throw up.”
“His what?”
Cork laughed. “Yeah, sounds funny, doesn’t it? His art, Isaiah. Except that it wasn’t really his art. It was yours. Exactly the same design that was on the threatening notes a bunch of folks in Tamarack County got. You sent those notes.”
Broom’s fists relaxed, then balled again, and Cork wondered if the man was aware at all of his body language.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Broom said.
“Oh, I’m certain you do. And when Jesse tells his story to the sheriff’s people, they’ll be certain, too. The thing I don’t understand is why you killed Lauren Cavanaugh.”
“I killed Lauren Cavanaugh? What the hell are you talking about?” Now his hands went limp, as if they’d just let go of something.
“The second set of notes. The ones you sent to Haddad’s wife and put on the windshield of Genie Kufus’s car and stuck to Max Cavanaugh’s door with a hunting knife. See, whoever wrote that second set of notes knew Lauren Cavanaugh was dead. That was something known only to the authorities and to those of us on the inside. And, of course, the killer.”
“Second set of notes? Look, O’Connor, I don’t know anything about a second set of notes. Yeah, I went into the mine with Jesse and we put up the warning. And, yeah, I sent some threats to Haddad and Cavanaugh and that Kufus woman. Just to scare them. But I didn’t have anything to do with those other notes you’re talking about. And I sure as hell had nothing to do with killing Lauren Cavanaugh. Why would I kill her? I didn’t even know her. My only concern in all this is to keep nuclear waste away from our land, to protect Grandmother Earth.”
“Where did you get the font you used for the notes?”
“Off the Internet. You can get any damn thing off the Internet.”
“Mind showing me?”
Broom looked at Cork as if the request was crazy.
“The police will be asking you to do the same thing, Isaiah, after Jesse talks to them. If I get a jump on things, maybe I can help protect your family’s name.”
Broom eyed Cork, made a sound like he’d just forced something odious down his throat, and turned to his house. Cork followed him inside.
Broom was a man who’d never married, and his place showed no evidence of a woman’s influence. It was cluttered with papers and magazines. Broom subscribed to a lot of publications across a broad spectrum of interests.
Broom went to a desk in a corner of the living room where a computer tower and monitor and DSL modem had been set. On a cart next to the desk was an ink-jet printer. He plopped down in the desk chair and brought the machine out of hibernation. With a couple of clicks of his mouse, he was on the Internet. Cork watched over Broom’s shoulder as he hit the drop-down box in Google search, checked his search history, found a website with the URL http://www.eyepoppingfonts.com, and clicked on it. Once the website came up, Broom navigated quickly to the font called From Hell.
“There.” He shoved away from the desk.
“You did that pretty quickly,” Cork said.
“Any idiot could do it quickly,” Broom said, then gave Cork a cold look and added, “Even you.”
They went back outside and stood near the sculpture, which was barely begun and showed no sign yet of what it would become. Cork touched the rough-cut wood. “What’s it going to be, Isaiah? An eagle?”
“You’ll get a visit from the sheriff’s people, I imagine. But it would probably be best if you visited them. It would look better. And you’d also have high ground for any activist statements you might want to throw in. But take a lawyer with you.”
Broom bent and lifted his chain saw. His face was like the wood of the sculpture, hard to read.
“Isaiah, there’s no way I can keep your uncle’s name out of this. We both know what he did.”
Broom gave the chain saw cord a yank. The roar of the motor would eat anything more Cork might have had to say, so he simply turned and left.
THIRTY-NINE
It was midday and hot under a cloudless sky when Blessing dropped Cork and Trixie back at the house on Gooseberry Lane. Cork tethered his dog to her doghouse and prepared to head to the sheriff’s office to report what he’d learned. He was two steps from his Land Rover when Simon Rutledge drove up in his state car, parked in the driveway, and got out. He was wearing a gray sport coat and blue shirt, no tie. In his right hand he held a six-pack of cold Leinenkugel’s.
“Got a minute or twelve?” Rutledge asked, lifting the beer toward Cork as enticement.
“Depends on what you’ve got on your mind, Simon.”
“Beer. What else do you need to know?”
Cork waved him to the front porch, and the two men settled in the swing. Rutledge handed Cork a bottle, then took one for himself. They unscrewed the caps and sat for a minute, letting the brew wash their throats.
“Nothing better than a cold beer on a hot summer afternoon,” Rutledge said.
“Agreed.”
Two boys of maybe ten or eleven rode by on bicycles, carrying tennis rackets, heading, Cork figured, to the courts in Grant Park.
“You know, tomorrow’s my son’s birthday,” Rutledge said.
“Yeah? How old?”
“Thirteen.”
“Teenager. Tough times ahead.”
“He’s a good kid. I’m not worried. I’d love to be there.”
“Why can’t you?”
“Because we’re close to an end here. I can feel it. I don’t want to leave until I know we can shut the lid on this one.”
“This isn’t just one thing, Simon. It’s a whole bunch of things.”
“Yeah, but they’re all tied together somehow, Cork. And you know what?” He laid his arm on the back of the swing and gave Cork a long look. “I think you’ve got an idea how.”
Cork smiled despite himself. “Gonna Simonize me?”
“I was kind of hoping the alcohol might loosen your tongue.”
Cork laughed. He heard Trixie barking and said, “Be right back, Simon.” He went through the house and out the patio door to where he’d tethered Trixie. He freed her, and she followed him eagerly to the front porch. She jumped on the porch swing beside Rutledge and nuzzled his hand.
“You spend a lot of time with this dog,” Rutledge noted.
“Nobody else around to see to her these days. Same goes for me.” Cork sat on the swing, so that Trixie was between him and Rutledge. He patted her head gently. “This isn’t exactly how I’d envisioned spending my time once the nest was empty, Simon. I figured Jo and me, we’d do the things we were always talking about doing. She wanted to spend a month in Italy, rent a villa in Tuscany, you know? Me, I never had much interest in Italy, but if that’s what she wanted.” Trixie looked up at him with affectionate brown eyes. “What do you say, girl? Want to go
