Steve Hamilton - Ice Run

“At least I have a cell phone.”

“Yeah, so anybody can call you, no matter where you are.”

“If I left it on, yeah.”

She smiled and shook her head. Before I could say anything else, Leon came on the line.

“Leon,” I said. “Are you at the store? I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“Of course not, Alex. What’s going on?”

“I’m just wondering if you could give me the name of your friend at the newspaper. We’ve got something we want to look up.”

There was a pause. “Why don’t you just tell me what you need? I can talk to him.”

“All right,” I said. Like there was any other way. “This is what we’re looking for. A man named Reynaud was murdered a long time ago, in Soo Michigan. Most likely in a bar.”

“What’s the full name?”

I pictured him getting out his little notepad, standing there among the snowmobiles with the phone to his ear.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Natalie. “Did you ever tell me his full name?”

“Jean Sylvain Reynaud.” She kept staring straight ahead. We had just driven through Iron Bridge, and now we were back out on the open road.

“Jean Sylvain Reynaud,” I said into the phone.

“When was the murder?”

“Natalie, do you remember-”

“Nineteen seventy-three,” she said, her eyes still straight ahead. Her voice was flat. “I don’t know what date. Sometime early in the year.”

“Leon, it was early 1973.”

“Do you have anything on the cause of death? Shooting? Stabbing?”

I looked over at her.

“Leon,” I said. “That should be enough to go on, shouldn’t it?”

“Yeah, yeah. No problem. I’ll give my guy a call, see what he can find out. If it was here in the Soo, I know the Evening News will have a record of it.”

“Thanks, Leon. You’re the best.”

He told me he’d keep in touch. Then he was off to sell more snowmobiles. I put the phone down and looked out the side window.

“This Leon,” she said. “He’s good at this stuff, eh?”

“He is.”

“How long will it take him to find out?”

I looked at my watch. It was 3:15. “We’ll be down there by what,4:30?"

“Before that.”

I looked over at her speedometer. With the snow stopped, the needle was back up to 120 on her Canadian dial, which meant she was going somewhere around 75 miles per hour. She was driving just like a cop.

“If his newspaper friend is in the office,” I said, “Leon will call me back before we get there.”

“That fast?”

“He’s like a pit bull when he wants to find out something. That’s why he’s such a good private eye.”

“And you’re not?”

“He loves this stuff,” I said. “He lives for it.”

“He sounds like the perfect partner. You ever think about trying it again?”

“Not really, no.”

“Why not?”

“You’re serious?”

“What else are you going to do? Sit around in your cabin all day?”

“With a blanket on my lap, yeah. In my rocking chair.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Actually, right now that sounds pretty good.”

She reached over and touched my arm. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

She kept driving. We hit Thessalon, and she had to slow down for a while. When the town was behind us, she blew by a big truck and got back to cruising speed again.

“So what do you want to bet?” she said.

“About what?”

“About whether Leon calls you back before we hit the bridge.”

“I don’t want to take your money,” I said.

“Who said anything about money?”

“Hmm, you might have something there.”

“Unless you’re too sore.”

I looked over at her. After everything that had happened that day, finding the picture of her father, having to think about his death, having to work up the nerve to call her mother of all people in the world, the visit to Mrs. DeMarco-after all that, here she was trying to pull herself out of a blue mood. She was willing herself to be happy again. It was something I needed to learn.

“We’re almost there,” she said. We were coming up to Bruce Mines.

“He’s got plenty of time,” I said. “All the time in the world.”

There was more traffic on the Queen’s Highway now. She passed three cars in a row and kept going.

“No fair,” I said. “You’re cheating.”

“Nobody said I had to drive like a civilian.”

“He’ll still make it. I know he will.”

We passed the Garden River First Nation. I looked at my watch. It was 3:45. Leon hadn’t been on the case for more than thirty minutes.

“I’ll take dinner first,” she said.

Then the phone rang.

“Hello, Leon,” I said as I picked it up. “What took you so long?”

“I’ve got something,” he said.

“What is it?”

“You said early 1973, right?”

“Right.”

“How about a few minutes into the year?”

“How do you mean?”

“It was New Year’s Eve. He died just as 1972 was turning into 1973.”

That stopped me cold. New Year’s Eve. I thought back over all the jumbled references Mrs. DeMarco had made to New Year’s Eve.

“It happened here in the Soo,” Leon went on. “Just like you said. You want to know exactly where?”

“Yes, tell me.”

“Right outside the Ojibway.”

“My God.” I looked at Natalie. She was back to her straight-ahead stare.

“I’ve got the old news article here,” he said. “Reynaud was found around the corner, right next to the building, on Water Street.”

“On the side overlooking the locks?”

“Yeah. He was shot in the back of the head. They never found out who did it.”

“No leads even?”

“No, at least there aren’t any mentioned in the paper. You’d have to talk to the police about it. Maybe somebody remembers the case.”

“Okay. Can I get a copy of that article?”

“Of course. You never bought a fax machine, did you?”

“Why would I buy a fax machine?”

“Just stop by the motor shop,” he said. “I’m here for another hour.”

“Thanks, Leon. I really appreciate it.”

I hung up the phone. I told her everything he had given me.

“So I lose,” she said. Then nothing else. She just kept driving.

We rolled through Soo Canada, then crossed the International Bridge. High above the St. Marys River, I looked down at the locks and the thin stretch of rapids between the Canadian and American sides. The whole scene was cast in a gray, muted light, the clouds hanging low and dark over our heads. The snow would start falling again. It was just a matter of time.

When we cleared customs, I gave her directions to the motor shop on Three Mile Road. As soon as we got out of Natalie’s Jeep, I saw Leon coming out to meet us. I made the introductions.

“Pleased to meet you,” Leon said to Natalie. He bowed a little bit and did everything else but kiss her hand. “No wonder Alex is so loopy these days.”

“Leon, the only thing making me loopy is my concussion. Now who’s this guy over at the newspaper who can-”

I stopped and looked into the showroom.

“There’s like a dozen people in there,” I said. “Don’t you have to go back in?”

He took a quick glance behind him. “They’re fine in there. Everybody’s just looking.”

It made me feel a little guilty again, taking up his time like this. But he was already off and running.

“I’ve got a copy of the article right here,” he said. He took a piece of paper out of a manila folder.

I took it from him and started to read it.

“Leon,” I said. “This isn’t a fax. It’s a photocopy. How did you-”

“I ran over to the newspaper office and got it. Only took me a minute.”