William Krueger - Tamarack County

“We’ll do that,” Dross said. “But let’s consider other possibilities. Do you ever have visitors, Judge?”

He folded his arms across his chest. “People say we live too far out.”

“Do you lock your doors at night and when you’re gone?”

“My doors are always locked.”

Cork said, “Mind if I have a look around for any sign of a break-in?”

“You’re not charging me, you said,” the Judge reminded him.

“Just consider it being neighborly,” Cork said, though he wasn’t certain if the Judge understood that term at all.

He checked the windows and external doors on the first level of the house and found no sign that any had been jimmied. He reported this to the others, then asked, “Do you keep an extra house key somewhere, Ralph?”

“In the garage, on a nail by the door to the kitchen.”

“Be right back,” Cork said.

He went through the kitchen to the garage door, which was secured with a dead bolt. He flipped the dead bolt open and stepped into the attached garage. It was insulated and much warmer than the subzero temperatures outside. He found the nail the Judge had mentioned, hammered into the doorframe, and hanging from it was a key, which Cork presumed was the extra house key. He didn’t return to the others immediately but spent a few minutes in the garage, poking about, because that was pretty much the kind of thing he’d been doing for most of his adult life, in and out of uniform. The Carters had only one vehicle, apparently, because the Buick was still in the custody of the Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department and the garage was empty. At one end, a face cord of cut wood stood stacked against the wall, probably the supply that fed the fire in the Judge’s den. There was a worktable, and above it a big square of Peg-Board from which hand tools hung. Standing upright in a large ceramic urn in one corner were gardening tools-rake, shovel, hoe, and the like. There was a big plastic garbage bin on rollers, a power mower, and a gas-powered electric generator, backup, Cork figured, in the event the Judge lost power, which was not an uncommon occurrence in rural Tamarack County. He checked the windows and also the door that opened onto the backyard and found no sign of forced entry.

He stood a moment, looking the garage over for anything that made his eyes pause. They settled on two ten-gallon gas cans that stood next to the generator. He crossed the garage and lifted them. One was full, the other just over half. A few paces away stood a tall storage cabinet. He strolled to it and opened the doors. Inside were four shelves, filled with containers of oil and brake fluid and power-steering fluid. There were containers of pesticides, garden fertilizers, weed killer. There were terra-cotta pots and a couple of bags of potting soil. What surprised Cork, however, was that the overwhelming odor emanating from the cabinet was the smell of gasoline. The odor seemed to be coming from a few feet of rubber tubing coiled on the top shelf. He leaned close and confirmed this. Then something almost hidden behind the tubing caught his eye. He slid the coil to the left a few inches and spent a long moment staring at what was revealed.

He returned to the den, where Dross and the priest still kept company with the Judge.

“Anything?” Dross asked.

“There’s something I think you should see,” he replied. “I think you should take a look at this, too, Ralph.”

“What is it?” the Judge asked, clearly not excited about budging from his comfortable den with its comfortable fire.

“Evidence, I’d say.”

“Of what?” Dross asked.

“I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.”

They followed him to the garage. At the opened storage cabinet, he stopped and held out his hand toward the top shelf.

“Is that your missing knife, Ralph?”

The Judge took a quick look and said, “Yes, but what the hell is it doing out here?” He sounded truly astonished.

“A more interesting question,” Cork said, “is whose blood is that on the blade?”

The Judge reached toward the knife, but Dross caught his arm.

“Don’t touch it,” she ordered. “Ted, would you mind taking the Judge back to his den? I need to make some phone calls.”

“Hell, I’m staying right here,” the Judge insisted.

“Ralph,” the priest said, “come with me. It’ll be all right. She’s got a job to do.”

He took the Judge’s arm and gently tried to turn him away, but the old man shook off his hand.

“I want to see that knife.” His words were pitched high and loud.

Cork moved his body between the Judge and the cabinet. “Go back inside, Ralph,” he said. He wasn’t a particularly tall man, but in his days as a cop, he’d learned to speak with a voice of towering authority. The Judge stared at him, stared out of a face old and withered and suddenly empty of fight. Then the Judge turned away and went back into the house, accompanied by the priest.

Dross reached into her coat and drew out her cell phone. “I’ll have Azevedo round up the crime scene team.”

Before she punched in a number, Cork said, “Something else, Marsha. That coil of tubing there in front of the knife. It reeks of gas.”

“So?”

“Those gas cans next to the generator? One’s full, the other about half. Maybe sixteen gallons of fuel in all.”

“What are you getting at?”

“I’m just thinking about the empty tank on Evelyn’s car. She filled up the day before she went missing and, according to the Judge, didn’t drive much. It could be she drove four gallons’ worth.”

“And the rest was . . .” Dross’s gaze returned to the coil of rubber hose on the shelf. She leaned to it and sniffed. “Siphoned?”

Cork shrugged. “Would explain a lot.”

She glanced toward the door where the Judge had just disappeared. “Why?”

“You won’t know until you ask him.”

“Another long night ahead,” she said, though not in a tired way.

A cell phone rang, but it wasn’t Dross’s. Cork reached to the little belt holster that held his own phone. The call was from his son.

“Yeah, buddy, what is it?”

“Dad, you need to get out here.” Stephen’s voice was on the razor edge of panic.

“Where are you? What’s wrong?”

“I’m at Marlee’s place. Someone-” Stephen broke off.

“Stephen? Stephen, are you all right?”

His son’s voice returned. “Sorry. Marlee’s really upset. Dad, someone killed her dog.” There was quiet on the line. Then Stephen’s voice again. “They didn’t just kill him, Dad. They cut off his head.”

Stephen opened the door to his father, who asked immediately, “You’re okay? And Marlee?”

“Fine, Dad. We’re fine.”

He stood back and let his father in. Marlee was in the room behind him, sitting on the sofa, hugging herself for comfort. She wasn’t crying anymore, but the tears had taken forever to subside. All Stephen had been able to do was hold her, and although she let him, it hadn’t felt to him as if he was doing enough.

“Where is he?” Cork asked.

“Out by the lake.”

“Tell me exactly what happened.”

So Stephen told him about letting Dexter out to do his business, about the barking, the quiet, the yelp, and the sudden silence that had ended it all. He didn’t say anything about having been prone on the couch with Marlee at the time. It seemed . . . irrelevant.

“Then you went out and found the dog?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see anybody?”

“No.”

“What about before?”

“Before?”

“When you first got here.”

“I wasn’t really looking for anyone.” It sounded feeble to Stephen, and he wondered if his father, in his place, might have noticed more.