Vermilion Drift: A Novel by William Kent Krueger

Author:William Kent Krueger [Krueger, William Kent]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Suspense, Mystery & Detective, Fiction
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2010-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FIVE

Given what Cork now knew, he believed that Isaiah Broom’s long-lost relative, Indigo, was a very likely suspect in the disappearance of the women on the Iron Lake Reservation more than forty years earlier. It struck him as odd that Indigo Broom’s name had never been mentioned during the investigation Cork’s father had conducted. Cork had made the connection with relative ease. Why hadn’t his father? Or the other people on the rez?

He thought about these things as he drove back to Aurora, and before he reached the town limits, he’d arrived at some very speculative conclusions.

Indigo Broom and Monique Cavanaugh had disappeared at approximately the same time, and the Vanishings had stopped. Broom was a man of desires dark enough to be feared, even by his own people. Cork might have suspected that Indigo Broom was responsible for the fate of Monique Cavanaugh except for one salient detail: his father’s .38 Smith & Wesson Police Special may well have been the weapon used to kill her. He knew, too, that Cavanaugh was a woman of dark desires and devious motives, which she’d hidden well from others, but not from the priest and probably not from her husband, who refused to speak of her once she was gone. Could she, too, have played some part in the Vanishings?

It was entirely possible, probable even, Cork concluded, that the Anishinaabeg of the Iron Lake Reservation had not been as ignorant as the official reports of the investigation seemed to indicate, nor had his father.

But why had they all lied?

And how had a bullet from his father’s gun come to be lodged in the spine of Monique Cavanaugh? If he knew that, maybe Cork would know how a bullet from the same weapon had found its way into the body of her daughter.

As he pulled into town, his cell phone rang. Sheriff Dross. She told him that she’d scheduled another news conference for the afternoon. She wanted everyone in her office beforehand, at 2:00 P.M., so that she knew where all the parts of the investigation stood.

Cork stopped by home, grabbed a quick bologna sandwich, and took Trixie for a short walk. Then he headed to the Tamarack County sheriff’s office. He was the last to arrive. In addition to Dross, there were the other usuals: Captain Ed Larson, Agent Simon Rutledge, and Agent Susan Upchurch. Once again, there weren’t enough chairs, so Cork leaned against a wall.

“Susan,” Dross said to the BCA agent, “why don’t you give us an update on what you’ve found so far.”

“All right. Remember the marks on the bones that I indicated earlier could have been made by incisions or by the teeth of a scavenger? I’ve pretty much concluded that they’re the result of a knife blade. I also believe they were delivered perimortem.”

“Perimortem?” Cork asked.

“At or very near the time of death.”

“What makes you believe that?” Larson said.

“In perimortem wounds, the edges of the bone along the incision often curl, like if you’d cut into a live branch that you’ve pulled off a tree.

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