Iron Lake

Teenager Paul LeBeau heads out after school to deliver papers. Even though no one will expect their newspaper in a snowstorm, he takes his job seriously. By the time he gets to Judge Parrant’s house—the last one on his route—it is already dark. He notices that the front door is ajar, and then hears a gun go off inside. He enters, calling the judge’s name, and sees blood at the foot of the stairs. He follows the trail of blood deeper into the house, down a hallway lined with hunting trophies to the judge’s study. Paul opens the door and sees the judge dead at his desk. Paul hears a noise and turns.

At Molly Nurmi’s house, Cork gets dressed to go home, eager to avoid local gossip. Even though Cork and his wife Jo are separated, he doesn’t want his kids to hear rumors and him and Molly. The storm is bad and his truck is already swamped with drifts. As he heats up the truck, he wonders what Molly sees in him.

Cork sees someone walking along the side of the road and pulls over. He realizes that it’s Henry Meloux, and picks him up. As they drive past the new casino and into the town of Aurora, Henry tells Cork that he’s heard something over the past few days, but he won’t say what. When Henry calls him sheriff, Cork reminds him that he’s not sheriff anymore. After dropping Henry off, Cork thinks that the Windigo is “the name of the thing the old man had dared not utter” (23).

Jo O’Connor is meeting with Stu Grantham in her law office. Stu is a realtor who is being sued by Jo’s client. When Stu tries to hire Jo, she claims she doesn’t have time. He asks why she wastes her time on pro-bono cases for Indigenous clients, especially since the Iron Lake reservation has a casino now. Jo points out that her client is Lakota and receives no profits from the casino, which is owned by the Iron Lake Anishinaabe tribe. She convinces Stu to settle with her client on a sexual harassment charge. Stu bemoans Jo’s connection with Wanda Manydeeds, who makes trouble.

When Cork and Jo moved their family from Chicago to Cork’s hometown in northern Minnesota, Cork warned her that it would be difficult for her to set up as a lawyer in town, especially as she isn’t local. However, Jo didn’t realize how hard it would be. She went three months without a client until Wanda Manydeeds and Lizzie Favre walked into her office, wanting to sue the Great North Development Company, owned by Judge Parrant and his son Sandy, for not hiring Lizzie because she is an Anishinaabe woman. Since then, Jo has worked with Wanda on a variety of cases.

Stu asks her about Sandy, who has recently been elected to the US Senate and will be leaving for Washington, DC soon. He asks if Jo will be going with Sandy, given her separation from Cork. When Jo’s phone rings, she ends the meeting with Stu.

Jo’s sister Rose is on the phone. Rose has lived with the O’Connors since their oldest daughter, Jenny, was born. Rose tells Jo that Anne, their 11-year-old daughter is missing, and Jo leaves immediately. The parking lot is abandoned, but while she scrapes her windshield, Jo feels a touch on her back. When she turns around, the parking lot is empty. She leaves quickly.

Because he and Jo are separated, Cork is staying at Sam Winter Moon’s house, which he inherited in Sam’s will. It is a Quonset hut that Sam converted into a burger stand called Sam’s Place. In the back is a living space.

Cork scoops a bucket of corn from a sack and goes out to the nearby lake. He sees his daughter Anne on the shore, checking on the pair of geese that winter on the lake. The male got injured that summer and his mate stayed with him. They are restricted to a small pool of open water on the lake. Cork has been feeding them.

When the geese see Cork hand Annie the bucket, they swim to shore. She spreads the corn near the shore and goes inside with her father to watch the geese feed through the window. Cork has a phone message from Rose, who is looking for Anne. Anne claims that she told Rose she was coming, but Rose was absorbed in a recipe. Cork knows that this is characteristic of Rose, and drives Anne home.

The O’Connor house on Gooseberry Lake has been in his mother’s family for three generations; Cork grew up in it. Inside, Rose is cooking dinner and invites Cork to stay. He says hello to his five-year-old son Stevie and his 14-year-old daughter Jenny. Jenny is choosing a poem for the school’s Christmas program and is leaning toward choosing one by Sylvia Plath.

Jo is working in her office. She asks Cork for a divorce and, after arguing about it, he agrees. They decide they’ll start the process after Christmas. Near the end of dinner, Darla LeBeau calls the house for Cork. She tells him that her son Paul never came home from delivering papers. She’s worried that Paul’s father, Joe John, has taken him. Cork leaves for Darla’s house, happy to be needed.

Cork goes to Darla’s house. She is convinced that her ex-husband, Joe John, took Paul. Cork remembers Darla and Joe John in high school. Darla is white and Joe John is Anishinaabe, but he was the star basketball player, which smoothed over any friction in the community. When Joe John was hit by a car, he suffered injuries that forced him to give up basketball and a college scholarship. He and Darla got married, but he developed an alcohol use disorder. Cork knows that Joe John was a good man. Ironically, white residents took pride in their state basketball championship status while simultaneously deriding the man who’d won it.

Last year Joe John’s sister, Wanda Manydeeds, helped him with his sobriety; she convinced Joe John to let Henry Meloux heal him using traditional methods. It seemed to work. Joe John rebuilt his life and started a service that cleaned local business offices. However, two months ago, Joe John disappeared, and his truck was found “smashed into a tree on County Road C and the cab reeking of whiskey” (48). The entire community assumes that Joe John started drinking again and disappeared the way he sometimes used to.

Now, Darla and Cork look at Paul’s delivery receipt book. Cork calls Paul’s customers, starting with Judge Parrant. The judge’s phone line is down because of the storm, but all of Paul’s other customers got their papers. Cork decides to go to the judge’s house.

Only the main roads have been plowed, and it isn’t easy to get to the judge’s house. Although the judge once wielded enormous political power in the state, his influence is mostly local now. Cork has never liked the man. Cork finds the door open and goes inside. He finds the judge in his study, dead of an apparent suicide.

Cork calls Sheriff Wally Schanno, whose team processes the scene. Wally comes too, even though he is worried about his wife, Arletta, who has Alzheimer’s disease and is home alone. There are no signs of forced entry, and it looks like suicide, but Wally processes it as a crime scene anyway.

Sandy Parrant, the judge’s son, arrives. Sandy resembles the judge physically, but his politics are vastly different—while the judge was deeply conservative, Sandy is unapologetically liberal. He was recently elected to the US Senate and will be moving to Washington, DC soon. Sandy thought death by suicide might happen—the judge had cancer and had about six months to live. When Sandy asks why Cork is there, Cork tells him that Paul is missing.

Sigurd Nelson, the coroner, arrives. Cork doesn’t have much faith in him; Sigurd is a mortician who was elected coroner with the judge’s help. Cork leaves to report back to Darla.

At Darla’s house, Father Tom Griffin’s Kawasaki snowmobile is out front, identifiable by the oil leaking from it onto the snow. Tom is known locally as St. Kawasaki, as he rides his Kawasaki snowmobile in the winter and his Kawasaki motorcycle in the summer.

Cork tells Tom and Darla that Judge Parrant is dead, but there is no sign of Paul. Tom has heard that Joe John is back in the area. Tom and Darla think that Paul is with Joe John. Cork makes an appointment to see Father Tom the next day. As he gets in his truck, Cork hears someone call his name, but when he turns around, there’s no one there.

The next morning, Cork drinks coffee while watching the geese through his window. He leaves feed for them, then drives to the Pinewood Broiler, where Molly waits tables. He eats and arranges to pick Molly up after her shift is over.

Cork drives out to the new Chippewa Grand Casino. The casino’s construction was controversial, with conservationists and hunters alike worried about its effect on the environment. However, Sandy Parrant’s company, Great North Development, has kept promises to keep the surrounding land intact.

Inside, Cork runs into Henry Meloux’s nephew, Ernie. Ernie works at the casino, putting labels that read “GameTech” on every piece of equipment. Cork then runs into Russell Blackwater, the casino manager. Although Russell has the support of the younger generation, many of the elders mistrust him, saying he has “hungry hunter’s eyes” (76). Russell doesn’t trust Cork, seeing him as part of the establishment because of his history as sheriff.

Cork tells Russell that Judge Parrant died by suicide, which surprises Russell. Cork explains that he’s looking for Paul LeBeau and that Joe John is back. Russell hasn’t seen Joe John, but Henry Meloux has been looking for Cork.