them both and had himself been present at the 1972 Trail of Broken Treaties march in Washington, D.C., which had ended in the occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs office. He’d continued to be a voice for activism in the Ojibwe community. He’d run several times for the position of chair of the Iron Lake tribal council but never won. He spoke hard truths frankly, but for most Shinnobs on the rez, his voice was too loud and too harsh to lead them.
“I’m not here to destroy the planet, Isaiah, that’s a promise.”
Broom looked skeptical but stepped back. Cork rolled up his window and went ahead.
At the gate, he signed in with Tommy Martelli. Martelli’s family had been in mining for generations, and Tommy had himself worked the Vermilion One straight out of high school and after that the Ladyslipper until his age and hip problems made him become, as he put it, “a damn desk jockey.” He wore a short-sleeve khaki shirt and nothing on his head, and, as he stood at the window of the Land Rover, warm summer rain dripped down his face from the silver bristle on the crown of his skull.
“Mr. Cavanaugh said you’d be right behind him,” he told Cork. “Got us a real puzzler here. Haddad chewed our asses good, like it was our fault.”
“What’s going on, Tommy?”
“Nobody told you?”
“When he called me, Lou said some threats had been made.”
“There’s more to it than that, Cork. But if the boss didn’t tell you, I’d best keep my mouth shut.” He reached out for the clipboard Cork had signed, flashed a smile not altogether friendly, and said, “Love to see you figure this one out.” He moved back to his little guardhouse, and Cork drove through the gate.
For a hundred yards, the pavement cut through a stand of aspen mixed with mature spruce. The road climbed up a steep slope, rounded a curve, broke from the trees, and suddenly the old mine buildings stood before him. They were dominated by the headframe, a steel tower a hundred feet high and covered with rust, which stood above shaft Number Six and supported the hoist for the mine elevator. The largest of the buildings, Cork knew, was the engine house. The other buildings, most in disrepair, had served other functions during the sixty years the mine had been in operation: a single-story office complex; the wet room, where the miners had peeled off their muddy clothing at the end of their shifts; the dry house; the drill shop; the crusher house. The buildings were backed by a towering ridge of loose glacial drift where a small forest of pines had taken root. To one side of the office building entrance stood a tall flagpole that pointed like an accusing finger at the dripping summer sky, and from which a soaked Old Glory fluttered limply in the breeze.
The potholed parking lot was nearly empty. Cork pulled next to Cavanaugh’s Escalade, killed the engine, and got out. The air was an odd mix of scents: rainwater and sharp spruce and the flat mineral smell that came up from deep in the mine. He walked to the front door of the office and went inside, where he found a small reception desk, sans receptionist. There was a corridor running lengthwise, lined with closed doors. The place had the feel of one of those storefronts he’d passed in Gresham, a business long abandoned. He listened for the sound of activity or voices. Except for a newly mounted wall clock that noted the passing of each second with a brittle little tick, the place was dead quiet.
The phone at the reception desk rang. No one came running to answer it. Finally Cork leaned over and lifted the receiver.
“Hello,” he said.
“Margie?”
Cork recognized Lou Haddad’s voice. “Nope. It’s O’Connor.”
“Cork? Where’s Margie?”
“Got me, Lou.”
“Well, come on down. We’re waiting for you.”
“Where?”
“End of the hallway, last office on your right.”
As he hung up, Cork heard the flush of a toilet, and a door halfway down the hall swung open and Margie Renn hurried toward him.
“Just powdering my nose,” she said, smoothing her silver hair and her blue skirt. “Tommy was supposed to call and let me know you’d arrived.”
“Ta-da,” Cork said with a little dance step. Margie didn’t seem to appreciate his humor.
“Let me call Mr. Haddad,” she said.
“I already talked to him, Margie. I’m on my way there now.”
“Let me show you.”
“End of the hall, last door on the right. Right?”
She seemed disappointed that he didn’t need her assistance, and Cork figured that, in the limbo that was the Vermilion One Mine these days, there must not be much for her to do except sit in the empty corridor and listen to the damn wall clock chopping seconds off her day.
THREE
The Iron Range was a great melting pot of humanity, and Lou Haddad’s Lebanese family was not at all unusual. They’d come to the Range several generations back and had, for as long as Cork could remember, run a grocery store on the corner of Oak and Seventh Street. Lou’s father had been different from the rest of his family, however. He’d chosen to work in the mine, the Vermilion One.
When they were kids, Cork—and just about everybody else—had called Lou Haddad Louie Potatoes. This because the guys who delivered the store’s produce and who were reputed to have had mob connections once spotted Lou munching on a slice of raw potato. They’d given him the name jokingly—everyone in the mob had a nickname—but it had stuck. Growing up, Cork and Louie Potatoes had been good friends. They went to the same church—St. Agnes—were in the same grade, and their families’ houses were only two blocks apart. They both loved fishing, ran around with the same group of kids, double-dated. After graduation, Haddad had gone to a Jesuit college, Fairfield University in Connecticut, and become an engineer. Cork had gone to Chicago and become a cop. And when they were ready to raise families, they’d both come back home. They’d often done things together with their wives as couples—gone to movies, played bridge, picnicked on the lake. But after his wife died, Cork found himself turning down the overtures and spending his time alone.
Haddad stood at the open door. He was Cork’s height, missing six feet by an inch, with thin gray-brown hair and, normally, a ready grin. At the moment, however, he looked like a man chewing ground glass.
He shook Cork’s hand, said, “Thanks for coming,” and stood back so that Cork could enter.
It was a small conference room and smelled musty with disuse. It held a central table surrounded by half a dozen folding chairs. There were already three other people waiting. Two of them Cork knew: Marsha Dross, sheriff of Tamarack County, and Max Cavanaugh. The stranger was a woman in jeans and a light blue sweater. Cork greeted Dross, and Haddad introduced him to the woman.
“Genie, this is Cork O’Connor. Cork, Genie Kufus, from the Department of Energy.”
“Actually I’m a consultant for the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management,” Kufus clarified.
Eugenia Kufus was lovely and small, and her eyes sparkled in a way that reminded Cork of the bounce of sunlight off water. Her smile was delightful and disarming, and, because it seemed very personally directed at him, Cork was momentarily flustered. Was she flirting? He thought it ridiculous that he even wondered, and absurd that he couldn’t tell, but since Jo had died, he’d found himself on very uncertain ground where women were involved.
“Long time since this place saw any business,” Cork said, trying to regain composure.
Max Cavanaugh said, “For the last year, we’ve been focusing mostly on getting the mine prepared for inspection. A lot of work necessary in the power house and lift operation. Lou has overseen most of that process. We opened the offices here just a couple of weeks ago to accommodate Genie and her people. Lou has an office down the hall, and so do I. And we’ve upped security, of course.”
