William Krueger: Tamarack County

Azevedo and Deputy Pender came back down the road from the Buick. When they got to Dross, Azevedo said, “Nothing.”

“Whatever tracks there were, the snow’s filled them in and covered them,” Pender added.

“Okay,” Dross said. “Let’s begin at the car.”

There were a dozen involved in the search, most of them members of Tamarack County Search and Rescue. Dross had called the State Patrol, who’d promised a couple of troopers, but they hadn’t arrived yet. She assigned Azevedo and Pender to walking the Old Babbitt Road, checking for any sign of Evelyn along the shoulders. The rest of the men put on their snowshoes, spaced themselves about fifty feet apart, and moved into the woods to the south. They all had good lanterns or powerful flashlights and went slowly, sweeping the areas ahead of and between them. Six inches of new snow had already fallen that evening, and it was still coming down hard. In the woods, the wind wasn’t so strong, but if Evelyn Carter had stumbled and just lain there, Cork knew she could easily have been covered. So he looked not only for the woman and for her tracks but also for any unusual contour of the snow that might indicate something beneath.

They didn’t talk. As it was, the forest was alive with noises. The big wind ran through the pine trees and spruce and poplar with a sound like the rush of floodwater, and the branches creaked and groaned and scraped against one another, and it made Cork think of skeletons going at it in a free-for-all. He’d worn his down parka but kept the hood off his head so that he could hear better in case Evelyn tried to cry out.

They went a quarter of a mile, then Dross had them turn back and regroup at the Buick. Azevedo and Pender were already there with no good news. The deputies joined the others, and everyone entered the woods to the north.

The wind was stronger now, and even in the protection among the trees, the snow moved like something alive. Cork found himself thinking about another search he’d been a part of many years earlier, when a young woman named Charlotte Kane had gone out on a snowmobile on New Year’s Eve and never come back. The search had been hindered by a blizzard that had roared out of the Dakotas, and Cork had been caught in it, caught in a whiteout, and might have become lost himself except that he’d been guided by a presence that had remained hidden in the storm, something or someone he’d never been able to identify but who’d shown him the way. When Cork was a boy, an old friend named Sam Winter Moon had once told him that there were more things in the forest than a man could ever see with his eyes, more things than he could ever hope to understand. It was a piece of wisdom that, as a grown man, Cork believed absolutely.

Charlotte Kane’s body hadn’t been found until the snow had begun to melt the following spring. And it had been clear that a force of nature hadn’t claimed her. Charlotte Kane had been murdered.

As he made his way carefully through the woods with the full weight of the storm muscling against him, Cork said a silent prayer for Evelyn Carter, prayed that she’d be found, found soon and found alive.

They came to a clearing, where the wind, unhindered, lifted and blew the snow into an impenetrable wall. They paused before moving forward, regrouped so that no one was out of sight of anyone, and then they went ahead. They hadn’t gone far when Azevedo let out a shout.

“Found something!” came his voice above the wind.

They all moved his way. In the flood of the beams from the lights, they saw what the deputy had found. It was an elongated mounding of snow, but there was more to it than that. The dynamics of the wind had produced an oddity. The snow on the lee side had drifted, creating a smooth downslope, but on the windward side, a small section of what lay on the ground was blown nearly clear. Beneath the thin white of the snow layer that remained, they could see the red stain of blood, the blue-white marbling of flayed flesh, and the dark maroon of spilled entrails, all the result of recent, brutal evisceration.

Cork arrived home well after midnight. Stephen was still up, sitting on the sofa in the living room, texting on his cell phone. Trixie was asleep at his feet. Cork stood in the kitchen doorway, exhausted and cold to the bone, staring at his son, who seemed oblivious to his presence.

“School day tomorrow,” Cork said. “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

Stephen looked up suddenly, caught by surprise. “Just a sec, Dad,” he said, finished his text message, and laid the phone down next to him on the sofa cushion.

“Marlee?” Cork asked.

Stephen looked chagrined. “Marlee.”

Stephen had been seeing a good deal of Marlee Daychild lately. Cork wasn’t certain what the status of their relationship actually was, but in Stephen’s parlance they were “just, you know, talking.”

“She has school tomorrow, too,” Cork said. “You both need your sleep.”

Stephen didn’t respond to that directly. He’d become adept lately at detouring a conversation when it wasn’t going in a way advantageous to him. He said, “Did you find Mrs. Carter?”

The truth was that Cork wanted to talk with someone, it was already well past time for Stephen to be in bed, and a few more minutes wouldn’t matter, so he said, “Let’s go into the kitchen. I need to eat something.”

Trixie roused herself, stretched, and trotted along behind them. She went directly to her water bowl near the side door and lapped awhile.

Cork went to the coffeemaker. The pot still held enough for one cup of cold brew. He got a mug from the cupboard, filled it from the pot, put it in the microwave to heat, then turned back to Stephen, who’d sat at the table with his cell phone in easy reach.

“So,” Cork said, leaning his butt against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest, “did Annie tell you why she’s leaving the sisters?”

Stephen’s eyes went wide, his whole face a momentary bloom of surprise. He recovered quickly and said, “What makes you think she’s leaving?”

“She’s home too early. She’s clearly in emotional distress. She won’t talk to me about it. And I’m pretty sure she didn’t kill anybody. Am I wrong?”

Stephen considered a moment. “I should let Annie tell you.”

“So I’m right,” Cork said. “Has she told you why?”

Stephen seemed to realize denial was useless. He shrugged. “She hasn’t told me or Jenny. She just said that she’s decided not to stay with the sisters. She’s pretty torn up about it. Don’t tell her I told you, okay?”

“We’re good,” Cork said.

The microwave beeped. Cork took out the hot mug, grabbed the cookie jar from the counter, and brought these things to the table. He lifted the lid of the jar, pulled out two chocolate chip cookies, and slid one across the table to his son.

Stephen took the cookie and repeated his earlier question. “Did you find Mrs. Carter?”

Before Cork could answer, Jenny stepped into the kitchen. She wore a white chenille robe and fluffy white slippers, and her hair was mussed from sleep.

“Thought I heard you guys,” she said.

She came to the table and sat down next to Stephen. Cork plucked a cookie from the jar and handed it to her.

“Any coffee left?” she asked with a yawn.

“I killed the pot,” Cork said.

From the kitchen doorway, Anne said, “I could make another.”

Cork let out a dramatic sigh. “Doesn’t anybody in this house ever sleep?”

“Waaboo,” Jenny said. “He sleeps like a dream.”

“Anybody else hungry?” Stephen piped up.

Cork said, “The truth is I’m famished.”

“I’ll make us some eggs,” Anne offered and went to the refrigerator. “Did you find Mrs. Carter?”