Purgatory Ridge (26 page)

“Go ahead. But just use the phone.”

When he was sheriff, Cork had believed that in a frightening situation, the presence of law enforcement was a comforting influence. He looked around him as he headed away from the living room, looked at the people who were going about their jobs, following established procedures, but who, in reality, were just as ignorant as he. Any comfort they offered was at best an illusion. At worst, it was something akin to a prayer for the dead.

T
HEY WERE ON A LOGGING ROAD
—an old one, seldom used. Jo knew it from the way the vehicle that transported them dipped and jumped and from how often and hard the man who drove it braked, then slowly maneuvered right or left. Jo imagined the headlights slicing into the dark, glancing off pine trunks, the far end of the beams swallowed by deep night and dense woods. She imagined well because she’d been trying for nearly an hour to track—blindly—where they were headed.

In the runabout out of Grace Cove, she was almost certain they’d headed north. Not far. Ten minutes and the engine had been cut and the bow scraped bottom. The man in the ski mask pulled the tarp away and placed black cloth bags over the heads of Grace and Scott Fitzgerald. Then he took the two of them away. He’d come back immediately for Stevie. “I’ve got nothing to put over your head, boy. So close your eyes. If you open them, I’ll poke ‘em out with my knife.” He’d shown Stevie a vicious-looking blade, and Stevie had clamped his eyes shut tight as clamshells. The man had lifted Stevie and carried him away. When he returned for Jo, he pulled a crumpled red bandanna from his back pocket, snapped it once to clear the crust, folded it, and bound it over her eyes. “Mess with the blindfold and your kid’s history.”

He didn’t immediately take her to the others. She
stood for several minutes, listening as he smashed a hole in the hull of the boat, started the engine, set it at idle speed, and sent the runabout back onto the lake. She assumed that in a few minutes it would sink, deep and without a trace.

He led her to a vehicle—a van, she guessed from the way he had her enter. He sat her on the edge, and she felt the rear bumper under her legs. He told her to slide back. After she scooted a couple of feet, she heard a double slam—two doors. He moved to the front, climbed in, and said, “Hold tight.” Which, with her hands bound behind her, was a cruel joke. As the van lurched forward and took a hard right, she tipped over, falling against a large prone form she guessed must have been Grace.

At first, the road was smooth. Jo believed they were heading east. She lay on the floor of the van, which was covered with old shag carpet smelling of gasoline and dog. With the van traveling on the relative quiet of the paved road, she could hear Stevie whimpering, and she prayed he had his eyes shut. The van veered hard left—north—onto a road that, from the shudder of the undercarriage and the choke of dust, Jo figured was not paved. She tried to think what roads headed that way. There were several and all tunneled into the Superior National Forest. Fifteen minutes, and they turned again—east—and the ride became a torture of bumps that tossed her up off the carpet and brought her down hard. She tried to calculate miles but could only guess at speeds. Still, her sense was that they were east of the Iron Lake Reservation and just south of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

They’d been in the van nearly an hour when it
pulled to a stop. The man got out, came around to the back, and opened the doors.

“End of the line,” he said.

He grasped Jo by the ankles and pulled her to the edge.

“Stand up,” he ordered.

When she did, he grabbed her by the shoulders and positioned her to the side.

“Stay right there, gorgeous.”

Jo heard him bring the others out. To Stevie he said, “Keep those eyes closed.” Then there was a tearing of fabric and a moment later he said, “There, got your own blindfold now, kid. Everybody just hang tough.”

Jo heard him walk away. She couldn’t tell if anyone was with him. She tried to say Stevie’s name, but the duct tape over her mouth made it impossible. He came back, then away, then back and away, then he returned a last time for Jo. He grasped her brusquely by the arm and led her along. They entered a structure—Jo could tell by the dank smell, the closeness of the air, the way the distant chirp of tree frogs was suddenly muffled. Under her feet, she felt brittle grass give way to dirt. He stopped her, put his hands on her shoulders, and shoved her back against a square post. His hands were large and powerful, and they forced her down so that her back slid along the splintered post. She cried out as slivers of wood needled through her shirt into her skin. Her butt hit dirt. He looped a rope tight about her and cinched her to the post so that her hands behind her were pinned between the small of her back and the wooden post. When he’d finished, he lingered near her. She could feel his breath on her cheek, and then his fingers at the top buttons of her blouse. His hand crept
down her skin toward her breasts. He made a sound, as if contemplating a good meal. The rope that bound her to the post kept him from exploring further. Like a spider retreating, his hand withdrew.

“Okay, everybody, listen up. You’re going to be here a while, so you might as well get used to the idea. Someone’s going to be outside all the time watching you. Try anything and you’ll be sorry.” He chuckled. “Oh, hell, you’re probably already sorry. But believe me, I can make you a lot sorrier. Moms, if you want your sonny boys left in one piece, you don’t do anything but sit unless I tell you otherwise. I don’t want you to make a sound, not even so much as a squeak. And, boys, if you get any ideas about playing heroes, if you try anything, I’ve got a knife the size of your arm and I’ll use it to slice your mothers’ tits right off.”

Everything fell quiet. Jo listened intently. The dirt floor let him move silently and she couldn’t hear him. She anticipated his touch again, but it never came. There wasn’t a sound, not even Stevie crying, and that worried her. She wanted to hear him, to know that her son was all right. Or as right as he could be, given the circumstances. Outside, the engine of a vehicle turned over and caught. Jo couldn’t tell if it was the van that had brought them. Maybe another vehicle had been there, waiting. He’d said someone would be watching them. She heard the bump and rattle of the undercarriage and the growl of the engine growing distant. In a few minutes, she heard nothing at all.

Her back, riddled with splinters, was on fire. Her shoulders ached from the way her arms were pinned behind her. She was filled with disgust thinking of the filth of his handkerchief across her face. She thought
of trying to call out to Stevie, but if someone were watching it might get them all hurt. If it were only she, Jo would have fought to free herself. But there were others who could suffer from what she did. The man with the ski mask and the gun had bound her in many ways.

She heard a sound, very soft, to her right. She cocked her head and listened. It came again, a faint rustle, a scurry of tiny claws across wood. Some small animal had joined them. Jo knew it was probably something on the order of a ground squirrel. She wasn’t worried about a creature that moved on four little legs. In those woods, the only animal that terrified her walked on two.

T
HE CALL CAME AT SIX A.M
. By then the FBI had arranged with the phone company for a trap and trace, and they’d set up equipment to record the conversation. Lindstrom put the call on the speaker.

“Karl Lindstrom,” he answered.

“Listen carefully, Lindstrom. I want two million dollars for the woman and the boy. In hundreds, nonconsecutive, not new. And none of that invisible powder shit. You have twenty-four hours to get the money. I’ll call tomorrow, same time, with instructions.”

“Two million? I can’t get that kind of money in twenty-four hours. It’s Sunday, for God’s sake.”

“Twenty-four hours.”

“I want to talk to my wife and son. I want to know they’re all right.”

“How ‘bout I just send you a finger? Or maybe I do a little impromptu plastic surgery on that honker of hers. Send you the leftovers. Twenty-four hours, Lindstrom.”

Cork whispered quickly, “Are Jo and Stevie with him?”

It was too late. The line clicked, buzzed, and the voice was gone.

“Did we get a trace?” Schanno asked.

“Just a minute.” Special Agent Margaret Kay of the FBI held up a cautionary finger. She stared at another FBI agent, Arnie Gooden, who was one of the resident agents out of Duluth. Gooden held a cellular telephone to his ear.

“Got it,” Gooden said a moment later. “Pay phone. Harland Liquors, County Road 11.”

“You know where that is?” Special Agent Kay asked Wally Schanno.

“Near Yellow Lake,” Schanno replied. “It’ll take fifteen minutes to get a cruiser there.”

“Is anyone at the liquor store you could call?”

“They’re closed Sundays.”

“He’ll be gone by the time your men get there,” Kay said. “But he may have left evidence behind, or maybe somebody saw him.” She turned to Agent Gooden. “Did you hear that voice?”

Gooden nodded. “Electronic mask of some kind.”

BCA Agent David Earl, who stood near the window, said, “We’ll get the tape down to the lab in St. Paul right away, see if we can get anything from it.”

“Can you get the money?” Cork asked Lindstrom.

Karl Lindstrom gave Cork a desperate look. “You
think I keep that kind of cash around here? In a cookie jar, maybe?”

“I didn’t mean it that way, Karl.”

Lindstrom sat down, not by choice, it appeared. His legs just buckled. “Two million dollars. I don’t have that kind of cash anywhere. Everything I have is tied up in that damn mill. Even if it weren’t, I couldn’t get at it until tomorrow at the earliest. Christ, it’s Sunday.”

“What about your wife?” Cork asked. His own legs weren’t feeling too steady, and he needed badly to hear something that offered hope.

Lindstrom shook his head. “Prenup. I can’t touch her money. Jesus. And I was the one who insisted on the goddamn thing.”

“Mr. Lindstrom,” Agent Kay said, approaching him. “Even if you had the money and gave it, that would be no guarantee of the safety of your wife and son.”

Lindstrom looked up at her.

“Meeting a kidnapper’s demands seldom results in the safe return of those who’ve been taken.”

Agent Kay had come from the Minneapolis office with a cadre of other agents. Some of the agents were at Lindstrom’s. Some were at the sheriff’s department, where the FBI had established an operations and communications center. Special Agent Kay was a tall, large-boned woman with hands that reminded Cork of catchers’ mitts. She painted her nails a delicate pink. She wore tan slacks, a beige blouse, brown flats. She had, she’d informed them earlier, supervised investigation in nearly two dozen kidnap cases.

Now Cork asked, “Have you ever been involved in a kidnap for ransom?”

“No,” she admitted. “But I do know the statistics.”

Lindstrom stared at her. “Do you really think I care about the money? My God, if they asked for ten million, I’d give it to them if there was even the slightest chance of getting my family back safely.” Lindstrom’s eyes burned into her. “You’ve been here all night and I haven’t heard one good suggestion from you so far.”

“The state crime lab in St. Paul is working on the ransom note even as we speak. We’ll make sure the tape of the call is analyzed immediately. I’ve communicated with Quantico and they’re working up a profile of the kidnapper. With the help of Agent Earl and your sheriff, Schanno, we’ve already arranged to put under surveillance a number of likely suspects.”

“Like who?” Lindstrom challenged.

“I’d rather not say specifically. If we end up needing to negotiate for the return of your families, we have a trained negotiator who can be here in person within an hour.”

“Do you have any idea where my wife and boy are?” Lindstrom asked.

“No, Mr. Lindstrom, I do not.”

“Or who has them or how to get them back?”

Her answer was to say nothing.

“See? You people are almost worse than no help at all.” Lindstrom stood up and headed toward the telephone. “I’m going to call Tom Conklin.”

“Who?” Kay asked.

“Chairman of the board of Fitzgerald Shipping Company. My wife’s family sold the business, but Grace is still on the board. Maybe Conklin can help me get the ransom money.”

“Do what you feel you have to, Mr. Lindstrom. We’ll do what we need to as well.”

Lindstrom wheeled. “If you fuck up, if you cause my family to be harmed in any way, I’ll…” He seemed at a loss for a way to finish.

“I understand, Mr. Lindstrom.”

Schanno stepped up next to Cork and put a hand lightly on his shoulder. “Look, Cork, there’s nothing you can do here right now. I imagine Rose and the girls will need you at home.”

“Yeah.”

“Get some sleep if you can.”

“Call me if…”

“I’ll call you.”

Cork started to say something to Karl Lindstrom, but the man was angrily punching at the numbers on his telephone. Cork left quietly.

He stepped out into early sunlight, into air that smelled of evergreen and clean water. An evidence team was canvassing the grounds, looking for cigarette butts, footprints, anything that might have been dropped or thoughtlessly discarded. He walked down to the shoreline of Grace Cove and onto the dock where Lindstrom’s big sailboat sat mirrored in calm water. The trees—mostly red pine and black spruce—walled the inlet, isolating it from the rest of the lake. It was an empty place Karl Lindstrom had chosen for his home. That was exactly what people came here for these days. Escape. Yet Lindstrom had escaped nothing. Something angry seemed to have followed him, something that had divided the county and now threatened what Cork held most dear. Not Lindstrom’s fault, he knew, but he couldn’t help resenting the outsiders that were so rapidly changing the face of all he loved.

He knew he was going to cry. Tears of helplessness,
of anger and fear and desperation and despair. He kept his back to the house where the other men might have been watching. When he was done, he walked to his Bronco and headed home.