Boundary Waters

Cork had once told her that in his opinion most murders occurred for one of three reasons—fear, anger, or greed. She wasn’t entirely certain she agreed with him, but for the sake of argument, she decided to start there.

  If fear was the motive, what was there about Shiloh that would generate enough fear in someone to drive them to murder, not once but several times? Benedetti and Jackson had believed it was a fear of the memories Shiloh’s therapist had dredged up. That would have explained everything nicely, including the death of the therapist. The only problem was that they all now knew the truth of the murder of Marais Grand. With Theresa Benedetti dead, there seemed nothing significant left to fear about that incident.

  So maybe fear wasn’t the motive. What about anger, then?

  She dismissed it almost immediately. Anger was an emotion of the moment, a flare of destructive passion. Everything about the current situation felt too well planned, too carefully executed. For the time being at least, she would put aside the consideration of anger.

  Which left Jo, as she entered Aurora, wondering about greed.

  She made a stop at her office. Fran had left a stack of phone messages and notes on her desk, most dealing with rescheduled appointments. Jo glanced over them but couldn’t make herself concentrate. She called the sheriff’s office. Deputy Marsha Dross answered and told her Schanno wanted her to call the cabin at the Quetico. She gave Jo the number. Metcalf answered when Jo called. She asked to speak with Schanno.

  “I think you should come over. Now. Interesting news,” Schanno said.

  They were all at the Quetico. Harris, Jackson, Metcalf, Schanno, and the two Benedettis. The place smelled of fried food. On the table sat a nearly empty tub of broasted chicken from the Pinewood Broiler and a greasy sack of fries.

  Harris wiped his mouth with a napkin when Jo walked in. “Ms. O’Connor, we have some information.” He sounded more cautious than Wally Schanno had on the phone.

  “Here.” Angelo Benedetti stepped forward to help her with her coat.

  “What have I been missing?”

  “An information exchange,” Jackson said. He held a bottle of Leinenkugel beer in his hand. “We’ve come a distance.”

  “What kind of information?”

  “The name of the man we found in the Boundary Waters, for starters,” Harris replied. “Have a seat.” He waved his hand toward an empty wing chair near the fire. When Jo was seated, he went on. “The prints match those of a man known as Papa Bear. Real name’s Albert Lowell Bearman. He’s a former marine, saw action in Grenada and the Gulf War. Since then, he’s gone into business for himself. Soldier of fortune kind of thing. As nearly as we can tell, he’s been involved in insurrections in Africa and South America. Now he’s plying his skills domestically.”

  “I made some calls as soon as we knew his name,” Angelo Benedetti explained. “This guy’s not our kind. He’s got no loyalty except to himself. No family ethic, no accountability. He’s more the kind the government would use.” He gave a cordial nod to Harris, who paid him no heed. “Still, people I know know about him. He usually works alone, but the word is he’s out on a big contract and he’s teamed with a guy nobody knows from nobody except he calls himself Milwaukee.”

  “We checked out this Milwaukee,” Harris broke in. “Nothing on the NCIC computer about a man with that name or using that alias. In any event, it appears that somebody has put a contract out on Shiloh. The question is why.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Harris said. “I think we’ve been wearing blinders that have kept us looking too much at the past. Maybe this has nothing to do with the past and everything to do with the future.”

  Jackson looked at his brother, confused. “I don’t understand.”

  “Oh, but I do,” Jo said. She eyed Harris. “Because I’ve been thinking along those lines myself. I think it would be very interesting to know who would benefit financially from Shiloh’s death.”

  Harris cocked a finger at her and fired off an imaginary round. “Bull’s-eye.”

  Jackson squinted a moment, rolling things around in his head. Then the light came on in the attic. “Oh.”

  “Family usually benefits, don’t they?” Vincent Benedetti said. “She doesn’t have any family she knows about except Arkansas Willie Raye.”

  Jo tapped her fingernail on the arm of her chair as she considered this information. “Raye owns Ozark Records, is that correct?”

  “No,” Benedetti replied. “Shiloh owns the company. He just runs it. When I loaned Marais the money to start Ozark, I insisted that Shiloh be the sole beneficiary should Marais die. I wanted my daughter well taken care of. It turned out Marais was way ahead of me on that. But when Marais died, Raye did become executor of the estate and took charge of running Ozark Records. He’s done a good job, I gotta give him that. Built the best label in the industry, they tell me. But Shiloh owns it all.”

  “If Arkansas Willie Raye is Shiloh’s beneficiary, I’d say you have a pretty good motive. But how would Raye contact a man like Papa Bear?”

  “I can answer that,” Metcalf said, “if you’ll step over here a minute, Ms. O’Connor.”

  Jo walked to the table and looked over Metcalf’s shoulder as his fingers flew across the keys of his laptop. He accessed the Internet and went to a bookmark called Papa Bear’s Lair. A moment later, a home page appeared complete with a cozy photo of Papa Bear himself—a huge man with a shaved head, dressed in military fatigues, holding an assault rifle in his hands, and sporting a wicked combat knife hung from his belt. The header on the text read DISCREET ENFORCEMENT. I’M SO DAMN GOOD IT’S SCARY. His résumé read like a ticket through hell, with time spent in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Angola, and Bosnia. Foreign and domestic service, the text indicated. Every reasonable offer considered. The final page of the web site was an e-mail form readers could use to communicate with Papa Bear.

  “Hired over the ’net?” Jo said.

  “Or at least this was where contact was probably initially made.”

  “It’s legal?” She looked at Jackson.

  “Not much governance over what’s on the Internet,” Jackson said.

  “Arkansas Willie Raye.” All the muscles on Vincent Benedetti’s body seemed to ripple—whether from anger or disease was hard to tell. “I’ll tear his heart out.”

  “You don’t know for certain that he’s responsible,” Jo warned. “It’s only speculation at this point.”

  “Fucking good speculation.” Benedetti narrowed his eyes on her. “I hate lawyers. But you, I like.”

  Harris said, “I’ll get someone working on a check of Raye. It seems as reasonable a lead as any.”

  “What good does it do us?” Jo asked. “We still don’t know what’s going on out there. Has there been any more word?”

  “It’s dark now,” Schanno said. “The search plane’s landed, but the helicopter’s still in the air, looking for campfires, anything. Mostly we wait now until morning. The good thing is this: If the information from Benedetti’s contacts is accurate, we have only Raye and one other man to worry about out there. The odds are getting better.”

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” Harris said. He held up a rolled copy of a tabloid, chewed and ragged as an old bone. “Tomorrow this piece of shit that calls itself a newspaper hits the stands with a front-page story about Shiloh. Every asshole who’s got nothing better to do will be up here making this a hell of a lot harder than it already is.”

  “There are going to be reporters. What are you going to tell them?” Vincent Benedetti asked Nathan Jackson.

  Jackson lifted a poker and rearranged the burning logs in the fireplace. He worked carefully, positioning the logs so that hot flames rose up, climbing into the chimney. “If Shiloh is my daughter,” he asked Benedetti, “would you still care?”

  “I suppose I’ve cared too long to stop now.”

  “Me, too.” Jackson put down the poker. “I’ll tell the reporters the truth and see what happens.”

  Sc
hanno leaned to Jo. “You look tired. Why don’t you go on home. I’ll keep you posted if we get any news.”

  Angelo Benedetti helped her on with her coat. “It’s dark out,” he said. “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  Schanno started to say something, but before he could get a word out, Jo said, “All right.”

  Outside, night was bringing a deep chill to the air. Jo pulled her coat tightly around her. Benedetti’s shoulder brushed her own. He smelled of a good limy cologne.

  “Mind if I ask a question?”

  “Go ahead,” Jo said.

  “Who are you most worried about out there?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “I’ve heard things about your husband. If your concern is for him, I’m thinking you must be quite a forgiving woman.”

  “You’ve been listening to gossip.”

  “People love to talk about other people. Hard to stop them. And you can learn a lot that way.”

  “Do they gossip in Las Vegas?”

  “Does a flush beat a straight?”

  “And do they always get it right?”

  “Ah, more to things than meets the eye?”

  “Always.”

  “You know, I thought people here would be different.”

  Jo reached out to open the door, but something rich and warm in Benedetti’s voice held her back.

  “I came here expecting . . . I don’t know . . .”

  “American Gothic in flannel?” she said.

  “Something like that. I don’t get out of Vegas much, so for me if it doesn’t glitter, it’s not exciting, you know.”

  “Mr. Benedetti, the only things that glitter here are the stars. And frankly, I like it that way.” She looked down at the keys in her hand. “But for the record, you’re not exactly what I would have expected of a—”

  “Gangster?” He laughed softly. “You know, I’ve seen the law played a lot of ways. So much depends on the side of the table where you happen to be standing. For the record, you look good on your side of the table. Good night, Ms. O’Connor.”

  He headed back toward the cabin. For a moment, she stood alone under the stars and let herself enjoy the ghost of the compliment Angelo Benedetti had left behind.

  43

  DARKNESS SPILLED ACROSS THE SKY above the Deertail, bringing cold that threatened a bitter night. As the fire dried and warmed their clothing, Cork and Stormy slid pants and shirts under Sloane, coats and sweaters over him. They kept the flames leaping high, with a huge bed of coals beneath giving out heat. Sloane’s wounds bled and soaked the dried clothing; there was nothing any of them could do. They tried their best to make him comfortable. He ate a little soup Cork spooned through his lips. But Cork knew they were losing him. And when Sloane’s brown eyes held on Cork’s face, the look in them said he knew it, too. They didn’t talk about the other man who was lost to them and probably dead. Except Louis, who said, “I hope Arkansas Willie is okay.”

  “We all hope so,” Stormy said.

  “He liked my stories.” Louis added a handful of sticks to the fire. “Maybe we’ll find him waiting downstream.”

  Stormy glanced at Cork. “Maybe we will,” he said quietly.

  “Are you warm enough?” Cork asked Sloane.

  “Enough,” Sloane murmured.

  Louis brought over a fire-dried wool sweater and laid it on Sloane. “Is that good?” he asked.

  Somehow Sloane managed a smile for the boy. “Fine, Louis. It’s fine.”

  Stormy had a pot of coffee on the fire’s edge. Cork poured a cup and sat down beside Sloane.

  Although Sloane’s face glistened, a chill passed through him that made his body shake so violently he couldn’t speak. When the tremor passed, he breathed a sigh and closed his eyes. “I like your stories, too, Louis. How ’bout one now?”

  “About what?”

  “Anything,” Stormy told him.

  Louis looked into the dark where the Deertail ran. He said, “How about the story of the river?”

  His father nodded and Louis told this story.

  Small Bear was a proud man. More than proud. He was vain. He was generally known to be the most handsome man in the land of the Anishinaabe. His hair was long and black, his eyes red-brown like cedar bark, his face more pleasant to look on than a summer lake. Village maidens dreamed of becoming his wife. All except one. Her name was Morning Sun. She was a young woman who loved the beauty of the forests more than the face of any man. Her lack of interest stung Small Bear’s pride—and intrigued him. He sought Morning Sun whenever she went for solitude into the forest, but she always hid from him. Desperate to possess the maiden who shunned him, Small Bear appealed to Nanabozho. Nanabozho understood Small Bear’s passion, but he was also fond of Morning Sun, whose love of the forest and respect for the manidoog—the spirits—were well known to him. Nanabozho decreed that Small Bear and Morning Sun should race. If Small Bear won, Morning Sun would be his wife. If Morning Sun were the victor, Small Bear could never again speak to her.

  Small Bear was afraid, for Morning Sun was reputed to be as fleet of foot as he was handsome. He sought the help of a magician, who gave him a deerskin pouch containing three leaves. Eat the leaves just before the race begins, the magician instructed him.

  The day of the race, moments before they began to run, Small Bear ate the leaves. Immediately he changed into a river. He began to flow swiftly, leaving far behind him Morning Sun, who had to leap fallen trees and avoid raspberry thickets and climb high hills. The sound of the water bubbling smoothly along was the laughter of Small Bear in his delight, for soon Morning Sun would be his wife.

  Morning Sun cried out, appealing to Nanabozho that Small Bear had cheated. Nanabozho agreed. He caused the spirits of the valley to throw down a wall of rock to block Small Bear’s way. Small Bear hit the wall with a sound like thunder. Angrily, he threw himself against the rocks again and again, slowly breaking through. But not soon enough. Morning Sun ran past him and finished the race long before Small Bear. To this day, the sound of Small Bear’s anger can be heard in the thunder of the rapids.

  Sloane opened his eyes when the story was finished. “Thank you, Louis. Small Bear was an asshole. Glad Morning Sun won.” He looked at Cork. “A runner. Like you, Cork. A marathoner, right?”

  “I’ve run one.”

  “Always told myself I’d do a marathon someday. Never got around to it. Lot of things like that. Too much left undone.”

  “Don’t talk,” Cork said.

  “Think it’ll make a difference?” Sloane made a sound that might have started off as a laugh but came out as a faint coughing. When he spoke again, it was only the ghost of a voice drifting from his lips. “Truth is, I won’t be leaving much behind. Divorced ten years. Daughter doesn’t speak to me anymore. Got a grandson I’ve never even seen. Funny . . .” But he didn’t finish. “O’Connor, do me a favor.”

  “What is it?”

  “Make sure my daughter knows I love her. Will you do that?”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Sloane shifted his gaze to Stormy and Louis. “Sorry I got you into this.”

  “Forget it,” Stormy said.

  “Bet this trip was easier when it was just you and your uncle, Louis.”

  “Yeah,” Louis replied. He tried to smile. “Me and Uncle Wendell and the letter.”

  “Letter?” Sloane’s face folded into creases of concentration.

  “We always brought out a letter to mail for Shiloh.”

  “The letters she sent to Elizabeth Dobson in California,” Cork reminded Sloane. “And to her father in Tennessee.”

  “No,” Louis said.

  Cork threw a quick, troubled look at Louis.

  “Not to Tennessee,” the boy clarified. “Only to California. To Los Angeles. To a woman named Libbie.”

  “Are you sure?” Cork asked. “Wendell went into the Boundary Waters without you sometimes. Could he have brought out letters on those trips that he mailed to
Willie Raye in Tennessee?”

  Louis shook his head. “He waited for me. We always walked together to LeDuc’s to mail the letters. They all went to California.”

  Cork stared into the fire a while, but he wasn’t seeing the flames. “Raye told me he’d received letters from Shiloh. That’s how he knew she was up here.”

  “How could he?” Stormy asked.

  “I don’t know. Unless . . .”

  “Unless what?” Louis asked.

  Sloane looked at Cork and the same thought seemed to pass between them.

  “Unless Raye was responsible for the letters’ being stolen from Libbie Dobson in the first place,” Cork replied.

  “That—what did you call it, Louis? Majimanidoo?—of yours. Maybe he’s got a name now.” Sloane breathed shallow and fast. “Arkansas Willie Raye.”

  Stormy took a stick and began to stir up the coals so that flames broke out at the edge of the fire where he sat. He tapped at them, making more and more flickers of fire, like Mickey Mouse’s ever dividing brooms of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. He said, “If that’s true, then it probably means he’s been working with the men who’ve been out here after us.”

  “Bet he’s been in communication with them the whole time,” Sloane said in a venomous whisper.

  “It would explain a lot,” Cork said. “I’ve been wondering how they tracked us so well.”

  “That’s how they knew Grimes was waiting and where,” Stormy said.

  “Sorry I ever blamed you,” Sloane told him.

  “Forget it.”

  “Of course,” Cork said suddenly.

  “What?” Sloane asked.

  “Remember when we were ambushed and I wondered why that guy didn’t just kill us? We were carrying the canoes on our shoulders. Our faces were hidden, so he couldn’t tell which of us was Raye. He didn’t know who not to shoot.”

  “The shooter on the rocks today,” Stormy put in. “That explains Raye’s diarrhea. Every time he disappeared into the bushes, he was probably on a radio to the son of a bitch.”

  “But Arkansas Willie was shot, too,” Louis said

  Cork shook his head. “I’m pretty sure not, Louis. He went into the water as if he’d been shot. That added to the general confusion and gave him a chance to slip away from us.”