The last vanishing was different. It was a white woman. A rich white woman. A woman who attended Mass at St. Agnes. Who volunteered her time on the library board. Who saw to it that her husband contributed lavishly to the campaign to build a new community hospital in Aurora. Who walked down the streets of town recognized, admired, and envied.
She disappeared on Labor Day weekend, when the sumac in Tamarack County had turned blood red and gold was beginning to drive out green along the branches of the aspen trees, and the air of late evening and early morning carried a chill bite. That Monday morning her husband reported to the sheriff’s office that she was missing. She’d been missing nearly two days by then. Her husband said she’d driven to Duluth for a fund-raiser. She’d intended to come home directly, but she’d been gone two nights. This wasn’t unusual. Sometimes she got it in her head to drive places, a kind of wanderlust, but he hadn’t heard from her, and he’d grown worried. The search went on until almost October, but no trace of her could be found, not even her car. Like the other women, she seemed to have been swallowed by the air itself.
Her name was Monique Cavanaugh. She was the mother of the woman who, forty years later, lay decomposing on the cool stone floor of the Vermilion Drift.
When Cork finished his story, Dross said, “But if these are the women who vanished in nineteen sixty-four, that would account for only three of the older victims. What about the other two here?”
“I don’t know,” Cork said. He looked to Upchurch. “How soon can you tell the age of the bones?”
“Not until after I get them into the lab to examine them.”
“Will you be able to tell if they’re white or Ojibwe?” he asked.
“Once I’ve done scans of the skulls, my computer ought to give me pretty accurate facial reconstructions. But I’ll tell you this right now. I’m pretty sure they’re all female.”
Larson asked, “How do you know?”
“The pelvis. Much larger in the female. Also some of the cranial features. The ridge above the brow, for example. It’s much larger in males. Same with the jawbone. Sometimes race can make a sexual determination difficult; from what I’m seeing, that’s not a problem.”
“Ed, do you think it’s possible whoever put the other bodies here also dumped Lauren Cavanaugh’s?” Dross asked.
Larson shrugged. “Anything’s possible. We’ll know a lot more after we’ve processed the scene.”
“Then we should get started,” Rutledge said.
Cork stepped back. He’d forced himself to return to that wretched place, and he’d stood it as long as he could, and now he felt desperate to get out. “This will take you a while,” he said. “I’m headed up top.”
Dross said, “I’ll go with you. Ed, keep me informed.”
“Will do,” Larson replied.
Dross and Cork walked back to the sink and crawled their way up the passage to the clearing. As they approached the top, Cork heard a loud, familiar voice, clearly in the midst of an argument. When he pulled himself out of the sink, there stood Isaiah Broom looming like an angry bear over Guy Simpson, one of Dross’s smaller deputies. As soon as Broom saw Dross emerge from the hole in the ground, he stormed in her direction.
“I want to know what you’re doing on our land,” he said.
Dross planted herself between Broom and the sink and gave him an iron reply. “We’re here conducting a lawful investigation, Mr. Broom.”
“You’re on Ojibwe land.”
“This is a crime scene, and we’re the law, even on the rez.”
Which was true. Public Law 280, passed in 1953, gave all reservations in the United States the right to choose the agency that would provide them with law enforcement regarding major crimes. Many reservations had gone with federal law enforcement. The Iron Lake Ojibwe had chosen the Tamarack County Sheriff’s Department.
Broom pointed toward the sink. “Whatever that is, it’s on our land. I have the right to go down there.”
“When it’s no longer a crime scene, you may do so. I don’t know when that will be.”
“The People have a right to know what’s going on.”
“They will. In due time.”
He glared at Cork. “Chimook,” he said, as if he was spitting phlegm. He turned and stormed away across the clearing.
Dross said to Cork, “I think we’ll need a twenty-four-hour watch on this scene until we’re finished processing it.”
Cork stared at the huge retreating form of Broom and said, “I think what you’ll need is a bazooka.”
NINE
Marsha Dross offered Cork a ride to his Land Rover, which was still parked in the lot at the mine office. The traffic from all the official vehicles had broken a clear path through the underbrush, which Dross followed to the perimeter fence. She drove the fence line to a gate that opened onto an old mining road on the west side of the complex and that was guarded by one of the Vermilion One security guys, who gave a two-finger salute as they passed through.
When they reached the Land Rover, Dross killed the engine of her pickup and sat a moment staring through her windshield.
“We’ll need a positive ID of the body,” she said without looking at him.
“Max Cavanaugh,” Cork said. “I was supposed to see him tonight, have him sign an agreement for my investigation.”
“Where?”
“His place.”
“What time?”
“Six.”
She looked at her watch. “It’s almost six now.”
“Guess I won’t make it.”
“I hate this part of the job.”
“What? Talking to me?”
She smiled. Finally.
“Have one of your deputies do it,” he suggested.
“Is that how you handled things?”
“No.” He stared through the windshield, too. “So I guess you don’t want me talking to Max until after you’re finished with him?”
“Yeah,” she said. Then: “Have you ever dealt with anything like this?”
“Possible multiple homicides spread over nearly half a century? Hell, probably nobody has.”
“Five women and now a sixth.”
“If it is the Vanishings, only four are female for sure.”
“Agent Upchurch seemed pretty certain they’re all women, Cork. I’m sure she’s right.”
“And you know this how?”
Instead of answering, she said, “That sink you found is on Ojibwe land.” She swung her gaze toward him, and he knew without her saying a word what she wanted and why she’d offered him the lift. “I’ll need to talk to folks on the reservation,” she said. “I could use your help.”
Although he’d helped with investigations in the past, had done so ever since leaving the department, this time he balked, and for reasons he couldn’t quite articulate. There was something about the situation beyond its complete bizarreness that dug at him, and he wasn’t sure at all what that was.
“I’ll think about it and give you a call. Right now, I need to get something to eat.”
“Two of those women were Ojibwe,” she said.
“Probably more,” he said.
“How do you know?”
He pulled the door handle and let himself out. “We’ll talk,” he said.
He drove home to Gooseberry Lane. His house was a simple two-story place that, with his wife and the kids and the dog, had always felt comfortably full. Now there was only him and the dog. Trixie had spent the day in the backyard, tethered to a line that was connected to her own little doghouse and that let her roam without running loose. When she saw Cork, she greeted him with barking and eager leaps and a tail that beat like a metronome gone wild.
“Hey, girl,” he said, “bet you’re famished. Makes two of us. Let’s see what we can rustle up.”