Marsha Dross offered Cork a ride to his Land Rover, which was still parked in the lot at the mine office. The traffic from all the official vehicles had broken a clear path through the underbrush, which Dross followed to the perimeter fence. She drove the fence line to a gate that opened onto an old mining road on the west side of the complex and that was guarded by one of the Vermilion One security guys, who gave a two-finger salute as they passed through.
When they reached the Land Rover, Dross killed the engine of her pickup and sat a moment staring through her windshield.
“We’ll need a positive ID of the body,” she said without looking at him.
“Max Cavanaugh,” Cork said. “I was supposed to see him tonight, have him sign an agreement for my investigation.”
“Where?”
“His place.”
“What time?”
“Six.”
She looked at her watch. “It’s almost six now.”
“Guess I won’t make it.”
“I hate this part of the job.”
“What? Talking to me?”
She smiled. Finally.
“Have one of your deputies do it,” he suggested.
“Is that how you handled things?”
“No.” He stared through the windshield, too. “So I guess you don’t want me talking to Max until after you’re finished with him?”
“Yeah,” she said. Then: “Have you ever dealt with anything like this?”
“Possible multiple homicides spread over nearly half a century? Hell, probably nobody has.”
“Five women and now a sixth.”
“If it is the Vanishings, only four are female for sure.”
“Agent Upchurch seemed pretty certain they’re all women, Cork. I’m sure she’s right.”
“And you know this how?”
Instead of answering, she said, “That sink you found is on Ojibwe land.” She swung her gaze toward him, and he knew without her saying a word what she wanted and why she’d offered him the lift. “I’ll need to talk to folks on the reservation,” she said. “I could use your help.”
Although he’d helped with investigations in the past, had done so ever since leaving the department, this time he balked, and for reasons he couldn’t quite articulate. There was something about the situation beyond its complete bizarreness that dug at him, and he wasn’t sure at all what that was.
“I’ll think about it and give you a call. Right now, I need to get something to eat.”
“Two of those women were Ojibwe,” she said.
“Probably more,” he said.
“How do you know?”
He pulled the door handle and let himself out. “We’ll talk,” he said.
He drove home to Gooseberry Lane. His house was a simple two-story place that, with his wife and the kids and the dog, had always felt comfortably full. Now there was only him and the dog. Trixie had spent the day in the backyard, tethered to a line that was connected to her own little doghouse and that let her roam without running loose. When she saw Cork, she greeted him with barking and eager leaps and a tail that beat like a metronome gone wild.
“Hey, girl,” he said, “bet you’re famished. Makes two of us. Let’s see what we can rustle up.”
He poured dry dog food into a bowl, and Trixie plunged her muzzle in and chomped away greedily. Cork opened a can of tuna taken from the pantry shelf, mixed in some mayo and pickle relish. He sliced a tomato and washed a large leaf of lettuce. He pulled a slice of Swiss cheese from a package in the refrigerator and layered all the ingredients between a couple of pieces of wheat bread. A handful of potato chips and a cold bottle of Leinenkugel’s finished the preparations. He sat on the patio as evening settled over Aurora, and he ate alone and tasted nothing.
It was twilight when he finished, and he took Trixie for a walk. He passed houses he was almost as familiar with as his own, where people lived whom he’d known his whole life. He walked to the business district of Aurora, two square blocks of storefronts and enterprises. Gerten’s Travel, Bonnie’s Salon, The Enigmatic Gnome, the Tamarack County Courthouse, Pflugleman’s Rexall Drugs, Johnny’s Pinewood Broiler. It was early summer, and the town was full of tourists. Unlike that of Gresham, Aurora’s economy was solid, booming even. Five decades he’d walked these streets. Now they felt different to him. With Jo gone and the kids away, what held him to this place was history. And what was history but memory? And of what value, in the end, was a memory? A man’s life needed to be made of stuff more immediate and substantial. Cork wondered what that was for him now.
“Mr. O.C.!”
He turned and found Ophelia Stillday limping toward him from the door of Pflugleman’s drugstore. In the blue light of dusk, her face was dark and serious.
“What’s wrong?” Cork said.
“I’m glad I caught you.” She petted Trixie, who danced all over the sidewalk at the attention. “I’ve been thinking about Lauren,” she said. “I know I gave you a hard time this morning, but I’m worried about her. Have you found out anything?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Really? What?”
He nodded toward the steps of the courthouse half a block away. “Let’s sit down.” When they had, he said, “I’m going to tell you something, but you need to promise me that you’ll keep it to yourself for a while.”
“Sure.”
“I mean this absolutely.”
“Cross my heart,” she said, and did.
He told her what he’d found that day in the Vermilion Drift. He didn’t describe the state of Lauren Cavanaugh’s body, but Ophelia looked stricken nonetheless. Her mouth hung open in a silent O of surprise and shock. Her eyes were full of horror.
“I’m sure the body we found is Lauren Cavanaugh’s, but it hasn’t been officially identified yet, and that’s why it’s imperative that you keep this to yourself. Do you understand, Ophelia?”
“Yes,” she said. “Absolutely.” Then she said, “Oh, Jesus,” and buried her face in her palms. “Oh, Christ.” She dropped her hands and looked at him, confused but also, he thought, angry. “Who would do that?”
“I don’t know. And the reason I’ve told you about this is that I’m hoping you might have an idea who.”
“Me? No. Why would I?”
“Someone from the investigation will interview you and ask that same question. So take a while to think about it. Is there anything important you know that might help?”
“No,” she answered, shaking her head. “No.” But even as she said it, Cork saw a light come into those brown Ojibwe eyes.
“What?” he said.
She frowned and struggled a moment with her conscience. “We’re in trouble financially.”
“The center?”
She nodded. “Since Lauren’s been gone, I’ve had to tackle some areas that typically she handles. Mr. O.C., we owe a lot of money to people. Money that, as nearly as I can tell, we don’t have.”
“Her brother tells me that he’s been picking up the bills for the center.”
She looked down, troubled. “Not for a while. Lauren was supposed to find her own support for the center. She hasn’t been successful. Some of the correspondence I’ve gone through in the last couple of days has been from creditors. Some pretty threatening letters.”
“That’s important, but I’m not sure it’s enough to kill for.”
“What would be?” she asked. She was serious.
“Murder, generally speaking, is a crime of passion. It can be about money, but not usually about money
