Cork had not been happy to find Jacoby in his house, at his table, eating with his family. The man was an acquaintance from Jo’s law school days, and what was the harm in offering him a little hospitality, particularly considering the circumstances that had brought him to Aurora? Still, it gnawed at him. Maybe it was just the surprise, because Jacoby’s presence had been so unexpected. Maybe it was territorial, because his wife and children seemed to enjoy the man. Or maybe it was because he still didn’t know what to make of Ben Jacoby. With rich people, Cork was always on the lookout for the power play. In his experience, people with money held the belief, however veiled, that there was nothing that was beyond the influence of their wealth. In Lou Jacoby, it was as obvious as if he’d worn a suit made of hundred-dollar bills. The old man was used to getting his way. It was possible the same skewed thinking existed on some level in Ben, but he was better at hiding it.
Cork met Dina at the bar in the Quetico Inn, where the Jacobys were staying. He could have invited Ben Jacoby along, but he didn’t see any reason. Dina could report to her employers if they really wanted to know what was going on.
She sat next to a window with a view. A small candle burned in the center of the table. Dina was looking at the lake, which, as night crept in from the east, had turned a dark, velvety blue. A drink in one hand, she didn’t turn when Cork’s image loomed behind her own in the glass.
“Is it always this pretty?” she said.
“To me it is.”
Cork took the seat across from her at the table, but she still didn’t look at him. She had a nice profile; a small nose with a little squaring of the tip; soft, full lips; good bone structure. Her eyes, he’d noticed, seemed to change color with the light. They were now a dark, intense green.
“Pretty even in winter?” Those full lips formed a smile and she finally looked at him. She wore the sweater she’d had on in Cork’s office earlier that day, but she’d done something to her face, defined the features with makeup that made her seem a different kind of woman from what he’d imagined at first, a little less business. He put that information in the Wait and See file in his mind.
“It has a different beauty in winter,” he said.
“I guess I’ll have to take your word for that. Buy you a drink?”
“Sure.”
She signaled the cocktail waitress. Cork ordered whatever Dina was having. It turned out to be Glenfiddich on the rocks.
While he waited for his Scotch, he said, “So what have you got?”
“Who is Harmon LaRusse?”
“LaRusse? Why do you want to know about him?”
“Because a Chevy pickup registered to one Harmon LaRusse followed you all over the reservation this afternoon. Loved the sticker on the rear bumper. ‘If this is tourist season, why can’t I shoot ’em?’”
“How do you know he followed me?”
“He was parked down the block from the Sheriff’s Department and he pulled out after you when you left this morning. I happened to observe him do this, and I tailed him.”
“ Happened’?”
When she smiled, her green eyes danced. “I intended to follow you, too, but he beat me to it.”
“I thought you were going to work with Ed Larson.”
“A misconception on your part. Who is LaRusse?”
“A Shinnob, used to live on the rez. Big guy, goes by the nickname Moose. I busted him five, six years ago for a string of burglaries. He did a nickel at Stillwater. Must be out by now.”
“A Shinnob?”
“Short for Anishinaabe. LaRusse is full-blood Ojibwe.”
The Glenfiddich came. The waitress asked if Dina wanted another. “Later, maybe,” Dina replied.
“He followed me everywhere?”
“The hospital, the store in Allouette, the bar.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“I can’t imagine it has anything to do with Eddie Jacoby’s murder, but it might have something to do with the shooting on the rez, and so it’s really not my concern. But that bar you went to is.”
“The bar?”
“I just came from there.”
“You went to the North Star alone?”
“I wanted to ask a few questions.”
“That wasn’t smart.”
“I got answers.”
“You got answers at the North Star?” He didn’t try to hide his skepticism.
“Here, let me show you a trick.” She reached down, grasped the bottom of her sweater, and in one quick, fluid movement, pulled it off over her head. Underneath she wore a low-cut top of some thin scarlet material that hugged her body like a surgical glove. Under that was a push-up bra that offered up her breasts with enough cleavage to swallow the Titanic.
Cork dragged his eyes from her chest. “They teach you that at Quantico?”
“I learned that one in the field.” She made no move to put her sweater back on.
“Going in alone was a dangerous thing to do.”
“I wasn’t alone.” She reached down and lifted the right cuff of her jeans, exposing an ankle holster fitted with a small Beretta Tomcat. She let the cuff drop.
“Eddie Jacoby sometimes met a man named Stone at the North Star. You know him?” she asked.
Cork said, “I know him.”
“What would Eddie want with him?”
“Stone’s the kind of guy who’d traffic in anything. Drugs, guns, information. I’m guessing it’s that last one he was selling to Jacoby.”
“What kind of information would Eddie buy?”
“The kind that might be used to influence a vote of the RBC on whether to sign a contract with Starlight.”
“How would Eddie know of him?”
“I don’t know. Slime finds slime. It’s entirely possible Stone was the one who made the approach.”
She sipped the last of her Scotch and the ice clinked against the glass. The sound seemed to intrigue her and she stared for a few moments at the cubes, whose hard edges had been rounded by the Glenfiddich. Cork caught himself glancing again at her breasts.
“Did you see the girl behind the bar?” she asked.
“Lizzie Fineday.”
“Somebody hit her.”
“Will, that’s her father, says it wasn’t him. Probably wasn’t.”
“She have a boyfriend?”
“Stone has a claim on her. I wouldn’t call it love. He’s a hard man, but I don’t think he’d hit Lizzie. Fineday would kill him. But get this. In the bar today, when I tossed Jacoby’s name out there as a possibility, Fineday tossed me out.”
“That so? It might be interesting to talk to her.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Cork said. He took a long, burning swallow of the Scotch. “Want to be there when I do?”