Mercy Falls

  Edward Jacoby was the kind of guy who smiled broadly and often but without a trace of goodwill. It was hard to know what was really behind that flash of teeth, but as it was, Jacoby’s smile reminded Cork of a wound that showed white bone. Jacoby was in his early thirties, good-looking in a dark way. He had thick black hair, heavy-lidded eyes, the shadow of a beard across his jaw. He was small, but with a large upper body and thick neck, a man who worked out seriously.

  When they shook hands, Jacoby’s grip, like his smile, was not about being cordial. A class ring dwarfed the knuckle on his right pinkie. The pinkie of his left hand sported a chunk of gold set with a diamond. Cork had always thought a pinkie an odd finger on which to wear a ring, especially for a man.

  “Good to see you again, Sheriff,” Jacoby said.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  Jacoby magnanimously waved off Cork’s concern. “Not at all. I was just leaving. Heard you had some trouble last night. Everything okay?”

  “Under control.”

  “I’m sure it is.” Jacoby eyed him with a shade of concern. “Say, you look like you could use a good night’s sleep. Want some advice? Melatonin before you go to bed. It’s one of those hormones older people’s bodies don’t regulate very well.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  Jacoby reached back and squeezed Jo’s hand. “Always a pleasure, Counselor. Give me a call—you have my cell phone number, right?—after you’ve spoken with the RBC. I’m staying at the Four Seasons. You should have my number there, too. If you don’t get me, just leave a message. Ciao,” he said, and left.

  Inside Jo’s office with the door closed, Cork said, “I’ve met rabid badgers I liked better.”

  “You don’t have to like him.” Jo picked up a document and scanned it.

  Cork sat down at her desk and began to rub the back of his neck, which had developed a slight crick. “Do you?”

  “I’ve dealt with him for six months now. I’m almost used to him.”

  Starlight Enterprises, the company that employed Jacoby, provided management for casinos all over the lower Midwest and was eager to expand into Minnesota. Jacoby had been working hard for the past half year to make the Iron Lake Ojibwe one of the company’s clients. Because Jo had often represented the interests of the rez and had worked on the casino from its inception, Oliver Bledsoe, who headed the tribal legal affairs office, had retained her to handle the negotiations. The Reservation Business Committee, which oversaw all financial dealings the rez conducted as an entity, had initially rejected the idea. The casino was just about to lose its fourth manager in as many years, however, and several members of the RBC had become vocal advocates for using Starlight to supply consistent, qualified management. They’d finally authorized Jo to come up with a contract that the RBC could put to a vote.

  As light as a butterfly, she touched Cork’s wounded ear. “How are you doing?”

  “Holding up.”

  “You didn’t sleep much.”

  “A lot on my mind.”

  “You left this morning before the girls were up. They were disappointed they didn’t see you.”

  “There were things I needed to do.”

  She pressed her palm gently to his chest. “I understand, Cork, but they’re scared. Their father could have been killed last night.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “And thank God for that. But they need some reassurance and it needs to come from you.”

  When he’d agreed to step in again as sheriff, Cork had promised himself and Jo that, as much as possible, his job wouldn’t affect his family, especially the children. Deep down he knew it was a futile pledge. He was the son of a sheriff himself, and he understood what the job demanded. He’d said yes for the most selfish of reasons. He missed the badge. He missed the camaraderie that came with it, the challenge, the feeling that he was doing something that mattered. It was also satisfying to have the Board of Commissioners come to him, hat in hand, after the people of Tamarack County elected Arne Soderberg, a man as near to being a cop as a duck was to being an eagle. They’d screwed themselves royally, and they needed Cork. That felt good. Damn good. So he’d said yes knowing full well the sacrifices it would require of his family.

  He took her hand and kissed it. “I’ll be home for dinner, promise. I’ll talk to them then. Was that all you wanted?”

  “And this.” She kissed him softly. “Take care of yourself out there, cowboy.”

  In the early afternoon, he drove out to Allouette on the Iron Lake Reservation to meet with the tribal council. Simon Rutledge followed in his state car.

  Allouette was the largest of the communities on the reservation. Even so, there wasn’t a lot to it. From one end of town to the other was just over half a mile. A few years before, the housing had been mostly trailers and HUD homes in desperate need of repair, but lately things had improved considerably thanks to the Chippewa Grand Casino that was owned and operated by the Iron Lake Band of Ojibwe. Typically, the tribal council met in the new community center, which had been built with casino money. In addition to the large room where the tribal council gathered and where meetings open to the reservation at large were held, the center housed the offices of a number of tribal organizations, a health clinic, a day care center, and a gymnasium. Cork had spoken earlier in the day with George LeDuc, chairman of the tribal council, and had arranged to meet with that body to discuss the incident at the Tibodeau cabin.

  In 1953, Congress passed Public Law 280, which allowed responsibility for law enforcement on Minnesota Indian reservations to be transferred from federal jurisdiction to the state, if that’s what the enrolled members wanted. The Iron Lake Ojibwe had chosen to be policed by the state’s local authority, which was the Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department. As sheriff and as a man part Ojibwe, Cork had always tried to be a judicious presence on the rez. For the most part, he’d succeeded. But this time he was bringing Simon Rutledge of the BCA with him, and he wasn’t hopeful about how well that would go over.

  Seven of the eight members of the council had managed to be there and were waiting in the meeting room. Seated at the conference table with George LeDuc were Judy Bruneau, Albert Boshey, Roy Stillday, Edgar Gillespie, Heidi Baudette, and Thomas Whitefeather.

  “Anin,” Cork said as he entered, offering the traditional Ojibwe greeting.

  He shook hands with LeDuc and the others and introduced Simon Rutledge all around. When everyone was seated again, he explained what had occurred at the Tibodeau cabin the night before. He also explained why Rutledge would be in charge of the investigation. He was pretty sure they’d all heard about the shooting—heard some version of what had gone down, anyway—but it was impossible to tell from their faces, which showed little expression. They simply nodded now and then as he spoke. He’d been to lots of meetings on the rez, tribal council and otherwise. When there were only Ojibwe—or Shinnobs, as they often referred to themselves—present, discussions were almost always heated, with long digressions and references to obscure relatives and old incidents that had little if any bearing on the issue at hand. With Rutledge there, an outsider and a white law officer to boot, the council’s silence didn’t surprise Cork in the least.

  When he was finished, there was a long silence, then George LeDuc spoke. In the dark, LeDuc might have been mistaken for a bear, an old bear, because he was seventy and huge. Although his long hair was streaked with silver, he still had a powerful look and feel about him. Only two years before, he’d fathered a child with his third wife, Francie. He and Cork had been friends for a lot of years.

  “First of all,” LeDuc said in a gentle growl, “we’re all real sorry about Marsha Dross. We sure hope she’ll be fine.” He paused a long time, looking implacably at Cork. “As for that chunk of ear you’re missing, well…” He glanced at the woman on the far side of the conference table. “Heidi, there, told me a little while ago she thinks a few scars on a man is sexy, so maybe it’ll prove a blessing in t
he end.” He almost smiled. “We’ll do everything we can to help Agent Rutledge with his investigation.”

  “George, it would help most if you could encourage anyone on the rez who might know something to step forward. Talk to Agent Rutledge, or give me a call at my office, if they’d rather.”

  “We’ll get the word out,” LeDuc promised.

  Thomas Whitefeather, an old man who was not an elected member of the council but was a part of it because he was a hereditary chief, spoke up. “Should we be afraid for the safety of the people on the rez?”

  Rutledge fielded that one. “Until we know for sure the reason for the attack on Sheriff O’Connor and his deputy, I’d advise that any suspicious activity you observe warrants concern. However, at the moment we’re operating on the belief that this was an isolated incident. I’ll be spending time here today, and later in the general vicinity of the shooting. I’ll be available to speak with anyone who might be able to shed some light on what’s happened.”

  Rutledge stayed after, but Cork left and walked to the Pathfinder with George LeDuc.

  “You must’ve really pissed somebody off,” LeDuc said.

  “Looks like.”

  “Folks on the rez, we’ve been glad to see you back in that uniform. Most of us. We hear anything, Cork, you’ll know. But don’t count on anyone talking to your BCA friend.”

  “I already told him that, George.”

  LeDuc shook his head and his long white hair shivered. “Out here, you can always tell a white man, but you can’t tell him much.”

  7

  A LITTLE BEFORE three that afternoon, Larson strode into Cork’s office. The sun was bright and cast a long blade of light with a sharp edge that cut across Larson’s thighs as he sat down.

  “What have you got?” Cork asked.

  “A good cast of the tire tracks,” Larson said. “Excellent casting, actually. Rutledge’s people are going to do a pattern match and then we can start checking sales around here. We dug the bullet from the ground, and that’s on its way to the BCA lab. We didn’t find any more shell casings, or anything else on the hilltop.”

  “You saw the tracks down the back side of the hill?”

  “There were definite signs someone had gone that way, but we didn’t find a good boot print. You took Rutledge out to the rez?”

  “Yeah. He’s there now, interviewing, hoping he’ll find somebody who noticed something unusual. Problem is, there’s nobody for a couple of miles in any direction from the Tibodeaus’ place,” Cork said. “And even if they’d seen something, they’re not going to tell Simon.”

  “He’s good. Let’s wait to see what he comes up with.” Larson’s mouth went into a tight line, as if he were trying to keep something from slipping through his lips. “Cork,” he finally said, “you need to see Faith Gray.”

  Faith Gray, MSW, PhD, was the consulting psychologist retained by the county for a variety of purposes. She did psychological testing for certain positions and was also responsible for counseling any sheriff’s personnel involved in an officer-related shooting until she was ready to certify that they were fit for duty.

  “I didn’t shoot anybody,” Cork said.

  Cork had been toying with the silver pen he’d used to work on the duty roster. The pen slipped from his hands. He bent to retrieve it and, when he came up, realized that Larson’s dark eyes had followed every move.

  “You were shot,” Larson said. “I can get you the policy statement, but you ought to know what it says. You wrote it.”

  “All right.” Cork put up his hand as if to stop an argument. “I’ll do it.”

  “It would be a mistake to put it off.”

  “I said I’d do it.”

  Larson nodded, rose from his chair, and left.

  Cork sat for a while, eyeing the telephone. Finally he lifted the receiver to call Faith Gray and noted, a little distantly, that his hand was shaking.

  As he’d promised, he was home for dinner. Jenny had put in a meat loaf, Annie had done potatoes and a tossed salad, and Stevie had set the table. His children weren’t always this organized or cooperative, but whenever the foundation of the family seemed threatened, they pulled together admirably. They greeted him with prolonged hugs, as if he’d been away on a long trip.

  He stowed his gun belt on the top shelf of his bedroom closet and put his revolver in the lockbox there. He took off his uniform, donned jeans and a yellow chamois shirt, and came down to dinner looking like a man who might be doing anything for a living. Except that he had stitches closing the lobe of his left ear where a bullet had narrowly missed piercing his skull. They talked about what happened. The children asked about Marsha, whom they all liked, and they were glad she would recover. As soon as he could, Cork moved them on to other topics.

  “Get any great college offers today?” he said to Jenny as he wedged off a piece of the meat loaf with his fork.

  She’d taken her SATs early and had done extremely well, scoring in the ninety-fifth percentile. For several months, she’d been considering the schools to which she would make application, and had narrowed her choices to Northwestern, Stanford, and Columbia, none of which the O’Connors could afford outright. They’d filed a statement of financial need, and knew that much of the final decision of a college would rest on what kind of aid Jenny was offered. She was a straight-A student with a lot of extracurricular activities and honors. Through a state-sponsored program, she’d already taken a number of college-level courses at Aurora Community College and aced every one. On top of it all, she was part Ojibwe. According to her high school counselor, all of these things made her an attractive candidate.

  It was Northwestern that Jenny talked about most.

  “No, but Mom and I talked some more about going to Evanston to check out Northwestern’s campus.”

  “Sounds like a wise idea.” Then he said, “Some more’?”

  Jo said, “We’ve been talking about a short trip to Evanston for a while.”

  Cork paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. “Really?”

  “We told you, Dad. Don’t you remember?”

  “Sure.” Although at the moment, he didn’t. “When?”

  “That’s one of the things we need to discuss,” Jo said.

  Stevie, who was seven, put down his glass of milk. He had a white mustache on his upper lip. “I told Roger Turppa that I had a sister in the twelfth grade and he said I was a liar “cuz school doesn’t go that high.”

  “It might not for Roger Turppa, if he’s anything like his dad,” Cork said.

  “Evanston’s not that far from South Bend,” Annie said.

  Everyone knew Annie wanted to go to Notre Dame. There’d never been any doubt. Although only a sophomore, she was already determined to secure an athletic scholarship in softball, and when Annie set her mind on something it usually came to pass.

  “We’ll talk about Northwestern—and Notre Dame—later,” Jo said. “When your father’s not so tired.”

  After dinner, Jo washed the dishes, Cork dried. He was just hanging up the dish towel when the front doorbell rang.

  “Dad,” Annie called from the living room. “It’s for you.”

  Simon Rutledge stood at the door, his hands folded patiently in front of him, smiling as he watched Cork come from the kitchen.

  “Smells good,” Rutledge said.

  “The kids fixed meat loaf.”

  “The kids?” Rutledge laughed. “Mine can’t even follow a recipe for ice water. Let’s talk outside, okay?”

  Cork stepped onto the porch and closed the door. It was a blue twilight with a few clouds in the west lit with a faint rose glow. The air was cooling rapidly, and by morning, Cork figured, there’d be frost. Gooseberry Lane was empty, but the houses along the street were lit by warm lights from within. During summer, when the evenings seemed to stretch into forever, he loved to sit with Jo in the porch swing and watch Stevie play with the other kids on the block, their laughter a perfect ending to the day. He d
idn’t have that feeling now.

  “I didn’t get a lot on the rez,” Rutledge said.

  “I figured.”

  “People seem pretty well split in how they think of you.”

  “They always have been.” Cork put his hands on the porch railing and leaned against it lightly. “You know anything about my family, Simon?”

  “Nope. Only know you.”

  “My grandfather was a teacher, opened a school on the reservation in a time when most Ojibwe kids got sent away to government schools. The BIA’s approach was to do its best to rub out the Indian in Indians. My grandfather had friends on the rez and also in politics and he was able to keep a lot of children from being taken from their families. Know why he did that?”

  “He appreciated the culture?”

  “He was in love. With my Grandma Dilsey, who convinced him to do the right thing. He was a decent man, but it was my grandmother who guided his heart. People on the rez respected my grandfather but they loved Grandma Dilsey.

  “My mother chose to marry a white man, too. And a law enforcement officer, to boot. My father was a man of strong beliefs. He tried to be fair, and I think he did a pretty good job of it, but not everybody saw it that way. A lot of white folks called him a squaw man behind his back, like they did my grandfather. The Anishinaabeg called him odeimin. Know what that means?”

  Rutledge shook his head.

  “Strawberry.”

  “Because of his sweet disposition?”

  “His ruddy Irish complexion. Now here I am, a little Indian and a lot of Irish. When folks, white or Shinnob, don’t like what I’m doing, often as not they blame it on my blood.” Cork glanced at Rutledge who was looking at the sky. “You find anyone who seemed pissed enough to shoot me dead?”

  “You know the Ojibwe. For all the emotion they showed, I might as well have been talking to sticks. Nothing they told me was very useful.” He yawned. It had been a long day for him, too. “We’ve got an agent in St. Paul who’s going to St. Joseph’s Hospital tomorrow to interview Lydell Cramer. We’ll see what he has to say for himself.”