William Krueger - Copper River

“How’d it happen? Any idea?”

“It was right after the Bobcats won the championship that year.”

“According to the sign at the edge of town, the only year,” Dina said.

“So you can imagine it was a big deal around here,” Jewell went on. “The Lion’s Club threw a team banquet at the Ramada in Marquette. I was supposed to go. I’d been dating Ned, but we broke up. Anyway, after the banquet a bunch of the guys went to a cabin one of the parents owned and they had a party of their own, with alcohol, grass, whatever. As nearly as anyone can figure, when Tom was driving home from the party, he picked up the girl, who was probably hitchhiking. Exactly what happened after that only Tom knew for sure. He killed himself over it. Devastated his mother. The whole town, actually. It was a terrible shock.”

Ren said, “If you go to the football field at midnight on Halloween and say his name three times his ghost is supposed to appear.”

“Ren,” his mother said, casting a cold eye his way.

“That’s what everybody says.” He suddenly remembered something. “Hey, we know where Sara Wolf’s body came from.”

Dina looked at Cork. “Is that true?”

He smoothed the sheet over his legs. “I think we have an interesting speculation. Go ahead, Ren. You tell them.”

Ren waited, savoring their anticipation. “The Copper River Club.” He saw the consternation in their faces. “We figured it’s the only place upriver where someone could drop the body easily.”

“The Copper River Club?”

It was clear to Ren that Dina had no idea what he was talking about. He explained, “It’s a big private area in the Huron Mountains where only really rich people can go. We tried to get up there to have a look but Mr. Stokely stopped us.”

“Stokely?” his mother said, scowling. “Isaac or Calvin?”

“Calvin.”

“I don’t know what the connection might be between the girl and the folks up there,” Cork put in, “but I think it’s worth checking.”

Ren saw a dark dawning on his mother’s face.

“I think I know what the connection might be. Delmar Bell.”

“Delmar Bell?” Cork asked.

Dina said, “The handyman at Providence House.”

“He and Calvin Stokely have been best friends since they were kids,” Jewell said. “And for a long time they partnered driving semis cross-country. I’ve never seen Calvin’s place, but I understand he has a cabin on Copper River Club property, right on the river itself.”

“I’ve seen it,” Ren said. “It’s spooky.”

Cork said, “You know these men, Jewell. Think they’re capable of doing this kind of thing?”

From the expression on her face, Ren could easily believe his mother was in real pain. “I’ve never dealt with this kind of thing,” she replied. “I would’ve thought it took a monster, somebody whose face you could look at and see the horror they’re capable of. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”

Cork turned his attention to Charlie. “You’ve got to talk to the police now. They need to know.”

“No way.” She stiffened against the wall. “I’m not talking to anybody.”

“What about Constable Hodder?” Ren said. “You know him. He’s all right.”

She didn’t reply.

Ren’s mother said, “You won’t be alone, Charlie. We’ll be there with you the whole way, promise.”

Charlie folded her arms across her chest. “They’ll put me in juvenile detention. I’ve been there and I hate it. I hate cops.”

“I’m a cop,” Cork said.

“You’re a gimp,” she shot back.

Cork didn’t seem to mind. He went on: “Charlie, I know you’re scared. But if the guys who did these things-to your father, to Sara Wolf, to your buddy Stuart-are going to be stopped, the police have to know what you know. Do you see that?”

“I don’t have to tell ‘em,” Charlie shot back. “Can’t somebody else?”

“It would be best coming from you,” he said evenly.

“I won’t do it.”

“What if…” Jewell began.

They all looked at her.

“What if I talked to Ned, told him what we know, and he was the one who took it to the Marquette sheriff’s people? If you were the sheriff’s investigator, Cork, how would you respond?”

“The first thing I’d want to do is talk to Charlie and Ren myself.”

“But if you couldn’t?”

“I’d certainly look into things.”

“There,” Charlie said, satisfied.

Cork didn’t seem happy with this, but he finally nodded. “You’ll talk to the constable, Jewell?”

“Yes.”

“Mind if I go along?” Dina asked. “I might be able to make a few salient suggestions.”

“All right,” Ren’s mother replied. She looked at Cork. “You’ll be okay here?”

“Between Ren and me, we can handle Charlie, I think.”

He tossed Charlie a kidding smile. In return, she offered him a defiant glare.

J ewell was at least six inches taller than Dina Willner. She’d coped with the loss of her husband and was raising her son alone. Generally speaking, she thought of herself as a capable woman. Yet, there was something about being with Dina that made her feel as if they could walk into hell together and have tea with the Devil without breaking a sweat.

“Thanks,” she said as she guided the Blazer onto the main road into Bodine.

“What for?” Dina replied.

“Being here. Doing this. A lot more than you bargained for, I know.”

“You’re welcome.”

Jewell glanced at the other woman. “You and Cork, do you go way back?”

“A couple of weeks is all.”

“Why are you helping him like this?”

“It’s a tangle of personal and professional reasons. Some unfinished business.”

Jewell wondered if Cork was the personal or professional part.

“Do you have family back in Chicago?”

“Someone who’s waiting for me, you mean? Not even a cat.”

“Not even a cat?”

Jewell thought about that, considered what it would be like to come home every night to an empty apartment, to a silence broken only by the soft clatter of her own existence. Sometimes at the end of a long day when she walked into the cabin and found that Ren and his friends had left a mess in the kitchen or the living room and she heard the sound of their roughhousing in Ren’s room, she would think how pleasant it might be to have the place to herself, as clean and quiet as she’d left it that morning. But that thought always evaporated in Ren’s presence when she asked him about his day and he shared with her the precious treasure that was his life.

Dina shook her head. “It’s not what you think.”

“What?”

“You’re thinking, Lonely life, wasted life, something like that. Family and children, that’s where it’s at, right?”

She started to deny it, but Dina had spoken the truth. Jewell said instead, “My life’s different, that’s all.”

“No.” Dina looked at her pointedly, green eyes like jade knife blades. “You were thinking better. ” She turned back to the road ahead. “I could remind you about all the pain you’ve gone through as a result of the choices you’ve made-a lost husband, and I’ll bet you lose a lot of sleep over Ren-but what would be the point except to defend my own choices. My life is my life, yours is yours. End of discussion.”

Jewell offered, “It feels to me like I’m not the one you’re trying to convince.”

“Look, I like what I do, and what I do requires a particular kind of life. I need to be able to be gone at a moment’s notice without worrying about who I’m leaving behind, even if it’s only a cat.”

They were quiet as they approached the bridge over the Copper River.