William Krueger: Tamarack County

“I just want you to know, Cork . . .”

He waited.

“We made no promises,” she said.

Was she giving him a way out? Did she want out?

He picked up a framed photograph of Rainy, which was one of two photos he kept on the desk. It was taken the previous summer. She was standing in the meadow on Crow Point, in brilliant sunlight, smiling beautifully amid wildflowers in full bloom. He’d snapped the picture himself, and he recalled that day well. He remembered how happy he’d been. He thought now how quickly life could change, how so much was beyond anyone’s control.

“Cork, are you there?”

“I’m here. Things are a little confusing right now, Rainy.”

“I’m sure.”

There was no note of anger or censure in her voice, just an acknowledgment of the truth of Cork’s situation, of the situation they were both in.

He stared at the woman in the meadow. “I’ll call, after I’ve had a chance to rest some.”

“I’ll be waiting,” she said. Then, just before she hung up, she added, “I love you, Cork.”

He should have echoed the words back to her. Instead, he said, “We’ll talk.”

He hung up. He sat down in the chair at the desk and looked at the other framed photograph he kept there. It was of his wife, Jo, standing beside a tandem bicycle on a trail in Itasca State Park. Another photograph that Cork had taken. In all the years they’d lived together in the house on Gooseberry Lane, Jo O’Connor had used the study as an office for her law practice. After she was killed, Cork had removed the law books from the shelves, but he hadn’t replaced them yet, and the room had an unfinished feel to it. He sometimes operated his own private investigation business from the study, had tried to make the room seem his, but it felt odd to him whenever he did so, a kind of trespass. Another confusing situation he’d have to think about eventually. Which brought him back to a consideration of the photograph of Rainy in the meadow on Crow Point. He’d already lost people he loved deeply. Did he want to lose more? He thought about Stella Daychild and tried to understand what, exactly, he’d shared with her and what, exactly, he wanted still to share. And he thought about Anne and her wonderment whether love was worth all the pain it caused. He didn’t have the answer to that one.

He was still deep in thought when the study door opened. He turned in his chair, expecting Anne back from Sam’s Place. But it wasn’t Anne. It was a man back from the dead.

“I thought you were on the bottom of the lake,” Cork said.

“I was hoping that’s what everybody would think. So, you know who I am.” Walter Frogg seemed surprised.

“I know all about you. I talked with Cecil LaPointe yesterday. I visited your mother this morning. I spent an interesting few minutes with your cousin Eustis tonight.”

“You get around.”

Frogg held a pistol in his hand. He closed the door behind him and crossed to where Cork sat. The lamp on the desk lit the room dimly, and Cork’s visitor stood in a place that was more shadow than light and from which, when he pulled the trigger, the bullets could hit Cork anywhere Frogg wanted them to.

“You shot my son,” Cork said.

“Yes.”

“Why him?”

Frogg blinked, a face without emotion. “I could have killed one of your girls, but I figured your only son would be a dearer price.”

“He’s alive,” Cork said.

“I heard.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

“Pretty much.”

“Just me?”

Frogg lifted his eyes toward the ceiling. In the bedrooms above them, Jenny and Waaboo slept. He considered for several seconds, then nodded. “That’ll pay the tab. Justice done.”

“Justice. Because of LaPointe? I didn’t know anything about Ray Jay Wakemup’s story until he went public with it.”

“That’s what you say.”

“LaPointe holds no grudge.”

“No, he wouldn’t.” His voice softened when he said this, as if their discussion had brought back to him a pleasing memory. But if so, the emotion passed in an instant, and when he spoke again, he spoke coldly. “This isn’t about grudges. Like I said, justice done. Truth elevated.”

Cork rocked forward in the chair, and Frogg shoved the pistol toward him in warning.

Cork said, “All right, since we’re talking truth here, let me lay a truth or two on you, Walter. You tell yourself that what you do, this vigilante crap, is justice. That’s bullshit. Or maybe you’re doing it because you believe you owe something to Cecil LaPointe. But the truth is that you’re just a little man who likes scaring people, a little man who’s pissed at everyone who has power over him, a little man who all his life has carried this big chip on his shoulder. You killed Evelyn Carter and you crippled my son, two people who never did you any harm. There’s nothing noble in that. It’s got nothing to do with justice or truth. It’s no tribute to a man like Cecil LaPointe. It’s pathetic and it’s psychotic.”

From the shadows where he stood, Frogg said, “And sending an innocent man to prison, what’s that?”

“Wrong. It’s wrong. I’m not going to defend it. But the faults of a system and those in charge of it are one thing. This”-Cork nodded toward the pistol pointed at his chest-“is something else. This is cold-blooded murder.”

“You see it your way, I see it mine.”

Cork considered the weapon. “That’s a twenty-two. The pistol you used on Stephen?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Is it?”

“Yeah.”

Cork shook his head, as if somehow disappointed in Frogg. “Small bullets. They didn’t kill Stephen, and they won’t kill me. Not before I’m on you and break your neck.”

The ice in his voice was real, the intention absolute. Whatever it took, even if it was the last thing he did in his life, he would make certain that Frogg was dead.

The study door opened. Anne stepped in. Frogg glanced her way, and Cork saw his opportunity. He shot from the chair. He was on Frogg as the pistol cracked. He felt the sting low on his left side, but it didn’t slow him. He grabbed Frogg’s gun hand with both of his own, and the pistol hit the floor. He rocketed his arm upward. The hard bone of his elbow crushed the cartilage in Frogg’s nose, and blood sprayed. But the man didn’t go down. Instead, he pulled free and threw a quick combination of punches that hammered the wound in Cork’s side. Cork stumbled away. Frogg’s hand shot to his belt, to a sheath there. A hunting knife with a four-inch blade materialized in his grip.

“Stop it,” Anne yelled.

She held the pistol Frogg had dropped. He saw it and froze.

“Shoot, Annie!” Cork shouted.

She didn’t. The gun was leveled at Frogg, but her eyes were full of indecision.

“Shoot!” Cork ordered.

Anne did nothing, and Frogg used that moment of her hesitation to lunge at Cork. The men went down, Frogg on top. Cork managed a grip around the wrist of the hand that wielded the knife, but Frogg was more powerful than Cork had imagined. Men in prison with time on their hands. Despite his best effort, he watched the tip of the knife slowly descend toward his heart.

Then Frogg grunted and fell to the side. Cork saw Anne draw her arm back from the blow she’d delivered with the butt of the pistol. He rolled, stood up, and took the gun from her. The knife lay on the floor within Frogg’s reach. The man roused himself. He struggled toward a crouch, as if to make a lunge for the blade, but Cork delivered a fast, brutal kick to his face. Frogg reeled and fell. Cork followed him and delivered another ferocious head kick. Then, with the toe of his boot, he angrily sent the knife sliding to the far side of the room.