Tamarack County Read online

  “Only what little Annie’s taught me.”

  Jenny stood watching, puzzled. “I’m Jenny O’Connor.”

  “Hi. Skye Edwards.” She freed a hand to reach out and shake Jenny’s. “I came looking for your sister.”

  “She’s not here.”

  “Cork told me. Do you have any idea when she’ll be back?”

  Waaboo had his hands in Skye’s hair, and Cork was glad that Jenny had cleaned the blueberry preserves from his little fingers.

  Jenny glanced at her father, and it was Cork who replied, “We don’t exactly know. She’s staying at a place called Crow Point. Was she expecting you?”

  “No.” Waaboo had begun to squirm, and she put him down. He spotted Trixie exiting through the kitchen doorway and went in pursuit. “She didn’t know I was coming,” Skye went on. “I didn’t really know myself until last night.” She seemed to consider her next words carefully, then said, “The truth is I came to bring her back home.”

  * * *

  Cork made a new pot of coffee, and they sat at the dining room table. Jenny had made a big soft landing area with pillows and cushions, and Waaboo occupied himself happily by climbing onto the sofa and throwing himself there.

  “You’re part of the order?” Cork asked.

  “No,” Skye said. “I’m a teacher. Kids with learning disabilities. Annie and I met playing softball. We hit it off right away. She had her calling, I had mine. A mutual admiration.”

  “So the sisters didn’t send you?” Jenny said.

  Skye shook her head. “My idea to come. We all knew she was going home for Christmas, but she took off way early, without saying anything to anybody, her friends or the sisters. We’ve tried calling her cell phone, but she won’t answer. We’ve been worried sick. So I thought I’d come out, make sure she was here, and see if she’d talk to me in person.”

  Cork thought it was an extremely caring thing to do, suspiciously caring, in fact, not to mention expensive. A flight during the Christmas season, a ticket bought on the spur of the moment.

  Jenny whistled. “An expansive display of friendship. You could have just called us.”

  “I know. But I thought it was important to talk to her face-to-face. And as for the cost, well, the truth is I’m pretty well off. My father is Colton Edwards.”

  She said the name as if she expected them to recognize it. Cork didn’t. But Jenny said, “The Silicon Valley Colton Edwards? The Xtel Processor Colton Edwards?”

  “Yeah. We call him Chip. Drives him crazy.” She hadn’t drunk much of her coffee, only enough to be polite. She swirled it in her mug and asked, “Do you think I could go out to this Crow Point and see her?”

  “We’ll talk to Annie,” Cork promised. “Do you have a place to stay? You’re welcome here.”

  “Thanks, but I’ve arranged for a room at the Four Seasons. I don’t want to put anyone out. I don’t know how long I’ll be staying and, honestly, I’m more comfortable in my own hotel room.” She smiled disarmingly. “I snore horribly. Do you have a pen and paper? I’ll leave you my cell phone number, and I’d appreciate it if you’d call me after you’ve spoken with Annie.”

  They saw her to the door. She put on her new parka and went from a slender woman to a walrus. She thanked them and walked down the sidewalk to the Escalade, which she’d told them she’d rented at the Duluth airport. They waved good-bye as she drove off.

  Cork closed the door against the cold pushing in from outside. “She’s very nice,” he said.

  “Yes,” Jenny agreed.

  “And clearly she cares about Annie.”

  “Uh-huh. And?” Jenny arched a brow.

  “I get the definite feeling that there’s something she’s not telling us.”

  “Exactly.”

  Cork looked at the door he’d just closed.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” he said.

  CHAPTER 19

  Cork got the call from the hospital an hour later, but it didn’t come from Stella Daychild.

  “Dad, it’s Stephen. Marlee’s ready to go home.”

  “You’re going to take them?”

  “No. Marlee doesn’t want to see me.”

  Stephen’s tone was flat, unemotional, not like him at all.

  “Okay,” Cork said. “I’ll be right over.”

  He found Stephen in the hospital lobby, alone, sitting on an orange plastic chair, one in a long bank of orange plastic chairs. His son was staring at a far wall that was strung with sparkly holiday garland in a wavy line that reminded Cork of the readout on a heart monitor. He took the chair next to his son. “So. What’s the story?”

  “I don’t know.” Stephen didn’t look at him, just kept his eyes on the wall. “I tried to see her, but her mom said not today.”

  “Was that because Stella preferred it that way?”

  Stephen shook his head. “Pretty sure it was Marlee’s idea.”

  Cork let a couple of quiet moments slide by, then said, “She’s been through hell. She’s got a lot to process.”

  “I was there in hell with her.”

  “I know. Maybe she doesn’t want you to see her looking the way she probably looks today. Those bruises of hers are only going to get uglier.”

  “I don’t care how she looks.”

  “But she does. Give her time.”

  The front doors slid open, and a woman entered with a child, a boy of maybe five, dressed in a bulky red snowsuit and coughing like the bark of a loud dog. She glanced toward Cork and Stephen, dismissed them immediately, turned her child toward a hallway running in the opposite direction, and ushered the kid that way, as if she knew exactly where she was going.

  “Did you have any chance at all to talk to Marlee today?”

  Stephen shook his head.

  Cork tiptoed delicately toward his next question. “Stephen, if Marlee were keeping a secret of some kind, would you know it?”

  Stephen finally looked at his father. “What kind of secret?”

  “That’s pretty much the question. I’m trying to figure out why someone might want to harass Marlee. It’s possible that has to do with her mother, but I’m also wondering if it’s because of something Marlee may be involved in.”

  “Like what?”

  “Have you ever had the feeling that she’s . . . well, that she wants to tell you something but just can’t quite bring herself to do it?”

  “Dad, if Marlee has something to say, she says it.” Stephen’s voice cracked at his father, whip-like, angry.

  “Okay. That’s fine. I’m just kind of fishing here, guy.” Cork sat back and rubbed the knuckles of his right hand, which were chapped and flaking from the dry winter cold, and decided to change the subject. “So, did you get Annie all squared away on Crow Point?”

  “Yeah. Only she’s not in Henry’s cabin. She said it felt like a trespass. So we put her in Rainy’s cabin instead. That was all right, wasn’t it?”

  “I’m pretty sure. I’ll give Rainy a call just to be on the safe side. By the way, Annie’s got a visitor from out of town.”

  “Who?”

  “Does the name Skye Edwards mean anything to you?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t to me or Jenny either. She’s a friend of Annie’s from California. She came out because she’s worried about your sister. She’d like to see her.”

  Stephen looked uncomfortable. “I’m not sure Annie wants company.”

  “How about you do me a favor? Give her a call. If she says it’s okay, take Skye out to Crow Point. Would you do that?”

  “Sure. And you’ll take Marlee and her mom home?”

  “That’s the plan,” Cork said.

  “Okay.” It was a situation clearly acceptable to him, though not ideal.

  Stephen got up, moved to the other end of the lobby, and used his cell phone. Cork could hear only snatches of the conversation that followed. After a minute, he shut his phone, came back, and said, “Where is Skye?”

  “Staying at the
Four Seasons. Annie said yes?”

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “What?”

  “It was really strange, Dad. Annie sounded . . .” Stephen frowned, thought, finally settled on the right word. “Afraid.”

  * * *

  Marlee moved like an old woman, as if each step hurt her somewhere, everywhere. A bruise, dark purple and long, lay like a great fat leech across the left side of her face, and her left eye was swollen nearly shut. On the way home, she sat in the backseat of the Forester, brooding silently. Up front, Cork and Stella talked of inconsequential things.

  At the house, he stood by while Stella helped her daughter inside.

  “You’re welcome to come in,” Stella said.

  “Thanks, no.”

  “Don’t go away,” she told him. “I’ll be right back.”

  While he waited, he walked the clearing in the way he had before, looking for clues to the violation of the Daychilds’ sense of peace two nights earlier, looking for anything he might have missed. It was habit, this visiting and revisiting the elements of a crime. At the entrance to the trail that led through the trees to Iron Lake, he spotted something that he hadn’t seen before. Off to one side was an aspen sapling that stood only eight feet high and with branches that began just above the snow line. Cork noticed that a couple of the lower branches had been broken, one snapped off completely and the other hanging from the trunk by threads of bark. It was the kind of damage that neither wind nor any freeze and thaw cycle would have caused. Something had blundered there, some substantial body. The surface of the snow was smooth, no tracks, and Cork figured that the damage had been done before the recent storm.

  He stood, inhaling air so bitter cold that it was like a sharp blade slicing the inside of each nostril and exhaling explosions of vaporous white.

  He knew there were explanations for the damage that were reasonable and innocuous. It might have been caused by the passage of a deer or bear or even the boisterous bounding of Dexter. But it might also have been the result of a two-legged animal sliding through, seeking, perhaps, a place from which to observe the house unseen.

  His cell phone rang. He pulled it from his belt holster and saw that it was Marsha Dross.

  “Morning, Cork,” she said.

  “What’s up?”

  “I thought you’d want to know. The Judge went a little crazy last night. Attacked his daughter.”

  “Attacked? How?”

  “Tried to strangle her.”

  “Provocation?”

  “In a way, I suppose. She told him she thought it was best for him to live in a nursing home.”

  “Did he hurt her?”

  “Bruises on her neck.”

  “Witnesses?”

  “No, but those bruises are pretty compelling evidence.”

  “What’s the status?”

  “He’s been sedated. Frank Parkkila is reviewing the situation to see if he thinks charges are warranted.”

  Parkkila was the Tamarack County attorney.

  Cork said, “Any more on Evelyn?”

  “Nothing.” Dross sounded tired and a little irritated. “Christ, it seems like she’s just vanished into thin air.”

  “Not without help,” Cork said. “Did you get the Carters’ phone records?”

  “Yes, and we’re following up on the calls the Judge made before his wife went missing. So far, nothing of interest, but we’re still at it. You have anything more on the Daychilds?”

  “Not at the moment. I’ll keep you posted.”

  Cork ended the call. He heard the front door of the house close and looked up as Stella came down the porch steps and started across the clearing. He met her halfway.

  “How’s she doing?” he asked.

  “Beat up in so many ways,” Stella said. “But she’s tough. Cork, I have another favor to ask. It’s a big one.”

  “What is it?”

  “Ray Jay gets released from jail tomorrow. He should know about Dexter before he comes home.”

  “What do you need from me?”

  He expected that Stella would ask to borrow the Forester so she could go into Aurora while he stayed and kept watch over Marlee. Her actual request caught him completely off guard.

  Stella asked, “Could you tell him?”

  “Me?”

  “I would, but Marlee doesn’t want me to leave her,” she explained. “I know it’s a lot, but could you?”

  “I’m not on the list of authorized visitors.”

  “I’ll bet you could get that waived. Everybody knows you’re cozy with the sheriff.”

  “This really feels like something that should come from you.”

  “Ray Jay’s my brother, but we’re not that close. He keeps his distance from everyone. The only thing he cares about is Dexter. Please, Cork.”

  He could have said no. This was family business, between Stella and her brother. But Stella gazed up at him, her brown eyes imploring, her face soft and worried and, he thought, unusually lovely. What could he say but yes?

  CHAPTER 20

  Henry Meloux had once directed Stephen to sit for a day in the meadow on Crow Point and do nothing. Just sit. Meloux gave no other instruction nor did he give a reason. Stephen did as the old Mide asked. From the moment the sun climbed above the ragged tree line until it set below the far shore of Iron Lake, he sat among the wildflowers and tall grass. Mosquitoes and blackflies plagued him, and the sun was hot, and he grew thirsty, but still he sat. A wind came up, and the grass bent. The wind died, and the grass grew still. A couple of turkey vultures circled on the thermals above him, spiraling upward until they were like small ashes against that great hearth in which the sun burned. Because he didn’t know the reason he was there, had no purpose that he could understand, his mind was filled with a flood of debris—pieces of thoughts, drifting images, half-formed questions.

  Near the end of the day, his eyelids grew heavy and his mind grew quiet and he saw something he had not seen before. He saw that he was no longer sitting in the place he’d sat that morning. He hadn’t moved, yet nothing around him was the same. He realized it had been that way all day. In every moment, everything had abandoned what it had been in the moment before and had become something new. He was looking at a different meadow, a different lake, a different sky. These things were very familiar to him, and yet they were not. He was keenly aware of each scent as if he’d never smelled it before, each new sound, new breath of wind, new ripple in this new universe.

  When, at twilight, Meloux emerged from his cabin and crossed the meadow, he said nothing to Stephen, simply stood looking down at him. And Stephen realized that Meloux was different, too. He saw that the old man was older. He saw that the old man was dying, dying in every moment. It was a startling realization, but not a sad one, because he understood.

  Meloux didn’t speak of the experience or of what Stephen might have learned from his time on Crow Point that day. He said simply, “I have made soup.”

  Things changed. That was the nature of all creation. Stephen knew this and tried to accept it, but that morning, standing in the lobby of the Four Seasons, waiting for Skye Edwards to come from her room, acceptance was difficult. He stared through one of the windows overlooking the empty marina and the frozen white of Iron Lake. He didn’t want things to change. He wanted Marlee. He wanted her not to be angry with him, if anger it was. He wanted to be near her. At the same time, he felt himself resisting that temptation. He was full to bursting with contradictory impulses. He felt hot and cold toward Marlee at the same time. His mind, in a single moment, said to him two different things. It said, “Stay,” and it said, “Run.” His heart felt as if it was flying dizzyingly high and free, and yet was also imprisoned. He didn’t like this mix-up of emotions. He didn’t like that he felt out of control. On the other hand, he so enjoyed where that lack of control sometimes led him. For all its tragedy, the day before stayed with him in a way that did not feel tragic. He couldn’t shake the image of Marlee’s breasts, th
e dark eyes of her areolas staring at him, the feel of her flesh warm and yielding in his palm. Even now, to his great embarrassment, he had an erection.

  “Stephen?”

  The voice brought him suddenly out of himself. He shifted his left hand so that the coat he was holding covered him below the waist. He turned and found himself face-to-face with a tall, slender woman whose smile, from that first instant, won him.

  “Skye?” he asked.

  “This is such a pleasure,” she replied. “Annie’s told me so much about you. You’re every bit as handsome as she says.”

  She offered her hand, then saw that his was bound in gauze. “Oh my, what happened?”

  “Long story,” Stephen said and didn’t elaborate.

  “Well, if I can’t shake your hand,” she said. She stepped to him and gave him a hug, heart to heart. She smelled of milled soap, fresh and clean, and he didn’t mind in the least the gentle force with which she pressed him to her.

  When she released him, Stephen said impulsively, “Minobii-niibaa-anama’e-giizhigad.”

  She smiled but was clearly baffled.

  “It’s Ojibwe,” Stephen explained. “It means ‘Merry Christmas.’ ”

  “That’s so lovely. Thank you.”

  “If you’re ready, I’ll take you out to see Annie.”

  “Just let me get my coat.” She’d thrown the parka over the back of an easy chair in the hotel lobby. She lifted it and laughed. “Every time I put this on, I look like I’ve gained a hundred pounds.”

  At the Land Rover, which was parked in the hotel lot, Skye eyed the trailer where the Bearcat sat. “We’ll need that?”

  “Yes,” Stephen said.

  “What is this Crow Point exactly?”

  “A special place. It’s kind of isolated. You’ll see.”

  “Jesus,” she whispered and shook her head.

  Stephen drove south around the tip of Iron Lake and began up the eastern shoreline toward Allouette on the Iron Lake Reservation. Skye asked questions, a million of them, like a schoolgirl introduced to a new subject that fascinated her. Stephen happily obliged, answering and easily elaborating.

  “The Ojibwe call this lake Gitchimiskwasaab,” he told her, “which basically means big ass. We have a story that tells of it being created by Nanaboozhoo, who’s kind of the trickster in our legends. See, Nanaboozhoo tried to steal the tail feathers from a great eagle, but the eagle took flight. He flew really high, and Nanaboozhoo finally had to let go, and when he fell to earth, he landed here. His butt cheeks made the indentation for the lake. The fall hurt him pretty bad, and he cried, and his tears filled the indentation with water.”