William Krueger - Tamarack County

“No lock,” he’d said, looking at the door Rainy had just closed behind her.

“Uncle Henry says that locks are like fear. They’re an invitation to violation. An open door is a different kind of invitation.”

Coming from anyone else, the statement might have sounded naive, but Cork knew Meloux well and knew that the old man spoke only truth. If it hadn’t been truth before Meloux spoke, it became so afterward.

Rainy looked away from him, toward where her great-uncle stood gazing across the lake, which was already frozen, though not solidly enough yet to support traffic, human or otherwise.

“Five months is a long time,” she said. “I know he’ll be with family, but it’ll still be tough on him. He hasn’t been away from Crow Point for any significant period of time in sixty years.”

“Five months,” Cork said. “Then you’ll be back, too?”

She didn’t answer immediately, nor did she look at him. “I can’t promise,” she said at last. “I’ll stay with Peter as long as he needs me.” She was speaking of her son.

She hadn’t put on her stocking cap yet, and her hair hung long over the shoulders of her red parka. A single strip of white ran through her black tresses. Rainy was full-blood Anishinaabe, Lac Courte Oreilles Band, out of Wisconsin. Her skin was a soft tan color, her cheeks high and proud. Her hands were rough from the work necessary to live in that remote place, but their touch had given Cork enormous pleasure in the time he’d been with her.

“You’ll call?” he said. “Often?”

“I’ll call,” she said. She turned her eyes to him, eyes the color of cherrywood. “Cork, I don’t know what’s ahead for Peter. Or for me. Or for us. I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep, and I don’t want that from you either.”

“What does that mean? Because it sounds to me like a diplomatic ending.”

“Not an ending.” Her eyes shone, tears in the gray light. “Maybe a test.”

“Of what?”

“What love is made of.” She put her hand, gloved in soft deer hide, to his cheek. “While I’m gone, however long that is, live your life as you have to. Because, Cork, that’s what I’ll be doing.”

He had no idea what that meant, but he hadn’t pressed her. When she left Tamarack County, Rainy had delivered her great-uncle to Meloux’s son, Hank Wellington, who’d met them in Duluth and had taken his father with him back to Thunder Bay for the worst of the winter months. The old man hadn’t been at all certain about this. With great reluctance, however, he’d accepted that at ninety-something he could no longer make it on his own through the kind of winter that usually came to the North Country. Rainy had gone home to Hayward, Wisconsin, and from there to Tucson, Arizona, where her son now lived, a kid struggling once again in his fight against both alcohol and the siren call of drugs.

In the quiet of the windless day, as he sat in front of Rainy’s deserted cabin, Cork heard only the sound of the crows using the aspen trees as a roost. The place felt abandoned, hopelessly empty of anything welcoming. He started the engine of his snowmobile and headed back toward Allouette.

* * *

He turned his Land Rover off the highway onto the lane that led up to the prefab where Stella and Marlee Daychild lived. The Toyota 4Runner was gone, but Cork parked and knocked on the door anyway, expecting to find no one home. He was mistaken. Stella opened up. She stood behind the storm door, holding a mug in one hand and her robe closed with the other.

“You look cold,” she said. “Come on in.” She stepped back to let Cork enter.

He expected to see the residual signs of Stephen’s overnighter there, blankets rumpled on the sofa, maybe, or cereal bowls left on the coffee table, the kind of thoughtlessness he was constantly after Stephen about. To his surprise, the house looked impressively neat, no indication at all of the kind of sloppiness Cork, in his own experience raising three teenagers, had come to expect of them.

As if reading his mind, Stella said, “Marlee. That girl’s a human vacuum cleaner. Can’t drop a cigarette butt in an ashtray without her sweeping it up three seconds later. Adult child of an alcoholic,” she added, lifting her coffee mug in a mock toast to herself. “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, Coke, tea, hot chocolate, spring water? I’ve got it all. Except for the booze now.”

“Thanks, Stella, I’m fine.”

“Have a seat,” she offered.

Cork sat on the sofa. Stella took the swivel rocker. The robe she wore came only to midthigh. Below that she had on red wool socks. Between the hem of her robe and the tops of her wool socks, a lot of bare leg showed. She looked as if she hadn’t been up that long, her hair still mussed from where her head lay on her pillow, no makeup, tired eyes. Cork found himself remarking silently on how lovely she was. In the next moment, he found himself thinking, You just miss the company of a woman, that’s all it is. Even so, he had to be careful not to stare at Stella’s long, bare, slender legs.

“I followed the track of the snowmobile,” he told her.

“And?”

“It led to where the White Iron River feeds into the lake.”

“And that means?”

“That the guy could have come from just about anywhere in Tamarack County, but probably not from the rez.”

“Didn’t we already figure that?”

“It’s always good to confirm a theory. You’re sure you don’t have any idea who you might have pissed off?”

“When it happens, I let it go right away. No use dwelling on something like that. But what about the guy who followed me from the casino?”

“Green pickup, mole on his cheek? Have you seen him since?”

“No.”

“Any idea why he might have taken a particular interest in you?”

“Only the usual interest when it comes to a female bartender.”

“Okay, so we keep him in mind.” He hesitated, then went on. “Stella, this isn’t meant to pry into your personal life, but have you been seeing anybody lately?”

“You mean like dating?” She laughed, but there was a bitter edge to it. “I gave up men when I gave up booze. The two seemed to go together in my mind. In the end, both of them always left me feeling pretty bad about myself.” She sipped her coffee. “So you do think it was something personal directed at me?”

“That, or maybe someone trying to make a point to Marlee.”

“Marlee? That girl’s as good as I was bad. And the only guy she’s seeing is Stephen. You have any idea how different my life would’ve been if I’d dated guys like Stephen?”

Cork figured that, given her tough childhood, it would have taken a lot more than dating the right guy to make a difference in Stella’s life. But he admired that she’d turned things around, that she’d worked very hard to do her best for her children.

“What about Dexter?” she said.

“What about him?”

“Is he-I mean his body-still out there?”

“I haven’t moved him, so yeah, I guess.” He saw the concern on her face. “I’ll take care of it. What would you like me to do with him?”

“Could you just, I don’t know, bag him up and leave him somewhere out of sight? I’m going to have to tell Ray Jay that his dog’s dead. I’m not looking forward to that, let me tell you. I’ll let him decide what he wants to do. By the way, did you find his head?”

“No.”

“Why the hell would someone kill a sweet dog like Dexter and steal his head? Are you sure it wasn’t some kind of Satanic cult or something?”

“You know any Satanists?”

She smiled again, this time with genuine humor. “Only people that make me feel like hell sometimes. Does that count?”