William Krueger: Mercy Falls

“Got word from the ambulance,” Borkmann went on. They were standing beside his cruiser, a Crown Victoria parked a few yards back of the shot-up vehicle Cork had come in. At sixty, Borkmann was the oldest member of the Sheriff’s Department. He was also the most overweight. He’d offered to climb the hill with the others, but Cork had left him behind to monitor the radio transmissions. “Marsha was rushed into surgery as soon as they wheeled her into the hospital.”

“How’s she doing?” Cork asked.

“She was still alive, that’s all they said.”

“Keep on top of it, Cy. Let me know when you hear anything.”

Pender walked over from where he’d been conversing with the state troopers. He was young and brash, and Cork suspected not even experience would moderate his more irksome tendencies. “Christ, what’s that smell? Skunk?”

Cork noticed it again, too, and realized that during the sniper’s attack, he’d forgotten the odor entirely. “It’s from the Land Cruiser,” he said. “Marsha hit it on the way out.”

Pender opened his mouth, probably to make a crack about women drivers, but wisely thought better of it.

Borkmann said to Cork, “I looked around while you were up on the hill. The two dogs you were wondering about? Dead, both of ’em. Rifle shot, looks like. They were carted around back and dumped out of sight. I’m thinking it’s their blood Marsha was looking at.”

“You check the cabin?”

“Quick look.”

“Any sign of Eli or Lucy?”

“No.”

“Let’s hope that blood is from the dogs.”

“Patsy located Larson. He was having dinner with Alice at the Broiler. He’s on his way.”

Borkmann was speaking of Captain Ed Larson, who headed the major-crimes investigations for the Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department.

“I want to keep the scene clean until he gets here.”

“You going to call BCA?” Borkmann asked.

“Soon as I’m back at the office.”

It had been an assault on officers. Bringing in the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension was standard procedure, not only because of the organization’s expertise and superior resources, but also to ensure that no local prejudice might warp the investigation.

Pender eyed the empty cabin. “Eli can get mean when he’s drunk. Maybe that was him up there on the hill.”

Cork had already considered that possibility. The call that had brought him and Marsha Dross out there had been made by Lucy to keep her from beating Eli ragged. Maybe Eli had retaliated in a big way. Anything was possible when love and hate became a heated jumble. But if Eli had been up there, if he had lashed out at his wife in a deadly way, where was Lucy?

Night was falling fast, flooding into the hollow from a sky salted with stars. Two more cruisers from the Sheriff’s Department pulled up and several deputies got out wearing Kevlar vests and carrying assault rifles. The emergency response team. It had been fifty minutes since Cork’s call for help had first gone out.

“Got here as quick as we could, Sheriff,” Deputy John Singer said. “Took a few minutes to assemble the whole team.” He was apologizing for what probably seemed to him like an inexcusable delay.

“That’s okay, John. I think we’re secure now, but why don’t you post a couple people on the crown of that hill.” Cork pointed toward the rocks where the sniper had taken his position. “I’d hate to have somebody start shooting at us again from up there.”

“Done.” Singer turned to his team and gave the order.

Fitzhugh, the state patrolman, left his vehicle and crossed the road to where the others stood.

“You need us anymore?”

“No,” Cork said. “Appreciate the assistance.”

“Any time, Sheriff. Hope you get the bastard.”

“Thanks.”

Cork watched Fitzhugh walk away.

“Get on the radio, Duane,” Cork said to Deputy Pender. “Have Patsy round up Clay and tell him to bring out a generator and floodlights. He can get them from the fire department.”

Pender nodded and moved away.

“What did you see in the cabin?” Cork said to Borkmann.

“No bodies.”

“You have to break in?”

“It was open.”

“Figures. On the rez, nobody locks their doors. Any sign of violence?”

“Nope. Not the neatest housekeepers, but I’d say the mess in there looks pretty organic.”

“Organic?”

“You know, rising naturally out of the elements of the environment.”

“Organic.” Cork shook his head.

“See for yourself,” Borkmann said.

“I will. I want you to keep everyone away from the scene for now. When Ed Larson gets here, and the generator and lights, we’ll go over the ground carefully. Where’d you say the dogs were, Cy?”

“Behind the woodpile in back.”

“Okay.” Cork turned toward the cabin. He knew he risked contaminating the scene, but he needed to know if there were dead or injured people somewhere.

He lifted a pair of latex gloves from the box Borkmann had in his cruiser. He also borrowed the deputy’s Maglite. Carefully, he skirted the area where blood had turned the dirt to a muddy consistency. He hoped it was only the mutts who’d bled. He made his way around the side of the cabin to the back. Behind a cord of split hardwood stacked between the trunks of a couple of young poplars, he found the dogs. They lay one on top of the other, thrown there, it seemed, with no more thought than tossing out garbage. They’d been shot through the head, both of them, straight on and at close range. Cork wondered if they’d come at their assailant and been killed in their attack, or if they’d sat there bewildered by their fate because whoever shot them was someone they’d trusted. He considered Eli again. Had the man finally gone over the edge, gone into a drunken rage as a result of Lucy’s bullying, done away with his wife, and then killed his dogs? If so, why hide them like this? And where was Lucy?

It didn’t feel right. A man like Eli might get drunk and riled up enough to kill his wife, but he’d never shoot his dogs. A sad statement, but Cork knew it to be true.

He returned to the front of the cabin and pushed the door open. Inside was dark. He located the switch on the wall and turned on the lights.

Eli’s first wife had been a small, quiet woman named Deborah, a true-blood Iron Lake Ojibwe. She’d been good to her husband, had kept a clean house, and when ovarian cancer took her, Eli had grieved long and hard. His second wife was nothing like Deborah. As Cork stood in the doorway, he could see what Borkmann had meant about organic mess. The room was cluttered with magazines and newspapers, dirty glasses and plates, clothing left lying where it had been shed. The place had a sour, soiled-laundry smell to it.

He wove through the clutter to the kitchen, where he found a sink full of unwashed dishes. On the kitchen table lay a half loaf of dark rye and a butcher knife with a residue of butter on the blade. Next to the bread was a small pile of scratched tickets for the state lottery.

Cork checked the bedroom. It looked as though a struggle had taken place, the bed unmade, clothes tossed everywhere, but he suspected that was probably the norm. A few empty Pabst Blue Ribbon cans lay on the floor on the right side of the bed. Eli’s side, he guessed.

The bathroom was in desperate need of a good scrubbing, but nothing struck Cork as particularly noteworthy.

He stood in the main room.

A sniper on the hill across the road. Two dead dogs behind the woodpile. No indication of violence inside the cabin, but no sign of Lucy or Eli, either. What the hell was going on?

“What happened to your ear?”

Cork turned and found Ed Larson standing in the doorway.