“In charge?” He smiled, his teeth long in need of a good cleaning. “I like the way you put that. Yeah, I’m in charge.”
“You get to know the kids pretty well?”
“Not really.”
“You know Sara Wolf?”
“Sure. She was around for quite a while.”
“But not anymore.”
“Haven’t seen her for a week, maybe two.” He squinted, lines at the corners of his eyes like the tines of a rake. “That what you’re doing here? Looking for Sara?”
“If I were, would you be able to help?”
He shook his head. “Like I said, I don’t really know any of the kids.”
“Not even the ones who are around for quite a while?”
“They pretty much keep to themselves. Look, I got work to do, eh,” he said. “Jewell, always good to see you.”
He headed back toward the mower.
“You know him,” Dina said.
“He’s from Bodine. Graduated same year as me, same year as Charlie’s father. They were drinking buddies. In fact, he’s the one who told Charlie about Providence House and suggested she think about using it when she needed to get away from her father. It was a good suggestion.”
“Does he live here?”
“In back. An old carriage house.”
Bell yanked the cord, and the mower engine sputtered and shot out a cloud of oil smoke.
“He didn’t touch me with anything except his eyes,” Dina said. “But I still feel like I need a bath.” She started toward the side street where Jewell had parked the Blazer, writing a note in her pad as she walked.
“What now?” Jewell said.
“We find more people, ask more questions.”
In the Blazer, Charlie was napping in the backseat, curled in a blanket of sunlight.
“She looks peaceful,” Dina said. “She looks like the kid she really is.”
“She’s had to grow up fast. I’d love to believe the worst is behind her now.”
Dina studied Charlie with a soft gaze. “Let’s do our best to see that it is.”
29
Before she left, Jewell had removed the Penrose drain from Cork’s thigh, closed the wound with butterfly bandages, and taped a sterile gauze pad over the site, this at Cork’s request. She cautioned him that if he wasn’t careful, the wound would open again.
“There’s work to do,” he’d told her, “and I can’t do it with a lot of plumbing hanging out of my leg.”
Although he didn’t like the idea of being less than a hundred percent lucid, he’d taken a Vicodin to help deal with the pain of what he knew was ahead of him. Now he stood in the lane between the cabins waiting for Ren, who’d gone to fetch the ATV from the equipment shed. The plan was to head along the Copper River Trail as far as they could and look for places that might be likely candidates for dumping a body into the river. It was a pretty nonspecific plan and didn’t have a lot of potential for solid payoff, but it had to be done, and Cork and Ren were available.
Cork watched as the boy swung the shed door wide and went inside. At almost the same moment, he heard a vehicle approaching from the main road. He thought maybe it was the women coming back for something they’d forgotten, but he didn’t want to risk it and slipped back inside Thor’s Lodge. He cracked the curtains and watched as a dusty red pickup came into view. Michigan plates. NMU sticker on the windshield. Locals. Cork pulled the Beretta Tomcat from where he’d snugged it in his belt at the small of his back.
The truck stopped in front of the cabin and two men got out. The driver stood well over six feet, with carrot- colored hair and a long face. The other man was also tall and had a well-trimmed mustache and black-rimmed glasses. He held what appeared to be the plaster cast Ren had made of the cougar print. The men started toward Thor’s Lodge, but stopped when they heard the roar of the ATV from the equipment shed. They turned and watched Ren bring the machine up the lane. The boy killed the engine and got down from the seat. He smiled broadly and came forward. Cork moved to the door, which he’d left slightly ajar, so he could hear what was being said.
“Hi, Mr. Taylor.”
“Hey there, Ren. I dropped by school. They told me you were home today. Feel all right?”
“Fine, thank you.”
“I brought someone who wants very much to ask you a few questions about that cougar of yours. This is John Schenk, a friend from Northern Michigan University. John, this is that remarkable young man I’ve been telling you about.”
Schenk shook the boy’s hand. “Ken showed me this cast you made of the track. Nice job.”
“Thanks.”
“Mind if I ask you about it?”
“That’s okay.”
“Where did you find it?”
“Over here. I’ll show you.”
Ren led the man to Cabin 3 and pointed out the track he’d used to make the cast. “This is the one, but there were lots I could have used.”
“They were all over?”
“They still are. It’s come at least twice, maybe three times.”
“Really? When?”
“The night before last, and again last night for sure. But I’m pretty sure it was here yesterday morning as well.”
“In the daylight? You saw it?”
“I heard it. Kind of a scream.”
That wasn’t the truth exactly. He was relating what Cork had told him.
“That’s amazing.”
“Why?” Ren asked.
“For several reasons. First of all, the preferred hunting technique of cougars is stalk and ambush. It’s unusual that a stalking cougar would make its presence known with a scream. Also, they tend to be crepuscular, which means they prefer to hunt at dusk or dawn. And, generally speaking, a cougar in these parts is probably well aware of humans and would tend to avoid them. Ken says you don’t have any pets around here. Is that correct?”
“That’s right.”
Schenk furrowed his brow and said, “Hmph.” He looked down at the cast in his hand. “From the size, I’m guessing this is a male. Four and a half inches is about as large a track as you’re likely to find. Probably weighs in at well over two hundred pounds, which is good sized for a cougar. There are a couple reasons I can think of that would bring a big cat this close to humans repeatedly. One would be food-a pet, farm animals, that kind of thing.”
“We don’t have any,” Ren said.
“Have you killed a deer or some other animal lately that you’ve dressed and hung somewhere around here?”
Ren said, “No.”
Schenk glanced around. “I thought maybe the smell of blood.”
Which made Cork think about the piss-colored Dart behind the shed with his blood soaked into the seat and carpeting.
“Another possibility is that it’s been hurt and can’t hunt in its usual way and is looking for garbage or anything else that might provide an easy meal.”
