Purgatory Ridge (37 page)

“I don’t have a little militia. You saw to that, remember?” He gave Cork a look more sour than painful. “Are you going to kill me, O’Connor? Then why don’t you just do it? Bash my brains out or whatever it is you have in mind.”

Cork put the bat against Hanover’s head. “I haven’t slept in two days, Hell. My wife and my boy are in the hands of some madman. If you think for a minute that I wouldn’t kill you, think again.”

“Look, what do you want from me? I didn’t take your family. Your wife and boy were abducted Saturday night, right? Saturday night I was covering the volunteer firefighters’ picnic over in Tower. A hundred people saw me there.”

“Some of your militia, then.”

“If I had a militia, O’Connor, consider the ranks. You think there’s anybody brilliant enough to carry off this kind of thing? Jesus, you beat the fuck out of me for nothing.”

Cork stepped back, but he didn’t put the slugger down. “Not for nothing. We still have to deal with that photograph.”

Hanover looked at the photo hanging above his head. “You’d kill me over that? I don’t think so.” He grinned, as if he had Cork beaten.

“Blackmail for blackmail,” Cork said. “Little Sun Lake.”

At those last words, Hanover’s face changed. The grin died, and his eyes took on a hunted look.

“That’s right,” Cork said. “I found your cache of arms out at Little Sun Lake. And I moved it. Every crate of AK-47’s, every Skorpion submachine gun, every CS grenade, every round of ammunition, all of it. Now it’s
my
cache. But unless I’m sorely mistaken, your fingerprints are all over everything, and probably the prints from a lot of the rest of the Minnesota Civilian Brigade. ATF would have a field day with that. You’d go to prison for a very long time.”

Hanover’s only reply was an unflinching glare.

“And don’t think that taking me out sometime will solve your problems, Hell. I had a lot of help moving those weapons. If I’m ever harmed, the ATF will have the location of the cache within half an hour. You’re a free man only so long as no one else ever sees that photograph or any copies of it or any similar evidence of indiscretion you might have stashed somewhere. Understand?”

Hanover took a few ragged breaths before he was able to reply. “Yeah, I understand.”

“Good. Now get out.”

Cork moved back, but Hanover didn’t rise. “I’m not sure I can walk.”

“Here.” Cork handed him the Louisville Slugger. “Use it as a cane. But I’ll keep the thirty-two for now.” He lifted the handgun from the floor.

Hell Hanover struggled to his feet, leaned heavily on the wooden bat, and slowly thumped his way outside. He eased into his Taurus, grunting painfully as he did so.

“Leave the bat,” Cork called.

Hanover dropped the Louisville Slugger on the ground, closed the door, and started the engine. Without glancing once in Cork’s direction, he left.

Cork stood in the doorway of the Quonset hut, his body quivering as it dealt with all the adrenaline that had been pumped into it in the last fifteen minutes. He’d been ready to kill Hanover in cold blood if the man had given him any indication he had anything to do with the kidnapping of Jo and Stevie. Although he hated Hanover and everything he stood for, Cork believed that in this instance, he was innocent.

He stared at the empty parking area. The grass at the edges was brown from drought. The grasshoppers were legion, feeding everywhere, the sound of their brittle wings buzzing in the heat. But Cork wasn’t seeing or hearing them. He was deep in thought, wondering desperately,
If not Hell, then who?

W
ESLEY BRIDGER SHOWED UP LATE
in the morning. He parked his van next to LePere’s small house and went inside.

“What the hell happened, Chief?”

John LePere sat at the little dining table, a cup of coffee in his hand. He was pretty tired, but he didn’t want to sleep, not until he’d dealt with Bridger. He leaned his elbows on the tabletop and gave the man a long, steady look. “Something in all your careful planning you never counted on,” he replied. “Fire. Nearly killed us all.”

“The others? They’re okay?”

“They’re okay.”

“Well, hey, Chief, where’s the damage? You did a good job.” He walked to LePere and gave him a hearty slap on the back. “Mind if I pour me a cup of that java there? Been a long night for me, too.”

“Where’ve you been?”

“Preparing, Chief. Getting things ready. They’ve got the money.” Bridger poured himself some coffee and let out a rebel yell. “They’ve got the fucking money.”

“The Fitzgerald woman wasn’t sure her husband could get it.”

“Unless he’s lying his ass off, he’s got it. And we’ll have it tonight.” Bridger lifted his cup in a brief toast. “Time to start celebrating. Start imagining what it’s going to feel like being a millionaire.”

LePere put his cup down. “There’s something we need to talk about.”

Bridger pulled out a chair, turned it backward, and plopped himself down. He drank his coffee and addressed LePere over the chair back. “Yeah? And what’s that?”

“I’m not taking any of the money.”

Bridger laughed. “That’s a good one.”

“I’m serious.”

“I don’t get it.”

“I don’t want the money.”

“You sure took a hell of a risk for nothing, then.”

“They saw my face, Wes.”

Bridger stared at him and blinked. Then he threw his cup against the wall. “Fuck me.” He stood up and kicked over the chair. “God damn it. How the hell—”

“The fire. It happened while I was getting them away from the fire. It couldn’t be helped. It wasn’t their fault.”

“Shit.” Bridger kicked the floral sofa. He closed his eyes and thought a moment, shaking his head angrily, as if all he could see were blind alleys. “So, how does this translate into you not taking any money?”

“You take the money. I take the rap.”

Bridger snorted ruefully. “You started drinking again?”

“It’s the only way.”

“No.” Bridger glared at him. “It’s not the only way.”

LePere understood what he meant. “These people are going back to their families, Wes.”

“They go to their families. You go to jail. And what about me? I just slip off into the sunset with two million dollars?”

“That’s it.”

“You think they’re going to let it go at that? These are rich people, Chief. You fuck with rich people and they have all the resources available to fuck you right back, and better. And the cops? You think they’re not going to make your life a living hell until you tell them about me?”

“They’ll try. But I’ve been in hell a long time now. There’s nothing they can do that’ll make it any worse.”

Bridger walked back to the table, leaned close to LePere, and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “There’s more to it than you’re telling me, am I right?”

“They’ve promised to investigate the wreck, to find the truth.”

Bridger stepped back in mock amazement. “And you believed them? Chief, you are one stupid half-breed.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Christ.” Bridger walked away in disgust. He headed to the door but didn’t go out. He just stood looking at the fish house. “I guess the die’s been cast, huh? You’ve crossed your own little Rubicon.” He took a breath and faced LePere. “But we go through with the drop tonight?”

“Yes.”

“All right. Your funeral.” He came back and offered his hand. “Sorry about the half-breed thing.”

LePere didn’t take his hand. “One more thing. Until this is over, you stay away from them.”

Bridger dropped his arm and gave LePere a quizzical look.

“You hurt the Fitzgerald woman.”

“I scared her a little.” Bridger shrugged, then smiled sheepishly. “All right, I scared her a lot. But, hey, she was trying to get away.”

“Just leave them alone.”

Bridger solemnly held up a hand. “You have my word.” He turned and started away. “I’ve got more arrangements to make for tonight. I’d best get moving.” He paused at the door. “You’re sure about all this?”

“I’m sure.”

Bridger made a gun of his thumb and forefinger and shot an imaginary round at LePere. “You’re some piece of work, you know that, Chief?” He stepped outside. A minute later, the van pulled away and headed up the narrow lane to the highway.

John LePere felt good. The hardest part was over—dealing with Bridger. He left the table and went into the kitchen. He put some bananas in a sack and filled a plastic jug with cold tap water. Outside, the air was warm and carried the smell of smoke. LePere crossed to the fish house and unlocked the door. The women looked up as he entered. The boys were asleep, chins resting on their chests.

“I thought you might be hungry, maybe could use a drink of water,” he said quietly. He put the sack on the floor. The jelly glasses were sitting on the table and he filled them. He offered a drink to Grace Fitzgerald. She nodded and he put the glass to her lips. “Your husband has the money,” he told her. A trickle ran down her chin and he wiped it away.

“I can’t imagine where he got it,” she said.

“If two million would have saved Billy, I’d have moved heaven and earth to get it.”

“Scott needs another injection,” the Fitzgerald woman said.

“I’ll get the stuff.” He looked at Jo O’Connor. “You want a drink before I go?”

“No, thanks.”

When LePere returned, Scott Fitzgerald was awake. “I’m going to cut your hands free so you can give him the shot,” LePere said to the boy’s mother. He severed the tape and pulled it off her wrists, then put the packaged syringe and the medicine into her hands. He stood back and watched. The boy took the shot without flinching. LePere reached out for the syringe so he could dispose of it.

As she put it in his hands, the Fitzgerald woman said, “If ten million could have saved Edward, I’d have given it.”

LePere was caught by surprise and it took him a moment to place the reference. “Your first husband, right? The lake got him. I read your book. He sounded like a stand-up guy.”

LePere put the syringe down a small slot in a metal box on the wall that had been a repository for old razor blades in the days when his father sometimes used the basin in the fish house to shave. “Do you remember him?” he asked her son.

“Not really,” the boy said.

“Maybe you’re lucky. It hurts a lot if you do.”

“You move on with your life, Mr. LePere,” the Fitzgerald woman said.

“Yes.” He tapped the metal box to make sure the syringe had dropped. “But you never forget, do you?” He turned and looked down at her. “I watched you a long time on the cove. You’re different from the person I thought I saw.”

“Different how?”

“Doesn’t matter. I was way off base.” He picked up the roll of duct tape. “I need to bind your hands again.”

“Do you have to?”

“It won’t be much longer. I’m sorry.” He bound her, then asked her son, “Are you hungry?”

“Yes.”

“How about a banana?”

“Okay.”

He cut the boy free and waited while he ate. “What about
your
son?” he asked the O’Connor woman.

“Mostly, he needs to sleep.”

He tossed the banana peel outside and taped the boy’s wrists again. “I’m tired. I need some sleep, too. I’ll check back in a while. The windows are open and the breeze is up. You should stay cool.”

LePere locked the fish house and drifted down to the rocks that separated the cove from the lake. He sat down, trying to take it all in, trying to memorize every detail. In another day, he would be looking at bare walls and iron bars, and he wanted to remember home. He gazed up at the great ancient lava flow called Purgatory Ridge, the dark, striated cliffs that were the backdrop for his best memories. He closed his eyes, and the silver-blue circle of water that was the cove was there, bright in his mind, and hard beside it, the little house. The popple and aspen along the shoreline were green now, but he could remember them aflame in fall, their autumn leaves scattered across the water like shavings of gold. Last, he turned and looked at the lake that had been there for a thousand lifetimes before his and would be there a thousand lifetimes after. He’d often hated the lake, blamed it for what had been taken from him. But the truth, he knew, was that the lake was simply what it was, vast and indifferent. It asked nothing and yielded to no one, and if you journeyed
on its back, you accepted the risk. In its way, it mirrored life exactly.

Facing the prospect of prison, John LePere felt free and alive for the first time in more than a dozen years.

The sound of a powerful inboard motor woke him. He lay on his bed, listening as the thrum grew louder and entered the cove. He jumped from his bed, went to the window, and watched as Wesley Bridger cut the engine and guided a sleek motor launch up to the dock. LePere put on his shoes and headed down to the water.

Bridger tossed him a line. “Tie her up.”

“Where’d you get this?”

“Borrowed her. Just for tonight. They’ll never miss her, believe me.”

“What for?”

Bridger jumped from the boat. He held his ski mask in one hand and a heavy-looking metal flashlight in the other. As soon as his feet were squarely on the dock, he slipped the mask over his head. “Let’s go up and talk to our guests.”

“Why?”

“We’ll give ‘em the good news.” He put his arm around LePere’s shoulders in the way of comrades. “Everything’s set for the exchange. Don’t you think they’ll want to know? Also, I owe them an apology, Chief. I was pretty hard on them.”

It was early evening. LePere realized he’d slept much longer than he’d expected. The air felt good, cooler. Something in the wind had changed.

At the fish house, as LePere undid the lock, Bridger asked, “Chief, I just want to check. Are you sure about
all this? I mean, taking the whole responsibility on your shoulders while I’m free as a bird with a two-million-dollar nest?”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been as certain of anything, Wes.”

LePere opened the door and took a step inside. He didn’t even feel the blow to the back of his head. He simply dropped into darkness.

T
HE GIRLS LOOKED BATTERED
, tired beyond weeping, and older by far than their years. And Rose, for all her courage and faith, looked ready to yield to despair.