Tamarack County: A Novel Part 10

"Do you think he might have known she was seriously considering leaving, even if she'd said nothing to him?" Cork asked.

"It's possible. I don't really know what my father's capable of these days, mentally. And that's what got me to thinking about the other thing."

"Other thing?"

"Go ahead," Dross said. "You can tell him."

Justine mindlessly began toying with the gold band on her ring finger. "It's something that might be important, I don't know. A long time ago, my mother had an affair, and I don't think my father ever forgave her."

"How do you know this?" Cork asked.

"She told me during her visit in October."

"The first you'd heard of it?"

"Yes. My parents have always been secretive people. It's probably not something she would have shared with me, but once that whole LaPointe business came to light, she seemed different, changed, ready to get away from him and begin a new kind of life. It probably also had to do with me being grown now. It was something she could finally share with me woman to woman. You know?"

Dross nodded, as if she did know.

"What made you connect that affair with your mother's disappearance?" Cork asked.

Justine's already pinched face seemed to draw in even more, the pupils of her eyes like hard gray nailheads. "My father's a man who never lets go of a slight against him. I thought that if you coupled Mom's affair with her intent to leave him, it might have been enough to send him over the edge. And like I said, his thinking and his behavior is sometimes irrational these days. He gets irritated and easily angered. Mom's had trouble with it and, because of it, trouble keeping help at the house."

"Do you know who the affair was with?"

"That part she wouldn't tell me."

Cork glanced at Dross. "Did you tell her about the knife and gas cans and tubing?"

"Yes," Dross said.

He shifted his focus back to Justine. "Do you think your father might be capable of having done something to your mother?"

"Something? You mean killed her? Yes. Absolutely." They waited for her to go on, but that seemed to do it for her. She said, "What will you do now?"

"We'll continue our investigation," Dross said. "There are a lot of possibilities we have to consider. If I need to, can I reach you at your father's house?"

"My father's house?" She seemed shocked at the thought. "I'm not staying there. I've booked a room at the Four Seasons. But you can reach me on my cell phone anytime. You have the number."

Cork had a thought and said, "Does your father own a cell phone?"

"No, why would he? He has the landline, and he never goes anywhere. My mother's the one with a cell phone." She looked at Dross, appeared drawn and tired and angry. "Is that all?"

"For the moment."

Justine stood up and went to the coat tree, a piece of antique furniture that Marsha Dross had found and refinished and that was part of what gave her office its oddly comfortable feel. She took her coat, a long tan affair with a fur collar, and put it on. "You'll keep me informed," she said. It wasn't a question.

"Of course."

She turned and left, not bothering to close the door behind her.

Cork allowed a few moments to pa.s.s, to be sure that she was really gone, then let out a low whistle. "That's one bitter woman where her father's concerned."

Dross tapped her desktop with her fingernail. "So we take with a grain of salt her belief that the Judge could have killed her mother?"

"No, I happen to believe it, too. I'm not saying that he did it, just that he's capable. And we have a possible motive now."

Dross glanced at the open door, then back at Cork. "Why did you ask her if the Judge has a cell phone?"

"If Ralph Carter killed his wife and got rid of her body somewhere, I think he had to have help. He never leaves the house unless he's with Evelyn. So how would he arrange it?"

Dross thought a moment. "The telephone. I'll request his records."

CHAPTER 15.

Stephen sat on the pa.s.senger side of the 4Runner's front seat. Marlee was at the wheel. They were driving around. Just driving. And talking. Marlee was a good talker. Stephen was an adept listener, a natural talent, but it was also an ability that Henry Meloux had encouraged him to nurture.

At first, Marlee had talked about the play she'd spent the last couple of hours practicing at the high school, You Can't Take It with You. She had the role of a dancer, "a ditzy dancer" was how she described her character. She told him it was a famous play, a screwball comedy. She said, "You're going to come, right?"

He a.s.sured her that was his intention.

They were south of Aurora when Marlee turned onto a back road, only recently plowed. It was unpaved, gravel washboard. She pulled to the side of the road, right up against the mound of plowed snow, and killed the engine. The sun came through the windshield bright and warm. Marlee turned to him, removed her gloves, and unb.u.t.toned her coat.

"I wanted to thank you," she said.

"For what?"

"For everything you did last night. You were wonderful." She leaned to him and kissed him a very long time.

When they separated, Stephen smiled and said, "You brought me all the way out here just to thank me?"

"No. I . . ." She turned her face away and was quiet a moment. Then, as if she'd made an important decision, she looked back at him, looked deeply into his eyes. Her almond irises seemed to contain little flecks of gold. "No," she said. "I wanted to give you something special."

She shed her coat, turned to him fully, and lifted her sweater. She wore a lacy red bra, which cupped two very firm b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Stephen sat stupefied as she slid apart the clasp that held her bra together in front, and the red lace parted. What was revealed to him in the brilliant stream of sunlight was nothing short of heaven.

He started to reach out. "Can I . . . ?"

She nodded. "Take your gloves off first."

In the blink of an eye, he had them off. He reached out and gently touched her left nipple, which had grown hard, then took her whole breast in his hand. It was a sensation like he'd never felt before, both holy and sinful at the same time, dizzyingly surreal and yet he was terribly, wonderfully present, aware of every sensation in that moment, of the softness of her breast and the heat of his palm and the shine of her eyes and the quickness of his breath.

"Kiss me," she said.

And did he ever.

He had no idea how far things might have gone if the truck hadn't come along. They both heard it, rattling over the washboard, approaching from the main road. Marlee quickly sat up and pulled her sweater down. Stephen flung himself back against the pa.s.senger door, where he tried to look as if nothing had been happening. The truck came abreast but didn't pause at all. It was spattered with hardened mud, and the side window was so splashed with road spray that Stephen couldn't see through it with any clarity. He watched it pa.s.s and realized, when he saw his breath begin to crystallize on the windshield of Marlee's car, that it had grown chilly inside the vehicle.

"Mood spoiler," Marlee said. She looked over at him, almost shyly. "We should go."

"Probably, yeah," Stephen said, although pretty much everything in him didn't agree.

She reached under her sweater and spent a few moments putting her bra back in place. Stephen turned his eyes away, feeling suddenly awkward.

They were quiet after that. Marlee maneuvered the 4Runner in a U-turn and started back toward the main road. At the junction, she stopped and looked both ways, then, instead of turning toward Aurora, headed in the direction of the rez.

"Where are you going?" Stephen asked.

"I was just thinking. Mom's probably already gone to work. She was going to get a ride with Kit Johnson."

"I thought one of your uncles or cousins was going to come and stay with you until we figured out who killed Dexter."

"That would be Shorty, my great-uncle. He didn't show last night, and even if he does tonight, he won't be there for hours."

Stephen didn't say a word in objection.

Marlee took County 16, which followed the sh.o.r.eline of Iron Lake north toward the reservation. Stephen's whole body tingled. His brain seemed to be sizzling in a delightful but confusing frenzy of electric signals. His mouth was dry. He tried to think of something to say, but everything that came to him seemed senseless and unnecessary.

Then Marlee said, "Stephen, what color was that truck that went by us?"

"I didn't see any truck."

"I mean when we were parked." Her eyes flicked to the rearview mirror.

"I don't know. Kind of pale green, maybe."

"A green pickup truck's been following us for a while."

Stephen turned and looked back. He saw a dirty, mud-crusted truck, and thought Marlee was right. It had a plow blade mounted on the front, and he was pretty sure it was the same vehicle that had pa.s.sed them when they'd parked on the washboard road. Immediately he thought of Dexter.

"What do I do?" Marlee asked. Her voice was taut, and Stephen saw her grip tighten on the steering wheel.

"Just hold it steady. We'll be in Allouette in ten minutes."

Stephen kept himself turned, his eyes on the truck, which had drawn to within a dozen yards of Marlee's rear b.u.mper. Sunlight hit the truck's windshield in a way that created a glare, and he couldn't see the driver.

"There's a straightaway coming up," Marlee said, a little desperately. "Maybe I should slow down. Maybe he just wants to pa.s.s."

"Okay," Stephen said. "Just a little, just to see what he does."

They came to a long, rare stretch of straight road. Marlee eased up on the accelerator, and the needle of the speedometer crept downward. The truck slowed, too, maintaining its dozen yards of separation.

"s.h.i.t," Marlee said.

The next thing Stephen knew, she had hit the gas and he was thrown back against the seat as the 4Runner shot ahead.

"Easy, Marlee," he said. "There's ice on these roads."

But she didn't seem to hear him. Her foot pressed harder on the accelerator, and the speedometer needle rocketed.

"Jesus, Marlee, slow down."

"You want him to kill us?" she said, her voice rising.

"If he doesn't, you will. Slow down."

But it was too late. Directly ahead of them was a hard curve to the right. Marlee tried to turn the wheel, but the pavement was slick with packed snow frozen hard into a glazed coating. The 4Runner swung sideways and kept going, off the road and into a growth of dead reeds that bordered the lake. When it hit the drag of the reeds, the car flipped, and Stephen saw the world spin. He heard Marlee scream, and her scream mixed with the screaming of metal against ice, and the vehicle was sliding over the frozen surface of Iron Lake. Shards flew against his face, and he didn't know if it was window gla.s.s or grated ice. He closed his eyes, and in a moment, everything stopped, and all Stephen heard then was a terrible, terrible silence.

His thinking cleared slowly. When it did, he understood that the 4Runner lay on its side. The driver's door was against the ice and the window gla.s.s was gone. Stephen was held in place by his seat belt; otherwise he'd have been lying on top of Marlee. He saw that her eyes were closed, and she wasn't moving.

"Marlee?"

He started to unfasten his seat belt but realized he needed to brace himself first so that he wouldn't tumble onto her. He settled into a more upright position, firmed his leg against the heater console, grabbed the door handle with his right hand, and with his left, clicked his belt free. He eased himself down so that he knelt against the ice through the empty window of the driver's door and leaned over Marlee. He touched her gently.

"Marlee?"

She didn't respond, but he could see that she was still breathing. That was a great relief.

Then he heard a sound that reminded him at first of the high-pitched whine laser weapons made in some sci-fi movies. It was like the 4Runner was the mothership, and laser beams shot out in all directions.

He knew what it really was, and adrenaline coursed into his bloodstream.

"Marlee," he said, desperately. "Marlee, we've got to get out of here."

Through the empty window under his knee, he saw the spiderweb begin to form across the ice. He reached for Marlee's seat belt lock and managed to free it a moment before the ice gave. The vehicle tilted forward. The front end, weighted by the engine, dipped into the water first. Somewhere in his frenzied thinking Stephen understood that he shouldn't move Marlee, that he might do her great harm, but with the gray water already eating the hood he had no other choice.

He wrapped his arms around her and tried to lift. For a slender woman, she seemed to weigh a ton. He succeeded in getting her into a sitting position, more or less, then looked upward at the blue sky on the other side of the pa.s.senger window, which was still intact, and realized that, with the engine off, he had no way to lower the gla.s.s. He let Marlee slump a moment, reached up, and tried to unlock the door, but the lock seemed jammed. He braced himself and tried to force the door open, pushing upward with all his strength. Useless. He felt the wet, icy grip of the lake on his boots. He glanced down and saw that Marlee was sitting in water that already covered her legs. He looked up at the window gla.s.s, formed a fist with his gloved right hand, drew back, and gave the punch everything he had. The window shattered in a rain of shards. Stephen knocked out the jagged edges. By the time he bent again to Marlee, the water had reached her chest. Her clothing was soaked, and that made her even heavier. He hooked his hands under her arms and tried to haul her up. He'd never lifted anything so heavy.

"Marlee," he croaked. "You've gotta help me."

But Marlee, though not dead, was dead to the world.

He saw the edge of the broken surface ice creeping up the windshield, a line three inches thick. Above it was blue sky, below it gray death. As the vehicle tilted ever more forward and downward, Marlee's weight shifted with it, and Stephen's stance, precarious at best, shifted as well. He tried to resettle himself, to find firm footing in the rising water, but his boots kept slipping from under him. He managed to keep Marlee's head above water, but it took all his strength, every ounce of it just for that.

He understood, in a moment that came to him with absolute clarity and a kind of high-voltage shock, that he could not save her. He still might be able to save himself by climbing out the window he'd broken, but in order to do that, he would have to abandon Marlee.

He wrapped his left arm around her body and held her up as best he could. With his right hand, he lifted her chin to keep it above the rising waterline. The cold rose around them both, like painful concrete, paralyzing him.

"I'm sorry, Marlee," he said and realized that he was crying.

Still, he didn't let go.