and looked perfectly willing to have another go at him. “Well?”
“You have the tape?” he asked.
“Here.” Burns went back to the table, reached into her large purse, and drew out the cassette, which she offered to Cork.
He took it and walked to the television on the stand in the corner. It was a combination TV-VCR-DVD that he sometimes used in his PI work. He hit the Power button, slid the tape into the player, and moved back to the stool where he’d been sitting. The screen was dark for a few moments, then a grainy, black-and-white image appeared. It was a long bar with ten stools. A bartender moved in the jerky way of people caught on security cameras. There were several people at the bar. The time-date in the corner told Cork the tape was shot in November, the night before Jo’s plane went down. The bartender turned to reach for a bottle on the shelves back of the bar, and a man walked up to an empty stool and sat down. He wore a ball cap with a large brim. Though Cork couldn’t see his face clearly, he recognized the man: Sandy Bodine.
“I’ve seen this tape before,” Cork said.
“All of it?” Burns asked.
“Enough.”
“Please, fifteen minutes is all we’re asking.”
Cork shut up and watched. The man drank, smoked, talked to the bartender, talked to the other customers, did all the things a man getting drunk at a bar would do. At the end of fifteen minutes, Cork said, “Okay, so what?”
“What did you see?” Burns asked.
“Exactly what I expected to see. Sandy Bodine doing what a pilot should never do the night before he flies.”
“Getting drunk.”
“Yeah. In a quarter hour, he downed two doubles of Jack Daniel’s.”
“My husband stopped drinking fifteen years ago,” the Bodine woman said. “He’s been a member of AA since. And even when he drank, he didn’t drink Jack Daniel’s.”
“Fifteen years sober?” Cork asked.
“That’s right.”
“Was he often gone overnight on his charter flights?”
“It was pretty common, yes.”
“Some men behave differently when they’re away from their families.”
“Not Sandy,” Becca Bodine replied fiercely.
“Maybe,” Cork said. “But there’s a lot to suggest that there was more to your husband than you were aware of.”
“Sandy was left-handed, Cork. Which hand does the man on the tape drink with?” Burns asked.
Cork thought a moment. “Usually his left, but occasionally his right.”
“And he smokes with his left hand, too. But sometimes, he uses his right.”
“So? He was a southpaw who sometimes was a switch-hitter.”
“My husband was left-handed period,” the Bodine woman insisted.
Burns said quietly, “It’s easy to see that you’re right-handed, Cork. Do you drink with your left hand?”
“I don’t know. Maybe sometimes.”
“Do you smoke?”
“Not anymore.”
“When you smoked, did you ever smoke with your left hand?”
“I don’t really remember.”
“And did you smoke more when you drank?”
“What difference does that make?”
“He smokes one cigarette the whole time he’s at the bar. One in two hours.”
Cork shifted his gaze to the Bodine woman. “Did your husband smoke a lot?”
“A pack a day. He gave up drinking, but he couldn’t kick cigarettes. He was happy enough to have the booze monkey off his back. Another thing. The bartender said this man bragged about his flying ability. He told everyone who’d listen that he could fly through the crack in the Statue of Liberty’s ass. My husband was a modest man. He was no braggart. He was quiet, considerate, even a little shy.”
“And did you notice that he never looks toward the camera?” Burns said. “He goes to the bathroom several times during the course of the whole tape and always keeps his head down so that the brim of the hat covers his features. The camera never has a clear shot of his face.”
“All of which leads you to the conclusion that the man at the bar isn’t Sandy Bodine?”
“He’s Sandy’s height and the same general build, but that’s not Sandy.”
Cork shook his head. “You’re grasping at straws.”
“This complete tape is nearly two hours long,” the Bodine woman said. “I’ve watched it a dozen times. Let me ask you a question, Cork. If you watched a two-hour tape of your wife, even if you never saw her face, would you know just from the way she moves, from her body language itself, that it was her?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?” She eyed him with disappointment. “Then you didn’t know your wife. I knew my husband, and that’s not him on the tape.”
“The bartender and everyone in that bar IDed him from photographs,” Cork pointed out.
“What they saw was an Indian drinking. And when they were shown a picture of my husband, they saw the same Indian. Indians all look the same to chimooks,” she said, using the Ojibwe slang term for white people. “Maybe especially to Wyoming chimooks.” She glanced away, through a window, and her dark eyes reflected the bright May sunlight outside. “Look, I stand to lose everything Sandy and I have worked for. But I don’t care about that. The truth is I lost almost everything when I lost Sandy. What I have left that means anything to me is my son. I don’t want him growing up with people telling him his father was a drunk and a murderer. I want him to know the truth.”
“And what is that?”
“That’s why we’re here,” Burns said. “We’d like your help in finding the truth.”
“Why me?”
“You’re not involved in the lawsuit. You’re a private investigator. And you have a personal stake in the truth.”
“You could hire any number of licensed PIs to do this.”
“We did. A man named Steve Stilwell.”
“Well?”
“He’s vanished. We haven’t heard anything from him in almost a week.”
“Do you know what he’d been doing?”
“He went to Wyoming for a couple of days, interviewed some people out there, the bartender and some others who gave statements. Then he came back to Rice Lake. That’s in Wisconsin. It’s where Sandy and Becca live. Sandy operated his charter out of the regional airport there. He spent some time at Sandy’s office and was scheduled to meet with us the next day. He never showed. We haven’t heard from him since.”
“Does he work for a firm?”
“No,” Burns replied. “Like you, on his own. I’ve used him before. He’s good. But now he’s absent and that worries me.”
Cork got up and walked a little, thinking. From outside, muffled by the closed windows, came the music of a fiddler on a hot riff and then the crowd exploded in applause. “Why would someone impersonate your husband?” he asked Becca Bodine.
“I’ve thought about it until
my head hurts and I don’t know. I just know someone did.”
Cork looked at the television screen, where the jerky black-and-white security tape still played. If it was Jo on that tape, even if he couldn’t see her face, he’d know it was her. He’d know it absolutely.
“Let me think about it,” he said. “Can I keep the tape?”
“Of course.”
“Are you staying in town?”
“My office is in Duluth,” Burns said. “And my home is there. Becca is staying with me for the weekend.” On the back of a business card, she wrote a telephone number. “This is my private cell phone. Call me there anytime.”
The two women stood, and Cork walked them to the door.
The Bodine woman extended her hand. “I’m sorry I got so emotional.”
“Not very Ojibwe of you,” Cork said and smiled.
She shrugged. “Modern Shinnob.”
“I’ll call you tomorrow with my answer,” Cork said.
“We appreciate your consideration,” Burns said. “But we’d appreciate your help more.”
After they were gone, Cork stood a few minutes looking at the tape on the screen, at the man his two visitors had insisted was not who he seemed. He didn’t know what to think, but he felt slightly disoriented, as if the world around him had suddenly tilted.
“Cheese!” Judy Madsen called through the door of the serving area. “Cork, we’re running low on cheese. And we could sure use your help up here.”
“Be right there,” Cork said and tried to turn his thinking to the matters of the moment.
TWENTY
The bluegrass sessions ended around four, and soon after, the crowd dispersed. At four thirty, Judy Madsen told Cork to go home, told him bluntly but gently that he’d been distracted all afternoon and had been about as useful as a wet kitchen match. Cork didn’t argue. He took the videotape the two women had brought him and left the Quonset hut. Outside he stood in the sunshine watching the band platform being dismantled. The folks at the balloon table were packing things up. Some of those who’d come for the festivities lingered along the shoreline, eating burgers or drinking soft drinks from Sam’s Place. At the small dock, a boat cast off and backed away while another waited its turn to tie up.