It was early afternoon when Cork headed back to Aurora. Jenny wanted to stay with her son, so Cork left Crow Point the way he’d come, in the company of Theresa Lee.
“Did you get what you needed?” he asked as they walked the long path to the double-trunk birch.
“There’s something unique about that place. It comforts the soul.”
“Henry says it’s always been that way, the reason it called to his spirit in the first place.”
“Your grandson seems happy there. Which is good. He has a lot he’ll have to deal with in his life. I hope Henry stays alive long enough to help guide him.”
Cork smiled. “We all hope Henry will live forever.”
They were quiet for a long while, letting the feel of the woods, the calling of the birds, the sunlit darting of insects fill their senses. The walk to and from Crow Point had always been a time of contemplation for Cork.
“Your little Waaboo told me that Fawn is still trying to find her way to cross to the other side,” Theresa said.
“Still looking for the Path of Souls.”
“Even though I’m Ojibwe, I admit that I’ve always thought the idea of actually crossing to the other side, walking some spiritual path, was just a metaphor. Now I wonder. And I think about Fawn, whoever she is, or was, and it saddens me to think of her as lost.”
“I’ve been to a lot of burial ceremonies, traditional Anishinaabe, Catholic, Protestant. They all have one thing in common, it seems to me. They help us say goodbye. Part of it, I’m sure, is just support in our grieving and a way to move on. But I’ve always thought that there is this something that connects us to the spirit of the dead, this something that assures us of a life beyond this world, a better existence. If my grandson is somehow more in touch with that something, maybe he can help lost souls like Fawn.” Cork took a deep breath. “It is, as Henry said, a heavy burden for the little guy.”
Theresa reached out and placed her hand gently on his arm. “And for those who love him.”
They arrived at the double-trunk birch, and as Cork climbed into his Expedition, he got a call on his cell phone.
“Monte and I would like to have a talk with you as soon as possible,” Daniel said without preamble.
“Fine. I’m on my way back to Aurora now. Let’s meet somewhere. Not Gooseberry Lane. The news vultures could still be hovering.”
“How about the sheriff’s office?” Daniel suggested. “Marsha Dross might like to be in on this, too.”
“Where are you?”
“Driving back from the Three Rivers rez. We should be in Aurora in about an hour.”
“I’ll call Marsha and meet you there.”
He dropped Theresa Lee at her home, then just to satisfy his curiosity, he headed to Gooseberry Lane and paused at the intersection up the block from his house. There were no media vans in evidence, but that didn’t mean someone wasn’t still staked out somewhere waiting to pounce. He drove on.
“The body in the cabin has been officially identified as that of Olivia Hamilton. Now that she’s been found, the FBI is withdrawing their agents. From now on, BCA is in charge,” Dross told them after they’d gathered in her office. “Although they’re focused on the Hamilton girl, they’re willing to give us any help they can regarding the body in the blueberry patch. There’s still no confirmation that it’s Fawn Blacksmith. I’ve requested BCA obtain dental records, if possible, for comparison.”
“The beaded bracelet the buried girl was wearing nails it for me,” Daniel said. “Daisy Blacksmith told us she gave her granddaughter a bracelet that she’d beaded herself.”
“Of course, we’ll need to show Daisy a photo of the bracelet to confirm they’re the same,” Agent Shirley said.
“BCA should check with the North Regional Juvenile Detention Center,” Daniel said. “Fawn spent time there.”
“Also, there’s a school for problem kids where Fawn spent some time,” Monte Bonhomme threw in. “I can check with Chris Hayner, see if he knows the name of the place.”
“From everything we learned in Deer County, I think we can operate on the pretty solid assumption that it’s Fawn,” Agent Shirley said. “Except for the location of the bodies, I just can’t see a connection with the murder of Olivia Hamilton. But there’s got to be one.”
“Erno Paavola didn’t operate much with money,” Cork said. “He did a lot of bartering. If he paid me in blueberries, chances are he paid someone else in the same way.”
“So,” Dross said, looking glum, “there could be a lot of folks in Tamarack County who know about that blueberry patch.”
“But not a lot who’d know about that bunker under Paavola’s cabin,” Daniel said.
“Which brings us back to Mathias Paavola, who’s dropped off the radar,” Cork said.
Bonhomme said, “Tell me about your investigation of the night Olivia Hamilton went missing. Any indication at all that Paavola was at the Howling Wolf?”
“We got the call at eleven twenty-three P.M.,” Dross began. “Altercation at the bar. By the time my guys responded, the worst of it was over. Cy Cedarholm, who owns the bar, didn’t want to press any charges. But that was when Harvey Green, the kid who brought Olivia Hamilton there, claims to have lost track of her. Claims he looked high and low before going back to the camp.”
“But he didn’t report her missing?”
“Not until the folks at the camp became aware that Olivia was gone. The kid might not have fessed up except another counselor ratted on him. We leaned on Green hard. It was clear the kid probably didn’t have anything to do with her disappearance aside from helping her sneak off to the Howling Wolf. He told us she seemed pretty comfortable with the rough crowd there.
“The problem is that we don’t really have a good idea who all was at the bar that night. We got a list of sorts from the bartender and the barmaids. Some of them were regulars or semis at least. And we can’t be certain we got every name in that biker gang from Fargo. Pretty uncooperative bunch. So…” Dross shook her head. “We could well have missed someone. But that’s as far as we got before the Feds and the BCA came in and took over the investigation.”
“I’ve got the photo Paavola’s sister gave me,” Cork said. “Why don’t I have Cedarholm and whoever was working there that night take a look, see if they recognize Paavola and if they saw him at the bar when Olivia Hamilton was there.”
“If he was there that night, it might explain Olivia Hamilton, but what about Fawn Blacksmith?” Agent Shirley said.
Cork shrugged. “Pull one thread, maybe it’s attached to another.”
“I’m going with you,” Dross said.
“I’ve been thinking about Fawn Blacksmith,” Bonhomme put in. “Her grandmother told us that before she went to that school for problem kids, she’d been living in a house with a bunch of druggies in Duluth. I’m wondering if she might have gone back after her release from the detention center. I’d like to know about that house and who was in it. I’ve got a friend in Duluth PD. I’ll give him a call, see if he can track down an address for me.”
“I can’t help thinking maybe there’s more that Waaboo might sense at the blueberry patch,” Daniel said. “Something that might help us understand what happened to Fawn.”
“He was just out there yesterday,” Cork said. “You can’t be serious about taking him back.”
“He was at the cabin yesterday. That was about Olivia Hamilton. This is about Fawn. The blueberry patch is where Waaboo touched her spirit.”
“Jenny’ll kill you.”
“I think I have to try.”
“What do you want written on your headstone?”
“Maybe I can enlist Uncle Henry’s help.”
“Now I’m thinking two headstones,” Cork said.
“Let us know if you’re still alive and if you’ve got anything,” Bonhomme said.
As they dispersed it felt to Cork as if they were dandelion seeds catching the wind, and God alone knew where they might end up.
Cork knew Yellow Lake and the Howling Wolf well. The bar had been a thorn in his side when he was sheriff of Tamarack County, a frequent source of incident reports.
“If I could, I’d put a fence around the joint with barbed wire on top,” Dross said as they drove to the tiny community.
“When my dad was sheriff, he tried to close the place down,” Cork said. “Back then it was mostly loggers who drank there. The county commissioner was part owner of the place, and Dad got nowhere. When I was sheriff, I tried to get an ordinance passed about the number of calls we would respond to before we began to charge the bar for our time. Trouble was that whenever an altercation occurred, even if things started inside the bar, Cedarholm made certain that it took place outside, usually in the street. Broke up some big to-dos in my time.”
“It hasn’t changed,” Dross said.
“Figured as much.”
The town of Yellow Lake was a smattering of run-down abodes and trailer houses set among pines next to a small body of water that was more mire than lake, more likely to attract mosquitoes than investment. It was on no main highway, so unlikely to get unwary visitors. You had to want to get lost to go to Yellow Lake, and the Howling Wolf provided the alcohol to do just that. It was an old log construction, with a dirt parking area. When Dross pulled her cruiser to a stop, there were a half dozen other parked vehicles, all of them pickups covered in a patina of road dust and dried mud.
It was midafternoon, and when Cork stepped inside the bar, it was so dark that it took a few moments for his eyes to adjust. When they did, he saw the faces of the drinking men turned his way, all of them stone. They weren’t so much eyeing him as they were Dross in her sheriff’s uniform. Two of the men got up from their chairs and walked out. The others, after a few moments, simply turned back to their drinks. No one said a word.
Cy Cedarholm stood behind the bar. His head was as bald and smooth as a river boulder, and just as big. His arms were like sections cut from the trunk of an oak tree and fitted to either side of his massive chest. His eyes were as black as beetles that had dug into the skin below his jutting brow. He looked like a man who could handle trouble as easily as most people could swat a fly.
“Jesus Christ, ain’t I been harassed enough?” Cedarholm said.
“Not by me, Cy,” Dross replied, walking up to the bar.
“Ain’t seen you in a month of Sundays, O’Connor. Which is just fine with me. You ain’t a cop anymore, so what the hell are you doing here?”
“Just along for the ride, Cy.”
Dross had printed a photo of Mathias Paavola from the birthday picture his sister had texted to Cork. She put the photo on the bar and slid it toward Cedarholm. “Familiar?”
Cedarholm said, “No.”
“You didn’t even look at it, Cy,” Cork said.
Cedarholm lowered his black beetle eyes for a nanosecond. “No.”
“Take a good look,” Dross said.
Cedarholm picked up the photo, studied it, put it back down on the bar, and said, “Like I said, never seen him before.”
“Who was working here the night Olivia Hamilton went missing?”
“I’m always here.”
“Behind the bar. What about your barmaids?”
“They been talked to by cops till they’re silly. Don’t bother them no more, okay?”
“Their names, Cy.”
“Look, they’re about to quit on me. This whole Hamilton girl thing. You go harassing them, and I swear if they do quit—”
“Names, Cy,” Dross said.
He offered them reluctantly, and Dross wrote them down.
“Got addresses?”
“Use a phone book.”
The bar brightened for a moment, and Cork turned back to where the door had just been opened. He saw one of the customers walking out.
“Jesus, see that?” Cedarholm said. “You’re killing my business.”
Cork eyed a gnome carved of wood perched above the liquor shelves behind the bar. The craftmanship looked familiar. “Tell me about Erno Paavola.”
“What about him?”
“Regular customer?”
“He came in sometimes. Heard he died a while back.”
“Did he pay for his drinks or did he barter?”
“I don’t remember.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s his handiwork up there.”
Cedarholm glanced to where Cork was pointing at the gnome. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Did he happen to barter anything else? Blueberries maybe?”
“I don’t remember. Look, are we done here? I got a bar to run.”
“Don’t be taking any vacations for a while,” Dross said. “We may want to talk to you some more.”
They left. As they headed toward the sheriff’s cruiser, someone hollered, “Hey!”
The man stood at the side of the Howling Wolf, in the shadow the building cast. With a flick of his hand, he motioned them to him. Cork realized he was the customer who’d just left the bar. He was maybe in his late forties, with a brown beard that reached nearly to his chest. He wore a stained green ball cap and, although it was hot, a flannel shirt with its sleeves rolled up to his biceps, which were like bowling balls. Cork figured him to be a logger.
“Mind if I have a look at that photo?” the man asked.
“Why?” Dross said.
“Might know him.”
She pulled the photo from the pocket of her uniform blouse and handed it over. The man studied it, then said, “Seen him a few times. Usually comes in with another guy. Work buddies, I gather. That pipeline, as I understand it.”
“Got a name for this other guy?” Cork asked.
The man shook his head.
“Can you describe him?”
“Maybe six feet. Good build on him.”
“Hair color?”
“Always wears a stocking cap, no matter how hot it is. Pretty sure it’s because he’s got this funny-looking ear, kind of misshaped. You only notice it if the stocking cap rides up a bit and you look at him from the side. Right side, I think.”
“Anything else?” Dross said.
“That guy with the bad ear, he never talks about women without calling them sluts.”
“Were they here the night Olivia Hamilton went missing?”
“Don’t know. Wasn’t here that night.”
“Mind giving me your name?”
He spelled it for her, and Dross wrote it down, along with a cell phone number.
Cork said, “Why are you helping us?”
“I got a daughter,” the man said. “And I hate the word slut.”