William Krueger: Mercy Falls

Larson watched Cork approach on foot. “I thought you were up there.” He pointed toward the hilltop.

Cork said, “I walked down the other side and around the hill.”

“You needed the exercise?” came a voice behind him.

Cork smiled and turned as BCA agent Simon Rutledge stepped from the cabin.

Rutledge spoke like Jimmy Stewart, with a little catch in his throat and a naively honest tone that you had to love. He was in his midforties, an unimposing man with thinning red hair and a hopelessly boyish smile, but his appearance and demeanor belied a tough spirit. Cork had watched Rutledge question suspects. He never browbeat, never bullied. He offered them his sympathy, bestowed on them his neighborly smile, opened his arms to them, and, after he got their trust, almost always got their confession. Simon Rutledge was so good that whenever he interviewed a suspect, other agents referred to it as “Simonizing.”

“How’s it hanging, Cork?” Rutledge said. The two men shook hands.

“I’ve had better days.”

“Bet you have. Where you been?”

Cork nodded toward the hilltop. “Our shooter left the back way. I found tire tracks at the bridge over Tick Creek on County Twenty-three. They’ll photograph well, and I’ll bet if we’re careful we can get a good cast made.”

“Mack,” Rutledge called to one of his BCA evidence team who was digging in the ground in front of the Tibodeau cabin. He gave the agent directions to the bridge over Tick Creek. “Check out the tire tracks…” He glanced at Cork.

“East side, south shoulder.”

“You heard him. Get good photos, and I’ll be there in a bit to help with casting.”

“On my way.” Mack put his shovel down and headed for his state car.

“You take a look at the cabin?” Cork asked Rutledge.

“Yeah. But I know Ed did a good job on it, so I wasn’t expecting much. I was just thinking of going up top to have a look where our shooter camped out. You see anything while you were up there?”

“I didn’t look hard. Mostly I was thinking.”

“Wondering who wants you dead?” Rutledge flashed a slightly diminished version of his smile but it still produced dimples. “I had a talk with Ed, and he’s got a point about you being the target. You need to be thinking seriously about who’d want you in their gun sight.”

“Any time you bust someone, deep down they want to bust you back,” Cork said.

“Not everybody’s got the balls for that. The question for you is who does?”

Two of Cork’s deputies were helping the BCA people dig in front of the cabin. They put a shovelful into a metal sieve, sifted, tossed out rocks and other detritus, then repeated the process. They were looking for the round that hit Marsha Dross. Cork hoped they’d find it and that it would prove good for a ballistics analysis.

Rutledge walked to his car, an unremarkable blue Cavalier, and brought back an evidence bag that held the two shell casings Cork had found the night before. “Remington. 357, packed with a hundred fifty grains, I’d say. Probably fired from something like a Savage One-ten. That would be my firearm of choice, anyway.”

“Why? That’s a game rifle,” Cork said.

“With a good scope, one of those babies could make Barney Fife into an effective assassin. And up here, a Savage One-ten is as common as a snowmobile. Wouldn’t raise any eyebrows like a more sophisticated sniper weapon might.”

“You’re saying it could be anyone,” Cork said.

“Those tracks you found at the bridge might help narrow things a bit.” Rutledge looked at Cork wistfully. “So?”

“So what?”

“Who wants you dead?”

Cork drove the Pathfinder back to Aurora and parked in the lot of the community hospital. He checked at the reception desk, then walked to Intensive Care, where Marsha Dross had been moved. It was breakfast time for the patients, and the smell of institutional food that filled the hallways reminded Cork that he hadn’t eaten that morning. He should have been hungry, but he wasn’t.

He found Frank Dross sitting in a chair outside Marsha’s room. Marsha’s father, a widower, was a retired cop from Rochester, Minnesota. Like his daughter, he was tall and not what you would call good looking. He had a long nose, gray eyes, and gray hair neatly parted on the right side. He wore a black knit shirt and tan Haggar slacks with an expandable waist that was, in fact, expanded over a small paunch. Cork had met him several times and liked the man.

Dross stood. “Sheriff.” He shook Cork’s hand.

“How’re you doing, Frank?”

“Better, now that I know Marsha’s out of danger. They tell me you saved her life.”

Saved her life? Maybe he’d kept her from dying in the dirt in front of the Tibodeau cabin, but he’d also been responsible, in a way, for the bullet that put her there.

“Do you know why yet?” Frank asked.

“We’re working on that. How is she this morning?”

“Officially, she’s listed in guarded condition. They got her hooked up to all kinds of monitors, but she’ll be fine.”

“Fine?” Charlie Annala came from Marsha’s room. He didn’t appear to be any happier with Cork this morning than he’d been last night. “Because of that bullet, she may never be able to have kids. We may never have kids. You call that fine?” He wore the same clothing as the night before. He hadn’t shaved, and from his smell it was clear he hadn’t showered, either. The skin seemed to hang on his face like heavy dough, and his bloodshot eyes looked fractured. “And the hell of it is, nobody can tell me why.”

“Sometimes, Charlie, just being a cop is reason enough for people to hate you.” Frank put a hand on his shoulder. “In the sixties, seventies, they called us pigs. It’s not a job that gets a lot of respect. I told Marsha it wouldn’t be easy, but it was what she wanted to do. It was always what she wanted to do.” Frank gave Charlie a gentle pat. “It can be tough, being in love with a cop.”

“Is she allowed visitors?” Cork asked.

“One at a time,” Frank said.

“Mind if I go in?”

Charlie opened his mouth, about to object, but Frank said, “Sure. Keep it short, though, okay?”

The curtain was partially drawn. Cork walked to the end of the bed. An IV needle plugged into Marsha’s right forearm fed a clear liquid into her body. She was hooked to a heart monitor and a machine that tracked her respiration as well. She lay with her head deeply imbedded in a pillow, the skin of her cheeks a bloodless white. Even so, she managed a smile when she saw Cork.

“Hi,” she said.

“How are you feeling?”

She beckoned him nearer. He walked along the side and took the hand she offered.

“Drugged,” she said. “Not feeling much.” She squeezed his hand. “Thanks.”

“Any time.”

She shifted a little, tried to rise, but gave up. “The investigation?”

Cork looked out the window, which faced east. The hospital was on a small rise at the edge of town, and Iron Lake was visible beyond a line of birch trees that were like white scratches against the blue water.

“We’re getting somewhere,” he said. “We’ve got shell casings, and I’m sure we’ll get a bullet for ballistics. We’ve got tire tracks, too.”

“A suspect?”

“We’re working on that.”

“Eli and Lucy?”

“They weren’t anywhere near the cabin last night.”

She nodded faintly. “I’ve been thinking. You and me in our uniforms, in bad light, we probably don’t look all that different. I think somebody knew you’d answer that call.”

“I’ve been thinking that, too,” Cork said. “We’ll get him, Marsha.”