state trooper for a long time. A crusty old guy. I can’t imagine he relates very well to a teenager.”
“All that black,” Lucinda said, shaking her head.
“Goth, Luci. A lot of kids seem to be into it.”
“Have I helped you at all?” she asked.
“I think so.” He stood. “I appreciate your time. When do you expect Will back?”
“I don’t know.” She hesitated, then said, “There’s something else. I don’t know if it’s important.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’ll tell you what I think about Alejandro and the Red Boyz. This is my own thinking. He never talked to me, but I have thought a lot about it. I think that Alejandro joined the marines for two reasons. I think he wanted his father’s approval, and I think he wanted a place to belong. I don’t think he found either. For him the marines were not what they had been for his father. I think he became involved in that gang in Los Angeles because he was still looking for a place to belong. I think he did not find it there, either. When he came back here, he was still searching. With the Red Boyz, I think, he found that place. And with Rayette and Misty, he finally felt that he had a home. Maybe it is just what I want to believe, but I think that for a little while he was happy.”
“Thank you, Luci.” He walked to the front door and she followed. “Is Misty doing okay?” he asked when he was standing on the porch.
“She is an angel. She is a blessing.”
“I wish they all were,” Cork O’Connor said.
She closed the door and thought, They all begin that way.
Cork drove to the rez and took the cutoff to the place where Fannie Blessing’s house had stood. The moon had risen, only a half-moon but bright enough in that isolated area to cast shadows. Cork parked in front of the old gas station across the road from the patch of black ash that was all that was left of the Blessings’ home. He grabbed his Maglite, got out, and walked to the derelict building. In its day, the place had not only dispensed gas and a few of the sundry items essential to fishermen and campers, it had also been a garage with a bay for vehicle repairs. Elmer Waybenais, a full-blood Ojibwe, had owned the station, and his son, C.J., had been the mechanic, one with a good reputation. Elmer Waybenais was long dead, and C.J. had taken a job at the Tomahawk Truck Stop, where he still had a good rep, particularly with diesel engines. Cork walked to the wide door of the garage area. The door was down, locked, and the windows where the glass had long ago been shot out by vandals were covered with newspaper. Cork flicked on the Maglite and looked closely at the newspapers.
When he’d talked that morning with Tom Blessing in the shade of the willow next to the ancient building, he’d noticed that the newspapers covering the garage windows were white, not yellowed with age. It was a small detail that he hadn’t given any importance. After he talked with Benny Fullmouth and with Lucinda Kingbird, the detail suggested something to him. He’d been trying from the beginning to figure out what Alexander Kingbird had meant when he’d said he would offer Buck Reinhardt justice, a statement that in light of all the apparent circumstances made little sense. In Cork’s thinking, to offer justice, Kingbird would have had to hand Thunder over to the sheriff, which would have been a betrayal of the Red Boyz. Turning Thunder in might have had another unwanted consequence as well. Thunder wasn’t likely to be grateful for the move, and probably wouldn’t be inclined to be silent about things the Red Boyz would prefer remained secret. If it was true that the gang was warehousing drugs for the Latin Lords, Thunder might be more than willing to cut a deal that would keep him out of prison. So putting Thunder in the hands of the cops probably wasn’t what Kingbird had in mind.
Illuminated by the Maglite, the date on the newspaper that had been used to cover the garage door windows was clear: one week earlier, to the day. No wonder the paper was still so white. Cork tore the newspaper away from one of the glassless windows and shot the flashlight beam inside, where it reflected off a headlight. He ran the beam left and right across the grill and hood of the vehicle inside. It was a dark green Xterra, the same kind of vehicle Lonnie Thunder drove. Cork tried the door to the office part of the old building, which was secured with a new hasp and padlock. The long windows were boarded up with plywood that had rotted over time. Cork kicked the plywood with the flat of his foot and the wood splintered. A few more kicks and he broke his way in. He eased through the splintered opening. Inside he found a cot set up on the dusty floor. Beside it was an overturned orange crate with a Coleman propane lamp on top. Under the cot sat a gym bag full of rumpled clothing. Lying on the blanket that covered the cot was a vehicle license plate: RedStud.
Jo sat with her back propped against the headboard of their bed, her reading glasses in her hand. She’d set her book aside in order to listen to Cork, and now she asked, “So what does it mean?”
Cork paced their bedroom as he talked. “Thunder was at the old trapper’s cabin at one point, then he was gone. He took those shots at me at Sam’s Place, then he was gone. He did the drive-by of Buck Reinhardt, then he was gone. The question I’ve been asking myself lately is how could Thunder have been out so much and not have been spotted by someone? The answer is that he wasn’t. Lonnie Thunder’s dead. He’s been dead for some time.”
“And you think it was Tom Blessing who was driving his SUV?”
“Probably. This morning I thought he was parked out there to watch the investigators go through the rubble of his mother’s house. It’s more likely that he just wanted to make sure no one got nosy around the old gas station.”
“The vanity plate you found. He took that off the SUV to keep from being so conspicuous?”
“That would make sense. Unless you fired a few rounds from the driver’s seat in order to get noticed, a dark green SUV wouldn’t attract much attention. I’m betting the plates on there now were stolen.”
“Why go through all that trouble to make people believe Thunder’s still alive?”
Cork sat on his side of the bed. “I think I’m responsible. I told Blessing I believed that Thunder had a good motive for killing Kingbird. Blessing played on that and led me right along.”
“That still doesn’t answer the question of why. Unless Blessing killed Kingbird.”
“Or was trying to cover for whoever did.”
“How do you find out?”
Cork stared for a moment at the open bedroom window. A breeze came through and the curtain trembled. “I think someone needs to make Blessing an offer he can’t refuse.”
“Someone?”
Cork turned to Jo. “It’s best if this is a conversation we never had.”
“You’re scaring me.”
He reached out and took her hand. “If this is about what I think it’s about, we should all be scared.”
THIRTY-SIX
Friday morning they ran a course that, near the end, brought them to Sam’s Place. Annie slowed down in the parking lot and stopped at the picnic table under the red pine. She stood looking out at Iron Lake, which at that moment seemed to her to have exactly the characteristic its name suggested: a thing intractable and enduring. With so much about to change in her life-leaving home for college, going out on her own-she wanted to believe some things would be forever.
Her father jogged up behind her, breathing hard.
“Tired?” he asked.
“Just wanted to stop for a minute, Dad. Okay?”
“Sure.” He sounded a little grateful.
She glanced back at the old Quonset hut. “Feels strange not working at Sam’s Place the weekend of fishing opener.”
“I think the fishermen’ll survive. Too many other things on my plate at the moment. Maybe next weekend.”
“The Kingbird stuff, right?”
“Yep, the Kingbird stuff.” Her father sat on the picnic table and used the bench as a footrest. “Are you going to the playoff game this afternoon?”
The Aurora Blue Jays were hosting, home field advantage.
“Coach said I could sit on the bench with the team, even though I couldn’t suit up,” she said.
