William Krueger - Trickster's Point

“Is that what you’ve thought all these years?”

“When we hunted together,” Nick said, “I sometimes put Jubal in my sights and thought about pulling the trigger, just to set you free.”

Her hand slid from his cheek, and she took a half step away. “You didn’t kill him, did you, Nickie?”

“Me?” He seemed genuinely surprised at the question. “No. But I won’t lie to you. I’m not sorry he’s dead.”

“I don’t want to hear that.” Camilla turned from him and walked away.

He watched her go, then took a long swallow from his glass.

An uncomfortable silence had fallen over the room, and into it Cork dropped this: “Is that why you tried to kill me, Nick? To protect your sister from more hurt?”

“Tried to kill you?” Nick gave a short laugh. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“The slug through my windshield. I think you fired it.”

“Whoa, O’Connor, hold on a minute,” Alex said. “That’s a hell of an accusation.”

“Maybe so, but easily proven.” Cork walked to a window of the den that overlooked the driveway. He pulled a curtain back, so that Nick Jaeger’s Mercedes was visible on the drive. “Whoever it was who fired the shot left tire tracks at the scene. The sheriff’s people took impressions. My guess is that if I told them to check the tires on your SUV, Nick, they’d get a match.”

“There are lots of vehicles with those tires on them, I’m sure,” Nick said.

“Maybe so. But they also got an impression from the sole of an expensive hiking boot. If they secured a search warrant, I’d be willing to bet they’d find that boot and its mate somewhere among your things. So, I’m going to ask you again, is that why you tried to kill me?”

Nick didn’t flinch, didn’t move at all. He was like one of the animals he hunted, frozen in crosshairs. “If I’d wanted to kill you,” he finally said, “I would have shot you through the eye.”

“Jesus, Nick, just shut up,” Alex cried.

“You just wanted to scare me?” Cork said.

“Don’t say another word, you dumb ox,” Alex said.

“Fuck you, Alex. I’m not Jubal. I don’t have to listen to you.” To Cork, Nick said, “I didn’t want you asking any more questions that might end up hurting Camilla. I just wanted you to butt out.”

“No, Nickie, no,” Camilla said. “You didn’t.”

“Yeah, I did,” he told her. “Alex was just standing around doing nothing. I knew he didn’t care about you.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Alex fired at him.

“To you and Dad, all Camilla’s been is a way to get the Jaeger name firmly imprinted on American politics. You never cared if she was happy.”

“Oh, Nickie, I wasn’t unhappy.”

He gave her a look that Cork thought was full of a lifetime of love and concern. “I wanted more for you than that. You deserved more.”

“Oh, God,” Alex said and leaned against the mantel as if he needed support.

Camilla returned to her younger brother and stared deeply into his eyes. “You didn’t kill Jubal. Promise me that you didn’t kill Jubal.”

“I didn’t,” Nick said. “I swear to you. I was having brunch and Bloody Marys at Hell’s Kitchen in Minneapolis when Jubal was killed. I can prove that, if I need to.”

Alex said, as if exhausted, “So what now, O’Connor?”

Camilla went to Cork and took his hands in hers. “Please, let it go. I know it was awful, but you weren’t hurt. Please, if you ever cared about Jubal and me, let it go.”

The green of her eyes reminded him of wet mint leaves. In her gaze, he saw desperation and hope and sincerity, and although it went against everything sensible and every instinct he’d ever acquired in his years as a cop, he said to her, “All right.” To Nick, he said, “I want to talk to you. Alone.”

Cork let Nick Jaeger go ahead. He picked up his jacket, slung it over his arm, and walked out the door, leaving in the room behind him a silence broken only by the crackle of the fire and the slide of ice in an emptied liquor glass.

In the hallway, at the front door, Nick stopped and turned to face him.

“Rhiannon,” Cork said.

Nick looked at him blankly.

“Did you fire that shot because of Rhiannon?”

Nick seemed genuinely confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Cork had dealt with enough liars in his law enforcement career and in his life to know more often than not when he wasn’t being given the truth. As disappointed as he was, he thought Jaeger was being straight with him.

“All right,” he said. Then he leaned threateningly close. “I heard that you’re thinking of leaving Tamarack County tomorrow. See that you do. By first light would be good, don’t you think?”

Nick’s eyes narrowed to slits, as if he was swallowing something bitter, and his hand squeezed the glass he still held as if choking the life from it.

“And I’d like it if I never saw you here again.”

For a long moment, Nick didn’t move. At last he gave a nod, barely perceptible.

“Good. One last question,” Cork said. “How’d you know I’d be on the road and where to position yourself for that shot?”

Nick straightened himself, as if attempting to recover his dignity. “You’re not the only one who knows how to stalk when he’s hunting.”

Cork let it go at that, stepped away from him, opened the door, and left the house.

Yates was waiting for him at the Escalade. “So?”

“One hell of a goofy family.”

“Tell me about it.” Yates made no move to get into the vehicle. “So?”

“Kenny, we’ll probably never know who fired that shot at me. I’m thinking maybe it was just a dumb-ass hunter who didn’t know what he was doing.”

“That’s the way it is, huh?”

“That’s the way it is. Mind taking me back to my car now?”

Yates opened the door. “My pleasure.”

In November, a little over a year after he’d married Camilla Jaeger, Jubal Little came north to bow-hunt with Cork O’Connor. That’s what he told Camilla anyway. Cork knew it was for a different reason, and he knew because Jubal had asked him to help in the deception. As a married man with children, he normally would have had no part in helping a man deceive his wife in order to be with another woman. But this was different.

When Jubal married Camilla, it was a union of purpose. It reminded Cork of the royal marriages of old Europe, mergers for the consolidation of power. The Jaegers had political savvy and their name had political cachet. Jubal had the bearing, the looks, the image, the ambition. But he told Cork, in a drunken phone conversation shortly after the wedding, that he felt like a big empty ship gone off course. He made it clear he wasn’t fond of the Jaegers.

In that same drunken conversation, he told Cork, “All they want me to be is some kind of horse they can all ride to political glory on. They want it to be all about the Jaeger legacy. They want to pull the strings and have me do their dance.”

“What about Winona’s vision, you on the mountaintop?”

“Fuck her vision. And fuck the Jaegers. Fuck ’em all.”

“Does that go for Camilla?”

Jubal was quiet a long time. “She deserves better than me,” he finally said.

Better than Jubal Little? Cork thought, and he knew that his old friend was in trouble.

“Winona won’t answer my calls. And Willie won’t pass along my messages. I need to see her, Cork.”

“What do you want from me, Jubal?”

“Talk to her. Tell her I’ve got to see her. Tell her I’m dying.”

Coming from anyone else, that would have been hyperbole. But coming from the mouth of Jubal Little, it was serious.