After lunch, Cork and Rose took the children and headed to the offices of Great North Development Company, where Jo had worked much of the morning with Sandy Parrant. Great North was housed in the old firehouse a block off Center Street. Built in 1897 of charcoal gray granite, the firehouse had been scheduled for demolition, but Sandy Parrant and the judge had bought it and had it remodeled as a home for Great North.
Before he disappeared, Joe John LeBeau had the contract to clean the Great North offices. He’d told Cork the old firehouse was haunted. He claimed that when he cleaned alone late at night, he could hear the boots of the long-dead firefighters clomping across the floor overhead. He swore that once he saw the ghost of Lars Knudsen, who’d become a local hero by giving his life trying to save the children when the old Freemason orphanage burned in ’09. Joe John told Cork these things in the time when he was sober, before he walked away drunk from his truck, abandoning his family and his livelihood, a thing Cork had never understood. But a man who heard ghosts was probably a troubled man to begin with.
Jenny and Rose stayed in the Bronco. Cork took Anne and Stevie into the old firehouse. Joyce Sandoval, a woman with white hair and half glasses, sat at a reception desk typing into a computer. She looked over the flat top of her glasses at Cork and the kids.
“They pay you a lot for working Saturday, Joyce?”
“They don’t pay me a lot, period,” she grumbled, but amiably.
“Why aren’t you out doing something with Albert?”
Albert Nordberg and Joyce Sandoval had been dating for a quarter of a century. Their courtship was an institution of sorts in Aurora.
Joyce took off her glasses, which were secured by a beaded cord around the back of her neck. “He says he’s buying me a Christmas present. He says he doesn’t want me to know what it is.” She gave Cork a knowing and hopeless look. “He buys me Wind Song cologne. Every year. I made the mistake twenty-five years ago of telling him it was my favorite.” She glanced at Anne and winked. “Men, huh?”
“Joyce, would you let Jo know we’re here?”
She lifted the receiver of her phone and pushed three buttons. “Cork O’Connor and a couple of elves are here for Jo.” She put the receiver down. “They’ll be right out. Why don’t you have a seat.” Joyce Sandoval went back to working on her computer.
Behind the reception desk, the area of the firehouse where the big engine had parked was occupied now by a dozen work spaces, all currently empty. Cork and the children sat on a brown leather sofa in a small waiting area. While they waited, Cork entertained them with ghost stories he’d heard from Joe John LeBeau. By the time the elevator doors opened and Jo and Sandy Parrant stepped out, Stevie’s eyes were huge with amazement.
Cork rose and offered his hand in greeting. “Sandy,” he said.
“Cork.” Sandy gave the children a warm smile. “Hi, kids.”
“Hello, Mr. Parrant,” Anne said politely.
“Please, it’s Sandy,” Parrant said.
“Mr. Parrant,” Anne began, “I mean, Sandy. When you go to Washington, will you meet the President?”
“I already have, honey,” he said. “He’s a very nice man.”
Stevie picked his nose and looked unimpressed. He was watching the ceiling carefully.
“How’s it going?” Cork asked Jo.
“Like a three-legged horse,” Parrant replied for her.
Jo zipped the briefcase she carried. “Bob’s death complicates Sandy’s transition to Washington in a lot of ways.”
“Jo tells me you’ve got a furnace on the blink, Cork,” Parrant said, moving abruptly away from the subject of his father’s death. “I’ve got a good man who does a lot of work for Great North. I’d be glad to send him out.”
“Thanks, Sandy, but Art Winterbauer is coming on Monday. I’ll be fine until then.”
Stevie stopped picking his nose and asked suddenly, “Ith it really haunted?”
“Haunted?” Jo looked annoyed. “Who told you that?”
“Daddy.”
“I was telling him some of the stories Joe John used to tell me about the things he saw in this place,” Cork explained.
“I hate to disappoint you, Stevie“-Sandy Parrant smiled-”but I wouldn’t put a lot of stock in the stories of a man like Joe John LeBeau. He’d probably been drinking when he saw those things.”
“I think we should be going,” Jo said. “Sandy’s busy.”
Parrant wished them good luck finding a tree and saw them to the door. “Cork, if you change your mind about that furnace, just let me know.”
“I’ve got the situation under control.”
“Sure,” Parrant said. He watched them until they were all in the Bronco, then he stepped back into the old firehouse.
“He’s nice,” Anne said.
“Do you think so?” Jo asked.
“And he’s met the President,” Anne said.
“The President puts his pants on one leg at a time like every other man,” Jenny said, dourly unimpressed.
Stevie looked down at his own pants, confused. “I do ’em both together.”
The St. Agnes Boy Scouts had been given a corner of the Super Valu parking lot to sell their Christmas trees. Cork’s family spread out and called out their finds to one another. Finally they settled on a big white pine with needles soft as cat fur. Cork hauled it to the trailer to pay, and Arne Bjorkson, the scoutmaster, asked if he wanted a new cut on the trunk. Just at that moment, Cork caught sight of Darla LeBeau coming out of the supermarket with a cart full of groceries.
“Go ahead,” he said to Arne. “I’ll be right back.” He jogged away. “Darla!” he called after her.
She was clearly not excited to see him.
“What do you want?” she asked as she unloaded the sacks into her station wagon.
“I just wanted to ask about Paul.” He wheezed, trying to catch his breath, swearing silently to quit smoking. “And Joe John. I’m worried.”
“I’m Paul’s mother. And Joe John’s wife. I’ll worry.” She shoved a sack onto the backseat, pushed the cart away fiercely, and slid into the driver’s seat.
“Is something wrong, Darla?” Cork put a hand on her arm. “Is Paul in any danger?”
“I have to go,” she said. She pulled her arm away and closed the door.
Cork leaned his face close to the window, so that when he spoke, his breath fogged the glass. “I’m Joe John’s friend. I only want to help.”
She was intent on jamming the key into the ignition and didn’t answer. She started the engine. Her tires spit snow and gravel as she drove away.
Cork stared after her and thought about some of the items he’d seen in the grocery sacks. Cheerios, Pop-Tarts, peanut butter, Fig Newtons, potato chips, Slim Jims. It was possible Darla LeBeau ate these things. But Cork thought they would appeal a great deal more to a hungry teenager.
They moved the sofa into the living room and set the tree in front of the big window that faced the street. Cork hauled the boxes of Christmas decorations up from the basement. Stevie helped him check the lights while Rose and Anne and Jenny put hooks on all the bulbs. Jo sorted through the albums in the record cabinet and pulled out Christmas music and put it on to play.
For a long time Cork had felt lost, but there was something about the tradition of decorating the tree that brought him home. When he unpacked the small box that held the last of the delicate blue bulbs from the first Christmas after he and Jo were married, Jo smiled, and it made him happy. Together they placed the bulbs on the tree, then the children tossed on the icicles. When it was done, they plugged in the lights and stepped back and all of them were silent. The bulbs blinked and the tinsel and garland sparkled, and although it was very much like every tree they’d ever had, this one felt special. Cork moved close to Jo and took a chance. He put his arm about her waist. She seemed a little startled, but didn’t stop him. Rose began to sing along with Andy Williams on the stereo, lending her fine soprano to “Joy to the World.” Pretty soon they all joined in. It felt like old times, almost as if nothing had ever happened to shatter their happiness.
The telephone rang. Rose answered. “It’s for you, Cork,” she said.
Cork took the phone. “Yes?” He nodded and said, “Uh-huh,” a couple of times; then, “Your office?” He glanced into the living room, where the others had begun to pack up the ornament boxes. “I’ll be there,” he promised, and hung up. He went back to the living room. “I have to go.”
“Will you be back for dinner?” Rose asked.
“I’ll call and let you know.”
“Do you have to go?” Anne moaned.
Cork put his hand on her red hair. “It’s important.” He looked once more at the tree. “It’s sure a beauty.”
Anne smiled and said, “It’s the best.”
Wally Schanno sat at the desk Cork had occupied for seven years. Cork hadn’t set foot in the jail since he’d left office, and he felt strange walking into this room that had been so much a part of his own life and finding another man so comfortable in his place. Cork had hung framed prints on the walls, Matisse and Renoir, reproductions of paintings he’d seen and appreciated in the Art Institute in Chicago. He liked to think that the law and the rest of a civilized society were integrated. Schanno had removed the paintings and put up photographs of himself in a boat and on a pier proudly holding up big muskies. Among the items on the three-shelf bookcase behind Schanno was a simple black Bible. Cork could see from the tattered corners of the cover that it was often read. The end of a slender, fabric bookmark, forked like a serpent’s tongue, jutted from the pages near the middle.
“Thanks for coming, Cork,” Schanno said. He waved toward the chair on the other side of his desk. “Have a seat.”
Cork sat down.
Schanno held a rubber band in his hands and played with it while he talked. “I heard you were home. That’s why I called there.”
“What was so important?” Cork asked.
“Sigurd called me. He said you’d had a look at the judge’s body. Why?”
“Curiosity.” Cork sat back and watched Schanno’s fingers fidget with the rubber band.
“Was your curiosity satisfied?”
“I wouldn’t say that, no.”
Schanno dropped the rubber band. He got up and went to a big metal thermos sitting on the windowsill. “Coffee?” he asked.
Cork declined. He watched Schanno pour steaming coffee into the thermos cup. It was like Schanno, that big thermos. In his suspenders and khakis, he looked just like the kind of man who’d carry a lunch bucket to work. Schanno took a big gulp of coffee and his throat drew taut against the heat.
“Tell me about it,” he said.
“Sigurd does a fine job of making a corpse look good for an open casket, but he doesn’t know squat about forensic medicine. Why should he?”
Schanno drank some more coffee and waited.
“Dorsal lividity,” Cork explained. “Blood settled along the back of the judge’s body after he died. Back of his arms and legs, buttocks. Nothing in front along the ribs, stomach, pelvis. He’d been lying on his back quite a while. But I found him on his stomach.”
“You point this out to Sigurd?”
“Sigurd wouldn’t have cared. Much simpler for him and everybody if the judge killed himself and that’s that.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Because the truth is, I wouldn’t care much either except for what it might mean about the boy.”
Schanno traded his coffee cup for the rubber band. He toyed with the band for a while. “What does it mean?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe Paul saw something he shouldn’t have, maybe something that scared him. In any case, I think it sent him into hiding.”
“He’s not hiding. He’s with Joe John.”
“Where?”
“If I had to make a guess, I’d say somewhere on the reservation. I sent a man out yesterday to talk to Joe John’s sister, Wanda Manydeeds. She wouldn’t say boo.” Schanno lifted his thermos as if to pour himself some more coffee, but he paused and said, “Look, if you’re so worried about Paul LeBeau, why don’t you have a talk with Wanda? Maybe you can get more out of her than my man could. I’d just as soon be sure about the boy.”
“What makes you think she’ll talk to me?”
“Your blood,” Schanno said honestly. “You got a little Ojibwe running through you. That and the fact you don’t wear a badge anymore. What do you say?”
“All right. And maybe you should have a look at the judge’s body while I’m out there.”
A pinched look crossed Schanno’s face, as if his underwear had suddenly shrunk a couple sizes. “Can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Sigurd already cremated it. Listen, Cork, next time you think you’ve found something, don’t wait to tell me, okay?”
It was his grandmother Dilsey, who’d never been farther from Aurora and the Iron Lake Reservation than the Twin Cities, who had told him the story of how the Anishinaabe came to be a Great Lakes people.
Long ago, the First People (for this was what the word Anishinaabe meant) had lived on the shores of the great salt water far to the east. They were happy there, hunting and fishing and living in peace with their brothers. Gitchie Manitou was good to them and showed his favor by lifting the Megis, a giant seashell, above the water. The rays of the sun reflected off the shiny surface of the shell, giving the Anishinaabe light and health and wisdom.
But one day the shell sank beneath the salt water and a darkness came over the First People. Sickness and death moved among them like hungry animals, and they lived in fear. The Megis rose up again far to the west out of a great river at a place called Mo-ne-aung (Montreal), where the First People built new wigwams and for a long time lived again in the light and warmth of the Megis.
Three more times the Megis disappeared from sight. Three more times it rose up, each time farther west. First on the shore of the great lake called Huron. Next at Bow-e-ting (Sault St. Marie), where the water empties out of Lake Superior. The last time the Megis rose it was at Mo-ning-wuna-kauning (La Pointe Island), where its rays reflected sunlight to even the farthest Anishinaabe villages, blessing them with light, life, and wisdom.
Grandma Dilsey told him a lot of stories, but it wasn’t until he took a course in Ojibwe history and culture offered by the fledgling American Indian Studies Department at the University of Minnesota that he learned facts. He was surprised to discover that the Anishinaabe were the largest Native American tribe north of Mexico. They had indeed migrated long ago from the Atlantic coastline, but the death that had descended upon them and forced them west wasn’t magic. It was war with the Iroquois nation. The war was old and the hostilities deep. The origin of the word Ojibwe meant “to roast until puckered,” for this was the fate that often befell captured enemies.
He learned much about the history of his grandmother’s people, including the insidious treaties that had attempted to divide and disenfranchise them. Since their battles with the Iroquois, and later the Dakota, the First People had battled corruption in the BIA, poverty, alcoholism, the cruelty of government schools, and continued attempts by even well-meaning whites to eradicate their culture and their language. The Anishinaabe had survived, and solid populations were spread across Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Canada.
But most of Cork’s heritage was white, and in his way of living he’d chosen the white man’s world. With his reddish hair and fair skin, he looked more Irish than he ever would Ojibwe. And life was difficult enough as it was. To live it as Indian would have made it that much harder.
He headed out to the Iron Lake Reservation in the late afternoon, still buoyed by the warmth of spirit decorating the Christmas tree had given him. The sun was low, nestled into the bare branches of the trees like a fat red rooster.
Iron Lake was not a large reservation. It comprised less than four hundred square miles of woods, lakes, and bogs with its small population of Anishinaabe living in the two villages of Allouette and Brandywine, and in small, isolated houses or shacks or trailers scattered throughout the woods. Except for State Highway 37, which cut through the reservation in a northwest-southeast line, the roads on the reservation were all bumpy, rutted gravel or dirt. Most winters the back roads were impassable for long periods, but as Cork turned off the highway at the gathering of HUD houses and the old government center that was Allouette and headed into the woods toward Nokomis House, he found the snow cleanly plowed right down to the washboard surface of the road.
The casino, he knew.
The Chippewa Grand Casino, owned and operated by the Iron Lake band of Ojibwe, had opened its doors only six months earlier, but already the revenue from the slots and blackjack tables and keno and mega-bingo had surpassed even the most optimistic projections. In those months alone, the casino had reported a gross income of almost six million dollars. The gamblers came by busloads from Milwaukee, Chicago, the Twin Cities, Winnipeg, and even as far as Kansas City on special junkets arranged by travel agencies; or they drove in from small cities and towns and farms for a taste of Vegas in their own backyard. The gambling had paid off big for the Anishinaabe of the reservation. Every household belonging to the Iron Lake band of Ojibwe received a monthly allotment of several thousand dollars from the casino profits. Any Native American wanting a job could find work at the casino. New road maintenance equipment had been purchased. There were plans for paving, for a new tribal council building, and for a school. Cork thought it was no wonder that the Dakota who ran casinos in southern Minnesota called gambling “the new buffalo.”
Four miles out of Allouette, still on the washboard gravel road, Cork approached Mission Center. It was only a small clearing with a single, square, one-story building in the middle. The Catholic mission that had once served the reservation had been abandoned for more than a decade before Father Tom Griffin arrived in Aurora and set out almost single-handedly to bring it back to life. He spent a good deal of his free time there, refurbishing the old structure. Although the priest tried to enlist the parishioners of St. Agnes, white and red, Cork had heard that more often than not St. Kawasaki worked alone.
By the time Cork reached Mission Center, the sun had set. Stars were emerging from the amethyst sky of the east. A planet like a small ember glowed above the trees. Mars, the angry god of another religion. Cork was surprised to see smoke rising from the stovepipe on the mission roof although there were no lights visible inside. He stopped and got out. The woods of birch and pine that pressed themselves against the clearing had grown dark. The evening light turned the snow a soft blue, and everything was still except for a slight wind that came out of the trees and across the snow, passing Cork with an icy whisper. He turned his collar up. The front door was locked. He peered in at a window. The first thing Father Tom Griffin had done in refurbishing the old mission was to replace the windows and put up shades, which were now drawn. Cork waded around to the back of the building.
Behind the mission was a cemetery that, unlike the mission, had never been abandoned. It was marked by a black wrought-iron fence, waist high. The Catholics on the reservation had continued to use the cemetery to bury their dead, including most recently Vernon Blackwater, who’d passed away from cancer less than a week before. Many of the Anishinaabe buried in the cemetery had chosen traditional burial houses, small shelters of wood covering the graves. Most of the others were memorialized with a simple stone or a white cross. From what Cork understood, Vernon Blackwater had both. With his feet pointed west along Chebakunah, the Path of Souls, he’d been laid to rest in a grave house marked also by a tall granite cross. It was just like Blackwater to cover all his bases that way. During his illness, he’d been treated not only by the white man’s medicines, but also with the charms and the healing songs of Wanda Manydeeds. In the end, as he lay on his deathbed, Blackwater had requested both the priest-Father Tom Griffin-and Wanda Manydeeds to be present. One to give him extreme unction, the other to sing him along the path to the Land of Souls.
Parked near the cemetery gate was St. Kawasaki’s old snowmobile, the machine he called Lazarus. The snow behind the mission was stained with black oil spots where Lazarus had leaked. Beside the snowmobile, leaning against the wrought-iron fence around the cemetery, was the priest’s motorcycle. As Cork came around the rear corner of the building, the back door opened and St. Kawasaki stepped outside. He was wearing his leather jacket and red-masked stocking cap. He didn’t see Cork as he fumbled with the lock.
“Hey, Tom,” Cork called.
St. Kawasaki spun. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” he cried hoarsely. He pulled off his stocking cap and mask. His good eye still looked startled. “You scared the piss out of me.”
“Sorry, Tom.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m on my way to see Wanda Manydeeds. I want to talk to her about Joe John and Paul.”
The priest scratched his cheek. Cork could hear the scrape of Tom Griffin’s fingernails across the grizzle of his five o’clock shadow. “If you think you can get anything out of her, I’d like to hear what she has to say. Mind if I come along?”
“Fine by me. Why don’t you come in the Bronco? You can pick up your motorcycle on the way back.”
“Sounds good,” the priest agreed.
“No luck with Lazarus over there?”
The priest grinned and shook his head hopelessly. “I believe this time it’s going to take a real miracle to get it running again.”