Mercy Falls co-5 Read online

  Jacoby thought it over and nodded slightly. “Maybe. Nothing Eddie touched ever turned out right. I think he was in trouble with Starlight and needed this casino deal.” He glanced at Cork. “Does that help you at all?”

  “We’ll be looking into the possibility that his murder is related to his stay in Aurora, certainly, but is it possible this was something tied to his life in Chicago?”

  “You mean somebody came out here to kill him?” The skepticism in his voice was obvious.

  “I’m just asking are you aware of any circumstances in his life that ought to be considered.”

  “Did you know Eddie at all?”

  “I’d met him a couple of times.”

  “Did he strike you as a gentle soul?”

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d just answer my question.”

  “Look, Eddie and trouble were old friends, but I’m not aware of anything at the moment that I would connect with this. I can easily believe, however, that while he was here he pissed off somebody enough to want him dead.”

  Cork was making notations in a small notepad he kept in his shirt pocket. While he wrote, Jacoby turned suddenly toward Jo.

  “Kids?” he asked.

  Jo hesitated. “Three.”

  “I have a son. His name’s Phillip. He’s in his senior year at Northwestern.” He waited, as if expecting Jo to reply in kind.

  There was an uncomfortable silence, and Cork finally said, “We have two girls and a boy. Jenny’s a senior in high school. Annie’s a sophomore. Our son Stephen is in second grade.”

  Jacoby spoke toward Jo. “Sounds like a nice family.”

  “We think it is,” Cork replied. “Interesting that your son’s at Northwestern. That’s Jenny’s first choice for college.”

  “She couldn’t choose better as far as I’m concerned. It’s my undergraduate alma mater.” He set his coffee mug on Jo’s desk. “Sheriff, do you need anything more from me right now? I’d like to go to the hotel and check on my father.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “The Quetico Inn.”

  “I’ll take you there.”

  The two men stood up, and Jo after them. Jacoby reached across her desk and warmly took her hand. “It’s good to see you again, Jo. I’m just sorry it couldn’t have been under more pleasant circumstances.”

  “I’m sorry, too, Ben.” She drew her hand back, and addressed Cork. “Will you be home for dinner?”

  “I’ll try.”

  “I’d like you there. For the kids.”

  “Like I said, I’ll try.” He kissed her briefly and followed Jacoby out the door.

  In the Pathfinder, as Cork pulled out of the parking lot of the Aurora Professional Building, Jacoby said, “Do you believe in synchronicity, Sheriff?”

  Cork made a left onto Alder Street and headed toward the lake. “If that’s anything like coincidence, no.”

  “I prefer to think of it as the convergence of circumstances for a particular purpose.” He looked out the window. They were passing the old firehouse that had been converted into a suite of chic offices. “Nice town,” he said, and sounded as if he meant it. “Aurora. The goddess of dawn.”

  Cork said, “What kind of man was your brother?”

  Jacoby looked at him. “You’ll get a prejudiced answer.”

  “I’ll work around the prejudice.”

  “He was the kind of man I’d rather have working for Starlight than for me.”

  “Why?”

  “He had a style I strongly disagreed with. What’s that wonderful smell?”

  “It’s Thursday, barbecued rib night at the Broiler.”

  Jacoby smiled vaguely. “What was last night?”

  “Homemade meat loaf and gravy.”

  Jacoby gave his head a faint shake. “Must be comforting.”

  “To live in a small town and like it, you have to appreciate routine.”

  “Routine. There are days when I’d sell my soul for a little of that.” The sentiment seemed sincere.

  The main lodge at the Quetico Inn was a grand log construction that stood on the shore of Iron Lake a couple of miles south of town. Cork pulled up to the front entrance and put the Pathfinder in park. Jacoby reached for the door handle.

  “I’d like to talk more with your family,” Cork said.

  “We’ll be in town a couple of days.” He gave the handle a pull, opened the door, and stepped out. He tossed Cork a bemused look. “Nancy Jo McKenzie. Who would’ve thought it? Good afternoon, Sheriff.”

  He meant to get home for dinner as Jo had asked, but when he returned to his office, he found the department besieged by the media, and he arranged for a press conference at the courthouse at five o’clock. He contacted Simon Rutledge, who agreed to be there, but Rutledge was delayed and the conference began twenty minutes late. Cork had prepared an official statement that included the first public announcement of the identity of the murdered man, and he dispensed the statement to all the reporters. News cameras had also been sent by network affiliates in Duluth and the Twin Cities. Simon Rutledge deferred to Cork on most questions, and Cork answered honestly what he could, indicating that evidence had been gathered and that they had leads which he declined to go into.

  After the press conference, he met with Rutledge and Larson in his office. They didn’t feel either of the investigations had made much headway.

  “I’m expecting to have a fax of Jacoby’s phone records by tomorrow. I’m hoping that’ll give us some direction,” Rutledge said.

  Larson chimed in. “In the meantime, we’ve pulled prints from his room at the Four Seasons. The linen gets changed daily, and it appears he didn’t sleep in his bed last night, but we’ve taken the bedspread and maybe we’ll get something from that-hair samples, for example, that match those from the SUV.”

  “How about the cigarette butts?”

  “Still being analyzed,” Rutledge said, with a note of apology.

  Cork knew that the resources of the state BCA crime lab were in great demand, and whatever was sent from Aurora would have to wait its turn.

  “One thing, though,” Larson said. “When I talked with the Four Seasons staff, they told me that in the past Jacoby stayed for only two or three days. This time, he’d been there more than a week.”

  “And this time,” Cork said, “the RBC is getting ready to vote on a contract proposal for Starlight’s services.”

  “A lot of heavy lobbying on Jacoby’s part?” Rutledge said.

  “We should find out. I’ll head out to the rez first thing tomorrow and talk to LeDuc and some of the other members of the RBC,” Cork said.

  “Another thing to think about is Jacoby’s libido,” Larson said. “I talked to the staff at the Boundary Waters Room.” He was speaking of the restaurant at the Four Seasons. “Jacoby ate late, usually after a couple of drinks at the bar, then he generally left the inn. He sometimes came back with company.”

  “He got lucky?”

  “Or he was the kind who didn’t want to be alone, even if it cost him.”

  “I talked with Newsome,” Larson said. Then, for Rutledge’s benefit he added, “The night bartender at the Four Seasons. Newsome said Jacoby had asked him once where a guy with cash could find himself a little company.”

  “What did Newsome tell him?” Cork asked.

  “Claims he said he didn’t know.”

  “How hard did you lean on him?”

  Larson said, “There are a lot of people to talk to, Cork.”

  “I know there are, Ed.” He took a moment, shifted his thinking to the incident on the rez. “Did your man or Pender come up with anything on those Goodyear tires?”

  “Nothing. They’ll widen their area of inquiry tomorrow.”

  “How about the ammo?”

  “Nothing there, either. But we’ll keep on that, too.”

  “Simon, anything from your talk with Lydell Cramer’s sister?”

  “I never got to her. She lives on a farm. The road’s
gated and locked. I wanted to get back here for the press conference, so I’ll try again tomorrow, talk to the local cops, see what they can tell me.”

  They ended their meeting. As he was leaving, Larson said quietly to Cork, “How’re you doing?”

  “Tired. I imagine you are, too. But if you’re worrying about my mental state, don’t. And by the way, I have an appointment to see Faith Gray tomorrow.”

  “I wasn’t worried, Cork,” Larson said. “Just concerned.”

  13

  Cork had called to say he wouldn’t be home for dinner. Jo wasn’t angry. She understood his situation. But she wasn’t happy, either. The children helped with dishes, then turned to their homework.

  Jo went into her office at the back of the house to do some work of her own. She was going over the file of Amanda Horton when the phone rang.

  “I was hoping you would answer.” The voice was low and certain, and she knew it instantly. “I need to see you.”

  “What for?”

  “To talk.”

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  “Please. Just to talk.”

  “We can talk on the phone.”

  “There are things you need to know. For your own good. Please.”

  She closed her eyes and knew even as she made her decision that it held all the potential for disaster. “All right. My office in the Aurora Professional Building. In fifteen minutes.”

  “Thank you.”

  She went to the living room, where the children sat among their scattered books and notebooks and pencils.

  “I have to go to my office for a while. You guys okay?”

  “Sure, Mom,” Jenny said. “A client?”

  “Yes.” The lie felt like something piercing her heart.

  The rain had ended in the afternoon, but a dreary wetness lingered. It was after seven, the sky a dismal gray that was sliding into early dark. The radio in her Camry was on, tuned to NPR, All Things Considered, but she wasn’t listening. She turned onto Oak Street, pulled to the curb, and stopped half a block from her office. She sat with her hands tight on the steering wheel, staring through the windshield at an old tennis shoe abandoned in the street. It looked like a small animal cringing in the beam of her headlights.

  She closed her eyes and whispered, “Christ, what am I doing?”

  She heard the car approaching, the whish of the tires on wet pavement. A black Cadillac passed and half a block farther turned into the parking lot of the Aurora Professional Building. She took a deep breath and followed.

  When she parked beside the Cadillac, he stepped out.

  “This way,” she said, and went to a side door where she used her key.

  The hallway was quiet and dimly lit, but from somewhere she couldn’t see came the sound of a buffer going over a floor.

  “Cleaning staff,” she said, more to herself than to him.

  She led the way to her office, unlocked the door, stood aside to let him pass. Closing the door behind her, she walked to her inner office and flipped on the light. She turned around. He stood close to her, smelling of the wet autumn air.

  “What do you want, Ben?”

  He wore a light-brown turtleneck that perfectly matched his eyes and hair and pressed against his chest and shoulders in a way that made it seem as if the muscles beneath it were about to burst through.

  He said, “A very long time ago I built a wall across my life. There was everything before you and everything after.”

  “Very poetic,” she said. “And what? The wall crumbles now, our lives suddenly merge again? Ben, you left me, remember? How’s your wife, by the way?”

  “She’s dead, Jo.”

  “Oh.” She felt the knot of her anger loosen just a little. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ve been a widower for a year. But even before that we were…” He shrugged in his tight, expensive sweater. “The marriage was over years ago. It was never much of a marriage to begin with.”

  She slipped behind her desk, put the big piece of polished oak between her and Benjamin Jacoby. “I’m sorry your life didn’t work out the way you’d hoped, but I put you behind me a long time ago. I went on with my own life. I’ve been very happy.”

  He came to the desk. “You never thought of me?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “It’s a big world, Jo. It’s unthinkable to me that fate would bring us together again without a reason.”

  “Fate?” She laughed. “Ben, you never left anything to chance. How long have you known I was here?”

  He looked deeply into her eyes. “I always knew it. I just never did anything about it. Then one night, we’re having dinner at my father’s house, the whole family. Eddie’s talking about this casino deal he’s working on in Minnesota, going on about the gorgeous lawyer he was dealing with. I ask him where this casino is. And bingo-Aurora. I don’t know. With Eddie coming here, it made a difference somehow, connected us. Since then I’ve often thought about using him as an excuse to contact you, but I’m not egocentric or stupid enough to believe there could ever be anything between us again. I wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for what happened to Eddie. I don’t have any desire to complicate your life.”

  “You can’t complicate it, Ben. You’re not even a part of it.”

  “I’m not looking for that, Jo. My life hasn’t been perfect, but it was the one I chose, and it’s had its advantages.” He moved his hand across the desk but stopped far short of touching her. “You haven’t asked why I left you.”

  “It was pretty obvious. You were married within six months.”

  “The roads we take aren’t always of our own choosing.”

  “What? She was pregnant?”

  “There are other compelling reasons to marry.”

  “Love?”

  “In my whole life, Jo, I’ve loved one woman. I didn’t marry her.”

  “I don’t want to go on with this conversation. But I do want to know why the charade? Why pretend that my being here was such a surprise?”

  “I was afraid that I’d scare you. I know how crazy all this must seem.”

  Jo shook her head. “I haven’t heard you say one thing so far that sounded real to me.”

  He looked genuinely hurt. “The wall, Jo, that was real. You did divide my life. For a while, you absolutely defined it. I’m not saying that I’ve thought of you every day for the last twenty years, but whenever I think about a time when I was happy, I think about the summer with you.” He seemed to be at the edge of defeat. “Look, I’m in town for only a couple of days. Could I…” He faltered. “Could I ask a favor? A small one, I promise.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’d like to meet your family.”

  “Why?”

  “I’d love to see the life you’ve made for yourself.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Only you and I know the truth about us. It wouldn’t be awkward, I promise. And maybe it would help with closure.”

  “After twenty years you need closure?”

  “All right. Then just to satisfy my own damn curiosity. An hour of your time and your family’s. Is it really so much to ask?”

  “Yes, it is. I can’t believe you don’t understand that.”

  “There’s so much you don’t understand. So much you never will.” He put up his empty hands. “I guess that’s it.”

  “You said there were things I needed to know, for my own good.”

  “I was mistaken. They were things I needed to know, and now I do.”

  He turned and walked to the anteroom. At the door that opened onto the hallway, he turned back, his hand on the knob. He took a look around him, at the ordinary room where Fran Cooper worked and Jo’s clients waited. “Do you like this?”

  “I love it,” she said.

  His eyes held a look of wistful sadness. “I wish I could say that about what I do. I wish I could have said it, ever. Good night, Jo.” He went out and closed the door behind him.
/>   She waited until the sound of his footsteps in the corridor had faded to nothing, then went back into her office, sat down, and put her hands over her face as if she were trying to hide behind a small, fragile fence.

  14

  The bar at the Four Seasons was a big room with a stone fireplace and wide windows that overlooked Iron Lake. On sunny days, the view of the marina and beyond was stellar, row after row of boats at rest on blue water, framed by the sawtooth outline of pines. But at night there was only darkness outside the window glass, and what people saw then was the reflection of the fire and themselves, and the room seemed much smaller.

  Cork caught Augie Newsome in an idle moment, wiping down the bar. Newsome was a rubbery-looking man with a willowy body, long arms, and face like stretched putty. He wore Elvis Costello glasses and combed his hair in a gelled wave. He usually appeared to be on the brink of smiling, as if all the ironies of life were right in front of him and always amusing. Cork had known him a dozen years, ever since Newsome migrated up from the Twin Cities for reasons that only Cork and a very few others knew. During his first stint as sheriff, he’d given Newsome a break that had meant a difference in the kind of bars behind which the man spent his time.

  “Sheriff,” Newsome said brightly, wiping his way down the bar toward Cork. “What can I do you for?”

  Except for a couple seated at one of the tables near the fireplace, the bar was deserted. It was Thursday, the night before the weekenders descended. The locals called them 612ers, because the vast majority of the tourists and the nonresident landholders came from the Twin Cities where for years those three numbers had formed the prominent telephone area code.

  Cork said, “Ed Larson talked to you today.”

  “That he did. Asked about the dead guy out at Mercy Falls. Man, is that crazy or what? Right here in Aurora. Say, I understand Marsha Dross is doing fine. Glad to hear it. Her and Charlie Annala are pretty regular customers. Can I get you something?”