William Krueger - Trickster's Point

They came to a stoplight, one of only three in Aurora, and Yates said, “It’s like this. No matter how it turns out, Camilla’s going to be hurt.”

So it’s Camilla now, Cork thought. What he said was, “Jubal’s dead. What could hurt her more than that?”

Yates shot him a cold look. “It’s going to all come out about Jubal and that Indian woman, isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about, Kenny.”

“Don’t play stupid, Cork. I’d hate to see Camilla have to go through the public shit bath that would result if the press found out why Jubal came north.”

“Kenny, you have no idea why Jubal really came north.”

“To fuck the Indian woman.”

“The physical thing was part of it, I’m sure, but there was something else, something much deeper going on. In a way, I think Jubal was looking for wholeness of spirit. I think that’s what he was really after.”

“Doesn’t matter what he was really after. Those reporters, if they get wind of this woman, won’t be saying he visited her for wholeness, believe me.”

“I’m going to do my best to keep anyone out of this who doesn’t have to be a part of the public story. Once again, I’m giving you my word.”

The light turned green, and Yates pulled ahead.

“Okay, something you maybe ought to know, Cork. That bullet hole through your windshield? You got a lead on the guy who fired it?”

“Not yet.”

“Check this out. Yesterday afternoon Nick Jaeger leaves the house. He’s carrying a piece, a rifle. Gets into his Mercedes and takes off. Doesn’t come back for maybe three hours. Brings the rifle with him back into the house. This morning Camilla tells me he’s heading down to the Twin Cities tomorrow. Not even sticking around to see the end of the investigation into Jubal’s murder.”

“A pressing appointment?” Cork asked.

“Right,” Yates scoffed. “Him and Jubal used to hunt together. Black powder, muzzle-loaders, that antique gun shit. Jubal told me that Nick Jaeger was the second best shot he’d ever seen.”

Cork said, “Let me guess. Jubal was the best.”

“There’s a gun case in Jubal’s house,” Yates went on. “It’s locked or I would have checked to see if any of his rifles had been fired recently. Maybe it’s something you ought to think about. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Why would Nick Jaeger try to kill me?”

Yates pulled into the drive of Jubal Little’s lake home. “You’re the P.I. You figure it out.”

Jaeger’s Mercedes SUV was parked in the drive, and Yates pulled up behind it. They got out, and Yates walked ahead. Cork saw a curtain in a front window drop into place. Yates opened the door for Cork and ushered him inside.

“In here,” Alex Jaeger called from down the hallway.

“They’re all yours,” Yates said and bowed out.

Cork walked to the den, where he’d faced the Jaeger family the day after Jubal died. They’d scattered themselves about the room like throw pillows, Alex standing by the fireplace, Nick at the liquor cabinet, and Camilla sitting demurely on the brown leather divan. When he came in, they watched him like a caribou might track a nearby wolf.

“Thank you for coming,” Alex said.

“With all due respect, Kenny didn’t give me much choice.”

“I’m sorry, Cork,” Camilla said. “Kenny’s… well, Kenny takes his job seriously. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

A fire crackled away in the fireplace, and the room felt too warm.

“Mind if I take my coat off?” Cork asked.

“Be my guest,” Alex said. He waited until Cork had slipped off his jacket and laid it over the back of one of the plush easy chairs, then he got down to brass tacks. “Is it true they’ve arrested the man who killed Jubal?”

Cork didn’t answer immediately. He took a moment to study each of the Jaegers carefully. Alex stood erect, almost imperious, and Cork could see him commanding men in uniform, or standing before legislators and speaking to them in a way meant to bend them to his purpose. He was born to lead, or at least held himself as if that were the case. Nick dropped ice into a glass and poured in some Johnnie Walker Blue. He seemed more intent on his liquor than on what was occurring in the room, but it was, Cork thought, a studied gesture. And then there was Camilla, who sat lovely and attentive and with a lingering air of sadness about her, and who seemed to Cork to be somehow at the apex of this familial triangle.

“Why am I really here?” Cork said.

“I don’t understand,” Alex replied. “It was a simple question.”

“And one you already know the answer to. You’ve been inside this investigation from the beginning. I don’t know how, and I don’t care, but everything I know about it, you know, too. So what is it that you really want to ask me?”

Nick glanced up from his glass of scotch and locked eyes with his brother. Camilla looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap.

“All right, here it is,” Alex said. “How much will it cost us to make sure that you say nothing to the press about Jubal and this Indian woman?”

“Ah,” Cork said. He thought a moment. “How much are you willing to pay?”

“I assume you have a number in mind.”

“Make an offer.”

“All right,” Alex said. “Five hundred thousand dollars.”

Cork smiled. “What is it you’re trying to protect? Jubal’s name? The Jaeger name?” His eyes swung toward Camilla. “Or just protective brothers trying to stand between their sister and the bullies of the world? I don’t want your money.”

Camilla spoke up immediately. “I told them you wouldn’t accept something like this, Cork. They wouldn’t believe me. And honestly, I don’t care what people might say about Jubal and Winona Crane. I know the truth, and that’s what’s important to me.”

Alex said, “The truth? Hell, Camilla, the truth is that the guy’s been unfaithful to you for years with this woman.”

“We had an understanding about her.”

“Yeah, that Jubal could walk all over you and you wouldn’t say boo to him.”

“You wouldn’t understand.” Her anger was clearly mounting.

“Oh? I’d love to be enlightened. Because whenever I confronted Jubal with it, he just clammed up. Christ, the stink of guilt poured off him.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Camilla shouted. “Jubal loved me.”

“Then why was he fucking another woman?”

“Because,” she said as the tears began, “I wasn’t enough. And I understood that. And I wanted Jubal anyway. And she was the price.” She wiped her cheeks with her knuckle.

Alex threw his arms up as if in disgust or surrender. “It doesn’t matter. If the press gets wind of her, they’ll fry him up and serve him to the public on a platter.”

“He’s dead,” Camilla said. “It can’t hurt him now.”

Nick said, “But it’ll hurt you, Camilla.” This was the first he’d spoken since Cork arrived, and it was a tender offering. “The shadow of Jubal will follow you, and people will think all kinds of things about you. They don’t know you.”

She smiled at her brother. “You don’t think I’m strong enough to endure that?”

“All these years, I’ve watched you take what Jubal offered you, and I couldn’t understand why you accepted so little when you deserved so much more. It’s not right that he should go on making your life miserable even after he’s dead.”

She stood up, walked to the liquor cabinet, put her hand against her brother’s cheek, and said, “The life I had with him was the life I chose, Nickie.”

“No, Dad and Alex chose it for you. You were the sacrifice on the altar of their political ambition.”