“Could you give me a call?”
“Happy to.”
He watched them return to Dross’s cruiser, then he took up his pruner pole and went back to his work.
As they drove away, Dross said, “Misshapen right ear. Sound familiar?”
“Mathias Paavola’s drinking buddy at the Howling Wolf.”
It was shortly after 1:00 P.M. as they headed back to Hibbing. Cork got a call from Daniel. He put him on speakerphone so Dross could hear and filled Daniel in on what they’d learned about Lewis.
“Still no lead on his location?” Daniel asked.
“No. We’ll talk to the people in charge of pipeline personnel, see what they can tell us. Did you find out anything in Duluth?”
Daniel related what Blue had told them.
“So, after Fawn runs from Sizemore School, this Billy Bones shows up?” Cork said. “Anything more on him?”
“No. But we’ve been talking. A girl is usually groomed to be pimped. Billy Bones, whoever he is, had to have time to do that. We’ve put the timing together and there’s just not enough of it between her running from the school and showing up at the crash pad again in Duluth.”
“So how did this Bones get his hooks into her?”
“Could well have been at Sizemore,” Dross chimed in. “Cork and I were going to head back there today. We’ve got a name for someone who’s been at the school for a while and might be able to give us more information about Irene Boyle and whoever it is she was seeing before she went missing. Maybe she can tell us about Fawn Blacksmith’s time at the school as well.”
“We’re closer,” Daniel said. “Want us to take that while you check with the pipeline security people?”
“That would be good. The woman’s name is Candyce Osterkamp. She’ll probably be at the school. If not, I’m sure they can tell you where she lives. Stay in touch and let us know what you find out.”
“Will do,” Daniel said and ended the call.
“Not much I can tell you about Adrian Lewis,” Hank Robbins said. “He was hired to work security when we moved the pipeline construction into the States. We did a lot of hiring back then.”
They sat in the personnel office, which was housed in one of several operations trailers temporarily situated a few miles west of Spirit Crossing, well away from the protests. Robbins was somewhere in his fifties, solid, white hair in a buzz-cut bristle. He was accommodating.
“Normally, I probably wouldn’t even be aware of him, we have so many men working on the line. But he’s been a bit of an issue from the get-go.”
“How so?” Dross asked.
“Complaints. We’ve had the benefit of a very good relationship with local law enforcement all along the route. Which we appreciate,” he said, smiling at Dross. “But a number of officers who’ve worked with Lewis have made allegations about his behavior.”
“Such as?”
“Harassing locals for one thing, particularly women. Not interacting well with official law enforcement. You can read that as insubordinate. Reports of drinking on the job. He’d been warned. This last incident at Spirit Crossing, which was reported by a county deputy, was the final straw. We gave him his walking papers.”
“How did he react?”
“I didn’t do the actual firing. That fell to his supervisor. The report I got, however, was that he went ballistic. Which only reinforced for me the wisdom in cutting him loose. The last thing we need is one of our security people losing it during the kind of confrontation we’ve been experiencing lately.”
“Do you have an address for him and a phone number?” Dross asked.
Robbins opened the folder he’d pulled from a file cabinet as soon as Dross and Cork told him about their interest in Adrian Lewis. “For an address, only a P.O. box number in a place called Dahlbert.” He gave that to them, then gave them the phone number from Lewis’s file.
Cork said, “We have reason to believe he was at Spirit Crossing in his security uniform the day after he’d been fired. Is that possible?”
“No idea whether he turned in his badge or uniform, so I suppose anything is possible. Especially with a loose cannon like Adrian Lewis.”
They thanked Robbins and left. They sat a moment in Dross’s cruiser while she tried the cell phone number they’d been given.
“Out of service,” she said.
“P.O. box in Dahlbert,” Cork said. “Same town where Mathias Paavola was renting that garage apartment.”
“Paavola’s landlady didn’t say anything about a roommate. So, if he wasn’t living with Paavola, he must be living out of his trailer.”
“Where do you park a big fifth wheel in Dahlbert?” Cork said.
Dross started the engine of her cruiser. “The town’s only half an hour away. What do you say we find out?”
CHAPTER 30
By midafternoon, the July day had turned hot, but inside the O’Connor house, it was much cooler. The curtains were drawn against the heat but also to block the prying eyes of any reporters who might return. The doors were all locked. Annie lay on the living room sofa staring up at the ceiling, where a solitary fly moved in fits and starts across the textured plaster. She wondered why it didn’t simply use its wings. If she had wings, she’d do nothing but fly.
Maria came from the kitchen. “I’ve made sandwiches.”
“Not hungry,” Annie said, still watching the insect on the ceiling.
“You have to eat.”
“What’s the point?”
“It will be a very long time before this thing in your brain kills you. In the meantime, you should do all you can for your body. And your spirit.”
“What if it’s not this tumor that kills me?”
Maria knelt on the carpet next to the sofa. “What else then?”
“Whoever tried to get into the house last night. Maybe whoever fired that shot this morning.”
“That was meant for Waaboo.”
“If you say so.”
“Everybody says so.” Maria reached out and stroked Annie’s arm gently.
“I’ve been thinking about anger,” Annie said.
“Yours?”
