“What are you going to do,” she argued. “Go in there with that rifle blazing? What if he does have the bag, but he’s hidden it? If you do something rash, you might never find it.”
Cork drove through town, past the Pinewood Broiler with its neon flame still burning, past the open shops on Oak Street, where the display windows were hung with garland and tinsel and strings of lights, past the turnoff onto Gooseberry Lane. Jo glanced down the street, saw her own house with the lights blinking around the front door and framing the picture window. She wished she were home with Rose and the kids and that she didn’t know what she knew and wasn’t scared for them all the way she was.
Cork finally said, “I’m listening.”
“When we get to Sandy’s, I want you to leave the rifle in the car. It can only lead to trouble.”
“Go on,” he said, not sounding exactly convinced.
“Let me do the questioning. It’s what I’m good at.”
“You?” Cork nearly drove off the road. “You love the son of a bitch.”
“And you hate his guts,” she pressed on. “Look at you. You’re so upset you can hardly talk. If you don’t like what I’m asking or how I’m asking it, you can interject whatever you want. If he’s done these things you claim-and I’m not saying for one minute that I believe he has-I want to know as much as you do.”
“No, you don’t.” Cork gave her a withering look not lost on her in the dark.
“I’m sorry. You’re right. But it’s something I need to know.”
They passed the city limits of Aurora and the road to the casino. Another couple of minutes and Cork turned onto the long drive that led through the trees to Sandy’s big house.
“You haven’t responded to my proposal,” Jo pointed out.
“No, I haven’t,” Cork said.
He parked in front of the double garage that was built below the main section of the house. He turned off the engine and nodded once.
“All right,” he said.
“You agree?”
“I’ll let you do the questioning. But I take the rifle as incentive for him to answer.” He reached over the seat and grabbed the Winchester.
“He won’t,” she insisted. “Because he knows, and I know, that you wouldn’t use it. Cork, you know it, too. In a negotiation, never make a threat you don’t intend to carry out.”
“I’d blow his fucking heart out in a minute.”
“If he gave you cause, maybe. He won’t. Cork, leave it. Just leave it.”
Cork held the rifle in both hands, studying its long, sleek lines. He pumped the cartidges out of the chamber and put them on the seat.
“The rifle still goes,” he said. “I like the way it looks in my hands. Parrant will appreciate that, too.”
Lights were on inside. Jo rang the bell, but no one answered. Cork knocked hard and got no better response. He stepped back, looked the house over, then returned to the garage. There was a digital opener affixed to the frame of the door. He looked at Jo.
“Do you know the code?”
She stepped up, lifted the cover, and punched in four numbers. The door slid upward. Cork saw Sandy Parrant’s two vehicles parked inside, the white BMW and a black Jeep Grand Cherokee. He opened the door of the BMW, reached under the dash, and popped the hood. He laid his hand on the engine.
“What are you doing?” Jo asked.
“Checking to see if the engine’s warm. I want to know if your friend’s been out lately.”
“Well?”
“This one’s cold,” he said.
He did the same with the Cherokee. He looked puzzled. “Cold, too.”
“Satisfied? Can we go now?”
“Does he own a snowmobile?”
“No. He thinks they’re a travesty in the quiet of the woods.” She could tell he was disappointed, but he didn’t look at all ready to quit.
“I want to talk to the son of a bitch.”
“I think I know where he’ll be,” Jo said.
She pushed the button on the garage door mechanism that lowered the door behind them, and she started to the left around the house. A wide roadway had been plowed there, angling off the drive toward the boathouse and the lake.
“He takes the Cherokee down this way when he wants to go ice fishing,” Jo explained.
“You know a hell of a lot about him,” Cork noted bitterly.
Jo didn’t bother to reply. At the back side of the house, she left the plowed area and waded into the snow of the backyard. She made her way to the steps that led up to the decks. Cork heard the sound of water surging in the hot tub on the first level of the deck. When they reached the landing, they found Sandy Parrant lying back in the big redwood hot tub, steaming water swirling around him, his eyes open toward the sky as if hypnotized. A glass of wine sat on the rim of the tub, along with an ashtray that held a lit cigar. He didn’t seem to notice their approach.
“Sandy,” Jo said quietly.
“Jo,” he greeted her in a relaxed way. Then he saw Cork and looked amused. “Cork? I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t rise to greet you. I’m not wearing anything. I wasn’t expecting visitors.” He waved a dripping hand toward the sky. “I was just admiring the northern lights.”
Jo glanced across the lake and saw that Sandy was right. A display had begun, a shifting curtain of red and green with yellow streaks shooting through like searchlights.
“It’s only just starting,” Parrant said. “It will get better.” He sat up, sloshing water over the rim of the tub. The water splashed onto the deck, steaming as it hit ice that had formed on the wood planking from previous spills. The overhang of the roof above him was thick with frost where the water vapor rose up and froze. “You’re welcome to join me, if you’d like.”
“You bastard,” Cork said, “you know why we’re here.”
“Cork!” Jo snapped, stepping between them.
Parrant looked at the rifle gripped in Cork’s hands. “Maybe I should change my position on gun control.” He reached for his wineglass and took a sip. “I assume you’re here so that we can finally sit down and discuss like adults the situation between me and Jo. I’m guessing she told you about the photographs I shared with her.”
“Sandy, where’d you get those photographs?” Jo asked. “You told me Bob gave them to you.”
“He did.”
“You’re a liar,” Cork accused. “You got them from a file cabinet you moved to Harlan Lytton’s shed at the Aurora U-Store.”
“I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
“GameTech. Your father. The Minnesota Civilian Brigade. Murder, you son of a bitch. I’m talking about murder.”
“That’s enough, Cork.” Jo turned to him and looked at him steadily until he backed away. She faced Parrant again and explained what Cork had found at the office in Duluth.
Sandy Parrant looked stunned. “I don’t believe it.”
“Cork has proof.”
Parrant shook his head slowly. “Dad could be a hard bastard sometimes. But I don’t believe for a minute he’d be party to what you’re accusing him of. Let me see your proof.”
Cork took out the photographs he’d stuffed in his coat pocket. Parrant held them carefully in his wet hands.
“My father was extreme in many ways,” he finally said. “And not perfect by a long shot. Toward the end his judgment wasn’t always good. So this brigade thing I can see. But murder? I don’t think so, Cork. Nothing here makes me accept that.” He put the photos on the edge of the tub and Cork snatched them back.
“There’s more,” Cork said. “Negatives Molly had.”
“Molly?” Parrant looked to Jo.
Jo said, “We’ve just come from Molly Nurmi’s place.”
“Confronting the other woman, Jo? I wouldn’t have thought it mattered much at this point.”