“Anin, Henry.”
“I have made stew. Will you eat with me?”
The old Mide seemed to have anticipated his visitor and his need, something Cork had experienced so often with Meloux that he didn’t question the old man’s prescient ability.
“Thank you, Henry. I’m starved.”
Meloux nodded and eyed him closely. “You have the look of a man hungry in many ways.”
Cork offered his host a pouch of tobacco, which the Mide accepted without a word, and they went inside.
It was squirrel stew. The old man had shot the animal himself. Even though Meloux was well over ninety, his hand was still steadier than those of many men half his age. The stew was full of wild mushrooms, wild rice, carrots, and potatoes, and was spiced simply with salt, pepper, and sage. Meloux had also made drop biscuits. They ate without speaking. In the corner of the cabin where Meloux had set a bowl for Walleye, the old mutt slurped with gleeful abandon.
When they were finished, the old man said, “Now we will smoke, and then we will speak of the reason you have come.”
From a deer-hide pouch hanging on the wall, the Mide took a stone pipe with a wood stem. He put two kitchen matches into the right pocket of his worn jeans and wrapped his gnarled hand around the pouch of tobacco Cork had brought him. He led the way to the fire ring beside the lake, where he opened the tobacco pouch. He pinched some of the contents and sprinkled it to the north. In the same way, he offered tobacco to the east, south, west, and finally let some of it fall into the center. Then he sat on one of the stumps that circled the ring, put a bit of tobacco into the pipe, and struck a match. As the mantle of night closed slowly around them, they smoked and then they talked.
Cork told Meloux of the things he’d discovered and what he suspected they might mean.
“Do you believe that your wife is still alive, Corcoran O’Connor?”
Cork shook his head. “For a little while, I entertained that hope. But I don’t understand how it could possibly be. No, Henry, she’s dead, but there’s more to her death than any of us know. I want to find the truth.”
“What will you tell Stephen?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“If you lie to him, he will know. If not now, eventually. I would think about what that means.”
“If I tell him the truth, he’ll want to help and I can’t let him. He’ll hate me for that as much as he would if I lied.”
“The truth, a man can deal with.”
“Stephen’s not a man yet, Henry.”
“He is not a boy either. If you treat him as a man, perhaps he will behave as a man.”
“If I were Stephen and I knew what I know, nothing in all God’s creation would stop me from going after the truth. Not even my father.”
They sat in silence. A half-moon had risen in the east and cast a silver thread across the black water of Iron Lake. Near Meloux, Walleye sighed deeply, the only sound.
“Bring him to me,” Meloux said. “Perhaps it is time to make a man of him.”
“Giigiwishimowin?” Cork asked. He was speaking of the old way in which an Anishinaabe boy became a man. It involved a vision quest that required a boy to go alone into the woods and to fast until he’d been given a dream, a vision that would guide him as a man for the rest of his life.
“Yes,” the old Mide replied. “The vision itself, if it is given to him, may help him to understand. And while he is seeking the vision, it would be a good time for you to do these things you must do.”
“If I don’t tell him the truth behind this, Henry, he may still see it as a lie.”
“And what is the truth behind this, Corcoran O’Connor? You want him to grow into his manhood, do you not?”
“Of course.”
“And you believe in the old way?”
“Yes.”
“Then the truth of this is that you want your son to become a man and you want this done properly, is that not so?”
“Yes, Henry, I suppose that is the truth.”
“Bring him to me tomorrow and I will prepare him. He will stay with me until it is finished.”
“Migwech, Henry,” Cork said, thanking his old friend.
They walked back to the cabin, with Walleye padding along behind in a tired way. Cork felt tired, too, weighted by the oppressive prospect of all that lay ahead. At the cabin door, he bid the old Mide good night.
Meloux slipped inside with his dog and closed the door.
By the light of the moon, Cork walked the trail back to his Bronco. In the woods on either side, the darkness was intense. But he knew those woods and knew what there was in them to fear, and passing through empty-handed was no concern. The darkness ahead, however, all that lurked within it and that was unknown to him, this was something else. And he was afraid.
TWENTY-FIVE
Cork had been concerned that for Stephen a few days away from school might seem like a holiday or an early summer vacation. But when he explained to his son the purpose of his visit with Meloux, Stephen had become solemn and accepted seriously the idea of a vision quest under the old man’s guidance. Now they walked toward Meloux’s cabin together, with Trixie trotting in front, taking in the scent of everything along the path. In the east, the rising sun was a red fire burning in the treetops. A heavy dew caught the color, and the meadow grass seemed hung with garnets. Walleye bounded from the open cabin door to meet them, and Trixie ran ahead. The two mutts, good acquaintances, danced together in a flurry of woofs and wagging tails.
Meloux stood in the doorway. Like the dew on the meadow grass, his dark eyes sparkled. “Anin, Stephen.”
“Anin, Henry,” Cork’s son replied. There was a gravity in his voice that pleased his father. He shrugged off the pack he wore, which held his sleeping bag and clothing.
The old Mide looked at Cork. “There is no need for you to linger. Your part in this is finished.”
“How long will this take, Henry?”
The old man shrugged. “I will send word.”
Cork nodded. “Migwech.” He turned to his son and offered his own version of an Ojibwe prayer. “May you learn the lesson in each leaf and rock. May you gain the strength and wisdom, not to be superior to your brothers, but to be able to fight your greatest enemy, yourself. And may you be ready to come before Kitchimanidoo with clean hands and a straight eye.”
With the morning sun over his shoulder, the sky like mottled marble above his head, and a warm spring wind pushing at his back, Cork abandoned his son to the man he trusted most in the world and turned his feet to the trail through the forest. Beyond that lay a path that he suspected would be as dark as any he’d ever traveled in the great North Woods.
Hugh Parmer was waiting for him in the lot of the Four Seasons. Cork parked, grabbed a gym bag from the backseat of his Bronco, and tossed it into Parmer’s Navigator. The two men got in, and they headed southeast on Highway 1 toward Duluth. They drove through the morning shadow of evergreens. In those places where the sun broke through the forest wall, it hit the windshield brilliant as molten gold. Cork was quiet, thinking of what lay ahead. Parmer, as he drove, drank from a cardboard cup of Four Seasons coffee.
“What’s in the gym bag?” he asked after they’d passed beyond the limits of Aurora.
“Equipment I might need.”
“Got a firearm in there?”
“No.”
“The word I got in Aurora is that you have something against firearms.” Parmer waited a moment, and when no reply came he said, “It seems to me that if a man wades into a pack of wild dogs he ought to expect to be bit. And he ought to be prepared.”
“I don’t want to have to explain myself at every turn, Hugh. You agreed to let me do this my way.”
Parmer shook his head. “They’ve established the rules, and they’re clearly not playing your way, Cork.”
“You don’t have to come with me.”
“Relax. Just being the devil’s advocate here.”
“I’m going t
o explain this once and then we’re not going to talk about it again,” Cork said. “Two years ago a kid slaughtered a lot of his classmates and a teacher and a security guard at the high school in Aurora.”
“I know. National news.”
“What you may not know is that I was well acquainted with the kid. A lot of folks in town knew him and knew he was troubled. We weren’t there for him when he needed us, pretty much ever. When he opened up in the high school, I’m sure this kid in his own warped thinking was wholly justified. I’ve killed men, too, and justified it in my own ways. But who’s to say my reasons were any better than that kid’s? You have a gun, Hugh, you risk the gun becoming the easy answer to a threat, especially if it’s been the answer for you before. I’m no saint, and I’m not a gun control freak either. I just don’t want the temptation that might come with carrying a firearm. I can’t help thinking that, if I’m smart enough, the gun shouldn’t be necessary.”
“I don’t know that smart is always the answer, Cork. I’ve known men who were born killers. Smart wouldn’t have made any difference with them. What did you do with your firearms? Sell them?”
Cork shook his head. “I didn’t want someone else using them. No, I put them in the hands of a friend for safekeeping.”
“Indefinitely?”
“Permanently.”
Parmer nodded, studied the road ahead, and began to whistle.
They drove to Duluth, crossed the Blatnik Bridge over the harbor, and entered Superior, Wisconsin, where they caught U.S. 53 toward Rice Lake. As they passed Solon Springs, a few miles south of Superior, Cork told Parmer to pull off for gas.
“Tank’s still three-quarters full,” Parmer said.
“Do it anyway.”
Parmer did as he was instructed and pulled into a BP station. While he filled the tank, Cork cleaned the windshield of the mayflies that had plastered themselves across the glass.
“What are you hoping to find in Rice Lake?” Parmer said.
“What we know about Stilwell’s investigation is that he’d talked to people in Wyoming. I’d love to find his notes on that, but there was nothing in his office files in Duluth. Then he came down to Rice Lake and spent some time at Bodine’s airport office and maybe at his home. Then he disappeared. I’m thinking that whatever it was that got him killed—”
“You’re sure he’s dead?”
“For our own safety, I think we ought to assume that. So whatever it was that got him killed, there’s a chance it had to do with what he found in Rice Lake.”
“Records?”
Cork shrugged. “Could be anything, I suppose. I don’t want to limit our thinking.”
They took turns visiting the men’s room and got back on the road. A few minutes later, Parmer said, “You’ve been spending a lot of time watching the mirror. Did that unnecessary fuel stop we just made have anything to do with it? Are we being followed?”
“If we are, they’re a hell of a lot better at it than I am at spotting them,” Cork said. “I haven’t seen anything, but it never hurts to be cautious.”
A little before 11:00 A.M., they pulled into the driveway of the Bodine home, a nice little rambler in a newer development on the western edge of Rice Lake. Cork found the key hanging from a hook under the back steps, exactly where Becca Bodine had told him it would be. They entered through the kitchen, which was clean and smelled of overripe bananas. In the living room, a comfortable scattering of toys lay about. Cars, Tonka trucks, Lego blocks, and on the sofa a plastic contraption that fired Nerf rockets. They found the room that Sandy Bodine had used as his home office. Becca had told him she’d left it exactly as it was when her husband used it. At first it was because of the investigation, then it was simply that she didn’t have the resolve yet to clean things out, something Cork understood well. He returned to the kitchen, slid the gym bag from his shoulder, and took out the electronic sweep equipment he’d brought. He spent an hour going through the house and checking the phone line, but he found no bugs.
They hadn’t spoken since before they entered. Now Cork shook his head and said quietly, “It could be that there’s nothing. Or it could be that what they’re using is too sophisticated for my stuff to detect.” He put his equipment away and returned to Bodine’s office. In the desk, he found the key marked “Hangar” that Becca had told him about. He also found the key to a file cabinet in the corner. He opened the cabinet and went through the files, drawer by drawer.
“What’re you looking for?” Parmer asked.
“Anything that’ll give me an idea about why someone would want Bodine dead. I don’t know what that might be, but I’m hoping I’ll know it when I see it.”
He found the file on the flight that Bodine had made for the Canadians two years before. He pulled it out and handed it to Parmer. “See if you spot anything suspicious in there.”
“Suspicious?”
“Whatever.”
Cork went back to rifling through the files in the cabinet. When he’d finished he said, “Anything?”
Parmer shook his head. “Nothing extraordinary so far as I can see. He flew two men to a town in northern Ontario to fly-fish. All the paperwork seems to be here.” He handed the file back to Cork. “Did you find anything?”
“It’s what I didn’t find that concerns me.” Cork scanned the file Parmer had given him, then put it back where it belonged. “It appears to me that Bodine kept good records of every charter flight he made, and for every charter there’s a signed contract. But the file for that final charter, the one to Seattle, doesn’t contain a contract or a record of a deposit made to secure the flight.”
Parmer nodded. “A strange omission for a man so organized.”
“Omission? I don’t think so. It’s possible, I suppose, that the FAA investigators or the attorneys somehow ended up with the original.”
“But you don’t think so?”
“No. Stolen would be my guess. Before the investigators ever saw the files.”
“What is it they don’t want us to see?”
“It would tell us, among other things, who arranged for the flight. Whoever it was that wanted Bodine dead had time to plan things carefully. If we knew who made the flight arrangements, we might be able to get a handle on who could have been involved in planning his disappearance. It would be a lead to follow, anyway.”
“Okay,” Parmer said. “What now?”
“Let’s have a look at the entertainment center in the living room.”
“This isn’t exciting enough for you?”
“Before he disappeared, Stilwell called Becca Bodine and asked if she had a VCR here.”
“Why?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe the VCR will give us a clue.”
But it didn’t. The machine was empty. There were two shelves of videotapes and DVDs, mostly kids’ things. Cork stood looking at the clutter of the living room.
“Okay, Sherlock, I’m waiting,” Parmer said.
“We need to visit Bodine’s office at the airport. But before we do that, there’s another stop I want to make.”
The Rice Lake Police Department shared a building with the Fire Department. It was one-story, a couple of blocks off Main Street, situated under the town’s water tower. Inside, Cork slid his business card through the slot beneath the glass of the contact window and said to the woman on the other side, “I’d like to speak with the chief.”
She was nonuniform, dressed casually. She came to the window and took his card. “Just a moment.” She returned to her desk, punched in a number on her phone, and spoke quietly. She hung up and said to Cork, “He’ll be right with you.”
The chief came out almost immediately. He was a stocky, solid man, mid-thirties, with a Scandinavian look to him—blue eyes, blond hair, a ruddy cast to his face. He wore gold wire rims.
“I’m Chief Amundsen,” he said.
“Cork O’Connor. And this is my associate Hugh Parmer.”
The chief shook their hands. “Let’s go somewh
ere we can talk.”
He led them to a small meeting room, and they all sat around a table.
“What can I do for you, Mr. O’Connor?”
“We’re looking into the disappearance of a colleague, a man named Steve Stilwell. He might have dropped by a few days ago to pay a courtesy call himself.”
“As a matter of fact, he did,” the chief said. He folded his hands. His fingers were like thick bratwurst. “He told me he was working for Becca Bodine. A couple of days later I got a call from Becca. She hadn’t heard from him and was worried. Asked me to check into it.”
“Did you?”
“I did as much as I was able. Becca told me that he’d registered at the Best Western here in town. I checked the hotel and found that he stayed for a single night and left the next day.”
“Checked out?”
“He never actually stopped by the desk. Express checkout, you know how that works. According to the hotel people, he didn’t leave anything behind. That’s pretty much the extent of my investigation. Seemed like there was nothing here to warrant anything more. He still hasn’t popped up?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, nothing personal, O’Connor, but in my experience private dicks aren’t necessarily the most reliable of businesspeople. Could be he’s on a bender somewhere.”
“Could be,” Cork allowed.
“He was looking into that business with the missing plane last fall. Is that part of why you’re here, too?”
“That’s part of it. Becca told me you knew her husband.”
“Small town. Pretty much everybody knows everybody here. I went to high school with Sandy.”
“Was he a drinker?”
“Oh, yeah. Back in the day he could drink the rest of us under the table.”
“But he stopped drinking, right?”
Amundsen shrugged. “Around here. But Sandy was gone a lot. Hard telling how a man behaves away from home.”
“Ever arrest him in relation to his drinking?”
“No. He didn’t have an arrest record of any kind here.” He smiled. “Stilwell asked me the same thing.”