William Krueger - Heaven's keep

“Still married?” Cork asked.

“ ’Fraid not. Lost Julia almost twenty years ago to a drunk driver.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’d think that after twenty years I’d get used to the idea.” He looked out the window of the plane. “I hope you find your wife, Cork. I truly do.”

The flight was smooth and uneventful, and shortly before ten o’clock the Lear touched down on a runway of the regional airport in Cody, Wyoming.

Cork had called ahead and arranged for a rental car, a Jeep Wrangler. After he confirmed that it was waiting, he and Stephen said good-bye to Hugh Parmer. They shook hands, and Parmer said, “I’m heading home, but if I hear that there was some way I could’ve helped and you didn’t ask me, I’ll be well and truly pissed.”

“I’ll be sure to let you know,” Cork said. “Hugh, I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

“We’ll be talking,” Parmer said. He ruffed Stephen’s hair. “Your old man’s lucky to have you along for backup. Keep him out of trouble, okay?”

“I will,” Stephen said earnestly.

“And, son,” Parmer added. “I sincerely hope you find your mother.”

They drove southeast toward the Bighorn River, into a basin from which they could see the Absarokas to the west. The mountains were completely covered with snow, and at one point Stephen said solemnly, “They look like the teeth of a wolf.” They drove between irrigated fields, where great rolls of hay lay wrapped in black plastic and wore a mantle of snow. They drove through rocky hills dotted with prickly pear cactus. They saw ranch houses in the distance, isolated, lonely-looking places, and spotted cattle grazing near gullies lined with cottonwoods. The farther south they drove the more rugged the land became, marked by the rise of long escarpments whose sharp cliffs were red as open wounds. Cork was surprised how little snow there was in the Bighorn Basin, in some places not much more than a dusting.

After an hour and a half, they came to Hot Springs, which proved to be a large town perched on the high ground at a bend in the Bighorn. On the far side of the river, steamy vapor drifted up from yellow pools. Hot Springs had an old western feel to it, a community carved out of rock and bedded in sand. It was, in a way, colorful. Blue sky, blue river, blue-white mountains, red rock, yellow springs. The day was warm, the temperature in the high forties. In the hills above town lay pockets of snow, but in Hot Springs itself most of what had fallen had already melted away. They drove directly to the courthouse, an old building of tan brick, and they parked in the lot of the annex, a newer two-story addition that housed the Owl Creek County Sheriff’s Department and the county jail. Also parked in the lot were news vans from stations in Casper and Cheyenne with satellite dishes on top. Cork and Stephen went inside and found themselves in a small waiting area, empty at the moment, with two inner doors. One door was marked JAIL, the other AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. There was a public contact window so dark Cork couldn’t see what was on the other side. He walked to the window and spoke into the small grate embedded in the glass.

“My name is Cork O’Connor. This is my son, Stephen. We’re here to see Deputy Dewey Quinn.”

“Need to see some ID,” came the voice from the other side.

Cork took out his driver’s license and dropped it in the trough beneath the glass, where a couple of fingers drew it in from the other side. A minute passed, then the license came back. “Have a seat,” the tired, disembodied voice said.

They sat in a couple of uncomfortable black plastic chairs in the waiting area and didn’t talk. Cork kept eyeing his watch and couldn’t believe how slowly the minutes passed. All he could think of was how close they were to the search and how much precious time was being wasted.

Finally the Authorized Personnel Only door opened, and a man in a deputy’s khaki uniform came out. He was of medium height, with dark brown hair in a crew cut. You could see in the deep tan of his face and the taut draw of the skin around his eyes and mouth that he spent a lot of time in the sun. Cork pegged Quinn at somewhere in his early thirties.

“Dewey?”

The deputy didn’t appear happy to see him. “I wish you’d have let me know you were coming, Cork.”

“Would it have made a difference?”

“I’d probably have tried to talk you out of it.” He turned his attention to Cork’s son. “Stephen?”

“Yeah. I mean, yes, sir.”

He shook hands with them both.

“We’re not here to cause you problems, Dewey,” Cork said.

“I know. Doesn’t mean you won’t.” He looked past them, out the front door, and said, “Oh, shit.”

Cork glanced there, too, and saw a pretty blonde in jeans and an expensive-looking shearling coat sweeping toward the door from the parking lot.

“Quick,” Quinn said, “follow me.”

He hustled them to the door he’d come through, and they followed him inside.

Cork found himself in familiar territory. The Owl Creek County Sheriff’s Department was not that different from the sheriff’s department in Minnesota. There was a large common area and, along the perimeter, doors that led to other rooms and offices. To the right was the contact desk, currently staffed by a stout-looking deputy with a buzz cut and his sleeves rolled back. Beyond him was the dispatch desk and radio. The smell of fresh coffee filled the place.

“Who were you avoiding?” Cork asked.

“Felicia Gray. TV newswoman out of Casper. We’re lucky because most of the media is up in Cody, where the Civil Air Patrol is coordinating the air search. Not as many reporters on this as there were at first. That standoff thing with the religious nut in Kansas seems to have grabbed everyone’s attention.”

Cork understood. A few missing Indians wouldn’t be news for long.

“But we’ve got Ms. Gray,” Quinn went on. “She’s the one who broke the story about the pilot’s drinking. She gets hold of you two, your nuts are deep-fried. She’ll harass the hell out of you, believe you me. Probably can’t avoid her forever, but you might as well delay it as long as possible. Bolger,” he called to the deputy at the contact desk, and said by way of introduction, “the O’Connors. Miss Kiss-My-Pulitzer questions you about these two, you don’t know anything, got that?”

“Ten-four, Dewey.” He gave a two-fingered salute, then used the same gesture as a greeting to Cork and Stephen.

“Come with me.” Quinn turned and walked briskly down a narrow hallway to a southwest-facing conference room where sunshine flooded through a long window. Beyond the glass, the streets of Hot Springs, lined with small houses and bared trees, ran toward the distant mountains. The conference table dead center was cluttered with maps and papers. A large topographic map hung on the wall opposite the window. It was studded with pins of various colors and lined with corridors crudely drawn with neon highlighters. There was a portable dispatch radio on a table against another wall. Several chairs were scattered about, all unoccupied at the moment.

“Like I said, the air search is being coordinated up in Cody by the Wyoming wing of the Civil Air Patrol,” Quinn said. “Commander Nickleson of the Cody unit is in charge, and she’s being assisted by units out of Big Horn and Jackson. We’re in constant communication. This is where we’ve been handling things on our end.” He swept his hand across the room. “When I say ‘we,’ I mean ‘I.’ We’re a small department and we’re stretched to the max. Cork, I swear to you, we’re doing the best we can.”

“Where’s the sheriff?”

“Out on a domestic disturbance call. We still have our regular duties to see to. If he comes in, he probably won’t say much. Just give you a look that’d scare a grizzly bear. Have a seat and I’ll bring you up to date.”