William Krueger: Trickster's Point

“She’d delivered Rhiannon?”

“Yes. But the baby was stillborn. I don’t know why.”

“Oh, Willie. I’m sorry.”

“They grieved together. Hell, I grieved, too. Then we buried her.”

“Where?”

“Out there.” Willie again gestured toward the forests that ran to Canada. “In a beautiful spot where no one would ever find her. Three nights ago, I laid Nona beside her.”

“Who else knew about Rhiannon?”

“No one. It was a well-kept secret, Cork. I don’t know who else could know.”

“Someone knows, Willie. He threatened me, anonymously.”

“I swear, Cork, I don’t know.”

Cork felt the weight of that particular concern settle once more on his tired shoulders. “Okay, will you do me a favor? For the time being, when the sheriff’s people question you, don’t say anything about Rhiannon.”

“All right, Cork. But will you do me a favor in return?”

“What is it?”

“Give me a little time before you turn me in. I need to get things in order.”

“I can do that, Willie.”

Cork took one final look around the house where Winona Crane had lived her life according to a purpose she’d accepted long ago but, judging from the evidence she’d left behind, had never fully understood, a life she had made sacrifices for that hadn’t, as far as Cork could see, brought her any happiness. He’d loved her once, loved her with all the ardor and ache of a young man’s heart, and because of that, he had, in a sense, loved her always. Yet, as he drove off, leaving Willie to mourn her alone, Cork was very glad his own life had gone a different way and without her.

A mile after he left Winona’s house, the headlights appeared in Cork’s rearview mirror. He noted them, then went back to his thinking.

He considered Jubal Little. He’d loved Jubal once, loved him as a brother, but it had, in actuality, been so brief a time. Had he really known Jubal then? He thought not, because Jubal hadn’t known himself, any more than Cork understood who he was. Their roads had diverged, and they’d gone in different directions, become different kinds of men. Cork had created a family. Jubal had created a following. Cork had lived pretty much in anonymity in the small world of Tamarack County, and had been happy there. Jubal had lived in the spotlight, but had he been happy? All the evidence indicated no. Jubal had spent a good deal of his life chasing greatness, that mountaintop Winona had seen in her vision so very long ago. And what had it brought him in the end except regret? When they were children, Cork had envied Jubal. But he envied him no more.

The headlights behind him had approached, coming dangerously near, casting a blinding glare in Cork’s mirrors. The road was empty. It was never heavily trafficked and at night it was particularly abandoned. But it was winding, and Cork kept his speed steady, thinking the vehicle would pass on the next straightaway. When the opportunity came, the vehicle shot around his Land Rover, and Cork saw the Escalade that belonged to Kenny Yates pass in a blur of shiny silver metal. It pulled ahead and swerved back into the right-hand lane directly in front of Cork, way too close. The taillights immediately bloomed red, and the Escalade began to slow, forcing Cork to slow with it. What the hell was Yates up to? Cork had no idea, but he didn’t like this aggressiveness. It felt threatening. Felt, he realized, much like the call he’d received from the voice of the Devil on that same stretch of road, a manufactured voice meant as disguise. Low, gravelly, male. It could easily have been Yates.

The Escalade slowed to a stop on the empty highway, and Cork brought the Land Rover to a halt behind it. A moment passed. The door of the Escalade opened, and Yates stepped out. He wore a black leather jacket. His hands were in his pockets. He stood still, as if waiting for Cork to meet him.

Cork thought, Ah, hell, and got out. He approached the big man, the football player turned bodyguard, and kept his eyes on the pockets that hid Yates’s hands. He stopped ten feet away.

“What’s with the road rage, Kenny?” he asked.

“Road rage?” In the glare of Cork’s headlights, the big man’s eyes were white orbs drilled at the centers with fathomless holes. “I just wanted a word with you before this whole thing goes any further.”

“A word? You could have called me on my cell phone.”

“Tried. Got nothing.”

Which could have been true, because during his talk with Willie Crane, Cork had turned his cell phone off.

“How’d you know I was out here?”

“Tailed you from town.”

“You wanted to talk to me, why didn’t you do it before this?”

“Had to work myself up for it.”

Which didn’t sound encouraging to Cork. He thought that if Yates pulled a gun from his coat-maybe that Beretta he’d offered Cork earlier-he’d dash behind the Escalade and head for the darkness of the woods that lined the road. It wasn’t a great plan, but it was something.

“Okay, you’ve got me now,” Cork said.

“What’s the word?”

“Rhiannon,” Yates said. Only he didn’t say the word in a normal way. He used the voice of the Devil. He studied Cork and seemed confused at Cork’s lack of surprise. “You knew it was me?”

Cork didn’t answer that one. Instead he said simply, “Why, Kenny?”

“What do you know about Rhiannon?”

“Everything.”

Yates nodded, as if what he already suspected had just been confirmed. His shoulders sagged, but his hands stayed in his pockets. “That night you first met with the Jaegers, after you left, I heard Camilla ask her brothers about the name. She said you’d run it by her. I panicked, thought you were onto Jubal’s dirty little secret.”

“You knew?”

“I’ve worked for the Littles for nearly five years. Each of those years, on the second day of October, Jubal got shitfaced. He’d have me drive him out into the country somewhere, always some isolated rural place, and he’d go off alone with a bottle of Kentucky bourbon and drink himself into a stupor. If he didn’t go far enough, I’d hear him wailing something awful. Eventually I’d gather him up and bring him home.”

“He told you about Rhiannon?”

“He confessed to me once, like I was a priest or something. Told me how he should have been there, how he should have made certain that little child had the right care, how he’d buried her in the woods, unbaptized, her grave unmarked. He asked me to pray for him.”

“Did he remember telling you these things?”

“Never. Jubal liked his Kentucky bourbon, but I never saw him that drunk except on that one day every year. Jubal shouldered a shitload of guilt, but his little baby, she was more than he could bear.”

“Why the threats, Kenny? Jubal’s dead. The truth can’t hurt him.”

“Not him. Camilla. Folks, they’d understand a man having another woman on the side, forget about it eventually. Happens all the time. But what he did with that poor baby, nobody’s going to forget or forgive. Jubal’s gone, but Camilla’d have to live with the way people looked at her, married to a man like that.”

We kill to protect the things we love, Cork thought.

“Why are you telling me this, Kenny?”

Yates slowly withdrew his hands from his pockets. Cork tensed, then was relieved to see that they were empty.

“Because I didn’t know you before. What I know now is that you’re a decent man, and I don’t want you worrying about your family. I’m ashamed of what I did to you. So go on and do whatever you’ve got to do. Bring charges, tell Camilla the truth, it’s up to you.”

“I ought to just coldcock you.”