Free Windigo Island by William Kent Krueger Page B

might well have been a monster she could never have imagined.
    About Carrie Verga, he knew next to nothing, but he couldn’t help believing that the fates of the two girls were entwined. It seemed not at all coincidental that they’d been friends and thenhad disappeared at the same time. Runaways? But for the fact of Carrie Verga’s body washing up onshore so near to Bayfield, he would have said yes. Her death, however, and all the uncertainty of how she came to be in the lake cast a lethal shadow over every question, every consideration.
    He scanned the patrons of Maggie’s, enjoying their lunches and their conversations and their summer day in this little resort community. They all looked typical and normal. And that was, Cork knew, the advantage of real evil. On the surface, it often looked so ordinary. It was only when you’d finally cut your way to the heart of the darkness that you saw the ugly thing the ordinary smile masked.

Chapter 10
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    A t a convenience store in Bad Bluff, Cork was directed to the tribal police department, which shared space on the main highway with the tribal fire department. There was a single cruiser parked in the lot. The place seemed deserted at first, but as soon as Cork entered, a uniformed officer stepped from a doorway along one wall. Behind him was a large garage area, and Cork could see the cab of a fire engine. The officer was tall, with brown hair and green eyes, and if he was Indian, not much of that blood showed in his features. The name badge above the right breast pocket of his uniform read CAPT. BIGBOY .
    “Afternoon, Captain,” Cork said.
    “Afternoon.” The officer came forward, using a rag to wipe what looked like engine grease from his hands. “What can I do for you?”
    “My name’s Cork O’Connor.” He held out his business card. The officer took it, read it, seemed just as underwhelmed as most cops were in the presence of a private investigator. “I’ve been asked by the family of Mariah Arceneaux to look into her disappearance.”
    “That was a year ago.” Bigboy handed the card back. There was a greasy, black thumbprint across most of Cork’s name. “The trail on Mariah’s pretty cold.”
    “With the discovery of Carrie Verga’s body, the family’s quite concerned.”
    “They shoulda been concerned a year ago.”
    “They weren’t?”
    “First I heard of it was when the Bayfield County sheriff’s investigator paid me a call. He was looking into the disappearance of Carrie Verga. Told me she’d vanished along with the Arceneaux girl.”
    “The Arceneaux family didn’t report her gone?”
    “Nope. After I spoke with the sheriff’s investigator, I checked around and found out Mariah had been talking about quitting the rez for a while. Pretty clear what we were dealing with. Kids here run away all the time. They wouldn’t be Indian if they didn’t.” He smiled as if it were a small joke. Very small. “The rez isn’t a place many kids want to spend their lives.”
    “Ambition drives them away?”
    “That. A bad home life. Money. Sometimes just for kicks they run off. So I figured it was one of those. But I also figured Mariah’d come back. More often than not they do.”
    “Now that Carrie Verga’s body has washed up, any other ideas?”
    “She’s not the first unusual thing to wash up on that island. We’ve seen boat wreckage wash ashore there. Found an arm a few years back, a human arm. Never figured out where it came from. If you’re inclined to believe old stories, that island’s kind of a magnet for evil.”
    “You believe that?”
    “What I know is that there are strong currents that run between these islands, and Windigo Island is smack in the middle of one. Makes perfect sense things are going to wash up there.”
    “From where? Where would a body have to go into the lake to end up here?”
    “I couldn’t say.”
    “Did you investigate at all?”
    He shook his head. “Bayfield sheriff’s jurisdiction.” He