61 pages 2 hours read

William Kent Krueger

Iron Lake

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1998

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Chapters 40-49

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 40 Summary

Cork hears the mission door opening. Wanda points a rifle at him and invites him inside. Tom, Darla, and baby Makwa are also there—as is Paul. It was Tom’s idea to hide Paul inside the mission. Paul admits he drove Tom’s snowmobile to Harlan’s yesterday; he fired at the man who assaulted Cork.

Cork tells them that Joe John was murdered, but they already know. Then Wanda admits that she killed the judge. One of the men involved in Joe John’s death told her that the judge set up Joe John’s murder. They speculate that Joe John found out about the embezzlement.

When Wanda went to the judge’s house to talk to him about Joe John, the judge threatened to expose her affair with Tom, so she hit him with the fireplace poker. Then she called Tom, who helped her make it look like suicide. Paul arrived just as the shotgun went off, and they took him to the mission to explain. After finding out that the sheriff wanted to talk to Paul, they decided he should stay hidden.

Paul admits that he killed Harlan after finding out that Harlan killed Joe John. He is unrepentant, saying he’d do it again.

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