“What did you say?” Cork asked them generally.
It was Darla who finally spoke. “Sandy Parrant said Joe John showed up drunk for work at Great North the night he disappeared. He said they had words and he fired him. I believed it then. Because of the way Joe John had been. God help me, I believed it. But Joe John was murdered. He didn’t desert us. Sandy Parrant must have been lying.”
“And why would he lie except to cover up?” the priest finished.
Cork looked back at the boy. “How did you know he was at Harlan Lytton’s?”
“I went to his house yesterday,” Paul said. “I was on Lazarus. I had Aunt Wanda’s rifle. I was going to kill him.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Darla insisted. “My son’s not a killer.”
“We all are under the right circumstances, Darla,” Cork said. “Go on, Paul.”
“I came across the lake, through his woods. But he was just leaving. I saw his car heading down the drive.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“White.” Paul shrugged.
“Just white?”
“I saw it through the trees.”
“The man has a white vehicle of some kind,” St. Kawasaki said.
“A lot of people have white vehicles,” Cork pointed out. “Go on, Paul.”
“I tried to follow him, running Lazarus down in the ditch beside the road. When I saw him turn off onto County 16, I figured he must be headed for the Lytton place. It’s just about the only thing down that road. I caught the Glacier Trail. You know it cuts back of the Lytton property. So I got there ahead of him and hid in the trees. Only I didn’t see him. It was you I saw. I watched and waited and when you came out of that shed, I saw him hit you with a club or something. I thought he was going to kill you. I shot at him. But,” he added with a note of shame, “I missed.”
“He got away, and it was you I almost took a shot at,” Cork concluded. “I’m sorry, Paul.”
The young man shrugged and managed a slight grin. “S’okay.”
“You’re sure it was Parrant?”
“It had to be.”
“Did you see his face?”
“He was wearing a ski mask.”
“The white vehicle. Did you see it at Lytton’s?”
Paul shook his head, but said definitely, “It had to be him.”
“Had to be?” Cork let his voice go very hard. “Would you swear to that in court? Would you swear absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt it was Sandy Parrant who hit me?”
“Well-” Paul seemed confused by the sudden harshness in Cork’s voice. He looked at the floor a moment.
“Swear to it beyond a shadow of a doubt.” Cork pressed him.
“I guess I couldn’t,” Paul admitted.
“Cork, you’re saying you don’t think it was him?” Wanda asked, as if she couldn’t believe what she’d heard.
“We have no real proof of anything. Nothing that involves Parrant directly,” Cork replied. “It’s all pretty circumstantial at this point.”
“What about Vernon Blackwater’s confession?” Wanda demanded.
“Did he mention Parrant at all?”
“No, but the man had to know.”
“Isn’t it possible,” Cork offered, “that Joe John was drunk? Who knows why? And that Sandy did fire him and it had nothing to do with Joe John’s murder?”
“Cork-”
“Do you have any proof of anything that involves Sandy Parrant?” He waited. “I take it your silence means no. So, you’d condemn a man to death on the basis of speculation, is that it?”
“We didn’t condemn-” Wanda began.
“Your speculation put that rifle in Paul’s hands yesterday. For all we know, he might have ended up killing an innocent man.”
“I don’t believe that for a minute,” Wanda said. “Do you?”
“What I know is that we can fool ourselves into believing almost anything.” Cork turned to Paul. “You killed Harlan Lytton. How did that feel?”
“If you want me to say I’m sorry, I won’t,” Paul told him stubbornly.
“That’s not what I asked. How did it feel to kill a man?”
“Cork, please don’t,” Darla pleaded.
“Let him answer,” the priest said.
Cork went on, “I saw the man on the floor of his cabin. His heart was shattered, blown apart, but he was still alive. He was still alive when you were in the cabin, too, wasn’t he?”
The boy’s face was stone.
Cork stood up and crossed to the boy. He leaned close. “He was alive. There was a hole in his chest and blood everywhere and you couldn’t believe he could still be alive, but he was, wasn’t he? Did he look at you? Did he try to talk to you? Was his voice all choked with the sound of him dying? How was it, Paul? How was it watching the man you killed die?”
The corners of his mouth twitched. His lips trembled. “I… He
…”
“Did it feel good with the rifle in your hand and a man dying right there at your feet? Tell me how good it felt, Paul. Tell us all what a great feeling it was.”
A wounded look entered Paul LeBeau’s eyes. His face began to change. The hardness of the man melted like a wax mask, revealing the face of a child in great pain.
Cork pressed Paul harshly, “Go on. Tell us. Tell us all how good and honorable it felt.”
Tears appeared along his lower lids and in a moment began to trickle down his cheeks. “He looked at… me…”
Darla tried to put herself between Paul and Cork. “Don’t,” she begged.
Cork took Paul harshly by the shoulders and pulled him away from his mother. Darla grabbed for him, but the priest held her back. Cork made the boy look at him. “Did it make you feel like a man to see him die? Did it?”
The boy couldn’t speak. His voice was choked with sobbing. Finally he managed to say, “I’m sorry.”
“Look at me,” Cork ordered.
The boy raised his head.
“Once someone’s dead, being sorry doesn’t cut it. If you hit a man, you can apologize. If you destroy his property, you can pay him back. But if you take his life, there’s nothing you can ever do to make that right. Do you understand?”
“Paul-” Darla tried to break free of the priest, who held her tightly.
“Do you understand, Paul?”
The boy wept so much he couldn’t reply.
“You were ready to kill another man. A man who may be innocent. Could you live with that the rest of your life? Could you!”
The mission was filled with the sound of the boy’s weeping.
“Answer me!” Cork demanded.
“No,” the boy finally sobbed.
Cork, who’d kept Paul firmly at arm’s length, drew him close. He put his arms around him and held him tightly while the boy wept. “No,” Cork agreed gently. “And thank God for that.”
After a while, Paul pulled away and Cork let him return to his mother. The priest said quietly, “I guess that’s the truth of everything, Cork.”
“What are you going to do?” Wanda asked.
Cork looked them over and sighed heavily. “I’m not the sheriff anymore.” He said to Darla, “Keep Paul here a while longer, until this business is done for good.” To the priest he said, “How about a ride to my Bronco.”
“Cork.” Wanda touched his arm. “Migwech.” Thanks.
St. Kawasaki stepped outside with Cork. The sun had dropped below the treeline and the snow across the meadow was a soft blue-white. The air was turning colder.
“I didn’t know about Paul at Lytton’s place yesterday,” the priest said. “I feel responsible.”
“Paul’s responsible for his own actions. He knows it.” Cork picked up his rifle from where it leaned against the mission wall. “Thanks,” he said to Tom Griffin.
“For what?”
“Holding Darla. Letting me work with Paul.”
“It was hard, but easier on him than the legal system. He’s a fine young man.” The priest took a deep breath. “So, what now?”
“Now I get what I need to put a real son of a bitch in his place.”
“You have something on Parrant?”
“I think I probably do.”
“And you’ll be able to keep all this out of it?”
“Whatever happens, they’re safe,” he said, nodding toward the mission. He opened the door of Wanda Manydeeds’s old truck. “I feel exhausted. Is this what you feel like after hearing a confession?”