William Krueger - Vermilion Drift

“Five, ten minutes, I think.”

“That’s all? You’re sure.”

“Honestly, I wasn’t keeping track. By that time, I’d had a few myself, and we were all having a pretty good time.”

“So he could have slipped away for longer than a few minutes and you might not have noticed?”

“Yeah, I suppose. Just a minute,” he said. He covered the mouthpiece for a few seconds. “Sheri says he went out for a while.”

“Does she remember when?”

Cork heard Haddad pose the question to his wife. Her reply was too faint to hear.

Haddad said, “A little after eleven o’clock. She remembers because he got a cell phone call, just as she was getting ready to call our babysitter and let her know we wouldn’t be home until after midnight.”

“Does Sheri remember how long he was gone?”

Haddad asked, then relayed the reply, “Twenty minutes, maybe.”

“Thanks, Lou. You guys just go on having a good time, okay?”

“What’s up with the investigation?”

“We have answers to some of the questions, but we haven’t nailed down a suspect in Lauren Cavanaugh’s death yet.”

“Is that why you’re asking about her brother?”

“No comment, Lou. Like I said, you guys just have a good time. And tell Sheri thanks for the information.”

He’d put the phone down and was a few steps away when it rang: Lou Haddad calling back.

“Cork, Sheri has something you might be interested in.” He gave the phone over to his wife, who said, “I don’t know if this is important, Cork, but I thought you might want to know. It was noisy in the bar at the Four Seasons, so I went outside to make my call to our babysitter. I saw Max leave the parking lot in his Escalade. And another thing. That evening he’d been wearing a knockout blazer. Armani, de la Renta, some expensive designer thing, I’m sure. Anyway, when he came back and joined us at the bar, he didn’t have it on anymore. He didn’t stay long, mostly just said good night, and went home.”

“How did he seem when he came back?”

“Distracted, I thought. I figured he’d had a bit too much to drink and he was a little, you know, distant. Maybe fuzzy-headed. Which was different from the way he’d been before he left. He was all charm then.”

“Anything else, Sheri?”

“Not that I can think of. Does this help?”

“A lot. Thanks. But, Sheri, why didn’t you tell someone all this before?”

“Nobody asked me,” she replied, a little curtly.

Haddad came back on the line. “Cork, you want us to come back and give statements of some kind, we’ll be happy to.”

“If that’s necessary, Lou. I’ll let you know.”

“All right, then. You take care.”

In Cork’s thinking, you needed three things to hang a crime on someone: opportunity, evidence that placed the suspect at the scene, and motive. Cavanaugh had left the bar around the time of the killing. So opportunity. When he returned, he’d removed his expensive blazer, perhaps because it was covered with bloodstains. If he was smart, he’d gotten rid of the blazer, but maybe there was residue on some of the other clothing he wore that night, or on his shoes. And maybe he still had the shoes and the other clothing. So physical evidence. But what about motive? That was the tough thing. Why would Cavanaugh kill his sister? From all indications, he’d taken care of her all his life. What happened that night that made a difference?

That was something only Max Cavanaugh knew.

Cavanaugh was clearly surprised to find Cork at his door. He also didn’t seem pleased, but he was cordial.

“A business call, Cork? More questions?”

“Just something I need to get off my mind, Max. May I come in?”

“Be my guest.” Cavanaugh stepped aside.

The house was cool, and from another room came the sound of sitar music, something Cork hadn’t heard since the seventies. A glass of red wine sat on a table near the front door, and Cavanaugh lifted it as he passed.

“Can I offer you something to drink?” he asked.

“No thanks, Max. Okay if I sit?”

“By all means.”

Cork took one of the two wing chairs in the living room. It was upholstered in a green fabric soft as doe hide. Cavanaugh took the other.

“Ravi Shankar?” Cork said, with a slight nod toward the music.

“Nikhil Banerjee. I became familiar with his music while I was working in the Great North’s bauxite mine in central India. He’s dead now. This is a rare recording. Did you come here to talk music?”

“I came here to talk about Hattie Stillday.”

Cavanaugh nodded and looked concerned. “I’ve been thinking about her, too. What she did, it was so needless. Christ, there was plenty of money. I was angry with Lauren, I mean all the mismanagement, but I’d have given her what she needed to pay off Stillday.”

“Do you know Hattie?”

“Just her work.”

“A fine woman. Very Ojibwe in a lot of respects, especially in her disregard for the value of money. She didn’t think much of it, except for the good it could do others.”

“Apparently she thought enough to murder for it.” His tone had turned cold.

“See, Max, I have a problem with that. I don’t think Hattie did it.”

“She confessed. From what I understand, she knew everything about the murder.”

“Not everything.”

“Well, I suppose where murder’s involved a person’s thinking might not always be clear.”

“My sentiment exactly. You know, Max, you’ve always seemed to me to be a fair man.”

Cavanaugh didn’t respond. He swirled red wine in his glass and watched Cork.

“I’m wondering if you really intend to let Hattie Stillday go to prison.”

“That’s not my call, is it?” he said.

“Oh, but I think it is. Hattie Stillday didn’t kill your sister, and you know it.”

Cavanaugh said, “I do?”

“Max, I’m not here in any official capacity. I’m here to give you a chance to do the right thing, before it all turns ugly. And it will. All the dirty secrets will get dragged out, and the press will have a field day with you and your family.”

“You’re talking in riddles, Cork.”

“Am I? Let me tell you how it went down that night. A few minutes after eleven, you received a call from your sister. She was upset. She’d been shot, but not seriously. She wanted you, needed your comfort, your protection, which you’d given her your whole life. You left the gathering at the Four Seasons, drove to the Northern Lights Center, and found her in the boathouse. There was a gun there, left by the person who’d shot her earlier. A kind of accident, really. You had an exchange with Lauren, a fight maybe. And you took the gun and killed her. When you realized what you’d done, you ran. You went back to the Four Seasons, spent a few minutes with the people you’d left, then you made your excuses and went home.

“I’m guessing,” Cork continued, “that you expected to hear about your sister’s death the next day, but that didn’t happen. Nor the next. And when it became clear that Lauren’s body wasn’t anywhere to be found and that her car was missing and there was no evidence of your crime, you were surprised and probably scared. What the hell happened to Lauren? And that’s where I came in.”

“I loved my sister,” Cavanaugh said.

“I’m not hearing you deny you killed her. What I don’t understand is why, Max.”

“I don’t have to sit here and listen to this.” But he made no move to end it.

“I’m telling you things I shouldn’t, because I really don’t believe you’re the kind of man who’d let Hattie Stillday take the blame for something you did. And I’m doing it because, if I were you, I’d be eaten up inside by guilt. Everything will come to light sooner or later. Rutledge and Larson will be out with a search warrant. You’ve left tracks. Like you said, where murder’s involved, you don’t think straight. And don’t bother trying to figure out what tracks I’m talking about. We know too much. Come back to Aurora with me, Max. Talk to the sheriff. Get it all off your chest and be done with it.”