Willie, you guys are great up there. Love the music.” He headed back to the gymnasium.
The alcove was silent for a long moment afterward, then Jubal shrugged. “Guess that’s that.”
“You think so?” Winona said. Her eyes were focused beyond the open door, as if she knew absolutely that the darkness there hid demons.
What happened later that night, Cork didn’t learn about until the next morning. He was at the breakfast table in the kitchen, dressed for Mass at St. Agnes and working on a bowl of Wheaties, when a knock came at the front door. He found Deputy Cy Borkman standing on the porch, hat in hand.
“Your mom home, Cork?” the deputy asked.
“No, she’s already gone to church, Cy. What is it?”
“Well, it’s really you I want to see. Mind if I come in?”
They sat in the living room, and Borkman told him about Winona Crane. She and her brother had been packing up their equipment after the dance. By then, the only vehicles left in the school parking lot were the janitor’s station wagon and the Cranes’ old pickup. They had almost everything stowed in the bed of the truck when Willie remembered that he’d left his hat, a fine black Stetson with a band that Winona had braided for him and that was adorned with an eagle feather, an item sacred to the Anishinaabeg. He went back into the building. The hallways were mostly dark by then. Willie made his way to the gymnasium, but the lights were off, and he couldn’t see well enough to locate his hat. He went in search of Mr. Guerrero, the janitor, whom he found in the basement, adjusting the furnace for the night. Together they returned to the gym and located the hat, which was under the bleachers and, to Willie’s great dismay, had been stomped flat. The braided band had been ripped into pieces, and the eagle feather was gone. Mr. Guerrero was sympathetic but needed to close up, and he accompanied Willie to the school door. Ruined hat in hand, Willie crossed the parking lot to the truck where he’d left his sister. But Winona wasn’t there.
Willie called for her and got no answer. He made his way back to the school as quickly as his awkward legs would carry him, and he pounded on the door until Mr. Guerrero opened up again. Then he explained his situation. Mr. Guerrero went to his station wagon and took a flashlight from the glove box, and together he and Willie began to search the grounds.
They found her lying on the torn and muddy football field, found her because they heard her crying. When Mr. Guerrero shone his light on her, they saw that she’d been beaten. They saw something else in that hard circle of light, something that Deputy Borkman refrained from mentioning but that Cork heard about later. Winona, that night, had dressed in a denim skirt whose hemline she’d embroidered herself with clan images: a bear, a crane, a loon, an eagle, and others. When her brother and Mr. Guerrero found her, she no longer wore the skirt.
“Did she see who did it?” Cork asked, his gut gone hard as a fist.
Borkman shook his head. “Too dark. And she was attacked from behind. Whoever did it hit her several times, and she doesn’t remember much after that.”
“You know who did it,” Cork said.
“No, son, we don’t. Do you?”
“Donner Bigby,” Cork said.
“His name’s been mentioned,” Borkman acknowledged. “And that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. We understand there was some kind of altercation at the dance last night and that you were involved.”
“Nothing happened,” Cork said. “Except Bigs got thrown out of the dance. You should talk to Mr. Hildebrandt about that.”
“We have. You didn’t see Donner Bigby come back to the dance?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t lurking around somewhere.”
“Gloria Agostino says he wasn’t. She says they left the school grounds and Donner was with her until well after one o’clock.”
“She’s lying.”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out here, Cork.”
“It was Bigs,” Cork said angrily.
“Careful there,” Borkman said. “We don’t want to go accusing anyone without proof. After he left the dance, you didn’t see Donner Bigby again last night?”
“No.”
“Ken Hildebrandt told us that Winona Crane was involved in the altercation with Bigby. Is that correct?”
“Yeah.”
“Did Bigby make any threats against her?”
“Not directly, but she was scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“That he might do something.”
“Because of something he said?”
“No, he’s just that kind of guy.”
“Did he make threats against anyone?”
Cork thought back and couldn’t remember Bigs saying anything that was actually threatening. “He called Winona a bitch.”
“But he didn’t threaten her, or anyone else?”
Cork was forced to shake his head no.
Borkman stood up. “All right, Cork. Thanks for your help.”
“What are you going to do now?”
“I’ve got a few more people I’m supposed to talk to. The sheriff’s out interviewing people, too. We’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise.”
After the deputy left, Cork called Jubal’s house. No answer. He ran upstairs, changed his clothes, wrote a note to his mother explaining that something had come up and he’d miss dinner and not to worry about him. He was just opening the front door when Jubal pulled up in his mother’s rusted Pontiac. He got out and met Cork on the sidewalk.
“You hear?” he asked.
“Yeah. A deputy was just here.”
“The sheriff himself came to my house,” Jubal said. “I told him it was Donner. He said Donner had an alibi.”
“Gloria Agostino.”
“I told him she was lying,” Jubal said.
“Did he believe you?”
“Who knows? But I’m not waiting. I’m going to find Bigby now.”
“I’m going with you,” Cork said.
They piled into the Pontiac and headed to Donner Bigby’s house, which was a mile or so outside of town on the Old Soudan Road. It was a big place, perched on a slight hill, surrounded by woods. There were a couple of ceramic deer in the front yard and a nice flower bed that had already been cleared down to the topsoil in preparation for winter. Bigby’s mother opened the door. She was older than the mothers of most of Cork’s friends. She looked frail and worried and wary.
Jubal took the lead and lied his ass off, telling the woman that they were Donner’s friends from school, and they were trying to put together a game of touch football at Grant Park that afternoon. She seemed relieved and told him that Donner was gone.
“Rock climbing,” she said.
“That’s right.” Jubal nodded as if he should have known. “He’s a Crag Rat.” That was an organization in Aurora made up of guys who liked to climb. Bigs aside, they were an okay bunch.
“You don’t happen to know where he’s climbing,” Jubal said, smooth as ice cream.
“Someplace that sounds like…” She thought a moment. “Tracker’s Point, I think.”
“Trickster’s Point?” Cork said.
“Yes, that’s it.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Jubal said with a parting smile.
They went back to the Pontiac, and Cork said, “She didn’t seem so bad. Bigs must’ve got all his asshole
