He also studied the house itself and was concerned at how flimsy a structure it really was and about all the ways someone could break into it. He puzzled over why they might want to do that and wondered, for the umpteenth time, if there was something that Stella or Marlee knew but wasn’t telling. When Stella returned, she’d cleaned all the makeup from her face and brushed her hair. Although she was clearly tired, she looked collected and focused. And, he couldn’t help noticing, attractive in a very natural way.
“I think you should call someone,” he suggested.
“I’ll be all right.” She dropped onto the sofa. “I still have to figure how to get my car out of that damn lake.”
“Leonard Kingbird. He winches two or three vehicles out every year, ice fishermen with more enthusiasm than sense.”
He watched Stella sip her water. She’d changed out of the clothes she’d worn to work, the tight black top that hugged her breasts, the black slacks that showed off the nice curves below her waist. She had on a soft green turtleneck, faded jeans, and white socks.
“Got a way to get to work in the meantime?” he asked.
“I’ll figure it out,” she said. And he knew she would. She’d been figuring her way around adversity all her life.
“Stella, you’re right,” he said.
She looked at him, her brown eyes large with question. “About what?”
“That Marlee isn’t safe until we know who was driving that truck. You’re not safe either. We need to decide what to do about that.”
“We?”
“You asked me to help, remember? I’m not backing out. I have a personal stake in this now, too.”
“Stephen,” she said with a little nod. “He’s like you, you know.” She smiled, glanced down, almost shyly. “He wouldn’t leave Marlee.”
Cork was sitting in an easy chair on the other side of the coffee table. He set his bottle of water on the table and leaned toward her. “If I’m going to help you, you have to trust me, Stella.”
She seemed puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“Someone killed Dexter to send you a pretty brutal message. And then they went after Marlee. This kind of thing doesn’t happen out of the blue.”
“The hell it doesn’t.”
He thought about Charles Devine and knew she was right. But Devine was an isolated case, a crime of opportunity. Someone had planned to kill Dexter, and someone had followed and harassed Marlee. There was motive in what might seem like madness.
“You’re absolutely certain that you don’t know any reason someone would be targeting you?” he asked.
“I told you I don’t. Look, Cork, this trust thing has to go both ways.”
“You’re right,” he said. “You’re right. What about Marlee?”
“What about her?”
“Could she be keeping something from you?”
“She could be, but I don’t think she is. She’s got a little wild in her, but not like me. Or at least not like I did at her age. She’s got a good head on her shoulders. Especially after today, if there was something I should know, she’d tell me. And she hasn’t.”
Cork finished his bottled water, thinking. “There’s something we’re not considering. I just don’t know what it is.”
“Hungry?” Stella asked suddenly.
He was. He hadn’t eaten in forever, and he was famished. “Yeah, I am.”
“Let me see what I can offer.”
She got up and disappeared into the kitchen. He heard her open the refrigerator, and a couple of moments later, she called, “How about an omelet?”
“Works for me.”
He brought her bottle of spring water, still half full, and his own, empty, to the kitchen.
“Another?” she asked.
“I’m fine. Anything I can do to help?”
“You can chop this up.” She handed him an onion.
They worked together. Stella talked about Marlee, and he talked about Stephen, and it felt oddly comfortable, all this domesticity. They ate at the dinette, then Stella stacked the dishes.
“Be glad to dry while you wash,” Cork offered.
“I’ll tackle them tomorrow,” she said. “I’m bushed.” She leaned back against the counter and eyed him enigmatically. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“You said you weren’t going to leave me here alone. How’re you going to do that?”
“You’re sure Shorty’s not coming?”
“He’d be here by now,” she said. “He had the best of intentions, I’m sure. Uncle Shorty always does. But he probably started in on his Jack Daniel’s a lot earlier than he intended, and he’s lying on his bed, shitfaced.”
“How about I sleep on your couch?”
“All right with me, but what about your girlfriend?”
“It won’t be that kind of sleepover.”
“Try telling that to Rainy when she hears about it.”
“It’ll be fine.”
She shook her head in a way that suggested he was hopelessly naive and said, “Your funeral.”
He called home, explained, and said he’d be back in the morning. By the time he ended the call, Stella had some folded sheets, an old quilt, and a pillow sitting on the sofa.
“I don’t have a toothbrush to offer,” she said.
“I’ll survive.”
“All right.”
He expected her to leave then, but she didn’t. Instead, she studied him in the lamplight, as if trying to come to some decision. Finally she said, “I almost lost my kids. Down in Minneapolis, before I got sober. But I met some elders in the Little Earth community there, and they hooked me up with good people at the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center. They saved my life. One of the things they all helped me believe was that I could make something of myself. They encouraged me to get my GED, and I did. For the last five years, I’ve been taking classes at Aurora Community College, a few credits at a time. Last summer I graduated. An Associate Arts degree. Did you know that?”
“No.”
“I’ve applied to St. Scholastica down in Duluth, their online program, to go for my bachelor’s degree.” Her eyes became dark and fierce. “Everyone on the rez still thinks of me like they did back when there was nothing to me but wild. Hell, tending bar hasn’t done a lot to change their opinion. But I’m not going to be a bartender for the rest of my life. I don’t want that to be how my kids or anyone else thinks of me. Just a bartender. I want Hector and Marlee to be proud of me.”
“I’d guess they already are.” And then Cork, who had a pretty good idea of the difficulty of the road she’d traveled, said, “I hope you are, too, Stella. I think whatever it is you want to do with your life, you’ll get there.”
“You really think so?”
“I wouldn’t have said if I didn’t believe it.”
She said, quietly, “I want to be a teacher.”
“Of what?”
“I’m not sure yet. Maybe history. I like the idea of teaching the past so that we have a better chance of not repeating our mistakes. Believe me, mistakes are something I know about.” She offered him a wisp of a smile, then looked down. “I’ve never told anyone all of this. Not even Marlee.” She gave a little laugh, a small sound, mostly air. “That trust thing you talked about? Maybe we’re there.”
“I’d like to think so,” Cork said.
Stella opened her mouth, about to speak again, but seemed to think better of it, gave her head a slight shake as if to clear her mind, and finally turned away. “Well, good night,” she said as she left him.
Cork checked the doors and windows, turned out the kitchen light, and made up the sofa. Before he lay down, he scanned the room, found nothing to his liking, returned to the kitchen, and brought back a heavy rolling pin-terribly cliche, he knew, but that’s all there was-and tucked it in beside him when he lay down. He listened to the sounds of the house, heard Stella in the bathroom, heard her walk to her bedroom, heard the door close, and after that, heard only the sound of the winter wind outside, sliding across the clearing and into the trees.