In the quiet of the windless day, as he sat in front of Rainy’s deserted cabin, Cork heard only the sound of the crows using the aspen trees as a roost. The place felt abandoned, hopelessly empty of anything welcoming. He started the engine of his snowmobile and headed back toward Allouette.
* * *
He turned his Land Rover off the highway onto the lane that led up to the prefab where Stella and Marlee Daychild lived. The Toyota 4Runner was gone, but Cork parked and knocked on the door anyway, expecting to find no one home. He was mistaken. Stella opened up. She stood behind the storm door, holding a mug in one hand and her robe closed with the other.
“You look cold,” she said. “Come on in.” She stepped back to let Cork enter.
He expected to see the residual signs of Stephen’s overnighter there, blankets rumpled on the sofa, maybe, or cereal bowls left on the coffee table, the kind of thoughtlessness he was constantly after Stephen about. To his surprise, the house looked impressively neat, no indication at all of the kind of sloppiness Cork, in his own experience raising three teenagers, had come to expect of them.
As if reading his mind, Stella said, “Marlee. That girl’s a human vacuum cleaner. Can’t drop a cigarette butt in an ashtray without her sweeping it up three seconds later. Adult child of an alcoholic,” she added, lifting her coffee mug in a mock toast to herself. “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, Coke, tea, hot chocolate, spring water? I’ve got it all. Except for the booze now.”
“Thanks, Stella, I’m fine.”
“Have a seat,” she offered.
Cork sat on the sofa. Stella took the swivel rocker. The robe she wore came only to midthigh. Below that she had on red wool socks. Between the hem of her robe and the tops of her wool socks, a lot of bare leg showed. She looked as if she hadn’t been up that long, her hair still mussed from where her head lay on her pillow, no makeup, tired eyes. Cork found himself remarking silently on how lovely she was. In the next moment, he found himself thinking, You just miss the company of a woman, that’s all it is. Even so, he had to be careful not to stare at Stella’s long, bare, slender legs.
“I followed the track of the snowmobile,” he told her.
“And?”
“It led to where the White Iron River feeds into the lake.”
“And that means?”
“That the guy could have come from just about anywhere in Tamarack County, but probably not from the rez.”
“Didn’t we already figure that?”
“It’s always good to confirm a theory. You’re sure you don’t have any idea who you might have pissed off?”
“When it happens, I let it go right away. No use dwelling on something like that. But what about the guy who followed me from the casino?”
“Green pickup, mole on his cheek? Have you seen him since?”
“No.”
“Any idea why he might have taken a particular interest in you?”
“Only the usual interest when it comes to a female bartender.”
“Okay, so we keep him in mind.” He hesitated, then went on. “Stella, this isn’t meant to pry into your personal life, but have you been seeing anybody lately?”
“You mean like dating?” She laughed, but there was a bitter edge to it. “I gave up men when I gave up booze. The two seemed to go together in my mind. In the end, both of them always left me feeling pretty bad about myself.” She sipped her coffee. “So you do think it was something personal directed at me?”
“That, or maybe someone trying to make a point to Marlee.”
“Marlee? That girl’s as good as I was bad. And the only guy she’s seeing is Stephen. You have any idea how different my life would’ve been if I’d dated guys like Stephen?”
Cork figured that, given her tough childhood, it would have taken a lot more than dating the right guy to make a difference in Stella’s life. But he admired that she’d turned things around, that she’d worked very hard to do her best for her children.
“What about Dexter?” she said.
“What about him?”
“Is he-I mean his body-still out there?”
“I haven’t moved him, so yeah, I guess.” He saw the concern on her face. “I’ll take care of it. What would you like me to do with him?”
“Could you just, I don’t know, bag him up and leave him somewhere out of sight? I’m going to have to tell Ray Jay that his dog’s dead. I’m not looking forward to that, let me tell you. I’ll let him decide what he wants to do. By the way, did you find his head?”
“No.”
“Why the hell would someone kill a sweet dog like Dexter and steal his head? Are you sure it wasn’t some kind of Satanic cult or something?”
“You know any Satanists?”
She smiled again, this time with genuine humor. “Only people that make me feel like hell sometimes. Does that count?”
CHAPTER 13
Stephen looked up from the television when his father walked in. “Were you able to track him?” he asked.
His father said, “Only so far, then I lost his trail.”
Stephen had been watching a basketball game, Notre Dame playing St. John’s, hoping Anne, who loved the Fighting Irish, might be tempted to come out of hiding upstairs and watch with him.
Stephen hit mute. “Where?”
“Where the White Iron River feeds into the lake. A lot of tracks there, all mixed up.” His father sat on the sofa. From the coffee table, he picked up the bag of Cheetos Stephen had been munching on, grabbed a fistful for himself, and put the bag back down.
“Did you find Dexter’s head?” Stephen asked.
“Nope.”
“What did you do with his body?”
His father licked the yellow Cheeto residue from his fingers. “Put it in a big trash bag and put the bag in the Daychilds’ utility shed. The dog belonged to Stella’s brother, and he’s just about to finish up a sixty-day stretch at the county jail. When he’s out, he can decide what he wants to do with the body.”
Stephen scooped a handful of Cheetos from the bag and fed them into his mouth one by one. “Doesn’t make sense, Dad, that kind of cruelty.”
“When we know who did it, we’ll understand more. Where are Jenny and Waaboo?”
“They took Trixie and went sledding.”
His father nodded toward the television screen. “Who’s winning?”
“Notre Dame.”
“Does Annie know?”
“I told her. She wasn’t interested.”
His father shook his head and said quietly to himself, “Damn.” The ring tone on his cell phone chimed, and he pulled it from the holster on his belt. He glanced at the number on the display, said, “It’s Marsha. I gotta take this.” He got up from the sofa and went into the kitchen.
Stephen could hear an occasional question on his father’s end, but mostly there was just the silence of listening.
“I’ll be right over,” his father said, then called toward the living room, “Gotta go,” and Stephen was alone again.
He considered going back to watching the basketball game, but his heart wasn’t in it. He thought about calling Gordy Hudacek and maybe playing some video games. Finally he settled for texting Marlee.
Where RU?
A minute later, she replied, School. Play practice. Done @ 1. Drive?
No car, he texted back.
Got my moms.