Heaven's Keep

“The pilot was an Indian, Mr. O’Connor. You’re part Indian, too, as I understand.”

  “The word is Ojibwe.”

  “Of course. How do you feel knowing that an Indian—Ojibwe—pilot, who allegedly had been drinking, might be responsible for your wife’s disappearance?”

  “Mostly I feel like ending this conversation.” And he did.

  He called Dross.

  “I hadn’t heard, Cork,” she told him. “You know how it goes. Sometimes the media is ahead of us. I’ll see what I can find out.”

  Cork didn’t know much about the pilot. He’d had only a glimpse when Jo got on the plane at the Tamarack County Regional Airport. He knew he was Anishinaabe—Ojibwe—from a Wisconsin band, he thought. A drunken Indian? Christ, that was going to feed the stereotype.

  Stephen stumbled into the kitchen looking beat. He poured himself some orange juice and sat silently at the table, while Cork flipped pancakes and fried a couple of eggs for each of them. He wasn’t hungry, but he knew they had to eat, and Stephen, when the food was set before him, ate voraciously. These days he always did.

  “I heard the phone ring,” Stephen said.

  “There’s been some hopeful news.” Cork told him about the two snowmobilers. “I don’t know what it means exactly, but it looks like the plane was headed southeast, maybe back toward Casper, where it had come from.”

  Stephen had stopped eating. His eyes were big and hopeful. “Maybe they’ve made it back.”

  “If they had I think we’d have heard by now. But it gives the sheriff’s people a better idea of where the plane might be.”

  “They turned around because of the weather?”

  “That. Or maybe mechanical trouble. But definitely going back.”

  Stephen squinted, putting it together. “So what you’re saying is that they didn’t just drop off the radar and disappear?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But they still could’ve crashed.”

  “Gone down,” Cork said. “I’m thinking this means if they did go down that the pilot may still have been in control. I think that’s important.”

  “I Googled the Washakie Wilderness last night. It’s in the Absaroka Mountains. They’re like thirteen thousand feet high.”

  “Mountains have meadows, places to put a plane down, Stephen.”

  His son thought about that, and although he didn’t do cartwheels, he also didn’t raise any further objections to the hope Cork was trying to offer. He finished his breakfast and went upstairs.

  The phone rang again. Cork didn’t recognize the name on caller ID, but the area code was 612. Minneapolis. Maybe another reporter from the Twin Cities. He let it ring.

  He called George LeDuc’s wife, Sarah. Her sister answered.

  “Gloria, it’s Cork O’Connor.”

  “Boozhoo, Cork.”

  “How’s Sarah doing?”

  “It’s been a hard night. She’s worried sick. We all are.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Flora Baptiste, Lucy Auginash, Isaiah Broom, Wayne and Dorothy Hole-in-the-Day. A few others. Maybe a dozen.”

  Word had traveled fast on the Iron Lake Reservation, and relatives and friends had risen to the need of the moment. Cork told Gloria about the report from the Wyoming snowmobilers. Gloria told him that Sheriff Dross had already called. They discussed the implications.

  Then Sarah came on the line. She was in her mid-thirties, more than three decades younger than her husband, with a pretty smile and deep brown eyes that were normally full of good humor. Cork imagined that this morning they were different.

  “Boozhoo, Sarah. How’re you doing?”

  “It’s hard, this waiting.”

  “I know. How’s Akik?”

  Sarah and George had a daughter, whose real name was Olivia, but whom they’d nicknamed Akik, which meant “kettle” in the language of the Ojibwe. She was a plump little girl of five, with a fiery temperament and given to letting off steam.

  “I haven’t explained the real concern to her. She’s having a good time with all the relatives and friends here. How’s Stevie?”

  “Taking it hard.”

  “There’s hope, isn’t there, Cork? I mean, they haven’t even started searching yet.”

  “Yeah, Sarah.” He looked out the window at the street in front of his house, all golden in the morning sunlight. “There’s lots of reason to hope,” he said, trying to sound as if he believed every word of it. He hesitated before going on. “I got a call a while ago. A reporter from St. Paul. There’s been an allegation that the pilot had been drinking the night before.”

  “No. Oh Jesus, no.”

  “Yeah. Marsha Dross is checking it out. You might be getting a call from that same reporter or others. Just thought you ought to know.”

  “Thanks, Cork.”

  He kept Stephen home from school. Father Ted Green, the priest at St. Agnes, dropped by to offer his help and his prayers. Cork thanked him for the prayers and told him he’d let him know about the help part.

  The phone continued to ring. At first, he answered the calls from friends. After a while, he just let everything go to voice mail.

  Around noon, Marsha Dross called again.

  “Have you been watching CNN?” she asked.

  “No, why?”

  “That snowstorm coming across the Rockies, it’s creating all kinds of problems from Canada down to New Mexico. CNN’s giving it heavy coverage. They picked up on the story of the missing charter flight. And they’ve got the bartender on camera telling how the pilot was drinking like a fish the night before, bragging about owning his own company and that he was so good he could fly a plane through the crack in the Statue of Liberty’s ass. I don’t know how these people do this, but they’ve already got video from the security cameras in the bar, showing this guy slamming ’em back. They’ve also got a statement from the cabdriver who drove him to his hotel. The guy was so drunk the taxi driver had to pull over and let him out so he could puke.”

  Cork felt the scorch of fire behind his eyes. “The son of a bitch. If that guy wasn’t probably already dead, I’d—” Cork stopped, realizing that he was caught in the web of a dreadful thought: Already dead. “Thanks, Marsha.”

  “I wish I had some good news, Cork.”

  “Yeah. Keep me posted whatever you hear.”

  “You know I will.”

  He put down the phone and stared at the wall.

  Already dead? Was that really what he thought?

  SIX

  Day Two, Missing 26 Hours

  Cork spent the early afternoon on the phone, frustrated and angry, talking to a number of airlines. He was hanging up a final time when the boxy green Honda Element pulled into the drive. Through the window above the kitchen sink, he watched Mal and Rose get out and begin to unload luggage. They worked together easily, touching often. Before she fell in love with Mal, Rose had been a stout woman. As far as Cork knew, she’d also been a virgin, deeply devoted to her Catholic faith. He’d never thought of her as pretty, but she’d always been beautiful in an ethereal, spiritual sort of way. Her marriage had changed that in ways that were both obvious and subtle. She’d lost weight and dressed to show it. There was a beauty in her face now that had an appealing earthy quality to it. It seemed to Cork that in marrying a man who’d worn a collar, she’d lost none of her faith but gained a very different and human kind of wisdom.

  Cork went to the side door and greeted them. Rose’s face wore a worried look, and she gave him a prolonged hug. “It’s in God’s hands,” she whispered to him. “It’s always in God’s hands.”

  Mal hugged him, too. “What’s the news from out there?”

  “The snow’s stopped, but blizzard conditions continue across a lot of the area. Airports are closed. Planes are still grounded. They think the wind’ll let up later this afternoon. Even then it’ll take them a while to clear the runways.”

  “Where’s Stevie?” Rose asked.

  “In his room.”

/>   “I’m going up to see him.”

  Rose headed directly toward the stairs. Mal set the two suitcases in the living room and came back to the kitchen.

  As a priest, Mal Thorne had been a tortured man. The competing pull between his duty to the Church and his attachment to the world had nearly torn him apart. He was a decade older than Rose, and when he’d fallen in love with her, he’d seemed wrung out by life, thick in the middle, and often rheumy-eyed from booze. His marriage had changed that. He now looked trim and happy. He was fond of saying that in opening his arms to the earthly love of a woman, he’d found his way back to God, and the happiness had healed him. He was still a man of great spiritual depth—once a priest, Cork thought, always a priest—but, like Rose’s, his wisdom was broader and his embrace of life much gentler. In Chicago, he ran a shelter for the homeless. Every day he helped people face bleak odds and tried to point them toward hope.

  “If I made coffee, would you have some?” Mal asked.

  “Yeah, thanks. But I can make it.”

  “Sit down,” Mal said. “I know where everything is.”

  The room was full of afternoon sunlight. Silver darts shot off the stainless steel sink faucet and handles. A gold rhombus lay across the floor, stamped with Mal’s shadow as he stood at the counter grinding beans and measuring into the filter. All day the room had felt close and stuffy, but Mal and Rose had brought in with them the perfume of the late autumn air.

  “Mal, I’m going out there.”

  His brother-in-law hit the Brew button and turned back to Cork. “Seems reasonable to me. When?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve been on the phone talking to airlines all afternoon. The storm’s wreaked havoc the whole length of the Rockies. A lot of flight cancellations, and none of them can get me a seat until tomorrow night. At the moment, it looks like I’ll fly to Salt Lake and catch a connection to Cody first thing the following morning. It’s the best they could do.”

  “Going alone?”

  “That’s my plan. I can’t sit here doing nothing.”

  “Of course you can’t. And don’t worry about things here. We’ll hold down the fort.”

  “Thanks.”

  Rose came downstairs from Stephen’s room, followed by Trixie. The dog padded directly to Mal, who bent and gave her a good long petting.

  “How’s he doing?” Cork asked.

  “For one thing, he’s not Stevie,” she said. “He’s Stephen.”

  “Yeah, I should have warned you. He’s kind of sensitive about it.”

  “He’s also scared and angry,” Rose said. “But he doesn’t want to talk about it.”

  “You were up there awhile.”

  “I was doing most of the talking. I asked him if he wanted to pray with me. He told me he doesn’t believe in prayer. If there is a God, the bastard never listens anyway. Direct quote. Since when has he been like this, Cork?”

  “New development. Like the name thing. We haven’t been pressing him on the issue.”

  She sat down at the table. It had been a long drive to come to a place full of despair. “That coffee smells heavenly,” she said, and Mal reached into the cupboard for a mug.

  “Cork’s going to Wyoming,” Mal said.

  He handed Rose a mug of coffee, then gave one to Cork.

  “Will that do any good?” Rose asked.

  “I don’t know,” Cork said, “but I’ll go crazy if I have to sit it out here.”

  “When do you leave?”

  “At the moment it looks like late tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Are you going alone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do the kids know?”

  “Not yet. It’ll be tricky, especially with Stephen. He’ll want to go.”

  “Why not take him?” Mal said.

  “Too many problems with that.”

  Mal shrugged, but it was clear he didn’t necessarily agree.

  “Maybe they’ll find Jo before then,” Rose said.

  “Either way I want to be there.”

  Rose nodded. “We’ll stay and cover here for as long as you need us.”

  Cork leaned to his sister-in-law and put his arms around her and laid his cheek against her hair, and for a long time they held each other.

  “We argued before Jo left,” Cork said, battling tears. “We were so angry that we didn’t even say good-bye. Christ, what was I thinking?”

  “That the next day would be like that day and the day before and you would have forever to make things right,” Rose said. “You didn’t know any of this was going to happen, Cork.”

  “I could’ve told her I love her, Rose.”

  She looked with great compassion into his eyes. “Oh, Cork, you think she doesn’t know?”

  The phone rang. Mal looked at caller ID. “Owl Creek County Sheriff’s Office.”

  “I’ll take it.” Cork wiped at his eyes. “O’Connor,” he said, and then he listened. “Thank you.” He returned the phone to its cradle. “The wind’s quit. Once the runways are clear, they’ll have planes in the air.”

  His daughters arrived near dinnertime, pulling up to the curb in Jenny’s old Subaru Outback. They hurried up the walk in the blue of twilight, and Cork greeted them at the door with his arms wide open. It felt good to hold them.

  They were different from each other in many ways. Jenny was a scholar and a scribbler, in her senior year at the University of Iowa, where she hoped, on graduation, to be accepted into the Writers’ Workshop. She had her mother’s beauty, the same ice-blond hair and ice-blue eyes. For Annie, studies had always taken a backseat to athletics. While she was growing up, her big dream had been to be the first female quarterback for Notre Dame. That hadn’t happened, but she’d been offered a scholarship to play softball for the University of Wisconsin. Tragedy in her senior year of high school had altered her life course dramatically, and she’d declined the scholarship in favor of enrolling in a small Catholic college in northwest Illinois, where she was preparing herself in all the ways she could for a life that would be devoted to serving God and the Church. Annie wanted to be a nun, which was the other dream she’d had since childhood. Physically, she looked more like Rose, with hair the color of a dusty sunset and freckles. And, like Rose, she had something calm in her eyes that made people trust her immediately.

  They stood on the porch in the dying light. “Has there been any word?” Jenny asked.

  “The weather’s finally broken and they’ve started the search,” he said. “So that’s good.”

  “But they haven’t found anything?”

  “As far as we know, not yet.” The evening air was cool, and Cork said, “Let’s get inside and we can talk more. Rose and Mal are here.”

  “Where’s Stevie?” Annie asked, looking past him into the house.

  “It’s Stephen these days,” Cork said. “He took Trixie for a walk. He needed to get out for a while.”

  “Stephen?”

  “He’s been reinventing himself lately,” Cork said.

  “How’s he doing?” Jenny asked.

  “Not good. But then who of us is?”

  Inside, Rose and Mal hugged them both, and they all said the things meant to bind them in their mutual concern and to offer comfort.

  “It smells wonderful in here.” Annie looked at her aunt. “Chicken pot pie?”

  “Bingo. Get your things settled. Dinner will be ready soon.”

  Jenny paused at the bottom of the stairs. “Dad, we heard on the radio that the pilot had been drinking.”

  “At the moment, it’s only an allegation. We’ll know the truth soon enough.”

  It was dark by the time Stephen came home from walking Trixie. Cork had begun to worry and was watching the street from the living room window. He saw his son shuffling along the sidewalk, head down, face in shadow as he passed under the streetlight. Stephen paused at Jenny’s Outback, but the prospect of seeing his sisters didn’t seem to raise his spirits at all. Even Trixie, often a little too exuberant t
o suit Cork, seemed to have been infected by Stephen’s mood, and she walked subdued at his side. They mounted the front steps, and Cork opened the door.

  “I was beginning to get a little concerned,” he said.

  “What for? I was just walking,” Stephen said.

  “Dinner’s been ready for a while.”

  “You could’ve eaten. I wouldn’t care.”

  “Stevie!” Annie shouted, coming down the stairs. She threw her arms around her brother.

  “It’s Stephen,” he said in sullen reply.

  Jenny came from the kitchen, where she’d been helping Rose. “Stephen,” she said and hugged him with a purposeful courteousness.

  Cork’s son suffered their attentions grudgingly and was clearly relieved when they both stepped back from him. Trixie was much more enthusiastic in her welcome, and she danced around the girls in a joyous frenzy of barking and tail wagging that got her tangled in her leash.

  Stephen freed her. “I thought it was time to eat,” he said. He turned away and went to the closet to hang his jacket.

  Dinner was an odd affair, surreal. So much family gathered, and still the dining room table felt empty. Cork left the television on in the living room, tuned to CNN in case there were any new developments. They tried to carry on conversation in a normal way. Then Cork made a mistake, though he didn’t think of it that way at the time. He asked Annie a simple question about her faith.

  “What I see when I look at the world, Dad, is challenge and opportunity. Everywhere I turn I’m confronted with challenges to my faith. And at those same places I’m given the opportunity to be an instrument of God’s truth.”

  Without looking up, Stephen, who sat slumped over his plate, said, “That’s such bullshit.”

  “Stephen,” Cork said.

  “So what’s the big holy truth in what’s going on with Mom?” he said. “Why did God do this to her?”

  “You think God struck her plane out of the air?” Annie asked.

  “Well, he sure as hell didn’t keep it from falling.”

  “We don’t know what’s happened with her plane,” Cork said.

  “I do,” Stephen shot back. “I checked out plane wrecks on the Internet today. I know exactly what happens when a plane slams into a mountain.”