Heaven's Keep (9 page)

“You’re a big help, Dewey. Thanks.”

Cork passed the news along to the others, then called Sarah LeDuc and did the same.

The next call came at one thirty.

“Cork, it’s Dewey. Look, I have some bad news. Or maybe it’s not bad, I don’t know. They’ve reached the wreckage. It’s not the plane your wife was on. It’s a small Cessna that went missing five years ago, flown by a real estate broker from Rawlins. We spent a good long time looking for it then, but the search was centered much farther south. The team’s found human remains, which they’ll be bringing down. We’ve notified the pilots who’ve been helping with the current search, and they’re going back into the air just as soon as they can. I’m sorry, Cork.”

“Thanks, Dewey. I appreciate the call.”

They all watched him expectantly. Cork braced himself and forced a smile. “Good news,” he said. “It wasn’t Jo’s plane.” He explained, trying to give the news the best possible spin. But after they’d heard, they seemed to sit a little lower, more heavily weighted than before. Hope was like that, Cork knew. It could be crueler than despair.

“I’m going to get a little fresh air,” he said.

He went out onto the porch. The branches of the elm in the front yard had long ago been stripped bare, and the shadow they cast on the lawn made the ground look fractured. The air was cool and full of the scent of woodsmoke from the blaze in someone’s fireplace. It would have been a beautiful day if not for the worry that dragged on all Cork’s thinking.

Mal came out. “I haven’t wanted a cigarette in years,” he said.
“Right now I’d kill for one.” He leaned against the porch railing. “You’re leaving for the airport in a couple of hours and you still haven’t said a thing to the kids about going to Wyoming.”

“You think I don’t know that?” When Cork heard the venom in his own voice, he apologized to Mal. Then he confessed, “I can’t bring myself to tell Stephen.”

“Take him with you.”

“That’s not a good idea, Mal.”

“Why? Look, Cork, you can leave Rose and the girls. They have each other. For Stephen, you’re it. And he’s dying to be out there helping. You go and leave him behind, well, that’d be one big mistake, in my opinion.”

The sun had dropped low enough to shoot fire at their feet, and they stood in a puddle that burned bright yellow on the porch boards.

Cork said, “It would be easier to operate if I were on my own.”

“Maybe. But listen. One of the things you’ve told me about your father’s death is that you’ve always felt there was something more you could have done. If Jo is lost to us for good, if ultimately that’s what we all have to face, wouldn’t you rather that Stephen faces it believing he did everything he could? Wouldn’t you want to believe it of yourself?”

For a few long moments, Cork stared at the fire around his feet, then he decided. “Thanks, Mal. Let’s go in and give them the word.”

They didn’t respond immediately when Cork told them he was going. He didn’t know exactly what that meant.

“I think it’s important to be there,” he said.

“Are you going alone?” Jenny asked.

“No. I’d like to take Stephen with me. Is that okay with you, buddy?”

Stephen looked surprised, then he looked brighter than he had in days. “Heck, yes.”

Cork said to his daughters, “Are you two okay with that?”

The girls looked at each other.

Jenny said, “I’m totally cool with it.”

“It’s a terrific idea,” Annie said.

“It’s settled then.”

Stephen jumped up and headed for the stairs. “I’ve gotta pack.”

It wasn’t as simple as Cork had hoped. Nothing was simple anymore. There were no seats left on the flight he was taking. He got off the phone ready to put his fist through the kitchen wall.

Rose, who’d been sitting at the table with her rosary, said, “What about Mr. Parmer?”

“What about him?”

“He offered to help, didn’t he? And you told me, didn’t you, that he’s got his own plane?”

It was a slim hope, but Cork was desperate. He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and plucked out the business card Hugh Parmer had given him. He noted the cell phone number, then turned the card lengthwise so that it again resembled a door. He made the call.

“Fly you and the boy to Wyoming? No problem at all, Cork,” Parmer said without a moment’s hesitation. “Glad I can be of help. I’ve got a couple of details to tie up here. If we flew out first thing in the morning, would that do? I could have you in Wyoming in time for breakfast.”

Cork would have preferred flying out that evening but knew that if they did they’d arrive in the dead of night and couldn’t do anything anyway.

“That would be fine, Hugh,” he said. “Thanks.”

“I’ll drop by around five
A.M
. to pick you up. That ought to get us to the Duluth airport for takeoff about sunrise.”

Cork put the phone down. If he’d just sold his soul to Parmer, he was surprised how little he cared. The truth was that, in the midst of so much need, what he felt most was an abundance of gratitude.

When darkness brought the search to an end in Wyoming that evening, Dewey Quinn called Cork to tell him that nothing had been found. Cork didn’t tell the deputy he was coming. He figured Quinn would do his best to argue him out of it and the conversation would end up awkward for them both.

He called Sarah LeDuc, told her his plan, and promised to keep her informed. He also called Marsha Dross, who said she’d been expecting as much and wished him good luck. Finally he called Stephen’s teacher and cleared his absence from school for a few more days. He drove to
Sam’s Place and spent some time at the Quonset hut finishing a few details related to his PI business. He locked up and stood outside under a night sky that was slowly filling with stars. He walked to the end of the old dock. The water around the pilings was still and black. Far across the lake, the glimmer of lights from isolated cabins marked the distant shoreline. He remembered a night, years before, when he’d stood in this same spot with Jo. They’d been through hell. Their marriage had been chipped and broken and ready to fall apart. Yet under the sky that night, with the stars of heaven as their only witnesses, they’d made a vow to each other that had been sacred and true and binding. That night, far more powerfully than on the day they were wed, they pledged their lives to each other, their fortunes, their hearts, and their destinies.

Now, as he stood alone under that same sky, he made another vow.

“Wherever you are, I’ll find you, Jo. And I swear to God, I’ll bring you home.”

A
t night the emptiness of his bed drove Cork to the sofa, where he slept with the television tuned to CNN. He drifted between sleep and fevered dreams that were often driven by the reports from the news channel. Each time he woke, he remembered almost nothing except that the landscapes were bleak.

A little after 3:00
A.M
., he was awakened by the sense that he was not alone, and he opened his eyes to find Rose sitting in the rocker. She had a throw around her shoulders, one she’d knitted as a birthday present for Jo. The only light came from the television, and in the constant shift of that hard glow Rose rocked gently back and forth.

Cork sat up.

“A woman and her daughter tried to escape,” Rose said.

“What woman?” Cork struggled to bring himself fully awake.

“From the compound in Kansas. They shot them as they ran.”

“The police?”

“Someone from the compound.” She wiped her eye, dealing quietly with a tear. “The girl was only ten years old. What kind of religious community kills its mothers and its children?”

Cork had no answer for that.

“Here I am praying for Jo and for all of us. I should be praying for them, too, I suppose. Sometimes it just seems there can never be enough prayers.” She took a deep breath and exhaled. “You were talking in your sleep.”

“What did I say?”

“Nothing I could understand. It sounded angry.”

That was probably right. He was afraid, and long ago he’d come to understand that translating fear into anger helped him deal with situations that threatened to paralyze him.

“Rose, I don’t know if going out there will do any good.”

“You have to go, though. You have to act, Cork. It’s what you do best.”

“What about you?”

“I pray. It’s what I do best.”

In what quiet comfort they could draw from each other’s company, they sat until Stephen came downstairs with his suitcase. He looked at his watch.

“Mr. Parmer will be here in an hour, Dad. Have you even packed?”

“Last night.”

“Should we, like, wait out front?”

“It’s a little early for that.”

“Maybe some breakfast first,” Rose suggested, rising.

“That would be awesome, Aunt Rose.”

Stephen dropped his bag by the front door, then stood at the window staring eagerly into a morning that still looked very much like night, as if he was trying hard to hurry the dawn. Cork showered, dressed, and brought his own suitcase downstairs. Mal was up now, too, drinking coffee in the kitchen and helping Rose. Stephen sat at the table, doing a lot of damage to a stack of pancakes. The girls came down a few minutes later. And shortly after that, Hugh Parmer arrived.

Cork introduced Parmer, and they all made a fuss of thanks, which Parmer accepted in a genuinely humble fashion. Stephen was eager to be off, so they were quickly and cleanly on their way to the Duluth airport in the dark of a very early November morning. Cork had cautioned Parmer to watch for deer, who were crepuscular creatures, apt to be lurking along the road as dawn approached. They made it to the airport without incident. Just as the sun began to rise over the vast inland sea of Lake Superior, Parmer’s Learjet lifted off the ground, made a long curl to the west, and headed toward Wyoming.

After Stephen grew tired of looking out the window at the earth
thirty thousand feet below, he turned to his host and asked, “Do you own this jet?”

“Yep.” Parmer sat with a cup of coffee in his hand. “Lock, stock, and twin Honeywell engines.”

“It must’ve cost like a million dollars.”

“Several, Stephen. But in my work I need the freedom that having my own set of wings gives me.”

“You build things, right? I mean like condominiums and stuff.”

“Communities, Stephen. I develop communities.”

“Dad says you’re planning on trashing the shore along Iron Lake.”

“Sorry, Hugh,” Cork said.

Parmer laughed. “One man’s vision may be another’s nightmare, son. Your dad and I have a lot of talking to do. I think we’ve finished dealing through intermediaries. I believe we’ll be working face-to-face on this from now on, man to man, which is the best way to do business, I think. But we’re going to worry about that later. Right now you and your dad have more pressing concerns.”

Stephen studied the interior of the Lear with continued admiration. “Maybe we could use your jet to look for Mom.”

“I think you’ll want something that maneuvers in and out of those mountains a little better. I’ll bet we can arrange for that.”

“We?” Cork said.

“Manner of speaking. But when I offered to help in any way I could, I wasn’t just blowing smoke, Cork. If you want to arrange for your own aircraft in the search out there, you do that. Have ’em bill it to me.”

“That’s a lot more than I intended when I asked for your help, Hugh.”

“And little enough for me to give.”

Stephen said, “Were you always rich?”

“Nope. Grew up in West Texas working on the same spread where my father was a ranch hand. That’s how I started out.”

“How’d you get rich?”

“The truth is that I married the rancher’s daughter. Didn’t do it because she was rich. I loved that woman with all my heart.”

“Still married?” Cork asked.

“’Fraid not. Lost Julia almost twenty years ago to a drunk driver.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’d think that after twenty years I’d get used to the idea.” He looked out the window of the plane. “I hope you find your wife, Cork. I truly do.”

The flight was smooth and uneventful, and shortly before ten o’clock the Lear touched down on a runway of the regional airport in Cody, Wyoming.

Cork had called ahead and arranged for a rental car, a Jeep Wrangler. After he confirmed that it was waiting, he and Stephen said good-bye to Hugh Parmer. They shook hands, and Parmer said, “I’m heading home, but if I hear that there was some way I could’ve helped and you didn’t ask me, I’ll be well and truly pissed.”

“I’ll be sure to let you know,” Cork said. “Hugh, I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

“We’ll be talking,” Parmer said. He ruffed Stephen’s hair. “Your old man’s lucky to have you along for backup. Keep him out of trouble, okay?”

“I will,” Stephen said earnestly.

“And, son,” Parmer added. “I sincerely hope you find your mother.”

They drove southeast toward the Bighorn River, into a basin from which they could see the Absarokas to the west. The mountains were completely covered with snow, and at one point Stephen said solemnly, “They look like the teeth of a wolf.” They drove between irrigated fields, where great rolls of hay lay wrapped in black plastic and wore a mantle of snow. They drove through rocky hills dotted with prickly pear cactus. They saw ranch houses in the distance, isolated, lonely-looking places, and spotted cattle grazing near gullies lined with cottonwoods. The farther south they drove the more rugged the land became, marked by the rise of long escarpments whose sharp cliffs were red as open wounds. Cork was surprised how little snow there was in the Bighorn Basin, in some places not much more than a dusting.

After an hour and a half, they came to Hot Springs, which proved
to be a large town perched on the high ground at a bend in the Bighorn. On the far side of the river, steamy vapor drifted up from yellow pools. Hot Springs had an old western feel to it, a community carved out of rock and bedded in sand. It was, in a way, colorful. Blue sky, blue river, blue-white mountains, red rock, yellow springs. The day was warm, the temperature in the high forties. In the hills above town lay pockets of snow, but in Hot Springs itself most of what had fallen had already melted away. They drove directly to the courthouse, an old building of tan brick, and they parked in the lot of the annex, a newer two-story addition that housed the Owl Creek County Sheriff’s Department and the county jail. Also parked in the lot were news vans from stations in Casper and Cheyenne with satellite dishes on top. Cork and Stephen went inside and found themselves in a small waiting area, empty at the moment, with two inner doors. One door was marked
JAIL
, the other
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
. There was a public contact window so dark Cork couldn’t see what was on the other side. He walked to the window and spoke into the small grate embedded in the glass.