and left. I think she was a White Earth Shinnob and just went back to her people. Will pretty much took care of his old man after that. When Will was seventeen, his father hanged himself. It was Will who found him. Pretty soon after, he joined the marines and left Aurora.
“Will Kingbird can be a demanding perfectionist. He’s responsible in the extreme. From what I gather, his choice of profession-a career soldier-often put his life at risk. He’s pretty much a loner. And he has trouble expressing his emotions. As I understand it, these are all characteristics of children of alcoholics. There’s more to him than that, of course, but it explains a lot.”
Annie thought for a while. “How do I help Uly?”
Cork shook his head. “I’d say offer what you can, whatever you’re capable of offering. But if he doesn’t want your help, I don’t think there’s much you can do.”
“I don’t want to just turn my back.”
“I didn’t say you should. Try to be there if he decides he needs you.”
“And the rest of the time butt out?”
“Pretty much.”
“That’s not real specific.”
“Best I can do. Anything else?”
“No.”
“Good night, then.”
“’Night, Dad.”
He found Jo in her downstairs office, working late for her clients. She looked up when he came in. Behind her glasses, her blue eyes were huge. Her hands lay in a pool of light cast by the lamp on her desk. Her face was shadowy.
“I’m taking off for Sam’s Place,” he said.
“Still think you need to leave?”
“I do.”
“‘I do.’ Doesn’t that come just after ‘till death do us part’?” She stared at him and he made no reply. “Are you going to the funeral tomorrow?”
“Not exactly.”
She took her glasses off and sighed. “I’m not even going to ask what that means.”
“It means I’ll be home for dinner. Annie says she’s going to cook up a storm while she’s suspended.”
“We’ll set a place for you.”
He thought he ought to kiss her good-bye, but he wasn’t sure it was something that she wanted at the moment, so he simply said, “Good night, then.”
“Cork,” she said as he turned away. “Please be careful. And call me when you’re safe inside Sam’s Place.”
He crossed the room and leaned down to her. She reached up, put her arms around his neck, and held him in a kiss.
“I’ll be careful,” he promised.
At the corner of Oak and Second, before he reached the road to Sam’s Place, he pulled over and took out his cell phone. He tried Thunder’s number, as he had several times that day, and again got no answer. Maybe Thunder didn’t want to talk. Maybe he was hiding somewhere deep in the woods, somewhere he couldn’t easily charge his cell phone. What about Thunder did he really understand?
He considered Will Kingbird’s philosophy of the world: consistency. What were the consistencies in Thunder’s behavior? Thunder had disappeared immediately after Kristi Reinhardt’s death. If what Meloux had said was true, Thunder was a man very much afraid. He’d probably gone into hiding, somewhere he believed no one could find him. Yet he’d risked coming into town to take a few potshots at Cork, a stupid thing. Cork wasn’t entirely convinced that killing Alex and Rayette was consistent with what he knew about Thunder. It took a lot to kill in cold blood. But a rash action was consistent with fear. Fear and stupidity: Maybe these were the constants in Thunder’s behavior.
Then Cork realized consistency ran both ways. Was he predictable? If a kid like Thunder could fool him into an ambush, what did that say?
Cork turned around on Oak Street and headed to Grant Park, at the southern end of the open field that lay south of Sam’s Place. He turned off his headlights and pulled into the parking lot, where his was the only vehicle. From the glove box, he took his. 38 and from his toolbox a Maglite. He flipped the switch on the cab’s dome light so that it wouldn’t come on, got out, and closed the door quietly. In the ambient light from town, he found the jogging path that had been worn into the ground cover along the lakeshore and that ran all the way to Sam’s Place. He crept along the path, putting his weight on the outside of his soles, as he would if he were stalking game. Approaching the copse of poplars that surrounded the old ironworks from which Thunder had fired the night before, he paused. To enter the trees, he needed to leave the path, but the field was full of brown wild oats and milkweed and thistle, dead since November, gone brittle. There was no way he could move through them soundlessly.
He got a break. A wind rose off the lake and pushed through the branches of the poplars with a loud rustling that masked any noise he might make. He slipped among the trees. It was dark in the copse and he moved like an animal on the prowl: creep and pause, creep and pause. He was a dozen yards from the ruined wall of the ironworks when he spotted a green glow that, after a moment, he realized was the face of a wristwatch turned up for someone to check the time. He positioned himself behind the trunk of the nearest poplar, aimed his Maglite and his. 38 in the direction of the glow. He hit the light switch.
“Don’t move!” he shouted. “I have a gun.”
The figure froze in the ice white beam of light.
“Put your hands on your head. Now turn around slowly.”
The figure was dressed in camouflage fatigues. When Cork saw the familiar face, he almost laughed.
“Marsha?”
“Can I put my hands down, Cork?” she said.
“Go ahead.”
“And that flashlight’s blinding me.”
He killed the light and walked to her.
“How long have you been here?” he asked.
“Since just after dark.”
“No sign of Thunder?”
“Nothing yet. If he was out there, that light of yours scared him away.”
As his eyes adjusted to the dark around them, he spotted a rifle with a nightscope propped against the wall. “Thanks,” he said. “You could have had one of your guys do this instead.”
She shrugged. “I knew it was a long shot. And a deputy I’d have to pay.” She stared toward the lake, where the night kept her blind. “I feel bad about all this, Cork. I asked you to help, next thing you know Thunder’s shooting at you and Stevie. I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.” Cork leaned against the top of the wall, which, in its fallen state, came just above his hips. “Look, I think I might be able to get a lead on Thunder.”
“How?”
He explained about his interpretation of Meloux’s enigmatic advice.
“You think Thunder will be at the funeral tomorrow,” Dross said.
“Maybe not in actual attendance, but I think he might be in the general area, close enough so that he can see what’s going on.”
“Why?”
“Curiosity. Loyalty. Loneliness. Take your pick.”
“You want someone with you?”
He shook his head. “Best done alone.”
Dross checked the ghostly green-white glow of her watch. “I don’t think Thunder’s coming tonight. I know you like him for the Kingbird murders, but don’t go out on a limb, okay? I still believe Reinhardt had the motivation and the nature, and we’ll keep hammering at that alibi of his till it breaks.”
Cork pushed off from the wall. “Let’s get out of here.”
