knocked the glass off the table. A simple accident due to his own carelessness, a small incident in a day full of enormous event. Still, it felt as if something had finally snapped inside him, the cord that had kept him from taking a long fall.
Finally alone, he drew his legs up, laid his arms across his knees, cradled his head, and with a violent quaking gave himself up to the dark emotions-terror, rage, regret-that had stalked him all night.
5
Boston was still on duty when Cork rolled in at first light.
She glanced at her watch. “You didn’t sleep much,” she said. “And you don’t mind me saying so, you still look like hell.”
“What’s the word from Morgan and Schilling?” he asked, referring to the two deputies who’d been posted overnight at the Tibodeau cabin.
“Checked in every hour; nothing to report.”
Cork poured himself some coffee from the pot in the common area before going to his office. He spent a few minutes typing a memo on his computer, printed thirty copies, and handed them to the dispatcher. Bos lifted the top copy, read it, and looked up.
“Everybody wears armor on duty now?”
“No exceptions,” Cork said. “I want this memo posted on the board and I want every deputy to check off with initials so I know they’ve read it.” He handed her another sheet on which he’d printed some instructions. “Give this to Cy when he comes in. I want him to brief everyone about last night. Duty assignments remain the same except for Larson’s evidence team, who’ll be out at the cabin. I’m taking a cruiser and heading to the rez.”
She eyed him with maternal concern but said nothing.
He drove a Pathfinder that had been confiscated in a raid on a meth lab near Yellow Lake in August. It had since been fitted with a radio and was now an official part of the vehicle pool. He’d taken only a couple of sips of the coffee he’d poured himself earlier, so he stopped at the all night Food ’N Fuel and bought three coffees and several granola bars.
As he headed north out of town, a red sun inched above the ragged tree line on the far side of Iron Lake. In an autumn in which the whole earth had seemed the color of a raw wound, the water itself appeared to be a well of blood. Cork couldn’t look at it without thinking of all the blood that had soaked the blouse of Marsha Dross’s uniform. As much as possible he kept his eyes on the road and considered the question of who might want him dead.
He’d been sheriff of Tamarack County before, for a period of seven years. Things had happened near the end of that tenure, terrible things that had torn him apart and nearly shattered his family as well. His badge had been taken from him. He’d spent the next three years running Sam’s Place and putting himself back together. Over time he’d begun to feel whole again and to believe that his life still had promise. In those first seven years as sheriff, he’d been responsible for a lot of people going to jail. On many occasions, he’d been threatened with reprisal, idle threats for the most part. Or so he’d thought.
Still, that was old business. Retribution was usually born of rage, and rage generally lost its heat over time. So an old grudge, while possible, didn’t feel like a solid thread.
It was a chilly morning. In protected coves, the surface of Iron Lake was covered with a languorous mist. Russet leaves hung on the branches of the oaks. The tamaracks, brilliant yellow, seemed like plumes of fire exploding from the dark ground that edged the marshes. Normally, Cork would have reveled in the beauty of the woods, but as he sipped his coffee he was deep in thought, not only baffled over who’d want him dead, but wondering if Ed Larson would find anything useful at the Tibodeau cabin.
The deputies, Howard Morgan and Nate Schilling, knew he was coming, and they both stepped from the cruiser as he drew up and parked behind them. They looked tired, as though they’d had enough of sitting all night trying to fight sleep, as though they’d probably had enough of each other, too. He hauled out the other coffees he’d bought and the granola bars and offered them to his men.
“The java’s probably a little cool by now, but it’s pure caffeine. And take your pick of the bars.”
“Thanks,” Morgan said. He was the older of the two deputies, a seven-year veteran of the force and of Duluth PD before that. He was an easygoing sort, and Cork liked him.
The hill cast a shadow across the road. The sun would be a long time in reaching the hollow, hours before it drove out the cold that lay along the bottom. When the men breathed and when they spoke, clouds of vapor escaped their lips.
“Bos said everything was quiet last night.”
“That’s right, Sheriff.” Schilling took a bite of a peanut butter-chocolate chip granola bar and followed it with a slug of coffee. Although he’d completed his schooling and training almost two years before, he was still considered a rookie. Usually, he had a little rose in his cheeks, but he looked pretty sallow at the moment.
“Nobody curious drop by?”
“Nobody we could see anyway,” Schilling said. “After the floodlights got packed up, it was pretty dark. Could have been someone watching from the trees, I suppose.”
“You suppose?” Morgan laughed so hard coffee dribbled out his nostrils.
“What’s that all about?” Cork said.
“Nothing, Sheriff. Not a thing,” Schilling said.
“Like hell. Cork, he was so scared somebody was taking a bead on us that he spent the whole night on the floor of the cruiser.” Morgan wiped his nose with the sleeve of his uniform.
“Morgan, you asshole. It wasn’t like that, Sheriff.”
“You both wore your armor the entire watch?”
“Absolutely,” Schilling said.
Cork figured it was a good thing Morgan was sporting his Kevlar vest, because if Schilling’s eyes had been bullets they’d have blown holes all the way through him.
He stared at the dark side of the hill, where snakes of mist coiled and uncoiled among the pine trees along the base. “I’m going up, see what things look like on top.”
“You’re not waiting for Captain Larson?” Schilling said. When he saw Cork’s face, he added, “I just meant that he’s on his way. We got word from Bos just before you came.”
“Hey, Einstein, the sheriff’s got a radio,” Morgan said.
“Oh, right.”
“Just let him know where I am,” Cork said.
He walked fifty yards down the road to the place where, the day before, he and Pender and the state trooper named Fitzhugh had begun maneuvering up the hill, moving under the cover of trees and exposed outcroppings, working their way carefully toward the rocks where the sniper had been. He wasn’t wearing his uniform now. He’d put on old jeans, a forest green wool shirt with a quilted lining, and his Timberland boots. His badge was pinned on his gun belt next to his.
And he wore a Kevlar vest.
The night had not been cold enough for frost, but the hillside was covered with dew, and his boots slipped on the wet rocks and wild grass. The top of the hill was maybe two hundred feet above the road. He was breathing hard by the time he reached the crown, puffing out clouds like an old steam engine. He hoped this was due mostly to the lack of sleep, but he was concerned that his age might also be an issue. He wasn’t far from turning the corner on half a century, and although he was an avid jogger, he knew that age eventually caught up with everyone, even the swiftest runner.
Cork walked along the spine of the hill a hundred yards south to the jumble of rocks where they’d found the shell casings. The thin topsoil there had completely eroded away, exposing gray gneiss beneath that had been fractured by aeons of freeze and thaw. There were sharp edges to the rocks, and the shooter had covered his position with a bedding of pine needles. It was among the needles that Cork had found the shell casings the night before.
The road down the hollow took a right turn and followed a deep furrow just to the south where a thread of
