through the forest. Beyond that lay a path that he suspected would be as dark as any he’d ever traveled in the great North Woods.
Hugh Parmer was waiting for him in the lot of the Four Seasons. Cork parked, grabbed a gym bag from the backseat of his Bronco, and tossed it into Parmer’s Navigator. The two men got in, and they headed southeast on Highway 1 toward Duluth. They drove through the morning shadow of evergreens. In those places where the sun broke through the forest wall, it hit the windshield brilliant as molten gold. Cork was quiet, thinking of what lay ahead. Parmer, as he drove, drank from a cardboard cup of Four Seasons coffee.
“What’s in the gym bag?” he asked after they’d passed beyond the limits of Aurora.
“Equipment I might need.”
“Got a firearm in there?”
“No.”
“The word I got in Aurora is that you have something against firearms.” Parmer waited a moment, and when no reply came he said, “It seems to me that if a man wades into a pack of wild dogs he ought to expect to be bit. And he ought to be prepared.”
“I don’t want to have to explain myself at every turn, Hugh. You agreed to let me do this my way.”
Parmer shook his head. “They’ve established the rules, and they’re clearly not playing your way, Cork.”
“You don’t have to come with me.”
“Relax. Just being the devil’s advocate here.”
“I’m going to explain this once and then we’re not going to talk about it again,” Cork said. “Two years ago a kid slaughtered a lot of his classmates and a teacher and a security guard at the high school in Aurora.”
“I know. National news.”
“What you may not know is that I was well acquainted with the kid. A lot of folks in town knew him and knew he was troubled. We weren’t there for him when he needed us, pretty much ever. When he opened up in the high school, I’m sure this kid in his own warped thinking was wholly justified. I’ve killed men, too, and justified it in my own ways. But who’s to say my reasons were any better than that kid’s? You have a gun, Hugh, you risk the gun becoming the easy answer to a threat, especially if it’s been the answer for you before. I’m no saint, and I’m not a gun control freak either. I just don’t want the temptation that might come with carrying a firearm. I can’t help thinking that, if I’m smart enough, the gun shouldn’t be necessary.”
“I don’t know that smart is always the answer, Cork. I’ve known men who were born killers. Smart wouldn’t have made any difference with them. What did you do with your firearms? Sell them?”
Cork shook his head. “I didn’t want someone else using them. No, I put them in the hands of a friend for safekeeping.”
“Indefinitely?”
“Permanently.”
Parmer nodded, studied the road ahead, and began to whistle.
They drove to Duluth, crossed the Blatnik Bridge over the harbor, and entered Superior, Wisconsin, where they caught U.S. 53 toward Rice Lake. As they passed Solon Springs, a few miles south of Superior, Cork told Parmer to pull off for gas.
“Tank’s still three-quarters full,” Parmer said.
“Do it anyway.”
Parmer did as he was instructed and pulled into a BP station. While he filled the tank, Cork cleaned the windshield of the mayflies that had plastered themselves across the glass.
“What are you hoping to find in Rice Lake?” Parmer said.
“What we know about Stilwell’s investigation is that he’d talked to people in Wyoming. I’d love to find his notes on that, but there was nothing in his office files in Duluth. Then he came down to Rice Lake and spent some time at Bodine’s airport office and maybe at his home. Then he disappeared. I’m thinking that whatever it was that got him killed-”
“You’re sure he’s dead?”
“For our own safety, I think we ought to assume that. So whatever it was that got him killed, there’s a chance it had to do with what he found in Rice Lake.”
“Records?”
Cork shrugged. “Could be anything, I suppose. I don’t want to limit our thinking.”
They took turns visiting the men’s room and got back on the road. A few minutes later, Parmer said, “You’ve been spending a lot of time watching the mirror. Did that unnecessary fuel stop we just made have anything to do with it? Are we being followed?”
“If we are, they’re a hell of a lot better at it than I am at spotting them,” Cork said. “I haven’t seen anything, but it never hurts to be cautious.”
A little before 11:00 A.M., they pulled into the driveway of the Bodine home, a nice little rambler in a newer development on the western edge of Rice Lake. Cork found the key hanging from a hook under the back steps, exactly where Becca Bodine had told him it would be. They entered through the kitchen, which was clean and smelled of overripe bananas. In the living room, a comfortable scattering of toys lay about. Cars, Tonka trucks, Lego blocks, and on the sofa a plastic contraption that fired Nerf rockets. They found the room that Sandy Bodine had used as his home office. Becca had told him she’d left it exactly as it was when her husband used it. At first it was because of the investigation, then it was simply that she didn’t have the resolve yet to clean things out, something Cork understood well. He returned to the kitchen, slid the gym bag from his shoulder, and took out the electronic sweep equipment he’d brought. He spent an hour going through the house and checking the phone line, but he found no bugs.
They hadn’t spoken since before they entered. Now Cork shook his head and said quietly, “It could be that there’s nothing. Or it could be that what they’re using is too sophisticated for my stuff to detect.” He put his equipment away and returned to Bodine’s office. In the desk, he found the key marked “Hangar” that Becca had told him about. He also found the key to a file cabinet in the corner. He opened the cabinet and went through the files, drawer by drawer.
“What’re you looking for?” Parmer asked.
“Anything that’ll give me an idea about why someone would want Bodine dead. I don’t know what that might be, but I’m hoping I’ll know it when I see it.”
He found the file on the flight that Bodine had made for the Canadians two years before. He pulled it out and handed it to Parmer. “See if you spot anything suspicious in there.”
“Suspicious?”
“Whatever.”
Cork went back to rifling through the files in the cabinet. When he’d finished he said, “Anything?”
Parmer shook his head. “Nothing extraordinary so far as I can see. He flew two men to a town in northern Ontario to fly-fish. All the paperwork seems to be here.” He handed the file back to Cork. “Did you find anything?”
“It’s what I didn’t find that concerns me.” Cork scanned the file Parmer had given him, then put it back where it belonged. “It appears to me that Bodine kept good records of every charter flight he made, and for every charter there’s a signed contract. But the file for that final charter, the one to Seattle, doesn’t contain a contract or a record of a deposit made to secure the flight.”
Parmer nodded. “A strange omission for a man so organized.”
“Omission? I don’t think so. It’s possible, I suppose, that the FAA investigators or the attorneys somehow ended up with the original.”
“But you don’t think so?”
“No. Stolen would be my guess. Before the investigators ever saw the files.”
“What is it they don’t want us to see?”
“It would tell us, among other things, who arranged for the flight. Whoever it was that wanted Bodine dead had time to plan things carefully. If we knew who made the flight arrangements, we might be able to get a handle on who could have been involved in planning his disappearance. It would be a lead to follow, anyway.”
“Okay,” Parmer said. “What now?”
“Let’s have a look at the entertainment center in the living room.”
“This isn’t exciting enough for you?”
