Copper River co-6 Read online

  Ever since the day before when Charlie told him that Amber liked him, the girl had occupied much of his thinking. She was pretty, with long gold hair that always seemed to flip in just the right way over her delicate shoulders. She wore braces on her teeth, and when she smiled she usually covered her mouth. For some reason, that made Ren like her more. In truth, he’d been thinking less about her prettiness or long gold hair or smile than about her breasts, which over the past summer seemed to have erupted and now pushed up like a couple of active volcanoes under her sweater.

  He didn’t linger when he reached her house, not wanting her to think, should she see him pass, that he’d come that way just because of her. He did cast a quick glance in that direction, but was disappointed to see no one at the front windows.

  He turned west. Near the edge of town, the pavement gave way to gravel. He bumped along beyond the last of the small ranch houses and entered an area of failed commerce. He passed Zeke’s Small Engine Repair, now abandoned, a small pasture where a man named Fry Ahearn still sometimes kept a few goats, and finally the Huron Lumber Company, which had given up the ghost years ago and now sat idle behind a tall Cyclone fence.

  Charlie lived with her father in a beat-up green trailer home set on a cinder-block foundation a quarter mile south of the abandoned lumberyard. There were two red maples in front and between them a big patch of raggedy grass that was usually long overdue for mowing. In back a sea of weeds swamped the empty frame of a swing set, a couple of rusted barrels, an old gas stove, a claw-foot bathtub, and a hundred other smaller items with so many jagged or broken edges that Charlie and Ren no longer set foot there.

  Because he didn’t want to risk waking Charlie’s father, who would probably be battling a mammoth hangover, Ren pulled to the side of the road a good distance from the trailer, killed the engine, and walked the rest of the way. Far from town, everything was quiet. The maples were a deep red and shedding. Their fallen leaves lay embedded in the tall grass of the front yard like rubies. Ren knew better than to knock. He crept to a side window, which was closed, the blinds inside lowered. He tapped at the glass, waited, tapped again. He put his lips to the window pane and called softly, “Charlie?”

  Nothing.

  Which was understandable. It had been a late night for them both. He walked around to the front, saw that the door was open. He climbed the crumbling set of concrete steps and peeked through the screen.

  He’d been inside hundreds of times over the years and the place was always a mess. This morning it looked even worse than usual. Way worse. As if Charlie’s father had gone on a drunken rampage and tried to break everything he hadn’t already broken. Christ, how could Charlie stand it?

  Ren didn’t like the idea of disturbing Mr. Miller, but the place looked so bad, he was worried about Charlie. If she’d come home while her old man was going crazy…

  “Hello?” Ren called timidly. “Mr. Miller? Charlie?”

  The day was sunny and still. The clarity of the Huron Mountains in the distance was softened by a blue haze. Ren watched a stray dog squeeze through a hole in the lumberyard fence, look his way, then trot off in the other direction. This was all so normal, yet Ren sensed that something wasn’t right.

  A long moment of uncertainty passed, then he decided.

  He eased the door open and stepped inside. Immediately, his nose was assaulted by the same raw odor that had hit him when he opened the door of the car where Cork O’Connor had bled heavily after he was shot. Ren would have turned around and got the hell out of there except he was afraid for Charlie.

  Although the trailer was full of broken debris, it felt empty. Ren made his way toward Charlie’s bedroom. As he approached the threshold, part of the room was revealed and what he saw stopped him cold.

  Charlie’s walls were powder blue. The wall that Ren could see was splashed with a different color. As he stood there, unable to make himself move ahead, the artist in him tried to find form in what he saw. Numbly he thought that the splatter resembled a jellyfish with many long tentacles.

  A big red jellyfish.

  11

  Cork offered to share his breakfast with Dina. She accepted a bit of his coffee and a piece of toast. She sat at the cabin table, hunched over her half-filled coffee cup. She’d removed the forest green jacket she’d been wearing. Underneath was a tan sweater. Below were khakis and hiking boots.

  “For a city girl who never learned much about the woods, you look pretty good here. Pretty natural,” Cork said, speaking from his bunk.

  With her thumb she flicked a crumb from the corner of her mouth. “Deep-cover training.”

  “You haven’t talked to Jo, right?”

  “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

  It was, but he was dying to know how they were doing, to be assured that they were fine. And he wanted them to know they shouldn’t be worried about him.

  “The less they know, the safer they are. They’re of no use to Jacoby,” he said.

  Dina used Cork’s butter knife to brush some char from her toast. “You know, I never believed cops and families were a good idea. You get hurt, killed, it’s not just you who suffers.”

  “If cops didn’t have families, where would little cops come from?” He smiled. She didn’t. “Is that the reason you don’t have a boyfriend?”

  She leveled her green eyes on him and said dourly, “Boyfriend?” She picked up her coffee with both hands. “I haven’t had a boyfriend since high school. I have lovers.”

  “Anyone special?”

  “Special gets complicated and leads to things like families.” She gave her attention to the coffee.

  Cork lifted the tray on which Ren had delivered breakfast. He tried to move it out of his way, twisted his leg, and grunted in pain. Dina got up, came over, took the tray from him, and carried it to the table. She came back, lifted the sheet, and looked at his wounds.

  “Hurt much?”

  “Only when the drugs wear off. Or I think about it. Ever been shot?”

  “That’s a pleasure I’ve missed.” Her eyes moved from his leg to his face, then slid away quickly. “You were lucky.”

  “I know.”

  She let the sheet drop. “Is this really the kind of thing you want to put your family through?”

  “Maybe when all this is over I’ll go back to running the hamburger stand. Except I got shot doing that, too.”

  “Maybe guys like you just attract trouble.”

  “What about people like you?”

  “Like me?”

  “Who make a living pulling other people’s keisters out of the fire.”

  “I’m not making a nickel off you.”

  He laughed softly. “You can use me as a reference.” He reached out and took her hand. “Thanks for coming, Dina.”

  She glanced at her fingers, small in his palm. “What was I going to do? Leave you to the wolves?”

  “Some would.”

  “In my shoes, what would you do?”

  “Deep down, we’re the same kind of people, you know. Except with you, it comes in a nicer package.” He laughed easily, jesting.

  “And with you, it comes with a family.” She slid her hand from his easy grip, walked back to the table, and sat down with her coffee.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” he said.

  “Forget it.”

  “Look, all I meant was-”

  “I said forget it, okay?”

  “No. I want to get this straight.”

  “It couldn’t be any straighter. You’re married. Happily. The perfect family. End of story. I get it.”

  For a while it was quiet in the cabin. Cork stared out the window at the square of sky and tree branch he could see from the bunk. “Wish I knew how the investigations are going.”

  “Like I said, the Winnetka police are playing dumb. Won’t answer any of my questions. Maybe your people in Aurora know something.”

  “Got a cell phone I can use?”

  “What hap
pened to yours?”

  Cork grabbed his shattered unit from the windowsill and held it up. “Took a bullet in the parking lot in Kenosha.”

  Dina finally smiled, then something seemed to dawn on her. “When you talked to Jo before the goons ambushed you at the motel, did you tell her where you were staying?”

  “I didn’t think so, but I must have. How else would they have known where I was?”

  “Did you pay for the room with a credit card?”

  “Cash, from the roll you gave me.”

  “But you used the cell phone to call her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me see it.”

  Cork handed it over.

  “When did you buy this?”

  “Couple of months ago. Replacement for the one that got broken when we busted a meth lab near Yellow Lake.”

  She popped the face off the phone, studied the guts, and said, “Uh-huh.”

  “What?”

  “I think I know how they found you. E911 capable.”

  E911. Cork understood. Many new cell phones were equipped with a chip that, when the unit was turned on, broadcast a continuous GPS signal that was accessible if you knew the phone’s unique chip code. This allowed emergency personnel to locate someone who either didn’t know where they were or couldn’t relay that information. It had other, less publicized uses. It was possible for law enforcement to track suspects or known criminals using the chip’s signal. Also, some cell phone companies documented their customers’ activities on a continuous basis, logging information that might be of interest to a corporation wanting to know, for example, how many Starbucks someone hit in the course of a normal week. Anyone with the right money and proper connections would have had no trouble at all tracking Cork to a dingy motel in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

  “Christ, why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Have you used the phone up here at all?” Dina asked.

  He shook his head. “The bullet killed it.”

  “Good.”

  She tossed it to him and he set it back on the windowsill. “Here.” She took a cell from the pocket of her jacket and gave it to him. “Use this.”

  “This one can’t be tracked?”

  “Whenever I buy a cell phone for myself or my operatives, the first thing I do is disable the chip.”

  “Thanks,” Cork said. He punched in the number for Captain Ed Larson’s office at the Aurora County Sheriff’s Department. “Ed, it’s Cork.”

  “Where the hell are you?” Larson’s voice faded in and out over the phone, the connection tenuous.

  “Best you don’t know, Ed. Jacoby’s put a price on my head.”

  “I heard. I talked with Jo a little bit ago. You should call her. She’s worried sick.”

  “I called her once and it turned out bad. I won’t call her again. If these guys know I’m in touch with her, I’m afraid they might try using her to get to me, understand?”

  “Yeah. Look, I think you’ve got trouble here, too. We got a call last night from one of your neighbors. Someone was sneaking around your house. Dispatched a cruiser and the guy ran. Somebody thinking you came back to Aurora to hide, maybe?”

  “That’s my guess. Jesus, these guys are everywhere.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “Hanging in there. Dina Willner’s with me, so I’ve got backup.”

  “That’s good.”

  “We’ve been talking things over, trying to figure our next move, but we’re working in the dark. Tell me what’s going on with the Jacoby murders.”

  “We’ve had a couple of breaks. First off, we picked up some teenagers joyriding in a car they admitted stealing. It matches the description of the vehicle at Mercy Falls the night Eddie Jacoby was murdered. The kids claimed they took it from a small airfield near Biwabik where it had been parked for several days. Turned out to be a rental. Under the front seat, we found lip gloss manufactured in Argentina.”

  “Gabriella Jacoby is from Argentina.”

  “Bingo. We’re checking the prints against the ones she submitted when she applied for citizenship here. If they match, we may be able to prove she was in Minnesota when she claimed to be sailing on Lake Michigan with her brother Tony.”

  “Who rented the vehicle?”

  “It came from an agency at the Duluth airport three days before Jacoby was murdered. A phony ID and credit card were used, but the rental agent, a young woman apparently much impressed with Tony Salguero’s swarthy Latin American ways, identified him from a photo. Salguero used the same credit card to purchase a round-trip airline ticket from Chicago to Duluth.”

  “He set it up ahead of time, flew out with Gabriella in his private plane; they killed Eddie and flew back in time to be on their boat next morning,” Cork said. “Probably planned to return the car when things settled down, only the kids got there first.”

  “Everything points in that direction. We have motive-the insurance and inheritance money-and opportunity. And don’t forget we have Arlo Knuth, who’ll testify about the Spanish-speaking couple he saw at Mercy Falls the night Eddie was stabbed. We don’t have every nail in place yet, but we’re getting there, Cork.”

  “What about Ben Jacoby’s murder?”

  “Winnetka PD tells me they’ve got a shoe print. When Ben Jacoby was shot in his pool, you and Dina were covering the front of the estate. The only way for the killer to make a getaway was through the back gate down to the lakeshore. There was a heavy dew that morning, made the sand wet and compact. It held tracks. The only tracks on the beach that early in the morning came from a sport shoe. Fila, size ten and a half. Coincidentally, Salguero’s shoe size. Winnetka’s working on a warrant right now to search his place for a shoe that matches the prints.”

  “All good news,” Cork said. “But still nothing that pins them solid. Look, Ed, I’d bet it was Salguero who did the actual killings. Gabriella has children, two young sons. That makes her vulnerable. What if Winnetka PD brought her in and sweated her. She might be inclined to roll over on Salguero in exchange for a deal that wouldn’t keep her away from her boys forever.”

  “I’ll talk to them about it.”

  “Thanks, Ed. All this is good to hear. If you need to get in touch with me, call Dina’s cell phone number.” He gave it to Larson and ended the call.

  “Well?” she said.

  He explained what he’d learned.

  Dina slipped the phone back into her jacket pocket. “Even if they arrest Gabriella, Lou might not call off the hit. I’ve worked a lot of jobs for him over the years, and Lou’s one stubborn son of a bitch. No matter what the evidence, he might decide not to believe his darling daughter-in-law had a hand in killing his sons.” Dina yawned and stretched. “I need a shower. And a good cup of coffee. Where the hell is Ren? How long does it take to get a latte and get back here?”

  “You know kids. They dawdle.”

  Dina flipped on the light switch in the bathroom and glanced around. “As a matter of fact, I don’t know kids. They scare me. They’re like something I see at the zoo. And as long as they stay on their side of the bars, I do fine. Okay if I use your shower?”

  Before Cork could answer, he heard the growl of the engine as the ATV bounced up the lane from the county road. “Speak of the devil.”

  “Latte and a kolache, ” Dina said eagerly.

  She went to the front door and opened it. Cork felt a cool draft of late morning air rush into the cabin.

  The ATV stopped outside. Dina stepped back abruptly, and Ren stumbled past her looking as if he’d been chased by a monster. He spoke in gasps.

  “He’s…he’s…dead.”

  “Whoa,” Dina said. “Who’s dead?”

  Ren’s eyes swung from Cork to Dina then back to Cork. They were wide and wet-looking. “Charlie’s…father.”

  “How do you know?” Cork asked. He pushed himself into a sitting position.

  “I saw him.”

  Dina came around Ren so that she could look into his face
, too. “Where?”

  “At their trailer. I was just there. Somebody beat his head in.”

  Cork swung his legs off the bunk, ignoring the pain of his wounds. “Where’s Charlie?”

  “I don’t know. She wasn’t there.”

  Cork stood up and limped to the boy. With some difficulty, he knelt and put his hands gently on Ren’s shoulders. “Take a deep breath. Okay, another. Now, tell me everything from the beginning.”

  Ren told it all, from his stop at the Farber House to the red jellyfish on the wall of Charlie’s bedroom to the dead man lying on the floor with his head beat to mush.

  “The baseball bat was right beside him,” Ren said, choking a little on the words. “It was Charlie’s bat. It was, like, the nicest present her dad ever gave her.”

  “You’re sure he was dead, Ren?” Dina asked.

  “His head…I could see his brains sticking out.” He squeezed his eyes shut, as if that would block the image.

  Cork said, “We need to tell the police, Ren. And we need to call your mother. She should be with you. Okay?”

  The boy nodded.

  “Give me your cell phone, Dina. What’s her number at the clinic, Ren?”

  Cork spoke with someone who told him Jewell was out on a call. Ren gave him her cell phone number and he tried that, but she was out of the service area. He handed the phone back to Dina.

  “We shouldn’t wait,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “I’ll go with him,” Dina volunteered. “Would that be all right, Ren?”

  He considered her a moment. “Okay.”

  Cork said, “Is there a police department in Bodine?”

  “Yeah. There’s the constable. Ned Hodder.”

  Dina put her hand on Ren’s shoulder. “Let’s start with him.”

  “Wait,” Cork said. “This is risky. You’re a stranger here. That’ll raise questions.”

  Dina thought a moment. “What if I were a relative? Mind having an aunt Donna, Ren?”

  “Donna?” Ren said.

  “For a little while, I’ll be Donna Walport. It’s a name I use sometimes when I don’t want people to know my real name. I have a few of those.”

  “Like an alias?”