“Let us know if you’re still alive and if you’ve got anything,” Bonhomme said.
As they dispersed it felt to Cork as if they were dandelion seeds catching the wind, and God alone knew where they might end up.
Cork knew Yellow Lake and the Howling Wolf well. The bar had been a thorn in his side when he was sheriff of Tamarack County, a frequent source of incident reports.
“If I could, I’d put a fence around the joint with barbed wire on top,” Dross said as they drove to the tiny community.
“When my dad was sheriff, he tried to close the place down,” Cork said. “Back then it was mostly loggers who drank there. The county commissioner was part owner of the place, and Dad got nowhere. When I was sheriff, I tried to get an ordinance passed about the number of calls we would respond to before we began to charge the bar for our time. Trouble was that whenever an altercation occurred, even if things started inside the bar, Cedarholm made certain that it took place outside, usually in the street. Broke up some big to-dos in my time.”
“It hasn’t changed,” Dross said.
“Figured as much.”
The town of Yellow Lake was a smattering of run-down abodes and trailer houses set among pines next to a small body of water that was more mire than lake, more likely to attract mosquitoes than investment. It was on no main highway, so unlikely to get unwary visitors. You had to want to get lost to go to Yellow Lake, and the Howling Wolf provided the alcohol to do just that. It was an old log construction, with a dirt parking area. When Dross pulled her cruiser to a stop, there were a half dozen other parked vehicles, all of them pickups covered in a patina of road dust and dried mud.
It was midafternoon, and when Cork stepped inside the bar, it was so dark that it took a few moments for his eyes to adjust. When they did, he saw the faces of the drinking men turned his way, all of them stone. They weren’t so much eyeing him as they were Dross in her sheriff’s uniform. Two of the men got up from their chairs and walked out. The others, after a few moments, simply turned back to their drinks. No one said a word.
Cy Cedarholm stood behind the bar. His head was as bald and smooth as a river boulder, and just as big. His arms were like sections cut from the trunk of an oak tree and fitted to either side of his massive chest. His eyes were as black as beetles that had dug into the skin below his jutting brow. He looked like a man who could handle trouble as easily as most people could swat a fly.
“Jesus Christ, ain’t I been harassed enough?” Cedarholm said.
“Not by me, Cy,” Dross replied, walking up to the bar.
“Ain’t seen you in a month of Sundays, O’Connor. Which is just fine with me. You ain’t a cop anymore, so what the hell are you doing here?”
“Just along for the ride, Cy.”
Dross had printed a photo of Mathias Paavola from the birthday picture his sister had texted to Cork. She put the photo on the bar and slid it toward Cedarholm. “Familiar?”
Cedarholm said, “No.”
“You didn’t even look at it, Cy,” Cork said.
Cedarholm lowered his black beetle eyes for a nanosecond. “No.”
“Take a good look,” Dross said.
Cedarholm picked up the photo, studied it, put it back down on the bar, and said, “Like I said, never seen him before.”
“Who was working here the night Olivia Hamilton went missing?”
“I’m always here.”
“Behind the bar. What about your barmaids?”
“They been talked to by cops till they’re silly. Don’t bother them no more, okay?”
“Their names, Cy.”
“Look, they’re about to quit on me. This whole Hamilton girl thing. You go harassing them, and I swear if they do quit—”
“Names, Cy,” Dross said.
He offered them reluctantly, and Dross wrote them down.
“Got addresses?”
“Use a phone book.”
The bar brightened for a moment, and Cork turned back to where the door had just been opened. He saw one of the customers walking out.
“Jesus, see that?” Cedarholm said. “You’re killing my business.”
Cork eyed a gnome carved of wood perched above the liquor shelves behind the bar. The craftmanship looked familiar. “Tell me about Erno Paavola.”
“What about him?”
“Regular customer?”
“He came in sometimes. Heard he died a while back.”
“Did he pay for his drinks or did he barter?”
“I don’t remember.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s his handiwork up there.”
Cedarholm glanced to where Cork was pointing at the gnome. “Yeah, maybe.”
