Red Knife, Page 2

  Elise Reinhardt was younger than Cork by several years, early forties somewhere. Reinhardt had met her while she was carting cocktails in the bar of a four-star resort near Grand Rapids. Shortly after that, the first Mrs. Reinhardt moved out and six months later was dead of pancreatic cancer. Within a year, Buck had married again.

  Elise Reinhardt was a strong woman. Any woman who’d marry an old piece of tough leather like Buck Reinhardt had to be. She was an attractive, blond, blue-eyed, big-boned Swede whose maiden name was Lindstrom. Although she was no longer a young woman, she kept herself in shape and knew how to look good. Men in Aurora noticed. Reinhardt liked that about his wife, liked that men looked at her. He often said as much. Said, too, that he’d kill her if he ever caught her looking back, but only said that part after he’d had too many boilermakers.

  When she opened the door, she wasn’t at all the woman who’d catch a man’s eye. Her own eyes were tired and puffy, her face plain, her skin sallow, her lips set in a snarl. She was a woman in mourning and she wore her grief with an awful fury.

  “What?” she said.

  “Sorry to bother you, Elise. I’m looking for Buck.”

  “Look somewhere else. He’s not here.”

  “Any idea where I might find him?”

  “Like I could give a good goddamn.” She took a couple of seconds and pulled herself together. “Try the Buzz Saw. He’s probably getting shit faced with the boys. He does that a lot these days.”

  The truth was that Buck had always done that a lot. Reinhardt owned a tree-trimming business. He’d secured a number of lucrative contracts with power and telephone companies to keep the lines clear of limbs, and he had a dozen crews operating throughout the North Country. He didn’t pay all that much, but in an area where the iron mines had mostly closed and logging wasn’t what it used to be, Reinhardt was a decent employer. If you worked for Buck, you never missed a paycheck, never got called on the carpet for a sexist or racist slur, and never, when you went drinking with him, paid for your own booze.

  “Thanks. If I miss him, mind telling him I want to talk? It’s important.”

  “What about?” Elise said.

  Cork couldn’t see any reason to hold back. “Alex Kingbird wants to meet with him.”

  Elise looked dumbfounded. “What could he possibly have to say to my husband?”

  “He claims he has something to offer Buck.”

  “Yeah, what? His heart at the end of a sharp stick?”

  “I think it would be a good idea for your husband to hear him out.”

  “You’d have to hog-tie Buck to get him in the same room with Kingbird.”

  “Tell him I’ll drop by again after church tomorrow morning.”

  “Buck doesn’t go to church anymore.”

  “I do. Round noon okay?”

  Her lips went tight and she stared at him. Finally she said, “I’ll tell him.”

  “Elise, I’m sorry about Kristi.”

  She nailed him with her ice blue eyes. “No, deep inside you’re just so damn happy it wasn’t your daughter.”

  He wasn’t going to argue the point. In a way, she was right.

  “I’ll see Buck tomorrow.”

  “Lucky fucking you,” she said and slammed the door.

  THREE

  The Buzz Saw stood along Highway 2, a few miles south of Aurora in a little unincorporated municipality called Durham. There was a big neon sign on the roof that appeared to spin like a ripsaw blade. The parking lot was less than half full when Cork pulled in. He didn’t see Reinhardt’s truck, which was hard to miss because of the rack of floodlights mounted on the cab. Buck claimed he needed the lights for whenever the tree trimming went late and things got dark. Most people suspected the real reason was that Reinhardt shined deer. On the door on either side of the cab was a big image of a green tree with REINHARDT TREE TRIMMING printed boldly in black below.

  It was Saturday night, but things at the Buzz Saw weren’t buzzing. That was because it was early May, still several weeks away from the onslaught of summer tourists. A few tables were full, but mostly the customers had scattered themselves around the big barroom in singles or pairs. When they weren’t talking, they were listening to Mitch Sokol and the Stoned Rangers belt out an ear-splitting mix of electric bluegrass and country rock. Ropes of blue cigarette smoke coiled up everywhere, and the air was a choking mix of that, the odor of spilled beer, and the aroma of deep fry.

  Cork stood just inside the front door for a minute, looking the place over. He saw a lot of folks he knew, but he didn’t see Buck Reinhardt or anyone who worked for the man. He shook a few hands as he made his way to the bar, where Seneca Peterson was tending that night. She was midtwenties, statuesque, sported a silver stud in one nostril and a ring through her lower lip, and had close-cropped hair that was a striking mix of jet black and cotton candy pink. Cork had known her since she was a baby, when the only pink on her was the natural tone of her skin. She’d been baptized at St. Agnes, made her First Communion there, had sung in the choir, and even once played Mary in the yearly Christmas pageant. Now she was tending bar, with a stud in her nose and a tattoo crawling up the back of her neck like a green spider.

  “Hey, Sen,” Cork shouted above Sokol and the Rangers.

  She stepped up and wiped the bar in front of him. “What’ll you have, hon?”

  “Leinenkugel’s Dark.”

  “One Leinie’s coming up.”

  She brought him the draw.

  “Seen Buck Reinhardt tonight?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Left a while ago. Pissed.”

  “Why?”

  “I cut him off.”

  “He’d had too many?”

  She shook her head. “Mostly he was shooting his mouth off. You know Buck.”

  “What was his gripe?”

  “About what you’d expect given what happened to Kristi. Lot of talk about f’ing Indians.”

  “Red Boyz?”

  “That, sure. But f’ing Indians in general. A lot of my customers have some Ojibwe blood in them. I don’t need Buck Reinhardt getting everyone riled up.”

  “He left easy?”

  “I’d say so.”

  “Doesn’t sound like Buck.”

  “The Green Giant and Turner escorted him out.” She was talking about Derek Green, the bouncer at the door, and the bar manager, both more gorilla than man.

  “Was he alone?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Drunk would you say?”

  “I’ve seen him way worse. Mostly he was”—she thought a moment and scratched at the stud in her nose—“belligerent. Hell, who can blame him? But I told him he had to do his drinking and his bitching somewhere else.”

  “Any idea where he might have headed?”

  “If he was going in the general direction of home, the next logical stop would be Tanner’s on the Lake.”

  He left her a five as a tip—he liked the idea that she’d kicked Reinhardt out for badmouthing the Ojibwe—and headed to Tanner’s. Reinhardt wasn’t there either and hadn’t been. Cork tried the Silver Horse, the Chippewa Grand Casino bar, and finally the bar at the Four Seasons, all with the same result. It was a quarter of eleven by then. He didn’t want to call Reinhardt’s house and risk disturbing Elise. He stood on the empty deck in back of the Four Seasons, looking at the spray of the Milky Way above Iron Lake. The temperature was in the low fifties, not bad for that time of year. He had on a light jacket but a good flannel shirt would have done as well. Up the shoreline, the lights of Aurora were like stars fallen to earth. The night was still and quiet. It would have been a pleasure to stand there awhile longer taking in the stillness, the stars, the air that smelled of apple-wood smoke from the fireplace in the Four Seasons’s lounge. He decided to call it a night and head home. He would hit Reinhardt’s place first thing after Mass in the morning. That would give Buck a chance to recover a little if he was hungover. He was a son of a bitch sober. Hungover, he just might get it in his head to tak
e a chainsaw to Cork.

  Corcoran O’Connor lived in an old two-story frame house on an old residential street in Aurora called Gooseberry Lane. Lights were still on downstairs when he parked in the drive. Inside, he found his wife, Jo, on the sofa watching a video. Nine-year-old Stevie was asleep with his feet on his mother’s lap. Jo didn’t get up when Cork came in, but Trixie, the family mutt, jumped up from where she’d been lying and came bounding toward him with her tail wagging a blue streak.

  “Nice someone’s glad to see me,” Cork said. He patted Trixie and kissed the top of Jo’s head. “What are you watching?”

  “The last few minutes of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.” Cork had introduced his son to the old comic duo, and Stevie loved them, though Jo wasn’t a particular fan. “Took you a long time. How’d it go with Alex Kingbird?”

  “Let’s talk in the kitchen.”

  She gently maneuvered herself from under her son and left him sleeping soundly on the sofa. In the kitchen, she plucked a couple of chocolate chip cookies from the jar on the counter, gave one to Cork, and they sat down at the table.

  “So tell me,” she said.

  “He wants to meet with Buck Reinhardt.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “To avert a war, he says. He thinks the shooting’s about to begin.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past Buck to haul out the firepower. What’s Kingbird offering to entice him to a meeting?”

  “Justice.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “I don’t know. He wouldn’t say.”

  “Justice.” She frowned, bit into her cookie, and looked thoughtful.

  Kristi Reinhardt had been eighteen when she died. She’d been one of those girls life had drenched in promise. A stunning beauty with hair the color of dark honey. Smart, athletic, a talented swimmer and diver. She was also reckless and a thrill seeker, traits she got from Buck. She had a fondness for motorcycles and for the kind of guys who rode them. It was one of those guys, a biker named Aaron “Crunch” Bergman, who’d introduced her to meth. When it became clear she had a drug problem, Buck and Elise sent her to Hazelden, the renowned treatment facility near the Twin Cities. She came home clean, but within a couple of months of returning to Aurora, Kristi died while under the influence of the drug. It had happened during a late-night party at the park above Mercy Falls. According to witnesses—other kids present—she’d poised herself at the lip of the rocky ledge on top of the falls, as if she was preparing to dive in one of her competitions. No one thought she’d do it. It was never clear whether she’d fallen or had actually dived. She hit the pool at the bottom of the falls headfirst. The pool was shallow. She smashed her skull on a rock two feet below the surface and died instantly.

  In his statement to sheriff’s investigators, Eric Neiburg, one of the kids at the party, said that he’d seen Kristi smoking ice: crystal meth. She’d told him that she got it from an Indian—Lonnie Thunder—in exchange for oral sex. When sheriff’s deputies executed a search warrant for the trailer on the reservation where Thunder lived, they found meth and they found photographs of Kristi Reinhardt that would make any parent’s blood run cold. They also found photographs and videos that Thunder had made of Ojibwe girls, some of them minors. They didn’t find Thunder. He’d vanished. The general speculation was that he was hiding somewhere on the reservation, protected by the Red Boyz. Buck Reinhardt had made it clear that he was holding Alex Kingbird personally responsible.

  “You don’t think he’s going to turn Lonnie Thunder over to Buck?” Jo asked.

  “So Buck can skin him alive? I don’t think so.”

  “Will Buck agree to meet?”

  Cork finished his cookie. “Want some milk?”

  “No, thanks.”

  He got a tumbler from the cupboard, went to the refrigerator, and pulled out a half-gallon carton of Land O’ Lakes 2 percent. “I tried to track him down. Hit half a dozen bars, no luck.”

  “Ah, that’s why you’re so late and smell like an ashtray.”

  He put the milk back in the fridge and sat down again. “Where’s Annie?”

  “She went to the movies with Cara Haines.”

  Cork gulped his milk. “I’m bushed.”

  “What about Buck?”

  “He’s a lot older than me and drunk. I’ll bet he’s bushed, too.”

  “I mean when will you talk to him?”

  “Tomorrow after church. Figure I’ll catch him while he’s still a little groggy. That way if he tries to shoot me, his aim’ll be off.”

  She looked troubled and reached across the table and put her hand over his. “I don’t like the idea of you in the middle of this, sweetheart. Buck Reinhardt has always been a little crazy. Who knows what losing Kristi could drive him to do? And if Alex Kingbird is really dealing drugs, god, I don’t want you anywhere near them when they meet.”

  “Kingbird gave his word to come unarmed. I’ll work the same promise out of Buck or it won’t happen.”

  “His word? You’d take his word? And Buck’s?”

  “Look, I’ll figure something out, Jo.” He eased his hand free.

  She sat back, unhappy. “This is serious, Cork.”

  “I know, believe me. But I think Kingbird’s right. Unless somebody does something, all hell could break loose around here. He’s trying to do something and he’s asked me to help. What can I say?”

  “Are you getting paid for this?”

  “Five Franklins up front and another five when the meeting goes down.”

  She drilled him with her cold blue eyes. “What kind of casket can I possibly get with that?”

  FOUR

  Lucinda Kingbird was happy and that made her afraid. Though she had struggled all her life, all forty-four years, in the pursuit of real happiness, it had eluded her. So many people seemed happy that Lucinda had to accept on faith that it was a true thing. In a way, it was like the story of the Blessed Virgin and the conception of Jesus: illogical, irrational, a circumstance she had never experienced—never would experience—yet a whole world, a whole history of people, most far smarter than she, had believed and defended it, so how could it not be true? Happiness for her had always been a question of faith, not experience.

  Lately, however, miraculously, she’d been happy. But having discovered happiness, she was terrified that it might be snatched from her.

  That Sunday morning as she drove up the eastern shoreline of Iron Lake, all around her shafts of sunlight shot through the pines like gold arrows from heaven. She was a small, pretty woman with dark eyes and the light tan skin of a Latina. Her hair, long and black, still showed no hint of gray. She sang softly to herself, an old song from her childhood, one that her grandmother had crooned to her.

  “‘Duérmete mi niño.

  Duérmete solito.

  Qué cuando te despiertes,

  Te daré atolito.’”

  Until recently, she’d forgotten the sweet little lullaby. Now she often sang it to her granddaughter as she held the baby in her arms and felt, deep in her heart, a warmth she knew must be happiness.

  As soon as she crossed onto the reservation, she took Pike Road east and followed it until she came to the gravel lane that cut off to the right through a stand of red pines that hid the house of her son Alejandro. She parked near the front door and waited. She was expected. Every Sunday morning, she drove from Aurora to pick up her daughter-in-law and her granddaughter and take them with her to Mass at St. Agnes.

  She genuinely liked her daughter-in-law. Rayette was a smart cookie, tough, devoted to her husband and her child. Rayette often told Lucinda how much she appreciated her help with the baby. She seemed to enjoy as much as Lucinda did the Sunday drives to St. Agnes. Much of the time on the way there and back, they talked family, talked motherhood, even talked sometimes about deep things, things like God, which Lucinda never discussed with anyone else. She thought of her daughter-in-law as a friend and felt blessed.

  There was so much now
that made her happy.

  The front door didn’t open, and Rayette didn’t appear with Misty in the car-seat carrier. Running late, Lucinda decided. With a baby, it was understandable. She got out, went to the door, and rang the bell. From inside came the sound of voices and the baby’s incessant crying.

  Pobrecita, thought Lucinda. Poor little one.

  She rang the bell again, then knocked long and hard to be heard above the baby’s wail. Finally she tried the knob. The door was locked, but she had a key, which she used.

  “Rayette? Alejandro?” she called.

  She knew that using her son’s Christian name—or the Spanish version of it, which was how she’d always addressed him—didn’t please him these days, but she refused to use any other. Alejandro was a good name. It would still be his long after this Red Boyz business had passed.

  The talk, she discovered, came from the television, tuned to an infomercial hyping a revolutionary piece of exercise equipment. Except for the crying from the baby’s room, the house felt empty. Lucinda slipped her shoes off and left them beside the others already on the mat by the front door. She found her granddaughter in the crib, tangled up in her pink blanket.

  “Oh, sweet one,” she cooed. She untangled the blanket, lifted the child, and held Misty against her breast. “Shhhhh. Shhhhh. It’s all right, niña. Grandma’s here.”

  But where were Rayette and Alejandro?

  The baby continued to scream while Lucinda checked the bedroom, where the bed was still neatly made. Had it been slept in at all? She returned to the baby’s room and changed Misty’s diaper, trying to keep her mounting sense of dread at bay. In the kitchen, she made a bottle of the formula Rayette kept in the cupboard. She settled in the rocker in the living room with Misty in her arms. The baby greedily sucked the bottle dry. Lucinda burped her and little Misty fell asleep almost immediately.