Purgatory Ridge

THE STORM MOVED EAST toward Lake Superior, and Cork moved with it, following State Highway 1 as it twisted and curled around the southern end of the Sawtooth Mountains. The whole North Woods was receiving its first significant rainfall in many months. Dust-gathered deep along the shoulders of the road-turned to mud and washed across the pavement in a thin, slippery coating that made the drive treacherous. The wheels drifted around sharp curves as Cork pushed his old Bronco dangerously fast. In the flashes of lightning, he caught glimpses of Lindstrom beside him. Although the man was tight-jawed and held to the dashboard with a desperate grip, he said not a word to Cork about slowing down.

“You carrying your Colt? The one you had at the marina,” Cork asked.

In answer, Lindstrom reached to his belt and brought out the firearm. He held it toward the windshield so that Cork could see it without taking his eyes off the road. “What about you?”

“In the glove compartment,” Cork directed him. “My revolver.”

Like Lindstrom’s handgun, Cork’s Smith amp; Wesson. 38 police special was something handed down from father to son, something he trusted.

“I keep the cartridges separate. In my tackle box in back. Mind loading it for me?” Cork asked.

Lindstrom pulled the handgun from the glove compartment and climbed over the seat. Cork heard him rattling in the tackle box. Lindstrom started to return to the front, but the Bronco swung hard around a curve and he fell against the back door.

“I’ll just stay put back here,” he said.

Cork heard him release the cylinder and begin to feed in the rounds.

They drove mostly in silence. Cork’s mind was occupied with the business he’d trained it for in his two decades as a cop-putting the pieces of a puzzle in place. The more he considered, the more everything came together, so that the holes became fewer and were more obvious to him.

A few miles outside of Finland, he broke the quiet inside the Bronco. “When you talked with the kidnapper, Karl, why didn’t you ever mention your son’s diabetes?”

“Not my son. My wife’s son. He refused to let me adopt him.” He slapped the full cylinder into place. “What good would it have done, saying something about the boy’s weakness?”

Weakness? Cork thought.

“A man like LePere wouldn’t care,” Lindstrom added.

“Apparently, he cared enough to risk everything breaking into the rez clinic for insulin. You know, that’s something I can’t quite figure. If he was so concerned about keeping Scott alive, why would he be so quick now to rush to murder? It’s almost as if there are two minds at work here.”

“A man like LePere, he could be schizoid for all we know. Hell, he lost his whole family to Lake Superior-father, mother, brother. Something like that’s bound to snap anybody’s mind.”

His father, his mother, and his brother? Cork had been acquainted with John LePere for many years, and this was more specific information than he’d ever learned about the man. How was it that Lindstrom knew?

Cork fell back into a meditative silence for a few miles. When he glanced into the rearview mirror, he saw Lindstrom sighting down the barrel of the. 38.

“Nice heft,” Lindstrom said. “You pretty good with it?”

“I generally hit what I’m aiming at.”

They moved ahead of the storm, just beyond the edge of the rain. They passed through an open area where the wind kicked dust across the road and shoved against the Bronco. Cork held the wheel steady.

“At the marina,” he said over his shoulder, “when Earl questioned you about your military service, you told him you couldn’t talk about what you did. Does that mean naval intelligence?”

“Naval intelligence,” Lindstrom confirmed. “Why do you ask?”

“I was just thinking. You’ve been well trained in gathering information.”

“And?”

“Nothing.”

But it wasn’t nothing. Because Cork was thinking about Lindstrom’s building a home in a place where his only neighbor was a man who had every reason in the world to hate the Fitzgerald name. It seemed to indicate a terrible lapse in reconnoitering. On the other hand, maybe it didn’t. Maybe it was evidence of something else entirely. Something cold and abominable.

“Nothing?” Lindstrom said quietly. “O’Connor, I’ve observed how your mind works. You don’t ask a question for no reason.”

Cork heard the click of the hammer on the. 38 as it was drawn back and cocked. In the next instant, he felt the cool metal of the muzzle against the back of his head.

“You know what I think? I think you’ve just about got it all put together.”

Cork pulled the Bronco to a stop in Illgen City at the junction with State Highway 61. City was a misnomer for the intersection. There were only a couple of visible structures, a hotel and a cafe, and neither showed any sign of life at that hour. The highways were deserted. The swipe of the wipers and the drum of the rain on the roof were the only sounds. Cork made no move to continue the drive.

“You and LePere?” he asked.