Tamarack County: A Novel Part 19

"Always this quiet, Stephen?" Skye finally asked.

The question seemed to come out of nowhere, mostly because Stephen had been off for a while in his own head, having a stern imaginary conversation with this intruder from California.

Skye put down the winegla.s.s she was holding and turned her whole self toward him. "Or is there something you'd like to talk about?"

It was so pointed an opening that he knew exactly what she meant. And although he'd been primed all evening for a confrontation, he said, "Nothing."

Jenny said, "Stephen, it's okay to talk about it."

"In fact," Skye said, "I wish you would. It's easier if everything's on the table."

"There's nothing easy about this," Stephen shot back. "Who do you think you are?"

"Someone who loves your sister very much."

"Annie's a . . . a . . ."

"A woman?"

"A nun!"

"Not yet, she isn't, Stephen," Skye said gently.

"Not ever, if you have your way."

"You must be pretty strong in your faith to care so much about Annie's vocation."

"It's not about my faith. It's about what we're called to do. Annie was called a long time ago. She's known since she was a little kid that she'd be a nun."

"Or the first female quarterback for Notre Dame," Skye said. "Doesn't that tell you something?"

"This isn't about her being a lesbian," Stephen said. "Honest to G.o.d, that doesn't matter to me. She could prefer polar bears for all I care. The thing is that when you're called to a higher purpose, you don't just turn your back when the first temptation comes along."

Skye folded her napkin and set it beside her plate. She seemed to be considering her words carefully. "Stephen, I don't think of myself as just some temptation." She leaned nearer. "Is there a young woman you like a lot? Someone very special to you?"

Stephen thought instantly of Marlee and was ashamed that with the same thought came the image of those haunting b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"I can see there is," Skye said. "What if some guy made a play for her, tried to take her away from you? What would you do?"

"G.o.d's not just some guy."

"I'm not religious, Stephen, so to me that's exactly who he is. And not just some guy, but a myth. Annie, on the other hand, is very real to me, and I love her with all my heart."

"Then you won't try to interfere with what she's doing out at Crow Point."

"What is she doing, Stephen?"

Jenny, who'd been quiet in this long exchange, said, "I can tell you that, Skye. We had a long talk today. She's struggling, struggling like she never has before. She's told you about the school shooting here?"

"School shooting?"

"It was headline news five years ago. When Annie was a senior, her best friend was killed by a kid on a rampage at our high school. He was going to kill Annie, too, but G.o.d intervened. At least, that's how Annie has always seen it. That experience turned her from trying to be a quarterback at Notre Dame to spending her life in the service of others, and doing it as a nun."

"You didn't know?" Stephen said, making his voice purposely incredulous. "And you're supposed to be so close to her."

"It was an important turning point in her life," Jenny went on. "The important turning point. And she's never doubted her journey since. Until now."

Skye sat back, looking a little stunned. "I didn't know." But only a moment later, a defiant fire came into her eyes. "But I do know about your aunt Rose and her husband, Mal. Annie's told me they're very happy together, and that they don't feel guilty at all that he left the priesthood to marry her. She said they both figure G.o.d had a different vocation in mind for them. So why not for her?"

Jenny said, "I can't answer that. Only Annie can. I think Stephen's point is that it's a consideration maybe best done alone."

"And I'm an interference?"

"A distraction," Jenny said.

Skye said, "I think I'd better go," and she stood up.

"There's dessert," Jenny offered.

Skye looked at them both, and although Stephen didn't care for her presence, he wasn't blind to the struggle he could see on her face. "I've never been in love like this before. I don't know what I'm going to do, but if I decide I can't let Annie go, I'll do everything I can to keep her. And, Stephen, if that makes me a monster in your eyes, we'll both just have to live with that."

Jenny saw her to the door, and Stephen heard them exchange words, but too quietly for him to make them out. When Skye had gone, Jenny came back to the table and sat down. "In the end, Stephen, it's Annie's life. And you and me and Dad, we have no more right to interfere with her decision than Skye does. I think her question to you was valid, and one you ought to think about."

"What question?"

"How would you feel if someone tried to take Marlee away?"

But Stephen already knew the answer to that. Someone had tried it, someone in a green, mud-spattered pickup. And, afterward, all Stephen had wanted to do was shoot the b.a.s.t.a.r.d dead.

CHAPTER 25.

For dinner, Stella Daychild heated up a couple of cans of Campbell's tomato soup, made some grilled cheese sandwiches with Velveeta, and opened a bag of Old Dutch potato chips. For dessert, she offered Oreo cookies and vanilla ice cream, but Cork pa.s.sed on that and settled for a cup of strong black coffee.

Marlee ate with them but seemed tired through the whole meal and said very little. When it was over, she laid herself down on the sofa, turned on the television, and was soon sound asleep.

"The painkillers," Stella explained. "She'll be dead to the world for hours."

Stella wore a tight black sweater and tight indigo jeans. The whole evening, Cork had had trouble keeping his eyes off her, which made him uncomfortable on two counts. First of all, he didn't think of himself as a guy who ogled women; and second, there was Rainy. He didn't know what was going on with him, exactly, though loneliness was a part of it. Hormones, too, probably. And could it be, he wondered, that he was looking for a little salve to ease the sting of what felt to him like abandonment by Rainy?

Stella wasn't oblivious to his interest. Carrying the dinner plates to the kitchen, she smiled back when she caught him eyeing her.

Cork did his best to keep things professional, and once Marlee was asleep, he turned the conversation to the issues at hand.

"How has Ray Jay been since all that hullabaloo about the Cecil LaPointe case?" he asked.

Stella shrugged. "The truth is I don't see much of him. We didn't grow up close. He keeps to himself. If he didn't have Dexter, he . . ." She hesitated, decided not to complete that thought. "I guess the answer is that, as far as I could see, he was fine."

"No threats that you know of?"

"If I knew about them, I would have told you by now." She was about to sip from her coffee mug when she seemed to understand the thrust of his questioning. "You think someone killed Dexter because of what Ray Jay did twenty years ago?"

"Everything happens for a reason. When it's an extraordinary sort of happening, you're willing to look at extraordinary reasons. The LaPointe case may be an old one, but two years ago it got a new twist. So it's something to think about."

"Who'd even care?"

"Cecil LaPointe, for one."

"But he says he did it. He killed that girl. And he says he's okay with being in prison for it."

"What a man says isn't always the truth. In my experience, it's what he does that counts."

"You think he killed Dexter? Because of what Ray Jay did twenty years ago?"

"It's the only connection that I can see at the moment."

"But Cecil LaPointe is still in prison."

"So obviously it wasn't him. If he's behind it, he had some help."

"Who?"

"There's something I haven't told you, something I learned today from Carson Manydeeds. He's pretty sure he saw the guy who left Dexter's head in Ray Jay's apartment. He didn't get a clear look at him but did see that he was driving a pickup."

Her eyes shot fire. "A green pickup?"

"Carson couldn't say. What I do know about LaPointe is that he's got no family here. His mother was from White Earth and his father was a Cree from somewhere in Canada. Quebec, I think. He had dual citizenship, as I recall."

"Indians have trucks, and we're less than a day's drive from White Earth," Stella pointed out.

"Okay, it's possible this guy is some relation. But I remember that during the entire trial, LaPointe never had any family in the courtroom. The man you saw at the casino bar, the one you think followed you to the rez, did he look like a Shinn.o.b?"

She shook her head. "But a lot of Shinn.o.bs I know don't look Indian at all." She thought a moment. "Can you talk to Cecil LaPointe?"

"I tried two years ago, when all h.e.l.l was breaking loose over Ray Jay's confession. He wouldn't see me. Wouldn't see anyone."

"But if he is responsible, why? Why would he say he's guilty and then try to get back at Ray Jay?"

"Do you think Ray Jay lied when he told his version of what happened that night?" Cork asked.

"Well, no. But Ray Jay never said he saw who killed the girl, only that he suspected it was Harmon."

"Do you think your older brother was capable of murder?"

Stella frowned, and a small dimple appeared between her brows as she considered the question. "I remember when Harmon was drinking he sometimes went into uncontrollable rages. And from what Ray Jay said, it sounds like there was plenty of drinking going on. And other things."

"Did you know Cecil LaPointe?"

"No. But I have a feeling I know White Eagle."

She got up, went down the hallway, and came back with a book in her hand, which she laid on the table near Cork. The t.i.tle was The Wisdom of White Eagle. Cork knew the book well. It had been written nearly a decade earlier by Cecil LaPointe, who claimed that he channeled a spirit named White Eagle. The book was an examination of the spiritual path as elucidated by that spirit. It had created a kind of sensation when it came out-a book about the freedom of the soul written by a man incarcerated, for all intents and purposes, for the rest of his life, and based on wisdom handed down from another plane of existence. White Eagle Societies had sprung up all over the country, cutting across cultural boundaries. They'd been especially popular among prison populations. The man Cork had known as Otter LaPointe had become a guru of sorts.

"Have you read this?" Stella asked.

"Yes."

"Do you think the man who wrote this is a murderer?"

"If you believe LaPointe, he didn't write it. He simply transcribed it."

Stella rolled her eyes. "You sound like a lawyer."

"Life changes us," Cork said. "LaPointe's probably not the same man he was twenty years ago, but that doesn't mean he's not still capable of murder."

"And I thought I was cynical," she said.

"It's not cynicism. It's healthy skepticism."

"Whatever." She slid the book away, so there was nothing between them, and she leaned toward him, leaned very near. "If what you're thinking is true, there's something I don't understand."

"What's that?"

"Why me and Marlee and Dexter? Why not just wait until Ray Jay gets out of jail and do something to him then?"

It was a good question, one for which Cork didn't have an answer, and he told her so. She looked scared, and he reached across the table, took her hands in his, and said, "It's going to be all right, Stella. I promise I'll make sure that you're safe until this is all finished."

She gazed at his hands folded over hers, and when she looked up at him next, she'd changed, changed so subtly and in so many ways that Cork couldn't have put a finger on any one specifically, but he felt the difference as surely as he might have sensed a shift in the air that told him new weather was about to appear on the horizon.

"Do you trust intuitions?" she asked.

"I don't discount them," he answered.

"Good, because I have a feeling about something."

His mouth had gone a little dry. "What?"

"That you didn't come here just to protect Marlee and me."

"I didn't?"

"No." She looked deeply into his eyes, and her voice became velvet. "My intuition tells me that you came here looking for something."