Mercy Falls

  Rose went to the refrigerator and pulled out a pound of raw hamburger and a package of sausage. She was about to start making a meat loaf for dinner. “So what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. Bos is keeping something back, but I have no idea what.” Jo’s whole body felt stiff, and she rubbed the tense muscles on the back of her neck. “It’s not like Cork not to call. Is he angry, do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “He knows that Ben and I have a past together. He knows that we were out last night.”

  “I think you should give him more credit.”

  “I know, but I feel like I’m stumbling around in the dark.”

  Stevie wandered in to ask about a word in his book. He saw Rose working at the kitchen counter. “Whatcha making?”

  “Meat loaf, for dinner.”

  “Meat loaf! Sweet! You make the best meat loaf in the whole entire world.” He ran back down the hallway to share the good news with his sisters.

  Rose said, “Can you call someone else—not one of Cork’s people?”

  Jo leaned on the counter watching her sister shape the loaf. “I suppose I could call Ben.”

  “Why him?”

  “He hired someone to consult on the investigation of Eddie’s murder. He gets regular updates.”

  “Seems worth a try. You’ll certainly be no worse off.”

  Jo tried Jacoby’s cell phone, but got only his voice mail. She called his office and was told he was in meetings all afternoon. She left a message.

  “What’s in the canister?” Rose asked.

  The children had asked, too, but Jo had put them off. Now she unscrewed the cap, took out the canvas, and showed it to Rose.

  “It’s beautiful,” Rose said.

  Jo told her the history and that Rae had insisted she accept the gift.

  “What are you going to do with it?” Rose asked. “Given your history with Ben Jacoby, I can’t imagine Cork would be thrilled to see that hanging in your home.”

  “I know. I’ve been thinking. What if I gave it to Ben?”

  “That might be the best thing, if he wanted it.”

  “I’ll ask him.”

  It was three hours before Ben called back, just as Jo had begun to set the table for dinner. The whole house smelled of savory meat loaf.

  “I’m in traffic right now, Jo, and I’d rather talk in person anyway. What if I dropped by your sister’s place?”

  His tone sounded a little ominous, and if it was bad news he was going to deliver, she wanted to be somewhere the kids couldn’t hear.

  “Or,” he went on, “if you’d rather, we could meet at my house. It’s only about ten minutes from where you are now. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  Jo agreed and Ben gave her the address and directions. The house was on Sheridan Road, easy to find. She hung up.

  “That didn’t sound good,” Rose said. She was at the stove, checking the potatoes. “What did he say?”

  “It’s what he didn’t say, and how he didn’t say it.”

  “Until you know the worst, anticipate the best.”

  Jo said, “It’s already pretty bad because I have to leave in a few minutes, which means I’m going to miss the best meat loaf in the whole entire world.”

  39

  “WHY MORGAN?” Schilling asked.

  They were gathered at the dock on Bruno Lake. The gear had been loaded into the canoes, and Cork was looking over the map one last time with Ed Larson and Simon Rutledge. Meloux already sat in the bow of the lead canoe, and Will Fineday had settled into the bow of the second.

  Deputy Howard Morgan looked up from where he knelt on the dock, retying the lace of his hiking boot. “Because I do the Boundary Waters a lot. Because I have a sharpshooter rating. Because I don’t whine about assignments. And,” he added, standing up, “because I’m a bachelor.” He gave Schilling a light, friendly jab in the stomach.

  “I just meant that I’d be willing to go.”

  “I know,” Cork said, glancing from the map. He could have added one more reason it was Morgan who was going. That in a tight situation he’d prefer Morgan at his back.

  “The chopper and the critical response team will be standing by,” Larson said. “Give the word and they’ll be there in no time.”

  “Sure you don’t want a few more men along?” Rutledge asked.

  Cork shook his head. “If I’m wrong about all this, we’d be taking deputies from where they’re needed. If I’m right, we’ve got the CRT for backup.”

  “By the way,” Rutledge said, “Dina asked me to give you this.”

  He handed Cork a gold medallion the size of a silver dollar.

  “A Saint Christopher’s medal?” It seemed an odd gift, because Cork knew Dina was Jewish. “Where is she?”

  “She left right after you headed off to recruit Meloux.”

  Cork slipped the medallion in his pocket. “We’ll check in hourly with our location,” he told Larson.

  “I wish I felt better about this.” Rutledge eyed Meloux with a look Cork interpreted as skepticism of the old man’s ability to be of any help.

  “I wish I felt better about everything, Simon. And if you’ve got another idea for saving Lizzie Fineday, I’m still open to suggestions.”

  Rutledge only offered his hand. “Good luck.”

  Cork stepped into the stern of the lead canoe, and Morgan took the stern of the other. They pushed away from the dock and into the lake, paddling toward the Cutthroat River, which would take them north into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Halfway across the lake, a great bird appeared in front of them, high up, the tips of its wings like fingers scraping against the hard blue ceiling of the sky. Meloux watched the bird closely.

  “An eagle?” he asked.

  “A turkey vulture,” Cork replied.

  “Too bad,” the old man said, sounding disappointed.

  “What’s it mean, Henry?” Thinking that for some reason the turkey vulture was not a good sign.

  Meloux squinted at the bird and said with a note of sadness, “That my eyes aren’t what they used to be.”

  Cork knew that Meloux’s physical senses weren’t those of a young man, but it was a different sense he’d hoped for from the old Mide, something that came from a lifetime not just of hunting but of understanding the nature of human beings. He prayed that this sense was still sharp.

  The Cutthroat took them to Sugar Bowl Lake a mile north of Bruno. It was a round lake ringed by high hills, hence its name. The sun was at their backs. Their shadows moved ahead of them across the water, and behind followed a deep, rippling wake. Cork watched the slopes carefully. On top of his pack, which was situated directly in front of him, was a pair of Leitz binoculars. Beside the pack rested a Remington Model 700 police rifle. Morgan had brought an M40A1 sniper rifle and scope, and Fineday, who’d hunted all his life, had brought his own Winchester. Before embarking, they’d held a conference regarding the wearing of the Kevlar vests each man had been issued. Meloux and Fineday, neither of whom had ever worn body armor, were clearly not thrilled with the prospect of the stiff armature. Morgan commented that the vests were generally uncomfortable and would be particularly so during the kind of prolonged physical activity that the canoeing and portaging would demand. He also pointed out that they had every reason to believe that Stone, if he fired at them, would use armor-piercing rounds. Cork told them he’d prefer it if they wore the armor, but he understood their objections and drew up shy of insisting. They were, however, to keep the armor handy at all times and not hesitate if he gave the order to suit up.

  The afternoon was still, the only sound the burble of water that swirled with each dip of the paddle.

  “Should we be concerned yet, Henry?” Cork said.

  The old Mide scratched his head and thought an unusually long time. “Not here. Not yet.”

  The Cutthroat left Sugar Bowl via a series of rapids too shallow for the canoes. One followed the Cutthroat, the other veere
d west toward a little lake called Snail.

  “Which way, Henry?” Cork said.

  Meloux walked the trail along the Cutthroat, came back, and followed the other portage for a distance. He studied the rocky soil carefully, shaking his head with uncertainty. “Hard ground, no tracks,” he said.

  Morgan spoke quietly. “Up here, it’s all hard ground and no tracks.”

  Meloux stood where the trails diverged, looking west, north. Finally he pointed along the Cutthroat. “I think Stone would go this way.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “He would go quickly and far enough so that you would not bring the dogs. So north.”

  “How far, Henry?”

  Meloux shrugged. “We will see.”

  Morgan gave Cork a look of concern, but held his tongue. The men hefted their canoes and began to walk.

  Sunset found them at Lamb Lake, hitting the end of a short thirty-rod portage as the light turned blazing orange and ignited a wildfire of color that swept over the aspen on the hills. Cork and the others stood in the shadow of tamaracks on the western shore of the lake, the water dark at their feet. Already they could sense the cold that would descend with the fall of night.

  The afternoon had not gone well. At every juncture, every point where a decision about direction had to be made, Meloux seemed uncertain. He spent a long time studying each trail. He knelt, his old bones cracking, and peered at the ground. He rubbed his eyes with his gnarled knuckles and afterward seemed to have a bewildered look. Each time he finally pointed the way, Cork wanted to ask, “Are you sure?” But what would have been the use?

  In Morgan’s face, the concern was obvious. Had they put their faith in a man too old? He said nothing. Fineday, too, held his tongue, but Cork could imagine his worry. Were they losing his daughter?

  Still, none of them had been able to say that Meloux was wrong, that Stone had gone a different way. But were they, Cork wondered, the blind following the blind?

  Beyond Lamb Lake, their way would lie to the east, along a narrow flow called Carson Creek that fed out of the far shoreline. It would take them to Hornby, a huge lake with dozens of inlets. The most direct route across Lamb was through a channel between two small islands. Although it was difficult from a distance to judge their size, Cork recalled from the map that both islands were shaped roughly like bread loaves, the larger approximately one hundred yards long, the other half that size. It appeared that at one time they’d been connected, but the natural bridge had collapsed, its ruin apparent in the great stone slabs that broke the surface in the channel. On the larger island, a few jack pines had managed to put down roots, but they were ragged-looking trees, like beggars huddled against a cold night. The southern end of the island was dominated by a sharp rise thick with blood-red sumac.

  “Do we go on?” Morgan asked.

  “Hell yes, we go on,” Fineday said. “We haven’t found Lizzie yet.”

  “Henry?” Cork turned to Meloux.

  “I would like to sit and smoke,” the old man said.

  Fineday spoke urgently, but not without respect. “We don’t have time. She’s still with him out there somewhere.”

  “Stone knows we’re coming,” Meloux said. “He will be patient now. We should be patient, too.”

  “I’ll go on alone if I have to.”

  “If you have to. But consider how much more eight eyes can see than two. And there’s one more thing.” Meloux settled his bony rump on the trunk of a fallen tamarack. “I am tired.”

  “We’ll break for a while,” Cork said. “Then decide.”

  Not far off the trail, in a stand of quaking aspen, was an official Boundary Waters campsite. While Meloux smoked and ruminated, Cork checked the camp. When he came back, he sat beside Meloux on the fallen tamarack, rolled a cigarette, and smoked with the old man in silence. Morgan lay with his back propped against an overturned canoe, his eyes closed. Fineday paced the shoreline.

  “How’re you doing, Henry?” Cork asked.

  “When I was a young man, I could read a trail across a face of rock. Now…” He took a deep, ragged breath.

  Cork was concerned. It was obvious the day had taken a heavy toll on Meloux. He looked ready to buckle.

  What had he been thinking, bringing an old man, a man of parchment skin and matchstick bones, on such a difficult journey, such a dangerous mission? Had he put the others at risk, and Lizzie Fineday as well? Should he have mounted an army of deputies and volunteers, swept into the woods hoping to catch Stone in a huge net? Would anything he tried have worked?

  Meloux finally said, “We are near the end, I think.”

  “How do you know, Henry?”

  “He knows he has gone beyond the dogs. The next lake is Asabikeshiinh.”

  Spider. The Anishinaabe name for the lake. Because of all the inlets like legs, Cork knew.

  “It is a big lake, easy to lose someone who follows him,” Meloux said. “But he does not want to lose us.”

  “What do you think he’ll do?”

  “He will set a trap. Or he will circle.”

  “Come up on us from behind?” Morgan’s eyes were open now.

  “It is a trick of bears, a good trick. So maybe that is what he will do.” He spoke to Fineday. “Put your restless walking to use. Look carefully along the shoreline, in the soft dirt, for boot prints. Go that way.” He pointed to his right. “You, Corcoran, go the other way.”

  “What about me?” Morgan asked.

  “Go back down the trail and look for signs of his turning there.”

  Fifteen minutes later, they regrouped at the overturned canoes. None of them had found any indication that Stone had ever been that way. Another disappointment.

  “It’s getting dark,” Fineday said. “We should keep moving. We can make Lake Hornby before nightfall.”

  “If he is behind us,” Meloux said, “moving ahead will take us away from him. If he is ahead, he is waiting, and dark is not a good time to walk into his trap.”

  “We should stay here?” Cork said.

  The old man said, “Yes.”

  There was no way to know for sure what Stone had up his sleeve. Ahead, behind, watching them from somewhere even now, perhaps. When Fineday didn’t argue, Cork figured that he’d accepted Meloux’s advice. It sounded good to Cork, too.

  “Maybe I should park myself out of sight near the last landing, see if anybody’s following,” Morgan said.

  “Not a bad idea, Howard.”

  “It’s almost time for a radio check,” Morgan reminded him.

  “I’ll do it,” Cork said.

  When he raised Larson on the radio, Ed’s first question was “What’s your twenty?”

  “Lamb Lake.”

  “Any sign of Stone or the Fineday girl?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Have you seen anything, anything at all, that would confirm you’re on the right track?”

  “That’s a negative.”

  “Cork, you could be on a wild-goose chase. Or, worse, walking right into Stone’s gun sight.”

  “I’m still open to suggestions.” Cork waited for a reply, then said, “In the meantime, have the DeHavilland make one more pass over the area before it’s too dark.”

  There was a grill at the campsite, but it was too risky to build a fire. Morgan returned having seen nothing, and they sat down to a meal of peanut butter sandwiches, dried apricots, and Hershey bars with almonds. Once the sun had set fully, the chill of the autumn night rolled in quickly. Although it had taken precious space in the Duluth pack, Morgan had brought a one-burner Coleman stove and a small propane tank. He boiled lake water and made instant coffee, which the men drank eagerly.

  The sky was amethyst and still without stars. “You said he would circle or he would set a trap.” Fineday spoke out of the growing dark under the aspens. His form was clear, but his face was almost lost. “What kind of trap?”

  “Why does he have your daughter?” Meloux said.

  “Because
he’s a son of a bitch.”

  “That,” the old man agreed. “But if our sheriff is right, Stone has her for the same reason a hunter puts fish and honey in a bear trap. Have you ever built a bear trap in the old way?”

  Fineday said no.

  “You build it of brush. It does not need to be sturdy, so long as there is only one way for the bear to get in. Even a hungry bear will look for the easiest way. The hunter puts the fish and honey far back in the trap, and he sets a heavy log over the opening. When makwa walks in,” Meloux said, using the Ojibwe word for bear, “the hunter springs the trap, the log falls, makwa’s back is broken. It is the fish and honey that are his undoing.”

  “Stone is counting on us wanting the girl,” Morgan said.

  Meloux sipped his coffee. “Would we be here if he did not have her?”

  They heard the drone of the DeHavilland as it approached and flew low overhead. It circled Lamb Lake, then headed north into the darkening sky.

  A few minutes later, Larson radioed from base. The floatplane had nothing to report.

  Cork stood up and said, “Going to see a man about a horse.”

  He started in the direction of the pit toilet. Although he took a flashlight, he didn’t turn it on. He’d gone less than a dozen steps when he froze and listened. From the portage came the snap of twigs and the crack of dry leaves underfoot. Quickly he riffled through the possibilities. An innocent canoeist? But the floatplane had spotted no one on the lake behind them. An animal? A moose might make that kind of noise, so maybe. Stone? No, Stone would never give himself away so easily. Unless he was up to something.

  Cork was too far from his weapon, but in the thin light he saw Morgan in a kneeling position with his rifle stock snugged against his shoulder. Fineday quickly brought his own rifle to the ready. Meloux was invisible, already part of the woods somehow. Cork dropped to the ground and kept his eyes on the portage, visible through the trees twenty yards away. The ground was littered with golden aspen leaves, and the scent of their desiccation should have been strong, but all he could smell was the coffee Morgan had made. He wondered how far that good smell had traveled. Had Stone picked it up?