William Krueger: Mercy Falls

“I just came from there.”

“How’s Marsha?”

“Still in surgery when I left. Thanks for coming early so Patsy could be there.”

“She seemed to be holding up real good, but I know it’s tough for her. How’s Charlie taking it?”

“Hard.”

“Well, sure.” She eyed his uniform and shook her head. “Jo, you ought to take him home so he can change those clothes. He’s not exactly a walking advertisement for law enforcement.”

Cork said, “I want to listen to the recording of the call that came from the Tibodeau cabin.”

“Lucy’s call?”

“That’s what I want to know. Lucy claims it wasn’t her.”

Bos went to the Dispatch area, where the radio, at the moment, was silent. The public contact phone was linked to two different recording systems. The first recorded date, time, and the number of the phone from which the call had been made. The other system was a Sony automatic telephone tape recorder. It wasn’t top-of-the-line-it had actually been donated to the department by the Chippewa Grand Casino when they’d upgraded to a digital recorder voice bank that fed directly into a computer-but it was a workhorse of a unit. Bos rewound the tape to the call that had purportedly come from Lucy. She played it, and they all listened. Then she played it again.

Patsy: Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department.

The caller: I’m telling you, if you don’t get somebody out here, I’m going to kill the son of a bitch.

Patsy: Who is this?

The caller: Lucy Tibodeau.

Patsy: Where are you, Lucy?

The caller: At my goddamn cabin. And I’m telling you, you better get someone out here pronto, or I swear I’ll kill him.

Patsy: Kill who?

The caller: That son of a bitch husband of mine.

Patsy: Eli?

The caller: You think I got another husband stashed in the woodpile, sweetie? Well, I wish to god I did, ’cuz the one I got ain’t worth a bucket of warm spit.

Patsy: Where is Eli?

The caller: Outside, pounding on the door, hollering to let him in.

Patsy: You just stay put, Lucy. Take a few deep breaths. We’ll have someone out there right away.

The caller: I’m warning you, the sheriff better get here real fast, he wants to avoid bloodshed.

Patsy: He’s on his way, Lucy. You just relax, and don’t you let that husband of yours rankle you, understand?

The caller: I ain’t making any promises.

The caller hung up.

Jo was the first to respond. “If someone’s trying to sound like Lucy, they did a pretty fair job.”

Bos nodded. “If I hadn’t been leery, I’d have been fooled. I can see why Patsy didn’t give it a second thought. Whoever it is, she’s got Lucy’s speech down pat. But it’s someone younger, I’d say.”

Cork had Bos play the tape once more. “Hear that?” he said, midway through.

“What?”

“Rewind it a bit.” He waited. “Listen.” He held up a finger, then dropped it suddenly. “Now. Did you hear it? A door closing in the background.”

“Somebody came in?” Bos said.

“Or went out.” Jo looked at Cork. “Either way, she wasn’t alone.”

“Pull that tape, Bos. We’ll give it to BCA to analyze.”

He went into his office and made the call to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension office in Bemidji, explained the situation to the voice mail, then pulled out the clean uniform he kept in the closet. When he stepped back into the department common area, Jo looked at the uniform.

“You’re not coming home,” she said.

“No. I’ll shower downstairs, change, and then I’m going back out to the rez.”

“I wish you’d come home. You’ve got people who can handle the investigation.”

“I need to be there. Don’t wait up.”

She kissed him and he could feel her restraint, her irritation.

“Be careful,” she said, and left.

As he showered, he was conscious of his wound. The local anesthetic was wearing off, and a dull ache crept in behind it. He put on the clean uniform and went back upstairs.

“I’m taking my Bronco,” he told Bos. “Let Ed know I’m on my way.”

“You really ought to get a radio in that vehicle.”

He started for the door, but Bos called him back.

“Sheriff?”

He turned around.

“Somebody lured you out there.”

“It looks that way.”

“They wanted you dead. Or maybe Marsha.”

“That’s generally the reason they use bullets.”

“My point is this,” she said. “They didn’t succeed. Does that mean they’ll try again?”

Floodlights lit the hollow with an unnatural glare, and the poplar trees around the Tibodeau cabin looked like a crowd of gawkers gone white with shock. Cork pulled up behind Cy Borkmann’s cruiser and got out.

Ed Larson stood in the doorway of the cabin. He wasn’t wearing the latex gloves anymore and looked as if he’d gathered evidence and was weighing the meaning. Or at least, that’s what Cork hoped his look meant.

“Where’s Lucy?” Cork asked.

“She and Eli went into Allouette to stay with his uncle. We took statements from both of them. They were pretty broken up over the dogs.”

Cork glanced inside the cabin. “So, what did you find?”

Larson adjusted his wire-rims, not a good sign. Then he said, “Well,” which nailed the coffin shut.

“Nothing?” Cork said.

“Not down here. Whoever it was, they actually wiped out the tracks leading back to the woodpile where they threw the dogs. Looks like they used a pine branch or something. I took prints off the phone, but I’m betting they’re just latents from Eli and Lucy. Nothing on the shell casings you found earlier. We pulled the slugs out of the Land Cruiser but they’re too mashed up to be of any use for ballistics. We’re still looking for the round that went through Marsha. Doing a quadrant search of the ground surface right now, then I’ll have the guys start digging. Come morning, we’ll go over every inch of the hilltop where the shooter was. We bagged the dogs. If you think it’ll be of any value, we can have them autopsied.”

Duane Pender, who was working on the search of the ground, hollered.

“What is it?” Larson said.

Pender picked up something and held it up in the light. “It’s a bell. A little jingly Christmas bell.”

Larson walked carefully to the deputy and took the bell from him. It was a silver ball with a little metal bead inside that jingled when the ball moved. “It’s new. Not dirty, so it hasn’t been on the ground long. What do you make of it, Cork?”

Cork walked over. “Could be from a Christmas ornament.”

“In October?”

“Or maybe from a jingle dress.”

“A what?”

“For ceremonial dances. It may be nothing, but make a note of where you found it, Duane, and put it in a bag.”

Larson followed him back to the cabin door. “Any word on Marsha?”

“She was still in surgery when I left the hospital.”

“You don’t look too good yourself.”

Cork slumped against the door frame. The lights for the search were bright in his eyes, and he turned his face from them. “I keep trying to figure all this.”

“I’ve been thinking,” Larson said quietly. “Someone went to a lot of trouble to get you out here. Think about it, Cork. The call comes from the rez. Since you’ve taken over as sheriff, the old policy of you responding to most of the calls from out here is back in place. Marsha’s driving the Land Cruiser. She’s your height, more or less. She’s wearing a cap. The sun’s down, the whole hollow here is in shade. The shooter assumes it’s you who gets out and he fires.”

“Or she fires,” Cork said.

“She?”

“I listened to the tape of the call when I was back at the department. It was a woman doing a pretty good job of sounding like Lucy.”